2018 – Archived Blogs – All Is Right On The Homestead

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning up here on our hill. It’s a bit on the chilly side for Central North Carolina but the bucket fire in front of me is doing just fine at chasing the chill off of my back porch. The sun is just starting to peek over the eastern horizon. The wind is light but steady rocking the leaf bare tree tops. A few of the morning birds are out and about foraging for their breakfast. Not much else is moving around yet though. I suspect all of the usual critters are still hunkered down waiting for things to warm up some. The forest is beautiful this morning as splashes of orange start to paint the trees. It looks like we’re in for another bright and sunny day on our little half-acre.

It was quite the busy week for my wife, Colleen, and me. I teach high school math and Colleen is a teacher’s assistant for special needs kids at the same high school. Final exams started on Friday so most of the week was spent reviewing and getting ready. Like I said it was a busy week but there was nothing extraordinarily challenging about it and our week at school passed without incident. Monday is a holiday so we’ll enjoy this long weekend before we get back to final exams on Tuesday. Truth be told, exam week is probably one of the easier weeks from a teacher’s point of view.

Most of last week was unusually warm for early January here in the Piedmont. I think the temperatures even touched 70 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday. They were bright sunny days too. It was a real treat to get home and enjoy what was left of the afternoons. The rains moved in on Thursday and hung around most of Friday. The cold front pushing everything reached us early Saturday morning and the temperature steadily dropped all day long. The sun came back though and Saturday turned into a beautiful day. I spent a great deal of the week putting together and prioritizing a to-do list and got a good jump on it Saturday.

With the limited daylight of winter afternoons Colleen and I are limited in what we can accomplish during the school week. We do our best to hold things together and then play catch up on the weekends. Our school days start at 4:30 in the morning when the alarm goes off and we usually can get back home by 4 in the afternoon. Mornings are pretty routine but definitely busy before we walk out the front door. The dogs need to be taken outside. Lunches are made and any last minute preparations for the school day are finished. The ride to school is about 45 minutes long so that’s when we can catch a little breather and have our first cup of coffee for the day. After school it’s much of the same. The dogs come first then Colleen starts making dinner while I take care of any small chores that need doing. We were lucky last week because of the warm weather. I didn’t have to put a fire in the fireplace to heat the first floor. We don’t have central heating or A/C. The system broke down four winters ago, it can’t be repaired and we can’t afford to have it replaced. The fireplace does a fair job of heating the first floor and we use high efficiency space heaters in the bedrooms at night.

Colleen cooks just about everything we eat from scratch so planning meals for the week is a must. Last week we enjoyed a pseudo-Thanksgiving when she reheated a leftover turkey breast we had frozen. Tuesday she really whipped up something special, Polish sausage and rice with a sour cream and lime juice dressing. There are always plenty of leftovers in the refrigerator so Colleen gets a break at least a couple of nights during the week. We do like to treat ourselves to takeout pizza on Friday nights and that’s just what we did last week.

During the school year, weekends are when things really start to happen up here. Yesterday was the start of our first free weekends after the holidays so Colleen and I started early. The fireplace got cleaned and ready to go for this morning. The last of the outside Christmas lights came down. Colleen got into the kitchen in between her cleaning up and did a little experimenting. She turned some week old bread and bananas into a bread pudding and then made some vanilla sauce to go on the pudding. Very little goes to waste around here. Somewhere in there Colleen even found time start cleaning the basement. I took a little break right around lunch time. By break I mean I sat on the back porch with my .22 cal air-rifle waiting for squirrels to wander within range while I enjoyed a cigar. The sunshine brought the squirrels out and I added one to our freezer. The deer were sure moving around too. I guess the rut is pretty much done around here. I saw a group of five younger bucks coming down from the ridge. Four of them had busted up antlers and all their antlers were getting on to bone white. I figure the drop is right around the corner.

Colleen and I had a planned trip to the garden center at Lowe’s yesterday so as we headed out the front door I told Alex, our 21 year old and youngest son, that I left the squirrel on the back porch. Alex is the family knife master. The kid has a natural talent for putting an edge on a knife and for using them. I’ve seen the kid single handedly butcher a deer leaving nothing but white bone and near perfectly cut meat that makes the meat counters at grocery stores look like sloppy work. I don’t suspect he spent much time skinning out and dressing down that squirrel but when Colleen and I got home the squirrel was wrapped and in the freezer and the skin was salted and rolled up in the outside freezer.

There was still some daylight left when Colleen and I got home so I headed back outside to get some work done on our raised beds. It was just mostly prep work. I only wish it was planting season but that’s not for a few more weeks around here. I did manage to get three of the four front yard beds clear of debris and turned over fairly well. The fourth bed has asparagus in it so I just let it lie under its cover of leaves. Today, Colleen and I need to plan what we want in each bed so I can fertilize them properly. After that I’ll cover everything with leaves again and let them sit until planting time. I’m hoping to get to the raised beds in the back today or tomorrow. We won’t start planting cool weather crops probably until mid February but I’m anxious to try starting some plants from seeds again this year. Starting plants from seed is still something we aren’t real good at doing.

This little half-acre of ours may not seem like much of a homestead but right now it’s what we have. Even so, there is always plenty that needs doing and everything we do is with an eye to getting a bigger place when we retire. Some things we do well and some things not so well but we keep trying and learning. We sure don’t see any point in wishing away our time for things we don’t have. Money is always tight so we do what we can. We celebrate our successes and learn from our mistakes. Our kids help when they can and everyone is healthy and happy. Colleen and I couldn’t ask for anything more. It took us a while to find our way but we’re on the road now. We take one day at a time and let tomorrow take care of tomorrow and we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Yes, it’s only a half-acre but I can proudly say that all is right on the homestead.

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January 17, 2018: A Day Off For the Snow

The snow is falling and school has been canceled. Even Alex is getting the day off from work today. Snow is not unusual for Central North Carolina but a heavy snow fall like this doesn’t happen often. Everything is peaceful and quiet up here on our hill. The deer are out and foraging for food. They sure do make a stark contrast to the white forest floor. Since we won’t be going anywhere today I’m enjoying sitting in front of my bucket fire on the back porch watching the snow fall this morning. Colleen is upstairs enjoying her morning coffee and watching the snow fall on through the big window in the bedroom. She said the view reminded her of a Christmas card.

I’m glad we have everything we need up here because getting up and down our hill can be problematic when winter weather hits the area. The fire is going in the fireplace and the house is toasty warm. I have a little bit of paperwork for school to do today but that’s about it. Colleen will likely find herself in the kitchen. It’s a great day for hot soup and fresh bread. In between my paperwork and watching the snow pile up, I’ll be shuttling firewood from the back porch rack to the hearth side rack with Alex’s help. We’ll keep the fire going all day. Let’s face it; there won’t be much else we can do. They say we could get as much as eight inches of snow today. The snow is coming down pretty well right now but the forecast says it’s going to get heavier right before lunch.

Yesterday was actually a pretty nice day. After our holiday on Monday Colleen and I headed into school yesterday morning to pick up on final exams where we left off on last Friday. I was one of the lucky teachers who had their exams scheduled so I am done with final exams for this semester. With the pending snow storm I brought everything home to grade and I can even get my grades entered online. Colleen doesn’t have specific classes since she is a teacher’s assistant for the special education team so she didn’t have work that needed to be brought home. I’m not sure what the county will do for makeup days, but there are still two full days of final exams that need to be addressed. I sure hope the kids take advantage of the extra time to study.

The snow is really starting to pile up. It’s a wet snow and it’s clinging to all of the baren tree branches. There is a deep enough layer on the ground to stop the leaves from making any noise as the deer move along the tree line. A big buck has made his way down from the ridge moving silently like a ghost as he meanders his way around. The deer aren’t the only critters out today. There are a good many of our winter birds about considering the weather. There are some crows screaming not too far away. The bluebirds are on the feeders with their bright blue feathers making a stark contrast to the white snow. The chubby little wrens seem unfazed by the snow too. I even had one hopping around on the wood pile two feet from me. My sitting here didn’t seem to bother him at all. I really love sitting on my back porch watching all of the wildlife around this place.

This snow storm is as heavy as I can remember in recent times. It reminds of my youth in New England. I lived in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains so there was always plenty of tobogganing opportunities. We sure didn’t have video games back then so every kid in the neighborhood would be bundled up and outside. We would have races down the hills, most of the time being far more reckless than was probably good for us. Inevitably, a snowball fight would break out. There was always lots of joking and laughing. We would take a break for lunch and to put on dry clothes. Lunch more often than not would be tomato soup and grilled cheese. It wouldn’t be long though before everyone was back outside again where we stayed until dark. If we were real lucky, we would even get to go outside after dinner and play in the snow under the street lights. Sadly, we don’t see much of that anymore.

I do believe it’s time for another cup of coffee. There’s a good inch plus of snow on the ground now and it’s still coming down. The weather forecast says we might see up to 8 inches today. I suppose I’ll have to get out a little later to clear the snow from the driveway. I actually look forward to shoveling a little snow. When I was a kid I would have just fired up the snow blower. Those were always fun. Enjoy your day and the rest of the week everyone. Remember life is what you make of it so always be looking to have some fun. Up here on our hill all this snow will definitely be fun for us today because all is right on the homestead.

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January 21, 2108: Did Someone Say January Thaw?

Boy, oh boy, what a week it has been. After a long weekend for the holiday on Monday the week should have been smooth sailing with nothing but final exams to carry us up to this weekend. I was lucky enough to get the last my testing finished up on Tuesday. I had the rest of the week to grade the exams and get everything ready for the new semester. Then Wednesday showed up with a whole different game plan. The forecast initially called for a winter storm that would drop 3 – 5 inches of snow on the ground. That worked for me. Schools got closed giving me another day off from work. Mother Nature had something else on her mind though. Up here on our hill the snow started falling right at sunup and didn’t let up one iota until after sunset. When all was said and done there were up to 12 inches of snow on the ground and temperatures that wouldn’t get much above freezing until Friday afternoon. The area hadn’t seen a storm like this since 2000. Most of the area was shutdown and schools would stay closed all week. By Saturday the temperatures were pushing 60 degrees and there sure isn’t much of the snow left on the ground this morning.

The snow had us pretty well bottled up. Our hill presents us quite a challenge when there is bad winter weather. The steep parts of the hill are pretty well shaded. Those sections inevitably turn into sheets of ice and stay that way until it stays warm enough, long enough for the ice to melt. Getting down the hill is usually tricky but possible. Getting up the hill even with 4-wheel drive is sometimes impossible. The sun had been out all day Thursday so everything was soft by mid afternoon. Alex doesn’t like sitting around doing nothing and was fighting off a good case of cabin fever when he asked if I thought it would be alright for him to run to the store. Alex drives a big, heavy, 1995 Explorer with 4-wheel drive so I figured that would be the perfect time for him to get a little experience driving on lousy roads. The main roads were okay by Thursday afternoon but the side streets were still rough. Anyway, I said sure, told him to go slow, and to be home before sunset when everything would start freezing solid again. To the boy’s credit he did just fine on his little adventure. When got home he told me how he handled the side streets and our hill and quickly added that he would wait for mid morning on Friday to try and go to work because the hill was going to be a thick sheet of ice in the morning and getting down the hill would be too dangerous even in his Explorer.

The snow reminded Colleen and me of our youth growing up in New England. For the most part once we saw the stuff piling up on Wednesday it wasn’t too hard for us to just sit back, hunker down, and wait it out. Since we can things through a good bit of the summer and fall months our larder was well stocked. We had plenty of firewood. If we had lost electricity which we didn’t, we have a camp stove and Colleen even knows how to bake in a cast iron Dutch oven using hot coals from a wood fire. Both Wednesday and Thursday Colleen started each morning by putting a pot of beef, bean and barley soup and a pot of venison chili on the stove to simmer on low heat during the day so we could feed ourselves when we got hungry. Both were leftovers. With more than enough on the stove top Colleen spent her mornings and early afternoons baking. She ended up making a couple of loaves of oatmeal rye bread, a large batch of corn muffins and a Boston cream pie. On Wednesday afternoon she even put together a chicken Alfredo casserole for dinner. We eat well up here on the hill and almost all of it is made from scratch. When Colleen wasn’t cooking she was searching through cookbooks and on the internet for other recipe ideas.

I spent most of my days reading and with Alex’s help shuttling wood in from the back porch to keep the fire going and the house warm. I hadn’t realized how much wood we’d burnt this winter until I looked at the winter ready pile yesterday. Between the two week long cold snap and the winter storm we’ve already burned more wood this winter what we burned all of last winter. While the winter ready pile is just about played out we have plenty of wood on the downhill side of the house in the seasoning piles. The worst case scenario will have me splitting some the wood on the seasoning piles but I don’t think it will come to that. If the weather forecast for the next couple of weeks holds we won’t see freezing temperatures again for all practical purposes until February if at all. Once spring rolls around, I’ll start rebuilding our wood piles for next winter. Fortunately, my son, Steven, works for a tree company and is very proficient at dropping trees safely. I already have a couple of big oaks picked out for next winter pile. One is a lightning strike and the other is dying and needs to come down anyway.

One reason Colleen and I love living in North Carolina is because spring comes early. We’ve already picked up a good many seeds for our gardens. We haven’t had great luck in the past with starting our gardens from seed but we’re not going to give up trying. I’m hoping to start our “in-house” seeds next weekend and maybe even the cool weather stuff in mid February like last year. We’ve even got plans to add a couple of more raised bed gardens in the yard. I guess Colleen and I will be doing a good bit of planning over the next few weeks but we’ll be getting our hands dirty before you know it.

The storm as whole really didn’t give us too much heart burn. Being house bound isn’t an issue. Colleen and I, as rule, like to stay close to home anyway. Buttercup, our Labrador and Boxer mix, didn’t fancy the snow too much. She would run out do her business and the run right back into the house and go lay on her couch. Daisy, our Border Collie and Australian shepherd mix, loves to play in the snow so she took every opportunity to get outside. The only real problem we ran into was our septic system. The system is 40 years old and starting to get very root bound. The melting snow so heavily saturated the ground where the leech field is located it left us limited in how much water we could put into the system without it overflowing back into the basement. It’s not a new problem just one that pops up every now and again. Fortunately, the only overflow we had ended up in a catch bucket so there wasn’t any mess to clean up. It’s just one of the quirks of this place with which we’ve gotten used to dealing.

Yes, indeed, it’s been a crazy week up here on our hill. I can’t honestly say I’d want it any other way though. There is still some stuff that needs doing today but what doesn’t get done today will be there tomorrow so I’m not going to worry about it. Have a great week everyone. I know in some parts it may not seem like it but I promise spring is coming and it will be here before we know it. In the mean time, keep the fires warm and the coffee hot. I’ve learned over the years to take things one day at a time and there is always a solution to any challenge if you a back porch on which to sit and a cup of coffee over which to mull things. So far there hasn’t been anything we haven’t been able to work through or around. Everybody up here is healthy and happy so I really can’t ask for anything more. It’s a good feeling inside knowing all is right on the homestead.

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January 28, 2018: A Grand Week And A Taste Of Spring

Well, we’re another week closer to spring. The weather was pleasant enough over the last week and apart from a little rain for the upcoming week everything should be just fine up here on our little hill in the heart of North Carolina. There will be a few nights where we will see temperatures falling below the freezing mark but there is nary a mention of winter precipitation. We have had snow in February before and I think I remember we even had some once in early March but so far so good and it looks like we’ll ride January out with sunny skies this year. The rain did move in last night and it looks like it will stick around until Monday afternoon but with the rain there are also very mild temperatures. I can live with temperatures right around the 60 mark for this time of the year.

After missing three days of school two weeks ago thanks to the big snow storm final exams got finished last week and the spring semester got started. My classes seem really awesome so far, particularly my 3rd period which is filled with 35 kids who are either special needs kids, ESL kids, or kids that really struggle with even the most basic math. I really love the dynamics of the class. For the most part they are chatty but they are good kids with a great sense of humor. I even figured out a way to use Siri on my cell phone to bridge any language issues. I showed the kids how it worked on Friday when I asked Siri how to say “Even your mother says you’re ugly” in Spanish. When I played it back to the class the laughs, big broad grins, and smiles on all of the kid’s faces really made my day. Now all the kids joke with me telling me that I’m the ugly one. You know, I think they could be correct.

Colleen spent the first part of the week giving final exams in small setting groups. On Thursday she got down to business filling in for a special education teacher that is waiting for their paperwork to clear before they can report to school. She even has her own curriculum assistance class to help special needs kids, well, for the time being anyway. She still loves her job and no matter how tired she might be at the end of the day she’s smiling and looks forward to heading back into school the next morning. Based on the comments I hear from the administration and the department staff, Colleen is natural when comes to working with the kids and she’s doing a great job.

Alex stayed home all week but not by his choosing. It seems his contract work has played out for the time being. Sadly, I figured it was going to happen with this job, one because of the time of the year and two because the guy running the show runs a sketchy operation. For the most part Alex took care of things around the house while Colleen and I were at school. The wood rack on the back porch is full although not needed at the moment and the compost in our compost bin has been turned. The compost pile was getting a little too big for Colleen to do it. As luck would have it, though, Steven got off work early on Friday and swung by the house to hang out with Alex. The tree service company where Steven works can use Alex part time for the next couple of weeks. As spring gets closer they could even have a full time position for Alex too. So after a long drawn out and boring week for Alex evertything ended on a high note for the boy. I think over the last couple of months Alex got a good life lesson. Alex left a steady job for what he saw as a better opportunity with the subcontracting gig only to have the rug pulled out from under his feet. It can be hard to teach a 21 year old kid that everything happens for a reason.

Winter is a tough season for us to get anything done outside around this place. Between the limited day light hours and the occasional bad weather we do well to hold our own. We don’t have any livestock yet and the gardens are pretty much lying fallow. That started to change this Saturday when enjoyed some lovely spring like weather. One benefit of being in Central North Carolina is that we can usually start planting cool weather gardens in mid February. With that in mind Colleen and I took advantage of the day to try starting our seeds indoor again this year. Now, we can do a lot of things around here well, but gardening and starting plants from seeds hasn’t been one of them. I’d have to say we’re still very low on the learning curve. Colleen and I both love to read and we’ve read a good bit on gardening to try and get better. Not much has worked for us. I’ve always been a firm believer that reading is critical in learning how to do most anything but nothing can replace personal experience and so despite our struggles we continue to try our hand, figuring one day we will meet with some margin of success.

After dragging the potting soil and peat moss up to the back porch Colleen and I started organizing our indoor plantings. We had peat pots, trays, and seeds packages spread out everywhere. The first thing I did was transplant my celery bottom from it cup of water into dirt. I rescued the bottom of a bunch of celery a couple of weeks ago and put into a small cup of water. It didn’t take long for the leaves to start to grow again and it even had the start of small stalks in it now. It’s a small step but it is in the right direction. By the time Colleen and I finished we had close to 100 peat pots planted. Colleen is really intent on developing a hearty herb garden this year so she has fresh herbs with which to cook. She actually managed to keep some potted oregano and rosemary growing inside all winter so there she has hope she can do the same with other herbs as well. I told you we would keep on trying. Colleen ended up planting cilantro, thyme, parsley, dill and basil. She is hoping these will be here indoor herb garden. We’ll direct seed or use starters for the outside gardens. For my part, I planted a couple of different types of onions, two types of Swiss chard, spinach, and snap peas all of which can be transplanted outside in a month or so. This will be our first try at peas and we have had succeed growing chard before.

