They say the sun will come out tomorrow, but it didn't, and I'm actually quite glad of that. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day, and I worked long and hard; but today I rest. I seem to be the only one holding strong around here. Joe is slowly but steadily recovering from a week-long bout with the flu. Lily is slowly, but steadily, healing a nasty, gaping wound ripped open on her hind leg about a week ago (did I mention what a disaster prone dog she is?). Wilson came home the other day drenched in blood (looking like an axe murderer, as Joe's uncle aptly put it) from what turned out to be a small rip in his ear. (I think these dogs do far more damage to themselves than they do to any rabbits out there!) I guess Foxy hasn't had any incidents to speak of, thank goodness. Between working, maintaining daily life on my own farm, and nursing a household of invalids, I'm quite happy to have a rainy, unemployed day to drink some tea and listen to the wind blow. The sun can come out tomorrow.

*Note: Between writing this and publishing this, the sun DID come out, but I chose to ignore it anyway.

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I was at a thrift store the other day when I came across a cookbook named simply the Potato Cookbook. I was thrilled! Potatoes have recently become a huge staple of our diet, and an entire book full of ways to use them was quite exciting. Our recent potato fervor is due to the fact that in order to grow potatoes, you have to plant seed potatoes, and seed potatoes generally come in a 50 lb bag. After you've planted your entire potato bed and STILL have approximately 35 lbs of seed potatoes left, you'll understand. Last year we said we were going to eat the left over potatoes, but we didn't do it fast enough and had to toss most of them out once they'd become shriveled and sprouty. (I think we ended up with a potato deficit as our harvest at the end of the year wasn't anywhere near the 50 lb bag we'd started out with.) In the old-fashioned thrifty spirit of "waste not, want not", we've determined to actually eat the leftover potatoes this year, and we are making good progress. Did you know that some European countries have a potato eating average of 420 lbs per person per year?!?! In the USA, we only eat about 120 lbs each a year, and that includes sweet potatoes, potato chips and fast food. :( The potato has been much maligned as a fattening food source with little nutritional value (is this maybe due to the fact that most of our potato eating in this country is made possible by such companies as Lays and McDonald's?), but potatoes are actually complex carbohydrates full of vitamins and minerals and containing a whopping 11-percent protein! Apparently, the USDA has even determined that it is possible to survive entirely on a diet of potatoes and whole milk, which is great, because I'm currently on that diet (minus the milk). If you have anything against potatoes, I would suggest you don't come visit for a couple of weeks. ;)