I am going to have to say, for now at least, emphatically yes. ED is a fruit fanatic, and has been since she was old enough to sit up in the backpack and snag blackberries as we walked by them. Lately, she’s been bringing home whatever’s ripe in hopes that I’ll make pie. Blueberries from the bushes out by the garden. Wild black raspberries. And day before yesterday she and Bernard walked a mile and came back with backpacks loaded with Early Transparent apples. I’m beginning to think we should skip the rest of supper and just have pie, though DH, as the voice of reason (and working man hunger) says we should have “real food” first. He’s probably right—the pesto last night was awfully good.

So this Mountain Microenterprises class is very interesting. It’s exactly what I need—it’s forcing me to focus and to be realistic about the money aspects of the business. But a cheese kitchen is so complicated (and expensive) that it is challenging to fit it into the framework of the class in some ways. For example, it is suggested that you spend 2 or 3 hours a week besides class time to work on your project; I’ll have 10 hours this week, not counting DH’s time, and I’m not close to completing the assignment! Which is to figure (roughly) my start-up costs and overhead costs. Before I can figure start-up costs we have to design the building, which we’re working on. Today I have to get estimates on septic and a well, and find out if there’s any likelihood of getting a pasteurizer from the pasteurizer loan program sometime in the next year or two. And scrounge up some equipment prices. After I call the big guy in Raleigh to get some info on what equipment I really have to have. I’m overwhelmed.

Yesterday I got my credit report and score—you can do it for free once a year here, and it was about what I expected. I never finished paying hospital bills for when Bernard broke both her arms a few years ago, so now I’ve made arrangements to begin paying that off, and hopefully will improve my credit enough to be considered loan-worthy.

I’m very stressed and really tired of thinking, so when I finish up in here I’m going to go work in the garden which is really gorgeous after all the rain this weekend.

Yesterday DH’s daughter, son-in-law, and three grandsons came down from Boone to spend the afternoon. It was so nice to see them (it had been months) and to hang out with the boys. She seemed tired and slightly harried, but, as always was the picture of grace and good humor.

DH started a pork picnic on the grill first thing in the morning, and we made coleslaw with cabbage from the garden, and cooked potatoes (also from the garden), and the girls picked a half gallon of blueberries and black raspberries and we made a pie. I have to say it was a memorable meal.

It’s been a hard week of partying, but I have to say I’ve held up pretty well, and, perhaps more importantly, my friends and family have handled all the festivities without burning out, too. (Rule number one: Don’t burn out the people responsible for keeping the parties rolling.)

Sunday was my 41st birthday, and the festivities began with one of DH’s 24-hour smoked briskets, a superb chocolate cake, plenty of beer, good friends and lots of laughter.

Wednesday we went to my dad’s house and had burgers and dogs and cake and ice cream and delicious chocolate dipped strawberries, and a really nice visit.

And last night M* (who may be in the most danger of burning out this rm birthday season) hosted a girls-only party at one of her vacation rental cabins. That was the most fun I have had in a long time. It’s hard to explain how wonderful this community is without gushing, but I’m going to go for it.

First, you should know that I had a requested birthday gift theme this year. As it is well known that I am the biggest birthday brat ever, this caused a couple of raised eyebrows, and maybe an eye roll or two, but mostly my peeps took it in stride. What I asked for was a mixed cd or tape with liner notes telling how and why particular songs were chosen. This morning I’m sitting here with a stack of music to listen to, ranging from a beautiful and thoughtfully chosen collection of songs from D* to a cd wallet with (evidently) a copy of every cd in C*’s collection! I am rubbing my hands together in anticipatory glee!

There were so many thoughtful, loving, useful, funny gifts from so many thoughtful, loving, useful and funny people that I won’t even begin to try to list them, but let me just say that these people know how to make a girl feel special.

And the food, oh the food. A* brought two kinds of lovely delicious tarts—some with mushrooms and feta and other stuff, some with blueberries and lemon curd. She also created a tantalizing cheese platter with a Welsh cheese with shallots, a smoked Vermont cheddar, Brin D’affinois coup, which is a slightly gooey, slightly stinky, entirely delicious cow’s milk cheese, Cypress Grove’s Midnight Moon aged goat cheese, and a Guinness Stout-marbled cheddar. And she brought exquisitely beautiful spring rolls with peanut sauce, M* had some of her wonderful fresh homemade salsa and some very garlicky guacamole and a decadently rich and dark chocolate torte and she supplied the fixings for Drunken Pelicans, the hands-down favorite beach drink: jamaican lemonade with coconut rum and a squeeze of lime. And MH brought curried chicken salad and D* brought vats of ice cream that we passed around with spoons.