Saturday afternoon I decided to take a break from the old homestead and headed to the river for the first fishing excursion of the year. Fortunately, the river is only about 15 minutes away making it very convenient for getting in a couple of hours of fishing when I need an escape. In the summer, the banks are nicely shaded, too, so it can be a nice little escape. Even with the beautiful weather on Saturday I was expecting a moderately slow day because of the cooler water temperatures. I decided to head downstream a ways to see if I could find a deeper fishing hole with warmer water than my usual spots. I had a quarter of a mile hike through the woods but I found a nice, wide open, sandy beach that seemed to fit the bill. There was a little bit of boat traffic because the river empties into a lake a ways further downstream but for the most part the world left me alone for a couple of hours. The fish were even biting enough to make it interesting. Most of what I caught was too small to keep so they went back into the river. The one decent size catfish I did catch got put back as well mostly because I just didn’t feel like cleaning fish. I will say for mid January fishing it sure was grand day.

There is a steady rain falling today and it’s supposed to stick around until tomorrow. Colleen already has all her notes from cooking spread out on the dining room table. A rainy, inside day like today is a great time for her to get her cookbooks caught up to date. She didn’t try much new this week instead relying on easy, family favorites and leftovers but she did try a new recipe on Saturday. One of my favorite meals as a kid was chipped beef on toast. It was quick and easy for my mom and it was budget friendly. I mentioned in passing to Colleen last weekend. She thought it would worth a try so we got some thin sliced roast beef sandwich meat and dried it in the dehydrator. Last night she pulled it out, put together the white sauce and that’s what we had for dinner. Alex loved it. I got to remember my mom and simpler times from my youth. Colleen was impressed as well. We did decide that it needed one improvement, thicker slices of Colleen’s homemade bread for the toast rather than toast made from store bought bread. That’s one recipe Colleen will definitely be adding to her cookbooks today.

Well, with final exams behind us the upcoming week will see classes in full swing. Thursday will be especially long for me because it is “Parents Night”. I’ll be lucky if I’m home by 9PM. I think Alex might go to work with Steven sometime during the week. For the most part Colleen and I will just try to keep the ship righted until next weekend. I suppose today we’ll just putter around the house, taking care of this and that kind of day. It will be a nice end to last week or a good start to this coming week depending on your view. Looking back on the week, up here on our hill it’s been a good week and as we get ready to start a new week it is a great feeling knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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February 4, 2018: A Crazy Week Ends Well

It’s a rainy Sunday morning, but at least nothing is freezing. It looks like we just missed any real winter precipitation this time. Come to think about it, apart from some cool temperatures over the last week, it was a very nice week weather wise. Colleen and I are really starting to get the itch for spring up here on our hill. As of right now, it looks like the upcoming week should be pretty decent, although not very spring like. They’re calling for some rain on Wednesday, but the temperatures should stay mild enough to keep it just rain. That should make for a good soaking for our gardens. The gardens are all still covered in leaf mulch so they should hold the water nicely and not dry out either. If next weekend is nice, we may even plant some of the plants that can handle the cooler weather of the season. Colleen and I are definitely getting antsy to start our spring planting.

It was a long week for me at school. There were scheduled meetings every day after school except on Friday. Thursday evening was the mother of all meetings: “Meet the Teacher” night. I didn’t end up leaving the parking lot until after 8:00 PM. It was pretty amazing that I was still standing since Colleen and I get to school right around 6:15 in the morning. Living about an hour away, there was just no point in me going home after school and then driving back to school. Sadly, I only had eight or ten parents show up for the event. I have 105 kids total in all my classes combined. It wasn’t all bad, though. After school in the afternoon I walked down to the baseball field where we had off-season workouts going. It may not have been my back porch, but being on the baseball field with the guys is the next best thing. This will be my 17th year as an assistant coach with the varsity squad. We’ve even had one kid make it to the “Big Show” for a couple of years.

With me stuck in meetings after school all week, everything needed to keep this place going fell on Colleen’s shoulders. Since she’s a teacher’s assistant, she is not required to attend most meetings, so she gets to head home with the last bell of the school day. Monday is usually laundry day and so it was this past week. Colleen stopped at the nearby laundromat to wash the clothes and then brought them home to dry. Before you ask, and I know you will, yes, we have a working washing machine in the basement, but what we also have is a 40 year old septic system with a root bound leech field set in clay. The water comes out of the machine so fast that system cannot handle it and it backs up on the basement floor. As it turns out, the laundromat is actually more efficient too. Colleen can get the equivalent of four regular loads of laundry washed and be home in less than 45 minutes. The rest of the week is dedicated to keeping this place clean and functioning. If I have time in the evenings I help if I can, but usually anything beyond routine maintenance gets put on hold until the weekend.

One of the biggest challenges on any homestead is making the finances work. Colleen and I are no different. Over the years we’ve incurred a bunch of debt, out of necessity. The house is in need of some repairs that we just cannot afford. I suppose that will come in time. We only get paid once a month and we have to put enough aside to survive the month. Since I’m a high school teacher and Colleen is a teacher’s assistant, we don’t get paid in the summer so we have to allocate money to our summer saving funds, then we have to figure out how to pay our bills. Wednesday was payday and this month we have something to celebrate. After years of cutting corners, we have started to make inroads toward eliminating our debt. I can proudly say this month we have paid off another credit card! With any luck, by the time summer rolls around we may have another credit card wiped off the books. We don’t have much breathing room, but it sure feels good to finally have a little bit.

Friday turned out to be a quick and easy day at school. Colleen and I got there at our regular time, and got out of there right after the bus parking lot cleared. We got home with plenty of time for me to enjoy the afternoon sunshine with a cigar on the back porch. It didn’t take too long for Colleen and me to decide that we had earned ourselves dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Much to our surprise and delight, Alex who is not usually one for eating at restaurants decided to join us for dinner. Of course, no trip to the Cracker Barrel would be complete without looking around the store, and quite out of character for my lovely wife, she found a very nice spring shirt and a price that didn’t make her gag. The shirt came home with us. Even Alex splurged on a couple of those baseball size jawbreakers. We don’t get to go out often, but Friday night’s dinner was a wonderful family outing.

Saturday was our day to get things done for real around this place. After our morning coffee, Colleen headed into her kitchen. I waited for Alex to roll out bed and he and I headed out to get some chain link fencing and poles. Last summer I started building a chicken coop and pen. It was slow going because I was using whatever salvage materials I could find. While the coop was pretty much finished by the time school started, I hadn’t built a pen for the birds. Free ranging chickens is, unfortunately, not an option for us. Colleen said to put the project on hold because she didn’t want to start by dealing with chickens in the fall and winter. I’ll admit I was a bit frustrated because I wanted to finish the job, but between lack of funds and Colleen’s view on the situation, finishing the job didn’t seem likely until this spring. Well, as luck would have it, everything seems to be working out. The chain link fencing and poles that Alex and I got on Saturday cost me the price of the gas in my truck to get it. As it stands right now, I have right around $150 invested into the coop and fencing. As the weather starts warming up, I’ll get the pen put up and we should have our birds before summer.

The rain will keep everyone inside around here today. Colleen already has plans to get a big pot of soup simmering on the stove. I’m sure I’ll be in front of the computer a good bit of the day. Alex is sleeping late because there’s no point in getting him out of bed. It’s been a crazy week for us, but next week is looking better. For most of the week we’ll do our best to keep things moving forward around here. If it’s nice, I might even get a new compost bin built. I had hoped to get that done this weekend, but our plans always seem to change. Changing plans is something we’ve gotten used to doing up here on our hill. One thing we’ve learned is to worry about it when it happens. Whatever doesn’t get done today will still be there tomorrow. I think it’s about time for me to have another cup of coffee. It’s going to be another good day and we’re looking forward to another good week which is as it should be because all is right on the homestead.

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February 11, 2018: Spring Is On Its Way

The rain rolled in Saturday morning and stuck around, on and off, all weekend. The temperatures made it down to the freezing mark a couple of times during the week, but they bounced right back up to warm things up. The long range forecast says we won’t be headed back down that way for at least the next two weeks. That’s a good thing because there is a lot of rain in the forecast too. I have to keep reminding myself to be patient about the weather because it is still the front half of February and there isn’t anything I can do about the weather anyway. This time of the year I always seem to get real itchy for spring to start. Spring training is getting ready to start up for baseball and that means it’s time for Colleen and me to get into our gardens. At least all of this rain and the warm temperatures will have the gardens ready to go.

The week at school was mostly uneventful. Colleen took Monday off so she could go to the doctor. It was just time for her checkup but getting any appointment is always a challenge so the best she could do was midday. Everything went as well as could be expected for Colleen. Her blood pressure is a tad on the high side. Her blood work will be back in a little bit and I suspect they will schedule her some follow up appointments to get her caught up on routine stuff. The doctor did tell Colleen she needs to cut back on the pasta and bread. The pasta shouldn’t be an issue, but bread! How do you tell a woman who prides herself on baking homemade bread to back off of it? We both found the bread comment quite amusing.

The sun did burn back the clouds on Monday and Tuesday, so everything started to dry out from the day long rain last Sunday, but we ended up getting more rain on Wednesday. By Friday things had dried out sufficiently that Colleen and I were able to get outside and do a few things after school. Luckily, we got home earlier than usual so we had a good part of the afternoon left and there was plenty of sunshine. It sure felt great to be outside getting a little bit of work done in preparation for the spring. I topped and pruned back our pear tree. I figure with the expected run of warm weather we should see buds start popping out before too long. Our indoor seed starts are doing well too. The peas are about 6-inches tall and starting to put out the feelers so we decided to do a little garden planting after I finished with the pear tree. Colleen and I were both very excited to get started our spring planting early again this year. With the next break in the weather, the radish seeds will get planted too.

Saturday’s rain didn’t slow us down too much. After looking at the weather radar I had a feeling that the steady rain would break before lunch sometime. It turned out to be a good call. Colleen and I managed to get our weekly market run done in the late morning, get home before lunch, and not get ourselves and everything else soaked in the process. When you’re hauling groceries home in the open bed of a truck, rain is not something anybody wants. Once we got all the groceries into the house, Colleen and I sat down to enjoy a big mug of her spicy chicken soup. There’s nothing better than hot soup on a gray day. Steven and Alex who had been out on a side tree job in the morning showed up right when Colleen and I were sitting down for lunch. I asked them if they felt lucky because I had it my mind to do some fishing after lunch. I sure didn’t need to say much more because as quick as a wink Alex grabbed his gear and the boys headed out the front door to go get Steven’s gear.

After I finished an unrushed lunch I put my stuff into my truck and headed up to the river to meet the boys. They were already there waiting for me, but I don’t think they had been there long. One of the spots I like to fish is maybe a quarter mile downstream from where we park, so we had a short hike through the woods on the shore line. Steven had fished the river before, but he had never been at this spot before so it was a bit of a new adventure for him. It didn’t take us very long to wet our lines once we got to the spot and then it was a waiting game for the fish. The wait wasn’t long before the fish started to cooperate. Once the fish started biting, things didn’t let up all afternoon. It was an incredibly relaxing afternoon. I guess we were out there for three hours or so. The skies stayed gray, but the rain held off while we were out there. It had been a while since the three of us had been fishing together, so I really enjoyed the time with the boys. There aren’t many things I enjoy more than sitting on the bank, smoking a cigar, and spending time with my kids.

Colleen was actually happy that Alex and I weren’t at home underfoot. She got the groceries put away and reorganized her kitchen. The way Colleen cooks, things get pulled out and put up all the time. Things in her pantry get shifted about or emptied so when we restock everything with our market runs, everything needs to be reorganized. With no one tracking through the house, she also got to clean the first floor, namely the family room, the living, and the dining room. For the most part the house is well kept, but after a week of being at school and having two large dogs, there is always a little clutter lying around and plenty of dog hair all over the place. Somehow, in the midst of all her activity, Colleen even found time to bake some brown bread and raisin muffins before Alex and I got home. I think Colleen just generally enjoys the quiet time she gets, too, when Alex and I disappear for a few hours.

So here we are at Sunday. It should be a quiet day around this place. So far the real heavy rain has bypassed us, but that will probably change by later in the day. We’ve got a lot of the usual stuff to get done. Colleen will be cooking for the week. Having things prepared and waiting makes putting lunches together in the morning easier, and it certainly makes putting dinner on the table in the evening a whole lot easier. Alex doesn’t have much going. I have my usual stuff I have to get ready for school. We won’t be doing anything outside thanks to the weather, but that’s okay since we can’t do much to change the weather. There’s always lots of stuff to do around the house, but we rarely worry about things we can’t do instead focusing on those things we can do. What doesn’t get done will be there for another day. That’s pretty much how things run up here on our hill. So as I sit here looking at the start of another week with the full expectation that we’ll have another grand day, everything is relaxed because all is right on the homestead.

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February 18, 2018: Spring Is In The Air.

Mother Nature sure took us on a weather roller coaster ride last week. It all started with a rainy Saturday last weekend, then a few mild days helped things dry out. The rain came back on Wednesday to give everything a good soaking. Thursday and Friday were unseasonably warm. We even got to 80 degrees on Friday before someone flipped the switch on some cold air. I was at the baseball field Friday afternoon when the weather front moved through and the temperatures dropped 20 degrees in less than 2 hours. This Saturday was gray and rainy and temperatures never made it past 45 degrees. Today the sun is shining again and it should warm up to around 60 degrees. The forecast for next week looks pleasant enough without even the hint of winter weather or winter temperatures.

School was mostly tame all week. I had a late meeting after school on Monday which was okay because the ground was still too wet to get anything accomplished outside. I took advantage of Tuesday’s nice afternoon and tied some chicken wire to the trellising frame in our pea patch. Baseball tryouts ran Wednesday through Friday so there was no chance for me to get anything done around here since I was getting home after dark. When I checked the peas on Saturday morning, the feelers on the peas had started to wrap around the chicken wire and the peas all looked like they were starting to climb. We’ve never grown peas before, but everything is looking really good. Colleen had done a great job of keeping everything going by herself during the week, so we were both looking forward to the weekend when we could play catch-up.

Saturday morning rolled around and the dogs decided they wanted to go outside at 5 AM. I managed to get the dogs out of the bedroom. Colleen rolled over and went back to sleep. She definitely earned a couple hours of extra shut eye with me being gone last week. The rain was supposed to hold off until later on Saturday afternoon, and despite it being a little chilly outside, I had decided to build Colleen a second compost bin with some old pallets Steven had dropped off at the house a while back. Our first compost works just fine, but is one of those learning from experience situations. The existing bin is too tall and completely enclosed thereby making turning the compost over at the bottom fairly difficult. The new bin has an open front letting us get to the compost pile without difficulty. Colleen is very happy about that fact.

Colleen stopped at the market on her way home Friday afternoon so we wouldn’t have to make our usual market run on the weekend. The list was extremely short this week so it was no big deal. There was still plenty of sunshine out when she got home so she headed outside after the groceries were in the house to look for signs of spring. The forsythia bushes up in the front corner of the yard are starting to adorn themselves with their annual display of yellow flowers. The yellow flowers caught Colleen’s eye and she headed up there to check things out. She was very excited to find some of her bulbs had plenty of green leaves shooting up through the leaf cover and some of them even had flower buds on them. Unfortunately, in all of my darling wife’s elation, she failed to check her other gardens and missed an even bigger surprise.

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I knew it was going to rain later on Saturday afternoon, so after my morning coffee I headed outside to get to work on the compost bin. I was moving the pallets to the backside of the house where Colleen wanted me to put the new bin when I caught a glimpse of some lavender peeking up through the leaves in the garden at the front of the driveway, the garden Colleen forgot to check. Naturally, I had to tell my lovely wife about it. She got one look at the hyacinth in bloom and that changed everything for the morning. Colleen had planned to get a jump on her weekend baking, but that all got scratched in a heartbeat. Colleen spent the rest of the morning carefully removing all of the leaves from around all of her flowers and then top dressing the garden. I went about my business building the compost bin and finished up just in time for Colleen to deposit all of the leaves she had taken from her garden into the bottom of the bin. Working out in the cold damp air all morning actually took a toll on us. Since Colleen didn’t feel like baking after lunch she planted herself in front of the big screen TV to watch one her favorite classic movies, Hello Dolly. I got in front of the computer and got some neglected work done.

The sun is bright this morning and things are starting to warm up. Colleen has her kitchen ready to go on the baking she didn’t get to yesterday morning. I’m hoping to get some gardening done later today. There are some spinach and chard seed starts that need to be in bigger peat pots so we can start putting them on the back porch to harden up in preparation for transplanting. I want the secondary leaves to get a bit more established before they go into the ground. I think it might be time to put the celery into pots for the back porch too. Everything I’ve read about celery says it really likes water. I figure by keeping them in a long pot on the back porch I can keep a closer eye on the things. Since we’ve never grown celery before, either, this is all one big learning experience.

Spring is most definitely in the air this morning. The sun is bright and warm. The critters are up and about. The deer in particular seem to be relishing the sunshine as they make their way along the wood line, wandering around in no particular hurry. I suppose it won’t be too long before the trees start to bud. There’s a woodpecker down in the ravine working on getting some breakfast and a chorus of tweets and chirps from all of the song birds. It’s hard to believe it’s still just the middle of February up here on the hill. I saw a memory pop up on my Facebook page this morning that had a video of it snowing three here years ago. The forecast for the upcoming week has temperatures in the 70’s. I sure don’t think we’ll be seeing any snow for the rest of this month. That’s okay by me though, but with baseball season ramping up I better make good use of my weekends because I sure won’t have much time after school until May.

The morning sun is climbing higher in the sky and my coffee cup is about empty. I really need to get moving if I want to get everything on my list done today. It’s not like it’s a mad dash to get stuff done around here. What doesn’t get done today will still be there tomorrow or next weekend. In this crazy world in which we live, up here on our hill everything is relaxed and moves at a very pleasant pace. We’re not out in the middle of nowhere, but we are far enough out of the mainstream of things to have a nice buffer to keep the world’s insanity at arm’s length. Tomorrow Colleen and I will head back into school and into the daily fray. There’s nothing better after a long day in the real world than finding our way home to our own little out of the way sanctuary where we can wash away the chaos of the day, and wrap ourselves in the comforting knowledge that all is right on the homestead.

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February 25, 2018: It Was A Great Week For Gardens And Baseball

It’s another warm morning up here on our hill. After a quick shot of cold temperatures last weekend the mercury decided to hang around in the 60’s and 70’s pretty much all week. There hasn’t been much in the way of rain this week either. We did have a few foggy mornings, but the midday sunshine took care of that for us. There is some rain forecast for later this afternoon. I’m not anticipating it being a problem at all and it should do well for the gardens. The plants in our gardens all seemed to come to life this week. It wasn’t just our gardens either. While the most of trees are still leaf bare, quite a few early blooming trees are already adorned in their spring time regalia. The long range forecast does suggest that temperatures will cool off a little in the coming days, but there isn’t any sign of a frost for the foreseeable future.

Last week was a long week for me at school. School itself was okay, but I had meetings after school on Monday and then there was baseball practice every afternoon. Baseball practice runs to 6 o’clock every afternoon and with my 45 minute or so ride home, the best I can hope for is to get home right when the last hint of dusk is fading into nighttime. During the week I rely on Colleen to check on the gardens when she gets home in the middle of the afternoon. Saturday morning was my first real opportunity to see how everything is doing in the light of the day. I was very pleasantly surprised Saturday morning when I checked on the gardens. Everything isn’t just growing, it’s thriving.

