She had a Great Lunch August 12, 2009

The buck is back at his home. I brought a friend with me to return the buck so we spent a bit over an hour talking with the buck's owner, about rabbits and breeding and all the fun and possibilities with them. Our minds were reeling on the way home as we talked excitedly about our options and where to go from here. It was a lot of fun, and very invigorating.

After the rabbit trip, I arrived home just in time to go to my lunch date with my neighbor and her mom. Her mom writes for a paper in Connecticut, but is up in NH for a bit, and is putting together a piece on the "chicken craze" she's been seeing. All the folks like me, and some of you, who are getting chickens for eggs and raising them in their back yard...you may remember, that is how I got started on this crazy adventure of Homesteading...I just have no self control, so I'm now raising all kinds of animals for all kinds of yummy meat, and eggs. (I guess that was a bit unfair, I don't have goats, yet, so self control does exist on some level...especially since there was someone selling a Doe and Baby goat in the breed I'm most interested in, on Craigslist, just tonight...but, I digress) We talked about why people start this, at least why I did, and how they get started. It was pretty fun to get to talk about the beginning of this wild ride.

My neighbor is a great cook. She loves to do it, and it shows. She's often saying things like I have to go finish dinner, we're having <insert fancy food> with <insert fancy side dish, done in a difficult and fussy sort of manner> and I made <insert a desert that you'd find on the pages of some fancy food magazine> for desert. All the while I'm thinking...I made meatloaf and potatoes. She has quite the reputation in the neighborhood for her slick cookin' skills, and her scones are Legendary. Well, lunch met her expected standards, with an asian chicken salad, made using a recipe from Pioneer Woman, and a light ending of watermelon, topped with yogurt, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with blueberries.

We traded some of my eggs (her hens aren't quite laying yet, another month or two they will be), for some of her zucchini (my zucchini and summer squash plants look beautiful but are not putting out great gobs of fruit). What a fun little neighbor thing to do, trading food like that. So cool. Thank you for a lovely afternoon, Andrea.

The rest of the day was spent doing chores and living life, but no pictures to share, maybe something more photographically interesting tomorrow.