2019 – Archived Blogs – All Is Right On The Homestead

Well, it’s the day after New Year’s Day. We are done with 2018 and here we are in 2019, greeting it with open arms. New Year’s Day was a beautiful day up here on the hill. The sun burnt off the morning clouds and the temperatures got in the upper 60’s making it feel almost like spring. Looking back I have to say that last year life’s ups easily outpaced those bumps in the road we encountered. Colleen and I took every day one at a time and will do the same this year. With everything that happened up here on our little hill I thought it might be worth taking a look back at the year in review. I doubt very much I will be able to look at everything, but there were some moments that definitely made the year one to remember. 2018 was a very good year for us and Colleen and I have every expectation that 2019 will be a good year too, even if we don’t know what’s coming our way. That’s half the fun of living though, isn’t it?

I suppose the best place to start is the beginning with the threat of a snow storm that would shut everything down in the middle of last January. I finally found time to sit down and set up this website and a day or two later we got 12 inches of snow giving us some time off from school and some extra time at home. Little did I know our website would be as popular as it has become. In 2018, the site attracted more than 32,000 visits and over 1,600 subscribers. Unfortunately, the book on which I was working got put on the back burners where it still is. I suppose that I really should get back to working on it. I currently have eleven volumes of rough draft and I’m still trying to clean up and edit Volume 1. I would be most remiss if I did not thank everyone for their support of the website though, so “Thank you, one and all!” Your feedback and comments have been great encouragement and without which Colleen and I would not be enjoying all of the writing we do.

Spring came early to our little homestead last year. By mid February Colleen and I were out working in our gardens. Colleen’s lily garden put out some beautiful flowers, well, at least until the deer got them later in the spring. We also had very good luck with snap peas last spring and we’re looking forward to planting them again this spring. Of course, with February came Valentine’s Day and the start of the high school baseball season. Last year was my 17th season on the bench with the team as an assistant coach. I figure I still got a few more years in me even if I have slowed down a step or two. Baseball season always makes it tough to keep up with things here on the hill though. The days can be mighty long. Colleen always says she’s a baseball widow from Valentine’s Day to Mother’s Day.

March and April are baseball months and our work in the gardens is pretty much limited to off days and weekends. Still, we try to get done what we can. We had our first post Christmas gathering of the clan the weekend after St. Patrick’s Day for a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner. Our early gardens did all right. The peas and Swiss chard produced nicely. It was also the second year of our asparagus garden and we were most pleased to see the roots had survived the winter and put stalks up. There is an outside chance we may be able to harvest some this year. Colleen’s herbs also did particularly well and we had plenty of basil, oregano, sage, rosemary, and chives all spring, summer and fall. The rest of our gardens are hit or miss, mostly miss though. We’re still learning how to garden, but we still have a ways to go. Right now all of our gardens are raised bed because we live on a hill made mostly of clay and rock. No matter, we always get excited when we get to harvest anything and I’m sure we’ll figure it out sooner or later.

May rolled around and the baseball season wound down and school started to wind down. May also means that it’s strawberry season in Central North Carolina. The weekend after Mother’s Day we headed down to the Farmers Market for a couple of six quart flats so we could make our annual batch of Colleen’s strawberry jam. We always make more than we really need for the year because we have kids that like to visit and shop in our basement larder. Strawberry jam represents the start of our canning season. Canning is something that both Colleen and I enjoy and it lets us work together, besides it really is a two person job to get everything done in one day. One of these days when we finally move off of our little half acre, we’ll be able to have a garden big enough to grow enough that we will be able to can our own produce.

Apart from Alberto dropping a bunch of rain on our head in late spring, June and July were pretty dry months for us. We managed to get a new pool put up at the beginning of June and it saw us through the summer. School finished up in early June so once we were on summer break I was out cutting and splitting firewood most mornings. I finished up pretty early last year and had the 5 cords we needed for this winter by early July. I wasn’t exactly done cutting and splitting though. All of the other wood we had on the ground was green and needed to be split and stacked so it could season for the winter of 2019-20. July also brought another particularly special treat for me. A friend I had gone to college with too many years ago was traveling through the area and stopped to spend an evening visiting. It had been quite a while since I’ve been able to sit down and get caught up with any of my old college friends. There was also a changing of the guard, so to speak. Colleen and I have had a gathering of the clan up here for years on the 4th of July. Last year, Al and Alysia hosted the gathering at their place.

June and July is the summer canning season around here, especially for tomatoes and cucumbers. Colleen and I have tomatoes down pat and usually have to put up extra quarts because they always seem to be the first thing that disappears from our larder. Since we still had a good supply of Bread and Butter pickles, we decided to forego those and stick strictly to dill pickles last year. We had been experimenting with dill pickles for the last couple of years and while we could get the flavor right, the pickles were always lacking that nice crisp crunch. Last year we tried a smaller cucumber and only cut them in half so they could fit into the jars. That did the trick! We have a batch of tasty, crunchy dill pickles in our larder. The one other thing we also tried last summer was making our own vanilla extract. Never ones to do things in halves, Colleen and I made three different kinds, one traditional extract with vodka and two more interesting extracts, one with brandy and one with spiced rum. All three turned out exceptionally well.

For some weird reason August brought rain with it and a lot of rain at that. It seemed like we never got more than a dry day or two in row. I had hoped to set the poles around the in-progress pen around our chicken coop, but the ground never dried out enough so all the fence posts are still sitting on the ground and we are hoping to have chickens this coming spring. Of course, August also means the start of a new school year. So by the end of August Colleen and I were back in the routine of answering a 4:30 AM alarm clock. No, I don’t mind getting up early in the morning and in fact most mornings I’m up well before the sun, but I do not like that alarm clock. I also don’t mind working as I do love being in that classroom with the kids, but for the first time in my 17 years of teaching, I found myself desperately wishing I could retire. Retirement is still 5 and a half years away for Colleen and me.

The beginning of September went okay. Colleen and I canned meat for the first time ever. That proved to be a great success story eventually leading us to canning burger, stew meat, and chicken for our larder. Things started to go downhill about the middle of the month. First there was hurricane Florence. The winds and driving rains of the actual hurricane missed us, but it was a slow moving storm and the rains that fell really saturated the ground. Two big trees down on the wood line uprooted. One fell harmlessly to the ground while other got hung up in another tree right over the top of my work shed. That was also the weekend we noticed Daisy didn’t seem to be feeling well. Alysia works for a vet so as soon as Florence passed Alysia got us an appointment to have Daisy checked. We were heartbroken to find out she had very advanced lymphoma. We made her as comfortable as we could for the next three weeks until she finally crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

A few days after we visited the vet with Daisy, Colleen and I were walking out the door to head to school and we were greeted with a loud cracking and a thundering crash. The tree that had been hung up over my shed broke and came crashing down on the roof of the shed. It wasn’t a pretty picture. We lost Daisy on October 7th, the following Sunday. Alex and I dug her grave out behind the fire pit where she used to like to sniff around. It was a bright sunny day, but hurricane Michael was bearing down on the Florida panhandle and was forecasted to come right at us. Over the next few days Michael did just that with the eye of what had been downgraded to a tropical storm going right over the top of us. There was a whole lot of flooding in the lowlands with Michael, but fortunately up here on the hill we came out of it okay. It wasn’t too long after that when Colleen and I found out that Steven and Anna Maria were expecting their first child in March of this year.

After our roller coaster ride in late September and the first half of October, things started settling down for us. Colleen finally convinced me to buy a hydraulic log splitter. I guess she was getting worried about my old back and me swinging an 8-pound maul. Colleen and I did get back to canning, putting up some pears and making our annual batch of apple butter. With the coming of November I started steam cleaning all of the rugs in preparation for the holidays. Our holidays started early last year. The weekend before Thanksgiving our brother-in-law came to town for a wonderful visit. We always love it when family visits and Colleen made a good old traditional pot roast dinner just for the occasion. That was just the start of Colleen’s cooking for the holidays. On the following Thursday we had our Thanksgiving Clan Gathering. After Thanksgiving, it was time for Colleen and me to start getting ready for Christmas. When I say after Thanksgiving, I mean the day after Thanksgiving when we got our Christmas tree.

December was all about Christmas as it is every year. With six kids, husbands, wives, and girlfriends, finding exactly the right gift is always interesting. With a four week straight run of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas break, all the decorating and shopping had to be done on weekends, more or less. Last year Mother Nature decided to make things even more interesting by dumping 15 inches of snow on us in the middle of December. Colleen and I sat right at home for 4 days, but that time at home proved to be just the rest we needed to make it to our run into Christmas break without collapsing from exhaustion. The weekend before Christmas Colleen and I treated ourselves to our annual visit to the mall to find a few last presents and enjoy our annual lunch date in the food court at the mall.

Christmas was really something special this year. Al and Alysia showed up on Christmas Eve and would spend the night. Louis showed up around dinner time on Christmas Eve to spend the night too. Colleen spent all day Christmas Eve in the kitchen. Christmas morning James and Donna and Steven and Anna Maria made their way to the house and everyone exchanged gifts in front of a toasty warm fire burning in the fireplace. Sadly, Stephanie was the only one of our kids who couldn’t make it for the festivities. Instead of a big Christmas dinner, Colleen had a brunch waiting for everyone once all of the gifts were exchanged. Like always with our clan gatherings, everyone eventually must leave to head home and resume their lives. So it was on Christmas Day, and by 4 o’clock the house was empty and quiet.

The day after Christmas Colleen and I did almost nothing. We still had a week of Christmas break in front of us and we earned a rest. Over the next week Colleen and I would take down the Christmas tree and all of the decorations, in fact, we finished before New Year’s Day which is unusual for us. The house always seems so barren once we finish. I’m not sure what 2019 has in store for us. I’m not particularly worried about it either. The world will keep going at its crazy breakneck pace, but up here on our hill everything is taken one day at a time. Everything will happen exactly when it should and in its own good time. Colleen and I have learned in all our years that there isn’t any point in worrying about tomorrow because there is always so much that needs doing today. Our goal is always to make each and every day the best it can be. It’s just a little half acre up here on the hill, but it is our home and life is good. Looking back over 2018, it can truly be said that all is right on the homestead.

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January 06, 2019: 2019 Is Here, Hold On!

The holidays are behind us now. School is back in session after our Christmas break. The weather roller coaster of late is still rolling along but with less violent swings for the time being. For the most part, the weather was decent last week. We had fog and a misty rain on Monday morning, followed by a couple of warm and sunny days, and then two straight days of rain on Thursday and Friday. Once the rain moved out on Friday night, the sun started to dry things out yesterday and it looks like we’ll have plenty of the same today. The temperatures are even supposed to get up into the 60’s. Things are looking to cool off a little during the upcoming week and there isn’t the mention of rain until we get to next weekend. There is no mention of snow any time in the near future, but I sure wouldn’t be surprised to see some more of the white stuff as we get closer to the end of January. Only time will tell.

Colleen and I were still on our Christmas break for the first part of the week. School didn’t start back up until last Thursday. Last Sunday afternoon Colleen and I finished putting away all of the Christmas decorations with the exception of the lights and garland on the house and front porch. Since it’s supposed to be such a nice afternoon today, it looks like that stuff might come down and then everything will be put away. Last Sunday was so nice too, we took advantage of the weather and grilled lamb chops for dinner. We don’t get to enjoy lamb chops often so it was a real treat for us on which to close out 2018. Apart from our usual market run and grilling dinner, Sunday was a particularly quiet day up here on the hill.

Monday morning greeted us with a dense fog and misty rain. Even though it was Monday, Colleen did NOT do the laundry. It was New Year’s Eve. We kept a low fire in the fireplace all day to chase the damp air out of the house. I spent most of my day grading papers for school. Colleen made a big pot of chili. The rain and clouds cleared out of the area after lunch. New Year’s Eve or not, we were never ones for celebrating the day in any big manner. This year proved no different as Colleen, Alex, and I all went to bed well before the stroke of midnight. At least we ended the year, or started the New Year depending on your perception, with a good night’s sleep. Colleen and I went to bed feeling very thankful for how well 2018 had treated us for the most part. Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t quite so happy when he went to bed. He had to go to work in the morning.

New Year’s Day felt pretty much like just another day around here. Alex got up at his regular time, got dressed, and headed into work. Colleen and I took it easy for most of the day. I finished the last of my grading. Colleen sectioned up a 20 pound ham we had. Some the ham was for dinner, some got put into the refrigerator to be used during the week, and the rest got put into the freezer to be used at some future date. The sun was shining all day and it actually got warm enough that we were able to open a few doors and windows to air out the house. Mostly, I guess we took the day to get ourselves back into our every day routine. New Year’s Day set the tone for 2019 for us. It was a simple and easy day in which we took care of the things that needed to be done.

Wednesday was the last day of our Christmas break. Colleen’s Christmas cactus was in full bloom helping to brighten up the day. Colleen and I actually slowed down so we could enjoy our last little bit of leisure time before heading back to school on Thursday. I cleaned up my grade books for school. Final exams are getting ready to start and now I have one less thing to do. Colleen did some baking, blueberry muffins and some strawberry bread, for treats in our lunches. She also used another portion of the ham she cut apart to make a ham pot pie. It was very good, but to listen to Alex the pot pie was divinely inspired. I think he must have eaten half of the thing. By the time we went to bed Colleen even had the lunches made for the morning.

Thursday and Friday Colleen and I were up with our annoying alarm clock. I had hoped that it would be cold enough to turn the rain that moved into the area on Wednesday night into snow, but no such luck. Between coming off of Christmas break and the lousy weather, the kids were less than wonderful when we got back to school. Just to make things more interesting, Colleen and I both had meetings after school. Seriously, who schedules meetings on the first day back to school after Christmas break? Friday we fared a bit better by leaving a few minutes early so we could beat the bus and car pool traffic. We were in for a treat when we got home though. Buttercup’s new coat was waiting for us.

The rains moved out Friday night and yesterday morning we were greeted with a beautiful sunrise. I, of course, found my way out to the back porch to enjoy my coffee. Buttercup woke Colleen up early so she was moving around and ready to go earlier than usual. She had a very short market list and we got our market run out of the way before lunch. Colleen and I sure didn’t pick up any momentum after lunch. Colleen did manage to get a little cooking done and Alex and I moved some firewood to the seasoning racks. We worked at it until I fell on the slippery ground and did something weird to my back. I decided rather than push the issue, it was time to quit for the day. We had a simple dinner of burgers and fries and didn’t do a whole lot of anything else.

The sun is up and bright this morning. All of the animals are moving around and I’ve even managed to bag a couple of squirrels already to add to our freezer. We’re only 6 days into the New Year and things are looking fantastic for us. We’ve started to seriously look around for a bigger homestead. It looks like we’ll be able to get rid of more of our debt this year. All of that will come in time though. Right now, we need to get through today. Colleen has her weekly baking and cooking to do today. I’d like to finish moving the firewood and take the lights and garland off of the house. Everything is dry enough now that I shouldn’t slip on the ladder or anything weird like that. The weekend has been going well and it looks like things will keep going that way today. Our simple life is good up here on our hill and it looks like we have another day heading our way, and when it’s done we’ll be able to look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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January 13, 2019: We Dodged A Bullet With The Latest Winter Storm.

It sure looks like we dodged a winter bullet this weekend. What started out in the forecast a week ago as 3 to 5 inches of snow has turned into nothing more than a cold and miserable winter rain. Considering we started the week with sunny skies and temperatures just under 70 degrees, things have sure changed. Today’s temperatures are in the mid 30’s with a frigid rain and it is just downright dreary. In fact, it’s rained enough to get the runoff to look like a small river down in the ravine. It’s just the way the weather is during the winter here in Central North Carolina. We have plenty of firewood, and a nice fire in the fireplace does wonders for chasing a damp chill out of the house. Earlier in the week, the morning temperatures did get down into the mid 20’s and if they had held we would be getting plenty of the white stuff, but yesterday and most likely today the lowest we should see will be right around the freezing mark and not for very long at that. Fortunately, Colleen and I made sure we were ready for this mess and we won’t have to leave the house at all today. There is just no sense in chancing it on potentially slick roads when it isn’t necessary.

Last week was our last full week of regular classes at school for the semester. Final exams start tomorrow and run through the week. I spent my week reviewing as much material as I could. I figured any little extra help I could give the kids might pay them some good dividends. About a third of all of my kids did well enough during the semester that I was able to exempt them from their final exam. The school has a formula that takes into account overall grade and attendance. Mathematical speaking, these will be the kids who would have to get a 0 on the final to fail the class anyway. For the most part, the week passed easily for both Colleen and me. Some days moved slower than others, but by the end of the week we were both pretty wiped out. Next week shouldn’t be too bad and we do have a long weekend at the end of it all.

Last Sunday was fun and productive up here on the hill. I added three more squirrels to the freezer. Colleen spent the day in the kitchen. She got a whole week’s worth of dinners cooked ahead of time and even managed to make a big pot of pea soup with the ham bone she had saved from our New Year’s Day meal. I’ll been eating a lot of pea soup for lunch and dinner again this week. Things had dried up well enough outside that Alex and I were even able to finish up moving all of the wood I had split that was just piled up at the bottom of the backyard by the wood line. I was moving slow though because my back was still a bit stiff from the spill I took on Saturday and I sure didn’t want to aggravate my back any more. Nothing is more frustrating to me than admitting that I have had to slow down a little as I’ve gotten older.

The short days of winter always make it tough for Colleen and me to get a lot accomplished during the week after school. Last week was no different and with the potential of the winter storm this weekend we made sure we were prepared as we could be. Colleen took care of the laundry like usual on Monday. We didn’t have a lot on the books for Tuesday and I actually had a little time to enjoy a cigar on the back porch after we got home. Wednesday we stopped by Costco to pick up a few things we needed. Friday on the way home we made sure the gas tank in the truck was full and we stopped to do our weekly market run. We weren’t exactly sure about the pending storm yet, but we sure didn’t want to deal with any of the crowds on Saturday either. After our market run, it was a quick stop at the pizza place to pick up dinner and then home. We were tired, but there was no place we needed to go for the rest of the weekend.

As luck would have it, our winter storm took its dear old time getting here and the rain didn’t show up until last night. Yesterday was gray and dreary, but it was dry. I spent most of the morning out in the backyard cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood. Mostly, it was just cleaning things up. I still have the big oak that took out my shed to cut, split, and stack. Colleen spent the day in the kitchen making a batch of her Mini-Mince Pies and cookies so we would have some snacks in the house. I hadn’t slept particularly well Friday night and I ended up taking a nap after lunch too. Colleen said I was so soundly sleeping I never heard Buttercup barking when Al and Alysia stopped by the house on their way through town. I was disappointed when I found out I had missed them, but I guess I really needed the sleep. When I did finally wake up after a couple of hours, it took me a bit to regain my bearings.

Well, despite it being just the middle of January and the middle of winter, it is time to start thinking about the spring and our gardens. Over the last few years I’ve stuck to a pretty basic form of raised bed gardens. Living on the side of a hill made primarily of clay and rock has made using raised bed gardens a necessity for us. Our gardens to date have been small, but they have served us well. Last fall while cleaning up, I began to notice the older raised bed frames were starting to deteriorate. I had expected it over time so I wasn’t too surprised. With spring just around the corner, I started thinking about how to replace and improve the beds. I spent a good bit of time looking at pictures and plans. Obviously, I was going to have to make adjustments to compensate for the lay of the land so the pictures and plans were just more of an idea guide than anything else. Well, after talking about the gardens with Colleen, I think I have a workable idea for the next round of raised bed frames. The new frames will be longer but narrower than the ones we have now. I’m pretty excited about my new idea and it looks like I’ll be able to start building the frames come next payday. With any luck, this will be a big step in our efforts to get better at gardening.

I spent most of Saturday evening in front of the computer working. I’ll be in front of it again today. I have final exams to finish up and a bunch of files to back up. Colleen will be in her kitchen for most of the day. We’ll have a good hot fire going all day in the fireplace. The fire has already started doing it’s job chasing the damp, chilled air out of the house. With final exams at school all next week, it should be an easy week for Colleen and me. Even so, we’ll be taking things one day at a time. You never know what will pop up out of the blue. Regardless of what this coming week holds in store for us, last week was a good week. We didn’t get as much done as maybe we would have liked to get done, but we didn’t have to deal with anything crazy and unexpected either. Yes, indeed, life is good up here in our hill. All we have to do is look around to know that all is right on the homestead.

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January 20, 2019: Starting Our Second Year On The Website.

Colleen and I have put another week behind us. This entry will mark the start of the second year that this website has been up and running. It really has grown over the last year. Last year at this time we were dealing with a mid January snow storm. This year it’s just been a week of roller coaster temperature swings. The week started with some pretty typical Central North Carolina weather. We had morning temperatures just around freezing and afternoon highs close to 50 degrees. Things warmed up some over the course of the week and we saw highs around 60 degrees yesterday. There was some spotty rain during the week, but it wasn’t too bad until yesterday. The rains moved in a little after lunch and hung around through the night, but had cleared out by this morning. Kind of figures since this is a 3-day weekend for us. Just to make it even more interesting, the temperatures are supposed to drop to below 20 tonight.

School proved to be extremely slow going last week. It was final exams week and that meant Colleen and I sat around and watched kids take exams. Colleen said it would have been easier to watch paint dry. I’m inclined to agree with her. I got all of my testing done on Monday and Tuesday. Colleen wasn’t so lucky and had her testing blocks spread out through the week. I had hoped to use the last half of the week to get ready for my 2nd semester classes. Unfortunately, the administration was trying to balance things out in the math department and I didn’t find out what I would be teaching in my third period class until later in the week. Thursday morning I finally found out what I would be teaching, but I only had one kid assigned to the class. By the time I left school Friday afternoon my 3rd period class was up to four kids. I haven’t looked since so it looks like this afternoon and tomorrow I’ll be working at home to get ready for the semester start. If that wasn’t bad enough, we had a faculty meeting after lunch on Friday. I really wish someone would convince the powers that be that they are not going to fix the ills of public education with meetings, especially meetings on a Friday afternoon going into a 3-day weekend.

Last Sunday afternoon not a whole lot of extra stuff got accomplished. For that matter, that pretty much described the whole week. Colleen did her usual baking for the week and got her laundry ready for her stop at the laundromat on Monday. Like usual, we were up early Monday morning and off to school and even with just final exams going on, we still had our Mandatory Monday Meeting at 2:30. Not much came out of the meeting except a collective sigh of relief from teachers who had been giving final exams all day. You wouldn’t believe how tiring it can be watching kids take exams. Colleen and I took care of the usual chores during the week. We even put a fire in the fireplace on couple of evenings. Colleen took some time to work in her cookbooks, fixing recipes to which she had made adjustments and turning her notes into formal recipes. We did do a little garden planning too, and I even redesigned our raised bed gardens. The old ones are starting to deteriorate and we need some new ones this year. With a slow week at school, I took the opportunity to pass my new design past the horticulture teacher at school to get her insight into their viability. Now I just have to build them and figure out where to put them. Over the last few years we’ve taken down enough dead or dieing trees to open up a number of sunny spots in the yard. More sunshine changes the whole dynamics of our gardening adventure.

Saturday was the start of a 3-day weekend for us. Colleen had put together her market list on Friday so we were out and about earlier than usual. In our travels we also picked up our first batch of seeds for planting this spring. It wasn’t much, but it is a start. There are still a few weeks to go before we can plant the cold weather stuff and I have some raised beds to build too, but getting seeds is the first sign that spring is right around the corner. Last year Colleen and I had one of our better gardening years. We’re hoping to build off of what we learned and have even a better year this year. Next Thursday is payday so I have my sights set on getting materials and starting to build the raised bed gardens next weekend. There isn’t any rain in the forecast for next weekend so my fingers are crossed that the forecast doesn’t change. In Central North Carolina the weather can never be taken for granted.

Yesterday was pretty cloudy and the skies were threatening rain all day. Colleen spent a good part of her afternoon putting groceries away and setting her kitchen to rights. The rain looked like it was going to hold off for a bit so I headed out back to cut up more firewood. A few weeks ago Alex and Steven had taken down the big oak that fell on my shed. I figured it would be a good time to start cutting up the pieces and get them ready to split. My first order of business was to clear all of the wood off of a level section so I could move the log splitter. A level section of land is not something easily found when you live on the side of a hill. I sure don’t want to carry everything half way up the hill to where the log splitter is now. I stayed at the wood a good while. I’m learning to take things a bit slower to compensate for getting older. Rolling larger pieces of wood to move them takes a good bit longer than carrying them, but it is always a heck of a lot easier on my old back. I cleaned up the area to where I want to put the log splitter, but not much else. It started raining just about when I finished moving the last of the wood so I took that as a sign I was done for the day. The sun should be out this afternoon so maybe Alex and I can move the log splitter.

It looks like the last of the clouds and rains are on their way east. The temperatures have already dropped 6 or 7 degrees from when I got up this morning. The wind is starting to pick up too. There will most likely be a fire in the fireplace this afternoon. I’m not exactly sure what will get done today, but it is only day 2 of our 3-day weekend. The baseball coaches are having a little get together this evening so we can start gearing up for our baseball season that starts in few weeks. Other than that, I guess Colleen and I will just go about our regular business today. With the temperatures dropping, it could be a good day to work on the computer in front of the fireplace. Last week was slow, but it was a good week. Today looks like it will be a good day to start putting the pieces together for next week. We still have a little bit to go until spring, but we should be in the gardens within the month. It’s a simple life we lead up here on the hill and that’s the way we like it, because up here on our hill all is right on the homestead.

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January 27, 2019: Just Another Week In The Middle Of Winter

It’s hard to believe we are already in the last week of January. Mother Nature had a grand old time of it just spinning knobs for last week’s weather. Last weekend started out unseasonably warm with lots of sunshine. The temperatures took a nose dive last Sunday starting around 60 at sunup and crashing down into the teens by Monday morning. We were fortunate in that we didn’t get any foul weather until after temperatures got back over freezing on Wednesday night. A line of storms with winds that drove the rain sideways showed up Wednesday night and lasted through Thursday noon. The sun was back out on Friday and we’ve had lovely and seasonal weather since. Today should be just fine, but when you start looking at the forecast out into the week, it looks like Mother Nature is doing her thing again. As of right now, there is even some snow in the forecast for Tuesday night. Just to make things even more interesting, I have all kinds of meetings scheduled next week.

Last Monday was a Federal holiday so Colleen and I only had a 4-day school week. It was the start of the second semester of the school year too. Days off for hurricanes and snow during the first semester ate up any workdays we had so every other teacher in the school was scrambling to get our start of semester stuff in place. By Friday my classes had pretty much settled down. The guidance department may bleed a few more kids into my classes, but I don’t expect that to be a problem. Colleen’s one on one kid got their classes squared away and finally seems to be settling into the new semester as well. All in all, it was a good week at school and a good start to the second semester.

Since Colleen and I did not have school last Monday we took it easy last Sunday afternoon. I even took a nap on Sunday afternoon so I would be rested for the baseball coaches meeting that evening. Colleen and I slept a little later than usual Monday morning. Even with the day off, Colleen headed down to the laundromat, but at least it was early and she didn’t have to wait until well after dinner for the last load to finish drying. She had everything dried and put away before dinner. I spent most of my day in front of the computer getting ready for school. I did manage to find some time to start taking inventory and cataloging our seed stash. Towards the end of last growing season, Colleen and I started picking seeds on sale and we weren’t really sure what we had for seeds.

The temperatures dropped so fast and hard on Sunday night that there was a definite chill to the house on Monday morning when Colleen and I woke up. It didn’t take us long to get a fire burning in the fireplace, but because the temperatures never got above freezing during the day, we kept a hard fire burning all day. We even kept the space heaters going upstairs which is very unusual for us. So on top of everything else, Colleen and I spent Monday doing what we could to keep the house at 65 degrees. When you live the way we do, it just comes with the turf and in Central North Carolina the temperatures rarely get and stay that cold. By midweek the temperatures were pretty much back to normal and heating the house was no big deal.

School went pretty well for the rest of the week. All of my classes turned out to have good kids in them. There were no meetings after school so Colleen and I were able to get out of the place pretty much on time every day. I wish I could say the same for the upcoming week, but that isn’t going to be the case. We’ll just see how things go and take everything one day at a time. Thursday, after Alex got home, we ran his Explorer down to the shop for its annual inspection. Friday after school Colleen and I decided to just swing by the pizza place and get dinner early. Alex got home after Colleen and I had eaten and then I ran him back down to the shop to get the Explorer. The Explorer passed inspection, but it needs some work. Other than the school week being short, there was nothing really special about it.

Saturday turned out to busy and productive. Alex headed out to work first thing in the morning. Colleen and I weren’t too far behind him as we headed out early on our weekly market run. After we got the groceries home Colleen and I were back on the road, this time to get the lumber I needed to build a raised bed garden frame. Colleen and I got all of our running around done for the day before lunchtime. That left a sunny afternoon open for us to tackle things we wanted to do around the house. I headed outside to build the raised bed garden frame and Colleen headed into the kitchen. It’s not often we get a sunny and warm winter weekend day. Of course, warm is a relative term, but it was warm enough to work comfortably outside.

Colleen spent all afternoon in the kitchen making scones. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn out well which is highly unusual. After thinking about what she did, she realized she put too much jam in them and then didn’t bake them long enough. It was just one of those things. It was pretty typical of how we do things around here though. We give everything our best shot and most of the time things work out just fine. When we do hit a bump in the road, we take a step back and look at what we did and learn from it. The bumps in the road have taught us a lot over the last few years. If you want to live this lifestyle, you absolutely must have this mind set. The only things that are failures are the things from which you are not willing to learn. Even the redesign of our raised bed frames is a result of things we’ve learned from the last go around.

Today sure does look like it’s turning out to be every bit as pretty outside as yesterday was. I have a bunch of schoolwork to get done. Colleen will be baking until she has to get ready for her adventure this evening. Colleen and Alysia are going to see Cher in concert. I’m sure I’ll stay up until Colleen gets home. It’s what we do. If one of us is out for the evening, the other waits up. If I have a night baseball game I can always count on Colleen waiting at the door for me when I get home. Tonight will be my turn to be waiting at the door for Colleen. Even with the late night this evening, Colleen and I will be ready to head to school first thing tomorrow morning. It looks like we’ll have another week of wacky weather, but spring is coming. Colleen and I will be getting our hands dirty in the gardens before too long. Until then we’ll just take things one day at a time. It’s a simple life, but it suits us well. Every day is special and we always make the best of it. At the end of every day there’s nothing better than knowing you’ve given it your all and when you look around you find that all is right on the homestead.

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February 03, 2019: February Is Here Already

What a week it’s been! Mother Nature sure went on a tear last week. We didn’t get any snow or rain, but the bottom fell out of the temperatures. Of course, we didn’t get nearly as cold as the northern tier states, but we got plenty cold for good old North Carolina. There aren’t many winter weeks when Colleen and I have to come home, put a fire in the fireplace, and have to keep a good fire going until bedtime, but last week was one of those weeks. I don’t think the mercury got through the freezing mark on Tuesday and then it just barely did on Wednesday. By Friday afternoon we were back into the 50’s for daytime highs and then the weekend warmed up nicely. Next week should be just as interesting with the temperatures forecasted to get up to 70. No, that isn’t a typo.

Last week was a busy and tiring week for everyone. Sunday night Alysia treated Colleen to a night out by taking her to the Cher concert. Fortunately, Al drove them to and from the show so I just stayed up and waited for Colleen to make it home safely. Colleen got home around 11:30, but Al and Alysia still had an hour drive to their house. Colleen and Alysia had a great time at the show, but I found out that Monday morning shows up very quickly and starting a school week with only 5 hours of sleep isn’t easy. I didn’t get caught up on sleep until Friday night which made for a long and challenging week at school. There was a time when working on short sleep would not have been a problem. Now, I realize that was a lifetime ago. My old bones need their rest.

Starting a school week on a short rest night would not have been so bad except it was one heck of a week at school. Monday was “Beat the Teacher” night. I had to stay at school so parents had the opportunity to visit with all of their kid’s teachers after dinner. Living 45 minutes away from school didn’t afford me the option of coming home in the afternoon. I finally pulled out of the school parking lot a little before 8 o’clock, making it a 14 hour school day for me. By the time I got everything I needed to do done after I got home, it was 11 o’clock and I was up at 4:30 again on Tuesday morning. I did manage to get to bed a little earlier on Tuesday night, but I was really behind the 8-ball when it came to rest for the week.

The rest of the school week, while not long, was chaotic. I had a meeting after school on Wednesday and of course it ran long. My 3rd period class had kids added and removed all week long. I started the week with six kids in the class and by Friday afternoon when I left school the headcount was up to 19. I had kids showing up in the middle of a class telling me that Guidance had just assigned them to the class. Should I mention, no one bothered to let me know what was going on with the kids. Colleen’s week was just about as insane. There were still issues with Colleen’s one-on-one kid’s classes. Some other stuff came up for the poor kid too. Colleen is heading into school tomorrow with a bunch of unresolved stuff waiting for her. By last Friday, both of us were spent and we still had a handful of errands to run before we could head home and settle in for the night.

The crazy week even managed to catch Alex and Louis. Alex has been working extra hours on the weekends so he hadn’t had a day off in over a week. He works outside so the cold temperatures didn’t make things any easier for him. He would come home looking wiped out as he stripped off his layers of insulated clothes. He’d grab some dinner and then head to bed. Louis is part of the 82nd Airborne and he was scheduled for a midnight training jump on Wednesday night. It was only his 2nd night jump since jump school. So on top of messing with his regular sleep and the sub freezing temperatures, the jump played with his mind for the first half of the week. The jump went fine, but when I talked to Louis on Friday evening he was tired and looking forward to getting caught up on his sleep too.

Colleen and I actually got to sleep a bit later than usual on Saturday morning. It definitely was some much needed rest. All the same we were both up before sunrise. Even Alex was up with the sun, but he headed out the door to work again yesterday. Colleen and I weren’t exactly a ball of fire when we woke up, but after our coffee, things got put into high gear. My first order of business was pruning our pear tree. The tree isn’t very old, about 5 or 6 years. We got a handful of pears from it one year, last year none. This year we’re more optimistic. Colleen started her baking about mid morning. I finished up the pear tree and headed to the front yard to work with our new raised bed. The yard desperately needed to be cleaned so the garden got put on hold. It took me the better part of the morning and into the early afternoon to clean up the yard without blowing the leaves off of Colleen’s flower gardens. She said it wasn’t time yet. I didn’t even think about cleaning up down by the fire pit and seasoning racks. That will be another weekend.

Colleen spent most of Saturday morning in the kitchen baking, but when I told her the daffodils and other bulbs were starting to push green leaves through the leaf mulch, she just had to come outside and check on things. Some of the plants out in our forsythia patch even have flowers getting ready to blossom. I think the forecasted warm weather in the upcoming week will help those along quite nicely. The call of the first signs of spring was too much for Colleen and once she finished with the batch of spice cookies she was baking, she cleaned up the kitchen, put a sweatshirt on, and was outside working in her gardens.

I was just finishing up with blowing the front yard clean and putting everything away when Colleen came outside. I didn’t even notice she was outside to be honest. When I came up from the basement there were fresh cookies on the counter, but Colleen was nowhere in the house to be found. Buttercup gave Colleen away though. Colleen was in the garden in the front of the house cutting back her pampas grass. Since we can’t grow any decent bushes in front of the house Colleen has been nurturing a bank of pampas grass to add color and character to the gardens by the house. Colleen also got up into the garden at the end of the driveway. The centerpiece of that garden is a hydrangea bush that usually is covered with white snowball flowers during the summer. Last year there were very few flowers which Colleen attributed to her pruning the bush back too late last winter. This year she wanted to make sure it got done on time so now the thing is a bush of 2-foot long sticks. We shall see what summer brings.

By the middle of yesterday afternoon Colleen and I were done with any yard work we were going to do. After a quick bite of late lunch we were on our way to Walmart to do our market run. The place was swamped with people. Of course, at this time of year no trip to Walmart would be complete without meandering through the garden center. Like usual, there are always a few things we just can’t leave the store without and yesterday it was seed potatoes, seed garlic, and onion starts. Yes, we are quite anxious and excited about the pending spring, especially since the ground hog DID NOT see his shadow yesterday. It was getting close to dinner time when we finally got the truck loaded up with our groceries so Colleen and I decided to swing by Hardee’s to get burgers and onion rings for dinner. We’re getting smart in our old age. We bought a couple of extra orders of onion rings because it seems that the onion rings never make it home. Yesterday some did make it home, so we actually had onion rings with dinner. After dinner everyone spent the rest of the evening just relaxing.

We’ve got a few more clouds out in the sky this morning, but the sun manages to sneak out every now and again. Buttercup is hanging out with me on the back porch too. It will be another busy day for sure though. Colleen is already back at it in her kitchen. I’m hoping to get the raised bed garden frame taken care of today and, of course, there is all of the usual schoolwork I have to get ready for the upcoming week. Maybe the week will turn out better than I am expecting, but I’m not worrying about it. Tomorrow will take care of itself. That’s how we roll up here. There’s just no sense in frittering away a beautiful day worrying about what could happen tomorrow. Warm spring days are just around the corner and baseball season is getting ready to start as well. This is always a busy time for us as we try to squeeze everything we want to do in between school and baseball. Life is good though. We keep tackling things one at a time with lots of laughter and smiles. There’s nothing better than looking around at what we’ve manage to get accomplished after a busy day and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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February 10, 2019: Is It Time To Plant The Gardens?

I sure don’t think we could have asked for a prettier week than we got last week. Our temperatures started getting warm last weekend and then they just kept going up. By Thursday we were within striking distance of 80 degrees, but we didn’t quite get there. To go with the unseasonably warm temperatures, we had lots of sunshine and gorgeous blue skies. Clouds moved into the area on Friday and the temperatures only got into the 60’s. The temperatures never got out of the 40’s yesterday and they dropped into the mid 20’s last night. We didn’t get any rain all week, and it looks like the rain will hold off until early this evening. It sure seems as though Mother Nature has a twisted sense of humor or, at very least, she forgot to take her meds again. As of right now, it looks like the upcoming week is going to be a wet one, but the temperatures are supposed to stay over the freezing mark. It might be safe to start planting our gardens.

School wasn’t too bad last week, but the week was arduously long. I had after school meetings on Monday and Wednesday. The warm weather had the kids acting goofy. Colleen finally got her one-on-one kid’s classes lined out. My 3^rdperiod class still had kids coming and going. Even with that, too many of the kids are falling back into the habit of missing school so I always have a few kids absent. That sure doesn’t make teaching them any easier. The class is now to the point where classroom management has become a priority. Thankfully, 3^rdperiod is my last class of the day because between keeping them reined in and teaching a lesson I am played out going into 4^th period. The beautiful weather probably didn’t help make things any easier last week either. And try as we might to have made it outside and take advantage of the wonderful weather, neither Colleen nor I had much energy to get anything above and beyond the routine stuff that needs doing during the week.

My meeting after school on Monday was as unproductive as ever. Colleen was able to make her usual stop at the laundromat. The afternoon was nice enough for Colleen to have opened up the house to air it out the house when she got home. Since Colleen was doing laundry and I got home late, we didn’t get much else accomplished Monday at home. Tuesday was a bit better, but school was more tiring than usual with the kids starting to get rambunctious thanks to the warm weather. I had another meeting after school Wednesday. Colleen met me at the mechanic shop on my way home so we could leave her car for some routine maintenance. Baseball season starts for me this coming week and I wanted to make sure her car was in working order. Her car wasn’t quite ready on Thursday afternoon so we came straight home after school. Colleen was very excited to see some of her daffodils had blossomed and some of her other flowers were getting ready to do the same.

Friday turned out to be an interesting day. School was nothing particularly special except that both Colleen and I were wiped out after the long week. We stopped by the shop to get Colleen’s car on the way home. We were pleasantly surprised when the bill came to half of what we had budgeted for the car. I had a pretty healthy list of stuff that needed to be done. I headed home to take care of Buttercup while Colleen headed up the road to pick up pizza for dinner. We had just finished eating dinner when Steven and Alex got home from work. I was sitting on the back porch with a cigar and the next thing I knew the boys were on the wood line sizing up trees. Alex is learning how to climb trees so while there was daylight the boys were going to get in a little practice. Of course, Colleen took one look at Alex working his way up a 50 foot tall tree and she went right back into the house. I just sat on the porch and enjoyed the show.

Yesterday morning was cold again, but there were things that needed to be done. With no freezing temperatures in the long term forecast I wanted to get our new raised bed garden ready to be planted. I got out to the gardens around 9 o’clock and pretty much stayed out there until 4 o’clock, but I finished it. It probably would not have taken me so long if I had just used new dirt in the new bed, but I decided to reclaim the dirt from an old bed. The old bed had deteriorated to the point of being unusable. Rather than just move the dirt, I ran it all through a screen to clean it up first. A 10 foot long by 22 inch wide by 10 inch deep raised bed needs a lot of dirt. Since we want to grow peas in the bed, I even made a trellis frame out of PVC pipe for the garden.

Colleen spent her day in the kitchen. Baseball season means I don’t get home until late every day so Colleen likes to make sure she has enough stuff to put a little extra in my lunches to hold me until I get home. Yesterday she made two dozen blueberry muffins and blueberry pinwheels during the day. She tried something a little different too. Instead of using vanilla extract to make her glaze for the pinwheels she used our homemade raspberry extract. The experiment turned out incredibly well. So well in fact that, she even made a note on her recipe to make the glaze that way every time in the future. It sure looks like we’ll be making some more raspberry extract again this summer.