This is our first year attempting to grow peas, sugar snap peas specifically. We have eight plants in one of our raised bed gardens. I’d have to say they easily doubled in size this week and they are already climbing up my improvised chicken wire trellising. I haven’t seen any flowers starting to pop out on any of the plants, but I am hopeful as the plants continue to grow in our mild weather and flowers will start to appear in a couple of weeks. The radishes I planted last weekend have sprouted and should be getting their secondary leaves before week’s end. Believe it or not, after a couple of years of trying, last year was the first year we were successful at growing and harvesting some radishes. Even the few odd cabbage plants I planted late last fall surprised me by starting to look like they are doing something after having overwintered outside in the gardens.

The Swiss chard, spinach, and onions I started inside a few weeks ago need a little bit more time before I can put them outside. I’m of the mind that this week will be a good week to start putting them outside for a few hours so they will harden up. The celery I started from the stuff we bought at the grocery store are doing really well in the pots I transplanted them in on the back porch. In fact, they are doing so well that I decided to try the same thing with Romaine lettuce. The bottom of the lettuce has only been in water for a few days but it’s already starting to push new green leaves out of its center. If our early gardening success is any indication of how our gardens will fare this year, it is going to be an awesome year. Heck, even Colleen’s flower gardens are going gang busters this spring.

Gardening aside, Alex started working for a tree company this week. Steven has been doing tree work for a number of years now and his company needed some extra part time help so he cleared it with his boss to bring Alex on-board. Alex was filling in for a guy that had left. Apparently, on his first day on the job Alex did twice the work that guy would normally do. The boss was so impressed that he hired Alex full time on the spot. In all fairness, Alex did not go into the job cold. He has been helping Steven with side jobs on the weekends for well over a year so Alex knew what was expected of him. The fact that Alex is a workhorse with a great work ethic probably didn’t hurt either. There was one minor bump in the road for Alex though. The boy is terribly nearsighted. As luck would have it he broke his glasses by accidentally sitting on them Friday. We tried to get him into an eye doctor on Saturday to expedite getting new glasses, but the earliest appointment he can get is next Saturday. It will be a week after that before he can get his new glasses. It’s a good thing he works outside because he only has his prescription sunglasses as backup glasses right now. Alex has learned another life lesson; always have an extra set of eyeglasses.

Saturday turned out to be a busy day with a lot of coming and going up here on the hill. The first order of business was to see if we could get Alex’s eyes checked and get some new glasses on the way for him. We could not. Colleen and I took advantage of being out first thing Saturday morning by getting our weekly market run done and out of the way too. Colleen, Alex and I were home just long enough to get the groceries into the house when Steven showed up. Steven and Alex took off to do a tree job and then had plans to go to the shooting range. I had just enough time before I had to leave for my baseball game to fix the upstairs toilet and grab some lunch. Colleen got to stay home and work around a quiet house all afternoon. By 6 o’clock everyone was home again and eating dinner.

There aren’t many Saturdays when we hit the ground running and go all day, but yesterday sure was one of those days. While Alex and I were gone yesterday afternoon, Colleen put the groceries away, reorganized her kitchen and thoroughly cleaned her kitchen. It would have been a great day to work in the gardens and clean up outside, but there just wasn’t any extra time. I’m hoping the clouds and rain hold off for a while today so I can get some outside work done. Sunday is also our day to get ready for the upcoming week at school so I’m not sure just how much work will get done outside either. Colleen will spend the better part of the day in the kitchen baking stuff for lunches and making meals ahead of time for the upcoming week. It always seems I put far more things on my weekend to-do list than I could possibly get done. I guess I’m just an optimist at heart.

It looks like everyone is going to have a busy week this coming week. Alex will be working all week, hopefully, because there is rain in the forecast. Colleen and I have school all week. Colleen has a doctor’s appointment this week too. I have baseball practice after school on Monday and Tuesday and then games scheduled for the rest of the week. The temperatures will not be as warm as the past week, but we’re not expecting anything below freezing. There is a good bit of rain in the forecast though, so who knows how that will impact everyone’s plans. I suppose the rain will be good for the gardens and we do have our eyes on putting more seeds and plants in the ground next weekend. At least today, despite our plans, we should be able to relax a little and enjoy our time at home. No matter how wild our week gets or how crazy the world is, our little half acre up here on the hill is our sanctuary and there is no place we’d rather be because we know all is right on the homestead.

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March 04, 2018: A Sunny And Blustery Weekend On The Hill

Another week is behind us and a weekend with an ample supply of sunshine is here. The weather seemed to go from one extreme to another last week. The rain moved in last Sunday and kept going all the way through Monday. Things dried out on Tuesday and Wednesday only to have rain come back with a vengeance and wash everything out on Thursday. Baseball got canceled on both days,Monday and Thursday. On the bright side, I got a rare afternoon off on Thursday. If the weather wasn’t wild enough, we had a full moon on Thursday night so the kids at school were a bit more rambunctious than usual. Yep, it was an interesting week to say the least. By the time Friday evening rolled around, Colleen and I were ready to leave the crazy world behind and stick close to our little half-acre up here on the hill.

Between meetings and my baseball practice and games I didn’t make it home until after dark everyday last week except Thursday. Colleen kept the ship righted making sure the routine stuff got done. Colleen made her usual run to the laundromat on Monday. Tuesday I had a doctor’s appointment for a checkup. My blood pressure and weight are a tad high, but otherwise I’m as healthy as an ox. Colleen had her follow up doctor’s appointment on Wednesday. Her blood pressure and weight are a bit elevated as well, but the doctor was more interested in drawing more blood so they could run some more tests focusing on her thyroid. It’s something with which her family has a history. The doctor is only mildly concerned at this point, but she put Colleen on some medication to address the situation. Since Colleen had taken the day off from school on Wednesday, she stripped the beds and headed back to the laundromat to wash bed linens. The rest of the week just sort of passed without incident. Alex got washed out of two days of work because of the rain. My baseball team lost both of its games during the week. The team is not exactly off to the best start this season, but things looked a whole lot better in Friday’s game than they did in Wednesday’s game. Thursday’s game was a rain out.

Saturday was a catch up day and we hit the ground running. Alex had an appointment with the eye doctor at 11 AM so Colleen and I planned our weekly market run around his appointment. Alex’s eyes had gotten worse so I’m glad we had them rechecked. The boy did have a growth spurt since his last check up, but I don’t think that will happen again. Alex wisely bit the bullet and got two pair of glasses this time around. While Alex was having his eyes checked and picking out his new glasses, Colleen and I were able to get our market run done, paid for, and put up in the truck. It didn’t take Alex long to take care of getting his new glasses picked out and purchased. With any luck he’ll have them by the end of the week. I think we got home right around 12:30. After a quick bite for lunch, Daisy hung out on the back porch with me while I enjoyed a cigar. Colleen did a little indoor gardening tending to her fresh cooking herbs. Alex and his dilated eyes hid until everything got back to normal.

After a little break and some general puttering around the house, Colleen and I got back down to business. I grabbed the chainsaw and headed down back to the oak tree Steven and Alex dropped last weekend. I trimmed the smaller branches off the upper parts of the tree Steven had dropped before dropping the main trunk. I dragged most of those smaller limbs into a separate pile to be cut up into kindling later. I cut some of the bigger pieces of the tree tops into fireplace sized rounds. I was just cutting the last log I intended to cut when Alex came around to the back of the house. He picked up all of my cut pieces and put them into a pile. I was starting to have to work a bit to get the chainsaw through the dense oak and Alex noticed. After the wood was piled up, Alex grabbed the chainsaw and told me he would tune it up for the season and put a new sharp on the chain. It’s not a bad thing to have a couple of your kids working for a tree service company.

When I headed down to the backyard to start working on the firewood Colleen was just getting going in her kitchen. It didn’t take her very long to get a big cast iron pot of chili simmering on the stove. If there is chili on the stove in this house you can bet there is cornbread in the oven and sure enough Colleen had a batch of cornbread muffins in the oven. We came across apples on sale at the market today, an 8 pound bag for $1.50, so we grabbed a bag. The idea was that Colleen would have enough apples for an apple pie and whatever other recipes to which she took a fancy. Right after the cornbread muffins came out of the oven, a batch of Colleen’s rugged apple muffins went into the oven followed by a loaf of rugged apple bread. The muffins are a hearty muffin that will make for a perfect breakfast with our coffee at school in the morning. What I didn’t realize until later was she also had some thin sliced roast beef sandwich meat in the dehydrator. It’s a neat trick she uses to make dried beef for chipped beef on toast which is a favorite of mine and on the menu for this week.

Colleen was cleaning her kitchen, getting ready for her next round of baking when I finally came back into the house. There was a bit of time before dinner so I did a little work on the computer. When I was a kid we still had Woolworth stores everywhere. Kids today have no idea what a five and dime store is, sadly. One of my favorite treats at their lunch counter was a Frito Pie, Fritos in the bottom of the bowl, chili on top of the Fritos, and cheese on top of everything. That was what we had dinner Saturday night along with a couple of cornbread muffins on the side. It was a perfect Saturday night meal. After dinner and cleaning the kitchen Colleen, had one more round of baking, too, a deep dish apple pie.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning up here on our hill right now. The sun is shining and there is only an intermittent breeze. Alex is working on the chainsaw. Colleen is getting ready to do more cooking and baking in the kitchen. I’m looking at doing some gardening and cutting more firewood. Between school and baseball, Colleen and I are looking at another busy week in front of us. Alex will be working all week too. Like always, it’s one foot in front of the other and one thing at a time for us. Everything gets done in its own good time and when it should be done. It’s a crazy world out there so we like to keep our feet on the ground around here. We just don’t see much point in worrying about things we can’t change. We do the best we can each and every day. Our family, our friends, and our little half acre are our main focuses in life. It all goes a long way to living a good and simple life, staying relaxed, and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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March 11, 2018: Gray Skies And A Little Rain Can’t Dampen Our Spirits

It looks like our luck for sunny weekends ran out this weekend. It was gray all day Saturday and it’s another gray day and raining today. On the whole, the weather last week wasn’t terrible though. We did get some rain earlier in the week and the temperatures did cool off some, but there was plenty of sunshine for the most part. We’re looking at the mercury dropping below the freezing mark in the early mornings for the start of the upcoming week with a chance of snow, but things should warm up toward the back half of the week. There should be a good bit of sunshine for the back half of week too. Since we moved the clocks up this weekend, we’re looking forward to the longer afternoons and some warmer temperatures which is a sure sign that the official start of spring is right around the corner.

Like usual for this time of year, it was a long school week for Colleen and me. We’re in the middle of a seven week stretch of school with only the weekends for a break since our school district is trying to make up for the snow days we lost in January. Colleen gets to come home at the end of each school day, but high school baseball season is in full swing for me now. I rarely get home before dark and on early game days I’m lucky to be home before 7:30 in the evening. Last week we played three games, with 1 win and 2 losses, and we have three games again this week. With the time change we start playing late games under the lights, and on those nights I’m fortunate to be home for 10:30. Late games start at 7:00 PM and make for very long days since our alarm clock wakes us up at 4:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I sure do not get much done around this place during the week during baseball season.

Colleen keeps our happy little homestead hopping during the week in my absence. She takes care of all of the routine stuff. Last Monday she made her usual stop at the laundromat. It rained Tuesday so I got home early, but the rain kept us inside. I got caught up on some computer work while Colleen went about her usual housework. Friday afternoon was nice enough for Colleen to spend some time in the yard after she got home from school. She decided that the area where we stack firewood for the winter needed a good cleaning. I had it on my weekend “to-do” list so I was very thankful my darling wife was feeling overly ambitious. There’s nothing like being in the dugout for a baseball game and getting a text message with pictures of one of the items on your “to-do” list having been completed. We did burn more wood than usual this winter so we emptied all of the racks and piles we had set aside for the winter, a little more than four cords. I normally would have started refilling the racks this weekend now that area is cleaned up, but the rain shut that job down for this weekend. Maybe I can start next weekend.

Last weekend I was able to get out and start cutting up the tree that Steven and Alex dropped a couple of weekends ago. Last Sunday I actually started working on the trunk too. The real trick to cutting the trunk will be getting the 16-inch bar on my chainsaw through a 24-inch diameter tree trunk, but for now my pile of wood to be split is growing. Before I get to splitting all that wood though I’ll have to finish splitting and stacking all of the wood on the pile I left to season on the back side of the house last fall. I figure I have just under a cord of wood on that pile. I’ll be splitting and stacking firewood until well into June like every other year. I’ll split the tree the boys dropped into smaller pieces than usual to get it to season more quickly. All of the added surface area will let it season up just fine between now and early winter, just in time for it to be burned. The hot summers here in North Carolina really help to shorten the seasoning time needed for the firewood.

I did get some time for the gardens last Sunday and then again yesterday in between the intermittent rain showers. I managed to plant a number of our seed-started bunching green onions in a big pot for the back porch. Our Swiss chard seed starts have been in the ground for a week now. Overall the gardens are holding their own for the time being. The chard gets covered on the cooler evenings with covers I made by cutting the bottoms off of empty milk jugs. We leave everything else to fare in the weather on its own. The radishes are faring well and while I wanted to put more seeds in the ground, this weekend I opted not to do that because of the forecast of cold temperatures at the beginning of the upcoming week. The peas have securely established themselves and are climbing up the trellis nicely. I’m debating whether or not to cover the peas and radishes for the start of the week though. I’m a little torn on that matter since both plants are cool weather tolerant and we’re only looking at a couple of hours in the mornings of temperatures being below freezing. Colleen and I are still learning the ins and outs of productive vegetable gardening.

Alex did get his new glasses this week. His sunglasses got here late in the week, but his regular glasses didn’t arrive until Saturday though. When Alex picked up his sunglasses and the lady at the glasses shop realized his regular glasses hadn’t arrived yet, she got on the phone with the lab and tore them up. She originally had put a special note on the order indicating that Alex’s glasses had been broken and he really needed them. I wish I had been there to hear the conversation. I can only imagine this sweet lady going into beast mode on the folks at the lab. Alex said his new glasses are much clearer than his old ones, pointing out I had seemed to have gotten uglier. The kid is a jerk! With new glasses in hand the boy is a happy camper.

Colleen and I spent most of Saturday taking care of miscellaneous stuff around the house. I had a toilet to adjust so it would flush properly. I cleaned up some of the back porch to get it ready for all of Colleen’s potted plants and then gave the fireplace a good cleaning. We may need to have a fire in the fireplace this week with the forecasted cold temperatures. The back porch is actually a key part of our gardening efforts. We keep as many potted plants on it as possible because it is one of the sunny spots in our yard and the deer don’t come on the back porch. The deer eating our plants is one of our biggest gardening problems. I have found that enclosing each raised bed garden in a lightweight cage made of PVC pipe and chicken wire works well at keep the deer and most other plant munching critters out of the gardens.

Colleen took some time on Saturday morning to plan the menu for the upcoming week. From that menu and going through her pantry, she put her list together for our weekly market run. She did manage to get a little bit of cooking done on Saturday too. She whipped up something she called “Hearty Hubby Stew”. I’m not exactly sure what’s in it, but it tastes great and it will be in my thermos for lunch this week. Once the stew was set to go, it was time for our weekly market run. I guess we left the house middle to late afternoon and we were back home before sunset. It was one of our quicker market runs this week. Of course, Alex had disappeared by the time we got home so it was just Colleen and me carrying everything into the house. Alex did eventually text me to let me know that he, James, and Steven were heading to the lake for a little night fishing.

This morning started slow for me and it was definitely a two cup of coffee morning. Colleen and I had a few errands that needed running. The errands were nothing major and they were close to home so we were back by lunchtime. After a quick bite for lunch, Colleen settled herself into her kitchen to cook and bake for the week. She is also planning on making her Arroz Con Pollo for dinner this evening. I’m planning on getting a few things done to get ready for school, but Colleen wants me to take it easy this afternoon since I have another long week in front of me. Last week was a week of a little bit of crazy and some long days and I suspect this week will be much of the same. We don’t worry too much about it, though, taking everything one step at a time as it presents itself. When we get to the weekend we take a deep breath and smile because our little spot up here on the hill is our little slice of happiness and there is nothing better than being home and knowing all is right on the homestead.

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March 18, 2018: A Gathering Of The Clan And An Awesome Feast

To say this week was crazy might just be an understatement. What started as a gray and rainy week last Sunday quickly went downhill from there. Monday brought cooler temperatures, more rain, and the threat of snow. It was bad enough that the schools in the area released the kids and teachers at lunch on Monday. The snow showed up in the late afternoon and kept falling into the early evening. Schools ran on a delayed start on Tuesday, but the temperatures were warm enough to melt everything by Tuesday evening. Behind the snow was a cold front that pushed the early morning lows back into the 20’s. Things started to warm up again on Thursday afternoon and by mid afternoon on Saturday it was sunny and 70 degrees again. Today the weather promises to be sunny and in the mid-60’s. The long and the short of it all is that it is another beautiful weekend up here on our hill. It is just what Colleen and I needed after a long week.

Apart from the stopping and starting at the beginning of the school week, the school week wasn’t a bad week. The kids for the most part were okay. The baseball games scheduled for early in the week got postponed and moved to later in the week. My varsity guys ended up playing one game on Thursday afternoon and then a twi-night doubleheader on Friday. It sure made for a couple of very long days for me. Friday I ended up spending more than 16 hours at school. Thankfully, Colleen and the dogs let me sleep late yesterday morning. All the same, my steps were measured because I was still pretty tired. Our regular baseball season runs through the end of April, followed by a conference tournament, and then the state playoffs. The playoffs run through May, ending at the start of June. The team is off to a slow start, but they are getting better and we are hopeful we can go deep into the playoffs.

With all of the crazy weather last week Colleen and I did well to hold our own. The things that needed to get done got done, and everything else got put on the back burner. By the time Thursday and Friday rolled around Colleen was spending her time getting ready for a St. Patrick’s Day gathering of the clan on Saturday. Colleen and I always look forward to those special occasions when our kids can come home and spend the day with us, and we use any chance we can to all get together. St. Patrick’s Day, falling on a Saturday as it did, proved to be quite convenient this year. Well, that and the fact that my darling wife is extremely proud of her Irish heritage thereby insisting we celebrate the day. As for me, I don’t have a lick of Irish blood in me, but I am partial to a good corned beef and cabbage dinner.

Saturday morning showed up and Colleen was up before the sun getting everything ready for our meal. She had made dessert, a three layer Irish Stout Cake, on Friday afternoon while I was at my baseball games, but she put the rest of the meal together on Saturday. The meal was as traditional as you can get with corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and parsnips. She even made some traditional Irish soda bread. Since our oldest daughter, Alysia, doesn’t eat meat, Colleen broiled some salmon for her. I guess salmon isn’t really traditional, but it is Irish fare to some extent. Alysia who is starting to really develop her mother’s skill in the kitchen said she would bring some potato and leek soup and some dessert scones.

Steven showed up about mid morning on Saturday. Anna Maria, his wife, wasn’t feeling well so she stayed at home in bed. Steven gets antsy when he’s at home with nothing to do so he comes over here to see what trouble he can find. Dinner was still a few hours away so he and Alex decided to see if they could fix Colleen’s car. Somebody clipped the front corner of the car in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago. The bumper was pushed in and the side of the headlight unit got messed up. The boys got the headlight unit out and managed to get the bumper mostly pushed back out. They took off to see if they could find a replacement headlight unit, but the parts stores were going to have to order it and none of the local junkyards had the unit either. The boys put everything back together as best they could and the car is usable until we can get the replacement part.

