Pausing...

...After one very stressful week and before another. So I'm afraid this will be another quick and random update. My life this past week has been +/- 6 hours of sleep per night and a lot of this:

But I did manage to play hooky for a few hours this weekend, to do some work outside and take a trip to the community garden. This is what our plot looked like when we got it a month ago:

And this morning, complete with peas, carrot seedlings, lettuce sprouts, and a variety of flowers:

And before-and-afters from the north side:

Today we planted some potatoes, radicchio, oakleaf lettuce, and cilantro, and mulched the paths around our plot. Next week we'll plant all the rest of the space in corn and beans and squash, and then it will really get going!

Since gardening is the thing that's keeping me sane right now, that's about all that's on my mind besides school, so here's a glimpse of what we've got growing around the property:

 Our bright green lush lawn (and apple blossoms!). You can catch a glimpse of the sorry state our lawn was in just a couple months ago, when we decided to move the chickens off of it:

The lilacs are blooming, and the backyard smells heavenly. Sleeping with the window open, we can smell them first thing in the morning. 

 The vision I have for our summer yard is coming to life: lots and lots of flowers and vegetables, including a border of nasturtiums in several places. 

 Potatoes around our front yard.

I planted a tomato on top of a potato. Whoops!

More tomatoes hardening off to go into the ground next week. 

In other news, Matt and Elliot butchered four rabbits this afternoon. It all went well, and they calculated the cost of raising our own meat to be $3 per pound. Not bad! It was sad to say goodbye to the bunnies, but we're really excited to be finally reaping the rewards of raising them. It's a fast cycle- they were just tiny babies a couple months ago. I didn't watch the killing, but I did observe some of the skinning and processing. When the boys have their process down to a science, then I will be a part of it too. Luckily, rabbits are some of the easiest animals to kill and skin. This all deserves its own post, but sadly I don't have time for that at the moment, and I wanted to make sure I mentioned it! The meat is resting in the fridge now, and tomorrow night we'll have braised rabbit for dinner. Here's to another step towards self sufficiency!

With that, I'm off into midterms.