Alex worked all day Saturday. He came dragging in right around sunset. Colleen and I had already eaten dinner and she was back in the kitchen baking again. Alex was very excited to find out that Colleen was making his favorite kind of cookie, peanut butter and chocolate chip. As Alex was heading upstairs to clean up after work Colleen couldn’t help but chuckle because Alex was talking to himself, celebrating having a fresh batch of cookies. I didn’t stay up too much longer after that. You wouldn’t think screening dirt would wear someone out, but I was exhausted. Colleen waited up for the cookies to cool before she went to bed. I have no idea what time she finally turned out the lights and called it a night herself.

The weather west of the mountains is a mess right now and it’s headed our way. We had a little sunshine early this morning, but it looks like the clouds are starting to move into the area. Colleen and I need to do our market run this morning and I sure would like to get the peas and radishes planted this afternoon. Today probably won’t be as busy as yesterday, but you never know. We’ll take everything as it comes our way in stride and see what happens. On top all of the things we’d love to accomplish, there is always the stuff that needs to be done to get ready for school. Things really start to get busy around here now. It’s the start of the spring planting season and the start of baseball season. During the week I won’t get home every day until around 6 o’clock, after practice. Colleen will keep things going around here in my absence. Any big projects we have will get pushed to the weekends. Every day is an adventure, but in the end everything always works out. Even with the long days and busy weekends, there is no better feeling than taking stock at the end of the day and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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February 17, 2019: A Gray And Rainy Weekend

Okay, we’re halfway through February and things are starting to warm up. The high school baseball season has started and that means my days are going to be long for a while. Spring break is still about 8 weeks off and this past Friday Colleen and I were exhausted already. The weather wasn’t too bad last week. Monday and Tuesday were cold and damp, but the sun came out on Wednesday and things started to warm up. It was warm enough by Friday afternoon to open up the house and let things air out. The rain showed up again on Friday night and into yesterday morning making for the start of a damp and dank weekend. This is a bit unfortunate because Colleen and I have a 3-day weekend. The rain stopped early in the afternoon, but the skies stayed cloudy and gray and by the evening the breeze had picked up and the temperatures started to drop. This morning we are just above the freezing mark, but once this cold front moves through things will start warming up again. Just our luck too, the rain will come back and it looks to hang around for a while.

Last Monday got off to a rough start for Colleen and me. We were a few minutes late leaving the house for school and then got detoured off of our regular route because of some police activity. We ended up getting to school 20 minutes later than usual and I really had to hustle to get things ready for classes. Of course, I had my usual Mandatory Monday Meeting after school and Colleen stopped at the laundromat on her way home. Tuesday things got back to normal, but it was the last day Colleen and I would be able to ride together for a while. Baseball tryouts started on Wednesday and ran through Friday. Colleen got to leave school at the usual time on Wednesday and Thursday while I stayed there for tryouts and I didn’t get home before 6:30 on any of the days. Friday the kids got to leave at lunchtime. Colleen left shortly after the kids, but again I got stuck in meetings after school until it was time for tryouts. It amazes me some of the junk for which teachers are required to attend meetings. After the meetings I headed down to the field for the last day of tryouts. I ended up getting home a little before 7 o’clock.

Colleen did a great job of keeping our ship righted all week. In addition to her laundromat run on Monday, she made another laundry run on Wednesday for blankets and bed linens. Since the weather was nice Colleen took advantage of the afternoons to wander around the yard, with Buttercup in tow, looking at the daffodils and crocuses that had started to bloom. Once she got settled back in the house, and after she finished dinner by herself, she would clean up the kitchen and then start putting our lunches together. Last week Colleen started putting a little extra food in my lunches to hold me through the day. Last week I got to enjoy a soup thermos full of gumbo. After tryouts and well after sunset, I would come rolling into the driveway and Colleen would be in the house heating up leftovers or something so I could eat. After dinner I would spend a little time on the back porch and Colleen would head upstairs to relax. By the time I got home Friday evening we were both wiped out and neither of us stayed up very long after I ate dinner.

Yesterday morning rolled around and both Colleen and I slept later than usual although Colleen did get up early to let Buttercup go outside. Colleen and Buttercup both got back in bed when Buttercup was done. I woke up right at sunrise to the sounds of a steady rain and some geese flying overhead. It wasn’t a bad way to wake up. Colleen was already enjoying her morning coffee when I got up. I got dressed and headed downstairs to get my coffee and then sat out on the back porch trying to find some direction for the weekend. Goodness knows our “To-Do” list is pages long at this time of year, and the weekends are when we have time to get stuff done. The rain, of course, changes everything so I needed to reorder my list and see what I could get accomplished despite the weather. The yard is a mess and needs to be straightened out badly which is what I had hoped to do, but not in the rain.

I finally decided rain or not that getting a fence around our new and proposed raised bed gardens was on top of the list. I headed down to Lowe’s and an hour and a half later I was home with the fencing and the t-posts I needed along with a few other things. Colleen wasn’t too keen on me setting t-posts in the rain, but I figured it would be easier to do if the ground was soft. For the most part the t-posts are in the ground. (Yep, I qualify as that stubborn male type.) After I looked at them I figured I may need to reset one or two of them. I did cordon off an area large enough to put a second 10 foot long raised bed garden next to the first garden and I left enough room to work around both gardens. I would have tried to put the fencing up, but Alex wasn’t home and Colleen was a bit under the weather so I didn’t want her to get any sicker. Maybe Monday if Colleen is feeling better we can run the fence.

While I was running to Lowe’s and setting t-posts Colleen was taking care of business in the house. A good share of her morning was spent searching the internet for a gluten-free cupcake recipe which she felt would keeps its cake like texture and not turn into stone once it cooled. I’m not so sure she settled on one specific recipe but after lunch was whipping up a batch of experimental chocolate cupcakes. The cupcakes came out of the oven looking pretty darn good, but Colleen said the real test would be after they got cold. It was after dinner when Colleen finally checked the texture of her cupcakes and sure enough they came out perfectly. They were soft and moist and you could break them apart without knowing they were gluten-free. She said they tasted almost like regular cupcakes too. There’s just no hiding the texture difference when you make cupcakes are made without flour. Today Colleen will experiment with frosting for the cupcakes and try to find a pattern she can make and reproduce consistently on the top of the cupcakes. The reason for all of this experimentation you ask? Colleen needs to make 5 dozen cupcakes for our daughter-in-law, Anna Maria’s baby shower next Saturday.

The rain had pretty much stopped by mid afternoon yesterday and I still had a good bit of time on my hands. Over the past few years, Colleen and I have tried to start seeds indoors before transplanting to our gardens. We’ve only had limited success. This year I finally bought a small grow light so we could try our hand at starting seeds in the house once again. Since the light did not come with a stand, one needed to be built. I rounded up a bunch of 1/2 inch PVC pipe pieces and fittings I had laying around, got a piece of paper and pencil, came up with a design that I liked, and then set about putting the thing together. I love making things out of PVC. It’s like playing with Tinker Toys. The project didn’t take me very long and I had the stand put together and sitting upstairs on my work table in plenty of time for dinner. The only thing left for us to do now is to plant seeds and see if we can get them to grow.

Yesterday evening was pretty sedate around here. Dinner was easy and quick. Alex got home after dark from helping Steven and Anna Maria. He had eaten dinner with them. Colleen and I were still tired from our week at school, and Colleen was doing everything she could to beat back the little bit of a cold she had. After we finished dinner and the kitchen was put back in order Colleen headed upstairs to get some extra rest in bed. Naturally, Buttercup followed her right upstairs and plopped down on the bed next to her. I headed out to the back porch to enjoy a cigar before I headed upstairs to bed. Thankfully, we both got a good night’s sleep. Since we have a 3-day weekend this weekend we are hopeful for a repeat of last night’s rest again tonight.

There are lots of clouds in the sky this morning and we’re supposed to get more rain this afternoon. Fortunately, it looks like the worst of it all will be heading north of us. We might get a little sunshine tomorrow. Even with the rain and Colleen fighting a cold there is nothing better than being home with time to recharge our batteries after a tiring week at school. We do what we can and keep moving forward. Our goal for today and tomorrow will be no different for us. We can only do what time and weather permits and everything else must wait for another day. There’s no point in worrying about it either. Our life is a simple one. We take one day at a time. We want for very little and are thankful for the bounty we do have. Every day is new and special and at the end of each day we are quite content to know that all is right on the homestead.

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February 24, 2019: And I Wonder Who’ll Stop The Rain!

Mother Nature had her way with us for the last week. We saw the sun exactly twice all week. Monday we had sunshine until the late afternoon when the clouds moved back into the area and hung around until the rain started shortly after dark on Tuesday. The sun came back on Thursday afternoon for a few hours, but quickly retreated and the rains started again and they haven’t stopped. The rain was never torrential and there weren’t any driving winds, but the rain was steady and it just kept coming. The ground water and surface runoff proved to be the most problematic. We had small rivers running everywhere. The runoff through the ravine behind the house was more than I’ve ever seen before. Washout Creek at the bottom of our hill was boiling over its banks. By mid afternoon yesterday, the ground was so saturated with water that the ground couldn’t take anymore and our septic system started backing up into the basement. Fortunately, it wasn’t bubbling out of the pipe so our catch bucket easily handled it. I was changing buckets out, though, about every other hour for a while.

Last Monday was Presidents Day so Colleen and I didn’t have school. As luck would have it, there was also a full moon and things were weird for the next four days we were in school. The kids were none too ambitious on Tuesday. On Wednesday the entire junior class took the ACT test, and everyone was trying to play catch up on Thursday and Friday. We did manage to get one afternoon of baseball practice on Tuesday. After practice, the school had its annual spring sports parents meeting so I didn’t get home until a little before 7 o’clock. I don’t know if it was all of the rain, the accompanying cooler temperatures, or what, but by Friday afternoon everyone, teachers and students alike, were wiped out. Of course, the rains yesterday and this morning didn’t help much for those of us that need a little sun therapy every once in a while.

Monday was a busy day for Colleen and me. We had to drop her car off at the shop and run a bunch of errands in the morning. By the time we got home the sun found its way out from behind the clouds and the afternoon turned out nicely from a weather stand point. Colleen was fighting off a cold, but I convinced her to give me a hand putting up a new fence around our new 10 foot long raised bed garden. The fence went up without any problems and the area we fenced off was big enough to add a second 10 foot long raised bed garden. Now, if the sun will just come out long enough, I can build it. Spending a little time out in the sunshine had Colleen feeling a little better and when she went inside she started baking so we would have snacks for our school lunches. Colleen got so wrapped up in her baking that her kitchen was upside down so when we had to pick her car up from the shop she decided to stop and get pizza for dinner on her way home.

The rain held off most of Tuesday. The baseball team managed to practice. After practice I stayed for the spring sports meeting. I was pretty wiped out when I finally did get home and once again Colleen had spent the afternoon baking. This time she made a week’s worth of dinners in anticipation of her great cupcake caper late in the week. The forecasted rain that had held off most of the afternoon finally showed up just about the time I got home. I ended up staying up very late to get my schoolwork ready for Wednesday because I knew I wouldn’t have time before school started in the morning. When the alarm went off at 4:30 on Wednesday morning it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed. I spent the rest of the week trying to play catch-up on my sleep.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Colleen and I left for school in the rain. I knew we weren’t going to be able to practice on the field so I didn’t even bring my practice clothes, instead opting to just ride in with Colleen and then come right home after school each of those days. My afternoons were slow and I either read or did schoolwork. I did manage to plant a batch of Swiss chard in starter pots in hopes that I can start the seeds in the house. Colleen on the other hand spent all three afternoons and evenings working on her cupcake project. She needed to have 6 dozen cupcakes made and frosted for Anna Maria’s baby shower on Saturday morning. Wednesday Colleen made the frosting, Thursday she baked the cupcakes, and Friday she frosted the cupcakes. There were few bumps in the road like when her frosting gun broke, but by the time she went to bed on Friday night the cupcakes were ready to go.

The worst of the rain showed up Saturday morning, even Buttercup didn’t want to go out in the rain. Colleen and I took the time to enjoy our morning coffee before the show began. Colleen needed to be at the church hall early to help set up for Anna Maria’s baby shower. I loaded all of the shower gifts into the back seat of the car for Colleen without them getting too wet in the transition and then, tray by tray, Colleen and I carefully got the cupcakes out to the car. The cupcakes were all carefully placed in the trunk as to prevent them from sliding around on the trip to the church hall. Once the car was packed up, we jockeyed the vehicles around and Colleen was off. There was no chance that I was going to get any work done outside so I left shortly after Colleen did. I was headed to the cigar warehouse about 30 minutes away.

I got home from my cigar run right before lunch and decided we needed a fire in the fireplace to chase the damp air from the house. It was a lovely fire and I had no trouble catching a 30 minute nap in the recliner while the fire was burning. The rain hadn’t let up one bit all morning and into the early afternoon, so I headed into the basement to check on the stand pipe for the septic system. The 2-plus inches of rain we got had small rivers running everywhere in our yard and the standpipe for our septic system running over into our catch bucket. I spent the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening keeping an eye on the bucket, emptying it as needed. The rain finally broke in the early evening and by the time I went to bed we had a couple of inches of headroom in the standpipe. I had made plans to stay up all night babysitting the pipe if it would have been necessary.

This morning when I got up we had a good 6 inches of headroom in the standpipe and the level seemed to be going down. There was a heavy fog hanging the trees this morning, but the rain is supposed to clear out a little after lunch so I figured that minor crisis was over. I doubt very much I will get any work done outside today. Even if the sun comes out this afternoon, the wind is supposed to get very gusty. Colleen and I still have our market run to get out of the way and I suppose I’ll need to keep an eye on the trees. As wet as the ground is, a good gust of wind could easily uproot one or two. Rain or shine, things keep moving forward up here on our little hill. It’s always good to expect the unexpected. From our perspective though, it’s all just another day in paradise. We never know exactly what each new day will bring, but one thing is for sure this morning and that is all is right on the homestead.

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March 03, 2019: Where Did February Go?

Last week wasn’t a week of steady rain, but the rain was certainly around enough to keep everything good and wet. Every creek, river, and lake is filled to the top and up here on the hill there is still plenty of groundwater running down the hill, keeping even the roads wet in many places. There is a creek Colleen and I drive over on the way to school that has overflowed its banks and has a good 300 yard stretch of the roadside underwater on both sides of the road. Even though we didn’t have any rain on Monday or Tuesday, the baseball field had areas that were still too wet to be used. It rained Wednesday morning making the field totally unplayable. Thursday was just cloudy during the day, but the rains came back on Thursday night and stayed through most of the day on Friday. Yesterday morning was gray and dreary, by the sun was out by noon and the temperatures crept up to 60 degrees. This morning the skies are gray once again. It’s not raining now, but the rain is supposed to be back in the early to middle of the afternoon, and I think every day next week has some rain in the forecast. That’s not good because we have 3 scheduled baseball games. The rain has brought one noticeable change to us up here on the hill though. There are flowers and buds on a good many of the trees.

There was nothing particularly special about the school week for Colleen and me. With me staying after school for practices and games, and then having to stay up even later at home to get schoolwork done, the long days made getting up at 4:30 in the morning a good bit more challenging. For the most part, Colleen and I pushed our way through the week without problems. I’m not sure if it was the gray skies or what, but the kids did okay. I had my usual slew of meetings that seemed to eat into my work time so I’m stuck with a bunch of grading that needs to be done today. Colleen is proving once again to be the stalwart of keeping things going in my absence up here on the hill.

There wasn’t a whole lot of sunshine on Monday and Tuesday, but the ball team did manage to get a couple of days of practice under their belt. Colleen made her usual stop at the laundromat on her way home Monday. Wednesday’s rain made our field unplayable, but our game was away and the other school had their field in playable condition so we got to play our first game of the season which we lost. Our Thursday home game got postponed and Friday’s practice got canceled. Both Colleen and I were too tired once we got home on Friday to even consider going out for dinner. We didn’t even have the energy to go pickup takeout pizza. We were sure glad there are almost always plenty of leftovers in the refrigerator.

Okay, so how tired were we? Colleen had this really great idea for changing up her usual chicken pot pie on Monday night for dinner. She was going to top the pie with mashed potatoes and then lightly brown the top of the potatoes in the oven broiler. While I was at baseball practice Colleen went about making all of the fixings for the pie. Then she put the pies together, cooked the pies, and topped them off with the potatoes. Things didn’t turn out quite the way she had hoped. The potatoes didn’t brown that much and they even got a little soupy with pie filling underneath them. I came home to a couple of chicken pot pies on the top of the stove, looking very interesting to say the least. Colleen and I sat down to eat dinner and the pies were very tasty. After a few bites I asked Colleen if she had gone a little light on the chicken. Her eyes got as big as moons as she had this look of total surprise on her face. The chicken was still in the refrigerator. She had forgotten to add it to the pot pie. We both had a good laugh as we finished our veggie pot pie.

Fortunately, Colleen and I both got a good night’s sleep on Friday night. We had a lot of catch up work that needed doing on Saturday. Like always, Colleen and I needed to get our weekly market run out of the way. Payday was Thursday and our run was going to be a large one of necessity. We got an early jump on things and we were home before noon. Once everything was brought into the house Colleen started putting everything away and getting her kitchen put back in order. After a quick lunch, Alex and I took off to Lowe’s to get the supplies I needed to get a second 10 foot long raised bed garden frame built. The last one had taken me all day to build by myself, but yesterday Alex was home so I figured between the two of us we could get it done in the afternoon. Alex proved to be a huge help because not only did we get it built, but we got it set and mostly leveled inside the fenced off area with the first one I built.

Colleen spent the first part of her afternoon experimenting in the kitchen. She tried to put together a glorified “Hot Pocket” with cabbage, onion and sausage. They did not turn out quite as she had hoped and even though we enjoyed them later for dinner, the recipe got deemed not good enough to earn a spot in her cookbook. In the “For What It’s Worth” column, Alex who could live on “Hot Pockets” liked them. Towards the end of the afternoon Colleen found her way outside to do a little gardening. She had thought about cleaning up her lily garden, but opted instead to work in the garden by the mailbox. After cleaning everything out, getting rid of the weeds, and trimming back the azaleas, Colleen decided that the garden would be perfect in which to plant garlic. It’s not like we’ve ever grown garlic before, but nothing ventured nothing gained so we now have a garden dedicated to a few flowers, a couple of small bushes, and a whole lot of garlic.

Daylight was waning fast when Colleen and I finished up outside. We came back into the house, cleaned up, and had dinner. The week and our busy Saturday had taken its toll on us and we were both exhausted. It didn’t take us long to figure out it was going to be an early evening. Our bedroom lights were out by 8:30, but I don’t know how long Alex stayed up. He did leave a pile of dirty dishes in the sink so I guess he stayed up for a while watching TV or playing video games. I’m sure he’ll sleep late this morning though. Fortunately, Colleen and I got another good night’s rest and woke up feeling pretty good this morning.

It’s a gray morning and the rain is supposedly on its way. Colleen has been cooking all morning. I’ve been trying to get organized so we can make sure things that need to be done this week get done. There’s supposed to be a cold snap to go with this week’s rain so I need to make sure we have the gardens covered. Our peas and radishes have already sprouted. I have a good bit of schoolwork to get done this afternoon. After a tiring week and a busy Saturday, everything is calm and seems to be in order this morning, so despite the weather it sure looks like we are in for a good day up on our hill. I’m not real sure what the week in front of us will bring, but Colleen and I will handle things one day at a time. One thing is for sure though, tomorrow will bring a new day with new adventures and right now up here on our hill, all is right on the homestead.

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March 10, 2019: Mother Nature Turned Down The Thermostat!

They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Sure enough, March had her claws out when she rolled in town for her first full week of the month. Mother Nature made sure we didn’t forget we were in the last few weeks of winter when she drove the nighttime temperatures down into the 20’s and barely let the daytime highs scratch the 40 degree mark. The threat of rain didn’t show up until Friday afternoon and even then we didn’t get very much. The only real rain we got started Saturday evening around sunset and it was gone by sunrise this morning. I’m feeling pretty optimistic about the upcoming week. The temperatures look as though they will warm up nicely, maybe even getting close to 70 on a couple of the days, the nighttime lows look to stay above the freezing mark, and while there are lots of clouds in the forecast, there isn’t a mention of rain until Friday. I’d have to say that’s not too bad for the last full week of winter.

School was just crazy last week. The kids weren’t too bad, but they were pulled from class left and right all week for registration. We had meetings scheduled Monday, Tuesday, and Friday which was an early release day. The administration decided to flip flop the bell schedule on Tuesday so they could have a last minute pep rally for the boys and girls basketball teams, both of whom were on a run in the state playoffs. Both teams lost badly Tuesday night. Wednesday there was a severe weather drill and Friday we had a lock down drill. Since I had either practices or games scheduled all week after school, Colleen ended up making two trips to the laundromat. My practices got curtailed on Monday and Tuesday because of field conditions. We played Wednesday’s game, but Friday’s game got postponed because of the threat of rain on the radar. Ironically, the rain never came.

Since practice was short Monday, I got home early enough to cover our peas and radishes to protect them from the sub freezing temperatures headed our way. We kept them covered until Thursday afternoon when the threat of our sprouts freezing had passed. Everything in the garden looked just fine when I finally did pull the covering off of them. Colleen put a fire in the fireplace on Tuesday and Wednesday night to chase the chill out of the house. It’s not usual for us to have a fire during the middle of the week, but the house was not warming up during the day. Wednesday night I had a baseball game with a 6 o’clock start time. It was a cold night out on the field and by the time we finished the temperatures were right around freezing. Fortunately, we won, but I didn’t get home until after 10 o’clock and didn’t get into bed until midnight. Four hours of sleep made for a long Thursday.

Friday was an early release day so the kids got to go home at noon. Colleen had enough comp time to leave right after the kids. There were three hours of meetings scheduled for teachers, but I got out of having to go because we had a baseball game scheduled. As luck would have it, the radar showed a good bit of rain headed our way so at the last minute the other school canceled the game. The rain broke and we could have played the game, but at the time the game got called the possibility of playing was iffy at best. I had already missed more than half of the meeting at school so I just headed home early. I’m not sure if I will have to make up the meeting or not, but I am hopeful I won’t. I’m not sure I would have gotten anything from the meeting anyway.

Colleen was surprised when I walked into the house early Friday afternoon. With St. Patrick’s Day only a week away, Colleen had come home and gone on a cleaning binge. She is planning a gathering of the clan for a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner next Saturday. I still had plenty of afternoon daylight left so I got changed into my coveralls and work boots and headed out to work on our gardens. I finished leveling the second 10 foot raised bed garden frame, getting it ready to fill with dirt. Once that was done I side dressed the peas and radishes with fireplace ash and put some chicken wire on the trellis frames for the peas. The ash will help add alkalinity to the soil and supposed help keep aphids away. The peas are only a couple of inches tall, but with things warming up they should really start growing and now they have something on which to grab as they grow. Alex got off of work early on Friday too. He spent his late afternoon replacing the front driver’s side wheel bearing on his Explorer. The boy is getting to be quite the do it yourself auto mechanic.

Yesterday was a busy day for everyone up here on the hill. Alex was up early and out the door to finish working on the ball joints on the front end of his Explorer. Colleen picked up on her cleaning right where she left off on Friday night and then headed into the kitchen to start baking. I headed outside to fill the second 10 foot raised bed with dirt and to keep out of Colleen’s way. All of us stayed busy all day. Alex got the bottom set of ball joints installed, but had trouble with the top set. He’ll be heading back to Steven’s place to finish the job today. Colleen finished her cleaning and ended up making corn muffins and cinnamon Danish. I was fortunate because the forecasted rains held off until after sunset. I had just enough time to run all of the dirt for the garden through a half-inch hard wire screen, fill the bed, and even transplant five small Swiss chard plants that had survived our winter. I have my fingers crossed the warmer spring weather will encourage them to grow.

Alex said he wouldn’t be home for dinner and Louis called to say he would be coming by the house after dinner so Colleen made some French fries and a couple of hamburgers for our dinner. Both boys showed up right about when we were sitting down for dinner. Neither of them was hungry though. Louis got nominated to compete for soldier of the year so he wanted Colleen to iron his dress blues to make sure there weren’t any wrinkles and his creases were sharp. I think everything starts on Monday for Louis. Once Colleen had Louis’s dress blues looking A-1, Louis and Alex took off to spend some time together at a friend’s place. It was good to see the boys who were inseparable in their youth running together again if only for the night. After the boys left, Colleen and I set the clocks ahead an hour and went to bed.

Colleen and I were up before the sun this morning. I was pleasantly surprised to see the forecasted rain was taken out of the forecast for today. The best Mother Nature could muster this morning was a good fog. Colleen let me know that she wanted to get our market run done first thing this morning so after our coffee we headed out. Fortunately, she only had a short list of things so we were in and out of the store and home in no time flat. Colleen will spend the rest of the day cooking and baking. I have a bunch of schoolwork that needs to get done. I think I will sneak out to the garden though and get some beets planted at some point too. We’re gearing up for another busy week. I’m not sure what school will throw at us, but I do have three baseball games scheduled. Colleen has her eye set in next weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day clan gathering. One thing for sure though is we’ll be doing our best to keep things above the water line and then we’ll try to play catch up again next weekend. Things keep rolling along up here on our little hill. We’re still waiting on the arrival of our new grand baby too. Life is good and couldn’t be better. It’s really is a great feeling to look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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March 17, 2019: Oh Boy! Spring Is Coming!

This is the last weekend of winter and our season of cold temperatures, snow, and ice is all but finished. Spring starts this Wednesday and even though last week was the last full week of winter it felt like spring had already started. For the most part, the days were sunny and pleasant with daytime highs reaching the 60’s or 70’s. The rains held off until late Friday afternoon. Friday’s rain had a cold bite to it, seemingly just to remind us it was still winter. The cold front behind the rain cooled everything off for the weekend, but there was plenty of sunshine making it a near picture perfect pre-spring weekend. This morning the temperatures just barely dropped below 40 degrees, but I’m sure the sun will take the chill out of the air by lunchtime. The fact that we had so little rain this week may even be a sign that the incredibly rainy fall and winter we had may be giving way to dryer times.

School was just school last week. There were the usual over abundance of meetings. Fortunately, baseball games pulled me out of most of them. We played three games last week, winning two and losing one. All three games kept me from coming home until late in the evenings. A couple of nights I only managed to get 4 or 5 hours of sleep which made getting up in the mornings tough. Colleen and I did it though, and got to school right on time all week. We have three games again this week, but at least we have one of those on Friday evening.

The big news of the week arrived Monday after lunch. Anna Maria gave birth to our first granddaughter. I found out via text message while I was at a baseball game. Lillian Gabriella, Lily, checked in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces, was 20 inches long and came with a full head of hair. The delivery went well except Anna Maria was in labor for a very long time. All’s well that ends well though, and except for Anna Maria needing to catch up on some rest, everyone is doing just fine. Fortunately, Steven and Anna Maria live close enough to us to afford me plenty of time to spoil the little darling as she grows up. I even already picked a fishing pole out for Lily. Colleen and I are really looking forward to our gig as grandparents.

Tuesday through Thursday were pretty typical days for us. We’d get to school before the crack of dawn. Colleen would head home after the last bell of the day and I would head down to the ball field after school. Wednesday’s game started at 4:30 in the afternoon and while I got home late, it wasn’t as late as Thursday when our game started at 6 PM. Colleen would spend her afternoons walking around the yard with Buttercup. The warm temperatures proved to be just what our gardens needed and everything is growing nicely. Colleen’s lily garden has a particularly nice display of color with four different color hyacinths all blooming.

Steven and Anna brought Lily home from the hospital late Thursday afternoon. Colleen got in touch with Steven and wanted to know if she could run by their favorite Mexican restaurant and pick them up some take out for dinner. The kids who were rather worn out jumped at the idea. So once everyone was settled at home, Colleen picked up dinner and headed over to Steven and Anna Maria’s place. This was the first time Colleen or I got to see Lily. Colleen visited for a few minutes, but when Lily started getting a little bit fussy, Colleen took her cue and headed home to wait for me to get back from my baseball game.

Thankfully, Friday was a slow day at school. I had already decided I was going to miss practice so Colleen and I rode together for the day. Colleen’s kid went home early so Colleen and I slipped out of school early and beat the bus traffic. By the time Colleen and I got home, a cold rain was falling. Fortunately, we were both so tired that a dinner of leftovers worked out just perfectly for us. After dinner Colleen baked some Irish Soda bread and I went to bed. After the long week I had had, my batteries needed to be recharged desperately.

Yesterday started off easily enough. I slept until just about sunrise, it’s not often I sleep for 12 hours, Friday night I sure did. Once Colleen finished her morning coffee she started in the kitchen in preparation of our St. Patrick’s Day feast, corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and Irish Soda Bread. All of the kids were invited like usual. Unfortunately, James and Donna had to cancel and Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily didn’t make it. Colleen and I figured it was a 50-50 chance on Steven and Anna Maria showing up. Steven and Anna Maria have a lot of life adjustments to which they must adapt now that Lily is there. Al and Alysia showed up right before 1 o’clock and Colleen had everything on the table shortly thereafter. Dinner was a rather raucous affair with smiles, story telling, and lots of laughter as it should be.

The whole afternoon lasted a little more than three hours. Al and Alysia had to leave at 4 o’clock, and while James, Donna, Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily were most certainly missed, everyone that was there had a marvelous time and ate well. The evening was quiet. I changed out the line on my fishing poles, Louis and Alex camped out in front of the TV, and after washing and putting away Nana’s China, Colleen even made a batch of corn muffins. I would have gladly helped Colleen with the dishes except Nana’s china is one of Colleen’s most revered possessions and she doesn’t want anyone else handling it for fear of accidental breakage.

Colleen and I will spend today playing catch up. The first thing we will do this morning is our weekly market run. After that I’m not exactly sure what will come down the road. No doubt Colleen will spend a good bit of her day in the kitchen. I have another million things that need doing, not the least of which is the schoolwork I need to get ready for the upcoming week. I can already tell I’m going to have a tough time finding my motivation. All the same, the work will get done as Colleen and I take one step at a time. It can be tricky at times juggling a homestead and a full time job, but we always find a way to get the needed things done. One thing is for sure and that is there is never a dull moment up here on our little hill, but in the end nothing is more rewarding than looking around at the end of a busy day and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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March 24, 2019: It Was A Great Week To Start Spring Off!

Spring has arrived and with it a seemingly new weather pattern. For the first time in quite a while, that I can remember at least anyway, there was more sunshine than rain last week. The temperatures were still unsettled ranging from lows right around the freezing mark up to highs in the 70’s. We got just enough rain to keep the gardens wet and plenty of sunshine to help everything grow. There have been fewer geese around, implying many of them have already started heading north for the summer. The Bradford Pear trees have all blossomed and their flowers are starting to fade. The yellow forsythia flowers and reddish purple flowers on the Redbud tress won’t be around much longer. The crocuses and daffodils are gradually being replaced by blooming hyacinths. The Dogwoods and our Moon Glow Pear tree are all getting ready to flower and most every other tree, at least, have their buds getting ready to explode into leaves. Heck, the fish may even have started biting, not that I would know right now though.

The spring semester has reached the halfway mark. Colleen and I will head back into school tomorrow for the beginning of midterm week. This coming Friday is even a required teacher workday. All of the teachers are required to report to school, but the kids have the day off. After that we have a two week run into our spring break. Spring break is later than usual this year and you can see it in the eyes of every teacher and student. We haven’t had a substantial break since Presidents Day and everyone is showing the signs of a long and tiring go of it. High school baseball season is in full swing too and that means a lot of especially late nights for me. The team is holding their own. We played 2 games last, week winning one and losing one and overall we are still a game over .500.

Daylight Saving Time is actually helping Colleen and me. More often than not, we are coming home exhausted especially later in the week, but the extra daylight is affording use just enough time to get those one or two extra things done so we don’t have to do them on the weekend. Last Sunday afternoon we put everything down so we could spend a couple of hours with Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily who had come for a visit. Of course, that meant some of Colleen’s weekly baking and some of my grading for school got put off to another time. It was a wonderful visit and Lily is just incredibly precious. After the kids left, Colleen and I did what we could with the time we had. It was enough to get us through Monday and we were very happy with that.

Colleen made her usual stop at the laundromat on Monday after school. I had my usual meeting after school and then went to baseball practice. By the time I got home Colleen had a big pot of chili simmering on the stove and she had baked some blueberry muffins and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. What’s even more amazing about my wife was she managed to get all of that done in between running up and down to the basement to dry the laundry. After dinner I was able to find the time for a cigar in the back porch and get some schoolwork done before bed. At least, it wasn’t a crazy day at school.

Tuesday I had a baseball game right after school. We lost that one, badly. Colleen took advantage of a quiet afternoon to relax. There was a mix up on Wednesday’s game so it got postponed. Rain on Wednesday night made the field unplayable on Thursday so I came home early on both days. There was still a good bit of the afternoon left when I got home on Wednesday so I planted potatoes in the second raised bed at the base of the back porch. There was rain in the forecast for Wednesday night and I wanted to get the potatoes in the ground before the rains came. Colleen stopped at the laundromat again on Thursday and was home drying the clothes by the time I got home. I was fortunate to get home early on Wednesday and Thursday because that little bit of extra rest helped on Friday which was one of those very long days with a late start baseball games. We won that game, but I didn’t get home until after 10 o’clock. Colleen spent Friday afternoon cleaning out the garden with her Solomon Seal in it. I’m glad it’s a small raised bed garden because the Solomon Seal propagate like crazy. At least in the raised bed they are contained.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and Colleen and I hit the ground running and kept going all day long. Colleen got out into her gardens right after she finished her morning coffee. I was out there a few minutes after her, taking down the last of the Christmas decorations. Yea, there were still lights and garland on the house and porch. I spent most of the morning climbing up and down a ladder or climbing around on the porch rail, but everything came down. All the while I was climbing around like a monkey, Colleen kept cleaning the leaves out of her gardens. It’s not that any individual garden is particularly big, but she does have a lot of them. I eventually finished with the lights and garland so I could get to work around the yard. Colleen was really piling up the leaves and it occurred to me that the leaves were already halfway to being good brown compost. I started scooping up the leaves and putting them on the ground around our new raised bed gardens figuring it would keep the weeds down while turning into compost. This, by the way, is the premise of my argument for getting a chipper-shreader for around the house.

After lunch Colleen and I took a quick trip to the Lowe’s garden center. We needed some more garden soil to take care of the settling that occurred over the winter, but then again, Colleen will never pass up a chance to look at flowers and the garden center was stocked this weekend. Between the plants we bought and the extra dirt we bought, Colleen and I came home with the truck bed loaded down. I even got a couple of trays of Swiss chard to go in our raised bed garden. My starting plants from seeds indoors is not going as well as I had hoped. Once we got home Colleen started putting extra dirt in her gardens while I planted the Swiss chard in one of our raised bed gardens.

As the afternoon waned Colleen finally found some time to start planting her new flowers. I, having finished with the chard, turned my attention to our asparagus garden, cleaning out all of the winter debris. The garden is three years old now so with any luck we might be able to harvest some asparagus this year. There certainly are a lot of shoots pushing up through the ground. With the shadows growing longer, Colleen and I figured our best option for dinner was pizza, so around 5 o’clock we jumped in the truck to get dinner. After dinner we found just enough time to get outside and clean up some, but we still have a long way to go. I finally got to sit down on the back porch just before sunset to relax and celebrate the day with a cigar. I think it’s safe to say, it is most definitely spring up here on our hill.

The sun is out again this morning and there is a pleasant breeze blowing. Colleen is already busy in the kitchen baking for the week. I would love to sit out in the back porch and enjoy this beautiful day, but I have schoolwork that must be done. Oh, there are still a million things that need doing around here, but everything in its own good time, be it the chicken pen, the firewood, minor repairs, or our gardens. Our mantra is one thing at a time. There’s just no point in worrying about what still needs to be done when we can celebrate everything we’ve already accomplished. Things will never be boring up here on our little hill. Our life is a simple one for which Colleen and I are very thankful. We may be exhausted at the end of any given day, but all we have to do is look around and we know that all is right in the homestead.

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March 31, 2019: Finally, More Sun Than Rain!

It sure looks like 2019 has started out at a full gallop. Here we are at the last day of March already and spring is just a week and a few days old. It was a beautiful week though even if Mother Nature was a bit neurotic about the temperatures, letting them swing from just above freezing to the mid 70’s. We had a little bit of rain on Monday night, but there was plenty of sunshine to make up for it during the rest of the week. There was so much sunshine that by Thursday Colleen and I were watering our gardens so they wouldn’t dry out. The sun chased some early morning clouds away yesterday and left us with a bright and sunny Saturday. Today the skies are gray and we’re supposed to get a little light rain. We really couldn’t have asked for a nicer early spring week.

The kids only had a 4-day school week, but teachers had to report to school on Friday for a teacher’s work day. It was midterm week too. Apart from me trying to drag any make up work out of the kids that were deficient, there really wasn’t a whole lot to the week. Colleen took care of the laundry on Monday after school. I had three late baseball games that didn’t get me home until after 10 PM on Tuesday and Thursday. I got home a little earlier on Friday night. Getting up to go to school on less than 6 hours of sleep is rough. Doing it twice in one week is a killer. Needless to say, I didn’t get much done around the house during the week. We have three games again this week, but fortunately only one of them is a late night middle of the week game, but that one comes with a long drive home after the game.

Since Colleen is a teacher’s assistant, she did not have to go into school on Friday. Colleen still got up, made sure I had a proper lunch to get me through the day, filled my travel mug, gave me a goodbye kiss, and waved as I pulled out of the driveway. Colleen had made her mind up that she was going to get a jump on our weekend after I left for school. Boy, oh boy, did Colleen ever get a start in the weekend. Not too long after I left for school, it was off to the market for Colleen. She had the market run done and all of the groceries put up before noon. She decided at that point, because the weather had been so nice, it was time to start moving all of the indoor potted plants and the potted plants that had overwintered on the second floor porch on to my back porch. It’s just the start to her back porch garden although some of the plants will need to come back inside in on the colder nights, but it is a sure sign that it is spring in Central North Carolina.

I came home early on Friday. I had a ballgame that evening and I wanted to get some rest before the game. It was our third night game of the week. While I was upstairs taking a nap Colleen was still tackling things on our “To-Do” list. When I woke up from my nap and came downstairs, Colleen was just finishing up paying our bills. Friday happened to be payday too. Colleen fixed me a quick, early dinner of leftovers, I suited up for the game, and with a kiss from my darling wife I was off again. Fortunately, it was a quick game and I was home by 9:30. Like after every other game, once I got home, I entered our stats into the state database and then I went to bed and slept quite soundly until after sunrise yesterday.

Colleen and I hit the ground running yesterday morning, well after our coffee that is. It was a quick trip to Lowe’s garden center to get a new wheelbarrow, netting, fencing, t-posts, and, of course, more flowers. Colleen is bent and determined to keep the deer out of her lily garden this year so we enclosed the garden with a few t-post and some netting. There are actually flowers in the lily garden we have never seen bloom because the deer get to them first. We’ve already discovered we have lovely lavender tulips in the garden. Colleen knows there are some large, late season lilies in the garden too, but alas those have fallen victim to the deer every year since Colleen planted them. This year Colleen is very excited to finally have a chance to see her flowers. I think if the deer get to her lilies this year Colleen may consent to me harvesting a deer or two from the backyard.

The lily garden was just the start of our yard work yesterday. While Colleen was working in her other gardens I got to set the fence posts for the pen around the chicken coop. I finally gave up on wanting put chain link up because I never had dry enough weather or enough time to set the post for the chain link in concrete. Plan B is just t-post, wire fencing, and netting over the top of everything. With any luck, we can have everything done and birds in the coop by Easter. You just have to love Plan B when you really want to get something done.

I would have run the fence yesterday, but Colleen needed some help with the garden work she was doing. There was a section of the terracing where she wanted to plant more phlox so I had to take the pickaxe to the clay so she could put down some garden soil for the plants. She also wanted to raise the wall height on another garden so I needed to haul a bunch of cinder blocks up from the back of the house. Once the wall got built up we put another six cubic feet of garden soil in the garden and Colleen was back to planting flowers. Even though I was done with working in the yard at that point, my darling wife kept going and ended up by cleaning off a whole section of the front yard.

The afternoon was winding down so a little after 4 o’clock I decided I needed a little river therapy. I loaded my fishing gear into my truck and headed out to get in a couple of hours of fishing. It was the perfect afternoon to be fishing. It was sunny and warm, the bugs weren’t out yet, and the fish were biting. After two hours on the river bank I had a stringer of six nice catfish. I stopped at Steven and Anna Maria’s place on the way home for a quick visit and got home right at dark. Colleen had dinner waiting when I got home. After dinner Colleen headed upstairs, I cleaned and filleted the catfish, and then sat outside in the back porch to enjoy the evening with a cigar. By the time I finished my cigar and headed upstairs Colleen had already turned the lights out and was fast asleep.

The skies are kind of gray this morning. There is a little blue here and there, but it’s mostly clouds with the occasional rain shower so far. Colleen and I need to make a Costco run this morning and then it’s our usual Sunday routine, Colleen baking and me working on school stuff. Our spring break is still a few weeks off and I am in the heart of baseball season so our weekdays are focused on just keeping our heads above water and we make the most out of our weekends. We are holding our own so far so that is a good thing. We are moving forward slowly but surely and that is a good thing. As long as we stay focused on the day at hand, we will keep our sanity through it all. Of course, days like yesterday give us great reason to celebrate and we are very thankful that our life is good and all is right on the homestead.

