Never a dull moment on the wee homestead. Since our last update we’ve got limping dogs, goat rodeo, weather whiplash, a huge harvest of sweet potatoes, new cheeses and old ferments.
If it’s the cooler temps or longer nights or more critters creeping around, we can’t say, but our dogs have been doing a lot of midnight galavanting. First they got into skunks, and that was bad enough. Now we go out first thing in the morning to find them wet and limping and exhausted. We’ve started taking them for walks during the day trying to tire them out and make sure they get enough gentle exercise, because we’re worried they’re going to get themselves into some real trouble. It’s working out very well for our barn cat, Skittles, who now roams wherever she wants without fear of attack.
Milking just three goats twice a day is proving to be quite the chore considering with the two first-fresheners it’s a constant battle of wills. It seems every day they learn a new trick trying to get free treats. First it was bucking and kicking, then squatting making milking impossible, now one has graduated to full refusal, getting up on the milk stand only to lay down flat. It takes both of us, Hubby to hold legs and supply food, me to grasp the bucket with one hand and milk with one hand, each with our reflexes on full alert to shift, draw, grab in the split second it takes a hoof to swipe, spill, crush. It’s really not fun. At all. I have to remind us both that it takes patience and to stay focused on the rewards.
Cheese!
In garden news we got a very early frost and then the temps shot right back up to the high 80s. It’s cooled down a bit since then again and we got a whole 1/2 inch of rain, woohoo! It hardly made a difference, but maybe my fall seeds have a better chance now of germinating.
We harvested loads of sweet potatoes and still have more to go. The vines can’t handle even a light frost, like the basil, so we got all we could manage beforehand though the tomatoes and peppers survived, so that was a pleasant surprise.
I continue to experiment with fermenting all kinds of veggies and they are coming out so delicious. I moved them from the aging fridge to make room for the cheeses, but they kept great in there all summer. We’ve got all kinds of goodies—cucumbers, basil, peppers, okra, carrots, cabbage—and soon I’ll be tying sweet potatoes.
A whole world of deliciousness I’ve only really embarked on seriously starting this year, and thanks to this excellent book.
P.S. Sorry for all the sideways photos and if you get a crink in your neck trying to view them you can thank WordPress for that. I spent an hour trying to correct them, and it’s not working. My WordPress experience is getting worse and worse, which is why the days of this blog will be over soon as it’s just become too annoying to continue it. It’s gone steadily downhill since they forced the Block Editor on everyone. They continually make changes that only make it harder and more time-consuming to post. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!
In the meantime, thanks for stopping by!
Kensho Homestead 
I knew that 2022 was the dealine to shove everyone into Gutenberg. I’d love to see some stats on the folks that protested and/or quit blogging and/or upgraded for plug-ins. Earlier this year, when I was still on Premium, I still had the Classic/Block Editor toggle/drop down. I guess that doesn’t exist anymore?
I bit the bullet for Biz. $300 a year is $25 a month. Biz allows you to get payments from followers/subscribers and tip money. Then, there are WP ads. Max, a blogger at powerpop.blog that I follow, put up ads (which do not show on the Readers) and made some money. And, he is not on Biz. He is just Premium. You can get some money back.
I love your posts. I hope you don’t leave.
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The block editor is the default, but I will try to find the Classic editor, as Carol explains below, next time to see if that’s better. I do not like the new browser-reader style, but the ‘happiness engineers’ don’t seem to concerned with my happiness! 😳
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The Reader…both of them (browser & phone app) have problems. I did notice that the browser-reader was reconfigured since I have been gone.
Both readers are inconsistent with renderings. I have had a devil of a time trying to find the best way to post videos. They jacked up their own WPVideos. Uploading videos and having them show up in both readers, properly, is rare.
I had a convo with a happiness engineer that told me they had had issues with a server migration for the Pro Plan and links were breaking all over the place. Uploaded video short code links were being dropped. I think the Pro Plan was eliminated because it messed up a lot.
Even on Premium, you have been forced to use the block editor?
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We have the Premium. But what I don’t understand is why some of the photos come out just fine. It’s very inconsistent. There’s also a very annoying delay when typing, sometimes. Also very inconsistent. They also just made changes to the “Reader” feed, where I read my subs—where it used to be if there were more than one post coming out from the same sub, it would just say the number of posts, which I then click to see the post titles and intro/photo. Now every post is listed with intro/photo, so if one blog posted 7 articles, it fills up my entire feed and I can’t see anyone else’s posts without loads of scrolling. I complained about this and get no answers. What a system—“fix” things that work fine, until they are broken! It’s only gone downhill since I’ve been blogging here, unfortunately. Glad to see you are back though on your blog.
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I was cursing the Pro plan that fouled up all of my videos. Pro plan has been dispensed with. It is no longer available as a choice. I suspect it caused all manner of problems. With the $120 credit, I went with a Biz plan. You get a Classic Editor plug-in.
I hate the Gutenberg editor. I have never used it.
What plan are you on?
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Great, thanks, I’ll give that a try!
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Lovely garden bounty, KH!
FYI – You can still use the classic editor. When you choose “write a post” on your homepage, it will take you to a blank screen – in the middle of the screen, you’ll see a black “+”. Click on it, and a table with choices will appear – “classic” is one of the choices. This will allow you to load photos and adjust sizes and positions, and it will let you move text – sometimes – as you wish. (Standardized computer-generated blocks don’t work for me either…)
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