Alysia and Al showed up a little before noon. As promised, Alysia was carrying her homemade potato and leek soup and dessert scones. Dinner was at 1:30 and everything was fantastic. Everybody was just sitting down to enjoy their chocolate cake when Louis and his girl friend Micayla showed up. Louis unexpectedly had to work Saturday morning so they got a bit of a late start on their hour and a half drive. Louis is in the Army so we don’t get to see him often. Having him and Micayla here was a real treat for Colleen and me. Sadly, James, our oldest son, had to work too, so he and his family weren’t able to make the gathering. Everybody hung around for a good while after the meal and visited. Steven and Alex went outside to play with chainsaws and take down another partially uprooted tree. Now I have some maple firewood to go with the oak tree the boys dropped a couple of weeks ago. It looks like I’ve got some more cutting and splitting lined up for me.

The hardest part at any clan gathering is when it’s time for the goodbyes. Colleen and I struggled mightily with finances when the kids were growing up. We managed to get by, but the one thing this house always had was laughter and a lot of it. Now the kids are grown and out in their own. Our place up here on the hill is calm and tranquil most of the time. When we do manage to get everyone to come together, this old house comes alive again with the raucous laughter and frivolity that defined our life for all those years. I’m not quite sure how we did it, but somehow Colleen and I cobbled a family together with my five adopted kids from my previous marriage and her daughter from her previous marriage. Our journey started 18 years ago, but in my mind it seems like only yesterday.

All of our usual Saturday chores got put on hold yesterday. Colleen and I knew we would have to play catch up today, but a clan gathering is far more important to us than any unfinished chores. I do not suspect we will get everything caught up today. We’ll do the best we can and take care of undone task in its own due time. We did get an early jump on things today. Our market run is done and we’ve just finished lunch. The midday sun has warmed everything up nicely so I guess it’s time to get back down to business. Yesterday was a great day up here on our little hill. Today may be busy, but Colleen and I are feeling good and still smiling because we know all is right on the homestead.

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March 25, 2018: A Week Of Wild Weather Up On The Hill

There’s an old saying that March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. The way this month has been going, it seems more like Mother Nature forgot to get her Prozac prescription refilled, and Old Man Winter doubled up on his Viagra. Yes, the weather has been that crazy in Central North Carolina, especially this past week. The beautiful, almost summer like, afternoons of 70 plus degrees and lots of sunshine last weekend quickly vanished with the coming of last Monday. The skies turned gray and the rains came. Behind the cold front driving the wave of rain, came the cold temperatures. Wednesday, the rain changed to snow and stayed that way for 5 or 6 hours during the morning and early afternoon. Luckily for us, the temperatures stayed above freezing and there was sunshine behind the snow. Things dried out pretty well on Thursday and Friday under the bright and sunny skies. This Saturday the sun made a cameo appearance in the morning only to be shrouded in clouds by noon. The rain showers popped back up about mid-afternoon on Saturday, turning into sleet and snow early this morning before finally ending a short while ago. The snow did not stick to much of anything and I am sure that between last night and this morning, we got well over an inch of rain. If we’re lucky, we might get to see some sunshine during the last few hours of the afternoon.

The last week at school was routine, sort of. The gray skies and rain had the kids relatively subdued in the first part of the week. The falling snow on Wednesday got everyone all excited, but nothing came of it. With the sunshine on Thursday and Friday all the kids were buzzing about spring break which starts for us on this coming Friday. The wild weather took its toll on my baseball for the week. Everything outside from Monday through Thursday got canceled, postponed, or scaled back. I’m not a big fan of baseball practice in the school gym. We did get to play one game Friday night under the lights. The game ran long and by the time it was over I was chilled to the bone and I didn’t get home until 11 o’clock Friday night. I suppose if we had won I might not have felt so tired, but unfortunately we ended up losing the game in the late innings after jumping out to an early lead.

Colleen managed to come down with a bit of a cold last weekend. It wasn’t bad enough to land her in bed, but it did slow her down all week. Last Sunday Colleen had made a big pot of minestrone soup. Now, I’ve heard of the mythical healing powers of chicken soup, but now I’m adding minestrone soup to that list. I’m not sure if it was all the fresh ingredients that Colleen used or what, but that soup sure did keep Colleen’s cold at bay while she rested and got over it. Colleen was still coughing some on Saturday, but she was just about back to her old, feisty self. That pot of soup sure didn’t last long last week and I think I got the last of it in my thermos on Friday. Colleen and I just started canning soups last year and you can bet we’ll be canning up a good bit of her minestrone this year. We might just start early this year once we get to spring break.

Alex is thriving at his new job with the tree service company. He did miss one day of work this week thanks to the rain. The boy loves being outside and he’s not afraid of work. Last Sunday afternoon he decided to get some practice for work, so he sharpened up my chainsaw and set about cutting up the big oak that he and Steven had dropped in the backyard a couple of weeks ago. I’ll admit I was pretty impressed with how he went about it, too. My chainsaw only has a 16-inch bar and the trunk of the oak tree is about 24 inches in diameter. Alex worked the trunk from both sides and used wedges to spread the pieces as he cut down through the wood. I guess he spent a couple of hours working and ended up cutting up about 12 or so feet of the trunk into fireplace sized rounds. There is still a good bit of the trunk to be cut up, but the pile of wood to be split is growing. I’ll be the one splitting everything because for all their proficiency in cutting and dropping trees neither Steven nor Alex can split wood anywhere near as well as I can. Of course, I have been splitting firewood for more than 40 years now. It all works out well for us though. We all know what we are good at doing making us an awesome team.

No week would be complete up here on our hill without an SOS from one of the kids. Last week it was Louis turn. I got a text from the boy because he lost his learner’s permit. When it comes to overlooking the blatantly obvious or losing something that isn’t physically attached to his body, Louis is the king. He’s pretty darn good at being overly dramatic too. He had made plans to take his driving test to get his license in the middle of the week. When he realized that he did not have his permit, he was convinced he could never get his license. To get a driver’s license in North Carolina you need proof of ID, and to pass a written and a road test. There is nothing that says you have to have a learner’s permit in hand. I figured he had enough military ID to prove who he was so he just had to pass a couple of tests. I guess he never read the requirements. I will admit I did find our entire conversation rather amusing and it was hard not to laugh at him. Anyway, there wasn’t much more he could do so he resigned himself to taking his chances at the DMV. I got another text from him the next day. His message said, “I am now road lethal.” If only the boy realized how much truth there was to that statement.

Saturday rolled around and Colleen and I knew we were in catch up mode. Neither of us came out of the gate ready to set the world on fire Saturday morning. In fact, we could barely get out of our own way. With the weather predicted to turn nasty later in the afternoon, we opted to get our market run out of the way first. In hindsight that proved to be a very wise choice. We got home a little before lunch and got everything into the house while the sun was still shining. After some lunch, Colleen went about putting everything away and getting her kitchen back in order. I headed outside and decided that I would only have enough time for a small project before the rains came, so I started to clean the back porch. During the warm months, the back porch is home to Colleen’s menagerie of potted plants. Her herbs go on a ladder shaped plant stand and a number of her bigger potted perennials go out by the rail. I even have a small fig tree I’m trying to grow that has a spot. Over the winter months, the back porch is a catchall for all sorts of odds and ends, so all that stuff had to go. We keep a small rack of firewood out there as well. The firewood rack isn’t in the way, but it needs to be moved too. I didn’t get to the firewood rack Saturday, but the rest of the porch got a good cleaning. The porch has seen better days and I suppose like so much else around this place, it is in need of some upkeep and general TLC, but it is now ready to once again get turned into a summer garden. It’s a good thing I decided to clean the porch too. I was up on the second floor porch yesterday and the plants that winter up there are starting to get their first leaves of the season.

The expected rain showed up in the middle of the afternoon. Steven and Anna Maria showed up for a quick visit. Anna Maria was feeling much better than she had been of late. It seems that the doctors have decided that she has Celiac disease. Anna Maria brought all her pantry stuffs with gluten over for Colleen to have. Steven and Anna Maria stayed long enough to visit and have a cup of tea, but they had errands to run so they headed out on their way. After they left, Colleen mentioned to me that it was time for her to start doing more food research for when she puts together family meals. Our oldest daughter is s vegetarian and Colleen has worked diligently to come up with great tasting non-meat dishes. She’s never dealt with gluten free fare before so she is starting at ground zero there. Colleen always wants to make sure there are tasty dishes for everyone that shows up for one of our clan gatherings.

Between my baseball and Colleen dealing with her cold last week, it sure doesn’t seem like we got much accomplished. Yesterday turned into a day that just let us get our feet back underneath us. Today, we seem to be moving better and Colleen even felt well enough to get into the kitchen first thing this morning. It looks like the rain is starting to give up, but I don’t think the ground will be dry enough by this afternoon for me to get much done outside. I’m thinking I’ll just head into the house, put a fire in the fireplace, and spend some time in front of the computer getting things ready for the upcoming week. Our spring break starts this coming Friday and apart from a three day baseball tournament that I need to attend, the rest of the time is ours. With any luck Mother Nature will even cooperate and bring us some warm temperatures and sunshine. Speaking of sunshine, it sure looks like the sun is trying to burn away the clouds on the horizon right now. Rain or shine and crazy not withstanding, it sure looks like today will be a grand day to cap off a busy week last week. Colleen and I are feeling like our old selves again and that bodes well for the new week. And so another week has passed and things are back as they should be, Colleen and I are heading into next week thankful everyone up here on our hill is happy and healthy and that all is right on the homestead.

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March 30, 2018: A Day In Our Gardens

It felt like a Saturday, but it was a Friday. More specifically, it was Good Friday and the first day of our spring break. The rain that fell after midnight gave way to clouds in the morning and even some intermittent sun by lunch time. Colleen and I made the best of the day by heading outside to work in our gardens. Sitting around and doing nothing just isn’t in our makeup, and working around the house and in the gardens is what we do to relax. Even if we could afford to take a vacation on spring break, we wouldn’t. Colleen and I find it much more to our liking to stay close to home. Like I’ve said before, this little acre sitting up on the hill may not seem like much, but just about anything we want out of life is right here.

There was a nice breeze blowing and the temperatures were just about perfect for being out in the gardens. Colleen likes to tend to her flower gardens first. I, on the other hand, prefer to focus on the raised bed gardens with our vegetables first. Let me say right up front, we are by no means great gardeners. I wouldn’t even say we’re good gardeners, but we are learning and we definitely are getting better. Slowly, but surely, we are figuring things out. Sure we’ve read a million books and articles, but translating that into practice is easier said than done. Someday, when we finally settle into our retirement, we hope to have learned enough about gardening to grow a good bit of the produce we need.

Colleen spent her afternoon meticulously removing leaves from a few different flower beds. She has a couple of patches of phlox that are starting to bloom and now look much better thanks to her efforts. One patch is still a bit on the spindly side, but I think with the onset of warm weather, that one patch should fill in nicely again this year. On occasion, Colleen has new flowers or a bush or two to add to her flower beds, but that was not the case today. In total, Colleen managed to clean out four small gardens. She even got to prune back her hydrangea bush. She has this idea that she can eventually get the thing to be a moderately contained bush that has lots of big puffy flowers on it throughout the summer. We’ve had the bush a couple of years now and I’d have to say she is on the right track because every year it seems to look better.

I pulled all of the PVC and chicken wire cages off from around our raised bed gardens. The cages are extremely light weight and have proven extremely effective at keep the deer and other veggie munching critters out of our gardens. Right now we have six raised bed gardens, but I’m planning on adding more, maybe even over this spring break. The gardens are strategically placed around the house to get as much sun as possible during the day. Interestingly enough, my back porch is one of the sunniest spots up here on our hill. Anything that gets planted in its own pot takes up residence on the back porch during the warmer months. By midsummer, the back porch will look like a lush mini-jungle.

For the most part, the raised bed gardens are doing okay. The peas are growing well, but there still aren’t any flowers. I thought we had lost our asparagus over the winter, but today I was pleasantly surprised to find three more shoots popping out of the ground. I added five more root crowns to that garden which should pretty much fill up that bed. We lost half of our Swiss chard starts so I put some seeds into the ground where the plants had been. Upstairs in the bedroom we had 8 viable spinach starts so I transplanted those into another bed as well. That took care of the four raised beds in the front of the house.

There are two more raised beds in the back of the house. The romaine lettuce needed a little water, but otherwise it looked fine. We started the lettuce by cutting the bottom off some we bought at the grocery store and letting them sit in water until they started growing again. I sowed some more radishes in the back too. The first row, which I sowed a couple of weeks ago, has some nice secondary leaves, but no globes forming yet. We have a couple of cabbage plants, some sage, and chives in those gardens as well. All are doing well. Last year I think it got too warm too quick and we lost our cabbage to worms. So far this year, everything is looking good. None of the seed potatoes I planted have sprouted yet, but we do have a nice potato plant growing out of the side of our compost bin.

Colleen is already making plans to get outside tomorrow and do more gardening. I finished working in the raised beds today so any gardening I do will be confined to planting pepper and bean seeds in peat pots. We’ve never had much luck with either in the past, but that doesn’t mean we are willing to give up. Every year we try something a little different and every year we get just a bit better at this. Last year the most productive thing we grew was butternut squash. We have got 15 or so pounds of squash. Ironically, we did not plant it. It was a volunteer from our compost bin. At least we know we can make some good compost. I have learned one thing from all of our missteps and backwards adventures, if you’re going to have a garden you have to openly admit you are an optimist. It’s all good though and it only serves to reinforce what we already knew and that is all is right on the homestead.

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April 01, 2018: It’s A Beautiful Easter Sunday

It’s been more like spring up here on our little hill this week. After the wild weather last weekend, we weren’t real sure what the new week would hold for us. Between last Sunday afternoon and Monday, things dried out nicely only to get soaked again on Monday night. The temperatures dropped back to near freezing, and despite a cloudy Tuesday, things started to warm up and let our temperatures climb back to into seasonal range. Wednesday got us back into the 60’s for a daytime high and we even saw the 70’s on Thursday. Friday’s and Saturday’s temperatures pulled back a bit into the 60’s, but there was plenty of sunshine on both days. Now, here it is Easter Sunday and we’re looking at sunshine and 70 plus degree temperatures again. Colleen and I started our spring break on Friday so we are very thankful for the excellent weather. We didn’t get any more rain after Monday night and there doesn’t appear to be the threat of rain until this coming Wednesday.

The school week passed quickly and quietly without incident. That doesn’t mean the kids weren’t acting goofy, though, because they sure were. What kid doesn’t get excited before spring break? I did the best I could to keep the kids moving forward during the week, but threw in the towel on Thursday due to a combination of the kids being extremely distracted and a much higher than normal absentee rate. Either way, if I tried to teach the kids anything on Thursday, I would have had to re-teach everything on the Monday after spring break. It was the classic example of “Discretion is the better part of valor.” The weather was nice enough for us to get three baseball games played last week. The team ended up losing two non-conference games, but we came away with a critical win in a key conference match up on Thursday night. Needless to say, my spring break started at 10:30 on Thursday night after I got home from the game. I was tired.

Colleen got into spring mode right away Thursday afternoon when we got home from school. Earlier in the week the deer had gotten into one of her gardens so she was ready to get things done and put to rights. She said she didn’t want to waste a beautiful afternoon so she got outside right after we got home and cleaned out one of her gardens. I just sat on the back porch and relaxed before I had to leave for my baseball game. After I got home from the game, I hung out on the back porch again to unwind and enjoy a warm and beautiful starlit night. Colleen, who had waited up for me to make sure I made it home safely, had no intention of staying up any longer than necessary so she headed off to bed. I figure it was between 12:30 and 1:00 before I finally unwound and crawled into bed.

Friday started off slow for me and, thankfully, without the need for an alarm clock. The dogs let Colleen sleep a little later than usual, but still got her up right before sunrise for their early morning run. Colleen knew I had had a long day on Thursday so she made sure the dogs didn’t bother me. I ended up sleeping until after 8 o’clock which is almost unheard of for me. I am definitely a morning person preferring to be up before the dawn. Since it was the first day of our spring break neither Colleen nor I were particularly inclined to move too quickly to start our day. Alex, on the other hand, did not have Friday off and he had to go to work. He was out of the house before I ever woke up. After I woke up, Colleen had to run to the laundromat to wash all of my baseball clothes for my upcoming, out of town baseball tournament. Colleen wasn’t gone too long and even managed to get a few errands out of the way in her travels.

Once Colleen got home from the laundromat and got everything settled in place, we realized it was too nice of a day to stay inside so we headed out to work in our gardens. I suspect that if you’re reading this, you already knew what we did from my impromptu blog post on Friday evening. After we finished working in our gardens, Colleen and I cleaned up and went out to eat. We treated ourselves to a steak dinner. The dinner was a bit pricey by our standards, but it wasn’t a budget buster and it also isn’t something we do very often. We had a very enjoyable and well earned meal to start off our spring break. The rest of our Friday night was spent hanging around the house relaxing. Going out to dinner is about as wild as we get on a Friday night or for that matter any weekend night.

I was up before sunrise on Saturday morning. Uncharacteristically, Colleen was up before me letting the dogs out and making the coffee. I had forgotten that Colleen was planning a big meal for Easter so while I was welcoming the morning with a cup of coffee the back porch she was finalizing her menu and looking through a gluten-free cookbook to find some special treats to make for our daughter-in-law, Anna Maria. Colleen spent most of her day in the kitchen. After my cup of coffee I headed out to the wood pile and started splitting wood for next winter. I guess it was sometime around noon when I decided it would be a grand afternoon to go fishing. I ended up getting home around 5 o’clock. Colleen wanted to try another gluten-free recipe after dinner, but other than that the rest of the evening past quietly.

When it comes to firewood around this place there is a definite pecking order. Steven and Alex drop the trees and most of the time cut everything up into fireplace length rounds. Since I do not have a have a hydraulic log splitter everything gets split using an 8-pound maul or a lighter flared splitting ax. I’ve been splitting wood a long time and over the years and I’ve developed an eye for where a round or piece of wood will likely split the easiest. Once the wood is split, Alex does most of the lifting, carrying and stacking. I actually enjoy the physical labor involved. It helps me get rid of the everyday stress of life since I don’t have to do too much thinking. Last year the boys dropped an oak tree that was problematic. It was still green so I quartered the rounds and stacked them out back so the wood could season up. With winter behind us now, it’s time to start replenishing our winter wood supply for next winter and Saturday morning was a perfect morning to get started on the job. I’d say I got through three-quarters of the stacked wood done before I decided I had had enough and it was time to go fishing.

Well, it’s Easter morning and it is a beautiful morning to boot. Since our youngest kid is 21 years old all of the hoopla of Easter mornings is now just a memory for us. Colleen was up early and working in her kitchen. She decided to be a little unconventional this year and we are having a turkey dinner. With spring exploding all around us, the house smells like Thanksgiving right now. I’m not complaining, mind you, good food is good food. I actually think there may be some method to Colleen’s plan. With a turkey dinner comes a big pot of turkey soup in the following days. Since we’re on spring break the odds are high that we will be canning soup later this week. I’m not real sure who will show up for dinner today or what will happen later this afternoon. It’s all good though because there really isn’t any need to get things squeezed into the day. It is our spring break after all. Oh, there will be things that need to get done during the week, but today is Easter and we’ll spend time with our family. That, in my mind, is how things should be when all is right on the homestead.

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April 08, 2018: Didn’t Spring Break Just Start Yesterday?