This group of women is so….incredible. (Sorry, but that really is the only word encompassing enough to use.) They’re all so smart and funny and empathic and good listeners and real good talkers…That’s the key to life, I think, to surround yourself with people you look up to and admire, and want to be like.

I feel loved and nourished, encouraged and renewed, and slightly hung over. I wish you all the same for your birthdays.

Last week a neighbor stopped by to introduce himself, and to tell us he was getting ready to cut the hay field across the road, and to ask if we could use any of the hay. We said we’d love it. He didn’t want any money for it, and we just needed to pick it up out of the field as he baled it.

So Friday was the day: we picked up and hauled around 150 bales (I counted 94 in the barn loft before we ran out of steam and just started stacking them in the aisle and under a tarp—we need to get hold of a block and tackle before we put the rest of them up there). You’ve never seen two people so whupped at the end of a day! And itchy—that shower with Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap was heaven.

It’s first cutting hay, so it’s pretty stemmy, but the cow and horses will eat it gladly this winter, and it made a serious dent in our winter hay needs. And boy, the price was right.

Last night I went to Asheville and attended the required information session for Mountain Microenterprises. There were only three of us; the other two women had just moved here in the last month. One wants to start a children’s consignment shop, and the other wants to open an art gallery.

I had heard that there is a long waiting list to get into a class once you’ve done the info session, but I lucked out: I start class Tuesday morning. I’m pretty excited—all I’ll be doing is writing a business plan, but it seems like a necessary and important first step, especially as I begin the search for funding. (Anybody out there want to get in on the ground floor of a micro-dairy?)

One of the things on my mind now is finding a name for the farm/creamery. Moonmeadow Farm has been more of a cyber name than a real name. We’ve been reluctant to commit to a real name until we were on a farm of our own; and now here we are! Any ideas?

While in the big city I bought a new instant-read thermometer; I really just wanted a new battery for my old Polder, but I couldn’t find one, and I can’t make cheese without a thermometer.

Intense afternoon thunderstorms have slowed down work in the garden—I still don’t have my tomatoes in! I did manage to finish digging the bed yesterday, just before the deluge. Today ED and I will bring loads of manure down from the barn, and maybe this weekend I’ll finally get the plants out there.

Everything else in the garden is growing like….weeds. Except, miraculously, the weeds. Bernard,a as it turns out, has a strong tidying urge in the garden, and goes around plucking weed and raking the paths and sprinkling sawdust around. She’s also a wonderful mulcher. I have insisted on ED’s help in the garden this year, too, although it certainly would generally be easier to do it myself than to crack the whip behind a sullen and angry teenager. Who is only sullen and angry in the garden, fortunately—she’s pretty easy and fun the rest of the time.

Babies are doing beautifully. Maggie has turned out to be not a very good mother, which is not at all surprising. That line (what we call the “Desi line”) have all been not so great moms; also, Maggie, as you may recall, was an orphan baby, delivered by emergency c-section, and raised under the kitchen table, so whatever little bit of mothering instinct she may have had was not fostered by her own mother. Maggie’skids (Miranda and Hal) aren’t exactly fat, but after spending a good while out in the barn with them yesterday, I concluded that they’re not skinny either—they’re just fine, and extremely vigorous and healthy, and growing really well. So after a week or so of nagging worry, I’m not worried anymore.

Cookie, on the other hand is an obsessively good mother; her single doe (Sophie) is fat and very, very clean. Bernard commented that she would hate to have Cookie for a mom. You can almost hear her fussing at her kid, “Watch out! Don’t get dirty! For heaven’s sake, I just got you cleaned up! Careful! You’re going to get hurt!” She really, really loves that baby.

And Tallulah is a good, but business-like mother. She’s done this before.

I’ve been making chevre; I never did order chevre culture, but have, instead been using buttermilk. In the past I have run into the problem of buttermilk without live cultures, in spite of what it said on the label, but Mayfield’s nonfat buttermilk has very active cultures, and I really like the flavor, too.