Welcome to Carrots! I'm so glad you're here. This is where I share thoughts on liturgical living, faith, parenting, culture, and an extra dose of Jane Austen. You can sign up for my email newsletter here to stay in touch, or look me up on Instagram!
Girl meets goat. Farm life is treating us well, friends.
In the Liturgical Year:
We baked a big Michaelmas feast for everyone at the farm on Tuesday. It was a blast. The blackberry crumble was the crowning glory. But we also had fun roasting two geese that the farm had raised last year and had been in the freezer waiting for the perfect moment to be gobbled up. They had already been skinned so they weren’t as tasty as they could have been but I felt terribly authentic.
And of course there were carrots. Glazed. Yum. I also came up with a little round up of liturgical recipes/activities/books for the month of October if you wanna check it out.
Reading/Listening:
I just finished listening to Jane Eyre on Librivox (Elizabeth Klett is the reader and she’s great) and just started Anne of the Island (my favorite Anne book), also on Librivox. It’s read by Karen Savage who is my number one favorite Librivox reader and who lives in my town and who I plan to make my best friend…..too creepy? Well then, read by Karen Savage who is a wonderful reader and who reads me to sleep almost every night. Still creepy? Karen Savage whose audiobook reading talent I greatly admire and who it would be super cool to just happen to run into one day. Except I wouldn’t recognize her face….just her voice. Sorry, I can’t make my affection for Karen Savage’s voice not sound creepy.
And on my bookshelf I am desperately trying to finish Les Miserables. Yes, I know it’s a classic and it’s amazing but, by George, it’s loooooong. On page 922 and still more than 300 pages to go.
Piglet break! Ok, carry on.
Health Stuff:
Blerg. Autoimmune stuff is a real bummer. Yesterday a starter a completely miserable diet to heal leaky gut that I do believe will help me in the long run. In the meantime I’m looking at four weeks of a basically liquid diet of veggies and bone broths and what I WANT is to eat all the pumpkin muffins in the world. Please heal, body. I want to feel like a normal person again.
Chicken stock I made today. One of the things I can eat. Wah.
I also started taking some new supplements this week, Desert Harvest Aloe (which helps a lot of folks who have IC like me) and Sulfurzyme from Young Living which I read also can help support healing for some IC sufferers. I’m loathe to say that they’re already making me feel better but….I think I’m seeing some improvement. And I ordered some new YL essential oils that I started using this week. So, we’ll see.
Speaking of Young Living, funny story. I called my older brother the other day and confessed that I’ve gotten so into oils that I’ve started doing some distributing expecting him to immediately start making fun of me. It got quiet on the other end. I was braced for his response. And he said with a deep sigh, “I am also a Young Living distributor.” Ha! Not what I expected. But I guess he won’t make fun of my oil obsession. 
Podcast:
Christy and I had a lot of fun chatting with Brandon Vogt of Word on Fire about the Pope’s visit to the U.S. and how we want to have Bishop Barron over for dinner.
Links:
A Day in the Life of a Livestock Intern: Daniel Bearman (What days look like on the farm for Daniel.)
St. Michael, Patron Saint of Leggings: Molly Makes Do (So funny!)
Why Kazuo Ishiguro Used Dragons and Pixies to Explore History: DW (I loved Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and now I’m intrigued to read this novel.)
Little House on the Prairie, the Book that Ruined My Life: Dappled Things
Waco tangent: This is the Alico building that survived the tornado that destroyed downtown in the 50s. It is the Waco skyline and it is beloved by all Wacoans.
Sponsors:
Be sure to give some love to this month’s sponsor! They keep the lights on around here.
- Catholic Dad: (Mostly) Funny Stories of Faith, Family, and Fatherhood to Encourage and Inspire by Jake Frost
Hope the weather is as glorious where you are as it is in central Texas!