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April 07, 2019: And Just Like That, One Week In April Is Gone

That’s a wrap on the first week of April and it was a pretty typical first week of April for around here, a little rain, a fair amount of sunshine, and even a little early morning frost on the windshields one morning. The potted porch plants came back into the house for the first part of the week when the nighttime temperatures dropped into the 30’s. They were back outside on Wednesday afternoon when things started warming up again. We only played 2 of our 3 scheduled baseball games thanks to the rain, but our gardens didn’t mind the rain at all. Friday’s rain was steady for most of the day and finally ended sometime during the night. Saturday morning was gray and damp with a fog hanging in the tree tops, but the sun chased the clouds from sky by noon and the rest of the day was sunny and bright. The clouds are back this morning and there is a thick blanket of fog over everything. I do not think we will be as fortunate as yesterday with the sunshine.

It was a strange week at school. The administration was on edge because it was time for our school’s five year accreditation review, the kids were more distracted than usual with spring break fast approaching, and the teachers are on the verge of exhaustion not having had a break in a while. The rain postponed Tuesday’s baseball game until Wednesday and then it got us again on Friday. I’m not exactly sure when we will make up that game. The biggest challenge for me all week was staying awake at school. All of the sleep I am losing to late baseball games is starting to catch up with me. The long days and limited sleep are wearing on Colleen too. With spring break being a couple of weeks later than usual this year, there just hasn’t been enough time to get caught up on our rest. The upcoming week will take us into our spring break and it should prove to be a rather interesting week, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Colleen has been shouldering the brunt of the work load around here lately. Last Sunday she spent all afternoon in the kitchen baking and cooking for the week. During the week she made two runs to the laundromat, one for our regular laundry on Monday and one for bed and bath linens on Wednesday. On Wednesday she even found time to replant one of her phlox gardens which the deer tore up. The fencing we put up around her lily garden last weekend seems to be doing the trick because there are still flowers in the garden. Of course that’s just the extra stuff she does. She hasn’t missed a beat making sure we’ve been getting fed by packing lunches for school every day and making sure that there is dinner no matter how late I get home. And yes, on those late nights I don’t get home until 10 or 10:30 because of baseball, Colleen stays up waiting for me to get home safely.

Friday’s weather may have very well been a gift for Colleen and me. I got word that the rain had postponed Friday night’s baseball game so Colleen and I both got to come home early. Once we were home neither of us felt much like leaving the house so Colleen made some Mom and Pop burritos for dinner instead of us going out to pick up pizza. The rain precluded me from doing any work outside so I sat down in front of the computer and got our taxes done for this year. Like every year, we ended up having to pay the government more than we already have taken out of our paychecks. It aggravates Colleen to no end, but I actually prefer it that way. I’d much rather have an interest free, 90-day loan from the government as opposed to letting them us my money interest free for 90 days. After dinner everyone was wiped out and we all called it an early night.

Yesterday morning showed up with a renewed enthusiasm that always comes with the weekend. The morning started off just fine and I even got to enjoy a second cup of coffee. Colleen and I needed to get our weekly market run out of way so about mid morning we headed out. Alex had borrowed my truck to go to work so we took Colleen’s car. It wasn’t a terribly large market run and we got home a little after noon. Anticipating going fishing today, I even got some worms yesterday, night crawlers for fishing and red wrigglers for Colleen’s compost bin, fair is fair. Colleen decided to get Lily some new outfits while we were shopping yesterday too. Colleen and I didn’t have any trouble getting everything into the house and once we finished, we sat down for a bite of lunch. After lunch I was getting ready to get some work done outside and that’s when the exhaustion of the week caught up with me. I was fighting to keep my eyes open so I just had to head upstairs to take a nap.

Thankfully Colleen had a more energy than I did yesterday afternoon. Apart from putting the groceries away and getting everything in order in her kitchen, Colleen added to our variety of homemade extracts and made some orange extract. It will be 6 or so weeks before we find out how the orange extract turned out, but Colleen is very excited about the prospect of using it in some of her cookie recipes, muffin recipes, and her gingerbread recipe. Actually, it’s Martha Washington’s gingerbread recipe, but Colleen does Martha proud every time Colleen makes it for us.

I didn’t waste my whole afternoon in bed. After I got up and cleared the cobwebs in my brain, Colleen and I headed out to the chicken coop to put up the fencing. It’s not exactly what I had originally hoped to do for fencing, but I’m hoping it will work. I still need to put up the gate and the netting on top of everything. The project is #1 with a bullet on my “To-Do” list and Colleen and I are very excited at the prospect of having chickens by the end of spring break. We figure four to six birds will be more than enough to keep us in fresh eggs once the girls start doing their thing. Right now though, it’s just a matter of keeping my fingers crossed and hoping Mother Nature cooperates for the next few weeks so I can finish all of the minor details needed on the coop.

I decided yesterday I needed to get some fishing done today. Colleen agreed, telling me I needed to relax with the week I had coming up. Once Alex wakes up this morning the two of us will head down to the river for a few hours. Colleen will spend a good part of her day in the kitchen cooking and baking for the week ahead of us. This evening I will grill dinner for everyone to help pick up a little of Colleen’s work load. We are tired these days, but spring break starts this coming Friday. Colleen and I have our long “To-Do” list to keep us busy over spring break, but we will find time to rest. After spring break, it’s a 5 week run to Memorial Day and then a hop, skip, and jump to our summer break. We keep moving forward though and our life is good up here on our little hill. Things always seem to work out for us and that’s just how things should be because all is right on the homestead.

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April 14, 2019: We’ve Made It To Spring Break!

At times I didn’t think we were going to make it through last week, but we did. Colleen and I started our spring break Friday after school and it sure seemed like the week wanted to exact its toll from us. Mother Nature went on a neurotic tear throwing thunderstorms, flooding, and 80 degree temperatures at us. I originally had 5 baseball games scheduled, three of them got directly or indirectly rained out. The rain at the beginning of the week, got Monday and Tuesday’s games. The rain and flash flooding on Friday and Saturday wiped out our scheduled Saturday’s makeup game. The games we played on Wednesday and Thursday both ended late and I got less than 8 hours of sleep combined on those two nights. Of course, the kids at school were wound up all week in anticipation of their pending spring break. The teachers, including Colleen and me, were teetering on the brink of exhaustion. By the time the last bell of the day rang on Friday, the mass exodus from school looked like the Israelites leaving Egypt.

Monday started out by reminding me it was Monday. It really wasn’t anything major, just the small annoying stuff. I had to turn around 10 minutes into my trip to school and head back home. I forgot my teeth on the counter top. For 2 seconds I considered not turning back, but I figured it would be too traumatic for the kids. I still managed to get to school on time, but a half hour later than usual. I was in hustle mode once I got there too. Colleen stopped at the laundromat on her way home as usual. I stayed after school because we were supposed to have a 7 o’clock ballgame. Around 5 o’clock and 4 innings into the JV game, the skies opened up and everything got washed out. At least I got home early. The field was still unplayable on Tuesday so that game got postponed too.

We had to leave Alex’s Explorer at the garage on Sunday evening. He never did quite finish with the ball joints, and the work that needed to be done required more ability than Alex has at this point. We had to leave the Explorer there Monday night too and Alex wasn’t happy about that. He was even less happy when he saw the bill on Tuesday. He was happy to see the Explorer sitting in the drive Tuesday evening though. It’s a good thing Mom and Dad are around to help out on occasion. It’s really no big deal because the boy is very good about paying us back for stuff like that.

We canceled our original Wednesday night baseball game and played Monday’s rain out make up instead. It’s a conference thing and Monday’s makeup game took precedence. Colleen decided she needed to make an extra stop at the laundromat on the way home that afternoon. I got home late as expected and ended up only getting about 4 hours of sleep.

Thursday ended up being much the same as Wednesday had been for me, school, schoolwork after school, and then a late ballgame. Colleen fortunately, took the afternoon to rest. She even found time to experiment in the kitchen and made a chicken lasagna with white cheese sauce. I didn’t get home until after 10:30 and as usual Colleen was waiting up for me. I brought my stuff into the house and Colleen had a plate of her white lasagna waiting on the table for me. Satisfied I had made it home safely and was set for the night, Colleen have me a kiss and headed upstairs to bed. I took care of all of my odds and ends and didn’t end up getting to bed until after midnight.

Friday was a tough day. I didn’t want to get out of bed, but did. Since I knew the rain would wash out practice Colleen and I rode together in my truck to school. The day was arduously slow as everyone watched the clock waiting for the last bell of the day. Colleen and I drove home in a steady rain and even our ride seemed longer than usual. There was no doubt about it, the week had thoroughly worn us out. Rather than deal with getting takeout pizza for dinner we elected to head to the Cracker Barrel for their Friday fish fry. It was an early dinner for us and we were home by 5:30. Within an hour of getting home both Colleen and I were in bed.

Saturday morning started off slow like the first day of any good vacation should. The rain was falling fairly steadily and rain was in the forecast for most of the day. There was little chance that Colleen and I would be working outside anytime before late afternoon so we decided to get our weekly market run out of the way and stop at Tractor Supply as well. It wasn’t raining terribly hard when we left, but by the time we reached Tractor Supply the skies had opened up and the rain was torrential. Colleen and I poked around the store for a while. I bought myself another pair of overalls for a birthday present. My 60th birthday is today. We almost came home with half a dozen chicks too, but Colleen wasn’t having any of that quite yet. I tried my best to convince my darling wife otherwise, but she was steadfast on no chickens until our coop and pen were 100 percent finished. She was probably right anyway, but I bet you can guess what got moved to the top off my “To-Do” list and with an exclamation point. It was still pouring when we left for Walmart and the national Weather Service had even issued flood warnings by then.

Surprisingly, for the middle of a Saturday morning, Walmart was pretty empty. We got our shopping done, checked out, and headed home. The rain had let up a bit by the time we got home so we didn’t get too wet bringing everything into the house. Colleen and I ate a little lunch while the rains kept coming. The fire pit had filled up into a small lake earlier in the morning and there was a small river running down the property line on the east. There wasn’t much we could do about the rain so Colleen put the groceries away and headed upstairs to take a nap. I headed out to the front porch with a cigar. The rain was still blowing in on my usual spot on the back porch.

I guess it was 4 o’clock when the sun finally made a brief appearance. Colleen was still asleep and I had wanted to get into the gardens. I hadn’t realized how many radishes were ready to come out of the ground. I figured I harvested about half of what I planted. I thinned our Swiss chard too, cutting the smaller plants and leaving the more hearty growers alone. If what I harvested yesterday is any sign of how our gardens will do this year, we are in for one heck of a good year. I’d like to say it was something different that Colleen and I have done, but we don’t have a clue. The only thing that is different this year is the new raised bed gardens and their location. I think after I finish the chicken coop this week I may just add another raised bed garden or two.

The clouds are back this morning and there is more rain in the forecast. After yesterday’s rain, the river is too high to go fishing so I’m not real sure what I will do yet today. Colleen is almost in the same boat. Since we’re on spring break there is no urgency in baking or cooking for the upcoming week. We are hoping for a break in the rain though. Colleen and I would love to take a quick trip down to the flea market on the State Fair Grounds today. At this point it’s just a waiting game with Mother Nature. Whatever happens will happen and I guess we’ll do the best we can with the day we are given. We are both very much looking forward to spending our spring break quietly up here on our little hill. We won’t have to wake up to an alarm clock and we can focus our efforts and energies on all things homestead. Yes, indeed, it looks to be a great week especially since we know that all is right on the homestead.

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April 21, 2019: We’ve Had A Great Spring Break

It certainly has been a whirlwind spring break week for us, and it’s not quite over yet. Colleen and I still have Monday off before we head back to school on Tuesday. We got some rain late last Sunday afternoon and evening, but it cleared out by Monday morning. The sun came out and things really started to warm up for the week. We had temperatures in the low 80’s on Wednesday and Thursday which made for a couple of very wonderful spring days. Friday we had a line of strong storms with torrential rain, thunder, lightning, and hail sweep through area. The whole region was under a tornado watch and few of tornadoes even touched down. Fortunately, none of the tornadoes were close to us. Once the front passed through late Friday night, it left us with cooler, more spring like temperatures and some partially cloudy skies. All in all, it wasn’t bad weather for a week off from school. One thing for sure though, after this past week, I’m ready to be done with school and our start summer break.

Last Sunday Colleen and I took a trip to the flea market and then stopped at Lowe’s to get some materials so I could finish the chicken coop and pen. No trip to Lowe’s would be right without going to the garden center and when Colleen and I do that, you can count on plants and flowers being in the back of the truck with whatever else we needed to get. So it was on Sunday, and on Monday morning Colleen was out in the gardens doing her thing. Monday was also Tax Day so before I ever got outside to do anything, I made sure I checked our taxes over one more time and had everything ready to go so Colleen and I could mail everything later in the afternoon. Since we owed the government money, again this year, I was in no rush to get the taxes done and mailed until absolutely it was necessary. I worked a bit on the chicken coop during the afternoon and then Colleen and I got the last of the firewood off of the back porch before we called it a day.

Tuesday was cooking day. Colleen had decided we were going to have venison pot roast for dinner. While she was doing that and preparing a bunch of other things for future meals, I took about 25 pounds of pork shoulder down to the smoker. I fired up the smoker, chopped up a bunch of cherry wood for the smoke, and got the pork going so it would be done before dinner. With Colleen working in the kitchen, I stayed down back keeping an eye on the smoker and working on the chicken coop. By the time the pork was done in the smoker, I had gotten all of the doors in the coop installed, got the gate up on the pen, and Colleen had the venison pot roast ready for dinner. Dinner was fantastic and the venison was so tender you could cut it with a fork.

Wednesday was laundry and canning day. While Colleen ran to the laundromat, I finished moving all of this winter’s unused firewood to one rack, started cleaning up the winter ready area, and cleaned off the back porch. We ended up with just an extra quarter cord of wood from last winter. I’m thinking I’ll need to put a bit more on the piles for the coming winter. We know spring is finally here though when we get the fire wood out of the house, off of the back porch, and start getting ready to build next winter’s firewood pile. Shortly after lunch Colleen started pulling apart the pork and filling jars while I graded some school papers. For most of the later afternoon though, I babysat the pressure cooker on the back porch to make sure it held a steady pressure. We ended up with 4 quarts of canned smoked pork and a pot full of smoked pork in BBQ sauce that we had for dinner along with Colleen’s fresh radish salad for dinner.

I took Thursday off from working around the house and went fishing with a friend of mine and his boys. The fish weren’t too cooperative and we didn’t catch much, but everyone had fun. I’m not sure when the next time will be when I’ll be able to go fishing with my buddy, but we are already trying figure out when we can get together again. Colleen found time to get back out in the gardens and finished cleaning out the garden along the fence row on our western property boundary. I suppose we will need to get more flowers for that garden before too long. I had forgotten how being outside in the sun could wear someone out, but once dinner was done I knew I was whipped and it was an early night for me.

Friday was all about the weather and the line of storms that moved through the area. I was supposed to have a baseball game Friday evening, and since it was a two hour drive to get there my hands were kind of tied until I heard of the game was canceled. I finally got word a little before lunch that the game had been canceled, but by then the rain had really started to come down so I wasn’t going to do anything outside. Steven and Alex didn’t go to work because of the rain and Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily all came by for a short visit around lunch time. After the kids left, Colleen made a couple of quiches for dinner, taking advantage of the fresh Swiss chard from our garden. The quiche made for light tasty dinner on a Friday on which we didn’t do much.

The skies had cleared by yesterday morning and I got word early that we would be playing our scheduled doubleheader. I packed my gear and headed out at 11 o’clock. It was a 2-hour drive, and I got there without any problems and with enough time to have a peanut butter sandwich that Colleen had packed in a lunch for me. We won the 1st game and I had enough time between games to have a second sandwich. We lost the second pretty badly and pretty quickly. I ended up getting home just after 9:30. I was exhausted after 4 and a half hours of baseball and 4 hours of driving. As usual, Colleen was waiting up for me when I got home, but it wasn’t too long after that and we were both in bed.

Alex had to work yesterday. I guess the storms that had moved through on Friday had brought a lot of trees down. He might have even been working on clearing trees that tornadoes had taken down. With both Alex and me gone, Colleen had the house to herself. She spent her day cleaning and getting ready for our Easter gathering. Colleen was especially proud of the hot cross buns she had made and she made sure I tried one when I got home. It was a new recipe she was trying and the buns sure did turn out well. It’s not often Colleen nails a new recipe on the first try, but she sure did yesterday. There’s no doubt that this recipe will be added to Colleen’s bread cookbook.

The sun is shining this morning and it looks to be a wonderful day. Our dinner is set for 1 o’clock and we’re not quite sure exactly who will be here and when they will show up. One thing for sure is whoever shows up around 1 o’clock will have a place at the table. Colleen and I do not have school tomorrow so I suspect it will be a restful afternoon and evening once our guests leave. I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I can say that so far our spring break has been fantastic. We took things one day at a time and one step at a time and still the week has flown by us. I sure have an itch to get to summer break now. Still, Colleen and I will get through the last part of the school year. We’ll keep doing what we can on weekends because up here on our little hill we know that all is right on the homestead.

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April 28, 2019: An Interesting Twist Of Fate

It certainly has been an interesting week. Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, was a beautiful day and it stayed that way for most of the week. The temperatures even got up into the 80’s for a couple of days. A line of strong storms moved through the area on Friday bringing some strong wind gusts and some rain. The wind was strong enough to knock the tops of our peas over the top of their trellis, but that was the extent of any damage. We’ll have to wait and see how they fair now. The storm front also brought some cooler temperatures, but even though it got down to 45 degrees yesterday morning there was plenty of lovely sunshine and it is a warmer and mostly sunny morning again today. If the long range forecast is to be believed the upcoming week should be warm and sunny.

Last week was only a 4-day school week. Monday was a teacher workday so I used a day of leave to extend my spring break. As a teacher’s assistant, Colleen had the day off anyway. Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly fine. Tuesday night we played a late ballgame and lost. Wednesday afternoon is when things started getting squirrelly. Anyway to make a long story short, I took some time off from from school while while things get out. I don’t have a clue as to what will happen or when everything will be resolved, but whatever happens, happens and Colleen and I will move forward from there. Colleen’s week was pretty much routine for the most part. Thankfully, we are at the end of the school year so no matter what happens our summer break will be here soon. On a more positive note, the baseball team had games both Wednesday and Thursday night and won both of them. Their next stop will be the conference tournament on Monday.

Last Sunday Colleen called a gathering of the clan for an Easter feast. We had a big ham, some double stuffed baked potato casserole, glazed carrots, a chick pea, feta cheese, and greens salad, and some fresh baked hot cross buns. Everything turned out perfectly. James and Donna and Louis and Micayla joined Alex, Colleen, and me at the table. It seemed like old times with everyone chattering around the table with lots smiles and laughter. Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily came by for a visit later in the afternoon on their way to Anna Maria’s family’s Easter gathering. Unfortunately, Al and Alysia couldn’t make it and were the only ones around here that we didn’t get to see. I’m not sure when we will have our next gathering of the clan, but Colleen and I just loved having the kids that did show up back home.

Even though last Monday was the last day of our spring break, Colleen and I spent the day catching up and getting ready for school on Tuesday. I graded papers for most of the day and Colleen spent a good bit of the day in the kitchen. Colleen did find some time to get her collection of herbs and other potted plants out in the back porch to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather now that spring is really here in Central North Carolina. I think that Monday was the least hectic day we had for all of our spring break. Little did I know I would be getting even more time off from school starting on Thursday.

It sure felt weird Thursday morning when Colleen left for school with me staying behind. I’ve never been one to just sit around and do nothing, so right after my morning coffee I was up and at it. We have an herb garden at the bottom of the back porch stairs that needed cleaning so I took care of that in short order and then spent the rest of my day cleaning up the front yard. We hadn’t done much in the front yard since last summer save for putting in two new raised bed gardens so the yard definitely needed work. There was a just lot of stuff like chicken wire and trellis frames that we had used last year. Once everything was picked up I trimmed around everything with the weed whacker, raked up the leaves that were still lying around, and then burnt the pile of leaves I had collected. By the time Colleen got home from school I had the yard looking half decent.

The weather was iffy on Friday and it did eventually rain towards mid afternoon so I focused on sorting through all of the paper work I had brought home and just piled up on the dining room table. Before the rains came I was able to get outside to get some of the measurements I needed for a new raised bed garden frame I had been planning. I even found time to get working on the EBook of the first season of my Facebook stories from the summer of 2016. I Might even be able to publish it before too long. Colleen’s day at school was routine, for the most part, and got home just as the rain really started to fall. The highlight of our day was when there was a break in the rain and we got to harvest some Swiss chard from our garden and have it with dinner. Colleen sautéed the chard with garlic in olive oil and cooking wine and it made the perfect complement to our grilled pork chop dinner.

Yesterday started with our usual weekend coffee, but once that was done Colleen and I headed off to Lowe’s. I needed lumber and hardware to make another raised bed garden frame and Colleen insisted on getting more flowers for her gardens. We came home with a truck bed loaded down. After a quick bite of lunch, Colleen was elbow deep in dirt. Her flower gardens are really starting to look good and one in particular is really looking especially good. After a few hours everything was planted and I was cutting boards to build the frame. Getting all of the boards cut was as far as I got on the project, but it will be done, filled, and planted before next weekend. Yesterday was a fantastic day up here on the hill and Colleen and I even felt good enough to get our market run for the week out of the way after dinner.

All the stuff at school is still up in the air so I’ll be staying home again tomorrow morning. At least Buttercup doesn’t mind hanging out with me on the back porch while I’m at home. Later today I will get all my needed class work ready for my sub. Colleen will be in the kitchen a bit today. She’s already got a pot of pea soup simmering on the stove. I’m not really sure what else she plans on making. Alex and I will head over to a friend’s place later today to help clear away some small trees and brush. Despite the unsettled nature of things at school I couldn’t be more relaxed or feel more rested. I’m not in the least bit worried about what happens because, quite frankly, when one door closes, another one always opens. That’s how I got into teaching to start with 17 years ago. At this point in my life I’ve learned that the only thing that really matters is that everything up here on our hill is wonderful and all I have to do is look around to know that all is right on the homestead.

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May 05, 2019: An Unexpected Taste Of Summer Break

What a truly wonderful week it has been. Up until today we’ve had plenty of sunshine and warm temperatures. I think we’ve been in the 80’s every day this week. At night the temperatures have stayed above 60 degrees, making the nights perfect for sleeping, and I can honestly say for the first time in a very long while I feel rested and like a human being again. The rain moved in last night and there is the chance of more today and it looks like I still have even more time off this coming week while I sort things out. Sorry, that’s as specific as I can be. Since I was home and it was a beautiful week, I made sure to make the most of it. I stayed busy all week long without killing myself. You know, I could really get used to this.

Last Sunday afternoon was a little different than usual. After lunch Alex and I jumped in the truck and headed over to a friend’s house to help them cut down some small trees and clear some brush. The job only took us a couple of hours, but we did come home with a good stash of cedar wood. My friend didn’t want it and Colleen and I love the smell of cedar in the house around the holidays. It burns too fast and hot to really be good for heating the house, but there’s nothing better than the smell of little cedar burning with the rest of the wood in the fireplace on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Colleen spent the day baking, so when I got home I grilled steaks, potatoes, and corn on the cob for dinner. It was a great day and as it turned out, it was a precursor to the great week into which I was heading.

The show started on Monday morning right after Colleen left for school. I was up and moving around right about sunrise. Given the opportunity, I will always start each day on the back porch with some coffee and that is just what I did first thing Monday morning. I spent the rest of the morning getting caught up on paperwork for school. I may not be going to school, but I am making sure there are lesson plans and work for the kids every day. After a little lunch, it was out to the yard to build a new raised bed garden frame. I had already cut all of the lumber to size on the preceding Saturday so it was just a matter of laying it out and nailing boards together. I had the thing all together and in place before Colleen got home. She was a little later than on other days, but that was because of her usual stop at the laundromat.

Tuesday turned out to be a low key day. I spent the morning doing paperwork and website maintenance, well that was until I spilled coffee on my laptop. I knew I wasn’t going to get much else done on the computer until it dried out so I headed outside and took care of a few small jobs. I took all of the cedar Alex and I brought home Sunday from the back of the truck and then stacked with the rest of our cedar out in back of the house. Our new raised bed garden frame needed to be leveled up. When you live on the side of a hill, nothing is level unless you make adjustments. I ended up using some cinderblocks and a few large stones to prop up the downhill side of the frame. I wouldn’t say the thing is exactly level, but at least it’s not out of whack so badly that it can’t be used now. Colleen had a crazy day at school that included an unexpected fire drill right before lunch. Either someone was vaping in the restroom or someone pulled the alarm. Her ride home was hot which only helped to wear her out even more. At least she was able to relax once she got home since there was no school on Wednesday. After dinner she even found the time and energy to water our gardens.

Colleen and I were both home on Wednesday. After starting the day in a leisurely fashion with our morning coffee, it was off to the races for us. The first order of business was our weekly market run. It was a larder restocking run so off to Walmart we went. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of people in the store and we made good time getting in and out. We filled up the back of the truck with our goods and got home before noon. We had just enough time for Colleen to put the cold stuff in the refrigerator, to grab a bit of lunch, and then we were off again. The afternoon’s trip was to Lowe’s. We needed garden soil, fencing, and T-posts for the new garden and, of course, we came home with a bunch of flowers and plants including tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant for the garden. Given our gardening success this year, we figured it was time to take our efforts to the next level. Colleen spent the evening getting her kitchen squared away and I got my school work ready for Thursday.

Colleen headed to work at her usual time on Thursday. I spent the morning getting my baseball stats caught up and then I headed outside. My big job for the day was to get the garden filled with dirt and get the T-posts in place. I had a choice here. Since there were still large gaps in places between the bottom of the garden frame and the ground, I had to either find enough rocks to fill in the gaps or come up with another way to keep the dirt in the garden. Since I really wasn’t of the mind to go around collecting rocks and I was going to line the bottom of the garden with newspaper anyway, I just made the newspaper come up high enough on the inside garden walls to keep the dirt from coming out of the gaps. The garden ended up taking about 20 cubic feet of dirt, much less than I figured, but I’m sure I’ll be adding more once the dirt settles. The T-posts proved a bit more problematic or I guess I should say getting them by the tree roots proved to be problematic. I ended up getting 6 of the 8 posts into the ground before my arm had no strength left in it. I had a few choice words for those dang tree roots. Colleen was very excited to see the dirt filled garden when she got home from school. Like usual, school and a hot drive made for a tiring day so after dinner we took it easy for the rest of the evening.

Friday started off just like every other school day lately. Colleen was up with the alarm clock, got ready for school, and then headed out the door. I was up and moving around shortly thereafter. What you don’t do one day, you’ll almost certainly have to do the next day, so Friday I dropped the last two T-posts on the garden perimeter and then it was time to push the wheelbarrow around the property line looking for stones. By lunchtime I had all the gaps between the ground and the bottom of our new raised bed filled in with stones. After a little lunch I sat down in front of the computer and worked on my book. Yes, I’m writing a book too. Colleen managed to get out of school a bit early and when she got home she was ready for her weekend. After she brought her stuff into the house and took a short break to catch her breath, both of us headed outside to run the fence around the garden. It didn’t take us very long thank goodness, but both of us called it quits after running the fence and took the rest of the afternoon and evening off from doing much of anything.

All of our running around we did on Wednesday was so we didn’t have to do it on Saturday. Colleen and I planned on spending the lion’s share of the day out in the yard. After our very leisurely morning coffee that is exactly what we did. Colleen took care of the plants and bushes we picked on Wednesday. Those went into her flower gardens, although there is no doubt on my mind we will be getting even more plants, flowers, and bushes in the not too distant future. I made ready the new raised garden for the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant we got on Wednesday. We got everything planted and even got all of the tomato cages in place. The ability to grow a decent quantity of tomatoes and peppers has eluded us in the past, but this year we are very optimistic. We are so optimistic this year, in fact, we planted four different varieties of tomatoes and two of them are heirloom. As it turned out we even came up a little bit short on the number of plants we needed to fill the garden. Now we have to try and figure out what to grow in the open space. I guess I’ll be going through our seed box sometime soon and decide if we will start something from seed or just get starts from a garden center.

Once we were done our planting, Colleen and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the front yard. Because I had a good bit of garden dirt left I decided to add more to our asparagus bed. The dirt in the bed had settled quite a bit over the fall and winter. The real highlight of our day though came later in the afternoon when Colleen and I got to harvest both Swiss chard and snap peas from our other gardens. So far this year we’ve gotten radishes, snap peas, and a couple of rounds of Swiss chard from our gardens. We’ve never come anywhere near harvesting that much from our gardens before. The Swiss chard and snap peas got cooked for dinner to go along with Colleen’s Zoukie Fish Burgers. I can only say the dinner was incredible and there is nothing tastier than garden fresh vegetables. Everything was low key after dinner and the rain we’d been expecting finally showed up around 7 o’clock.

There’s a soft rain falling this morning which is great for everything we planted yesterday. The way our luck had been running, the sun may even find its way out later today. Things up here couldn’t be going any better. Since I’m home I’ve been able to catch up on a lot of things. I have some plans in the works for a couple of more new raised bed gardens and, of course, I still have some work to do on the chicken coop. This really is a great life we have. We take things one day at a time and don’t worry about what is in store down the road. We know everything will work out just fine and in its own good time. Tomorrow is never a guarantee folks so grab that brass ring today. It’s a wild and crazy world in which we live, but up here on our little hill things are calm and peaceful and I can truly say that all is right on the homestead.

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May 12, 2019: It Is Time To Move On

It’s another wet Sunday morning around here. That makes for the eighth consecutive weekend we have had rain. The gardens don’t seem mind one bit though, and all of them are doing quite well. It seems that the rain shows up on Saturday evening, hangs around all day through Sunday evening, and by Monday morning we have beautiful weather again. That’s how it happened last weekend and that’s what the forecast says will happen again this weekend. Fortunately, I’m done with school for the summer so I get to enjoy the lovely weekday weather. I will say things are starting to warm up during the days and while we haven’t seen the 90’s yet, it won’t be long because we’re already half way through spring.

Monday started out the same way the previous Friday had. Colleen left for school and I stayed home. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. I spent all morning building a trellis from PVC pipe and chicken wire. The trellis would be for pickling cucumbers that Colleen and I decided we would try to grow in the last few feet of our new raised bed garden. Once the trellis was up, I made two mounds and planted the seeds. Cucumbers are another vegetable that we haven’t grown before, but given how things are going so well this year, we figure we’ll try to grow anything we can. Heck, we’ve already harvested radishes, and the chard and snap peas are producing like crazy. After lunch I had some computer work to do until Colleen got home which was just a bit later than usual because she stopped at the laundromat on her way home. All in all, the day out turned quite well and we enjoyed a quiet evening after dinner.

Tuesday turned out to be a very pivotal day for me. I had a meeting in the morning about everything that had been happening. I found myself sitting in that meeting wondering what I was doing there. It finally occurred to me that this wasn’t the ride for which I signed up 17 years ago and it was time to walk away. After having dealt with exhaustion and the happenings of the last week, the few days and the weekend I had off finally had me starting to feel rested and like a human being again. Without realizing it, up to that point, I had worked myself into a state of exhaustion that was jeopardizing my health. I walked out of the meeting, texted Colleen about my decision, and then headed home feeling like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. When Colleen came home I was sitting on the front porch with a cigar. She asked if I was alright and I said, “Never better!” She took a good look at me and said, “I believe you are right.” The rest of the evening was peaceful, calm, and uneventful.

I woke up Wednesday morning after a very sound night’s sleep feeling like a new person. After my morning coffee, I spent pretty much the whole day working on the chicken coop. I did the same thing Thursday. By the time Colleen got home Thursday afternoon the frame work for the coop’s overhead netting was secure and in place, the ladder to the door was built and in place, and had started putting half-inch hard wire cloth around the bottom half of the pen fence. I still need to add a few roosts to the coop and pen and Colleen and I will need to put the overhead netting up on the frame. Once all that is done, it will time to start looking for chickens. Once I get everything done, we’ll only be looking to get six chickens. Assuming that all six lay eggs on a regular basis, that should be more than enough fresh eggs.

Friday was a special day. Every year a very close friend of ours throws a “Celebration of Life” party. That party was Friday night and Colleen and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The parties are always theme parties, casino night, murder mystery theater, world trivia, or something along those lines. Everyone gets dressed up in an appropriate costume, we have drinks, socialize with friends, new and old, have dinner and then do whatever the theme of the night happens to be. Since I didn’t want to start any major project on Friday, I spent most of the day cleaning out the winter ready firewood storage area and then I started moving firewood. I managed to finish getting one half-cord rack filled just before Colleen got home. Once Colleen was home and settled in from her day at school, it was time to start getting ready and into our costumes. This year Colleen and I attended the party as Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci. It was an incredible party and we had a great time. I’m pretty sure there were some folks still dancing and partying when Colleen and I got home a little before midnight.

Saturday morning Colleen and I slept later than usual. We sure weren’t moving very quickly after we got up either. We did harvest a whole bunch of Swiss chard and snap peas from our gardens. We’re very excited this spring with the bounty of our gardens. After lunch I grabbed my leaf blower and started moving leaves back past the wood line at the bottom of the backyard. As luck would have it, the leaf blower started acting up. Fortunately, I’m a little mechanically inclined and it didn’t take me too long to figure out that the screws holding the carburetor in place had come loose. It only took me about 15 minutes to pull everything apart, tighten everything, and then put the thing back together. After that, the leaf blower worked just like the first day I got it. I did as much work as I felt I could before I felt the rain was going to start.

Once I had everything put away, Colleen and I made a quick run to the market. Colleen only had a short market list so we got back home in no time at all. Our timing was impeccable too, because the rain didn’t start until after we got home. Yesterday evening was another quiet evening around here. Colleen headed upstairs to bed fairly early in the evening while I headed out to the back porch to enjoy a cigar. There was a soft rain falling and as the last of the evening light faded, Colleen’s solar powered lit garden decorations came to life adding some lovely color to an otherwise drab and dreary evening. When I finally did head upstairs to bed, I got to fall asleep to the sound of the rain outside.

Today is Mother’s Day and the kids have already started to call Colleen. We do have a trip to Costco planned for this morning and I will grill dinner tonight, but other than that, it will be a very quiet day for us. The rain has let up for the time being, but the forecast is calling for thunderstorms later this afternoon and evening. I expect Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily will be by after lunch for a visit and maybe even Louis will find his way home for a visit. I will use the day to go through my “To-Do” list to get an idea of what I might tackle in the upcoming week. It really was a great week last week and we’re looking forward to another great week in front of us. Our life is simple and it is a good one. Up here in our little hill, I can say without a doubt that all is right on the homestead.

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May 19, 2019: It Was A Grand And Glorious Week

For the first time in a couple of months there has been no rain on the weekend, and there isn’t any rain in the forecast for later today either. The cold front that pushed the rain through here last weekend brought us some cooler temperatures early in the week, but things started warming up and we even got over 90 degrees yesterday afternoon for the first time this year. In fact, this past week has been one of the most pleasant weeks we’ve had all year. The sunshine and warm temperatures made for a wonderful week of working outside and that is exactly what I did for most of the week. It looks like we’re in for yet another beautiful day today and if the forecast holds true, it should be another glorious upcoming week up here on our little hill for us.

Monday morning Colleen headed off to school with the laundry in her trunk. Monday is still laundry day and Colleen was going to stop at the laundromat on her way home. It was still gray and cloudy on Monday morning and everything was still pretty wet thanks to our rainy weekend. I stayed inside and sat in front of the computer all morning. I downloaded a bunch of stuff I had written for the internet and even got to spend some time working on the book I’m writing. The book is in its final stages of editing so I’m doing what I can as time permits. By lunchtime the sun had burnt off all of the morning clouds. Alex got home early so he pulled out the lawnmower and cut the grass, what little we have. Colleen got home at her regular time for Mondays and she was pretty worn out from her day so I fired up the grill to cook dinner. I had originally planned on cooking dinner as a treat for Colleen’s Mother’s Day meal, but she asked me to put it off for one day. Colleen was very thankful that she didn’t have to cook after school and the laundromat.

The sun came up right on cue Tuesday morning, and it was the start of a beautiful day. I didn’t do much Tuesday morning because I had a doctor’s appointment. It was time for my annual checkup. The checkup went fine and the doc said everything looked great, but I could stand to shed 10-15 pounds. Leaving school early this year was bittersweet. While it saved me from collapsing from exhaustion and ending up in the hospital, I also knew my time with the baseball team had come to an end as well. Tuesday was the day the players were supposed to turn in their uniforms so I swung by the field after my appointment to drop my uniforms off as well. I visited with the other coaches and said my goodbyes. There was definitely a lump in my throat as I drove away knowing that would be the last time I would see the field that had been my second home for 18 seasons, well, the last time for a while anyway.

Wednesday was another beautiful day. I took advantage of the cool morning to get out into the gardens and do some weeding. It only took one look at the peas to realize they needed to be picked again even though Colleen and I had picked them clean on Saturday. Picking something we’ve grown more often than once a week is something entirely new and exciting to us. Anyway, I left the peas for later that afternoon and headed down back to start moving the firewood from the seasoning racks up to the winter ready racks. This is actually a good bit of work since the seasoning racks are at the bottom of our hill and the winter ready racks are at the top of the hill. Getting the firewood up the hill is a one wheelbarrow full at a time process and one heck of a good workout for my legs. I managed to get a half cord moved up the hill before I called it quits which was shortly before Colleen got home.

Thursday started out warmer than Wednesday, but it was an absolutely gorgeous day again. I moved another half cord of wood up the hill, finishing in the early afternoon after which Buttercup and I waited for Colleen to get home. Buttercup really likes waiting on the front porch for Colleen to get home so she can run down off of the porch and help Mommy get out of the car and find her way to the front door. For some reason Colleen was unusually hungry when she got home, so we ate a very early dinner of leftovers. It was just late afternoon when we finished eating and I had found a second wind, so I grabbed my leaf blower and headed out back behind the fire pit and wood racks to move all of the leaves that we had let sit on the ground since last fall. I cleared out a good size section and I’m glad I did. There were more than a few snakes under the leaves and I’d rather deal with moving them as opposed to Colleen finding them when she rakes later this summer. Most of the snakes were on the small side, but there were a couple of copperheads in the leaves and I just blew them into the woods along with the leaves. I see no point in killing snakesunkess need be.

Friday morning I decided to finish moving the last of the split and seasoned firewood. When I finished and had everything covered with a tarp, we had just about two cords of wood ready to go for next winter. We have plenty more seasoned wood on the ground thanks to Florence last September, but I still need to split that wood before it can be moved to the winter racks and yes, all of that wood is at the bottom of the hill too. Colleen got home at her usual time and I suggested we go to Cracker Barrel for dinner. That idea sounded grand to Colleen so I headed upstairs to shower and clean up. Dinner was great except I hadn’t eaten a whole lot during the day and sort of over did it at the restaurant. I don’t like to eat to the point where I feel bloated and overstuffed which I did so I went to lie down for a little while once we got home. My quick little nap turned into a 12 hour good night’s sleep, but I sure did feel good and rested Saturday morning when I woke up.

Yesterday the temperatures were heading into the low 90’s, but that didn’t stop Colleen and me. We are determined to get chickens and yesterday we put the netting over the top of the run around our coop. The netting is as much to keep the chickens in the pen as it is to keep the hawks and owls out of the pen. There are still a few incidental things that need to be done on the coop and pen, but with any luck we should have birds in hand sometime next month. Getting the netting up took us into the early afternoon. After a little bit of lunch and a bit of a break, Colleen and I headed down to Lowe’s. I wanted to get the materials I needed to build another raised bed garden and Colleen wanted more flowers. When we got home our gardens were in the late afternoon shadows so Colleen and I harvested another week’s worth of chard and another half colander of peas. Fresh peas are definitely on the menu for this Sunday evening’s dinner. After we harvested the chard and peas, Colleen and I sat down to a quiet dinner after which I sat on the porch with a cigar while Colleen planted some of her new flowers and watered all of our gardens.

It’s another beautiful morning today. There’s plenty of sunshine and a light breeze blowing. It’s a great morning to just sit on the back porch with a second cup of coffee. Colleen is already in the kitchen getting ready to cook and bake for the week. Later this morning we’ll take a quick run down to the market. I’m not real sure what will get done around here today, but I’m sure we’ll check something off of our list or at least get a started on something. It sure was a great week last week and we’re looking for the same in this coming week. Things couldn’t be better up here on our hill. Life is simple, everyone is healthy, we are happy, and all is right on the homestead.

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May 26, 2019: Summer Is Coming!

If I thought two weeks ago was beautiful, last week out did it. We had abundant sunshine all week. We barely had a hint of rain and that was on Friday morning, but the sun chased those rain clouds away by midday. We never did get more than a few minutes of a light sprinkle. The temperatures started the week out very comfortably, but by the time the weekend rolled around we were looking at the middle 90’s. We’ve had the fans running in the house all week, and the night time temperatures are just managing to drop below 70 degrees. Today will be the hottest day of the week, and it looks like the heat index will scratch 100 degrees. Summer is definitely getting ready to embrace us with both arms here in Central North Carolina.

Last Sunday turned out to be a rather routine and low key day for us up here on the hill. Colleen spent a good bit of her day baking and I wrote most of the morning and then spent the afternoon tracking down everything I would need to clean the pool out on Monday. There are really only three things you need to clean out a pool, a good pair of muck boots, a plastic coal shovel, and a pressure washer. The coal shovel I had ready access to around the house. Alex had a good pair of boots I could borrow. I had to run over the Steven’s place to retrieve my pressure washer. I know if my tools aren’t here, the first place I check is with Steven. It’s a convenient arrangement we have, usually one of the two of us has something the other needs at some point in time. Fortunately, Steven and Anna Maria only live 10 minutes away.