It’s been quite the week. Colleen and I have been on spring break all week. The weather, for the most part, has cooperated. It was sunny or mostly sunny all week. We did have a few clouds on Wednesday with the threat of rain, but nothing came of it. It did rain all day Saturday though. The temperatures were spring like, only getting a little chilly towards the end of the week. We probably didn’t get as much done around this place as we could have, but there sure wasn’t any need in trying to kill ourselves. We got enough done to catch up a little bit, but we also took advantage of our downtime to recharge our batteries in preparation for the six week run at school that will take us Memorial Day. That run at school always seems like the most drawn out time of the school year. With the nicer weather, a graduation approaching for the seniors, and the summer break on the horizon for everyone else, it’s a challenging time for teachers.

Colleen and I started the week off on a high note with our Easter Sunday dinner. There were only five of us for dinner with just Steven and Anna Maria coming over for the feast. Colleen’s oven roasted turkey came out beautifully. She even made two wonderful side dishes, sautéed green beans and red peppers with pine nuts along with peas, shallots, and pancetta, to go with the usual mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing. Everybody ate their fill and then some. I ended up with a good case of turkey coma and just had to take a nap. When Steven and Anna Maria left, Colleen made sure they had plenty of the leftovers to make a couple of meals for themselves. When our kids come over for a big dinner they never leave empty handed. Either they have a bundle full of leftovers or they have a box full of our home canned goods from the basement larder.

Monday morning showed up and I spent the morning getting ready for my annual trip to the coast for our spring baseball tournament. The annual tournament is a three day event and is about the only time Colleen and I are not together. Neither of us are really beach people so Colleen prefers to stay at home and take care of things around here anyway. I left the house at noon which gave me plenty of time to make the three and a half hour drive, get myself settled, grab a bite to eat, and then get to our 7:00 PM game. By the time I got back to the condo where I was staying, cleaned up, unwound, and finally crawled into bed, it was midnight. Monday was a long day made longer because we lost the game. I slept pretty well for not being in my own bed, was not rushed when I got up on Tuesday morning, and actually got to relax on the porch before heading off to game 2 in the afternoon. We won that game and afterwards enjoyed a nice dinner. Wednesday, it was up early, pack everything up for the trip home, grab a bite for breakfast, and then get to the field for a 9:30 start time. We lost game 3 which we shouldn’t have. After the game I jumped in the truck and started my drive home. I pulled into the driveway at 3:30 and I was very glad to be home.

Wednesday, after I got home, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open, but after a good night’s sleep and a couple of cups of coffee, Thursday was looking a whole lot better. After a slow and leisurely start to Thursday morning it was back to taking care of things up here on the hill. Colleen bagged up the dirty clothes from my trip and headed down to the laundromat. I headed out into the yard to burn the piles of leaves that Colleen had left after cleaning out some of her gardens while I was away. I was working on the second pile when Colleen got home. She had taken a little longer than usual because she also ran a few errands. She headed into the house to dry the clothes and clean the house while I finished up the burning. Next on my list was cutting the ragged looking grass around here. We don’t have much grass, but what we have had gotten taller than my push mower. Colleen had cleaned up the side yard while I was on the road so I was able to finish that section before lunch. After lunch I decided the backyard needed some attention as well.

Colleen had not raked the backyard so there was still plenty of debris, a few leaves, sticks and twigs, and a few dead branches that had broken free and fallen during the winter months. I had neither the intention of nor sufficient time to rake the backyard. I did the best I could with a leaf blower and picking up the bigger pieces by hand. Parts of the backyard had grass taller than my push mower too and letting the grass get any taller was not an option. It was a real challenge pushing that lawnmower through the tall thick grass. I finished the job mid to late afternoon. After doing the yard I planted myself on the back porch, enjoyed a cigar, and watched the last few innings of the Red Sox game. Colleen had been working in the house and when she saw I had finished the yard she put a leftover pot pie in the oven to warm up for dinner so we could have an early dinner.

Friday was a new day and after a good night’s rest we were ready to get after our to-do list again. Colleen decided doing laundry Friday morning was a better option than on Monday after school so she headed out first thing in the morning with two stuffed laundry bags. I wanted to finish splitting the seasoned firewood on the backside of the house so I headed down to the wood pile. It took me all morning to split all the wood and now it just needs to be stacked. I still need to finish cutting the big oak tree that’s lying on the ground in the backyard. Once it’s cut up, I’ll need to split it as well, but that will happen down the road a bit.

Colleen spent most of her Friday morning drying clothes and making turkey soup. It was just starting to simmer when I came into the house for lunch. I had plans to work on more firewood for the afternoon, but Colleen suggested we get our market run out of the way instead. Letting the firewood wait was no big deal so after lunch Colleen put her shopping list together and off to market we went. Alex got off work early and was sitting on the front porch when Colleen and I got home. Unloading the truck is always easier when Alex is home. I didn’t realize it at the time but the boy was working on splicing a 12-strand hollow rope for work. Now, I’ve spliced 3-strand stuff before. I don’t think I would even attempt the rope he was splicing. I was most impressed when the boy showed me his finished work. After a quick pizza dinner, Colleen and I even manged to can 5 quarts of her turkey soup.

The rain moved into the area late Friday night and it rained steadily all day Saturday. With the rain came a cold front that gave the air a healthy bite too. Colleen had spent all of Saturday morning in the kitchen baking, but the cold front that pushed through the area gave her a dandy headache right after lunch so she had to go lay down. I spent all day grading essays for school. I had put them off all week and the weather finally afforded me the time to work inside. After Colleen’s nap we ate a quick, early dinner. Colleen had just finished cleaning up the kitchen getting ready to do some more baking when we lost power. Colleen decided that someone was trying to tell her she had done enough for the day so she headed upstairs to relax in bed and read. The power popped on and off all night, but everything was back to normal by this morning when we rolled out of bed.

So here it is, Sunday. Our break is just about over and we will head into school tomorrow morning. Colleen has been in the kitchen all morning and I still have some grading to do. It’s a cool morning up here on our hill, but there is plenty of sunshine. I don’t expect things to warm up too terribly much today, but we’re definitely looking forward to warmer weather as we head into the upcoming week. Despite the cool temperatures and chilly breeze, today is another beautiful day. Soon the back porch will be covered with sunshine making it quite pleasant to sit outside and have a cigar. It should even be nice enough for me to pull out the grill for the first time this year. It seems as though our spring break passed all too quickly this year and we surely didn’t get nearly as much done as we had hoped. It’s all good though because up here on our hill we’ve learned that things get done just when they should be done so we don’t worry about what we couldn’t get to doing. I sure wish I had understood that in my younger days. Better late than never they say and up here on our hill Colleen and I take things one day at a time. It’s a great life, simple and easy, and that suits us just fine because at the end each day Colleen and I can sit back, relax, and know that all is right on the homestead.

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April 15, 2018: A Long And Tiring Week That Wore Us Out

We’ve put another week in the books. Last week started out on the cool side of things, but by the time this weekend rolled around the day time highs were in the low 80’s. Things should start cooling off again on Monday, but the temperatures are only going to retreat back to the seasonal range and there doesn’t appear a to be whole lot of rain in the forecast either. I’d have to say after the last few weeks of wonky weather, it sure seems like spring is settling in nicely up here on our hill. Now that I think about it, we didn’t get much rain last week either. The only real rain we are supposed to get should start later this afternoon and be gone by morning. We might even get the first thunderstorms of the season. Hopefully the storms won’t wake me up and I can get another good night’s rest.

Colleen spent most of last Sunday in her kitchen cooking. When my wife gets on a roll it’s best to stay out of her way so I avoided the kitchen unless I was specifically invited into it. Colleen made four quesadilla pies, two regular, one gluten-free, and the fourth, gluten free vegetarian. The latter two were for Steven and Anna Maria. By the end of the day, Colleen had also made a sausage strata casserole for Alex, a pan of lasagna, and a big pot of gumbo. That turned out to be more than enough food to get us through the week without Colleen having to do any extra cooking for dinners. I finished the gumbo yesterday, there are still a few servings of lasagna left, and one quesadilla pie got put in the freezer. I spent most of last Sunday grading tests for school, but I did cook dinner for everyone outside on the grill. It was the first time I had fired up the grill this spring which is always a harbinger of spring and summer.

After a less than wonderful showing by the baseball team at the spring break tournament, last week turned out to be a high point for the team in our season to date. We swept a critical two game series from a key conference rival. We played the first game Tuesday night and it was a walk off, come from behind win with the winning run scored in the bottom of the last inning as our guy slid underneath the tag of the opposing catcher. The second win took us 10 innings and we won 1 to 0. Both games got me home late and both nights I didn’t get to bed until after midnight. There was a time in my life when I could function on 4 hours of sleep, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I fought that alarm clock on Wednesday morning. Wednesday at school wasn’t a bad day, but I was a hurting puppy. I skipped practice on Wednesday and came home early to get some extra rest. Thursday was a better day, I still felt like I had been run through the wringer so I bypassed practice again. Friday I was feeling and functioning a whole lot better, but we had another 7 PM game 45 minutes away from the school and an hour and a half away from home. It turned out to be another 12:30 AM bedtime for me. Thankfully, I do not have to answer an alarm clock on Saturdays.

I was pretty useless around the house during the week. It seems like that is always the way it goes every baseball season as I get into the last few weeks of the season when most of our games start at 7:00 PM. Colleen keeps this place going until I get back on my feet after the season which is usually around Mother’s Day.

This past week was no different. Tuesday while I was getting the field ready to play ball, Colleen stopped by the laundromat to get some laundry done. Thursday while I was still trying to recover from Tuesday night, Colleen took advantage of an absolutely beautiful afternoon and got outside with the dogs to water our gardens. Friday while I was heading out into the middle of nowhere to play baseball, Colleen headed back to the laundromat with more laundry. Of course, she waited up for me too so she could be sure I made it home safely after the game.

The sun rose on Saturday morning but I missed it still being quite soundly asleep. Colleen managed to get the dogs out of the bedroom and outside for their morning run without waking me. When I finally rolled over there was bright sunshine sneaking into the room from around the curtains. I made my way downstairs to find my darling wife had everything well in hand. I, on the other hand, was two hours behind my times and I had things to do. Our taxes needed doing. I always do them a week or so, give or take, before they’re due. It’s not that I procrastinate, but rather I just under pay during the year and refuse to send the money I owe them until the last minute. Colleen dug up our tax files and I sat in front of the computer and actually got them done in short order. After lunch Colleen and I headed out to do our weekly market run and swing by the garden center. We got back in the middle of the afternoon, got the truck unloaded, and while I had a bite to eat, Colleen put the groceries away.

Most of what was left to Saturday afternoon was spent relaxing. I did have to work on the upstairs toilet, but I think it’s good now. The flapper was not sitting right and would not seal. We have an old and failing septic system so even that small trickle of water can cause problems in the long run. I offered to take Colleen to the Cracker Barrel for dinner and much to my surprise she declined. She said we had plenty of leftovers and she really didn’t feel like changing clothes. I don’t mind leftovers so Colleen and I sat down to a quiet dinner of reheated lasagna. I will say this, leftover lasagna is just about the best way to enjoy it and Colleen’s homemade lasagna takes second to no one. After dinner Colleen did a little cooking in preparation for our Sunday dinner. I headed out to the porch with a cigar to relax and enjoy a beautiful evening.

Alex disappeared Saturday shortly before Colleen and I left on our market run. With the nice weather, the boy worked his tail off all week. In fact, he and Steven got a call from his boss late one day during the week about a small last minute job that a customer wanted done. The boss told Steven and Alex to swing by the place, price the job, take care of the job, and split the money between the him and Alex. Alex took his share of the windfall and bought himself four new shock absorbers for his Explorer. Steven and Alex installed two of them Friday after work. I suspect the other two got installed on Saturday, but as for the rest of the day, I don’t have a clue what the two of them did. Alex didn’t get home until well after Colleen and I were in bed. I suppose I’ll hear about Alex’s day, yesterday, once he wakes up today.

James and Louis both called me yesterday, too. James was working but he wanted to tell me about a job offer he got. It’s a great job for James and he’s really excited. He’s already given his current boss a three weeks notice that he will be leaving that job and James is looking forward to starting his new job in early May. Louis called from base to check in with Colleen and me. He is doing great. It seems he’s finally settled into his Army routine. He sounded so much more confident about what he should be doing too. Honestly, I can’t ever remember Louis sounding so calm and relaxed. Louis did mention something about a potential deployment to Syria, but nothing was certain. He has a great attitude about it though. He said it is what it is, if he goes his unit will get their job done and then come home. I am so proud of the man my son has grown into being!

We’re expecting a good bit of rain this afternoon. It figures, right? Colleen and I are smoking some pork and turkey for Sunday dinner. I’ve already started the smoker and with any luck everything will be done before the worst of the rain gets here. Colleen is busy in the kitchen making everything else to go with dinner. We’re not sure if Steven and Anna Maria will swing by after church, but there’s always plenty of food if they do. Colleen even has some gluten-free dishes on the menu for Anna Maria. For the most part getting dinner on the table will be our biggest activity today. We have a busy week ahead of us and a little extra rest and relaxation is always a good thing. There are only a couple of months left to the school year. They should pass quickly. Colleen and I are both looking forward to our summer break so we can devote all of our attention to this place. In the meantime, it will be one foot in front of the other and one day at a time. Things have been hectic around here and will be that way for a little while longer, but that’s okay because at the end of every day we look around this place and know that all is right on the homestead.

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April 22, 2018: Traveling For Baseball All Week And A Busy Saturday

Colleen and I have worked our way through another week on our march toward our summer break. We played hide and seek with the rain last Sunday. It showed up in spits and spurts throughout the day and the skies really opened up during the night. By Monday morning the rain had stopped, everything was wet, and some cooler temperatures had moved into the area. We didn’t see any rain for the rest of the week and temperatures started creeping their way back up the thermometer. By the time this weekend rolled around, I was sitting out on the back porch enjoying plenty of sunshine with 50 degree temperatures in the early morning, and 70 degrees in the afternoon. It looks like we’ll be getting a good bit of rain in the early part of the upcoming week, but then beautiful spring temperatures and sunshine are forecasted to start moving in around here on Wednesday.

School seemed to go by easily enough over the last week for Colleen and me. It was a busy baseball week that included a lot of traveling for me. Monday we played two hours away from home. The school we played was way out there in the middle of farming country. We won that game, but I didn’t get home until after 11 o’clock. That makes it kind of tough to answer a 4:30 AM alarm clock in the morning. Tuesday’s game was a key conference match up, but on our home field. We lost, but I got home around 10:30. Friday we played the same team we played on Tuesday, but on their home field. We lost again. I got home late, but, thankfully, I didn’t have to answer the alarm clock on Saturday morning. Colleen, as usual, waited up for me on each and every night to make sure I got home safely.

Not a lot got done around this place during the week. Colleen had cooked a number of different things last Sunday that we just reheated during the week for dinners. I fired up the smoker last Sunday too. I smoked a number of pork butt steaks and turkey legs. Sunday dinner was quite the feast since Colleen had made some coleslaw, a radish, cucumber, and onion salad, and a twice baked potato casserole. The twice baked potato casserole proved to be a double treat because during the week Colleen made a shepherd’s pie topped with the casserole leftovers. Normally, she just tops the shepherd’s pie with regular mashed potatoes. I’m glad I ate my fill of pork butt steak on Sunday too, because Alex really took a liking to them and made sure there weren’t any leftover by Wednesday night.

Saturday was another catch up day for us around here. I started by catching up on some much needed sleep. I’m usually up with the sun on weekends, but on Saturday I slept until 8:30, two hours after sunrise. When I finally made it to my back porch with my cup of coffee Colleen was already outside working in her gardens. Colleen is especially fond of her flower gardens and last weekend we swung by a garden center. We found a very nice looking potted lavender plant and some more creeping phlox. Colleen has tried to grow lavender in the past without much success. We have decided it was a location issue so this time she planted the lavender right in the front of her garden at the end of the driveway. The garden used to have a big juniper bush in it that we would adorn every Christmas so it looked like a huge gumdrop. A few years ago the bush started dying so we dug it out and Colleen has been working ever since to turn the garden into a showplace of color. The phlox got added to an existing patch of phlox on the terracing below Colleen’s garden. The railroad ties used for the terracing are getting old and weather worn so Colleen wants to fill the spaces between them with phlox to make a tiered garden there.

I finally got going about mid morning on Saturday. The grass in the side yard and the backyard had gotten long and shaggy again. Alex used to cut the grass, but he works full time during the week and part time on weekends. He would cut the yard if I asked, but I don’t have the heart to ask. The boy works hard and isn’t afraid of hard work, but he needs some downtime too. He also voluntarily contributes part of his paycheck to the household finances, so I figure I could cut the lawn. Unfortunately, the lawnmower we have is old and heavy and our yard is a hill. It took me a little bit of doing yesterday, but I got the yard cut. After I finished the job I was sitting in the back porch and started to seriously think about replacing the lawnmower. I’d love a riding mower, but one, I sure can’t afford a rider and two, it just isn’t practical on a half acre. I do believe I could convince myself to invest in a self-propelled lawnmower though.

When Colleen finished with her gardens, she decided the front yard needed to be raked. She finished her raking about the same time as I finished cutting the backyard. We ate a little late lunch and then I desperately needed a nap. I guess I caught about an hour of shuteye when my phone rang and woke me up. Alex called to tell me he had broken down not too far from the house. I asked him if he needed help, but he said no because Steven was on the way. It was one of those tough dad moments when I wanted rush to his rescue, but I knew it was better to let him and Steven work through it by themselves. Steven is pretty good with vehicles and Alex has been learning a lot by working with him. Still, I needed to make a quick run to Lowe’s so I used it as an excuse to swing by and check on the boys. As I suspected they had things well in hand so I headed off to Lowe’s. I didn’t stop on the way home but I could see the two boys working on Alex’s Explorer when I drove by them. I got home, took care of my little project, sat down on the back porch to have a cigar, and in through the front door popped Alex. The problem was relatively minor and the two boys took care of it in short order.

Alex started getting his fishing stuff put together and asked if I wanted to go fishing with him and Steven. There were still a few hours of daylight left so I collected up my stuff and we headed out to go get Steven. I think it was around 5:30 when we finally got our lines in the water. Fishing was slow, so mostly we sat there talking and laughing. Between the three of us we managed to catch two small fish. It was okay though, because anytime I can go fishing with my boys, whether or not the fish are biting, it’s always enjoyable. It was a little after 8 o’clock when we packed things up to head home. I called Colleen to see if she had eaten dinner which she had, so I swung by McDonald’s to grab myself some dinner.

So here it is a beautiful and sunny Sunday morning. Colleen and I need to get to the market to fill the pantry for the upcoming week. I’m not real sure what will get done today. Colleen has a bunch of cooking she wants to do and I have a few things including school work that need to get done. We only have five more weeks of school until Memorial Day and a little more than seven weeks until our summer break. We’ll take every bit of it one day at a time. There is just no point in getting frustrated by trying to rush something we cannot. I best get moving this morning. The sooner we put our market run behind us the sooner we can start on our other stuff. One thing is for sure though, as busy as we get up here on our hill, we always have a sense of peace and tranquility knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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April 29, 2018: A Beautiful Weekend To Rest Up And Relax

After a few days of gray skies and rainy weather, this week turned absolutely beautiful with Mother Nature giving us a perfect weekend this weekend. The rain in last Sunday’s threatening skies held off well into the nighttime, but once the rain did start, it kept coming until early Wednesday morning. Driving into school on Monday and Tuesday was slow going and Tuesday night’s baseball game had to be postponed until Friday night. The sun came out early enough on Wednesday to start drying out our baseball field so that by Thursday afternoon the field was in great condition for our game. The temperatures started to warm up nicely too. By the time Saturday rolled around it was bright and sunny and the temperatures were in the upper 70’s. Today is not quite as warm as yesterday, but it still looks like it should be a gorgeous day. Just to make things even better, we are looking at wonderful weather for the week ahead of us.