Lots of love,
Haley
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Please give Karen a big hug when you ever meet her. She’s the first person involved with any version of Jane Eyre that really understands how witty, and almost sarcastic Jane is (particularly when talking to Edward). Her reading has ruined (but not really) a lot of the film versions because they play Jane so demure and boring and now I can’t see her as anything but highly intelligent and funny and is constantly biting her tongue until she meets Edward.
p.s Only 11 more years until she can record L.M’s “The Blue Castle”
Oh, I love The Blue Castle. It really is one of my favorites.
You ladies have inspired me to seek out some audio books just for me. We listen to books in the car as a family, mostly “for the kids”, but books we all enjoy. It would be so nice to enjoy someone reading some of my favorites, just for me. Great idea!
I haven’t read the Blue Castle! But it’s been on my list forever
I plan to track her down….in a non-creepy way….we’ll see
Les Mis is on my life list. My sister-in-law read it this year. Kudos for powering through. I need to get my hands on a copy.
Also, I’m legitimately impressed you have a favorite Anne book. My favorite is always whichever one I happen to be reading. =)
They are ALL so good. But Anne of the Island is the one I reach for as a pick me up. I mean… Patty’s Place? I want to live there!
Nothing against Young Living, but I feel like I have to mention my family’s favorite essential oil company because they are based in Waco! The company is called Hopewell Essential Oils (http://hopewelloils.com/) and is run by a Christian family. They do it as a ministry so they keep their prices as low as possible but the quality is just as good as YL, and everyone I know who has used YL, DoTerra, etc. have reported the Hopewell oils to work just as well (if not better!). They don’t have a distributing program but the prices are so much lower than the other companies already. The family is so kind and helpful with any questions you may have about how to use the oils for different situations. I love supporting them and I love their oils.
The family also runs a general store and farm-to-table cafe, all in Waco. Might be a fun family outing for you guys!
Sorry to awkwardly pitch another company but I know you’re relatively new to essential oils so I thought Hopewell would be a fun one to try, especially since they are so close to you geographically (in fact, I’m a little jealous!).
Looks like they’re connected to Homestead Heritage! I’ll check it out.
Yes! In fact they just changed their name (within the past few weeks) from Heritage Essential Oils to Hopewell because they wanted to register it.
Anne of the Island is my favorite too!!! And I can understand your creepy love for Karen Savage’s voice. I LOVE her reading of Anne of the Island…it’s gotten me through piles of dishes and laundry
SO good, right?
I recently found out I have severely leaky gut which was causing many, many other issues. The regular doctor was just treating those things, not realizing they were a symptom of leaky gut and sever inflammation. Two things helped me …fast! I am still healing, but started seeing and feeling healing by the first day. The first is inflammacore cherry by ortho molecular. Then my natural doctor/nutritionist, doctor Olivia joseph, came out with her own supplement because she was unhappy with not being able to prescribe exactly what she wanted…it is called dr. Olivia Naturals organic turmeric maximum inflammation support. You can only get it from her direct or on Amazon, though. Both are worth trying. They have helped me a lot!! Praying for your recovery!
I’ve been taking a supplement with turmeric that I think is helping! I’ll try Dr. Olivia’s when I need a turmeric refill. Thanks for sharing this, Dayna!
As a total bookworm, I decided it might be a good mortification to look up the old Roman Index of Forbidden Books and avoid the books on it. As it turns out, all of Victor Hugo’s books were listed on the Index. So…if you need an excuse to bail on Les Miz, there you go.
ha!
I love “Anne of the Island!” It’s definitely one of my favorites, though the first will always hold the nearest and dearest place in my heart.
Haley, I know it’s tough. “Les Miz” is super long, but trust me: the end is incredible. The end is worth pulling through those last few hundred pages! Also, I don’t know what your reactions to books are, but I was eating my lunch while finishing the book and I had to actually put down my pizza because I was sobbing so hard at the end! Then, I could barely function for the next couple hours. Ah, that book is so beautiful! While I love the different movie versions I’ve seen, they do not even come close to the amazingness of the book. So, so, good. Just persevere! It is so hard, but it will be totally worth it!
I think one of my issues with the book is that I know the story like the back of my hand and have even read multiple abridged versions of the novel (350 and 500 pages) so none of it is a surprise? Just a lot of slogging through the details