With Memorial Day weekend temperatures expected to be in the 90’s, Monday turned in to “must clean the pool day”. We had drained the pool earlier in the preceding weekend so there was just an inch or so of water and a whole lot of brown, nasty leaves in the bottom of the pool. At least with a little bit of water left in the bottom of the pool, moving the leaves around and getting them out was easier than I thought it would be. I had all of the leaves out and half of the pool wall pressure washed by lunchtime. I finished the rest of the pool wall just before Colleen got home from school and then I started to partially fill the pool again so I could drain the muddy water out of the pool with a siphon. Usually, I can get the siphon hose going with little or no trouble, but Monday evening it just wouldn’t cooperate so I left it for Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, after Colleen left for school and I was enjoying my morning coffee, I added a bit more water to the pool and then I had no trouble starting the siphon hose. Once the pool was draining, I headed into the front yard to take apart one of our older raised bed gardens and reclaim the garden soil in that bed. Pulling the garden apart was easy, but I spent the rest of the morning running the dirt through a screen to get rid of the unwanted debris that had gotten into the dirt over time. I managed to finish getting the dirt reclaimed by lunch, so it was back into the pool which had finished draining to pressure wash and clean the bottom of the liner. Colleen was very excited to see a pile of dirt in the front yard and a nearly clean pool when she got home that afternoon. Thankfully, the pool is mostly in shade during the afternoon and I was able to get everything clean and ready to go before dinner.

Wednesday morning I turned the water on and started filling the pool. There wasn’t much else I could do for the pool so it was back out to the front to work on the gardens. The first thing I did was build a level or mostly level base on which I could sit our planned new raised bed garden frame. This job involved mostly the physical labor that comes with a pickax, shovel, and rack. Everything went far better than I had anticipated and the pad for the new garden was done before lunch. Anticipating hotter temperatures as the week progressed, it didn’t take me long to decide that Wednesday afternoon was the best time to build the new garden frame. It was going to be another 10 foot long garden to match two others I had previously built. I guess experience pays off because in just a matter of a few hours I had all the wood cut to size, the frame assembled, and the garden in place on the pad. By the time Colleen got home I even had everything cleaned up and my tools were put away.

Thursday morning we hit a bump in the road. With the pool about halfway filled I got out there in the morning to check on it and found a leak. It wasn’t a small leak either. I had two streams of water coming out of the side of the pool about 3 or 4 inches above the ground. It reminded me of that statue of the peeing little boy in Brussels, Belgium. I texted Colleen and we decided to drain the pool and fix it rather than trying to fix it with water in the pool. The only thing I could do at that point was start the siphon hose again. Feeling a bit frustrated at the situation, I headed out front to fill the new raised bed garden with dirt. Since we are planning on growing green beans in that garden I added a PVC and chicken wire trellis to the garden as well. The pool had drained by the time Colleen got home so we got the pool patch kit out and patched the leak. We even put duct tape on the outside of the leak as an extra measure of precaution. I was done for the day after that and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing.

Friday morning after the vinyl adhesive on the pool patch had time to set up and dry, I turned the water back on and started refilling the pool. Since I had finished prepping the new garden on Thursday, I turned my attention to the chicken coop and continued adding hardwire cloth to the bottom of the fence. With all of the predators around here that could potentially wreak havoc with chickens, I’m trying to take a few extra measures to make the coop and pen as secure as possible. The coop is elevated with doors that latch shut, the whole pen is covered with netting, the bottom of the fence will be covered with hardwire cloth, and I’m piling stones up at the base of the fence around the perimeter. Colleen and I are hoping to get some birds next month and that the extra precautions are worth it because I sure would hate to lose any chickens.

The pool managed to get about two-thirds full on Friday, and I turned the hose back on first thing Saturday morning to finish filling it. The best I could tell, the patch was holding and I was hopeful the few small leaks in the bottom of the liner would seal themselves with the weight of a full pool of water on top of them. Colleen got an early jump on weeding her garden along the fence line and stayed at it all morning long. I did a few odd jobs around the yard and finished attaching the hardwire cloth to the bottom of the downhill side of the coop pen fence. After lunch we took a quick ride down to Lowe’s for more fencing, hardwire cloth, and a few T-posts. Like always Colleen came out of the garden center with a few more plants for her garden. Colleen spent her afternoon planting while I got the filter running on the pool and got the chemicals added to the water. I did mess up my finger using a pickax trying to break through some tough ground so Colleen could plant her most recent acquisitions, but by mid afternoon we had had our fill and were both hot and sweaty so into the pool we went. We usually don’t start getting the pool ready for summer until Memorial Day weekend, but we are way ahead of schedule this year and the water was cold! It took us bit to get acclimated to the water temperature, but it sure was refreshing! I guess we spent an hour in the pool before we got out. After we got out, dried off, and changed into our clothes it was time to start thinking about dinner and spending the last of the afternoon and the evening relaxing.

The sun is already trying to heat things up for us today. The water level in the pool held overnight and it looks as though the leaks sealed themselves. That’s a good thing because I’m willing to bet we’ll be in the pool later today. There isn’t much on our agenda today. We do have a Costco run planned for later this morning, but with tomorrow off from school Colleen is in no particular rush to get the baking done for the week. I’ll have to look at the “To-Do” list to figure out if there is anything the desperately needs doing. Even with the summer heat bearing down on us, Colleen and I will take things one step at a time and one day at a time. I’m sure not going to second guess a winning formula, especially knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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June 02, 2019: Some Early Summer Heat

We sure got a good, early taste of summer last week. All week long, we had abundant sunshine with the temperatures in the mid to upper 90’s. Mother Nature finally cut us some slack when she pushed a cold front through on Friday night which brought the temperatures back down to the seasonable range for the weekend. I’m sure a lot of folks enjoyed some beach time over the Memorial Day holiday last weekend. Colleen and I stayed close to home though. The heat sure didn’t make Colleen’s rides home during the week in the afternoons much fun, but at least we had the pool into which we could escape. We didn’t get in the pool yesterday with the temperature only getting to 80 or so and it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting in it today either. In fact, it doesn’t look like the upcoming week will be hot enough to hit the pool at all, but we shall see. If the rain holds off next week, it will be good for working outside.

Not much happened around here last Sunday afternoon and last Monday was Memorial Day so Colleen and I pretty much just worked around the house. Mostly I worked with the gardens, putting a fence around our newest raised bed garden and then planting green beans both pole and bush. Colleen spent most of Monday morning drying laundry and in the kitchen baking for the week, and she made a big batch of her gourmet potato salad too. We did manage to find our way into the pool around mid afternoon. I can’t remember the last time we got into the pool this early in the year. Monday was the first day the heat really took hold around here. Since Colleen had been in the kitchen all day, I grilled dinner Monday evening, but then again what beautiful Memorial Day would be right without firing up the grill.

Tuesday morning showed up right on schedule and Colleen headed off to school and Alex headed off to work. I figured it was time to get back to splitting firewood, so I headed down by the shed and started splitting everything that had already been cut to size. I sure didn’t realize how much wood was down there and already cut up, but I ended up with a very nice sized pile of wood once everything was split. It’s going to be fun moving all of that wood up the hill. Colleen and I took advantage the cool water in the pool once again when she got home. After our little dip, I got dressed and headed off to the annual, end of season baseball banquet. It sure was good to see the guys again. I think of all the things I will miss next year with my pending change in schools, the baseball team will be what I miss the most. Last year was my 18th season with the team.

Wednesday morning I woke up with a funky feeling stomach. Colleen and Alex had both already left so I just hung out on the back porch with my coffee while my stomach settled down. By mid morning I was feeling well enough to put some work in on the chicken coop. I reinforced the gate with some PVC piping and then attached some hardwire cloth to the bottom of the fence on the gate. My fat hands made working with all of the small ties and the small screen size a royal pain, but I had it done a little after lunchtime. The temperature had climbed to over 90 degrees by then, so I ate a little lunch, drank some cold water, checked on our gardens, and waited for Colleen to get home. The best part of checking the gardens was realizing that we have a whole lot of tiny tomatoes on the vine. Colleen and I headed to the pool once she got home. After that it was dinner and trying to relax and stay cool for the evening.

Thursday I spent finishing the last major thing to be done on the chicken coop. I attached hardwire cloth to the bottom of the last remaining side of pen fence and on the side of a hill that is a trick by itself. We’re aiming to have birds in house during the second half of June, but right now the coop and pen are habitable. I still do have a few small things I want to do. I want to put roosts in the coop, we need to get food and water containers for the birds, and I might even paint the coop. Of course, the day got hot quickly and since I finished not too long before Colleen got home, I had a little lunch and waited for her to get home so we could get into the pool to cool off before dinner. Colleen made a quick and easy dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches, but after a long hot day, the last thing Colleen wanted to do was add more heat to the house by cooking a big dinner.

Friday started out on the warm side again. Colleen and Alex headed off to work in the morning, and I had to figure out what I could get done on my “To-Do” list with the threat of thunderstorms hanging over my head. I finally decided to pull out my chainsaw, and cut a bunch of straight limbs for coop roost bars off of the oak that had fallen and taken out my work shed last fall. Well, one thing led to another and after I had all of the limbs I figured I needed cut, I started cutting up pieces of the tree trunk that were lying on the ground. The storms looked like they were going to hold off a while longer and I had built up a nice pile of cut to size wood rounds, so I figured what the heck and the split everything I cut. The pile of split firewood at the bottom of our hill is definitely growing and there is still a lot more wood to be cut and split.

Colleen got home from school at her usual time on Friday afternoon. My poor darling wife looked week worn from her hot ride home and the school year winding down. We headed right for the pool. It was only the last day of May and already the pool had earned its keep. As luck would have it, the first rain shower of the day showed up while Colleen and I were in the pool. It was a quick sprinkle and the sun was back out as soon as the clouds passed by us. After we got out of the pool, dried off, and changed back into clothes, it was a quick run to pick up pizza for dinner. Thankfully, the rest our evening was quiet and relaxing. The storms ended up coming through the area sometime after dark and I slept through them.

Yesterday morning was incredible. The air was cool and refreshing and the heat of the day just barely snuck over 80 degrees. Colleen and I finally got started moving around about mid morning when we headed out for our weekly market run. It was a quick run and we were back at home right before lunch. For the rest of the day Colleen was in the kitchen baking and I was taking care of the gardens. I was very excited to see the beans that I had planted earlier in the week had started to sprout. Yesterday evening I grilled dinner so Colleen could have little break from her kitchen and the rest of our evening was quiet and uneventful.

We have another beautiful morning on our hands again today. Colleen is in the kitchen again this morning, but her summer break is fast approaching so this may be her last weekend of prepping for the week ahead. Alex is still asleep, but he suggested we go fishing today and I like that idea. Slowly, but surely, things are being knocked off our “To-Do” list, and of course they are being replaced with new things just as quickly as old ones disappear. We stay busy up here on our hill and that is for sure. Colleen and I really wouldn’t have it any other way, truth be told. We have a simple life, wanting for little, and thankful for so much. It’s a good life made all that much better by knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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June 09, 2019: The Rain Is Back!

The sunshine was nice while it lasted. It started raining last Thursday afternoon, it rained all day Friday and all day yesterday, and it’s trying to rain again this morning. Up until Thursday at lunchtime it had been a beautiful week. The way they are talking now, we may not see the sun again any time before next Wednesday. At least the temperatures are staying comfortable and the gardens are well watered. Getting anything of consequence done outside will be next to impossible for a little while. I will admit I really don’t mind the rain after last year, though. Last year was just plain weird. The rains held off until early August, but then it didn’t seem to stop raining until this past February. Mother Nature really needs to get her meds straightened out. It is what it is though, and Colleen and I will do the best we can with what we are given.

Last Sunday afternoon found me lacking in a whole lot of motivation. Alex and I had made plans to go fishing, but he ended up sleeping until mid afternoon so the fishing trip got scrubbed. Colleen, on the other hand, had herself one heck of a day in the kitchen. Usually Colleen plays catch up on Sundays to get ready for the upcoming school week. I guess to some extent that’s what she did last Sunday, but school is winding down. Anyway by the time she was ready to start cooking the Chicken Creole for dinner, she also had managed to make a new type of macaroni salad, a couple of potato pies, and a whole batch of mini rhubarb pies. The whole story behind the mini-pies goes back to the holidays last year, and if you want to read about it you can check out the Holiday Mini Mince Pie recipe in Colleen’s kitchen.

Monday morning showed up right on schedule and I found my motivation. Colleen had headed off to school, Alex headed off to work, and there I sat on the back porch with my cup of coffee. After I finished my coffee and then looked over my “To-Do” list, I was down at the chicken coop building and mounting roosts for the chickens we don’t have yet. Putting the roosts together in the coop and then in the pen took me the better part of the morning. Once I finished the roosts and after I had a bit of lunch, out came the lawnmower and I cut the backyard grass. I managed to finish cutting the grass and get everything put away less than 30 minutes before Colleen got home. It was laundry day for Colleen and she got home a little later than usual, having stopped at the laundromat on the way home. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot Colleen had to do for school so she spent the late afternoon and early evening waiting for the dryer.

Tuesday by all accounts was an incredible day. I took care of a few odds and ends around the house, and even took a run to Lowe’s to get the lumber and garden soil for a new raised bed garden I wanted to build, but those things were nothing more than mundane. After Colleen left for school and Alex left for work I was on the back porch with my coffee as usual. I watched a doe make her way down the wood line and behind her was a fawn. It was the tiniest fawn I had ever seen. Its spots were bright white and its steps were faltering. I bet the fawn wasn’t more than a day or two old. The fawn laid down by a tree while its mother wandered down into the ravine to forage for food. I just had to get a good picture so I got off the porch and walked to within 10 feet of the fawn. The fawn stayed motionless while its mother did her best to distract me. I got my picture and then headed back up to the porch. A few minutes later momma came back around to collect her baby and they both headed off into the woods. They both showed back up later that evening so Colleen got see them both too.

Seeing that fawn would have been enough to make Tuesday special, but Tuesday was also the second day of the MLB draft. In 18 seasons of coaching baseball, a number of my kids went on to play college ball, but only 5 of those went on to play professional ball. Tuesday afternoon number 6 got drafted and within the first 10 rounds. That’s a high draft pick. Colleen and I both know the young man and are so excited for him. What little boy growing up playing baseball doesn’t dream about the possibility of playing big league ball? As a coach there is no better feeling than seeing a kid with whom you’ve worked and mentored achieve great success.

I slept late Wednesday morning and in fact I never heard Colleen leave for school. I didn’t do much Wednesday morning because the first line of rough weather was supposed to move through the area some time after lunch. I did move some of Colleen’s potted plants to the porch floor so if we did get gusty winds nothing would get blown off the porch rail. That afternoon I promised another teacher I would help them with studying for the math part of their state licensing exam. I left before Colleen got home, spent a couple hours helping the other teacher, drove home through a wild downpour, but when I got home I found out that everything had missed us up here on the hill. Colleen had dinner waiting for me when I got home and we spent a quiet evening just relaxing.

Thursday started out just fine, but our run of nice weather would be coming to an end later in the afternoon. I sure didn’t lolly gag around Thursday morning. It was one cup of coffee, a little breakfast, and I was off to the races. I wanted to get our last raised bed garden frame for this year built and in place. The job took me all morning and a couple of hours into the afternoon, but the frame is done and in place. I still have to put rocks underneath the frame to support it, fill it with dirt, and put a fence around it, but I got it built and put it where I wanted it to be with 30 minutes or so to spare before the rains came. Colleen had to drive home in a thunderstorm and I was waiting for her on the front porch having a cigar and staying dry.

Friday was a wash thanks to the rain. Colleen headed to school at her usual time and Alex even went to work, but I sure wasn’t going to get much done outside. I ended up sitting in front of the computer for part of the morning and then spent the rest of my day cleaning up around the house. Colleen had the misfortune of the fire alarm going off at school and all of the kids still there after exams, all of the teachers, and Colleen had to stand outside in the rain until everything was clear. Needless to say Colleen wasn’t of the mind to cook dinner once she got home so when the rain eased up some we headed out to get pizza for dinner. The rain did cooperate for a bit and let us get the pizza and then back into the house without getting wet.

Yesterday Buttercup woke us up to more rain outside. Colleen and I waited for the rain to let up and then we got into the gardens to harvest some fresh peas and chard. We knew we wouldn’t have a chance to get much done outside so we headed out to Tractor Supply Company and Walmart to get our weekly market run out of the way. We managed to get everything home and to keep it dry even though we cut it close by skirting the next wave of rain that was moving through the area. Alex and I got everything into the house before the rain started falling again. The rain did eventually let up again and Colleen and I dug up our potatoes we had planted in a small garden in mid February. We were very excited to get 3-pounds of red skin new potatoes for our efforts.

The rain has stopped for the time being this morning. The skies are cloudy, gray, there isn’t a hint of sunshine to be seen, and a light breeze is rustling through the leaves in the tree tops. There are only two days left to the school year so there isn’t much we have to do to get ready for next week. It looks like it will be a slow day of taking care of odds and ends around the house. I’m not sure when the sun will be back, but until the rain moves on Colleen and I will tackle the inside jobs on the “To-Do” list. I do have to do a little pool maintenance today, too, while it isn’t raining. It sure looks like it will be a quiet day for us up here on the hill. Quiet is a good thing when you lead a simple life. It’s a great time to reflect and be thankful for all the things you have and to look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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June 16, 2019: Let The Summer Fun Begin.

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We want to wish Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there. Summer break has officially started and it was a beautiful week. Oh we got rain and a good bit of it, but the rain was confined to Sunday night and Wednesday afternoon, evening, and night, and that rain did good things for our gardens. The rest of the week was sunny and cool, with high temperatures only getting to around 85 degrees. It wasn’t even warm enough for us to get into the pool. Friday and Saturday morning the temperatures actually got down to 55 degrees which was awesome. This morning we’re starting off in the mid 60’s, but once again there will be plenty of sunshine with high temperatures only around 85. Colleen and I didn’t take the gorgeous weather for granted either. We spent as much time as we could outside working in the gardens and around the house. If these first few days of summer break are any indication of what is in front of us for this summer, it is going to be a great summer.

Last Sunday we had a minor mishap with the website. I ran out of memory on development platform and couldn’t edit the main blog page. It took a little quick thinking on my part to come up with a solution, but it ended up taking me all day Sunday and until after lunch on Monday to get everything rebuilt and working properly. I’ll say one thing, when the site hit me with a fatal error my heart stopped. I had visions of losing a year and a half of blogging. All is well now though, and the site is actually performing better than it had been before. On the bright side, at least I was able to do all the development work on the back porch so I wasn’t stuck inside.

Monday and Tuesday were Colleen’s last two days of school before her summer break started. Even with her school year winding down, Colleen didn’t want to get behind on the laundry so she made her usual stop at the laundromat to wash clothes on the way home. Tuesday when she got home she was grinning from ear to ear knowing the alarm clock would not be used for the next 10 or so weeks. I spent most of Tuesday building a rock foundation to keep our newest raised bed garden propped up and sort of level on the side of our hill. I did take a break for a couple of hours while I helped my cousin study for a chemistry test over the phone.

Wednesday our summer break started for real, but a gray day kind of kept things low key for us. Colleen got to get outside and work in her lily garden in the morning before the rains came. I lined the bottom of the new raised bed garden with newspapers and started filling it with garden soil. I put about 25 cubic feet of dirt into the frame and still came up a bit short. After lunch Colleen started on her annual “Rake the Half-Acre” project, but she didn’t get far before the rain showed up. I got cleaned up because I was heading out to meet an old friend for our annual end of the school year beer. It’s about the only time we can get together and we both look forward to it every year.

Thursday started out gray and Colleen and I ran our errands after we finished our morning coffee. First it was a quick market run and then it was off to Lowe’s. By the time we got back home it was just about lunchtime and the sun had chased the morning clouds from the sky. After some lunch I headed outside to work on the gardens, but Colleen stayed inside to make her Chicken and Swiss Chard White Lasagna. We had bought enough extra dirt at Lowe’s so I could not only finish filling the new raised bed garden, but also top off the garden that had the peas growing in it which had settled since the spring planting. I had pulled the pea plants earlier so I worked the soil up in that bed, weeded that bed, and then I planted lima beans. Of course, I top dressed everything with wood ash hoping to head off the aphids with which we had problems last year.

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Friday morning was sunny and cool and the perfect morning to be out in the gardens. Colleen and I took full advantage of the morning too. Colleen got all of her balloon flowers planted while I took cake of the tomato garden. Once I finished with that garden I started running fencing around the new raised bed garden. Running fence on the side of a hill is always easier said than done. Having finished one garden, Colleen headed down to the laundromat to wash bed linens and towels. She was only gone her usual 45 minutes, but by the time she came back I had the fence in place around the new garden.

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With the clothes in the dryer, Colleen was back outside working in her gardens. She planted coleus to fill in one garden and the spent the rest of the afternoon weeding a few other gardens. I made quick work of planting the squash and cantaloupe on our new raised bed garden and then I cleaned everything up and put all my gardening tools away. It was still mid afternoon and still cool, so I pulled out the lawnmower and cut the side and front yards. By 3:30 both Colleen and I were done for the day save for Colleen watering all the gardens after dinner.

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Yesterday morning was sunny and cool again. Colleen woke up with a catch in her back so she decided to spend the day cleaning and in the kitchen cooking. I headed outside with the weed eater and cleaned up around the front yard where I couldn’t get the lawnmower on Friday. Shortly after lunch I made my way to the upper back corner of our lot and started filling kindling boxes for the winter. I managed to clear out a whole pile of limbs which will make that area easier for Colleen to rake when she gets to it, and I collected a 5 gallon bucket full of pine cones to use as fire starters this coming winter.

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Catch in her back or not, Colleen had herself one heck of a day. Besides Arroz Con Pollo for dinner, she also made a batch of hot cross buns and a cinnamon topped coffee cake after she thoroughly cleaned the guest room. After dinner Colleen cleaned her kitchen once again. As for me after dinner, I didn’t do a thing. It was Father’s Day Eve after all and I figured I could use a little practice at doing nothing. Well, I did have a cigar and listen to the baseball game if that counts for anything.

Well, it is an absolutely beautiful morning. The birds are singing and there is a light breeze blowing through the trees. Since it is Father’s Day today, I’ll be giving the “To-Do” list a rest for the day. I might even get a little fishing in later today, finally. Of course, I do have plans to grill the prerequisite Father’s Day steaks for dinner, but that’s as far as my plans go for the day. It sure was a great week up here on our hill last week and Colleen and I are looking forward to the same for the upcoming week. We’re not real sure where the week will take us, but it’s not something we worry about. We take things one day at a time and let the next day take care of itself. It’s a simple formula for a happy life and we really can’t ask for more. It’s a great feeling to look around every day and know that all is right on the homestead.

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June 23, 2019: We Had A Dandy Week

Summer is here, and with it the funky early summer weather pattern, where we may or may not get rain in the late evening and through the night even when it’s forecasted. It really isn’t a big deal and we get used to dealing with soggy ground in the mornings. If nothing else, at least our gardens get watered without Colleen doing it after dinner every day. We did have one bout of some severe thunderstorms that moved through the area on Thursday, late afternoon and early evening, but everything cleared out by sunset. The front that brought the storms also brought us a nice cool down in temperatures for Friday, Saturday, and today, but we’ll be heading back up to the 90’s in the coming week. All the same, and weather notwithstanding, Colleen’s first full week home on summer break had lots of sunshine during the days, letting us get plenty done, and that really got our summer rolling.

Since last Sunday was Father’s Day, apart from a little weed whacking in the morning, I didn’t do much. I enjoyed a nice real Cuban cigar mid morning and around lunch time I took off to go fishing down at the river with James and Alex. The fish weren’t being very cooperative, but I sure did enjoy my downtime with the boys. Alex and I got home in plenty of time for me to fire up the grill and cook up some rib eye steaks to celebrate the day. Colleen started her annual “Rake the Half-Acre” project while I was gone fishing and ended up getting two of the terraced sections of the front yard cleaned up. Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily showed up in the afternoon while I was out fishing, but I heard from all of the kids over the course of the day and it really was a grand Father’s Day.

Even without school, Monday is laundry day around here, and Colleen was off to the laundromat first thing in the morning, well first thing after her morning coffee. While Colleen was gone I was outside weed whacking the tall grass and weeds along the eastern property line. After Colleen got home she got the clothes started in the dryer and then she was back to raking the yard. I knocked down as much of the tall grass as I could with two charged batteries I had for the weed eater and then spent the rest of the morning doing small odd jobs around the place. As usually happens to us, the morning slipped into early afternoon, the heat of the day showed up, and we ended up in the pool cooling off by the middle of the afternoon. Colleen made meatloaf for dinner and after dinner we just settled in for a quiet evening.

Tuesday morning was a gray morning, so Colleen decided to tackle some ironing and a few of her sewing projects. I headed outside to do some more weed whacking and then I started cleaning up in our basement. Lunchtime rolled around and the sun finally came out. We had some big stuff in the basement that needed to go to the dump so Colleen and I put it into the back of my truck and we headed out to the dump. We actually had to go to two different county dumps because we didn’t realize that only one dump in the county takes spent TV’s. It turned out we had a lovely afternoon ride on some very nice back roads, and it was into the pool for us as soon as we got home. It did finally start to rain on Tuesday, but that wasn’t until after dinner so Colleen didn’t have to water our gardens.

Wednesday morning started out a bit worse than Tuesday morning so Colleen and I headed out to Costco to get a few bulk items we needed. We got home and Colleen headed upstairs to do some more sewing, I headed into the basement to do some more cleaning. The sun chased the clouds from the sky by noon and Colleen and I found our way to the pool again in the middle of the afternoon. Alex got home just in time for dinner. Boy, did he look like he had a tough day. Alex grabbed some dinner, headed to the shower after he finished, and then went straight to bed. The evening was quiet for Colleen and me and even we ended up going to bed early.

I was sitting on the back porch Thursday morning looking over my “To-Do” list when Colleen popped out of the back door with her weekly menu and her market list. Since our local market gives folks our age a 5% discount on Thursdays, the immediate plans I might have had got changed, and we headed out to get our market run out of the way for the week. I was back out whacking weeds after we got home. I was lucky enough to come across a box turtle in the tall grass. I just love the wildlife you can see up here on the hill. Colleen put the groceries away and when she finished she came outside to pick up her raking again. We did get in the pool Thursday afternoon and about 30 minutes after we got out of it the sun disappeared and the skies opened up in a downpour. The storms were done by 7 o’clock and the sun even came back out, but the temperatures cooled off from the low 90’s down to the low 70’s. It turned out to be a very pleasant night for sleeping.

Friday morning found me whacking weeds again and doing a little work in the gardens. Colleen took advantage of the cool temperatures and spent the day in the kitchen. She had one heck of a day too. She made some Bonny Jam Scones, a rice, black bean and veggie cold salad, and then made some Mexican stuffed peppers for dinner. I was feeling ambitious during the afternoon so I headed down by the shed with my chainsaw and cut up a bunch of firewood. Even though the temperatures were only in the low 80’s during the afternoon, by the time I finished cutting firewood I was dripping wet. Alex didn’t come home Friday evening because he was house-sitting so Colleen and I enjoyed a peaceful and quiet dinner. After dinner I even got to listen to the baseball game where a kid I coached made his first professional appearance. As a coach, that really is something special.

With a pleasant day of mild temperatures forecasted for yesterday, it wasn’t long before Colleen, Buttercup, and I were all outside in the yard. I whacked the weeds I could, and then went to splitting all of the firewood I had cut on Friday. I love my hydraulic 25-ton log splitter. Colleen raked and cleaned the area behind the fire pit and went to work cleaning up the area behind the pool and tending to her moss garden. I finished splitting the wood before Colleen was done behind the pool, so I spent what was left of the afternoon sharpening my chainsaw. Given that I had clipped a rock accidently while cutting wood on Friday, the job proved a bit more challenging than usual. Alex was still house-sitting so Colleen and I enjoyed a quiet and relaxing evening before we made our way upstairs to bed.

The sun is out finally this morning, but there are clouds in the sky too. I’m sure Colleen and I will be outside again today taking advantage of the cooler temperatures before the heat settles into the area again in the upcoming week. It seems that for every one thing we get done on our “To-Do” lists, some how, two or three new things get added. Colleen and I do what we can on any given day, working at our own pace, and without killing ourselves. We enjoy taking things one step at a time and one day at a time. I know a lot of folks don’t understand what we do, but that’s okay. I suppose it is strange to people that this is a vacation for us. Colleen and I get the most out of each day, and every day always brings a new adventure for us. Over the years we’ve learned that tomorrow will take care of itself, so there is no point in worrying about it and missing out on today. We really do enjoy staying close to home because we know up here on our little hill all is right on the homestead.

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June 30, 2019: Yep, Summer Is Here!

Here we are, only one week into summer, and it seems like we’ve already jumped into late July. The word for last week was sunshine and we had plenty of it, well except for the 30 minutes of rain early Friday evening. Even after the rain, the sun came back out. The first part of the week stayed in the upper 80’s, but by the time this weekend rolled around we were looking at mid 90’s with enough humidity to push the heat indices up to the century mark. The mornings weren’t too bad as there was usually a light and refreshing breeze. Things got tough in the evenings though, when the air would get heavy and still, without even the whisper of a breeze. It looks like we’ll be heading into much of the same weather pattern for the upcoming week too. We may actually see some rain toward the end of the week, but that’s still way too far off to know for certain. Until then, I guess Colleen will have to keep watering the gardens.

Last Sunday afternoon really set the tone for the week. The midday temperatures were not overly hot so Colleen was in the backyard raking and I did as much weed whacking as I could before I drained the batteries for the weed eater and then I was down by the shed cutting up the trunk and bigger limbs of oak tree that took out my work shed shortly after Florence passed through the area last year. By the time dinner rolled around, Colleen and I opted out of our planned grilling in favor of the much easier path of reheating some leftovers.

Monday is laundry day and as soon as Colleen was done with her coffee she was off to the laundromat. Colleen was only gone her usual 45 minutes, but that was plenty of time for me to get rolling on a few odds and ends including some more weed eating. Colleen spent most of the morning and into the early afternoon shuttling between drying clothes in the basement and raking down the eastern property line where I had cleared out the tall grass and weeds on Sunday. After Colleen got home and I had finished weed whacking, I headed down to the ‘hole’ to start splitting all of the wood I had cut on Sunday. I quickly figured out that pieces of 18-inch diameter oak cut to fire place length were too heavy from me to pick up. I sure don’t know where my brain was because I split all the rounds on to half size, more handleable pieces with a maul and wedges, completely forgetting that I could set my hydraulic log splitter in a vertical position for splitting. Monday evening we finally got around to grilling the lamb chops we had planned to grilled Sunday evening, and we enjoyed a quiet and delicious dinner.

Colleen woke up with a gimpy ankle on Tuesday morning. She rolled it Monday evening while watering the gardens. Rather than risk blowing it out entirely, she stayed in the house all day cleaning. I did my best to stay out of Colleen’s way all day. I spent all morning down with the log splitter splitting all the wood into suitable size pieces for the fireplace that I had cut on Sunday and split in half on Monday. I got it all done too. After lunch I was in the basement cleaning. After a few hours in the basement I gave up the cleaning and made time to sharpen my chainsaw again. There was still a good 15 to 20 feet of tree trunk on the ground waiting to be cut up. By mid afternoon the day’s heat had taken its toll on Colleen and me, and we headed out to the pool. With the usually oppressive midday heat starting to settle in for the summer, Tuesday evening was the start of our usual summertime routine of doing as little as possible during the evenings.

Wednesday morning found both Colleen and me outside again. Colleen’s “Rake the Half-Acre” project morphed into weeding her “moss gardens” by hand. After years of unsuccessful attempts to grow grass, much of our yard had grown luscious green moss. It looks very good and Colleen is enthralled by it. I fired up the chainsaw and finished cutting the remainder of the tree trunk that was still on the ground. I remembered to set my log splitter up vertically so I was able to roll the cut pieces of the tree trunk up to the splitter and quarter them, but that was all the splitting I had in me on Wednesday. After lunch Colleen headed out to the front yard to start weeding another patch of moss on the upper terrace of the yard. While she was out there she realized that her late season lilies had started to bloom. Colleen had been waiting for a number of years to see these lilies because usually by this time of year the deer would have managed to eat her lilies. Early this spring we put a fence around the garden and the deer left it alone this year. The mid afternoon heat chased us into the pool again, and apart from Colleen watering the gardens after dinne, it was a quiet evening.

Thursday morning Colleen and I got an early start in an attempt to beat the heat. Colleen got back to her “Rake the Half-Acre” project and I set about splitting all of the wood I had cut on Wednesday. Colleen got about one-third of the backyard raked and cleaned up. After lunch and having had her fill of raking, Colleen headed out front to weed more of her moss patch on the top terrace of the yard. Since I had split all of the wood and we were now faced with the daunting task of getting it up the hill to the racks, I cleaned the loose branches and piles of leaves out of the way in hopes of figuring out the best way to move the wood. I even gave what I thought would be the best way a try by pushing a wheelbarrow full of split wood up the hill. One trip was all I needed to realize that we had one heck of a task in front of us. Colleen finished weeding the top terrace and had one spot that was barren. To prevent any erosion we decided that we would have to transplant some moss to that spot. The heat of the day had worn us down by that point so the transplant project got added to our “To-Do” list and we headed to the pool.

Friday was another early start for Colleen and me. In fact, I barely had time to finish my first cup of coffee before Colleen was out on the back porch lacing up her work boots. It wasn’t long before we made our way down to the wood pile and started hauling firewood up the hill. Colleen found and old plastic toboggan that didn’t hold a lot of wood but was easy enough for her to drag up the hill. I alternated using the wheelbarrow and Colleen’s garden wagon to get wood up the hill. I was only moving half loads up the hill too, but at least we were moving the wood. It took us a bit, but we had moved about a half cord up the hill to the racks before we were both were flushed, dripping with sweat, and starting to get overheated. We know our limit so we called it quits on moving the wood for the day. Sadly, the pile of wood doesn’t even look like we made a dent in it. Colleen did a little more raking in the backyard after that and I took care of some garden maintenance. After lunch we decided to take a ride to Lowe’s to get the pieces of PVC I would need to build a chicken feeder for our coop. I’m surprised we didn’t get sick from standing in the store AC after our morning of working in the heat.

I probably would have put the feeder together once we got home, but Louis surprised us with a visit and was waiting for us on the front porch. Louis was waiting for Micayla to finish some training for her new job so he could pick her up. He left to get her after a short visit and Colleen and I headed for the pool. After we got out and dried off, we headed out to pick up some pizza, and Louis and Micayla showed back up about 10 minutes after we got home with the pizza. It sure was great to see the kids and we all sat down to a wonderful visit over dinner. The kids left after dinner, and Colleen and I just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

I fully anticipated Colleen and I would be moving firewood again come yesterday morning. We still have about two cords of wood we need to add to our winter ready supply. Colleen had different plans, and instead of moving firewood we found ourselves heading to Walmart for our weekly market run. The trip to Walmart took us most all of the morning and we ended up getting home around lunchtime. Like always, Colleen had to put the groceries away and give her kitchen some sense of order. I just got out of the way and headed outside. I did a little garden maintenance and then took a pickax to the barren clay on the top front yard terrace to get the spot ready for transplanting moss. When Colleen finished in the kitchen, she paid our end of the month bills. Things worked out better than we were expecting so we treated ourselves to Chinese takeout for dinner.

We have ourselves another beautiful morning today. The temperatures haven’t gotten hot yet so I suspect Colleen and I will try to move more wood today. I’m not too sure what else will get done today, but it will be easy enough to check our “To-Do” list. If you ask me, that list is like a weed and just keeps growing. Every time we take something off of the list, it seems that two more things magically appear. Oh well, it is what it is and Colleen and I will certainly never be at a loss for something to do. One thing for sure is that list keeps us busy. It’s all part of who we are and what we do up here on our little hill. Anything that doesn’t get done today will still be there tomorrow. We do what we can and don’t worry about tomorrow. It keeps things simple and stress free for the most part. We take everything one day at a time. It sure seems like a winning formula for us because everyone is happy and healthy up here and we know that all is right on the homestead.

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July 07, 2019: Holy Cow, It Was Hot Last Week!

We’re one week deep into July now, and Mother Nature wants to make sure we know it is summer time. The humidity was rough this past week, pushing the heat indices up to and even over 100 degrees. If that wasn’t enough, there’s an unsettled air mass over our heads which gave us thunderstorms popping up almost randomly in the late afternoons and early evenings. The nighttime temperatures only got down to about 70 degrees and even though the mornings were cooler, with the heat of the day, the humidity was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and the humidity in the evenings just got worse. Colleen and I did what we could outside every day before the heat of the day stopped us and drove us into the pool. We’re only in the first week of July and that pool has already earned its keep for the year. Heat or not, there are things that need to be done so Colleen and I do our best and always have plenty of water on hand. It looks like things might be a little cooler this coming week thankfully, but I’m not so sure we’ll be getting a break from the humidity.

Last Sunday morning there was just enough time to have coffee and get my weekly writing done before Colleen and I got going. The sun was still low in the morning sky and Colleen and I wanted to see if we could haul some more firewood up the hill to the winter ready racks. We can usually haul about a half of a cord up the hill before the heat gets the best of us. This particular Sunday, Colleen even had a little extra spunk leftover to do some raking in the backyard after we finished with the firewood. Believe me, it wasn’t a lot of raking, but every little bit helps. I went inside and sat in front of the computer with a fan blowing on me. We did as much as we could anf then we took our usual mid afternoon dip in the pool. After cooling off and feeling human again, Colleen cooked up some bourbon chicken for dinner while I checked the gardens. The highlight of the day was seeing our first red tomatoes. They were just cherry tomatoes, but they were red.

Monday, like every other Monday, was laundry day. We threw a twist into the routine last Monday though. I had a few errands to run so I dropped Colleen off at the laundromat, ran my errands, and then picked her up to bring her home. It was too hot to move firewood by the time we got home so Colleen started cleaning the upstairs bathroom, a grand challenge even under the best of circumstances. I checked the gardens and found we had our first pest problem of the summer, Japanese beetles. We don’t want to spray our gardens with insecticide so the next best solution is beetle traps. We’ve had real good luck with beetle traps made from soda bottles in the past so I hunted up four empty bottles and started making the traps. After lunch Colleen was still working in the upstairs bathroom and doing laundry. I started transplanting moss to the top terrace of our front yard. We have never been able to get grass to grow on that terrace because of very limited sunshine so this year we’re going to try to grow moss. It will look a whole better than the hard, dry clay, and it should help with erosion too. Yes, we did find our way to the pool again in the middle of the afternoon.

Tuesday morning it was back to the wood hauling for Colleen and me. The temperature sort of shot up rather quickly and it was over 90 degrees before we knew it. We managed to move another half cord, but that was all we had in us. Colleen got back into cleaning mode and worked on finishing the bedroom. I needed to run to Lowe’s to get some yellow electrical tape to finish my beetle traps and a piece of PVC to finish a homemade chicken feeder. The heat index had climbed to 100 degrees and Colleen and I got into the pool after I got home. Alex finally came home that afternoon after his house-sitting gig, and I guess he made a good little bit of pocket change between his house-sitting and working on the weekend because he had two new chainsaws. One was a smaller climbing saw he can take with him when he’s up into the trees and the other was much bigger saw with a 24-inch bar that he needs to drop the main trunk of bigger trees. The humidity really starting getting thick around dinner time, so Colleen and I just did our best to stay cool until it was time for bed.

Wednesday started out just plain hot. Colleen had some cooking and baking to do so she started before the day turned into a real scorcher. I had some work that needed doing in the gardens so I headed out front as soon as I was done my coffee. Colleen had noticed some white spots on our squash leaves while she was watering the gardens on Tuesday evening. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was powdery mildew, so Wednesday morning I was out there spraying the leaves with a mixture of milk and water that by all the accounts I could find online is supposed to keep the mildew in check. Since I was out there anyway, I got the weed eater and knocked down all of the tall grass and weeds around the bottoms of our raised bed gardens too. I checked on my beetle traps and while there were still a few beetles on our beans, the vast majority of the beetles were finding their way into the traps. After a trip to the pool, Colleen and I spent the remainder of the afternoon and most all of the evening doing what we could to stay cool yet again.

Thursday was the 4th of July, and we pretty much took the day off. Colleen baked a bit and I puttered around the house. Alex took off mid afternoon to celebrate with some friends. None of our other kids showed up here at the house, but we weren’t really expecting them. We did have brats ready to grill if they did show up. The weather started to get funky later in the afternoon and the skies opened up on our heads. The rain did wonders to cool everything off, but it sure didn’t do much to help the humidity. Between the kids not showing up and the rain coming down, it seemed impractical to fire up the grill for just a couple of brats so Colleen and I had some of the potato pie she had baked for dinner. When the kids were younger, our little homestead would have been abuzz with activity well into the night with fireworks and partying. This year we could hear fireworks going off in the distance, but everything stayed pretty quiet up here on the hill.

Friday was a day of preparations. Saturday we would be heading to Al and Alysia’s place for our gathering of the clan. We started our morning off with a quick trip to Costco, but once we got home Colleen and I got right down to business. I had ribs that needed to be smoked and Colleen made some coleslaw, deviled eggs, lemon bars, and some artichoke and Swiss chard dip. We like to use the chard instead of spinach, and we have plenty of chard growing in our gardens. We did manage to find time in the late afternoon to get into the pool, and I even grilled some brats for dinner since Colleen had been in the kitchen most of the afternoon. Of course to go with the brats for dinner, I did have to try a small bit of the smoked ribs to make sure they came out okay, which they did.