The school week was fairly routine. I gave the kids a couple of quizzes during the week. The kids were mostly well behaved. Unfortunately, the kids in my 3rd period class are still struggling with the material and I’m still looking for ways to do everything I can to get them ready for their final exam. Final exams are now only one month away. After school I had my usual battery of meetings, but baseball practice was limited because of the weather in the first part of the week. We ended up playing one game on Thursday night and one on Friday night. We won both. I got home late after Thursday’s game and I only got 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up for school on Friday. I got home late again on Friday night, but with no alarm clock to answer on Saturday morning I ended up sleeping until 10 o’clock. I suspect with the conference tournament starting on Monday and the state playoffs a week after that, I’ve got a few more nights like last Thursday and Friday in front of me.

With the wet weather and the long nights for baseball, Colleen and I didn’t get much done around this place during the week. Colleen missed out on a lot of sleep waiting for me to get home safely. In my absence, though, my darling wife did a great job of keeping this place going in the right direction. Saturday is usually a catch up day for us, but not yesterday. We did manage to get a few things done, though. Since yesterday was payday, too, Colleen got our end of the month bills paid which is always a good thing. She also got her potted plants put outside on the back porch. Most of these plants will live outside on the porch until the fall when our temperatures start to cool down again. After lunch we took care of our market run. By the time we got back, got the truck unloaded, and Colleen got her kitchen and pantry set to rights, both of us knew we were done for the day. Bear in mind, done for the day around here just means we aren’t going to tackle anything major. There are always lots of small odds and ends that need doing.

While Colleen was putting the groceries away I was outside walking around checking on the gardens. We planted asparagus last year and then some more again early this spring. I’ve always read it takes a couple of years for asparagus to establish itself so I wasn’t expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised though, as there are a good number of shoots in our raised bed garden. We won’t be harvesting any asparagus this year and I have my doubts about next year, but it is encouraging to see the shoots nonetheless. The peas I planted early this year are starting to put flowers out. We’ve never grown peas before so this is a very good sign. Saturday afternoon I also planted some leeks we got at the garden center earlier in the day. We’ve never grown leeks before either. I put the leeks in the same garden as our chives. Our chives are thriving so I hope the leeks will do well. Slowly but surely our gardening skills are improving. We do, however, still have a long way to go. It’s probably worth mentioning here that no matter how many books you read, there is nothing like getting your hands dirty in a real garden to understand and learn what everything you’ve read actually means.

Steven swung by the house to get Alex before I woke up on Saturday morning. They had priced out a tree side job earlier in the week. From the way Alex talked about the job, I envisioned a daylong affair. In reality, the job didn’t take as long as I thought it would and Alex was home before Colleen and I got back from the market, so I had some help getting the groceries into the house. I asked Alex if he wanted to fishing, but he, James, and Steven had already made plans to do some night fishing. I might have considered joining them, but I had already planned an important date with a pillow.

Saturday afternoon and evening were about as low key as things get around here. Dinner was quick and easy, Sloppy Joes and French fries. The meal was an easy clean up for Colleen too. Alex took off to go fishing after dinner. From the pictures the boys texted me it looked like they did well. After dinner I just hung out on my back porch for a while. Even with all of my extra sleep Saturday morning, by the time the evening rolled around I was ready for some more shuteye. Colleen and I did get to relax yesterday evening, but we called it an early night too.

Today looks to be a little bit busier. Colleen has some cooking she wants to get done for the week. I have a baseball game Monday night so I want to rest some more. Fortunately, there is nothing terribly pressing around here that needs doing. James already has texted me about getting in a couple of hours of fishing. I do believe I will take him up on the offer since I didn’t get to go yesterday. Alex is still asleep, but I’m betting he will want to go with us too. I guess with as crazy as things have been of late I really needed some downtime to recharge the old batteries this weekend. Oh sure, there are things that didn’t get done this weekend, but they will still be there tomorrow. There certainly isn’t any point in worrying about what doesn’t get done, but will get done in its own good time.

Well, James is on his way. I’ve eaten breakfast and am working on my 2nd cup of coffee. Colleen is up and moving around the kitchen. There’s a light breeze blowing now, but it’s still a beautiful morning. I’m hopeful the fish will be biting. If they are not, at least it will be some more rest and some time spent with my kids. It is days like today that really make me appreciate how great life is. The world is a crazy place, but up here on the hill things are peaceful and it’s always great to spend some time with the family. Some days we get more done than other days and some days we just relax. This weekend has been mostly about relaxing and it’s weekends like this when we can really rejoice in knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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May 06, 2018: Long Warm Days On The Hill And A Heartbreaking Lose On The Diamond

Last weekend was a wonderful weekend. The weather was beautiful and while we didn’t get a great deal accomplished around this place, we did get caught on some much needed rest. We don’t often have the luxury of kicking back on a weekend, but last weekend we really needed some rest. Colleen did a little bit of cooking on Sunday afternoon, making some of her Rugged Apple muffins for our lunches during the week. She also put together a tuna fish and macaroni salad for my lunches because I had a couple of baseball games scheduled early in the week. James, Alex, and I headed out to the river to get a little fishing done right before lunch. I came home with three nice catfish that I filleted up and added to our freezer stores. Once school is out, we will have a big family fish fry one day. Since it was Sunday, Colleen also cooked up a special Sunday dinner for us, chicken Creole. There aren’t many chicken dishes I like, but chicken Creole is one of my favorites.

Monday started off like every other school week for us with the alarm ruining a perfectly good night’s sleep at 4:30 AM. It wasn’t hard to figure out there was a full moon as the kids were feistier than usual in class. Tuesday I had to have six kids removed from class they got so out of hand. The baseball team played the first game of our conference tournament on Monday night and won easily. We played again on Tuesday night and should have won, but the guys ended up having a major meltdown in the late innings of the game and we lost the game by one run in extra innings. The last three runs the other team scored were the result of walks, errors, and fielding miscues. The loss made for a tough ride home and, like usual, the moon and Colleen were waiting up late for me to get home. Colleen went to bed once I got home while I sat out on the back porch and stewed over the loss. With only four hours of sleep Tuesday night, Wednesday seemed like a long day for me at school.

I didn’t go to practice on Wednesday. There was no practice on Thursday. We did have practice again on Friday, but it was mostly scrimmage based where the coaches just stand around and watch so the head coach let me leave early. That’s one of the advantages of being a volunteer coach which I have been for 17 seasons now. Getting home early for three straight days and getting a good night’s rest on each of those days sure made one heck of a difference when Saturday finally got here. Louis showed up on Friday evening which was a very pleasant surprise. Colleen and I had gone to get pizza for our Friday evening dinner and when we got home Louis came bounding out the front door in his Army dress blues to greet us. Alex had gotten home from work too, but he didn’t stick around. He headed out to go fishing.

Louis had served as an usher at a Medal of Honor ceremony on Friday so he just jumped in his car and drive home from the base once things wrapped up. It was really great to see the boy. He ate dinner with us and visited for a while. He still has some civilian clothes here at the house so he changed and then headed out to visit some friends. Louis ended up spending the night at his friend’s place so we didn’t see him again until Saturday. I will say the Army is definitely agreeing with the boy. He is in great spirits and looks as well as I’ve ever seen him look. Listening to him tell us about his life in the Army, Colleen and I could tell he has even developed a good sense of pride in his accomplishments. Louis is really learning a true sense of personal responsibility. We’ve always been proud of the kid, but to see this side of him really does our hearts well.

I was up before the sun on Saturday. It was a beautiful morning for sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee to welcome the day, but there were things to be done so after that wonderful coffee and a bite of breakfast, it was time to get to work. Once Colleen and I got moving, we stayed at it until we ran out of steam at dinner time.

I pulled out the lawnmower and took to cutting the side and backyard. Colleen pulled out the vacuum cleaner and started cleaning the house. I finished the yards right before lunch. Colleen got most of the house vacuumed and the bathrooms cleaned up. After lunch I moved all of the last winter’s remaining firewood off of the back porch and Colleen cleaned the leftover debris off of the back porch. She still had a little to do in the house, but getting out of the house and cleaning the porch was a way for her to take a productive break from the vacuuming. Steven and Alex who had been at work all morning showed up shortly after Colleen and I had finished with the firewood and porch. We didn’t stick around too long after the boys got here though. Colleen and I still had our market run to do.

Our market run was quick, but Steven and Alex had disappeared again by the time we got home. Colleen and I got everything into the house, sat down to a easy dinner of leftovers, and then finished up the few odds and ends that needed doing before we kicked back for the rest of the evening. Louis showed back up just long enough to clean up and then he headed next door to visit with our neighbors. Colleen and I called it an early night and I’m not sure when the two boys got home, but both of them are still sleeping this morning. Louis will head back to base later today, but having him around for the weekend sure was a treat.

Colleen and I have been up for a few hours already this morning. Colleen already got outside to put a little fertilizer in our gardens and now she’s gearing up to do the day’s cooking. There are a few things I need to do outside before the forecasted rain shows up this afternoon. My to-do list doubled in size yesterday with all of the things I noticed that needed doing. On the bright side, there isn’t much I need to do to get ready for school tomorrow. Colleen and I are definitely ready for the school year to end. My baseball season is winding down with the state playoffs starting this week. Since the team is a low seed this year, I’ll be doing a lot of traveling until we get knocked out of the playoffs. Of course, if we go deep into the playoffs, I’ll be busy on the baseball field until early June. Everything is good though, and Colleen and I will take things one day at a time. From where we stand right now though, I can happily say it looks like we’re heading into a great summer because we know all is right on the homestead.

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May 13, 2018: It’s Mother’s Day And A Beautiful Day At That

We’ve got another dandy weekend up here on the hill which is just perfect for Mother’s Day. The sun has been shining and the temperatures have been in the 90’s. It looks like they’re headed there again today and tomorrow. Come to think about it, we’ve had wonderful weather all week save for the rogue thunderstorm on Thursday evening. It was a real beast too. We had about 30 minutes of torrential rains, lots of wind, and pea size hail bouncing off of everything just for good measure. Apart from a few dead branches that got knocked out of the trees, we were lucky and didn’t end up with any real damage. I didn’t get to check the gardens until Saturday morning, but they all looked just fine too. After the line of storms moved through on Thursday and cooled us off for the evening, the heat showed right back up on Friday just in time for our weekend.

Louis had come for a visit the Friday before last and stayed the weekend. Since Louis was staying for dinner Sunday evening before he headed back to base, Colleen made a big pan of her paella. Colleen originally had found and modified a paella recipe as a way of cooking squirrels. We had three squirrels left in the freezer from last hunting season and Colleen figured it was the perfect time to get her paella pan out and make some since Louis had never had paella before. The meal came out perfectly and quite literally was an explosion of flavor in every bite. Everyone ate their fill and Louis even went back for a second helping. The little bit that was leftover got put into a small sealed container so Louis could take it with him for his girlfriend.

Colleen and I had a reasonably good week at school. The kids were all fairly well behaved, but time seemed to slow down to a crawl. It always does this time of year because everyone is just looking forward to summer break. Monday, I stayed after school for our usual Mandatory Monday Meeting and baseball practice. I had baseball practice again on Tuesday. On Wednesday we played in the first round of the state playoffs. We lost in the bottom of the last inning and thus ended our 2018 high school baseball season. Thursday and Friday Colleen and I started riding to and from school together again. Apart from those days on which I have after school meetings, we will be riding together for the rest of the school year.

Every once in a while, Colleen and I actually do leave our hill to go out and have some fun. Friday night was one of those nights. Some very close friends of ours have a big house party about once a year. It’s a celebration of life since my friend got very sick and almost lost his life a few years ago. This year they threw a murder mystery dinner party set in the 1920’s. As usual, it was an absolutely fabulous party and everyone had a really great time. Colleen and I dressed up in as near period attire as we could, as did all of the other guests. I even brought a 1922 silver dollar to roll through my fingers as a prop. Colleen, who claims she never wins anything, won a door prize again this year. Yes, I said again this year. This year she got a mason quart jar of moonshine. Last year she won her agave plant, Mamacita. I talked to my friend on Saturday and he said the party broke up some time after midnight. Colleen and I were home before 11 o’clock because we were dog tired after a long week at school.

Saturday morning started off just the way any Saturday should. The dogs let Colleen and me sleep a little later than usual and when we did get up, we leisurely enjoyed our coffee. We got our market run and a little more done before the hot temperatures found us during the afternoon. A run through the garden center yielded some pepper plants, thyme, and a pineapple plant. After wandering around the garden center Colleen headed to women’s clothing and got some new summer clothes. It almost seemed like the groceries were an afterthought. We got home a good three hours later, unloaded the truck, had a quick bite of lunch and then went about our regular weekend stuff. Alex, who had left earlier in the morning to work got home about 2 o’clock, stuck around for a half hour or so, and then headed out to the lake to do some fishing.

I need to brag a little on my boys here. Alex and Steven had headed out on early Saturday morning to do a side job that under normal circumstances would have netted them each about a hundred bucks. When Alex got home I asked how much money he had made. Alex replied they didn’t get paid. I was surprised because a good bit of Alex’s pin money comes from his side jobs on weekends. Alex explained to me that he and Steven found out they were doing the work for a friend’s father. It seems that the father is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s and the family was going to have to sell the father’s house so the father could move to assisted living. When my boys found out the circumstances, both of them refused to take any money for their work. I guess somewhere along the way Colleen and I did something right in raising our kids.

It got hot around here as Saturday afternoon wore on, but the bottom of the backyard was covered in shade by the late middle of the afternoon. I figured it was as good of a time as any to get working on splitting firewood so I grabbed my gloves and splitting ax and then headed down to the piled up wood from the big oak tree Steven and Alex had dropped a month or so ago. It sure didn’t take me long to remember splitting wood in last summer’s heat. I guess I was down there working for more than an hour and a half. By the time I put the ax up for the afternoon, I had sweat pouring off of me and my clothes were soaking wet. At least I made a small dent in the pile of small rounds, but I sure have a ways to go on this tree and there are two more trees to go after this one is done. After cutting our firewood supply close last winter, I’m looking to get a good, solid five cords of firewood put up for this winter.

Today is Mother’s day so Colleen will be taking things easy, as she should. I don’t think she has much baking for the week and I’ll cook dinner on the grill this evening. The kids have already started checking in to wish Colleen a Happy Mother’s Day. Sadly, both my mother and Colleen’s mother are no longer with us and we miss both terribly. My mother and I were very close and I still find myself taking to her frequently. I think she would have really enjoyed this simple lifestyle that Colleen and I now live. At least I know she is still keeping her eye on me and most days I feel like I’m doing her proud. One thing you can definitely say about what we do up here on our little hill is that family is the most important thing in our lives. It only seems right that we take the day to celebrate the lives of our mother’s because Colleen, like both of our mothers, is the heart and soul of everything we do and for that very reason we always know that all is right on the homestead.

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May 20, 2018: Jamming On A Sunday After A Different Sort Of Week

Well, our week started out hot and it ended wet. We had 90 degree temperatures last Sunday and Monday, but the rains moved in on Wednesday, cooled everything off a little, and decided to stick around for the rest of the week. It hasn’t been a steady rain, actually, more like hit or miss showers and thunderstorms. Some of them were pretty intense though. Even with the rain, I can’t complain about the temperatures. It really has been very pleasant. One thing for sure is the gardens got plenty of water this week. I suppose once the rains stop and the sun comes back, everything will grow another foot, especially the grass which means the yards will look ragged again and I’ll have to cut them before they turn into hay fields. At least all of the lush ground vegetation keeps what precious little top soil we have from washing down our hill into the ravine.

Last week was a bit disjointed as Colleen and I had an unexpected day off on Wednesday. The school systems closed for the day because thousands of teachers in the state took a leave day so they could rally at the state capitol. I did not go. I did, however, make particularly good use of my day off by spending it down at the wood pile splitting firewood for next winter. I split wood last Sunday and Tuesday too, so I made a good size dent in the oak tree Steven and Alex had dropped for me a month or so ago. Once that tree is done, I have a maple on the ground in another part of the yard that needs to be cut and split, and there is another big oak tree that needs to be felled, cut into rounds, and split. I’m not exactly sure how much wood there is, but I’m hoping there is close to the five cords we need to heat the house through next winter.

As far as school weeks go, last week was pretty much what could be expected with less than a month left to school. Teachers are looking tired and students are getting antsier by the day. I had my last baseball activity of the season on Monday evening, the end of season banquet. Since there is no longer practice or games after school, Colleen and I are riding back and forth together again. Both of us riding together also lets us use our afternoons to start getting things in order for the summer ahead. I have finally caught up on all of the sleep I missed out on during the baseball season, too. The upcoming week will take us into Memorial Day weekend and then it will be final exam reviews, followed by final exams and graduation. After that we won’t think about school much until August.

The gardens have fared very well with the warm weather and now the rain. The celery I started from the bottom of a bunch bought at the grocery store is doing well. The romaine lettuce bolted on us so that experiment was kind of a flop. We harvested enough peas on Tuesday night to go with our quiche dinner. We harvested some radishes to go in a salad we had for lunch in Wednesday. The potato plants are a lush, bushy green. The leeks, green onions, and chives are all looking very good. I even managed to get some pepper plants into one of the raised gardens in the backyard. Heck, we’ve even got a couple of volunteer tomato plants in the small compost bin. I also am thinking it’s about time to start getting some beans into the gardens. The only problem is figuring out just where to put them. I just haven’t had the time to build the new raised bed gardens we would like to add to our collection.

The rain on Saturday could have slowed Colleen and me down, but it didn’t. I was up early and took care of the dogs and I managed to do that without waking Colleen. I like to go to bed early and Colleen likes to sleep late so it worked out well. Colleen got a few extra hours of sleep while I sat out on the back porch with some coffee. Once Colleen did wake up and had her coffee, we headed out the front door on a mission. In these parts, right now is the peak of strawberry season. Colleen and I went to the State Farmer’s Market to see what we could get for making jam. Since Colleen and I have a tendency to overdo things sometimes, we had to limit ourselves to just three flats of six quarts each this year. One year we did six flats and ended with three years worth of jam. We gave a lot of jam away as presents from that batch. Anyway, one trick we’ve learned over the years is to buy day old berries. Since most people who don’t make jam don’t want to buy older berries and farmers want to sell all the berries they can, they mark the price down on the day old berries. Day old berries are just fine for making jam and yesterday we got our 18 quarts of berries for just $30. We stopped at the market on the way home to get our shopping done for the week, too. The store had strawberries on sale for $3.75 a quart so I’d say we did alright with the berries this year.

Making jam or, for that matter, canning anything around here is 100 percent team work. It was mid afternoon when Colleen got the groceries put up and her kitchen set to rights. We both knew there wasn’t enough time to actually make and can the jam on Saturday, but we still had more than enough time to get the berries prepped and ready to go so we could make the jam and can it on Sunday morning. When it comes to making strawberry jam, the prep work is a bit tedious, but mostly straight forward. I sit down at a table with the berries I front of me so I can pull the crowns off, hull the berries and the quarter them. Colleen takes the berry quarters and mashes them into the right consistency. That’s where we stopped on Saturday. Colleen put the mashed berries in the refrigerator where they spent the night. We finished the prep work and had everything cleaned just before dinner.

Well, it’s Sunday now and our skies are still gray. The sun seems to be trying hard to burn some of the clouds off though. The mini-kitchen is set up on the back porch and Colleen and I are just about ready to start making and canning the strawberry jam. We got our market run done yesterday so we can focus on making jam all day today. Like the prep work, today will be a team effort. Colleen will finish the making and mixing of the jam, I will cook it down to where it needs to be, Colleen will jar it up, and I will hot bath the jars to seal them. Of course my favorite part of the whole process is listening to the lids on the jars pop, letting us know the jars are sealed. Popping the lid on a jar later in the year and eating the jam is always great too.

Well, the morning isn’t getting any younger and there is jam to be made. Any other time we have today will be dedicated to getting ready for the upcoming school week. It’s the last full week of the school year for us. Next weekend is Memorial Day and the unofficial start to summer around here. Colleen and I are really looking forward to this summer. We’ve already started putting our to-do list together. With any luck I’ll have all the wood we need for next winter split before July. I’ve got a chicken coop and pen that need to be finished. Colleen wants to try canning chicken in the pressure cooker for the first time. Those are just a few of the big things too. We don’t have any specific time tables for everything because things will get done in their own good time. One thing is for certain though, and that is the summer will pass all too quickly. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun and when all is right in the homestead.

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May 27, 2018: A Wet Week On the Hill And School Is Winding Down

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! Our last full week of school is now behind Colleen and me. The Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of the end of the school year for us. When we go back to school on Tuesday, we have four days of review and the Monday after that, final exams start. Our summer break is coming up quickly, and it can’t get here quick enough. The kids are all starting to act crazy. The parents are starting to panic, especially for the borderline kids. Everybody wants extra credit work to help their grades and my reply is that they should have done the work in the first place. Today’s kids seem to have this misconception that the world will give them a second and third chance to get their jobs done correctly. My, oh my, are these kids in for a rude awakening! Some of the parents are going to get a wakeup call too, especially if their kids only last a semester or two in college. High school is free. College is expensive.

Up here on the hill, our week started off with on again, off again rain and thunderstorms. I’m not sure exactly how much rain we got between Sunday and Wednesday, but everything sure is green. Thursday and Friday we had lots of bright sunshine and warm temperatures so it seems like everything grew another foot. The trees around this place all have their full canopies in place now. The grass is long and ragged again, but the yard is still too soft and wet to cut the grass. Much to Colleen’s delight, the day lilies in her garden have exploded with flowers. Some of the plants in the gardens fared better than others. The potatoes and celery seemed to thrive with the extra water. Colleen and I harvested another meal of peas from the pea patch. The peppers, green onions, chives, and leeks held their own. The spinach and radishes bolted with the heat so they are done for the season. I still haven’t had time to build more raised bed gardens so we haven’t planted anything new.

With all of the rain in the early part of the week, it was a tough week to get outside and get anything accomplished. Even with all the sunshine on Thursday and Friday the ground was still soggy. Sunday we stayed on dry ground in the kitchen and on the porch and spent the day making strawberry jam. The jam came out very well except for our second batch. The high humidity with which all the rain had saddled us had a funky effect on our cooking times. The air wasn’t taking the moisture from the boiling jam as quickly so the first batch took longer than we anticipated. I should have realized what was happening, but I didn’t so I turned the heat up on the second batch. That was a big mistake. I scorched the jam in the second batch to the bottom of the boiling pot. Thankfully, we caught it in time before the jam was ruined. That batch of jam came out darker and thicker than usual, but still tasted fine. We needed to use a different pot for the third batch. I put the heat back down and Colleen and I waited it out for that batch, but Colleen had one heck of a time getting the scorched jam off of the bottom of her big pot. We ended up with 14 pints of our usual jam and 6 pints of the dark jam.

The wet ground really made it a challenge to work outside all week, but Colleen went about her usual business, without doing those things that were outside. Monday was laundry day since I had to stay after school for a meeting. She also decided to get another two laundry bags done on Wednesday when I had another meeting after school. Other than that it was just the usual cooking a couple of dinners and keeping the house and kitchen clean. Now, I say usual, but that usual stuff could be considered a full time job on its own. When Friday evening rolled around, we decided Colleen had done enough cooking for the week and we needed to treat ourselves to some Chinese takeout. It’s a small splurge for our budget, but we figured we earned it.

As the week moved on, I finally started feeling rested after a long baseball season. Thankfully, I started getting back into my regular sleeping routine too. Saturday morning I was up before sunrise like I am usually. I got the dogs taken outside and started the coffee brewing. Colleen got to enjoy sleeping late which is always a treat for her. I sat out on the back porch and greeted the new day. The ground had dried enough by Saturday morning, but there was rain in the forecast for the afternoon so around 7:30 I headed down to the woodpile to get some splitting done. The heat wasn’t too bad, but the air was thick. I’m not sure what the humidity was, but by 9:30 my tee-shirt was wringing wet and my britches were soaked down to my knees. After a short break I changed directions and did a little work done in the gardens. All of the radishes that had bolted got pulled. I weeded some. There was some oregano on the porch that was outgrowing its peat pot so I planted it and I transplanted a few volunteer tomato plants that had been growing out by our compost bin. It wasn’t all that much, but it did knock a few small things off of our to-do list.

Colleen spent all morning giving the family room a good cleaning. The family room is kind of the catch all for everything whenever we walk into the house. If there is an open space, something will be put there. The room isn’t really dirty, it’s just gets cluttered. Usually it’s just a bunch of small stuff, but every couple of weeks the small piles reach a critical mass and they need to be picked up and straightened out. With school winding down, Colleen decided it was time to clean the room up. I even relocated a few small stacks of the baseball cards I had laying around which got a “Hallelujah” out of Colleen. Once school is done, our school stuff will get put away for the summer so that will be even less stuff to leave lying around.

After lunch Colleen had her market list ready to go so we headed out to take care of our shopping for the week. It was a light market run for us, the way end of the month, four days before payday, runs always are. Our timing was impeccable though. We hadn’t been home 30 minutes and the skies opened up. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky rather than good. That rain cell and one or two others that passed over us later in the evening and through the night turned out to be the only rain we saw all day. After dinner Colleen finished putting the groceries away and straightening out her kitchen. I put a floor fan together that we picked up in our travels and moved a couple of other fans around to get better air circulation through the first floor. We haven’t had central heating or AC in four plus years now and, honestly, we don’t miss it. The fans do just fine in the summer, and the fire place and a couple of high efficiency space heaters work well in the winter. The system is more than 20 years old and we don’t have the money for a new one. A definite plus has been our electric bill which is rarely over $120 a month now. That’s a whole lot less than it used to cost us to heat and cool this place.

Alex finally got home around 6 o’clock on Saturday evening. He had taken off early in the morning to do a side job with Steven. The boy was filthy and looked like he had had a rough day. Just to make things interesting he was limping. It seems Alex missed a step towards the end of the day and really smacked his knee good. I don’t think it’s too bad. I took a look at it and there were no cuts or blood, it’s wasn’t discolored from bruising, but it was a little bit swollen. I told him to ice it down and take some ibuprofen. I gave him a knee brace I had too. As a rule Alex is not careless when he works, so I figured he was tired and just not paying attention since it happened at the end of the day. I suppose it will be stiff and sore this morning, but I won’t know for sure until he wakes up and comes downstairs. It’s a good thing he has today and tomorrow off to rest it.

Well, here it is, Sunday morning. The ground outside is once again too wet to do any yard work or split firewood. It’s not fun swinging an 8-pound maul when you are standing in mud. Colleen decided to get her laundry done today and has gone to and come back from the laundromat already. We’ll do what we can today, but with the long weekend we won’t be rushed to get things done. The water in the lakes and rivers is too high to go fishing so I will be staying close to home. There are a few repair jobs I may do today, but other than that the day should be slow and easy. It’s seems like every year, lately, the weather around here has been a little uncooperative for us to get stuff accomplished outside. We’ll figure it out though. We always do. It’s okay though because up here on our hill we do what we can, when we can, and feel thankful that all is right on the homestead.

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June 03, 2018: Alberto Sure Made For Another Wet Week

May is done and now we’re rolling into June. The first named storm of the 2018 hurricane season showed up early and really gave the east coast a good soaking. The storm stayed well west of us, but it did funnel a whole lot of tropical moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico. When it wasn’t raining here, the humidity made the air thick and heavy. The steady rain did keep us soaked right through Wednesday morning. Once the steady rain stopped, we were dealing with erratic thunderstorms for the rest of the week, right up through Saturday. If the rain and the humidity weren’t enough, by Friday we were dealing with 90 degree temperatures too. As a rule, that’s usually not an issue for us up here on our hill. The real problem came in the afternoons when we would walk out of an air conditioned school and melt. At least the rides home every day were comfortable once Colleen and I rolled the truck windows down and got moving on the road. But, that was all last week, this morning the sun is trying to chase the early clouds and we get to start things anew.

Last week was a short, four day, week at school thanks to the long Memorial Day weekend. It was also the last week of regular classes. We start final exams when we go back tomorrow. For the most part, though, last week wasn’t too bad. The biggest challenge came with keeping the kids focused. I gave all of my classes a test on Wednesday and reviews for finals the rest of the week. One thing is for sure, everyone, teachers included, is ready to be done with school for the summer. The biggest treat for my kids came on Friday when I announced which of them qualified for an exemption from the final exam. Where I teach, if the kids have a combination of a good grade and good attendance, they can be exempt from taking a final exam that is not a state mandated test. My classes do not have state mandated final exams. The only things I have left to do this school year are some grading and the end of the year paperwork.

After all of the rain we had all week, the ground was far too wet to get much accomplished outside. The firewood pile sat at the bottom of the backyard untouched. I saw no point in standing in an ankle deep mud puddle to split firewood. The grass like every other plant around here just kept growing. The gardens for the most part are doing quite well. The potatoes continue to thrive and I have come to the conclusion that celery cannot have too much water. Our blackberry bush is loaded with green berries that seem to get bigger by the day. Colleen’s gardens at the end of the driveway are really doing well. The triangle garden is really starting to fill in well and her lily garden is now awash with yellow and peach colored day lilies. All this brings me back to the grass, especially in the backyard. Because our little half-acre backs up to a forest, if the grass gets too long, ticks start to be a real problem. Every day I would come home from school looking for a window of time in which to cut the grass, and every day Mother Nature would thwart my best intentions. On the bright side, even with the ground saturated with water, our septic system behaved itself.

Thursday was payday for Colleen and me, so Thursday afternoon was spent paying bills. Teachers in the county where I teach do not have the option of spreading their pay out over 12 months. The next paycheck Colleen and I will get will be at the end of August once school has started again. We’re used to things being tight during the summers, but this summer we have managed to put ourselves into a position where we should have enough money to get us through. The day before payday in August is when all the teachers at school compete for bragging rights on who drew their account down closest to zero without overdrawing their account. Colleen and I have actually won the title a time or two. This year we shouldn’t even be in the running. This year, we’ve even managed to save enough extra money to buy a replacement swimming pool for the one we had to retire at the end of last summer. Since Thursday was payday, Colleen and I also treated ourselves to a meal out at the Cracker Barrel on Friday night. We may not eat out again all summer so we figured it was then or sometime in September.

Saturday was a busy day up here on the hill. I finally decided, wet yard or not, the grass needed to be cut. I got an early jump on it too. It wasn’t too bad, really, except for a few very soggy spots. I’m glad I had new boots with deep sole treads. I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to hold my footing with my old boots. I finished well before noon, cooled down a bit, cleaned myself up, and then Colleen and I headed off to Costco to stock up on supplies and groceries, particularly meat, for the summer. We got home got home from Costco in short order, got everything in the house and the meat in the refrigerator, and then we were back out the door again. The second time was to do our market run for weekly supplies, mostly for school lunches. Once we got back from that trip we were done traveling for the day. We spent the rest of the afternoon cutting up and packaging all the meat we had gotten from Costco into meal size potions. We were quite proud of ourselves. We had bought two full pork loins at $15 each and when we were done butchering we had two big pork roasts, a package of cut pieces of stew meat and 25 3/4ths inch thick boneless pork chops suitable for grilling to put in our freezer. If you’ve never grilled pork chops you simply must try it. They are fabulous!

Colleen and I are very intent on trying to can meat this year. We were pleasantly surprised to find the hamburger that Costco sells is 88/12. Burger that lean will make it much easier to remove the grease before putting the meat into jars. Obviously, we won’t be able to get all of the grease out, but by reducing the amount that goes into the jars we can significantly reduce the chance of the grease turning rancid once everything is canned and put up on the shelf. An added bonus to buying hamburger at Costco is the price which is considerably lower than lesser quality burger at other stores even when it is in sale.

I’m not quite sure what we’ll get done around here today. It is still early. I suppose I could just hang out on the back porch, but that’s not likely. There is a slight chance that we will see a thunderstorm this afternoon, but that’s the way it’s been for the last few days. Colleen and I don’t have much to do to get ready for school tomorrow and for that matter, there isn’t much we have to do for the rest of the school year. That’s a good thing too because we are so ready to start our summer break. We don’t have any big plans for this summer. We rarely do. The last time we took anything like a vacation was four years ago when we spent two days in Philadelphia and that was on the way home from a funeral in New Hampshire. This summer, like most summers, we will be quite content to stay up here on our hill. We may take a day trip or two, but nothing more extravagant. To our way of thinking, why would we want to go anywhere when everything we want is here? Yes, indeed, all is right on the homestead.

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June 10, 2018: A Tiring Week And Two New Adventures On The Home Front

You wouldn’t think a week of sitting in a chair and watching kids take final exams would be too particularly tiring. Colleen and I sure found out differently last week. I ended up administering or proctoring five 3-hour exams and Colleen did the same in the separate setting testing lab. By the time Friday finally rolled around, neither of us had the energy left to go out and get take out for dinner. The whole week was pretty much like that though. Every day we would get home after school and just want to sit down and do as little as possible. More often than not, I would come home and hide on the back porch with a cigar and some sipping whiskey. The days were downright exhausting. Oh, we did what we needed to do over the course of the week, but only what was absolutely necessary. Our packed lunches usually didn’t make it until noon because we would eat them just to stay awake. Both of us would come home starving because we hadn’t eaten anything during the afternoons. Dinners consisted of casseroles or leftovers and we were very thankful for those quick and easy dinners. I think Friday was the worst. The one kid, who was supposed to show up to take my make up final exam, didn’t show. Only one of the six kids that were supposed to show up for Colleen actually showed up. To make matters worse, that one kid that did show up for Colleen, whipped through the 3-hour exam in 20 minutes. No, the kid wasn’t that smart, in fact, they just didn’t care. After that Colleen and I just sat in my room and watched the clock until she had her hours put in for the day.

As tired as we were from the inactivity, there were a few things that got done apart from just getting dinner on the table. The weather had been dry enough for the glue I used to repair our coffee table to have dried properly so I unclamped everything and brought it upstairs for Colleen. Colleen and I also did a good bit of internet research. Colleen scoped out how to can meat while I checked into making our own vanilla extract. I even found some reasonably priced vanilla beans and some bottles that Colleen liked so I ordered them to insure they would be here before Saturday. Friday afternoon we ran a couple of errands on the way home. Trust me, though, when I tell you, those errands were the extent of any extra energy we had left from the week. I was so tired Friday evening that I crawled in bed and was sound asleep before sunset. There are still two teacher workdays this coming week, but after that Colleen and I will be in full blown summer break mode and very thankful for that.

What Colleen and I didn’t get done during the week, we sure made up for on Saturday. It’s amazing what a good night’s rest will do for you. I was up before sunrise. I got the dogs out of the bedroom without waking up Colleen. I got the coffee made and was out on the back porch in plenty of time to greet the sun and the new day. Colleen and I had been looking forward to Saturday all week. We had done our homework and we were ready to start our new adventures. After we both had enjoyed our morning coffee and got ourselves set to rights, the first order of business was to get going with the homemade vanilla extract. Now, we could have just dropped the beans into a bottle, added the vodka and then shaken, not stirred, the stuff and been done. That is just not our style. After we finished the first bottle with vodka, we made two more, one with brandy and a second with spiced rum. Colleen really likes the idea of having three different, specialty vanilla extracts in her pantry. Unfortunately, Colleen won’t be able to see how this little experiment turns out until mid August. The vanilla beans need to sit in the spirits for at least 8 weeks.

Steven showed up at the house right about when Colleen and I had finished putting up the vanilla extract. Steven had some free time this weekend so he decided it was time to take down the very large and dying oak tree in our yard. This was not going to be an easy job so he got Alex out of bed to help with the rigging and the two of them got after it. Unfortunately, a little mishap cut the operation short. Steven was up in the tree when a rigging rope back lashed and nailed him. He came down from the top of the tree, unhitched himself from his harness ropes and sat there for a bit to collect himself. Stuff like that will shake you to your soul when you are at the top of a tree, so Steven decided to put the rest of the job off until another day. Fortunately, it does not appear Steven is badly hurt. He was sore, but not badly hurt. Alex collected and packed up Steven’s gear and carried the stuff out to the Steven’s truck. After a short break, the two boys cleaned up all the big branches and limbs that Steven had already dropped off of the tree. I haven’t finished splitting the last tree the boys dropped for me and now I have even more firewood with which to work. Maybe I’ll take a stab at it today sometime.

While the boys were working on the tree, Colleen was in the kitchen starting to prepare the hamburger meat we wanted to can on Saturday. That was our second big adventure of the day. Colleen and I are planning on retiring to a small, relatively remote farm that will be off the grid. The luxury of a big freezer is not something on which we are planning. By canning meats, we have another option for adding to our larder and food stores. Friday, on the way home, we picked up 13 pounds of burger. Colleen had found while doing her research there was some inconsistencies in methods, specifically in preparing the burger. She figured there was only one way to settle the issue and that was to try both ways, boiling the meat and frying the meat. The first 6.5 pounds of burger got boiled and the second 6.5 pounds got fried. To pack the meat Colleen made up some beef broth to add into the jars as well. I had set up a table and a gas camp stove on the back porch to do the actual canning. The first jars in the canner were the ones with the boiled burger. We only have one pressure canner so while I babysat the pressure canner Colleen got the fried burger jarred up and ready to go. When the boiled burger came out of the canner, the fried burger went into it. When we were done, we had 13 pints of canned hamburger.

It’s always good to go back and look at things you done, especially if it’s the first time you try something, and that’s exactly what Colleen and I did once all of the jars were out of the canner. The first thing we both saw was an easy one, one pound of burger cans up in one pint jar. As for the actual process, Colleen definitely prefers boiling the meat rather than frying it. When she boils the meat she does not have to deal with grease splattering and less grease ends up on the burger. This really became evident when the jars cooled. There was clearly more visible grease left on the fried meat. One thing interesting I noticed yesterday was with the canner itself. I usually have the table set up in shade, yesterday I had it in the middle of the porch. As soon as the sun got high enough and the clouds moved out the way so the sun could beat down directly on the canner, my pressure would increase by 2 pounds. It really wasn’t a problem since I was watching the canner pressure, but I did have to keep making minor flame adjustments. So where does all this leave us? The only real part of this experiment that is left is to use the burger and see if there is a flavor or texture difference.

With the canning behind us, it was time for me to pull the grill out for dinner. Grilled pork chops and grill baked potatoes are easy enough. Colleen steamed some snow peas and we had ourselves a quick and tasty meal. It’s a good thing too, because after going all day, Colleen and I were starting to run out of steam. We sure didn’t do much after dinner. Clean up was quick and after that we just kicked back and relaxed. During the summer that’s pretty much how our days go. We go hard straight through most of the day. If it’s too hot, we shut things down in the afternoon and try to get a little bit more done later, in the evening. Of course, the more strenuous the work the less time we’re likely to last. Saturday wasn’t too bad for us so it turned into a whole day affair.