Saturday was the day of the gathering. Colleen and I had taken care of all of our preparations on Friday so Saturday morning started off slow and easy for us. We loaded up the truck a little after 11 o’clock and headed on our way. We did have some traffic and I quickly remembered why I like staying close to home, but a little traffic wasn’t going to keep us from a family gathering. Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily were already there when we arrived. Sadly, James and Donna had something last minute come up and couldn’t make it, and Louis got sick so he stayed away too. Everyone there had a great time and there easily was more than enough food to go around. Colleen, Alex and I ended up getting home right around 7 o’clock and just relaxed and tried to stay cool until bedtime.

There’s plenty of sunshine this morning, but we’re expecting another round of thunderstorms later this afternoon. Colleen and I have a very small market run to get out of the way this morning so we’ll be heading out shortly. I’m not too sure what the rest of the day will bring our way, but I’m sure we’ll take it all in stride. If the storms hold off long enough I’m sure we’ll find some time to get into the pool. We sure had one heck of a good week last week, and the gathering of the clan was a great way to cap things off. There’s still a lot of summer left to go before Colleen and I start thinking about going back to school, but right now we’re just looking to make the most out of today. Every day is a gift and it’s up to us to make it special. We have a simple life, taking things one day at a time. It sure is a good feeling when we look around up here on our little hill and know that all is right on the homestead.

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July 14, 2019: It’s Not The Heat, It’s The Humidity!

It certainly was an interesting week last week, thunderstorms, heat, and lots of humidity. Fortunately, most of the rain we got was in the late evenings or sometime during the middle of the night, but the humidity in the evening was oppressive and there was no escaping it. During the hot humid afternoons, at least Colleen and I had the pool in which we could seek refuge. All the rain we got did well by our gardens and saved Colleen from doing a lot of watering in the evenings. Of course, the wet mornings did slow down our starts a bit, but usually by mid morning things would dry out enough for us to get some work done before the heat of the day shut us down outside. It looks like this coming week will be a repeat of last week weather wise, with maybe a bit less rain, so we’ll just have to what we can get done in the mornings, and then jump into the pool in the afternoons to cool ourselves down.

Last Sunday Colleen and I were still feeling pretty good about last Saturday’s gathering of the clan. We had a slow start to the morning. We managed to get a quick market run out of the way before lunch. After lunch Colleen did some baking while I got in front of the computer and worked on my application to see if I could land a teaching job by the start of school this August. Colleen and I were able to get out into the pool in the afternoon, but some dark clouds and the distant rumble of thunder chased us back into the house before too long. It wasn’t long after that when the skies opened up.

Last Monday started off like most Mondays with Colleen heading down to the laundromat first thing in the morning. Once she got back she shuttled between keeping up with the clothes dryer and finishing her raking in the backyard. I had to get my application finished so I planted myself in front of the computer and by lunchtime I had it done. I’m not sure how much time overall I put into that application, but when I printed out my copy it was nine pages long. After lunch I cut the grass in the side yard and once I was done Colleen and I finally got to get into the gardens and harvested all the things we couldn’t get to over the weekend. We had quite the haul for ourselves with a couple of eggplants, some cherry tomatoes, a few cucumbers, and a whole bunch of Swiss chard. I sure don’t know what we are doing right this year, but we’ll take it.

Tuesday morning I expected we would be back to hauling firewood up the hill, but Colleen must have twisted her ankle on Monday and it had stiffened up overnight so we scrapped the wood hauling for the day. I did get out in the gardens and spray down the squash again and so far it seems to be working well on keeping the powdery mildew at bay. Since Colleen essentially had the backyard raked, once I finished in the garden I got the lawnmower and cut the backyard. The grass and weeds weren’t terribly over grown, but keeping everything short is the best deterrent to snakes, fleas, and ticks, that I know. Even so, it proved to be quite the challenge pushing the lawnmower back and forth across the side of the hill. After lunch Colleen’s ankle was feeling better so she started raking the side yard, but that all came to an abrupt end when she stirred a nest of yellow jackets. Colleen was lucky and only got stung twice, but she was done raking for the day. I ended up taking care of the nest right around sunset when the little demons weren’t active by pouring a little gasoline into the opening. I wanted to light it off just for effect but Colleen gave me a definitive no on that idea.

Wednesday started out kind of rough for Colleen. I figure the antihistamine she had taken for the yellow jacket stings was getting to her because she was in a fog all morning. She eventually went back to bed and slept until around noon. I sure wasn’t moving too particularly well either for some reason, so I just took care of a few small things like doing the pool maintenance, harvesting the ripe tomatoes from the garden, and sending out some emails to follow up on my job application. I finally ended up in the basement cleaning it up some more. I figure every little bit helps at this point. Colleen was feeling better after she woke up, and after our dip in the pool so she decided to make a meatloaf dinner. Dinner turned out to be a real treat because instead of green beans, Colleen sautéed our beets with the beets greens to go with the meatloaf. Even Alex who had gotten home right before dinner after being gone a couple of days to house sit, thought the beets and greens were awesome.

Thursday morning Colleen was ready to get back at the chores around this place and she was lacing up her work boots before I had even finished up my morning coffee. We were back in the wood hauling business again before I knew it. We were within striking distance of finishing up filling the winter ready racks when we ran out of gas. Soaked through with sweat, I sat down for a break and a bite of lunch, but Colleen wanted to finish raking the side yard especially since I had eliminated the yellow jacket problem. It didn’t take her long to finish. I had managed to get an job interview scheduled for Friday morning so I spent the afternoon getting the paperwork ready that I would need to take with me, and when I finished that, I did some more work on the computer, downloading and saving the daily chronicles I write. Colleen felt like a little culinary experimentation for dinner and ended up making a sausage, pasta, and garden fresh veggie dish that turned out absolutely fantastic.

Friday morning had a whole different tone to it than usual. I had a mid morning job interview. Thursday night I had trimmed my beard for the interview, and Friday morning I got all cleaned up and even put a tie on. It had been a few months since the last time I wore a tie, but tying a tie is like riding a bike. Colleen came out to the front porch to see me off and I headed on my way. The interview lasted about an hour and went well, I thought. Now it’s a waiting game until next week. While I was gone, Colleen ran down to the market and took care of our weekly market run. She also found time to get rid of a paper wasp nest outside of the bedroom window which surprised me to no end. Colleen and flying, buzzing, stinging insects do not get along at all. I got home a bit after lunch, grabbed a bite to eat, and then had a cigar on the front porch to get everything back into perspective. I had had to shift gears in my brain for the interview and I needed to get my brain focused back on home turf. After I got home I could see Colleen was drained from the roller coaster ride she was on all week. I guess I missed Colleen was more concerned about me going into the job interview than I was. It was a quiet afternoon for both of us and we ended up going out to dinner just to treat ourselves.

Saturday morning everything seemed to be back on track. Before I knew it, Colleen was at the top of the back porch stairs lacing up her work boots again, and shortly thereafter, we were hauling firewood up the hill. There is still a bunch of wood down at the bottom of the hill, and more to be cut and split, but as of yesterday our winter-ready racks are full! With wood hauling done for the day, Colleen and I got out into the gardens to harvest this year’s first green beans. We didn’t realize the bush bean plants were loaded and we got more than enough to go with our Sunday dinner. We also harvested some nice ripe tomatoes and a few cucumbers that we quickly earmarked for last night’s dinner of burgers. The fresh tomatoes really made a huge difference. Most of yesterday afternoon was spent taking care of small stuff around this place and we made sure we made time to get into the pool as well. The evening’s humidity was horribly oppressive and brought everything to a screeching halt. Even Alex took an extra floor fan to put on the front porch to help keep him cool.

The sun has chased our morning clouds from the skies. There are a couple of red-tailed hawks screaching at each other. I think one of them is actually a fledgling. The day is starting to heat up already and I’m not really sure in which direction the day will take us. Oh, there’s plenty to do around here, but I think it’s time to shake up our “To-Do” list and see what floats to the top. Every day is a new adventure up here on our little hill. Some days we have a clear direction, and other days we muddle through doing the best we can. It does seem, though, that for every one thing we take off of our “To-Do”, two new tasks get added. That is the nature of our summer though, but in the end everything always seems to work out just fine. It is most reassuring, however, that the end of each and every day Colleen and I are able to look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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July 21, 2019: Hot Enough To Fry An Egg On The Pavement

Holy Cow, Mother Nature sure did turn up the heat this past week. I think we had heat indices over 100 degrees everyday during the week and we’ll most likely see that again today too. Despite the oppressive heat, Colleen and I managed to find ourselves outside trying to get things done. We did what we could, but by mid afternoon we would end up in the pool cooling off each day. The rain threatened to fall a couple of times during the week, but threatened was about all. The closest thing we saw to rain was some dark clouds yesterday afternoon and insane humidity in the evenings. Even in the face of the heat and humidity, last week proved to be both productive and interesting. I’ll say one thing Colleen and I are looking forward to things cooling off some time in the middle of the upcoming week. I’m pretty sure somewhere down the road we’re in for another stretch of very hot weather though. It is only July after all, and we still have August in front of us.

Last Sunday by all measures was a low key day. I spent the morning doing my usual writing while Colleen found her way out into the yard to weed and do some raking. It was the start of our week long hot spell and Colleen wasn’t moving very quickly, but she was making progress. After lunch I headed outside too, and I started cleaning up down by the fire pit and chicken coop. I have to admit that most of the mess consisted of leftover building materials and was mine. Colleen’s “Rake the Half-Acre” project has been making steady progress all summer and she was going to get to my mess sooner or later, so I figured I better get things cleaned up before she got to my area. The mid afternoon heat finally chased us into the swimming pool and we spent our usual hour cooling off. It was too hot to cook after being in the yard all day so Sunday dinner got put on hold in favor of leftovers. I worked on my book some on the porch after dinner, but that was the extent of what got done.

Colleen was out the door first thing Monday morning heading to the laundromat. It was a quick trip, and Colleen came back shaking her head at how oppressively hot and humid the lowlands were. That was a sure sign it was going to be a rough day up here on the hill too. I spent the morning taking care of routine stuff around the house and after lunch I headed out back to finish cleaning up my work area. Colleen fussed at me a bit when I came back into the house and she saw my bloody arm, finding out that I had moved two big rolls of 6-foot tall chain link fencing by myself. My arm looked worse that it really was. I only had a couple of minor scratches.

Colleen was impressed enough with how I had cleaned up my work area that she got her rake and started her bit on that section of our lot. I headed to the porch for a break, some cold water, and a cigar. My darling wife was feeling ambitious and she had noticed that I had weed whacked a bunch of tall grass and weeds heading down the hill toward the shed earlier in the morning. She kept going siceince it didn’t take her long to clean up my work area. I finally got off the porch to check on her and she was raking all the way down by the wood line. That was all she had in her though, and we were in the pool shortly thereafter. Monday evening Colleen watered the gardens with Buttercup’s help, but that was all that got done as we did our best to relax sand stay cool in the overbearing evening humidity.

Tuesday was wood hauling day. Colleen and I got started as early as we could to beat the heat. We were putting the last of the split firewood in the rack by 11 o’clock and the temperatures were already scalding hot with a heat index over 100 degrees. Colleen and I wanted to get into the gardens to get caught up on harvesting the stuff that was ready, but we didn’t want to do it in the heat of the day so after lunch we opted for cooling off in the pool instead. With the torridly hot days and nighttime temperatures barely getting down to 75 degrees, the pool is starting to warm up a little. It was 82 degrees when we got in it, but with a heat index over 100, the water still felt cool and refreshing.

Wednesday morning Colleen and I made it a point to get into the gardens first thing and did we ever come out with a haul. We had a basket full of beets, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We intentionally left the green beans and the Swiss chard alone, knowing we would be back on the weekend or early next week. Once our basket of goodies was safely in the house, Colleen and I headed down into the holler to cut up what was left on the ground of the oak tree that took out my shed last fall. It was getting hot, but we got everything cut up. It didn’t take much to figure out the heat had drained us at that point so we left everything on the ground to be brought up to the racks another day. Like every other day so far in the week, come mid afternoon Colleen and I were in the pool.

Wednesday afternoon, after we got out of the pool and while Colleen was fixing dinner, I decided to poke around on Craigslist to see if I could find some chickens. As luck would have it a farmer in the next county over had four 15-week old Buff Orpington hens he wanted to sell. On a flyer I replied to his posting. After dinner I got a response and the birds were still available. We texted back and forth a bit and by the end of our conversation we had made arrangements for Colleen and me to get the birds on Friday. To say the least, Colleen and I were pretty excited. I had started building the coop last year with available funds and materials, and we finally got the pen all fenced in and ready to go earlier this summer. Here was just another example of one day at a time and everything in its own time.

With chickens coming on Friday, Colleen and I spent Thursday morning running errands to get the last pieces of the puzzle we would need. We did part of our market run at Walmart where we got a medium sized dog kennel so we could bring the birds home in it. Tractor Supply Company is just a mile down the road from Walmart so we picked up some chicken feed and a couple of bundles of pine shavings for coop bedding. We got home right before lunch, stayed home long enough to eat lunch, and then we were on the road again. Our afternoon trip was to Lowe’s to get a couple of metal trash cans to keep the chicken feed critter free and to the local market to finish our weekly market run. It was mid afternoon when we finally got home and once everything was in the house we headed straight for the pool. Funny thing though, even with the heat of the day, Colleen and I found the air conditioning in the stores unpleasant and couldn’t wait to get out of it. I guess we’ve adapted to life without AC. After dinner while Colleen was cleaning up and then watering the gardens, I was making the chicken coop ready for the morning and the arrival of newest members of our family.

Friday morning there was excitement in the air as Colleen and I drank our morning coffee. It was chicken day up on our little hill. It was mid morning when we were ready to head on our way. I loaded the address into my phone, downloaded the directions, and we were off. It was a pleasant ride through the countryside on back roads, and we had no problem finding the place. We got the birds, loaded the carrier onto the back seat of the truck, and then pulled my phone out to get the directions home. The one thing I hadn’t taken into account was that my phone had no service out in the middle of nowhere. Well, I had a full tank of gas and some cash in my pocket so Colleen and I just headed down the road trying our best to retrace our steps. We finally got to a numbered route I recognized and from there I went on intuition. We ended up finding the interstate and after that getting home was a breeze. Once we got home it was just a matter of getting the birds into the coop.

Now, Colleen and I had been talking about getting chickens for a while. We had read as much as we could, but nothing in a book will ever replace firsthand experience. The chickens seemed very disoriented in their new home at first and we had to coax them through the coop door into the pen. After a while the girls seem to settle down and Colleen and I went about our business. Colleen rounded up rocks to finish the small stone wall around the base of the pen. I glued together my DIY feeder and mounted it to the fence. Everything seemed to be going well until just before sunset when the girls needed to get into the coop for the night. The girls were still edgy, weren’t going into the coop of their own accord, and wouldn’t let us get near them. Fortunately, I have a large fishing net and after I got it didn’t take us long to get the girls in the coop.

Yesterday morning the girls seemed a good bit calmer, but still had to be coaxed out of the coop into the pen. Once they were in the pen everything was fine and Colleen and I went about our chores. Colleen took to weeding the terraces at the end of the driveway and I headed down by the shed to first split some firewood and then start hauling it up the hill and stacking it in the rack. The afternoon skies got dark pretty quickly and there was the rumble of thunder off to the south of us. The storms never made it up to our hill and by late afternoon the skies even cleared up a little. We let the girls stay out until almost sunset, but they still weren’t getting the idea of heading into the coop on their own. They did let Colleen and me get close enough to pick them up last night so I didn’t need the net to catch them. We’ll most likely let them stay out in the pen until sunset again today, and we figure sooner or later they’ll get the idea of heading into the coop themselves.

Colleen was up before me this morning. She put Buttercup outside and then opened up the coop and fed and watered the girls. She said the girls had no problem finding their way out of the coop this morning. It’s going to be another hot day today and Colleen and I will be outside working until the heat chases us into the pool. At least a good breeze this morning is helping to keep things from heating up too quickly. It was a very interesting week to say the least. Colleen and I will have to fold taking care of the girls into our daily routine, but that shouldn’t be a problem and it will be second nature to us before long. Everything happens just when it is supposed to happen and the timing of getting the girls couldn’t have been better. We live one day at a time up here on our little hill. We can’t change what happened yesterday and tomorrow will take care of itself when it gets here. We have so much for which we are thankful up here on our hill and not the least of those things is knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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July 28, 2019: Finally, A Break From The Heat

July is winding down quickly, and after a scalding hot start to the week last Sunday and Monday, Mother Nature has cooled things off nicely for us. A cold front Monday night brought us rain and some considerably more pleasant temperatures that have lasted through the rest of the week. The high temperatures after Monday never got above 90 degrees which really made things ideal for getting outside and getting things done around the house, except when it was raining on Tuesday. It looks like we’ll see some low 90’s in the week ahead of us, but that will still be more manageable than the high 90’s with heat indices around 105 like we had two weeks ago. Without any rain after Tuesday, Colleen found herself out watering the gardens during most evenings for the rest of the week. As of this morning, there is no rain of which to speak in the forecast until towards the end of this coming week. Even with the run of nice weather, Colleen and I are not discounting the likelihood of another hot spell sometime in August.

Last Sunday morning got off to a slow start. Colleen got out behind the fire pit, seasoning wood racks, and chicken coop, and cleaned that area up pretty well. When I joined her after lunch, we finished moving the last of the cut firewood from down in the holler up to the seasoning racks. Fortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot of firewood and it wasn’t long before we were in the pool cooling off. Steven, Anna Maria, Lily stopped by for a visit a little later in the afternoon and they got into the pool too. We had planned on grilling for dinner, but time slipped away from us and Colleen ended up making her chicken quesadilla pies for dinner after the kids left. The evening was pretty quiet, but when it came time for the chickens to get in their coop, they were still being uncooperative so Colleen and I had to catch them and physically put them into the coop proper.

Colleen was up early Monday morning, and she was headed out to the laundromat right after she finished her coffee. I hadn’t even finished my coffee by the time she got home. I carried the wet laundry into the house for her and she headed right down to the basement to start drying the clothes. I finished my coffee and headed out back to work with the compost pile. With chickens and their droppings now in the picture, I wanted to run all of the current compost pile through a screen and move the usable stuff to a different holding spot so we could use it this fall. Chicken droppings make great compost, but you have to let it break down before you put it into your gardens. I figure I’ll do the same thing and screen everything in the spring after all the coop cleanings have had time to sit awhile. While I was out back working Colleen decided to clean all the fans in the house. The ceiling fans were pretty easy to clean, but the floor fans were a different story. Colleen actually took the fans apart, well the cages around them anyway, washed down the fan blades, put a shot of WD-40 on the bearings if necessary, and then put everything back together. Without AC during the summer, the fans are what keep things livable in our house and clean fans work a far sight better than dirty fans.

Alex came home Monday afternoon with a standalone AC unit for his bedroom. Unlike Colleen and me, Alex has a tough time dealing with the heat at night. The boy had to rearrange his entire bedroom to be able to run the vent up to his window, but once he had the AC unit set up and running he was a happy camper. His room felt like a meat locker to me, but it was heaven to him. Monday evening was quiet and after dinner the chickens were uncooperative when it was time for them to head to the coop so Colleen and I had to wrangle them into the coop once again. The cool rains on Monday helped make for a better night’s sleep for everyone.

After the rains on Monday night there wasn’t much we were going do outside on Tuesday. Everything was wet outside and the skies were still threatening to rain on us some more. I spent most of the day working on the computer. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen. She had made orange and coconut extracts earlier in the summer and both were finally ready, so after filtering them, Colleen whipped up a batch of her orange-cranberry muffins with her new orange extract. The rain finally gave us a short break before dinner so Colleen and I decided it was time to put the chickens in the coop. The girls had been out in the pen all day, but under the coop itself staying out of the rain. They were a little bit damp, but certainly not soaked. We had to do a bit of chicken wrangling again to get them in the coop, but it wasn’t too bad. Even Colleen was able to catch one of the girls for the first time. The rain came back shortly thereafter and the temperatures dropped enough that everyone had to don a light hoodie to stay warm after dinner. The cool nighttime temperatures sure did make for another good night’s sleep though.

The sun was back Wednesday morning and Colleen and I were outside right after our morning coffee. The squirrels had been ravaging our tomatoes so I hung foil strips around the garden fence in an effort to deter them. I don’t think it helped much. We did take a break to harvest some eggplant, cucumbers, and Swiss chard from the gardens, and after that Colleen went back to weeding her flower gardens, and I needed to fix the dead bolt on the front door. I answered emails and returned phone calls after lunch and managed to schedule two interviews, and after dinner we just relaxed and enjoyed the cool temperatures. The real highlight of the day came at 7:30 after dinner. I went down to check on the girls and all four of them had found their way into the coop on their own. Colleen brought some water down to put into the coop with the girls and after everything was buttoned up for the night we both did a little happy dance.

Thursday was a pretty slow day for us up here on the hill. Colleen and I headed out mid morning to get our weekly market run out of the way. After lunch Colleen cleaned her kitchen, put the groceries away, and then cleaned and reordered her pantry. I headed down into the holler to break up the small sticks and limbs that we had piled up and then filled up a storage box full of kindling for the winter. At one point I checked on the girls, but only counted three on the ground. I figured one was in the coop, but then I found her. She had managed to get on top of the nesting boxes and was quietly just sitting there. After dinner, Amazon delivered the hawk and owl decoys I had ordered earlier in the week. I’m not sure if they will help deter the squirrels from raiding our tomatoes either, but it didn’t take me long to have them strategically placed all around the gardens. 7:30 rolled around and once again the girls had gone into their coop so Colleen and I buttoned everything up for the evening and had a little time to relax before bed.

Friday morning I had an interview, so after I finished my coffee I got dressed and then headed on my way. Colleen had wanted to bake some cookies while I was gone, but she was kind of antsy so she just wandered around the house cleaning until I got home. The interview went well, I thought, and I was home in time for lunch. After lunch Colleen finally did bake those cookies. I got the leaf blower out of the basement and cleaned up the area in front of the shed where one pile of sticks and limbs had been. Colleen was down there with her rake as soon as the cookies came out of the oven to rake the area clean behind my blowing. We decided once she was done raking to get into the pool. The cool weather had dropped the water temperature from 82 to 75 degrees. It was a brisk dip for us to say least, but it was refreshing. Steven, Anna Maria and Lily stopped by shortly after dinner with every intention of going swimming. Lily decided the water was too cold and that put an end to that. The kids headed home after a short visit because Lily was getting tired and fussy. For the third night in a row the girls found their way into the coop on their own so Colleen and I started feeling pretty good about having one less task to do in the evenings.

Alex was up early yesterday morning and headed into work. I headed down to the holler and blew some more leaves from around the shed. Colleen started her day by making a couple of quiches and once they were done, she was raking the area I had blown clean. I spent part of the afternoon filling another box of kindling, and once I was finished I headed to the front porch with a cigar to relax. Colleen finished raking everything she wanted to rake by 3 o’clock and we both called it an afternoon. We didn’t head into the pool like usual, instead opting for a shower to cool off and relax. We had salad with fresh veggies from our garden and a quiche which also had fresh veggies from our garden for dinner which was perfect for a summer’s evening. The rest of the evening we spent relaxing until we had to button up the chicken coop, and yes, the girls went into the coop of their own accord. When Colleen and I opened up the back of the coop to put the girl’s water in the coop for the night, two of the girls were already up on their roosts.

It’s beautiful and cool this morning. There is plenty of sunshine and the skies are as blue as can be. I’m not real sure what direction today or this coming week will take us, but like always it will be interesting. It’s hard to believe that here we are at the last weekend of July already. It’s almost time to start thinking about school again even though I am not sure where I will land yet. Life can be funny with all of the twist and turns it will throw in your path. Over the years we have learned to take things one day at a time, not worry about things outside of our control, and in the end everything will work out just fine. We do our best to keep things simple up here on our little hill, we smile a lot, and don’t let tomorrow get in our way. We do the very best we can each and every day and in the end we can look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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August 04, 2019: And Just Like That, July Is Gone!

For the last few days of July and the first few days of August, things were pretty typical for the middle of summer here in Central North Carolina. Sure, it was warm and the humidity was dancing around all over the place, but it wasn’t unbearably scorching hot. Mother Nature even threw a little rain our way a couple of times just to help cool things off a bit. Colleen and I were able to spend most days outside getting things done around the yard and, of course, when we hit the mid afternoon heat we headed into the pool. The late afternoons and evenings were our downtime for the most part with nothing much to do except watering the gardens when needed and locking up the chicken coop once the girls were in for the night. Colleen and I have a few more weeks to go on our summer break before it is over, and we’re doing our best to make the most out our time up here on our hill.

I spent last Sunday morning doing my usual writing and when Colleen got going, she headed into the kitchen for a day of cooking and baking. After lunch I found myself down in the holler cutting sticks and small branches into kindling for the winter. I managed to fill our last kindling bin and get it stored up by the house before the afternoon heat finally took hold. I finished up about the same time that the last of Colleen’s culinary delights came out of the oven. Even though Mother Nature was playing nice and not trying to melt our brains, it was still warm enough to warrant an afternoon dip in the pool. I grilled steaks, potatoes, and corn on the cob for dinner and after dinner while Colleen was watering our gardens, Buttercup and I hung out by the chicken pen waiting for the girls to make their way inside. Buttercup isn’t aggressive to our feathered family members, but they sure do manage to keep her attention.

Monday was laundry day and Colleen was out the front door as soon as she finished her coffee. I was already working down in the holler before she left. I had strapped my leaf blower to my back and was moving the last bunch of leaves to the wood line so Colleen could rake that corner of our half-acre lot. Alex had the day off from work and he was up and sitting on the front porch when I finished blowing the leaves. I had been using an old pool liner as a tarp, but it was time for it to go, so Alex and I loaded it into the back of my truck and headed off to the dump with it and some other junk. That dang pool liner was both heavy and cumbersome and I was very thankful for Alex’s help. When we got back home a while after lunchtime, Colleen was down in the holler raking the area I had blown clean earlier in the morning. I had a late lunch after I got home, and by the time I was finished eating, Colleen just about had the holler raked clean. The big excitement of the day came after dinner while I was sitting down by the chicken pen. One of our birds, Red, named for her bright red comb, is feistier than the other three. She apparently fancies herself an escape artist, and didn’t she find a seam in the top netting to get through. Fortunately, I was there and she got tangled up in the netting when she made a break for it. I untangled her, brought her back inside the pen, and then put her into the coop. I still had a little daylight after that so I made sure she couldn’t get through that seam again.

Tuesday morning I had another job interview. It was my third interview in two weeks, so I am still hopeful about landing a teaching job for this fall. I didn’t get a job offer from my first interview, but I still hadn’t heard back from my second interview on Friday. Colleen collected pine cones while I was gone. We use the pine cones for fire starters in the winter and she managed to fill the second bin we needed. Believe it or not, it wasn’t even August 1st and our winter ready firewood racks were full, we had four bins of kindling filled, and two full bins of pine cones. Any wood we put up from here on out will be for winter 2020-21. I do believe this is the earliest we’ve ever been done. Anyway, I got home from my interview about lunchtime. Colleen and I sat and talked about the interview and after lunch I headed out to cut the grass in the front and side yards. We found our way to the pool later in the afternoon and the rest of the day was uneventful. Of course, I spent some time down by the chicken pen after dinner to make sure Red didn’t want to make another run for freedom.

Wednesday morning showed up right on schedule and it seemed like everything around here had settled back down into its summer routine. I got out into the gardens first thing in the morning, and I harvested what I could, including our first yellow summer squash of the season. I was very excited to see some baseball sized cantaloupe on the vine too. After I harvested everything I could, I sprayed the squash plants with a milk and water mixture to keep the powdery mildew in check. It’s actually working quite well. Once the gardens were done, I pulled out the lawnmower and cut the grass in the backyard. Colleen got outside on Wednesday morning too. She went to weeding and cleaning up her garden along the fence line and then started re-raking along the western property line. After lunch I hung a watering bucket in the chicken pen and did a little pen maintenance, but by mid afternoon the heat had Colleen and me in the pool. Colleen used the fresh produce taken from our gardens to make her sausage, pasta, and summer veggie meal for dinner. After dinner Colleen paid our end of the month bills, and I was back down by the chicken coop until the girls headed in for the night. Red was still looking to get out of the pen to roost for the night, but she finally relented and went into the coop.

Thursday morning proved to be hectic. Our promotional period with cable TV had ended and the bill jumped up in a big way which irritated Colleen to no end, so Thursday morning the cable box was going back. Colleen asked me to unplug the cable box from the TV and get it ready to go. I had a good laugh for myself when I found the cable box was not hooked up to the TV and it was covered with dust. I’m sure the boys disconnected it at some point when they were hooking up their video game console, but I don’t know when that was. Anyway, Colleen and I spent Thursday morning running errands, the cable store, Costco, Lowe’s, and the local market for groceries. The good news was that our remaining internet bill is considerably less than $100 a month now. After lunch Colleen headed into the southwest corner of our lot to rake, and I re-hung the water bucket in the chicken pen. I can chalk up hanging it in the wrong place on Wednesday to my inexperience with chickens. Colleen and I had our usual afternoon visit to the swimming pool, and it wasn’t too long after we got out that the skies opened up and gave us a good hour of rain before the sun came back out. At least Colleen didn’t have to water the gardens thanks to the rain. The girls were more than willing to go into the coop Thursday night and by the time Colleen and I were headed to bed the skies were threatening again and there was thunder rumbling off in the distance.

Everything was soaked Friday morning when Colleen and I got up. It was supposed to rain all day so we shifted gears and planned on working in the house. Colleen got on a cleaning tear that started with Alex’s room. I decided to spend time editing my book. By lunchtime the sun had come out and things were starting to dry out. Colleen actually managed to finish cleaning Alex’s room, no small feat, and subsequently turned her attention to the family room. Not wanting to be underfoot, or for that matter within arm’s reach of Colleen, I headed down back to clean the chicken coop. Cleaning the coop went easier than I thought. I pulled all of the old bedding out of the coop and then raked the pen clean. I raked everything out of the pen gate and then another five feet or so into the compost bin. Chicken manure has to compost before you can use it in your gardens. I put new bedding into the coop and then buttoned everything up. The rest of the afternoon and evening was fairly sedate, a quick swim in the pool, dinner, and then put the girls in the coop for the night. We had all kinds of thunderstorms popping up around us just before sunset. The girls started acting goofy, but that didn’t last too long and they all headed into the coop without problems. As it turned out, even with the storms all around us, we never got a drop of rain.

By yesterday morning most of the rain had been taken out of the forecast for the day. Colleen had already made up her mind to finish the cleaning she started on Friday so she did the rest of first floor yesterday. I spent all morning working in the gardens, more harvesting, weeding, and getting ready for our fall and winter gardening adventure. I even threw the girls a handful of chard leaves as a treat. Based on their reaction, it was a good treat. By lunchtime Colleen had finished her cleaning and was getting ready to start making her white chicken lasagna. She was particularly excited to be adding the fresh veggies that I had gotten from the garden in the morning. Colleen and I decided we wanted to try a fall crop of beets, so after lunch I went out the gardens and planted beets in front of the Swiss chard. Once the beets were planted, I did some weed eating, raked up a bunch of what I had knocked down, and gave it to the girls. Not much else happened for the rest of the afternoon and evening, so Colleen and I were able to spend some time relaxing.

I ended up sleeping a good bit later than usual this morning. There’s a chance we’ll get some rain today, but it’s going to be one of those things where a summer thunderstorm will have to pop up right on our heads. Colleen and I want to take a run to Walmart and Tractor Supply Company this morning, but other than,that, we’ll just have to see where the day takes us. I do know we are having white chicken lasagna for dinner tonight. Around here, any lasagna is usually not eaten on the day it is made, but rather it is given a night in the refrigerator so all of the flavors can marry. It’s kind of had to believe we’re already into August. I still don’t have a job lined up for this fall, but I still do have the option of an early retirement open to me. I’m not particularly worried one way or the other because whatever happens will be what is supposed to happen. Colleen and I are quite content living our lives one day at a time, looking out from our back porch, and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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August 11, 2019: A Choppy Ride, But We’re Okay

Well, I’d have to say that last week was just one of those weeks. It started going whacky on Sunday morning and pretty much didn’t settle down all week. Mother Nature was doing her bit to keep things off balance too. We never really had rain in the forecast, but we sure did get a bunch of pop up, summer afternoon thunderstorms that kept things wet and steamy for us. We got some rain every day right up until Thursday. With the rain came the oppressive humidity that lasted all week, and it always seemed to be at its worst after dinner. The temperatures hung around 90 degrees in the heat of the day and thenmanaged to just get below 70 degrees during the night. So from that point of view, I suppose it was pretty normal midsummer North Carolina weather if the weather can ever be described as normal. I can’t help but feel we have one more heat wave headed our way this summer, too, before temperatures start cooling off for the fall.

Sunday morning Colleen and I were headed to Walmart and Tractor Supply Company to get a few things we needed. We were maybe three miles down the road, stopping for a red light, when my truck died in a big way. I called Alex to come and get Colleen so she could get her car, I call AAA to tow my truck the shop, and then Colleen picked me up at the shop after I had the truck towed there. There wasn’t much we could do, so once Colleen picked me up we headed off on the shopping trip we started earlier. That wild adventure pretty much took up our whole morning so anything else we had thought about doing got put on hold until Monday or later in the week when we could get to it. Now, some might be inclined to think the fates were not happy with us, but in fact just the opposite is true. It took the tow truck about 15 minutes to get to my truck, we broke down about three miles from the shop, and when we got to the shop there was a Trail Blazer for sale at a price we could afford in the parking lot, so all in all things weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been.

Monday started out like most Mondays. Colleen headed down to the laundromat with our week’s worth of laundry after she finished her morning coffee. The final edit of our first book was getting close to being finished so I spent the morning working on it, and I left myself with about one day’s worth of editing before I had to give it up because I was getting cross-eyed. After lunch I took care of some routine pool maintenance and checked the gardens. I was very excited to find our first and only ripe zucchini squash hidden under the leaves. I did talk to the guy at the shop and he confirmed my fears that my truck was beyond repair without a major engine overhaul or replacement, but I also found out that one of the mechanics at the shop was the one selling the Trail Blazer. I told the guy I wanted to buy it and I would be down Tuesday to discuss the terms of the deal. The skies really opened up later in the afternoon just to make the day more interesting and about an hour later we were looking at plenty of sunshine again.

There was a fog hanging over everything on Tuesday morning and that was pretty much how my brain felt too. Colleen and I headed down to the shop to clean out my truck and finalize the deal on the Trail Blazer. Once everything was done, it was back to the house for Colleen and me. I worked a little financial magic moving money around so it would be in our checking account by Friday, but I was feeling a bit exasperated from the whole ordeal. Colleen spent the afternoon baking, and I set up shop to finish editing our book. It was just one of those days, I guess, because my computer needed to update its operating system and that took every bit of an hour and a half. Needles to say I didn’t get much editing done.

Wednesday morning things started looking a whole lot brighter. The money for the Trail Blazer transferred into our checking account a whole lot faster than I anticipated. I woke up with the determination to finish the final edit of our book and I had it done by lunch. I emailed a copy to Colleen and she started her final read through right after lunch. Things had really started to turn around by then and Colleen even made some chicken Creole for dinner and she added our zucchini to the vegetables. Of course, we had to deal with the late afternoon rain and evening humidity again, but we could see the week’s rough ride was going to get smoother and we were definitely heading to a better place.

Thursday morning showed up and seemed to turn into a Chinese fire drill. We got a call from the company coming to tow away my truck. We donated it to charity so we needed to get down to the shop to get the title signed. The guy selling his Trail Blazer had his title so we took care of that deal too. Of course, before we could take our new ride home, Colleen and I had to get proof of insurance, go to the DMV to get the tags transferred, and then we could pick the Trail Blazer up and bring it home. The fates were on our side again Thursday because we got everything done and had the Trail Blazer in our driveway shortly after lunch. Colleen spent the afternoon reading the last half of our book. I went out to check on the gardens and was very happy to see our lima bean plants were filled with flowers and pods and that the beets I planted for our fall crop had sprouted. Colleen finished her reading before dinner and after dinner I went over the notes Colleen had made on her read through, but other than that we just spent the evening relaxing.

Friday morning things were slow. Colleen and I spent the morning taking care of little things. Colleen headed to the laundromat to wash blankets so that task wouldn’t be hanging over her head once school started. She also put up the last of this year’s vanilla extracts so they had time to steep before Colleen started her holiday baking. Colleen has three types of vanilla extract, regular made with vodka, one made with brandy, and one made with spiced rum. She also has homemade orange, blackberry, and coconut extracts. After lunch we took our first real ride in the Trail Blazer when we headed to Walmart to get our weekly market run out of the way. Friday after dinner I had enough energy left that I cleaned up the chicken coop before relaxing for the rest of the evening. The real surprise of the day came right before Colleen and I were headed off to bed. Alex had taken off after dinner, but when he came home he had Louis in tow. It was great to see Louis and even better to find out he was planning on spending the day at home on Saturday.

I didn’t sleep well at all Friday night and ended up sleeping half of Saturday morning away. Colleen took care of the morning chores, but when I got up my head was in a fog and I was bumping into things as I stumbled my way to the back porch with my coffee. Colleen headed out to work in the yard as I sat around being useless. Louis and Alex hung around the house all day playing video games and Steven even dropped by for a visit later in the afternoon. I finally did find a little motivation later on yesterday. I ended up draining a couple of inches of water out of the pool so it was back at its normal level and I grilled dinner. Apart from Colleen’s yard work and drying some of her harvested herbs, not much else got done yesterday. I suppose given the week we had, a discombobulated yesterday just ended up being par for the course.

I’m feeling a whole lot better this morning, but Colleen did not sleep so well last night. We really don’t have a lot planned for the day though so she will be able to take things at a slower pace. Sometimes you just end up having to work through a week like we had last week. It wasn’t really all that bad, but we did have to negotiate a number of unexpected twists and turns. I can’t think of a better reason for taking things one step at a time and one day at a time. We still do have a few things up in the air heading into this coming week, but none of it is in our hands so we will just have to wait and see how things play out. In the meantime, there are things to be done around here so there isn’t any point in just wallowing around in the muck and waiting for things to happen. I’m sure we’ll take whatever comes our way in stride and just keep moving forward. It would be a shame to waste this beautiful start to another new day so it’s time for me to get moving. Life is good up here on our little hill and if I needed it, which I didn’t, the deer meandering through our backyard are a wonderful reminder that all is right on the homestead.

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August 18, 2019: The Dog Days Of Summer Are Here

The dog days of summer seem to have settled in on us for this year. The mornings start off around 70 degrees and then it gets up into the low 90’s for the heat of the day. All that wouldn’t be so bad except the humidity pushes the heat index up towards 100 degrees during the day. Of course, if you throw the pop up thunderstorms into the mix come the late afternoon and through the evening, you can start to understand why it’s a challenge to get things done around here during the day. The dog days will hang around until early or mid September and then we start keeping our eyes open for any hurricanes that might be headed our way. Last year Florence only grazed us, but she took down a couple of trees. We were fortunate that no one was hurt, and we did get quite a bit of firewood out of the deal, but one of the trees took out my work shed.

Monday turned out to be a little different than usual last week for us. Instead of heading right to the laundromat first thing in the morning, Colleen headed into school for a short meeting and then stopped at the laundromat on her way home. After she left I figured it was time to start clearing out my old work shed. I knew it was going to be slow going, but I needed to start somewhere. I ended up pulling out a bunch of broken and splintered wood, some scrap metal, and a whole lot of trash. I filled up our trash can and since it was early in the afternoon I figured I had done enough for the day. The heat and humidity of the mid afternoon made it hard to find the motivation to do much other than get into the pool at that point, and besides the pool needed a good cleaning anyway.

There was a moderate chance of thunderstorms popping up all day on Tuesday, so I decided it would be a good day to get our book published. I spent all morning on the back porch in front on the computer. The sun actually came out and chased me off the back porch around 1 o’clock so I headed out to the shade of the front porch for the afternoon. I had made enough progress over the course of the day that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but by late afternoon I had had my fill of the computer though. Colleen spent the day going through our freezers taking inventory and planning menus. Not knowing if and when I would get a job for this fall we were starting to get ourselves into a position to deal with a significantly decreased income. Colleen did find about a half dozen squirrels in the freezer so she decided we were going to have paella over the weekend. She thawed out the squirrels, let them simmer in her cast iron pot for a few hours, deboned the meat, and put it in the refrigerator for Sunday’s dinner. When Alex got home later in the afternoon, his Explorer was acting up. We ran it down to the shop and when we got home he started calling around to find a ride to work on Wednesday. Alex and I had beat the rain home, but the skies sure opened up once we were home. I checked on the girls hoping they had gotten back inside the coop, but nope. They were all just huddled together under the coop. The rain did pass and the rest of our evening was quiet fortunately.

I don’t remember what I had originally thought I might do on Wednesday, but I was close to being done with getting our book published, and I decided everything else could get put on hold. Colleen woke up in the morning with a catch in her back so she took things slow and easy all day. I finally completed the conversion of our manuscript to eBook format sometime in the middle of the afternoon and Colleen sat down to look it over. I put the final publishing on hold once Alex got home so we could get his Explorer home from the shop and then, after we got back home and while I was waiting for Colleen to finish dinner, I pressed the magic button and our book was published. I was very surprised when I checked Amazon after dinner and the book was available for purchase. You really should check it out so here is the link.

The Half Acre Chronicles: The Summer of 2016

Thursday morning I was trying to decide exactly what I was going to do with the day, so I started by bringing my chainsaw up from the basement so I could sharpen it. Steven showed up right before I started and my chainsaw sharpening turned into a full blown chainsaw tune up and cleaning. That’s what happens when your kid is a tree climber by trade. It took us a little bit to get the thing torn down, the motor casing cleaned, the bar filed, the whole thing reassembled, and the blade sharpened, but since a dependable chainsaw is a must on a homestead, it was all good. Naturally, Steven had to take it down by the shed, fire it up, and check everything out by cutting a couple of pieces of tree trunk I had pulled out of the shed on Monday.

Colleen’s back was still acting up in Thursday, but we managed to get our weekly market run out of the way. Colleen decided we needed room in our freezer on Tuesday while she was taking inventory so she had pulled out a 15 pound turkey to thaw. She roasted the bird in the oven on Thursday afternoon and made plans to make up a pot of turkey soup so we could can it. The breast meat would be cut off and saved for future meals too. It’s a whole lot easier to store cooked turkey breasts and then reheat one for a meal than it is to roast a whole turkey. We did have a minor setback Thursday evening for dinner. The seal failed on the jar of the smoked pork we had canned that Colleen was planning on having for dinner. It looked like mold was starting to grow in the top inside of the jar so she just threw it away. We ended up having grilled cheese for dinner.

I took Friday off. I enjoyed my morning coffee out on the back porch and waited for Steven to show up. The boys had found a new fishing spot that they wanted to show me so that was where Steven and I headed for the day. I didn’t think fishing would be too great in the heat of the day, but I needed a break. As it turned, out fishing was okay. Mostly we caught small stuff, but Steven did manage to land a nice size bass. While we were out there Colleen texted me that there was a message on the answering machine from one of the schools at which I had interviewed. I called them back right then and there. Nothing is definite yet, but it does look promising. Our fishing got cut a little short when we heard the rumble of thunder off in the distance. Steven and I collected our stuff and fortunately got back to his truck before the rain started.

Colleen was still moving slowly on Friday. She did manage to make a batch of gluten-free cupcakes with butter cream frosting for Anna Maria’s Birthday on Saturday, and she started making her turkey soup stock. She was pretty worn out by the time dinner rolled around so we treated ourselves to some pizza for dinner. For the most part it was a quiet Friday evening around here. Alex never made it home for dinner, and he wasn’t even home before Colleen and I went to bed. We suspected he was hanging out with some of his friends after work.

Saturday was catch-up day for me. I finished my morning coffee and headed out front to work on the gardens. I spent pretty much all morning there. I even pulled out the bush beans, added a little compost to the soil, and worked it into the ground, loosening everything up while I was at it. After a little lunch and a short break I was headed down back to clean out the chicken coop. The girls sure seemed to enjoy scratching around in the piles of pine shavings on the ground I made by raking out the coop. By the time I finished with the coop, the heat of the day was wearing on me so I headed to the pool and Colleen joined me. She had been moving slowly again because of her back, but she had finished putting her turkey soup together. We sure didn’t do much else for the rest of the day.

The sun has finally burnt off this morning’s fog and we have another beautiful day. A couple of people who bought our book have started sending me notes on how easy to read it is and how much they are enjoying it, so Colleen and I are very excited. I keep telling Colleen that we are only another 999,000 and then some away from selling our first million books. Colleen has paella on the menu for this evening so we are looking forward to that, but as for the rest of the day, who knows. We both know our summer is winding down and right now the prospects of my working this fall are promising. All the same, we’ll keep moving forward and doing our best to make each and every day special because we know that all is right on the homestead.

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August 25, 2019: The End To Our Summer Break

Mother Nature sure had a good time for herself last week. We started the week with temperatures in the 90’s. We even had the heat index creep over 100 degrees. The rains started showing up on Thursday night and were supposed to hang around through Friday, but they didn’t show up until after sunset. Yesterday it rained on and off all day and the day time high temperature didn’t even make 70 degrees. The rain mostly cleared out after dinner time yesterday and isn’t likely to show back up today. It doesn’t look like we’ll see any rain for the first part of this week either. We sure didn’t see any sun yesterday, but it looks like we may very well see some today. Of course, everything is still wet though. Even if you forget about the weather last week things were pretty crazy. Colleen and I managed to navigate between bunches of unexpected twists and turns that popped up along the way. What felt especially weird to me was not heading back to school for teacher workdays that started last week. I’m not saying I missed them, it’s just that it had been routine for the last 16 years.

We didn’t do a whole lot last Sunday. I spent the morning writing and Colleen tried to take it easy because her back was still bothering her. We know it’s a pulled muscle and at our age these things like that take a while to right themselves. All the same, Colleen was mobile enough to make her paella for dinner. It really was fantastic. Colleen’s paella has chorizo sausage, clams, shrimp, squirrel, all kinds of veggies, rice, and plenty of seasoning including saffron. One time Louis brought some home for Micayla who thought it was just great until Louis told her what was in it. She cried. I’ll admit squirrel is not an ingredient you expect to find in too many dishes. It really is quite tasty though. I guess I would have to describe squirrel as very lean chicken.

Monday started off in a fairly routine manner for us. Colleen headed down to the laundromat to do the week’s laundry, and I followed up on my conversation from Friday with the principal of the school that wanted to hire me by sending them an email, only to find out the principal was out of the office for the day. I figured I better not sit around all morning since it was supposed to get hot after lunch so I headed down to the shed, dragged the last of the tree from the shed that had taken out the shed, cut everything into fireplace size, dragged it all up to the splitter, and then split it all. It was mid afternoon when I finished, the temperature had gotten over 90 degrees, I had polished off more than a liter of water, and I was done for the day. Colleen and I had gotten in and out of the pool and I was sitting on the back porch drying off when a brazen squirrel came up on the porch to drink some water that had collected in an empty flower pot. I couldn’t help but notice that the squirrels are kind of small this year and squirrel season starts in about two months.

Tuesday we really started slowing things down so Colleen could relax some before having to head back into school this coming week. I stacked all of the firewood I had split on Monday. I’d guess I’d say I doubled the amount of reserve wood we have in one of the seasoning racks. In total, we have a little more than six cords of seasoned firewood which is about a cord more than we had for last winter. There is still one more, large tree on the ground that needs to be cut up, split, and stacked, but I will wait for cooler weather. Tuesday afternoon I had to put my electrician’s hat on and replace the front outside light. The old one worked just fine, but Colleen was tired of smacking her head on its sharp corner. Changing out the light wasn’t a problem, but I did have to splice together the hot lead in the junction box because it broke. The last major item on our “To-Do” list for day was to get Colleen’s car down to the shop for a checkup to make sure everything was up to snuff for the start of her school year this coming Monday.

Wednesday I woke up with a mild case of the blues. I still hadn’t heard back from the principal with whom I had I had talked late the week before, and Colleen’s back was still bothering her so I wanted her to take things easy for the day. Fortunately, she agreed with me. I headed down to the shed first thing in the morning to see if I could clean it out. I never made it into the shed instead deciding to clean up the scrap wood pile I had started to make outside of the shed. Anything I felt had some useful life left to it got stacked up neatly behind the chicken coop everything else got hauled up by the fire pit. The girls took quite the interest in me working behind their pen. The day got hot and mid afternoon found us in the pool. I checked on Colleen’s car at the shop and the guys were having in of those days and since we were in no particular rush for the yet I told them we could pick it up on Thursday.

Thursday morning turned into our market run morning. We headed to Costco so we could get there when it opened and then stopped at the market to finish the rest our shopping on the way home. We got home a little before lunch and I still hadn’t heard back about starting at the new school so I was walking around a bit dejected. The afternoon was hot enough for Colleen and me to get into the pool. Alex got home shortly after we had gotten out of the pool so I got him to give me a ride down to the shop to get Colleen’s car. Colleen’s back was still bothering her and one less car ride was that much less wear and tear on her back. Alex and I got home right before a thunderstorm popped up so I was pretty happy about that. The rain stopped shortly after dinner so Colleen and I had no trouble putting the girls to bed that evening.

The first thing I did Friday morning was send another email to the principal to whom I had spoken a week before. There was nothing much else I could do at that point except sit and wait. Colleen and I decided we were going to can the turkey soup she made earlier in the week so I set up the table and stove outside while Colleen got the soup heated up and into jars. Canning is every bit of a team effort around here. Colleen prepares everything and then I sit and keep an eye on the canner for however long it needs to go. Friday it was 90 minutes and I had to keep the pressure in the canner at a steady 10 PSI. The canning was just about done when I got an email back from the principal telling me they were just waiting for something to clear though the county’s HR department. That certainly was good news. Once the canning was done, Colleen and I headed out to the gardens to harvest our lima beans. We got very excited about getting a colander full of beans. With Colleen flying solo to school this year I wanted her to have a new more reliable phone so we headed to Walmart come mid afternoon. When we got back I had an email waiting for me letting me know everything cleared HR and I had a new teaching job waiting for me. The principal called me as well to welcome me to the team. The air in the house changed right then and there. Colleen and I spent the rest of the evening breathing easier and relaxing.

The rains showed back up Friday night and hung around all day yesterday. Knowing that it was definitely Colleen’s last weekend of summer break and quite possibly mine as well, we decided to make an easy day of it. I tried to take care of the paperwork I would need for my new job, but I ran out of ink in our printer. I ended up running down to the store to get another ink cartridge, but that was the only time I left the house yesterday. Colleen did some baking during the day, making a couple of turkey pot pies and some spice cookies. Colleen used one of the jars of turkey soup which hadn’t canned correctly on Friday to make the pot pies and the pies turned out exceptionally well. Alex, Colleen, and I had no problem finishing off one whole pot pie for dinner. Overall, it was a very quiet day for all of us.

The temperatures never got to 70 degrees yesterday and this morning we’re starting off in the 60’s with a nice breeze blowing. The skies are gray and cloudy, but we are hopeful that we will see some sunshine later this afternoon. I guess Colleen and I will be tying up some loose ends today in preparation for the start of the new school year. I need to get her phone working and she has some more baking she wants to do. We are planning on firing up the grill for dinner tonight and have lamb chops on the menu in the way of a small celebration too. I suppose I can say our summer break is officially over. It has been a great summer, but not without a few bumps in the road. In the end though, we got through everything one day at a time. Everyone is healthy and happy and we are very thankful that up here on our little hill, all is right on the homestead.

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September 01, 2019: The Beginning Of A New Adventure

This was the week everything started cooling off up here on our hill. The mornings started at near 60 degrees and the daytime highs stayed in the 80’s for the most part. On a couple of those days we didn’t even make into the 80’s. There wasn’t much in the way of rain apart from a few sprinkles at the beginning of the week either. For all of that, it was a busy week. Colleen started back to school and I got to start my new job teaching at a different school.

I found out last Friday that I had a teaching job waiting for me for this week once all the paperwork got finished. After I took care of our weekly blog for our website, I spent the rest of the day doing my best to get my end of the paperwork for school rolling, and doing a few things to help Colleen get ready for the start of her school year on Monday. Colleen’s new phone proved to be a real challenge and I finally relented and let Alex have a go at it. Luckily, he got everything squared away and everything is working just fine now. Colleen, for her part, spent the better part of the day in the kitchen. From now until next June, weekends mean Colleen will be baking and cooking to get things ready so she isn’t scrambling around after school during the week. On the day, she ended up making two turkey pot pies, two chicken quesadilla pies, a.k.a. Parade, and a double batch of cranberry-orange muffins. I grilled some lamb chops for dinner so Colleen wouldn’t have to cook dinner too.

Monday morning started out in a flurry. It was Colleen’s first day back at school and that meant we needed to shed our summer morning routine for our school year morning routine. After a wonderful summer, the sound of our alarm going off at 4:30 was not a welcome sound. Colleen got off to school just fine and I got working on my paperwork for my new job. Needless to say, the task proved to be a challenge. Files were not transferring and uploading correctly so by noon I headed out to have the forms faxed to where they needed to be. Since I was out and about Monday, I stopped by my new school at the request of the principal, and an assistant principal gave me the textbooks I would need so I could start getting ready for my classes. Colleen’s day at school was hectic, but everything worked out well. I found out that even though it was the first of school the teachers had a Mandatory Monday Meeting. I won’t miss those. Colleen stopped at the laundromat on the way home to do last week’s laundry. Fortunately, dinner was already made when she got home and she just had to heat it up.

Tuesday morning things were still a bit chaotic, but they went easily enough. Colleen headed off to school and I got ready to head to urgent care to get my pre-employment physical. Somebody was sure looking out for me because I got in and out in 30 minutes. The exam went fine, but I needed verification that I had had all of my vaccinations. That could have proved tricky since I was vaccinated in the early 1960’s. Fortunately, a number of years back my mother had sent my original documents to Colleen and Colleen had filed them away. I got a call from the county office Tuesday afternoon and they scheduled me for new hire orientation on Wednesday morning with plans for me to start teaching on Thursday. Now, that was great, but I needed a physical Social Security card which I hadn’t seen since the early 1980’s so I was going to have to get a new one. I did have a little free time on Tuesday afternoon and managed to get the chicken coop cleaned up for the week. Colleen got home at her usual time. Colleen’s day had gone better and things were starting to settle down into a routine for her. Dinner was ready again and just needed to be heated up. After dinner it was the usual clean up and taking care of the chickens before we headed upstairs to bed.

Wednesday morning was easy and Colleen got off to school without any problems. I got cleaned up and headed off to my new hire orientation. Since I absolutely had to have a physical social security card, the session administrator let me run down to the Social Security office a few miles down the road which closes at noon on Wednesdays while they were talking about teaching licenses. I already had my teaching license and having been teaching for last 17 years, I wasn’t going to miss anything new. The whole trip to the Social Security office took me a grand total of 30 minutes. Seriously, who gets in and out of the Social Security office in 10 minutes, but I did. We finished the orientation around noon and I headed over to the school so they could show me around because I had been cleared to start teaching on Thursday morning. Once again having dinner prepared ahead of time proved to be an awesome thing. Dinner was easy and Colleen and I had a relaxing evening. I’m not sure if it was that I would be starting school on Thursday morning or what, but Wednesday evening while I was sitting out on the back porch it really started to feel like fall was just around the corner. I watched the sun set and couldn’t help but notice that the sun was setting further south in the western horizon. I guess it really hit me then that our summer was over.

Thursday morning was weird. Both Colleen and I would be heading off to school, but for the first time in 12 years it wouldn’t be to the same school. Colleen was so worried about me having a lunch she forgot hers, and she didn’t realize it until she was at school. I didn’t have to be to school until 8:30 so after Colleen left I took care of the girls. I finally headed out to school, but got about a mile down the road and realized I had left my teeth on the counter so I had to double back to get them. I still made it to school in plenty of time. The day itself actually went well for both of us. Dinner was leftovers and at dinner both Colleen and I got to breathe a big sigh of relief because everything finally seemed to be falling into place after the air of uncertainty that had been hanging over us all summer. Colleen got to get out and water the gardens after dinner, but our gardens are definitely looking like they have reached their end for the summer. I guess it’s time to start thinking about fall and winter gardens.

Friday morning by all measures was the easiest of the week. The only thing Colleen forgot was her wristwatch. Colleen did have a school wide meeting for faculty and students that screwed up the day’s scheduling, but other than that her day went well. My day went smoothly too. I called Colleen when I was getting ready to head home and told her I would pick pizza for dinner. It took me just about 30 minutes to get home with a stop for pizza on the way. I think I’m really going to enjoy teaching at a school less than 10 miles from home. Since Friday was the start of our long Labor Day weekend, we didn’t do much after dinner. Once again, though, as I was relaxing on the back porch after dinner I was reminded that we are fast approaching the start of autumn. One of Colleen’s solar powered butterflies lit up at 7:30 which was a good half hour sooner than it had been lighting up during the heart of summer.

Saturday was the first of our catch-up weekends of the school year. After our morning coffee, it was off to Tractor Supply Company and Walmart for Colleen and me. The TSC stop was for chicken supplies. It’s time to switch the girls’ feed over to layer feed. The girls are past the 20 week old mark now, and with any luck they will start laying eggs in the next week or so. Colleen and I are already religiously checking the nesting boxes every morning and evening when we do get into the coop. The stop at Walmart was for our weekly groceries. After we got home and while Colleen was putting away our groceries yesterday I headed out to the gardens. I ended up getting a colander full of tomatoes, a half a bag each of green beans and lima beans, and our first cantaloupe. Even the girls got to enjoy the cantaloupe because we gave them the seeds and rind after we enjoyed a mid afternoon snack. Our cantaloupe wasn’t very big, but it sure was tasty and there is still another one on the vine. We had cheeseburgers adorned with some of our pink Brandywine tomatoes for dinner, but after a crazy week and a busy day Colleen and I were both exhausted.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. The sun is shining, there’s a light breeze blowing, and it’s not hot. Colleen is already in the kitchen this morning and later today I will be in front of the computer working on lesson plans. Fortunately, we have tomorrow off as well, so anything that doesn’t get finished today will be finished tomorrow. It may be another week or so before Colleen and I hit our school year stride, but we will. The start of autumn is just over two weeks away now. The leaves will start to change color and before we know it we’ll be looking at the holiday season. It was a great summer and we are sad to see it go, but time stands still for no one. Colleen and I will keep moving forward one day at a time, always thankful for the bounty we enjoy, and at the end of each day we will catch our breath, look around, and celebrate knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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September 08, 2019: The Week Dorian Came To Town

It certainly was a week for the weather. We had an absolutely gorgeous Labor Day weekend and then came Dorian. We had plenty of sunshine and temperatures up in the 80’s right through Wednesday. Thursday the skies turned dark and gray, schools in the area were closed, and then sometime during the night Dorian slid up the coast line, pummeling everything in its path. By Friday morning the storm had moved far enough to the north that we only had partly cloudy skies, and by lunchtime we had sunshine, and temperatures were headed back into the upper 80’s. On Friday schools to the east of us stayed closed, but around here things quickly got back to normal and now we are enjoying another beautiful weekend. Living in Central North Carolina, as we do, you kind of just take this kind of late summer weather in stride, clean up in the aftermath, and keep moving forward.

Last Sunday was just a little bit more relaxing than a typical Sunday during the school year. Monday was Labor Day so while Colleen and I went about our business, there wasn’t the urgency to get things done for Monday since neither Colleen nor I had to go into school in the morning. Colleen was still feeling under the weather, but she managed to get some baking and cooking done. I spent some time writing and coming up with new lesson plans for school. Since it was Sunday, Colleen did make a very lovely pork roast dinner that included fresh lima beans from our garden. I must say after last year’s disappointment with our lima beans thanks to aphids, this year definitely cemented lima beans as one of yearly crops in the future.

Since Monday was a holiday, I had secured a new teaching position, and both Colleen and I had the day off from school, everything was pretty relaxed around here. Colleen was still fighting her cold, but she did manage to get down to the laundromat in the morning to get the week’s laundry washed. I spent much of the morning making sure my guns were cleaned and oiled up. Dove seasoned opened on the day and I had hopes of getting out in the afternoon to do a little hunting, but sadly that didn’t happen. Most of our day was spent hanging around the house. Colleen dried the laundry and battled her cold all day. I managed to get a bunch of late season produce out of our gardens. Somehow, Colleen found the motivation and energy in the afternoon to make a meatloaf dinner. My darling wife can be downright amazing sometimes, actually most of the time.

Tuesday and Wednesday turned out to be pretty regular days at school for us. Colleen’s cold was being stubborn, but the kid she shadows didn’t show up for school on Wednesday so she had an easy day. My days went well except for the meltdown on Wednesday one of my classes had about a pending quiz scheduled for Thursday. I did have an after school meeting on Wednesday, but the principal promised to keep it short and they did. Louis came up to the house after dinner on Wednesday to get Alex. Both boys took some time off from work for their birthday on Friday. Louis wasn’t here very long and before long both boys headed back to Louis’s place to enjoy their long birthday weekend. By the time Colleen and I were ready for bed Wednesday night, school had been canceled for both of us in anticipation of the arrival of Dorian.

Thursday rolled around with its gray, threatening skies, but Dorian’s outer bands weren’t supposed to arrive until sometime after lunch. Colleen is a TA and TA’s don’t go into school on workdays. My new school is basically just down the road, and I saw no point in burning a day of leave so I headed into school at my usual time. It all worked out pretty well because it gave me some time to get myself organized and settled in my classroom. I had only been there four days at that point. It was early afternoon when the skies started to look very ugly so I headed home. My timing was pretty good because the rain only started after I got home. It never really rained very hard up here on the hill and the wind never got much above a strong breeze even with the worst gusts. By the time Colleen and I went to bed we knew her school would be closed on Friday and my school would be starting after a two-hour delay. Dorian ended up blowing through sometime in the middle of the night, but we slept through it all.

The rain had stopped by Friday morning. The county where Colleen works had closed schools for the day because of the danger of flooding which worked out well for Colleen giving her an extra day of rest to get over her cold. The schools in this county opted for a 2-hour delayed start to the school day. We got a whole lot less rain than counties to the east of us. I went into school at the regular time anyway so I could use the free time to work in my classroom before the kids showed up. The day whizzed by and I stopped for pizza on the way home. After dinner I was able to get into our sad looking gardens and pick a bunch of tomatoes, but even after the good soaking from Dorian, I suspect our gardens are on their last legs for this summer.

Saturday the sun was back and around here we were hard pressed to tell that Dorian had even passed through the area. Now that school has started again, Colleen and I spend our weekends playing catch up around this place. We got lucky this weekend and didn’t need to make a market run. I cleaned the chicken coop, closed up the pool for the winter, pruned an overgrown bush, and cut the grass in part of the yard. Colleen did some baking and even came up with a new pasta salad recipe. The recipe is a keeper, but still needs a bit more tinkering. Alex was still at Louis’s place Saturday evening so Colleen and I treated ourselves to take out burgers and onion rings for dinner. Of course, we had to get an extra order of onion rings so we could nibble on the way home.

The sun is back this morning and while it’s supposed to get warm, it shouldn’t be too hot. Besides, there is plenty of shade because the leaves are still on the trees. It looks like I’ll be in front of the computer for most of the day doing school work. Colleen will most likely spend part of her day in the kitchen. Today is kind of special though, it is our anniversary. Colleen and I have been married for 19 years. How she puts up with me I’ll never know. I certainly have no complaints though, and it hardly seems like we’ve been together that long. I do know one thing though, my darling wife is the heart and soul of our little homestead, and without her, none of this would not be possible. Together we have built ourselves a wonderful, yet simple, life for which we are both thankful. No matter what comes our way, we face things together, one day at a time, and at the end of every day when we look around at all we have done, and we know that all is right on the homestead.

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September 15, 2019: It Was A Long And Tiring Week

There is just over a week left of summer and Mother Nature has started going through her change of season wackiness. Overall, the weather wasn’t terrible this week, but we had a couple of days up in the 90’s and another where the thermometer couldn’t get through the 80 degree mark. For the most part it was a dry week with only some early morning fog to start the week, and we had a few sprinkles that barely got anything wet on Friday evening. The week was noteworthy for one thing though, and that was because the week was the first week since last May that both Colleen and I were in school from Monday through Friday. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I did rather enjoy my extended summer break and the stop and start beginning to the school year thanks to Labor Day and hurricane Dorian. Since I’m at a year round school now our breaks won’t exactly match up, but for the most part Colleen and I will be home at the same times.

Not much got done around this place last Sunday. Colleen was in the last throes of the chest cold she had been battling the week before and I desperately needed to get some school work done. I started out working in front of the computer on the back porch, but by lunch time the sun and 90 plus degree heat index chased me to the shade on the front porch. It was hot enough that I even brought a fan out to the porch with me. I spent something like 6 or 7 hours on the computer and had enough stuff put together to get me through Wednesday at school. Fortunately, we didn’t need to make a market run last Sunday. With school on Monday, Colleen did all she could to get some extra rest and shake her cold to the point we even opted out of our usual big Sunday dinner.

My new school hours and the sun setting earlier and earlier everyday are making getting anything done around here during the week difficult at best. Colleen gets home at her regular time, but I don’t get home until right at 5 o’clock now. I still get up in the morning with Colleen, but after she leaves I just hang out in the dark, on the back porch until the sun starts coming up so I can let the chickens out for the day and then get ready and head to school. My school is only a 15 minute ride from the house and I’m always there just about an hour before teachers need to report. It makes getting ready for the school day a whole lot easier.

Even with her cold stubbornly hanging on, Colleen headed to school on Monday with her usual two full laundry bags in the trunk of her car. She stopped at the laundromat on the way home and by the time I got home she already had our clothes drying in the basement. After dinner Colleen and I found ourselves in an all too familiar school week routine. Colleen cleaned the kitchen and finished drying the laundry while I headed out to the back porch with a cigar to work on my schoolwork. About sunset we head down to the chicken coop to put the girls up for the night, and that marks the end to our day usually. It looks like I’ll be doing a whole lot of extra school work this year because I’m teaching two classes I haven’t taught in the recent past so I need to come up with the lesson plans and class work for the kids.

Tuesday wasn’t a bad day at all. Colleen’s cold started showing signs of letting go and I gave quizzes to all of my classes at school. I was even able to get everything graded before I left school that afternoon. Colleen had enough energy to make her white chicken lasagna that evening so dinner would be ready on Wednesday. Colleen had a meeting Wednesday after school so she would be getting home late and having dinner ready was going to be a big help. I had a meeting on Wednesday as well, but mine was before school so I was just going to come home at my regular time. Colleen and I are adapting to our new schedule slowly, but surely, and things are starting to settle into a routine for us.

Thursday turned out to be a scorching hot day. The temperatures got into the upper 90’s and the heat index got over 100 degrees. Unfortunately, Alex decided to go back to work after being sick all week and not being 100 percent. It wasn’t a good day for him and the boss told him to stay home on Friday. The only real excitement on Thursday came on my ride home from school. My ride to and from school is on two lane country back roads. I left school 10 minutes later than usual and found myself in a bit of a traffic snarl up because of an accident. I could have been in that accident if I had left school on time, and if I had left any later I would have been stuck there for a while once the emergency vehicles got there. As it was, I was able to sneak by the mess right before the emergency vehicles arrived. Fortunately, it didn’t look like anyone was hurt in the accident.

Friday was pizza day. The day itself was cloudy and the temperatures stayed below 80 degrees. We did get a sprinkle of rain in the evening, but it wasn’t enough to get things very wet. The week as a whole, while not terribly unusual, was long and Alex and Colleen were still battling their colds. I made sure I left school right on time Friday afternoon and even after picking up the pizza I was still home by 5 o’clock. After dinner I had hoped to relax on the back porch and not think about school, but that didn’t happen and I found myself trying to think of ways to help the kids get a better grasp of the material. Colleen beat me down to the chicken coop Friday evening, and when I got down there the girls were just getting ready to head into the coop and their roosts for the night.

Saturday morning got off to a slow start. I slept an hour or so later than usual and Colleen lingered in bed to enjoy her morning coffee. Both Colleen and I felt pretty good once we got moving even if our tanks were running low from a long and tiring week. Colleen felt well enough to tackle cleaning the first floor while I sat in front of the computer for most of the morning doing schoolwork. The afternoon was a bit more productive. Colleen did a little baking, and after a short nap I tackled the gardens. I did a little late season harvesting and even managed to clean out and prep one garden in anticipation of our fall planting. We ate an early dinner of leftovers and decided to get our market run out of the way after dinner. We sure didn’t have much energy for the market run, but we really wanted to get it out of the way.

Thankfully, this morning is cool. The sun is playing peek-a-boo from behind the clouds. Colleen has a bunch of baking and cooking to do today and I have a ton of schoolwork that needs to be done. At least if the sun stays behind the clouds for a while I can work out on the porch. I’m not sure how much we’ll get done around here today, but we’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other. There isn’t any sense in grumbling about things because nothing will get done that way for sure. Luckily, everyone seems to be on the mend from battling colds all last week so the upcoming week is most definitely looking better. Colleen and I will keep taking things one day at a time, always thankful for what we accomplish and what we have. Every day we wake up and put our feet on the ground has the potential to truly exceptional and that keeps us going. There really is no better feeling than looking around at the end of a day, knowing we made a difference, and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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September 22, 2019: Summer Has Come To An End

It may have been the last week of summer, but around here things are starting to feel fall like. We had plenty of sunshine all week, and while the temperatures ranged from an afternoon high of 90 degrees early in the week to a morning low of 50 degrees at the end of the week, it really wasn’t too bad because the shift in temperatures was spread out over the whole week. The Texas coast and area around Houston got hammered with rain, but up here in the central Carolinas we stayed high and dry. Fall officially arrives this coming Monday, and it looks like Mother Nature wants to warm things up for us again. I don’t mind though because I’m starting my three week long fall break and there is a lot of catching up to do around this place. When I left my old high school and signed on with my new school, I wasn’t sure how I would like the year round schedule, but as it turns out, it’s nothing short of fantastic.

Since I started teaching at my new school in the middle of the first term a few weeks ago, I’ve been consumed with just trying to stay caught up with things. Last Sunday I spent every bit of six hours in front of the computer getting everything ready for last week. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and I got to work out on the back porch. Colleen spent the day in the kitchen. She tried a new approach to preparing meals for the week that intrigued her. Instead of cooking everything up front, she only prepared the meals to the point where all she had to do during the week was put the pieces together and do the last step of cooking everything in the afternoons when she got home. By the time mid afternoon rolled around, Colleen had the refrigerator filled with all of the various parts of the week’s meals. She even had time to make chicken Creole for Sunday dinner.

Monday morning found Colleen and me in our new morning routine for school days. Colleen left at 0-dark-30 and I hung around in the back porch for another hour and a half or so. I took care of the chickens once the sun came up then I got ready and headed off to school. Colleen got home a good bit before me, but that gave her plenty of time to settle in for the afternoon and to get dinner ready. Her partially prepared meal for Monday evening came off without a hitch. Since I had done so much work on Sunday, I got to enjoy Monday evening after dinner on the back porch without worrying about school. I did notice that one of the trees behind the house had leaves that were starting to change colors, reminding me that fall was right around the corner.

Colleen and I did just what we needed to do to get through Tuesday through Thursday. We had both settled into our new morning routine and the school days passed uneventfully. The temperatures started to cool off nicely for us and Colleen’s partially prepared meals continued to work out exceptionally well for the rest of the week. The school work I had done on Sunday held me through the week and I even had all of my grading done by Thursday afternoon before I left school. The evenings found Colleen and me down by the chicken coop right before sunset and it seems we now have an evening ritual to go with our morning routine. If nothing else, being down by the chicken coop gives Colleen and me 10 or 15 minutes out of a busy day where we can just sit, talk, and laugh.

Friday wasn’t too big of a day for Colleen, but at my school it was the last day of the quarter and the kids were ready to head out for their three week first term break. I did my best to keep the day as low key as I could for the kids and for the most part they all did well. I stopped and picked up pizza on my way home. Colleen had a cold root beer waiting for me and it was just perfect with the pizza. I really must look up how to make root beer, as it is definitely on my bucket list of things I’d like do to once we retire. Honestly, I’d try it now, but we just have way too many irons in the fire as it is. I have no doubt that I will give it a try though when the time is right. After dinner I headed out to the porch with a cigar, looked down by the shed and realized I needed to add blowing leaves to my “To-Do” list. Yep, I just added another iron to the fire.

Yesterday morning was glorious. It was cool and the morning sun had painted the eastern horizon brilliant amber. I took care of Buttercup and the girls so Colleen could sleep late and by late I mean not getting up to an alarm clock at 5 AM. Colleen was up a little after sunrise, had her morning coffee, and then she was off to the races. I figured I better get my tail in gear when I heard the vacuum cleaner going. Colleen finished her cleaning and then spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. I did some work in the garden and then spent most of my time running the compost pile through a screen so I could use the larger wood shavings from the chicken coop for mulch around the outside of our raised bed gardens. By the time Colleen and I headed down to the chicken coop we were both pretty tired.

For everything that didn’t happen last week, it was a watershed week of sorts. With the end of the first quarter behind me and a three week break at school in front of me, when we start up again in a few weeks the classes will be mine. For the last three weeks I’ve felt like I was just filling in for the teacher that left. The kids are used to me now and I know all of them pretty well. I suppose it’s much like introducing new chickens to an existing flock. It takes a little time and some patience. I am also a good bit more comfortable in my surroundings and while I am still the new kid in the block, I do feel like I am part of the team now. Four years ago my old high school got a new principal who stole the joy and excitement of being in the classroom from me and a great many other awesome and dedicated teachers and turned our teaching into a job. I can happily say that my passion for being in the classroom is back and I genuinely look forward to going into school everyday again. I guess it’s time for me to sort through all of the stuff I cleared out of my old classroom when I left last May. It’s just been sitting in the family room since it all came home.

We have another beautiful morning today up here in our little hill on this last day of summer. Colleen is still enjoying her morning coffee in bed. Things have certainly calmed down for us of late. Our summer was interesting to say the least. It was a great summer and we stayed very busy, but the uncertainty of if and where I would be teaching in the fall was hanging over our heads. Well, that’s all done and over with now and things couldn’t have worked out any better. My new school and new schedule are incredible, and Colleen and I are moving forward again. Before we know it, the holidays will be here and winter will be on its way. Of course there is always more to do than time allows around here, but that is how things go. I had to start a new “To-Do” list that I will try to tackle over the next three weeks. As long as the weather stays nice and I am on break, I will help Colleen with the cooking by grilling some of our meals. Honestly, things just could not be any better for us right now. All the same, we’ll keep taking things one day at a time and letting tomorrow take care of itself. It’s a crazy world out there, but up here on our little hill all is right on the homestead.

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September 29, 2019: Was That Really The First Week Of Fall?

Well, the first week of autumn has come and gone. It sure didn’t feel much like autumn with temperatures reaching the upper 80’s or lower 90’s all week. Some nights the temperatures never even got below 70 degrees. The only rain we saw was sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning. I don’t think it rained very hard though because the rain didn’t wake me up and yesterday morning everything was just barely wet. The mornings as whole weren’t too bad though. There was usually a nice breeze blowing which made it nice to sit out on the back porch. The evenings were a different story all together because the breeze typically died off during the day and the humidity seemed to spike up right around sunset. We are looking at much of the same for the week in front of us, but after that it looks like things may cool off to more seasonable temperatures. Now, I’m not complaining, mind you, because out in Northern Montana and Idaho they are in the middle of a blizzard that is expected to drop a couple of feet of snow. Come on now, snow in September, really?

Last Sunday finished the first weekend in quite a while where Colleen and I didn’t have something hanging over our heads that absolutely needed to be done. Colleen did partially prepare a couple of meals for the week, but her menu for the week was easy and wasn’t going to prove to be a problem. Alex took off with Steven to go fishing in the afternoon, Colleen found the time to get outside and work in her gardens, and I cleaned the chicken coop and pen, giving the girls some fresh bedding. Colleen and I decided instead of our usual big Sunday dinner, the timber of the day warranted burgers and fries for dinner. After dinner we didn’t do much, and after we shut the girls up in their coop for the night we both headed upstairs. Colleen stayed up a while reading in bed, but I went right to sleep.

Monday morning Colleen and I were up at our regular time. Colleen was just starting another week at school and I had a teacher workday that was the start of a three week break for me. I had a pretty good list of things I wanted to get done at school and everything worked out better than I anticipated, so I was home earlier than I expected, and I was home before Colleen. Admittedly, it was Monday and Colleen did stop at the laundromat on the way home. While I was sitting on the front porch waiting for Colleen to get home, I couldn’t help but notice how sad our once lush gardens we’re looking. There was no point in prolonging the inevitable so I moved cleaning out the gardens up to the top of my “To-Do” of things to be done on my break. Anna Maria and Lily were at the beach with her parents so Steven joined us for dinner Monday evening. Steven was planning on heading down to the beach to join everyone on Wednesday.

Tuesday morning I got up with Colleen, but stayed out of her way while she got ready for school. That ended up being our routine for the rest of the week. After I watched Colleen drive off into the dark from our front porch, it was out to the back porch for me to wait for sunrise. The day turned out to be pretty busy for me. I did some schoolwork, did some work on my website for school, took care of a few phone calls, cut the grass in the backyard which had turned into a hay field, and even found time to pull up the tomato garden and get it ready for either a fall garden or next spring. I’m not quite sure yet. Colleen’s day at school didn’t bring her any surprises, but still after a day at school, the warm ride home, getting dinner ready and then cleaning up, she was every bit as tired as I was from the day.

Wednesday started much like Tuesday had started and after Colleen left for school I headed to the back porch again. The sun came up, I took care of the chickens, and then I pulled my computer out to work on school stuff. It’s what teachers do on their breaks. Anyway, I ended up having a brain fart so I decided to put the school work up for the day and move on to other more productive activities. Usually I don’t start steam cleaning our wall to wall carpeting which I hate until the end of October. It’s part of the annual ritual around here as we get ready for the holidays, but with a three week break and no one in the house, I started early this year and did half of the living room. That took me right up to lunchtime and after lunch I headed outside to pull up the pole beans and clean that garden out. Colleen had a bit of a tough day at school and the ride home in the heat of the afternoon didn’t help much so I grilled dinner to give my darling wife a break. Since Steven had headed down to the beach, Alex headed over to Steven and Anna Maria’s place to house sit for them right after dinner.

I decided to make an easier day of it on Thursday so after Colleen headed off to school I started back on my schoolwork. I spent most of my morning out on the back porch in front of my computer. I was reminded that it was fall despite the heat when I looked out to the wood line and saw a cluster of bright red leaves on one of the trees. That is one good thing about working out on the back porch. I get a really good chance to look at the world around me and see things I might usually take for granted. Anyway, the sun and the heat of the day eventually did chase me off the back porch, and feeling like I had done enough school work for the day, I headed inside to finally clean up the pile of stuff in the family room that had come out of my classroom last spring when I left my old school. The cleaning wasn’t so bad, but wading through 17 years of memories really did pull at my heart strings. Colleen had had a tough day at school and by the time she got home, made dinner, and cleaned up, we were both pretty emotionally exhausted. We headed straight to bed after we put the chickens to roost for the evening.

For some reason I woke up around 3 o’clock on Friday morning and I mean woke up and was wide awake. I headed down to the back porch so Colleen could sleep until the alarm went off. She still had to go to school. Once she left, I finished the schoolwork I had been doing, took care of the chickens for the morning, and decided I needed to cut firewood. A hickory tree had uprooted early last spring and it was time to start cutting it and hauling it up the hill. The hickory tree was on the downhill side of our eastern property line, a good 40 yards from the log splitter, a fact I hadn’t taken into account. When I saw the distance I was going to have to carry the wood up the hill I quickly realized it was going to take me a couple of days to get the job done. I ended up cutting about 18 feet of the main trunk into rounds and carrying everything I cut up to the log splitter. Thankfully, I was working in the shade, but by lunchtime I was done for the day, having only managed to get twelve good sized rounds up the hill. After lunch I headed into the living room to finish steam cleaning the rug I started cleaning on Wednesday. It takes about two days for the rug to thoroughly dry out. Colleen’s day at school had been a good bit better than the previous two days, but she was still wiped out when she got home. Since we were both supposed to be paid Friday night, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Alex surprised us by being on the front porch when we got home and Colleen pointed him in the direction of some leftovers in the refrigerator for dinner. Alex grabbed what he wanted and then headed back over to Steven and Anna Maria’s place for another night of house sitting. After Colleen and I closed up the chicken coop for the night, we didn’t waste any time heading upstairs to bed.

I slept well Friday night, but not so much for Colleen. I did check our bank account yesterday morning to make sure we got paid and we did. We spent most of the day running around so we could restock things that had started to dwindle over the last few months. We ended up fighting crowds at Costco and Walmart and still managed to find time to stop at Tractor Supply, but our travels took us pretty much all day. Colleen and I were both shocked that the stores had their Christmas stuff out already too. The last part of the afternoon Colleen and I spent butchering and repackaging the meat we had gotten and by dinner time we were both wiped out and ready to drop. Thankfully, dinner was just hot dogs and chips because I don’t think Colleen could have managed anything requiring more effort. So much for resting on a weekend, I guess that is the best that can be said.

The sun is up and the day’s heat is already starting to build today. The humidity seems to be creeping up as well. Fortunately, today looks to be an easy day for us. Colleen had packed away enough leftovers in the freezer so she will only have to prep one new meal for the week. I suppose I’ll try to finish up the living room and get all of the furniture back in place, but I don’t have any plans for much more than that today. I wouldn’t be surprised if I will pick up tomorrow where I left off last week, but I’ll cross that bridge tomorrow. Colleen and I live our lives taking one day at a time, and the better part of today is still in front of us. It’s a simple life, but one we love and the best part is when we look around every day and know that all is right on the homestead.

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October 06, 2019: Is Fall Finally Here?

September is now long gone and we are plowing through October. If anyone had ever told me that here in Central North Carolina we would see a sweltering hot week with temperatures reaching 100 degrees in October, I would have thought they had been dropped on their head one too many times as a baby, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if that wasn’t exactly what happened last week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday had daytime highs well above 90 degrees and Thursday we touched 100 degrees which shattered the old record by something like 7 degrees. Just to make things even more interesting, a cold front moved through the area on Friday night, and yesterday morning we woke up to temperatures in the upper 50’s. Of course, with all these wild temperature gyrations there wasn’t a lick of rain to be had. On the bright side of things, it looks like fall may finally be here to stay with forecasted high temperatures for the upcoming week only getting into the 70’s and maybe just touching 80 degrees.

Last Sunday was actually a pretty low key day for us up here on the hill. Colleen had enough leftovers in the freezer to get us through dinners for the week so she spent some time fine tuning one of her cookie recipes. She’s looking to get some solid orange flavor in her “Creamsicle” cookies and she did last Sunday. I spent the afternoon putting the living room back together since the carpet I had steam cleaned the week before was finally dry. Colleen was very glad to have her living room put back together. I grilled some steaks for dinner and after dinner Colleen and I moved the dining room table to one side of the room so I could start cleaning the carpet on Monday.

Colleen and I started our Monday at our regular time and in our usual fashion. Even though I was still on break, Colleen had to go to school for one of those rare teacher workdays when TA’s needed to be there. To make matters worse, she got sucked into attending one those two plus hour long training sessions with all of the teachers. The morning wasn’t terribly hot and with the forecasted hot days still ahead of us, I headed down to cut up some more of the uprooted tree I’d been working on last week and then brought the cut wood up by the log splitter. I got lucky too. I was cutting the lower section of the main trunk and on the last piece by the stump I pulled my chainsaw out of the cut as soon as I felt the round coming loose. If I had cut another half inch deeper I would have hit a rock under the tree and wrecked the chain on my chainsaw. I got all of the cut wood up the hill and by the splitter before lunch and after lunch I started steam cleaning the dining room carpet. Since Colleen had to go to school and it was a Monday, she stopped at the laundromat to wash the week’s laundry on her way home. It was an easy evening with only drying the laundry that needed doing.

Tuesday was a regular school day for Colleen, and it wasn’t a great day at school for her. Of course, the ride home in a hot car after school didn’t make her day any better. The morning was cool enough for me to head down the hill and cut some more firewood before lunch. I was able to get the rest of the main trunk up the hill leaving just the bigger limbs for another day. After lunch I got into the gardens and pulled up all of the lima bean plants for the season which left just the Swiss chard in our gardens. Colleen had another tough day at school and another hot ride home, but neither of us knew we were in for one dandy surprise after dinner. Colleen and I headed down to the chicken pen in anticipation of the girls going to roost and letting us lock up the coop for the night. We checked the nesting boxes like usual and lo’ and behold one of the girls had laid an egg. After a summer of waiting for the girls to come of age, we had our first egg!

Wednesday things started to get really warm around here. It was already getting hot when Colleen left for school before sunrise. Wednesday morning I camped out in front of the computer on the back porch and did a bunch of schoolwork until the sun and the heat of the day chased me inside. After lunch I got to steam cleaning the dining room carpet, but only half. I still had to move furniture out of the way and work around it. Colleen had a good day at school, but looked worn out from the hot ride home. I suggested she take the Trail Blazer which has AC to school, but she doesn’t want to drive that “dang ol’ bus”. We didn’t do a whole lot after dinner on Wednesday, and despite the heat I could tell we were in fall because the shadows the sun makes through the tress in the evening were long and stretched out. There was another egg waiting for us in the nesting boxes too. It looks like we only have one girl laying, but it’s a start.

Thursday they were forecasting temperatures at 100 degrees and the day heated up fast. I decided since I was still on break I would make an easy day of it, and I worked on our website all morning. I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the front porch in the shade and in front of a fan. Between the change of seasons, the heat, and the lack of rain, even Colleen’s flower gardens were starting to wilt. Her garden of Solomon Seal had a nice look to it though, but that won’t last too long I’m sure. Before long it will be buried in falling leaves from the trees. Colleen did have a better day at school on Thursday, but she still had a very hot drive home. I had expected the high temperatures would stress out the chickens and sure enough there wasn’t an egg waiting for us when Colleen and I closed up the coop in the evening.

Things cooled off on Friday, if you can call an afternoon high temperature of 92 degrees cooling off for October. There was a nice breeze blowing in the morning so I headed down to the tree I had been cutting up and finished cutting all the bigger limbs and dragging the cut pieces up the hill to the log splitter. Dinner for the night was pizza and I treated Colleen to a ride in the Trail Blazer with the AC turned on when we went to pick up the pizzas. Colleen fell asleep for a bit right after dinner and while she was asleep the delivery man dropped off the egg basket she ordered earlier in the week. I didn’t tell her about it once she woke up and she didn’t see it until she brought Friday’s egg up from the coop after we closed up shop. Needless to say I had one very happy wife and we ended the school week on a very high note.

Friday night a cold front moved through the area and we woke up Saturday morning to temperatures under 60 degrees. The skies were gray and it sure felt like fall all of a sudden. The cool weather was refreshing yesterday and Colleen and I certainly took advantage of it. We got out early, headed to Lowe’s to pick some plant starts for our fall gardens and then stopped at the market to get our groceries. Colleen spent the afternoon baking and I cleaned out the chicken coop and then steam cleaned the second half of the dining room carpet. After dinner Colleen started cleaning out floor fans so they could be put away until next spring. It was a good day for us and we just spent most of the evening relaxing and not thinking about too much.

The sun is hit or miss this morning, but at least we have a little sunshine every now and again. The girls have been taken care of already this morning and Colleen is still enjoying her morning coffee. It looks like Colleen will spend most of her day in the kitchen prepping meals for the upcoming week. So far her strategy has worked out quite well. I need to find my way out to the gardens later today to plant the starts we got from Lowe’s yesterday and maybe with the cool weather I can spend some time on the back porch doing some schoolwork. Of course, there is always plenty of firewood to be split too. I’d definitely have to say fall has finally arrived to stay though and before long we’ll start thinking about putting a fire in the fireplace. If something unexpected does come our way today, Colleen and I will deal with things in our usual one step at a time manner. Despite the heat, last week was a great week up here in our little and we’ll have to wait and see what this coming week brings down the road, but no matter what happens Colleen and I can look around and know that all is right on the homestead.

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October 13, 2019: It Was The Last Week Of My Break

It sure looks like fall has finally settled into our little corner of the world. Last week was cool and dry and, quite frankly, just perfect for the last week of my break. Even Colleen got to enjoy the lovely weather since she had Wednesday off because it was a teacher workday. The mornings got down to around 50 degrees and the daytime highs only got up to around 80 degrees. The cool mornings turned out to be just great for me to get some schoolwork done on the back porch. Over the course of my break, I had managed to get so much work done around this place that I took yesterday off and it seemed like a real day off for me. Today we have rain in the forecast all day so I should have a good chance to sew up the last few odds and ends for my schoolwork for the week ahead of us. No doubt, Colleen will be spending her day in the kitchen getting meals ready for the week.

Last Sunday proved to be an interesting day, particularly in the afternoon. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon working on my schoolwork. Colleen wanted to clean her kitchen and do the prep for some meals for the week. One thing led to another and before I knew Colleen had the kitchen torn apart and she was giving it a very thorough cleaning, walls, windows, curtains, bookcase, and the works! Needless to say she never got to prep any meals, but that’s how we roll. Everything happens exactly how and when it should around this place. I did manage to find time to plant all of our fall gardens come Sunday mid afternoon after I got tired of looking a computer screen. Colleen did finish cleaning her kitchen and she even found time to experiment with a new Cajun chicken, sausage, and corn stew for dinner, and just for the record, the stew was absolutely fantastic.

Colleen headed off to school Monday morning and I waited for the sun to come up before I got moving. I had made plans to pick a kid from one of my classes so he could help me split and stack all of the firewood I had dragged out of the woods the week before last. The kid only lives a couple of miles down the road and was actually waiting for me when I pulled in his driveway. The young man was amazing! I split and he stacked. He kept up with me, too, as I split all of the wood on my hydraulic log splitter. Of course, Mom wanted pictures of her son working and I was more than happy to oblige. The two of us had all the wood split and stacked shortly after lunch time. Once finished, we headed to McDonalds and then I brought the young man home. Colleen stopped at the laundromat on her way home, and by the time dinner rolled around we were both exhausted. Colleen hadn’t prepped a meal on Sunday so we had the leftover stew from Sunday evening which was just fine as far as we were concerned.

Tuesday was another school day for Colleen. Things had been rough over the last week or so, but Tuesday morning started off well and the tide seemed to be turning for Colleen. I spent the morning doing schoolwork again. There’s always a lot of planning to do in the first year of teaching a new course. I lasted in front of the computer screen until just after lunch. After lunch I started cleaning up the back porch for the change of seasons and I even put together the new wood rack for outside on the back porch. Colleen was most excited when she got home and realized she had Wednesday off from school. It was a teacher’s workday.

You sure wouldn’t have known Colleen and I both had Wednesday off from school. The first thing in the morning Colleen and I ran the Trail Blazer down to the shop for an oil change and its state inspection. Colleen did take the time once we got back from the shop to enjoy a couple of our fresh egg and toast for breakfast. When she was done eating, Colleen decided the curtains and the windows in the first floor needed a good cleaning. Things got real serious when Colleen started finding stink bugs in the curtain rods and inside the curtains. The curtains all came down, the curtain rods came down, the curtains got brought to the laundromat to get washed, and then got brought home to be dried. Colleen was re-hanging curtains by mid afternoon. Through all of this I was outside where I fired up the leaf blower, strapped it to my back, and I blew all leaves that had fallen so far off of our entire little half-acre. There are still plenty of leaves still in the trees, but blowing leaves is best done in stages around here or the piles get too big to handle.

I hadn’t slept well Wednesday night and Thursday morning it took all I could do just to get moving. Colleen headed to school in the dark of the morning and when I finally mustered the motivation to get moving, I spent the morning doing schoolwork work again. I did what I could, but it was a struggle and I just had to put everything up around lunch time. After lunch I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and the steam cleaner and finished the carpet on the stairs to the second floor. I probably didn’t finish 20 minutes before Colleen got home. Colleen got home to a gorgeous fall afternoon and once she got home, I vacuumed the dining room floor and unrolled the area rug. Colleen and I moved the dining room table back to the middle of the room and the only thing left was for me to clean all of the stuff off the table.

Friday morning a beautiful fall day greeted us. Colleen headed to school and I headed out to the back porch. Right after sunup I had my computer set up and was hammering at my schoolwork. I got a good bit done too. After lunch I took a quick nap and when I got up, I cleaned everything off the dining room table. Colleen got home at her usual time and was all smiles when she got out of the car. It seems that things had finally settled down at school so even though she had a busy day, it was a good day. Something in the back of my mind was telling me we needed to do our market run Friday afternoon which is unusual for Colleen and me. I mentioned it to Colleen and she said she had had the same thought so we hopped into the Trail Blazer and headed off. We stopped at Tractor Supply and Walmart, got our stuff, and then headed home. Usually, we would have eaten dinner first and then made our run, but we were sure glad we didn’t this Friday. There was a major accident that had traffic all messed up on the highway. It took us about 30 minutes to go the 3 or 4 miles to get by the mess, but the other side of the highway had to be backed up a good 10 miles. If we had tried to make our market run after dinner, we would have been caught in that backup.

Once we got off the highway it was a quick ride to pick up pizza for dinner. Alex was on the front porch when we got home so he helped unload everything we had in the back of the Trail Blazer. Colleen and I had a good laugh at our timing and good fortune on the highway. After dinner we headed down to the chicken coop and our day got even better. We had three eggs waiting for us in the nesting boxes. Needless to say Colleen’s egg basket is filling up quickly. Around here we are firm believers in everything happening for a reason and happening exactly when they should. I guess that played out quite nicely for us on Friday.

Saturday was another wonderful fall day. I decided not to do any schoolwork and Colleen decided to stay out of the kitchen. Alex and I ended up filling the back porch rack full of firewood even though we probably won’t need it for a while. Colleen cleaned up the back porch and brought all of her potted plants in for the fall and winter. Steven stopped by the house and then he and Alex took off to go fishing. Colleen was surprised I didn’t go with them, but I just wanted to hang around the house. I did get down the chicken coop to change out the bedding for the girls, and I even added a bit more than usual now that the weather is starting to cool off. By dinner time our day of piddling and taking care of this and that around the house had Colleen and me worn out so we quickly decided leftover pizza would be perfect for dinner.

This morning actually started out sunny and pleasant, but the thick bank of gray clouds on the southwestern horizon told a different story. It looks like we are in for a good bit of rain today. It’s probably best though, because we could use the rain and at least the gardens will get a good watering. The less than wonderful weather will also give me a good excuse to sit in front of the computer and get some more schoolwork done. Colleen has already started collecting the laundry for tomorrow’s run to the laundromat, and I suspect the rest of her day will be spent in the kitchen. Well, today is the last day of my break and it has been a good break. I managed to get a lot done, but of course there is always more that needs doing. We’re not sure what next week has in store for us, but we’ll take things as they come. We really do have a great life up here on our little hill. I might add we are very thankful for all we do have and we are always thankful that today, like every day, all is right on the homestead.

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October 20, 2019: Things A Cooling Off And School Is Back In Session

It was quite the fall week up here in our little hill. It really wasn’t such a bad thing though. We’re getting hit with what’s left of Nestor today, and they’re saying things should start clearing up by the afternoon. For the most part, the whole week was a pretty typical fall week for us. We had some sunshine, some rain, and even some cooler temperatures in the mornings. Fortunately, we haven’t had our first frost or any snow yet. We may see our first frost sometime in the next few weeks, but we’re not likely to see any snow until the middle of December at the earliest. The temperatures in the mornings typically get down to the 50 degree range in these parts, but if we get a cold snap it’s not unusual to see 40 degrees. The sunny days will push the afternoon highs into the mid 60’s. If we don’t get too much rain, then our fall gardens should thrive in this weather. Most of the leaves in the trees are still green, but they should start changing colors and floating down to the ground before too long. The trees won’t really be bare until right before Thanksgiving though.

Last Sunday was the last day of my 3-week intercession break. Boy, was it a good break too. It figures the rain showed up around noon and I had to spend the afternoon working on the computer on the dining room table rather than on the back porch. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen. She did some baking and prepped three different meals for the week, meatloaf, pepper steak, and Beefaroni Gloriosky. Since we were both stuck inside for the day, I put a couple of movies on the big screen TV and with the holiday season not far down the road, the first movie we had playing was “The Homecoming”. There’s just something about watching the Waltons just makes the world seem right. The big event on Sunday though was dinner. We had pancakes, ham, and our very own fresh eggs. Between Alex, Colleen, and me, I think we cleaned out a dozen eggs from Colleen’s egg basket.

Monday morning saw Colleen and me get back into our regular school day routine. It was raining pretty hard which didn’t make for an easy drive to school in the dark for Colleen. I got caught in a downpour when I went out back to open up the coop for the day. Those dingbat chickens came right out into the rain. At least they had enough sense to get under the coop to stay dry. The rain finally moved out of the area some time after lunch and there was actually a little bit of sunshine by the time Colleen got home from school and the laundromat. Colleen had prepped our meatloaf dinner on Sunday so putting it together Monday afternoon was not a big deal. After dinner, Colleen and I took care of what we our usual stuff and right before sunset we headed down to the chicken coop, locked the girls in the coop for the night, and brought three fresh eggs up from the nesting boxes for our troubles.

The rest of week was pretty much the same. The rain showed back up Tuesday night and was gone again by lunchtime on Wednesday. After the rain passed, we got our first cool snap of the season. I would come rolling down the driveway around 5 o’clock after school and Colleen would have dinner waiting once I got into the house. I spent Wednesday and Thursday evening working on the back porch after dinner. I didn’t get much time to do my work at school because with the start of the new quarter came a barrage of meetings. As the sun would set, Colleen and I would head down back to lock the girls in the coop for the night, collect the eggs, and then head upstairs for the night.

Friday seemed to take its sweet old time getting here, but it did finally get here. Colleen’s ride to school proved to be a small adventure because part of her usual route was closed for roadwork. She made it to school okay though. I had to change my morning routine around a little bit because the sun is coming up closer and closer to 7:30. From now until we turn the clocks back in early November, the last thing I’ll do before leaving for school is to let the girls out of the coop for the day. The girls don’t seem to mind coming out 30 minutes later than usual, and I feel pretty confident that the pen is predator proof should any unwanted critters be roaming around first thing in the morning.

Colleen had made her weekly menu and market list on Thursday evening, and since the market list was short, she stopped Friday on the way home from school to get the shopping done. I picked up pizza for dinner on my way home. Two slices of pizza never did make it home because I was hungry. After dinner, it was back down to the coop for Colleen and me to watch the girls being goofy before they went to roost, but once they did, Colleen and I closed up shop for the night. The last thing I did before I headed upstairs to bed was to get a fire ready to start in the fireplace when I woke up yesterday morning. It was going to be one of those 40 degree mornings.

Sure enough yesterday morning was downright chilly. Buttercup made sure Colleen and I got up at 6 o’clock. While Colleen was letting Buttercup outside and getting her coffee, I started the fire in the fireplace. It was the first fire of the season for us, and it sure didn’t take long to heat up the first floor. After her morning coffee Colleen started her usual Saturday cleaning. I lingered on the back porch with my coffee and my air rifle since squirrel season had started. Most of the squirrels stayed out of range, but I did get one that came in close enough so we have fresh squirrel meat in the freezer now. On towards lunchtime, Colleen made a big pot of spicy chicken soup. After lunch I cleaned the chicken coop and put a little extra bedding in there for the girls. The rest of the day was slow. Alex kept a low fire going in the fireplace. The rain showed up around 5 o’clock, but it was just spits and spurts. The real heavy stuff didn’t reach us until the middle of the night. The rain and howling wind actually woke me up at one point, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Well, there was definitely rain falling this morning when I got up. I slept a little bit later than usual, but it was one of those mornings made just for that. I did finally make it out to the back porch and the rain is supposed to be gone after lunch. There is a good breeze blowing with some healthy gusts thrown in for good measure. It sure doesn’t look like I’ll be spending much time outside today. I guess I’ll just have to set up shop on the dining room table. Colleen is already up and in the kitchen. Colleen and I both have another full week of school in front of us. Who knows what else will come down the road? We’ll just keep taking things one day at a time and watching October melt away. Before we know it, we’ll be shopping for turkeys and getting ready for the holidays. I’m not quite sure how this year managed to fly by us, but it has. It really has been a great year though. The holidays will get here in their own time so until then it’s one foot in front of the other for Colleen and me, thankful as always because every day is special and we know that all is right on the homestead.

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October 27, 2019: Just Another Rainy Sunday Up On The Hill

It’s a rainy Sunday morning again this week. Colleen and I woke up to the tail end of a rain storm last Sunday morning, but the rain went its way by noon and we were left with a gray, overcast day. We did burn a low fire all day to chase the cool damp air from the house. The rest of the week proved to be very fall like and comfortable. It did rain one night in the middle of the week, but for the most part our mornings and afternoons were pretty sunny. We also had one morning when the temperatures dipped below 40 degrees and another morning when Colleen had to navigate a dense fog on her way to school, but that was the worst of it. Most of the leaves are still green and on the trees around here, but there is some color starting to show up, and I suspect before too long we’ll be looking at all the fall regalia before all the leaves end up on the ground.

With gray skies overhead and everything still wet from the rain on Saturday night, everyone spent last Sunday inside the house. I had more than enough schoolwork to keep me in front of the computer all day and into the evening. Colleen spent most of her day in the kitchen. Unlike most weeks, the menu she had put together for the upcoming week didn’t have a lot to be prepped, instead she decided on meals that needed to be cooked outright beforehand, quiche and potato pie. Colleen had been excited to make a quiche now that our girls had started laying eggs and the quiche Colleen made was the first with our very own fresh eggs. She finished the quiche right before lunch so naturally we both had to have a piece to see how it turned out. I can’t even begin to describe the difference. Colleen’s quiches are always outstanding, but with fresh egg in the mix it really was something incredible. I don’t think Colleen will be using store bought eggs in her quiche ever again, well, as long as we have fresh eggs on hand anyway.

School weeks have finally settled into a kind of routine around here again. Colleen leaves well before sunup then I get a cup of coffee and sit out on the back porch waiting for the sun to come up. When the sun does start to come up I let the girls out of their coop for the day, make sure they get fed and watered, and then head off to school. Even with hanging around the house in the mornings, I still get to school more than an hour earlier than I need to be there. It really helps that I only a 15 minute drive to school too. Colleen and I let each other know that we got to school okay and if we’re lucky we can shoot each other a note once or twice during the day. Ironically, I usually can send her a note when I get to sit down for lunch which is usually about an hour before the end of Colleen’s day at school. Most days Colleen is home by 3 o’clock while I don’t get home until 5 o’clock.

Monday seemed to start out like most Mondays last week. Colleen loaded our week’s worth of laundry into the trunk of her car so she could stop at the laundromat to wash everything on her way home from school. I left at my usual time, but something happened on one of the back roads I take so I had to backtrack a bit or get stuck in a very long line of stopped traffic on a two-lane road. The extra travel time only took me about 10 more minutes so it was no big deal. My day ended up being very busy, but I got home at my usual time. Colleen already had dinner heating up in the oven and she was well on her way to having all of the clothes dried and put away. I got on the computer after dinner to do more schoolwork and before I knew it, it was time to lock up the chicken coop for the night. The girls were quite cooperative Monday evening and all of them were on their roosts in the coop when Colleen and I finally did get down there.

The rest of the week went, more or less, the way Monday had gone. Colleen had to deal with spirit week at her school and I had more meetings than I care to remember at my school. The meetings tend to chew up any extra time I might have at school so sitting in front of a computer once I get home in the evenings to do my planning is becoming habit. Since the meetings we have at my new school are short and to the point, they really aren’t all that bad. Everyone pretty much sticks to the topic at hand and they follow the time line in the agendas. At least the meetings are rarely held after school, so I’m usually heading home when I should be. I’m actually getting pretty proficient at getting things done after dinner at home, and every once in a while, I even get an evening off where I can just sit in the back porch and watch the sun set. Colleen did have to break out an egg carton Wednesday night. The girls are doing so well that our egg basket was getting pretty full so we had to make a little more room in it.

Friday turned out to be a whole different story compared to the rest of the week. Colleen had to attend a couple of pep rallies at school because it was homecoming. There is nothing like 1000 screaming kids in a gym to bring on the start of a migraine. It was picture day at my school and everyone wore a school tee-sheet for the group picture of the faculty and staff. My tee-shirt happens to be a very bright lime green so I looked like a lime Skittle all day. Colleen stopped at the market on her way home and I stopped on my way home to get pizza for dinner. By the time both of us sat down for the evening we were exhausted. We did have a pleasant surprise waiting for us though when we went to shut the coop up for the night. There was a nice little clutch of four eggs sitting in one of the nesting boxes.

Yesterday was just a beautiful fall Saturday. There were a bunch of small things on my “To-Do” list, but nothing too terribly pressing. I decided it would be a great day to sit on the back porch with my air rifle and wait for the squirrels to come out and in the mean time, grade a bunch of papers for school. Colleen got an early jump on her weekly baking yesterday morning, taking advantage of the fresh eggs we have. She ended up making three pans of strawberry scones and a big batch of spice cookies. Unfortunately, it also seems like Colleen is catching a cold again so by dinner time she was pretty worn out. I found time in the afternoon to clean out the chicken coop and put clean bedding in it. The squirrels didn’t come out until almost sunset and by then I sure didn’t feel like cleaning game after dark so there isn’t any new squirrel meat in the freezer. With the rain this morning, I probably won’t get a chance to add to our stores either.

Colleen is already in the kitchen again this morning and I’m getting ready to breakout the computers. Even with all the extra work I have to do teaching a class I haven’t taught in a number of years, I absolutely love being at my new school. The principal is awesome and incredibly supportive of the staff. It will probably be another busy week for Colleen and me, but that’s just how things go. We’ll take everything one day at a time just like always. October is winding down and we’re already eyeing Thanksgiving in just over four weeks. It’s a crazy world out there, but up here in our little hill things are calm and peaceful. We are thankful to put our feet on the floor every morning and when we go to bed at night it’s with the feeling of deep satisfaction in knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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November 03, 2019: Cool Temperatures And Sunny Skies

For the first Sunday in a couple of weeks, Colleen and I are not waking up to rain. We are however waking up to temperatures in the mid 30’s. We turned the clocks back an hour last night so things seem a little confused this morning. Sunrise will come a bit after 6:30 this morning, but it will still feel like 7:30 around here. Of course, the earlier sunrise also means the sun will be going down shortly after 5 o’clock in the evening. Apart from that little detail, the day should be sunny and bright and with any luck so should the rest of the week. Last week it seemed like Mother Nature couldn’t make up her mind when it came to the weather. We had a little bit of rain, a little bit of fog, a couple of warm afternoons, and a couple of chilly mornings. I don’t think we’ll see any really warm temperatures this week though. I might even have to get a little bucket fire going in the mornings. At least there hasn’t been any snow yet, but I suppose that will come in time too.

Even though last Sunday started out rainy, by mid afternoon there was plenty of sunshine to be had. I ended up spending the morning at the dining room table in front of my computer, but the afternoon found me out on the back porch with my TV tray tables set up so I could do my schoolwork outside. I really didn’t do much else all day. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen prepping meals for the week. This prepping meal thing she started a couple of weeks ago is turning out to be a real life saver. When she gets home after school, she just pulls all of the fixings for a given meal out of the refrigerator, puts everything together, cooks it up, and in no time dinner is ready. It certainly has made her life easier after school during the week.

Monday sort of set the tone for the week. The day was quiet and uneventful for the most part. Colleen had picked up a head cold towards the end of the week before, and her coughing did get worse, but she took to battling the symptoms with various medications and even some elderberry syrup so she managed to keep it at bay although she really didn’t shake the cold until this weekend. All the same, she stopped at the laundromat on her way home from school Monday afternoon, and the week’s laundry was done before we went to bed. I got home from school at my usual time and after dinner found myself in front of the computer again doing schoolwork, but I did get to enjoy the beautiful evening outside while I worked.

Tuesday had to be the prettiest day of the week. Colleen had an unexpected fire drill at school and I had a couple of meetings, but that was about it. Of course, Colleen was still fighting with her cold which did detract from her day. I noticed a beautiful maple tree in full fall regalia out by my school. Growing up in New England, maple trees were everywhere and I guess I just took them for granted. After I graduated from college and moved south, maple trees became far and few between. The one out by my school brought me back to a simpler time in my life and really brought a smile to my heart. We were supposed to get some rain Tuesday, but Mother Nature was teasing us and the rain held off until Wednesday.

The rain didn’t start first thing Wednesday morning as expected. Colleen and I were fortunate to have relatively dry rides into school in the morning. The rain did eventually start in the middle of the morning and stuck around through the early evening. When Colleen got home from school she checked on the girls. I had hoped the girls would have taken shelter in the coop to avoid getting wet, but no such luck. Mostly they stayed under the coop scratching around in the wet clay in their pen. Fortunately, when Colleen and I checked on them before we locked up the coop for the night, the girls were dry for the most part. On top of that, there were eggs in the nesting boxes just like every other day.

Thursday was Halloween and I got dressed up as Leonardo DaVinci for the day at school. A good number of other teachers got dressed up in costumes as well as a bunch of kids. It was an interesting day to say the least. Even though Thursday was mostly gray outside, the weather turned very ugly early Thursday night. There was a strong line of storms heading our way and the National Weather Service threw up thunderstorm and tornado warnings for part of the night. I didn’t have any schoolwork that needed to be done so I sat on the back porch and waited for the storm. I didn’t have to wait long. First I started to hear the rumble of thunder off to the west and then I watched the lightning as it danced in the skies. It was quite the show. I retreated back into the house before the rain started and just went to bed. I have a reputation for sleeping soundly through storms, but I did set the alarm on my phone just in case we lost power overnight. Yes, I did sleep through the worst of the storm again.

Friday was a teacher workday at Colleen’s school so she had the day off. She was still drinking coffee in bed when I left for the day. Everything was a mess outside when I headed to school. There were leaves, pine straw, and small limbs and branches everywhere. I knew the storm had blown through on Thursday night so I didn’t think too much of it. Colleen sent me notes all through the day and even a picture of her breakfast just to taunt me. When I got home, I realized that a tree had uprooted just over our property line and was hanging precariously over our neighbor’s driveway. I knew Steven and Alex would have to take care of it before it came crashing down, but that would have to wait until Saturday. Friday was also payday for both Colleen and me, and since she was feeling much better we decided to go out for dinner. That’s not something we do often so we treated ourselves to a prime rib dinner at a local steakhouse. After dinner it was a quick run to Costco for us to get that errand out of the way for the weekend.

The temperatures really dropped on Friday night and yesterday morning when we woke up the heaters in the bedrooms were running. It wasn’t too long after sunup when the heaters shut themselves off so I don’t suspect they ran all night either. Colleen and I spent all of yesterday morning and the early part of the afternoon running errands. We headed to Tractor Supply Company first thing. It seems that TSC is becoming a routine stop for us now. After our stop at TSC it was on to Walmart. We got home a good bit after lunch. We found that Steven and Alex had cut down the top half of the tree that had uprooted, and while the trunk of the tree is still in place, if the tree falls now, it will do so harmlessly. It seems that Thursday’s storm did more than uproot a tree in the front of the house. While I was sitting on the back porch I noticed a rather large maple tree had been snapped off like a matchstick. There’s nothing better than free firewood. Since our piles are full for this winter, all of the new wood I’ll be cutting and splitting will go on the seasoning piles for next winter.

Well the time changed last night, but we didn’t set our clocks back until this morning. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful fall day up here on our little hill. Of course with tomorrow being Monday, Colleen will be in the kitchen cooking for the week and I will camp out in front of the computer to do schoolwork for most of today. We do have a long weekend heading our way next weekend and, of course, Thanksgiving is less than four weeks away now. It’s been a good year with some interesting life changes, and it has flown by us in the blink of an eye. We hit a few bumps in the road, but they just turned out to be new opportunities. We would have missed those opportunities too if we had not taken each day one at a time. Colleen and I couldn’t be more thankful for the wonderful life we have. Everyday just seems to keep getting better in hindsight. There is an incredible peace of mind when you get up every day and go to sleep every night knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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November 10, 2019: The First Frost Of The Season

It was the first full week of November and we got our first blast of cold weather when the mercury dipped below the freezing mark at the end the week. There wasn’t much in the way of rain last week although we did get some on Thursday night, but it was gone by Friday morning. There was plenty of sunshine most days, but I don’t think the temperature ever got above 60 degrees. Well, maybe it did one day at the beginning of the week. Then again, some of the days didn’t break the 50 mark. Colleen and I survived turning back the clocks last weekend, but it did take us a few days to get our bearings squared away again. At least the sun is up before I leave for school now, so I can let the girls out of their coop in the daylight. The girls didn’t seem the least bit affected by turning the clocks back one hour or the cooler temperatures either.

It seems my Sundays of late are being consumed by schoolwork and sitting in front of a computer, and last Sunday was no different. Fortunately, it was warm enough in the afternoon for me to work out on the back porch, but that may have been the last time until things start to warm up next spring. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen prepping meals and baking for the week. Of course, we had our big Sunday dinner in the evening which was an amazing Arroz Con Pollo that Colleen made. There aren’t a lot of chicken dishes that I like, but Arroz Con Pollo is one of them. Everyone else around here seems to like the dish too, and I think there may only have been a little bit of rice leftover after dinner.

The week passed pretty uneventfully for both Colleen and me. It was up in the mornings, take care of our chores, head off to school, come home, eat dinner, do more chores and schoolwork, and then go to bed. Monday was laundry day and proved to be more interesting than usual when Colleen got caught in traffic thanks to road work that made her ride home from school an hour longer than usual. Alex took Monday and Tuesday off from work and got a good bit of yard work done around here including blowing all the leaves off of the half acre and re-stacking the firewood that got knocked over in the storm on Halloween night. I got home right before sunset most days and just about had time for a quick dinner before Colleen and I would head down to the chicken coop to lock the girls in for the night.

Colleen had picked up a cold right before Halloween and as of last week went on she finally managed to start shaking it and feeling better. I started to feel like I was getting a head cold early in the week so before it blossomed I started hitting the NyQuil every night before bed. Fortunately, my cold never got worse than some drippy sinuses and the NyQuil was helping me sleep through the night. Other than that it was just mostly making the seasonal adjustments to stay warm. We put a fire in the fireplace when the house drops below 60 degrees and the space heaters run in the bedrooms at night to keep them at 65 degrees. Even Buttercup gets to wear a light coat around the house now that it’s getting cooler, and for the record, Buttercup loves to wear her coats.

Friday rolled around and Colleen and I realized the week had worn us out. I’m not quite sure what it was about the week, maybe the weather or the time change, but whatever it was we sure didn’t feel like doing much once we got home Friday afternoon. I stopped and picked up a few pizzas on my way home from school and that made for a wonderful and easy dinner. I do seem to be getting into the habit of eating a couple of pieces of pizza on the way home though, and there were two slices missing by the time I got home. After dinner I put together a portable hand washing machine for Colleen and I got a fire ready to start in the fireplace for Saturday morning, but that was it for me and I headed to bed.

Saturday turned out to be one heck of a busy day up here on our little hill. I drove down the road to get a couple of young men that go to school where I teach so we could cut and stack firewood. Another young man from my former school drove up here to help too, and Alex joined the party as well. Between the five of us, we cut up and moved two large trees. The wood still needs to be split, but both trees were green so they will have to until next year before the wood is usable. Fortunately, our winter ready racks are already full of seasoned firewood for this winter.

Colleen was busy as well yesterday. She got to try out her new manual washing machine on a couple of Buttercup’s blankets. The thing worked out just fine and now Colleen wants me to put up some clotheslines on the 2nd floor porch so she can dry what she washes. I guess I’ll need to figure that out before too long. Once she was done washing the blankets, Colleen was in the kitchen making bread and soup. The bread was actually an experiment for Colleen. She was trying to make a rye bread that was comparable to Cuban white bread in texture. She made two loaves that turned incredibly great. While the bread was cooling she made a big pot of pork posole soup too. Of course, the real problem here is me deciding whether I want soup or Colleen’s homemade chili for lunch today.

It’s kind of a strange Sunday this week for me and Colleen. Tomorrow is Veterans Day and we both have the day off from school. Tomorrow also happens to be Colleen’s birthday. She keeps telling me I need to get my eyes checked because she doesn’t look a day over 29 to me. Of course, she wants me to explain how she can still be 29 and have a daughter over 30. Colleen did linger in bed this morning enjoying a couple of leisurely cups of coffee so I was glad for that. I might do some schoolwork this afternoon, but then again I might not. I did light a fire in the fireplace this morning and the house is toasty warm. It is quite nice having a slow start to a Sunday without the urgency of knowing we need to get ready for the upcoming week.

The sun has climbed over the treetops now and we have a beautiful fall day to enjoy. There is a slight breeze blowing and I think the temperatures might just touch 60 degrees today. There are a few non-school things I’d like to do today, but we shall see where the day takes us. Colleen and I are getting quite good at living one day at a time. We’ve learned that everything happens for a reason, exactly when it should, and tomorrow always takes care of itself so there is no point in worrying about it. It’s a crazy world out there, but up here on our little hill, all is right on homestead.

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November 17, 2019: The Holidays Are Coming Quickly

It’s a blustery morning with a nip in the air and it definitely feels like fall. A good many of the leaves are no longer on the trees, and the ones that are still there will not be there for too long. It certainly was a week of interesting fall weather though. On Monday we had highs in the low 60’s and by Tuesday morning it was heading down towards freezing. Wednesday and Thursday morning we got down into the 20’s and then barely made it into the 40’s during the day. We got a good bit of rain on Tuesday. It was a cold biting rain that ended in a short lived snow squall. Fortunately, nothing stuck to anything. The rest of the week the temperatures seemed to stay between 35 and 45 degrees, and we did get a little bit more rain on Friday. If the forecast is to be believed, it looks like we’re in for more of the same weather pattern for the week ahead of us.

Last Sunday was kind of weird around here. Since Monday was Veterans Day, Colleen and I had the day off from school so there was no urgency to get things done. We lingered over our morning coffee and I spent some time writing. I even managed to add a couple of squirrels to our freezer. Colleen puttered around the house taking care of this and that. I even found the time to clean out the chicken coop and put more fresh bedding in it for the girls. The real treat came Sunday night for dinner. Colleen made a German Apple pancake, fried some thin pork chops, and made some fresh eggs for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is always a great treat around here.

There was no alarm clock on Monday morning, but it was Monday and Colleen headed down to the laundromat once she finished her morning coffee. Monday also happened to be Colleen’s birthday. We’re not big frosted cake fans around here, and I don’t bake very well so Colleen decided to bake a marbled pound cake for her birthday, but she didn’t do a whole lot of other cooking. The bulk of our day was spent getting ready for school and, of course, Colleen made sure the laundry got finished. The day itself turned out to be quite nice outside, but we went to bed knowing the weather was getting ready to take a major turn.

The rain hadn’t started yet when Colleen and I left for school so we both got a break with our rides into school. We were watching the weather closely though, because a lot of rain was moving up from the southwest and an Arctic cold front was moving down from the northwest. If the two systems caught up with each other, things were going to get messy. We dodged a bullet though because the cold front only caught the tail end of the rain, and by the time I got home it was bitter cold, but the sun was shining again. Alex had the day off from work because of the rain so when Colleen and I got home the wood rack on the back porch had been filled, which was definitely a plus for the pending cold snap.

There wasn’t anything special about the rest of our week except for the cold temperatures. Colleen would get home and make the girls some warm mash to eat. Colleen feels that the girls should have something warm in their bellies if it’s cold outside. The girls, for their part, seemed to fare quite well in the cold temperatures. I guess doing our homework before getting the girls paid off. Buff Orpingtons are noted for being both docile and cold weather hardy. The sun has been setting closer to the time I get home every day now, so after dinner we flip on the flood lights, settle the girls in for the night, and then pretty much calls it a day. Even though the house got a little chilly during the daytime, we opted not to put a fire in the fireplace during the evenings, instead retreating upstairs to the bedrooms that are heated with high efficiency space heaters.

Friday was supposed to be another rainy day so Alex didn’t have to go into work. It’s kind of difficult to climb and cut trees in the rain. The rain never really showed up, but it was a raw day. Alex started a fire in the fireplace which kept the first floor all toasty and warm. This year’s wood is well seasoned and it’s burning well. Colleen stopped at the market on her way home. I stopped and got pizza for everyone on my way home from school. There was a little bit of traffic so a couple of slices of pizza didn’t make it home. After dinner we took care of the girls, but Colleen and I both realized the week at school, even being only four days long, had worn us out so we made another early evening of it. I did take a look at our winter ready racks of firewood before I headed upstairs for the night. I’m glad we have extra wood this year too, because we’ve already gone through one rack, a half of a cord, of wood.

Saturday showed up with more cold morning temperatures, so after I took care of Buttercup I got a fire going in the fireplace. I guess yesterday marked the official start to our holiday season too. Colleen spent the morning and the start of the afternoon baking our traditional family French meat pies. I took to steam cleaning the family room carpet. I do all the carpets, every year, right before Thanksgiving and this year the family room is the last one I need to do. It doesn’t look like we’ll be trying to finish drying the carpets on Thanksgiving morning this year. Colleen was still in the kitchen when Alex and I took off after lunch to run some errands. When we got back, Colleen was trying her hand at making sticky toffee pudding which turned out exceptionally well. Even with a warm fire burning in the fireplace yesterday evening, Colleen and I elected to make an early evening of it, leaving Alex to tend the fire while he was playing video games.

It was chilly again this morning when I woke up. I took care of Buttercup for what good that did. She made sure Colleen got up too. There were the usual weekend morning chores too, cleaning yesterday’s burn from the fireplace, getting a new fire lit, and taking care of the girls. It looks like Colleen will be in the kitchen again today and, of course I have plenty of schoolwork to do. All the same, we’ll keep making our way through the day, the week, and towards Thanksgiving. Wacky weather, crazy schedules, or whatever, and things couldn’t be any better for us up here on our little hill where not a day passes when we aren’t incredibly thankful that all is right on the homestead.

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November 24, 2019: Here Comes Thanksgiving!

Last week was a pretty typical fall week weather wise for us. We had a couple of days of cold biting rain, but fortunately the temperatures never got below freezing. It took us a couple of days to dry out from Monday’s rain because the sun didn’t really come out until the middle of the week. We finally did dry out by Friday afternoon which was just in time to get soaked again yesterday. The rain showed up yesterday about lunchtime and it was steady and soaking until sometime in the middle of last night. The weather kept everyone in the house yesterday, but we had a nice fire going in the fireplace so the house was comfortable. It looks like we’ll have plenty of sunshine today, but the rain may be back by Wednesday and then clear out for Thanksgiving Day. We might even see some 60 degree temperatures early in the week.

Sunday was kind of a catch up day for us. I did my usual writing and spent a good bit of time in front of the computer doing schoolwork. Colleen spent most of her day in the kitchen. Apart from prepping a couple of meals for the week, Colleen got a big pot of her spicy chicken soup simmering on the stove first thing in the morning. The soup was ready by lunchtime so I sat out on the back porch and enjoyed a big cup of it. Alex seems to have developed a strong liking for the soup too, and he ended up having a big bowl full and then went back for seconds. With the cooler weather settling in for the winter, soup will become a mainstay around here until things warm up next spring. Along with the soup, Colleen made some muffins and cookies before she made a simply delicious pork roast for Sunday dinner and some sticky toffee pudding for dessert. We ate well last Sunday evening.

Last week went pretty well at school for both Colleen and me with nothing extraordinary happening. I had a few meetings during the week, but they were short and only chewed up the time for which they were scheduled. Towards the end of the week a few kids disappeared to start an extended Thanksgiving break. A few teachers took Thursday and Friday off too, and since there is always a shortage of substitute teachers, I ended up covering a couple of classes during my planning periods on Thursday and Friday. It wasn’t a big deal though and it made the days go by quickly. Fortunately, I didn’t have a lot of schoolwork to do either of the days so I didn’t have to stay up all night to get things done. Quite frankly, my biggest concern for the week was getting home before the sun set so Colleen and I could tuck the girls in for the night before it got too late, especially when I can see the sun setting over the top of the trees on the western horizon from my classroom widow.

Monday afternoon Colleen stopped at the laundromat on her way home to do the weekly laundry. Tuesday she stopped at the market to get our second turkey for Thanksgiving. Instead of one big bird, we get two smaller birds. Colleen will oven roast one and I will smoke the other. We’re never really sure exactly how many people will show up for Thanksgiving dinner, but there is always plenty to eat with enough leftovers to stuff the refrigerator. The kids always leave with a good helping of leftovers too. One of these years Colleen and I will raise our own turkeys and we’ll cook fresh rather than frozen turkey for the holiday. Although this year we will be using fresh eggs, thanks to the girls, for the deviled eggs and the eggnog.

Not much else happened during the week. Colleen and I finally found the time to roll out the area rug back over the half of the family room I had steam cleaned on Thursday evening. I was shooting to get the rest of the rug steam cleaned on Friday night, but I didn’t get to it until yesterday morning. With a long, busy week behind us, after Colleen and I had our pizza for dinner we decided to spend the night relaxing. The temperatures were kind of warm so after dinner I headed out to the back porch with a really nice cigar a friend had given me. Colleen spent the evening watching TV shows on her tablet in bed. It’s not often we get a quiet evening with nothing that absolutely has to be done so we made the most of it. Even though we have five days off for Thanksgiving break, between the cooking for Thanksgiving and the getting Christmas decorations put up, Colleen and I will be busy most all next weekend.

Yesterday started off slow as much because of the weather as due to the fact Colleen and I just didn’t have a lot that needed doing. Once we finished our morning coffee, I started steam cleaning the last half of the carpet in the family room. By lunchtime the rug was done, needing only time to dry, which hopefully will be by Wednesday. Colleen decided it was time to clean her baker’s rack and her collection of serving dishes. Every one of those serving dishes will find its way to the table on Thanksgiving. After lunch it was into the dining room for me to take care of my schoolwork. Colleen went in a completely and unexpected direction. In the process of her usual house cleaning she started putting up Christmas decorations. That was definitely a first for us, and I can’t ever remember Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving. By the time Colleen got to bed, the decorative Santa Claus plates were hung in the stairwell, the Christmas countdown snowman was next the baker’s rack, the Crèche was on top of the hutch, and the music boxes and snow globes were on the end table next to the hutch.

The sun is up this morning and there are still a lot of golden leaves on the trees. There are a lot more leaves on the ground, but everything is too wet to blow them to the wood line with the leaf blower today. Colleen and I have a little bit of getting ready to do for the upcoming week, but we only have two days of school. I guess it’s time for us to get geared up for the run to the holidays. It hard to believe the year has passed so quickly, but what a year it has been. Colleen and I have managed to navigate our way through some interesting changes and everything worked out just the way it should have and even better than we had hoped. This year we have so much for which to be thankful and so much to celebrate. Life is good up here on our little hill. We live for today, let tomorrow take care of itself, and we are reassured by looking around and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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December 01, 2019: Thanksgiving Is A Wrap!

Thanksgiving is behind us for this year and now it’s on to Christmas. I guess last week had a little bit of everything, a few days of school, a day of preparation, a day of feasting, a couple of days to relax and to start getting ready for Christmas, and a day to get ready for the upcoming school week. The weather for the most part was very cooperative. We had plenty of sunshine and seasonal temperatures. We did get a little bit of rain on Wednesday morning, but the real rain didn’t show up until yesterday morning. Unfortunately, the rain decided to stick around and the wet stuff is still coming down this morning. It should clear out sometime tonight so when the sun comes out tomorrow morning, we should start to dry out. It looks like it will be sunny and bright for the start of the week ahead of us.

It was a pretty mellow Sunday afternoon around here last week. I spent most of my day working on the computer getting things ready for school. I did manage to find some time in the middle of the afternoon to get into the chicken pen, clean out the coop, and give the girls some fresh bedding. I also learned that two weeks is as long as I want to go between coop cleanings. Colleen spent the better part of her Sunday in the kitchen making eggnog. The kids had put in a special request for homemade eggnog this Thanksgiving and since the girls are giving us plenty of eggs, Colleen decided it was time to dig up her old recipe. I suggested she add bourbon to the eggnog, but that request only got me shooed from the kitchen.

Colleen and I both had to go to school on Monday and Tuesday. With a long holiday week most of the kids were distracted and the teachers did their best to keep things going in the classrooms. Colleen made her usual stop at the laundromat on Monday afternoon. The high chair we ordered so Lily could join us at our Thanksgiving table showed up Monday, so after dinner while Colleen was finishing up the laundry I put Lily’s high chair together. Tuesday was another easy day at school with a number of students taking the day off to start their Thanksgiving break a day early. Colleen and I thought about getting some last minute shopping done after school, but when saw the backed up traffic on the highway we decided to just go out to eat dinner instead. The traffic had opened up some by the time we finished eating, but we ultimately decided the shopping could wait until Wednesday.

Wednesday started slowly and easily and Colleen and I took our dear sweet old time with our morning coffee. It was really the only break we had all day because both of us stayed busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen while I did my best to clean up the house. The carpet in the family room had finally dried so the room got vacuumed, the area rug got rolled back out, and all of the furniture got put back in place. As not to neglect the rest of the first floor, I gave the family room, living room, and dining room a good vacuuming too. While I was vacuuming Colleen was making Sally Lunn bread and while the dough was rising she started making Crème Brûlée. We still hadn’t done the shopping we had planned for on Tuesday night so a little before lunch I took off on a solo mission which is always risky. I tend to go rogue when shopping by myself. I guess I got back sometime between 1 and 2 o’clock. The bread was cooling on the rack and the Crème Brûlée was cooling on the stove top. Colleen had moved on to roasting butternut squash and making mini pumpkin pies. I sat down on the couch for a minute to check my phone and it took Buttercup about 10 seconds to get on the couch with me. I guess she wanted to be part of the show too, but Colleen found great humor in the whole situation.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Colleen and I were up early to cook our turkeys. Colleen was oven roasting one of the birds and I was going to smoke the other one. Once the turkeys were cooking, Colleen was in the kitchen finishing up the sides for our feast and I took care of straightening things out around the house. The love seat in the living room got moved to make room for a second table. Colleen took her Nana’s antique china out of the hutch and set the table. Colleen managed to set the table in between getting things cooked in the kitchen which is always nothing short of impressive given how many things are getting cooked. When Nana’s china comes out, the only thing we’re allowed to do is eat off of it. Colleen sets the table and then cleans it up by herself.

Louis and Alex were the first to arrive on Thursday. Alex was house sitting and Louis had come up the day before to spend time with Alex. Since there was still a good two hours before dinner when the boys got here, they headed out front to start a fire in the fire pit. The kids gathering around the fire pit on a holiday has become a de facto tradition around here. Al and Alysia got here a little bit later than expected, but that was because they forgot a dessert. They had to turn around and head back home to get it. Dinner was scheduled to be on the table at noon, but didn’t finally make it to the table until 12:30. Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily we running very late and didn’t get here until everyone had been at the table for 15 minutes or so. Everything Colleen made turned out great! I guess we all sat at the table eating, talking, and just generally getting caught up for a good hour.

After the meal everyone hung around the house for a while. The kids sat on the floor in front of the fireplace playing some game or another. Lily, who is getting more mobile, was scooting around on the floor in the family room checking everything out. Sadly, as with all such family gatherings as the afternoon wore on, the kids started to leave. Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily were headed to Anna Maria’s parents’ house. Al and Alysia had about an hour’s drive home they wanted to make while there was still some daylight. Alex headed back to his house sitting gig. Louis did hang around waiting for his girlfriend to come and pick him up. Unfortunately, Micayla couldn’t make our gathering, but she did promise to here for Christmas. I needed some quiet time so I headed out to the porch for a cigar while Colleen went about cleaning up after the meal. By 8:30 Louis was gone, the dishes had been washed and put away, and the living room and dining room had been put back together.

Friday was Christmas tree day. Colleen and I relaxed and enjoy our leisurely cups of morning coffee again before we headed out to get our tree. There’s nothing fancy about how we get our tree, it’s just a run down to Lowe’s. We did have a couple of other errands to run, but we were home right before lunch. The lights are always the first thing to go on the tree and this year we added a couple of strings of lights with flickering candle bulbs to the tree. Unfortunately, we needed more light bulbs so come mid afternoon we decided to brave the Black Friday crowds at Walmart. Luck was with us though. I ended up getting a parking spot right in front of the main entrance and we were able to get in and out of Walmart in 15 minutes. I never thought that was possible even on a regular day. We also stopped on the way home to get ourselves a couple of take out burgers and some onion rings for dinner. Colleen had done enough cooking on Wednesday and Thursday so take out made dinner easy. We finished putting the lights on the tree after dinner and after we took care of the girls for the night, both Colleen and I, still being tired from the busy week, called it an evening.

Yesterday was busy, but not stressful. I started putting the ornaments on the tree while Colleen did some cooking. I say some cooking, but actually Colleen stripped down our two turkeys putting a whole breast each of the oven roasted bird and the smoked bird into the freezer. All of the other meat got pulled off of the bone for sandwiches, pot pie, and soup. The carcass of the oven roasted turkey got put into the soup pot for the start of Colleen’s turkey soup. Between the two of us, Colleen would take short breaks to put a few ornaments into on the tree, and we had the tree decorated and the ornament boxes packed back up by mid afternoon. The only thing left to be put on the tree was the tinsel and hanging tinsel drives Colleen nuts so I ended up doing it. Colleen headed back into the kitchen to make oatmeal cookies and sweet potato muffins. I finished with the tinsel right before dinner and Colleen and I sat down to enjoy our traditional meal of Thanksgiving sandwiches. A Thanksgiving sandwich is a grilled Kaiser roll, turkey, a grilled burger size patty of stuffing, hot gravy, and cranberry sauce. After dinner and taking care of the girls, Colleen and I found ourselves rather worn out again so it was another early evening for us.

The rain that started yesterday morning was still falling and there was a bite to the air when I came out to the back porch this morning. Colleen and I knew we would be spending the day getting ready for the upcoming week at school. I have a bunch to schoolwork to do, Colleen will spend most of the day in the kitchen, and we’ll need to work a quick market run into everything too. Our 5-day holiday break has proved to be busy and relaxing, giving us the opportunity to spend time with our kids and to break up the everyday routine of school. We have a 3-week run now until we start our Christmas break. In those three weeks there are presents to get and wrap, more decorations, inside and outside of the house, to go up, and Christmas cards to write out and be mailed. Thanksgiving was so wonderful that Colleen and I are already getting excited in anticipation of Christmas. All the same, we will take everything one day at a time knowing everything will get done when it should and everything will be in place on Christmas morning. This year has been a very good year for us up here on our little hill and Christmas will be the icing on the cake. While many things have changed over the years and this year in particular, Colleen and I couldn’t be more thankful for the one thing that hasn’t changed and that is knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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December 08, 2019: The Chaos Of Getting Ready For Christmas!

Well, if we had to go back to school after Thanksgiving, last week was a good one for that. All the rain for the week was done last Sunday afternoon. We had a few clouds during the week, but we stayed dry. The temperatures were seasonable. We did have a few mornings where we just barely got down to freezing, but it didn’t get any worse than that. We didn’t even have to put a fire in the fireplace all week either. I definitely get the feeling that this week will different. There is a good bit of rain in the forecast for the first part of the week and then nighttime temperatures are supposed to drop into the 20’s. By next weekend we may see our first winter precipitation of the season. Honestly, I’d rather see snow than ice because ice will make driving to school in the mornings problematic, but like everything else, Colleen and I will just have to wait and see what comes down the road.

As far as school weeks go, last week was a good one for me from start to end. Nothing too crazy happened at my school. In fact, the highlight of each day was watching the sun come up when I took care of the girls in the morning, and then lunch. Colleen had made a pot of turkey soup after Thanksgiving and I found a thermos full of soup in my lunch every day. Colleen on the other hand had one day that proved to be harrowing. Someone called 911 about gunshots around the school. Everything went into a lockdown until the authorities thoroughly checked everything out and determined it was a hoax. I’m not sure about any of the details except what was reported in the local news. Anyway, no one was hurt and things seemed to return to some sense of normal the next day. I actually worry more about Colleen driving back and forth to school.

Monday was laundry day like usual so Colleen stopped at the laundromat on her way home. Because Colleen wanted to wash the table linens from Thanksgiving, she did have three bags of laundry to wash instead of her usual two. Colleen spent most of Monday afternoon and evening going up and down into the basement to get things out of the dryer. I did a little schoolwork after dinner and it was enough to carry me through the week. The highlight of our Monday was the arrival of a new Charlie Brown Christmas ornament that Colleen and I had ordered. If nothing else, our Christmas tree is eclectic.

The rest of the week passed quietly for the most part if you discount the lockdown at Colleen’s school on Thursday. Colleen would leave for school in the dark of the morning and get there before sunrise. I would wait on the back porch just about until sunrise, get dressed for the day, let the girls out of their coop and feed them and then head into school. Colleen would get home mid afternoon, fix the girls some warm mash, collect the eggs, and the get dinner warming up. I would get home around sunset, eat dinner, and then Colleen and I would head down to the coop to tuck the girls in for the night. We actually lock the girls inside as a precaution to predators. Colleen and I would spend the rest of the evenings doing whatever needed to be done before we headed off to bed.

Friday went pretty much the same way until it was time for me to come home. My old school was dedicating the sports complex at the facility to the athletic director that had been with the school since it opened until he retired 5 years ago. Unfortunately, the fine gentleman is fighting with stage-4 cancer now. I had taught with the gentleman and coached the baseball team under him since I started at the school. There was no way I was going to miss the ceremony. I got out of school as quickly as I could, picked up pizza for dinner on the way home. Because of the traffic on the way home, I even ate three pieces of pizza on the way. I dropped the pizza off at the house and then headed out. I got there about 15 minutes before the ceremony and was able to visit with a number of my old friends, most of whom like me were no longer affiliated with the school. When I left, I sat in the Trail Blazer for a few minutes feeling nostalgic. In some ways I missed being there, but I also knew I no longer belonged there. Sadly, the school is no longer what it was in its hay day, and, in fact, it’s just another high school in the system now. The school is no longer a place where a good many of the teachers that poured their hearts and souls into making the school the flagship it once was, really want to be anymore.

With Christmas barreling our way, yesterday’s “To-Do” list was a big one. Colleen, Alex, and I were up early trying to get as much done as possible. I started out by blowing leaves and Alex refilled the firewood rack on the back porch. Alex took over blowing the leaves and while Colleen was waiting for a batch of muffins to come out of the oven, I cleaned up the back porch. By the time the muffins were done, Alex had the front yard clean and had moved to the backyard. Colleen and I were expecting rain later tonight so we started setting up all of the Christmas lawn decorations. We managed to get everything done except the lights and the garland on the house itself. I guess I’ll have to get to that next weekend. There was still a small part of the afternoon left so Colleen headed inside to make a pot of soup and some brownies. I headed down to the hen coop to clean it out and put fresh bedding in it for the girls. It wasn’t very late when both Colleen and I had to admit we were quite worn out and done for the day.

Today promises to be another busy day. Alex needs to finish blowing the leaves in the backyard. Colleen and I want to get our first pass at Christmas shopping done. Of course, once we get home we have all of the usual stuff that needs to be done to get ready for school this week. Because of our school hours we don’t have much chance to get a lot of other things done during the week, but with a little luck this week, like last, will pass easily and quickly. I’m sure we’ll be playing catch up again next weekend. I was starting to get a little concerned we might run out of time, but then I realized our breaks start 4 days before Christmas. They may end up being busy days, but I’m sure everything will come together just fine. Even with all the activity leading up to Christmas, Colleen and I will keep taking things one day at a time. There really isn’t any sense in worrying about what will happen tomorrow when we need to stay focused on the day in which we are living. Naturally, we are very excited about Christmas, but every night when we crawl into bed and do so knowing that all is right in the homestead.

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December 15, 2019: A Mad Dash To Christmas!

There are only 10 days left until Christmas and if we thought things were busy, we’ve definitely upped the ante for the coming week. The weather didn’t afford us much help last week. There was rain in the forecast for Monday, but all we got were gray skies. Tuesday started with a dense low hanging fog that turned into rain by mid morning, but not nearly as much as we could have gotten. The heavy stuff split around us as it came up from the Gulf with one part of the rain staying in the mountains and the rest traveling up the eastern shore line. Wednesday and Thursday weren’t bad days, but the rain showed back up on Friday and hung around until yesterday morning. Just to make things more interesting Mother Nature dropped the temperatures down close to freezing so the damp air had sharp bite to it. The sun finally did come out again yesterday right around lunchtime making for a lovely afternoon and there are clear skies and beautiful sunrise this morning.

Overall last week turned out to be one very interesting week for Colleen and me. Sunday morning was our first foray into the Christmas crowds as we ventured out to go Christmas shopping. We didn’t do too badly and were able to get home after lunch which left us just enough time to get things ready for school last week. We got a real treat on Sunday night when we heard from Colleen’s sister’s husband. They are coming for a visit the weekend before Christmas. Colleen and I are very excited. Unfortunately, we also realized our two week old Christmas tree had dried out badly. It’s something that had never happened to us before, but we knew it was a real fire hazard with the fireplace in the living room too, so we decided the tree had to go and we needed to replace it. Christmas without a Christmas tree is just something that isn’t going to happen in our house.

The school week was interesting. Besides the funky weather, the kids really started to get antsy and then we had a full moon on Thursday followed by a Friday the 13th, like they needed any help to be crazy to start. Monday was laundry day like usual and in between running up and downstairs to the dryer in the basement, Colleen started putting up her big animated Christmas village up in the living room. The thing sits on an 8-foot long table and there still isn’t quite enough room. I spent the evening taking care of my schoolwork. In betwixt and between all of our doings, Colleen and I were trying to figure out how we were going to get a new tree into the house and decorated, get the rest of the house decorated, and still find time to get our Christmas shopping done with everything we had happening between then and Christmas.

Tuesday morning Colleen had a tough drive into school because there was a dense, low lying fog over everything. She did make it to school without incident though, so I was relieved. At home, Colleen’s egg basket was getting full again so she decided we were going to have breakfast for dinner on Tuesday night. Colleen found a recipe for a four-in-one pancake she had wanted to try so she did a little experimenting when she got home from school. In a shallow sheet cake pan Colleen made one big pancake with four different varieties in the pan, blueberry, banana, strawberry, and apple cinnamon. It turned out quite well, and it looks like there will be one on the table for our Christmas brunch buffet. Colleen and I also made the hard and fast choice that our dried up Christmas tree had to come down as soon as possible. Just to make things a bit more challenging, Tuesday evening I slipped and fell in the chicken pen. Fortunately, I didn’t hurt myself other than to twist the heck out of my hip and knee.

Wednesday was a long day at school for me. Working with a little hitch in my step, I had to sit through two hours of meetings and then after the meetings, at the end of the day, there was the faculty holiday dinner. I got home a little before 7 o’clock and found that Colleen had everything off of the Christmas tree and Alex had unceremoniously tossed the tree over the front porch rail into the front yard. I did get a good chuckle when I walked into the house and saw every large piece of plastic Tupperware filled with Christmas ornaments on the dining room table. There was no turning back at that point, but we still didn’t have a idea when the new tree would go up. The only thing we knew was that we needed to tackle one thing at a time even if we were running short on time.

Thursday Colleen and I texted each other a few times during school and decided that we would get our new tree right after I got home that evening. I got home, dropped my school stuff off in the house, and Colleen and I headed out to get a new tree. Pickings were thin, but after looking at a good number of trees we picked one we liked. The new tree wasn’t as tall or as full as our first tree, but we decided with a little love and some decorating it would still be a very nice tree. We got the tree home, got it set up in the tree stand, and even managed to get all of the lights and cranberry bead garland on the tree. That was all we had in us for the night so we left things there and headed off to bed.

Usually Friday evening is the one evening Colleen and I can let go of things that need doing and relax. That was not the case last Friday though. Colleen stopped at the market on her way home from school and I picked up pizza for dinner on my way home. Colleen had the groceries put away by the time I got home and after dinner we decorated the tree. Colleen re-hung all of the ornaments, and after she finished I hung the tinsel. While I was hanging tinsel, Colleen was working on her animated village again. Despite being a little smaller tree than we typically have had in the past, our Charlie Brown Christmas tree turned out right nice. It’s even sucking up about a quart of water a day. It wasn’t real late when we finally finished the tree, but we were sure tired when we finally headed upstairs to bed for the night.

Yesterday turned out to be one crazy, busy Saturday. Colleen finished putting up her animated village in the living room while I cleaned up the family room. That little job took me almost until noon and Colleen started decorating in the family room even before I finished cleaning and organizing. There wasn’t anything else for me to do in the house so I headed outside to start putting up garland and lights. It took me most of the afternoon and a whole lot of going up and down an extension ladder, but between Alex and I, we got the garland and the lights up around the living room window. Colleen finished most of the family room including her Dickens Village with just a 6-foot artificial tree left to go up and be decorated.

Today promises to be another busy day up here in the hill. Colleen wants to make another Christmas shopping run early today. With any luck we’ll be in and out of the store before the afternoon crowds show up. I’d like to hang some lights on the front porch this afternoon. Anything we can’t finish will get done in the evenings after school this week. Of course, both Colleen and I have a few things that need doing for the upcoming week at school too. The highlight of the day though will be eating a piece of Colleen’s homemade fruitcake which is finally ready today. The real trick for the next week will be finding time to catch our breath. I’ll try to get a little more online shopping done too. The clock is ticking and time and tide wait for no man. Up here in our little hill there is still plenty that needs doing, but in the end we know that everything will work out just fine because all is right on the homestead.

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December 22, 2019: We’re At ElfCon 2!

Well, it’s the weekend before Christmas, yesterday was the winter solstice, schools are out for Christmas break, the decorations are up, and the weather has been just as screwy as ever. Wednesday morning we started out with a low morning temperature of 60 degrees and on Thursday we started the day out at 25 degrees. The early part of the week saw afternoon high temperatures around 60 degrees and yesterday we struggled to get into the upper 40’s. We got some rain on Wednesday, all day Wednesday, but everything cleared out Wednesday night and the rest of the week stayed cold and dry. The temperatures are supposed to start creeping up today and stay warm through the first half of the upcoming week, but I’ll believe when I see it. It does look like we’ll be missing out on a white Christmas again this year. They are rare at best in Central North Carolina anyway, but I can hope. With any luck the nice weather will stick around through most of our Christmas break and I can spend most of my time outside getting things done.

Colleen and I picked up last Sunday where we left on Saturday. We headed out first thing in the morning to squeeze in another round of Christmas shopping. We’re still not done and we’ll be heading out again today. Fortunately, last Sunday we got home shortly after lunch and that gave us enough time to do some more decorating and even get what little schoolwork we had to do done. Between our two shopping adventures and online shopping the spare room is filling up with presents that need to be wrapped by Christmas morning. My part of the decorating involved climbing around on the front porch rail and hanging icicle lights from the edge of the roof. It’s not terribly difficult, but it worries Colleen to death until I put my two feet back on solid ground. I kind of didn’t really have a choice though. As of Sunday the forecast called for rain on Tuesday and Wednesday and all of the lights and garland needed to be up for this Saturday evening.

School was actually calm last week given it lead into Christmas break for everyone. Colleen and I were still looking at a daunting “To-Do” list of preparations for the Christmas though. We managed to stretch our evenings a couple of hours past our usual bedtime in an effort to finish up the last of our decorating. By Friday evening the last of the porch lights were up and the last of the yard decorations were up. With the first of our holiday guests showing up for a dinner party yesterday evening, I don’t think we could have cut things much closer. It’s not like Colleen and I had a chance to catch our breath either. There were a few more inside decorations to put up and Colleen wanted to get a jump on cooking things for yesterday’s dinner.

The girls have been doing a great job of keeping us in fresh eggs which is a very good thing because Colleen had planned on making Crème Brûlée for Saturday’s dessert. Unfortunately, the recipe calls for something like 10 egg yolks. That’s all fine and well, but Colleen is not of the mind to just discard 10 egg whites. Colleen did a little research online and found out she can freeze the egg whites and use them later. She got red ice cube trays just for the egg whites. I’ll have to remember to tell the kids that the red ice tray doesn’t have ice in it when they are here Christmas, or maybe I won’t. Once the Crème Brûlée was done, Colleen made a big batch of corn muffins and a small batch of gluten-free corn muffins too.

Yesterday was the official start of our Christmas celebrations. Colleen’s sister, Patty, and Patty’s husband, Newby, came to visit and have dinner with us. Colleen and I hit the ground running yesterday morning. I made sure everything outside was ship shape while Colleen started preparing everything to be cooked later in the afternoon. Alex who is house sitting a good hour away this week made the trip home in hopes that some the guests would arrive early and he could visit. Sadly, he had to leave before anyone showed up. Al and Alysia got here about 30 minutes before Patty and Newby showed up and then Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily showed up about 15 minutes after that. Everyone sat by the fireplace catching up or looking at Colleen’s animated village and shortly after that Colleen had dinner ready.

Colleen had made an absolutely delicious Chicken Creole with sautéed Swiss chard and saffron flavored Spanish rice for dinner. Newby had brought some wine to go with dinner and it perfectly completed the meal. It also was the first time Patty had ever had okra and she just loved it. Al and Alysia hadn’t planned on staying as long as they did. They had plans that they had juggled around so they could stop by and visit, but one thing lead to another and they stayed until right after dinner and even managed to get into a few family pictures. Newby and I headed out to the back porch for an after dinner cigar while Patty, Colleen, Anna Maria, and Steven visited inside. Lily started getting tired and fussy as the evening wore on so Steven and Anna Maria had to leave. Patty and Newby left a little while after that and as it always seems to be the way after these gatherings, by 9:30 Colleen and I were alone in a quiet house. I ended up going to bed about 10:30, but Colleen didn’t get into bed until midnight because she wanted to clean everything up. I offered to help, but Colleen is particular about her china and won’t let anybody help her.

I slept until sunup this morning, but Colleen got up a good bit before me. By the time I woke up, Buttercup had already been outside and Colleen had taken care of the girls too. It looks like the sun will be hit or miss for most of the day because there are a good many clouds in the sky. I’m only going to have time for one cup of coffee too because Colleen and I want to go to the mall early this morning so we can beat the crowds. We usually only make one trip to the mall every year, but it’s always around Christmas so we can finish our Christmas shopping, look at the decorations, and treat ourselves to lunch at one of our favorite spots in the food court. Today should finish off most if not all of our Christmas shopping. We still have to wrap all of the presents, but it sure looks like everything will be done for Christmas morning. Two weeks ago it was looking iffy. It always seems that no matter what Colleen and I face this time of year we can always pull it off. We put one foot in front of the other and refuse to quit. So once again we are coming down to the wire and as we look around we know that all is right on the homestead.

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December 29, 2019: And Christmas 2019 Is Now A Memory

Last week was the first week of Christmas break for Colleen and me. Apart from some rain on Monday the week’s weather was about as nice as it gets for this time of year. For the first part of the week we had low temperatures below 40 degrees, but above freezing. As the week wore on things warmed up, and yesterday we may have even touched 70 degrees for a daytime high. Everything was crazy and chaotic leading up to Christmas on Wednesday, and on Thursday Colleen and I, being somewhat wore out, made it a point to do as little as possible. Friday we started trying to get ourselves back to an everyday routine, and yesterday things seemed to get back to normal, and Christmas was just another one of our wonderful family memories. Colleen still has a week of her break left and I have a few more days than that. New Years Day is still a few days off, but it will pass without much fanfare for us. I’m afraid our days of partying to see in the New Year are well behind us.

Last Sunday was our annual pilgrimage to the mall. As rule, Colleen and I prefer to avoid crowds if at all possible, we make this exception so we can look at the decorations, do any last minute Christmas shopping, and treat ourselves to lunch at one of our favorite places in the food court. Just like in years past, we got to the mall shortly after it opened and before the throngs of people started showing up. Thanksgiving came late this year so Colleen and I didn’t get a chance to do all of our Christmas shopping. We knew we would have to bite the bullet and get as much finished at the mall as we could. We did it too, leaving us just a few small things for the stockings. There is one store at the mall we do look forward to visiting because by the time we get there right before Christmas the store has usually slashed their prices on Christmas decorations by 75 percent. We always manage to find something very nice for the house and this year was no different. Colleen walked out of the store with $120 worth of pieces for a Christmas center piece for just $30.

Colleen and I knew we needed a few more things to finish our Christmas shopping after our trip to the mall on Sunday, so Monday morning we were out the door early headed to all places, Walmart. My Christmas magic still works just fine and despite a slam full parking lot I ended up parking the Trail Blazer just three spaces from the main entrance. Colleen and I got in and out of the store without any difficulty, made a few more stops on the way home, got everything into the house, and Colleen started wrapping presents. We had put all of the Christmas presents and wrapping supplies into the small spare bedroom and there was barely enough room for Colleen to work and certainly no room for me. I set about cleaning and vacuuming the house and shuttling wrapped presents downstairs to the Christmas tree. The only break Colleen took all day was later in the afternoon when she made the girls some warm mash, took it to them, and collected the eggs.

Tuesday was supposed to be cooking day, but Colleen insisted on finishing up the wrapping so I straightened up around the house, kept cleaning, and getting everything ready for Christmas morning. I kept piling the presents under the tree as Colleen finished wrapping them, and just before dinner time Colleen had the stockings done and we put them under the tree as well. James and Donna had made plans to spend the night at the house and they arrived with Louis in tow shortly after all of the presents were wrapped and under the tree. Rather than have Colleen make something for dinner, we took everyone out to eat. Once we got back home, Colleen started preparing as much of our Christmas brunch as she could. I don’t think she got to bed until a little after midnight.

Christmas was a little different for us this year. I don’t think Louis ever went to bed on Christmas Eve opting to stay up all night watching TV or playing video games. He finally did go upstairs to lay down once Colleen and I started moving around on Christmas morning. Alex who was house sitting an hour away showed up around 8:30 and just hung around until everyone else started waking up. James and Donna eventually came downstairs and then someone had to go wake up Louis. We started opening presents and when Micayla got to the house too, she joined in the fray. We were just getting to the brunch buffet when Steven and Lily showed up. Anna Maria stayed home sick in bed.

The afternoon stayed pretty calm. Steven took Lily to his in-laws’ house because our house was too noisy for Lily to take a nap. Steven came back and hung out with his brothers out by the fire pit. Of course, leave it to my boys to find something different to do. I walked out to the front porch and Steven had found a huge paper wasps’ nest that he just had to have, so there it was sitting in the porch rail. Louis and Micayla were the first to leave. They both had to work on Thursday and they live an hour and a half away. Steven headed out next with all of his gifts, Anna Maria’s gifts, Lily’s gifts still wrapped on the chance that opening them at home would make Anna Maria feel better. Alex left with enough time to get back to his house sitting gig before it got dark. James and Donna hung out until almost sunset before they headed over to Donna’s daughter’s place. Just like that, our house that had been filled with laughter and smiles all day, was still and quiet.

Al and Alysia had driven to the coast on Christmas Eve to be with Al’s parents on Christmas morning, but they were going to stop by at our house on their way home. It’s a 3-hour drive from our house to the coast and then another hour drive to their house. The kids showed up around 6:30 and we had another small Christmas celebration. Colleen had another round of brunch cooked and waiting, the fire had the house nice and warm, and after we ate we were exchanging presents. Alysia had spent the better part of the morning in bed sick, but she seemed to be doing a little better. Al on the other hand looked like he was coming down with whatever Alysia had. The kids stayed maybe an hour or an hour and a half and had to head home. After they left Colleen and I let the fire burn down and headed upstairs to collapse in bed.

Colleen and I were both moving pretty slow on Thursday morning. Colleen woke up with the start of a head cold, but refused to let it get the best of her. She decided she wanted to get a jump on the laundry so she loaded the laundry bags with holiday table linens and headed down to the laundromat. I did nothing all day. I spent as much time as I could sitting in the sunshine on the back porch watching the birds. Colleen didn’t do much more than the laundry. For meals we foraged through the refrigerator for whatever we could find and after we took care of the girls we didn’t stay up very long.

Friday things started getting back on track around here. Anna Maria’s fever broke on Thursday so Steven, Anna Maria, and Lily came over in the morning and they brought back all of the unopened Christmas presents so they could open them here. We opened presents and had a grand little second Christmas, but as babies do, Lily started getting tired and fussy so the kids headed home. Once the kids left, Colleen headed down to the laundromat with bed linens and I headed out to the backyard to pick up dead limbs that had fallen in the yard and blow the leaves off the yard. Colleen wasn’t feeling too spunky about making any dinner so we opted to go out to dinner and relax a little.

Yesterday seemed to start slow, but that didn’t last long. Once Colleen and I finished our morning coffee it was back to getting things done around here. Colleen officially started the De-Santafication process by taking down her big animated Christmas village in the living room. The thing takes her three days to set up, and it took her every bit of yesterday afternoon to take it down and pack it up until next Christmas. I had no intention of staying in the house so I headed out back to work with the compost pile. Our compost bin was getting rather full, but the biggest part of the pile was leaves and pine shavings from cleaning the chicken coop. I spent all afternoon running everything through a screen to separate the leaves and pine shavings out of the mix. The leaves and pine shavings became mulch and went on the ground around our raised bed gardens. Everything else went back into the compost bin. Between the vegetable pieces, the egg shells, the leaves and pine shavings that had broken down, and the chicken poop, we are going to have some dandy compost for our gardens come this spring. After dinner neither Colleen nor I did much and it didn’t take much convincing for us to call it an early night.

It’s supposed to rain today, but exactly when is anybody’s guess. Neither Colleen nor I have to get ready for the upcoming week because we are both still on our Christmas breaks. I’ve already let the girls out of their coop for the day and Colleen is still nursing her morning coffee, sitting up in bed with her tablet on her lap. It should be a quiet day for us today. There isn’t much that absolutely has to get done. The threat of rain will likely keep us indoors all day, but that’s okay too. Colleen will probably keep taking down the Christmas decorations, but I won’t let her touch the Christmas tree or the yard decorations until after New Year’s Day. Even if the world is wild and crazy at the bottom of our hill, up here on our happy little half-acre everything is calm and peaceful and we have no complaints about that. As 2019 is winding down Colleen and I are thankful we’ve had a very good year and we are excited about the New Year because we know that all is right on the homestead.

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47 Replies to “2019 – Archived Blogs”

Joni Griffiths says:

June 16, 2019 at 1:17 pm

Sounds like a good summer ahead. Happy Father’s Day, enjoy whatever comes your way!
Does Colleen have any tips for starting a pantry and the storage of baking supplies.
Best type of containers etc? Would love to get some advise 😀
1. Pops says:
  
  June 16, 2019 at 1:30 pm
  
  Thanks…. Colleen takes just about everything out of its original packaging and puts into something clear, either glass of plastic, but it does have to be pretty air tight. Canning jars work well for the smaller stuff.
Trudy Harlow says:

June 16, 2019 at 9:31 pm

Hard, meaningful work and a simple life are the recipe for happiness.
1. Pops says:
  
  June 17, 2019 at 10:07 am
  
  You sure have that right! 😎
Marsha says:

June 23, 2019 at 11:52 am

What a wonderful life! I so enjoy reading about your days. In my hectic life, I can relax a bit while reading your blog. Thank you for sharing.
1. Pops says:
  
  June 23, 2019 at 12:08 pm
  
  Thanks…. hope you have a great day… 😃
Highland AvenUe restaurant says:

July 7, 2019 at 9:13 am

Wonderful web site. A lot of useful information here. I’m
sending it to a few buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious.

And naturally, thank you on your sweat!
1. Pops says:
  
  July 7, 2019 at 12:50 pm
  
  Thanks… 🙂
Pat Fillmore says:

July 14, 2019 at 2:54 pm

Will keep you in prayer God will guide you to the right school.
1. Pops says:
  
  July 14, 2019 at 2:57 pm
  
  Thanks… everything will work out just as it should….👍😎
Patrice says:

July 21, 2019 at 3:34 pm

Congratulations on your chickens!
1. Pops says:
  
  July 21, 2019 at 3:51 pm
  
  Thanks… hope you’re having a great summer…😎
Nancy Sadewater says:

July 28, 2019 at 2:43 pm

Congratulations on the “girls” being able to put themselves in the coop at night, it sure beats trying to chase them in. I hope and pray for you to find the position for the fall that is the best for you and your family. Lily looked so cute sitting on grandpa’s lap too.
1. Pops says:
  
  July 28, 2019 at 2:45 pm
  
  Thanks… whatever happens job wise will happen… I’m not too worried about it…. 😀
Patrice says:

August 11, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Sweet new ride. May you have many miles with little aggravation.
1. Pops says:
  
  August 11, 2019 at 2:43 pm
  
  Thanks, I know one 35 mile trip I won’t be making everyday… 🙂
Pat Fillmore Fillmore says:

August 11, 2019 at 3:09 pm

What is your book about? I love to read.
1. Pops says:
  
  August 11, 2019 at 3:12 pm
  
  Thanks….It a collection of daily chronicles from the Summer of 2016… Basically, the beginning of our homestead journey. 😃
Trudy Harlow says:

August 25, 2019 at 7:57 pm

Congratulations on the new job!
1. Pops says:
  
  August 25, 2019 at 8:00 pm
  
  Thanks… 😎
Dawn Wisusik says:

August 26, 2019 at 4:43 am

I am so happy things have worked out for you! It makes things a lot easier having thT off your mind. Congrats!
1. Pops says:
  
  August 26, 2019 at 4:46 am
  
  Thanks…😃
Patrice says:

September 2, 2019 at 9:49 am

Glad to hear about new job!
1. Pops says:
  
  September 2, 2019 at 9:55 am
  
  Thanks… enjoy your day off… 😎
Pat Fillmore says:

September 8, 2019 at 3:18 pm

Congrats on your anniversary. Maybe next blog you can tell us what you are teaching been curious to know
1. Pops says:
  
  September 8, 2019 at 3:21 pm
  
  Thanks… I’m teaching math, just like before….😃
Kevin says:

September 15, 2019 at 9:45 am

Just catching up on the happenings at the homestead. Congratulations on the new teaching gig.
1. Pops says:
  
  September 15, 2019 at 9:46 am
  
  Thanks…. 😎
Max Holshouser says:

September 15, 2019 at 3:22 pm

Finally read a few of your entries. Was hoping to learn a little more about your teaching change this year. Obviously you were ready for a change; I hope you’ll be happy with your new situation. They’re lucky to have such a dedicated teacher. Would love to get together and catch up some time soon. Please give Colleen my best. Enjoyed your blog. I’ll try to check in more often. How long are you giving your chickens to start laying eggs before they are invited to dinner!!?
1. Pops says:
  
  September 15, 2019 at 3:27 pm
  
  Thanks Max… Will let Colleen know you sent her your best… I’m looking for eggs sometimes in the next month hopefully… I have a feeling I would have a difficult time convincing Colleen to invite them to dinner though…. Hope all is well.
Pat Fillmore Fillmore says:

September 15, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Leaving later than usual and not getting involved in the accident is what I call a God thing. He protected you.
1. Pops says:
  
  September 15, 2019 at 3:33 pm
  
  Indeed… someone is definitely watching out for me….😃
Nancy Sadewater says:

September 22, 2019 at 1:19 pm

I am glad that you are enjoying the new school. Will you help with the baseball/softball there? Enjoy your break!
1. Pops says:
  
  September 22, 2019 at 1:21 pm
  
  Thanks… the school doesn’t have a team… too small…😀
Pat Fillmore says:

September 22, 2019 at 3:29 pm

As I said God had a better plan when you lost your other job. So glad things are going a lot better and you can once again enjoy your job
1. Pops says:
  
  September 22, 2019 at 3:30 pm
  
  Thanks… not just enjoying my job, but our whole quality of life is even better now… 😃
Patrice says:

September 28, 2019 at 6:45 pm

I’m jealous, the new school sounds great. Your new schedule sounds like a good way to run a school. I know you are missed at your old school.
1. Pops says:
  
  September 28, 2019 at 6:48 pm
  
  Thanks… really is a great place… I miss everyone at Wakefield, but not the way it is run… hope you’re having a great year.
Pat Fillmore says:

September 29, 2019 at 3:41 pm

Live in Winnemucca Nv. Woke up to dusting of snow. Melted by noon. Right now have hail & rain.
1. Pops says:
  
  September 29, 2019 at 3:43 pm
  
  Geez… and it’s still September… stay safe and warm….😃
Nadine Nicholason says:

October 8, 2019 at 8:38 am

bookmarked!!, I like your blog!
1. Pops says:
  
  October 8, 2019 at 11:29 am
  
  Thanks… 😀
Kevin says:

December 23, 2019 at 7:01 am

Merry Christmas!!
1. Pops says:
  
  December 23, 2019 at 8:48 am
  
  And a Merry Christmas to you!
Linda M White says:

December 29, 2019 at 2:05 pm

Sounds like you and your family had wonderful Christmas. I New Year bring much happiness and joy.
1. Pops says:
  
  December 29, 2019 at 3:46 pm
  
  Thanks … Hope you have a great New Year too… 🙂
Monique Lacroix says:

September 25, 2021 at 7:08 pm

So I am about two years late reading your blog but I want you to know that I loved both 2018 and 2019.
I have bee n reading your entries in Homesteading for a while and enjoyed them too.
Got your “2016 Chronicles” , great stories! I have one question, where is 2017?

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