Well, it’s Sunday morning. I’m not sure what will get done today. Colleen and I do have to make a market run. It should be a quick one. Tomorrow and Tuesday are teacher workdays so there is not a lot we need to do to get ready for the week. The weather seems to have settled down for the time being, and everything seems ready for summer which starts in just a little more than a week. It sure looks like Colleen and I are in for a great summer this year, but no matter what summer brings, Colleen and I will be taking it one day at a time. That’s a lesson we wish we had learned a long time ago, but better late than never, I guess. It’s a simple approach to life and it really helps us keep things moving in the right direction and ensures that all is right on the homestead.

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June 17, 2018: Our Summer Break Has Started!

And another week has come and gone and with a certain air of significance I might add. School is done for the summer. For two whole months, Colleen and I will not be a slave to the alarm clock, not that we sleep terribly late in the mornings anyway. More often than not we will be up with the sun. I will greet each new day, rain or shine, on my back porch with a cup of coffee in my hand. I will watch the wild animals and listen to the birds. I will take stock in the accomplishments of the day before and plan the road for the day ahead of me. On some days, quite a bit will get done and on some days, very little will get done around the house. Things will move as they will and at their own pace, and things will get done in their own due time. And should the opportunity present itself, there is a spot on a riverbank I know where I can wet a line and maybe catch a fish or two. Every day will feel like Saturday. Life will be simple and easygoing up here on our hill just the way it should be.

This past week started like so many of our weeks do with the alarm clock reminding us it was time to get up and head to school. Monday and Tuesday were teacher work days so I had to be at school. Colleen only had to go on Monday because, technically, it was a snow makeup day. On Monday, we had our teacher’s end of the year luncheon. Not much else really happened except for me getting an incredible thank you note from a graduating student with whom I had worked through their time at the school. The past school year had been tough on me and I was feeling, well, shall we say, less than wonderful about how things had turned out. The note the student left me changed my whole outlook and reminded me why I was there. Tuesday was another teacher work day, although all my work was done. When it was finally time for me to leave the building for the summer, I got in my truck and headed down the road to meet up with an old friend and to have a beer. My friend is a retired teacher and a couple of times a year we get together to get caught up. That is how all school years should end.

There was no alarm on Wednesday morning. I found my way to the back porch a little after sunup and savored a very leisurely cup of coffee while I pondered the day ahead of me. We had had some rain move through the area on Sunday and Monday nights so the ground down by the wood pile was still too wet to get out and split firewood. The ground was, however, dry enough for me to strip all of the branches and limbs Steven and Alex had dropped from the dying hickory tree last weekend. I think I mistakenly said it was an oak tree in my previous account. Between a chainsaw and a hand ax I managed to clean most everything off any fireplace sized wood and got quite a nice pile for my efforts. The smaller sticks, limbs, and leaves I left on the ground to be gathered later for kindling and compost. It wasn’t a bad day’s work for the first day of summer break.

Colleen had hopes of getting out into the gardens on Wednesday, but they were too wet for that as well, so she settled on cleaning some kitchen cabinets. Now, Colleen’s cabinets are clean and well ordered, as a rule, except for two, the one under the sink and the corner cabinet which doesn’t seem like it was designed for ease of access making it virtually useless except as a catchall for any infrequently used items that really don’t have a specific place in any other cabinet in the kitchen. The cabinet under the sink is particularly problematic because of all the water lines and sink drain lines are there. A couple of years back I replaced the leaky kitchen faucet and took the time to set all of the couplings and fittings in order. Colleen was very pleased to find that everything was still quite dry under the sink which had not always been the case before I spent that afternoon under there playing plumber.

We slid easily into Thursday and were able to get outside. Colleen started weeding and straightening out her flower gardens while I headed down to the woodpile. I’m still trying to split all of the rounds that Alex cut for me out of the big oak tree Steven and Alex had dropped a month or two back. It was not fun. I got into a couple of rounds that had knots and burl in them, and they didn’t want to come apart. By lunch time I was soaked to the skin with sweat. I mean I didn’t have a piece of dry clothing on and my pants were soaked down to my boots. Colleen and I took a break for lunch and while the back porch was still in shade, I relaxed some with a cigar in hopes I could get back to splitting firewood. Colleen went back to her gardens. Once I finished the cigar and headed back down to the woodpile, it didn’t take me long to realize I was done for the day. My arms felt like rubber and I couldn’t hit my mark with the maul to save my soul. I finally just headed out to where Colleen was and kept her company, helping where I could.

Friday started a bit differently than I had expected. I was up early with every intention of getting back down to the woodpile. Colleen had gotten up early too, thanks to the dogs. She had put together her menu for the upcoming week and made her market list. Just as I was finishing my coffee, she suggested we get our market run out of the way for the weekend. When Colleen asks something like that, do you really think I’m going to say no? Since this week our market run required a trip to Walmart we stopped to look at work boots because Colleen had wanted a new pair. Now granted, Walmart does not have the best work boots, but Colleen only wanted them for working around the yard. Didn’t my darling wife find just what she was looking for and they were on sale. The last pair she got lasted her 5 years and I suspect these will last her that long as well.

Colleen and I got home from our market run a little before noon, got everything into the house, ate a little lunch, and then headed outside to pick up where we left off on Thursday. Thankfully, the wood splitting was a whole lot easier. Colleen kept going in her gardens, but still never got to the garden along the fence in the side yard. Colleen started on Thursday intending to work on that garden. I guess we worked until mid to late afternoon. My arms gave out before Colleen did. Neither of us had much left in us by time dinner rolled around so it was an easy meal of leftovers. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing and staying cool. Honestly, there was not much else we were going to do after the busy day we had. Needless to say, bedtime came early for us.

Saturday was a fun day for us up here on the hill. Earlier in the week I had ordered Colleen a garden stool on wheels and a garden wagon and did not tell her. I totally caught Colleen off guard since she wasn’t expecting them. Colleen spent the morning gardening while I just puttered around waiting for her packages to arrive. I knew one or both would need assembling and I saw no point in getting wrapped up in something that would keep me from putting Colleen’s new toys together. Colleen’s stool showed up first and alone. She was quite excited to get it and it set the stage for the delivery of the wagon. When the mailman showed up Colleen figured it was just my cigars, but boy, oh boy, did her eyes get big when she realized I was carrying her garden wagon. I put the wagon together for her and off she went to do some more work in her gardens. She actually started working on the garden by the fence in the side yard. That was the garden she wanted to tackle on Wednesday.

Once the wagon was put together, I finally got to doing a little work around this place. Our peas had played out and that garden needed to be put back together so we could plant our summer beans. Last year that didn’t work out so well and we never did get any beans, but we’re going to give it a try again this year. I pulled all the pea plants out, weeded the garden, loosened all the soil, and leveled everything out. It was later in the afternoon when I finally finished, deciding to leave the furrowing and adding compost for today or maybe Monday. After the surprise and excitement of the morning and afternoon, the evening came and went with little fanfare. Alex had been gone all day and ended up spending the night at James’ place. Colleen and I had reheated leftover lasagna for dinner. The rest of the evening we spent relaxing.

Here it is Sunday, again, and it’s Fathers Day. Happy Fathers Day to all the dads. I might just have to take the day off today and sit on my back porch. I might even head out to the river to do a little fishing, but if I don’t that will be okay too. It sure has been one heck of a week though, and what a great start to our summer break. If the summer keeps trucking along like these first few days, it’s going to be an awesome two months. No matter though, Colleen and I will handle whatever comes along our way. Every day is a new day with unlimited potential. The crazy world out there always seems to be in a rush, but not up here on the hill, simple is the key word. Colleen and I are more than happy to let the world go zipping by while we drink our coffee and watch the grass grow. We’ll do what we can and let the rest take care of itself. That’s just the way things work up here on our little hill, and that’s why every morning I sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee, look around, and know that all is right on the homestead.

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June 24, 2018: Sometimes, You Just Have To Go With The Flow

Wow, what a week we have had. The weather has been hot and sticky all week and just for good measure, Mother Nature threw in a sporadic afternoon rain shower a couple of times. We got a little bit of a break on Friday and Saturday when the temperature just barely touched 90 degrees and the heat indices did not break 100. It was our first full week off from school and Colleen and I didn’t waste any time getting into our summer routine. In a nutshell that means we work outside until the heat of the day forces us to find some shade and some less physically demanding activities. Our water intake has nearly tripled as we try to stay hydrated, but it always seems when we finish our outside work we’re soaked to the skin. Summer just started last Thursday, but we’re already dealing with our typical hot and muggy North Carolina Piedmont summer days.

Our week really got off to a big start on Sunday afternoon. Colleen and I made a quick trip to Lowe’s. Colleen got some more flowers and some topsoil for her gardens. I got about a cubic yard of sandbox sand to put underneath the pool we wanted to get. Colleen and I got everything home and Alex helped us unload the truck. Since we had to retire our 10-year old pool last fall, Colleen and I had been squirreling away all of our pennies over the winter and spring so we could afford a new pool this year. Sunday was the day though. Alex and I took off to Walmart after the truck was unloaded to get our new pool. The pool is nothing fancy. It’s a simple soft side, metal frame 16ft x 48in deep above ground thing. Colleen had cleaned up the pad where the old pool had been while Alex and I were gone. When we got back, I scraped off all of the topsoil that had built up on top of the clay and sand. Colleen and I put the sand down and leveled it and then all three of us started putting the pool together. We were so intent on getting the pool put up that we worked well into the evening, forgetting that we had planned to BBQ for Father’s Day. Everyone went to bed exhausted Sunday night, but we got the pool up and ready to be filled with water.

There wasn’t much to do for the pool on Monday except fill it. Monday turned out to be a typical day around here. Colleen ran down to the laundromat with a couple of bags of laundry. I cleaned up the mess in the yard after putting the pool together on Sunday. In the afternoon, Colleen found some time to work in her garden. I used my Father’s Day proxy and sat in the shade for a while and smoked a special cigar I had saved for Father’s Day, but never got to enjoy on Sunday. For dinner we had the grilled pork chops, fried eggplant, and Creole style veggies which we also had planned for Sunday, but never got to cooking because we were working on the pool. Things sure looked like our first full week of summer break was definitely starting off on the right foot.

For as typical as Monday was, Tuesday morning started out with all kinds of crazy. Alex’s Explorer wouldn’t start. His starter is going home. I had him get underneath the thing and give the starter a good rap with and old ax handle. Apparently, the flywheel in the starter is wearing out and hitting the starter is a temporary solution to the problem that will let him start the Explorer. It was an old trick I remembered from my youth when the starter on my first car started to die. With Alex gone to work, the next order of business was to get Colleen’s car down to the shop. Even with her car turned off, the brake lights stayed lit. I had never run into that problem before and I was not of the mind to mess with the car. As it turned out, the switch behind the brake pedal had deteriorated and fallen apart. It took the mechanics all of 15 minutes to fix the problem and Colleen and I headed back home. They say things come in threes and that was two of them. The water level in the pool had gotten high enough to get into the filter by mid morning, and wouldn’t you know it the dang thing was leaking. I tried tightening everything up with the filter on the pool, but that didn’t help. I finally had to take the filter off of the pool. Yes, water was pouring out everywhere. I pulled the filter apart only to find the pump housing hadn’t been lined up properly. Once I got that straightened out and got the filter back in place, everything was fine. After all of that, I finally got to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee. The high note of the day, though, came after lunch when Colleen and I were able to get into a pool filled with cool water. With a triple digit heat index hanging over our heads, it was just the break we needed. Even Alex found his way to the pool when he came home from work. By Tuesday evening things finally settled down to a dull roar and we got our ship back on an even keel. Needless to say, I was pretty wiped out by the time my head hit the pillow.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday ended up being relatively uneventful when compared to Tuesday. Alex would leave for work, Colleen and I would have our coffee, and then it was out into the yard to get working before the heat of the day made it rough on us. Tuesday we sifted all the rocks, hickory nuts, and other debris out the piles of topsoil I had scraped off the pool pad. Good top soil is tough to find up here on our hill. Most all of the ground is good old hard packed North Carolina clay mixed with a good helping of rocks. We ended up making a holding area for the topsoil out of cinderblocks. We put it right next to one of our compost bins so Colleen and I would have easy access to it for our gardens. The job didn’t take too long with both of us working on it. When we finished I headed down to the woodpile to split firewood and Colleen started raking the yard. Before she’s done raking, she will have raked and cleaned up every square inch of our little half-acre.

Colleen and I picked right back up with the raking and wood splitting on Thursday and Friday. After my arms gave out on Thursday, I decided to do a little gardening. I furrowed the garden in which the peas had been. I had pulled the played out peas and prepped the garden last weekend. With my furrows and rows in place I planted Blue Lake bush beans. I side dressed all of the rows with compost and gave the garden a good, deep watering. Our beans didn’t do well last year, but we are optimistic this year, especially after our peas did so well. Despite all of our reading, our vegetable gardening is still hit or miss, but we are learning and getting better. Like most afternoons, Colleen and I found ourselves in the pool when the midday heat chased us from our outdoor activities. After getting out of the pool, Colleen would bake and I would work on the computer or do something small around the house that didn’t require burning up in the heat outside.

Colleen had just gotten out of the pool and was inside baking when the guy showed up to pump out our septic tank. It took the guy a few minutes to find the concrete slab covering the opening and then he had to dig through the hard dry clay to get to it, but once he got there everything else went fine. Unlike the last time, four years ago, when the tank was pretty full of sludge, this year the tank was in good shape. There may have only been 6 inches of sludge in the bottom of the tank. I think we may wait five years for the next time we get the tank pumped out. After all of the chaos on Tuesday morning, it was nice to have something actually work out the way it was supposed to work out. Now, there is just a spot of loose, broken clay to remind us there is one less thing that needs doing this summer.

Saturday I decided to take the day off from splitting firewood, well, I sort of gave the wood splitting a rest. I did quarter the last of the remaining rounds and staged them up by the chopping block. Colleen grabbed her rake and headed back out to keep working on the yards. The grass in the backyard was getting a little tall again, but not hay field high so Colleen wanted me to cut it before she tackled it with her rake. I almost got the backyard finished before the lawnmower bit the dust. I was able to coax the thing back to life long enough to finish the backyard, but I’m afraid it’s time to invest in a new lawnmower. Now, I just have to figure out where to get the money for it. It was after lunch when Colleen and I called it a day, and after a cool dip in the pool we hopped into my truck and headed out for a quick market run. Dinner ended up being burgers and we spent the rest of the evening just relaxing.

I’m not real sure what our plans are for today. Colleen said she would like to get back to her raking. I think I’ll really take a day off from splitting firewood again. I suppose I could get into the gardens today, but we shall see. Alex is still asleep, but maybe we’ll find our way down to the river bank later today. Even with our crazy Tuesday morning, it’s be a great week for us up here on the hill. Every day, we start with some loose plans of what we’d like to do that day, but nothing is ever set in stone. We may hit a bump in the road every now and again, but we try to take everything in stride. There just isn’t any point in getting worked up over things which are out of our control. We take things one by one and each day is a new adventure for us. So here we are. It’s another beautiful day and all is right on the homestead.

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July 01, 2018: Just Another Week Up Here On The Hill

The first full week of this summer is in the books. The weather was up and down, Colleen and I have settled into our summer routine. The temperatures were actually not terribly hot in the beginning of the week and on Tuesday it rained all day. It wasn’t a torrential rain, but it was steady enough to give everything a good soaking. Wednesday saw the temperatures start to climb and by Friday and Saturday we were dealing with triple digit heat indices. Today promises more of the same. The wet ground kept us out of the yards until Thursday and while things hadn’t completely dried up by Friday, Colleen and I were outside again taking care of things around the house. For a lot of folks this doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, but for Colleen and me, this is the kind of stuff for which we live. I guess you’d have to say we are the masters of the stay-cation, but it’s what we love and we’re only now coming up on the end of our third week of our summer break.

Monday, like usual, was designated as laundry day for Colleen. I forgot to tighten down the connector on the battery in Colleen’s car the week before when we had that funky problem with her break lights so her car didn’t start. She took my truck to do the laundry. When she got back and after I had tightened the connector to the battery post, we jump started her car and took it for a short drive to charge the battery. It really wasn’t anything major and we haven’t had an issue with her car since then, knock on wood. I did manage to get a little gardening work done during the rest of the morning. The pepper and tomato plants are now staked properly. Since I had a dentist’s appointment in the afternoon, I didn’t get much else done.

Monday’s dentist appointment didn’t go too badly. I had two more teeth pulled. One tooth was very loose and needed to come out. The second tooth had broken off at the gum line and needed to come out as well. My teeth aren’t the greatest. They never have been. Even with regular brushing and flossing, my teeth have been going downhill for a while. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will need dentures, probably next summer. I’d have it done this year, but like always there are financial issues involved. I wasn’t too sore Monday night and I had to go back on Tuesday morning for the dentist to check things out. Tuesday I was sore. The dentist told me he had to root around in my gum to get the broken tooth out and there was a bit of infection he had to clean up. By Wednesday, I was feeling like my old self once again.

The rain on Tuesday was a good enough reason to get Colleen going on cleaning the house. All of the bathrooms in the house got a good scrub down. I stayed out of her way for the most part and even managed to start cleaning my desk off. While I was up at my desk in the afternoon Colleen was busy in her kitchen. She was in a food experimenting frame of mind in an attempt to get some of the older things out of our box freezer in the basement. She took her basic paella recipe and turned it into a “Sweep The Kitchen” paella. You’re not likely to find this one in any cookbook, but it was fantastic! The flounder and shrimp she used really made for quite the tasty dinner. Fortunately, my mouth was starting to feel better so I got to really enjoy dinner.

Things were still pretty soggy on Wednesday morning so there really wasn’t the opportunity for us to get outside and work. Colleen picked up cleaning the house where she left off on Tuesday. The whole house got a very thorough vacuuming. Colleen got more than her share of exercise for the day though carrying canisters of dog hair out to the trash. I never knew my wife could mumble under her breath so much. I kept going on getting my desk cleaned off. I didn’t actually finish it until Thursday morning though. After lunch we paid our end of the month bills which is never fun, but we are in good shape for another month at least. The rest of the day was uneventful. Dinner was leftovers and we spent the evening relaxing.

Thursday morning it was Colleen’s turn to visit the doctor for a checkup. Everything went well and she was out of there in no time. She even stopped at the market on the way home, getting that task out of the way for the week. Colleen had gotten back early enough that we still had a good bit of time before the heat of the day had a chance to settle in around here. Colleen had wanted to move a couple of her rose bushes and her Bloomerang lilacs out of their pots on the back porch and into a permanent home. We found a suitably sunny spot in the front yard and started to build a new semi-raised bed garden. With the two of us working on the garden, we managed to get what little bit of turf there was covering the ground removed and relocated. I got the clay ground broken up and loosened enough so the ground in the garden could be worked. We even got the perimeter of the garden outlined in cinderblocks. The sun decided we had done enough at that point so we both retreated to the pool. We spent what was left of the afternoon and evening just doing a little of this and a little of that around the house.

Friday morning showed up and Colleen was on fire. She decided to do another laundry run with all of the towels and linens. While she was gone I started trimming the dogs’ claws. This is never a fun task around here. Daisy, in particular, does not like to have anyone mess with her paws, let alone clip her claws. I’d have to consider my morning’s endeavor a success even though I only managed to corral Daisy long enough to get her two front paws done. I’ll have to look for another opportunity to get her back paws. Colleen got home, got the laundry started, and then we were out working in the garden again. The dirt I had broken up on Thursday got amended with compost and top soil. The four bushes got planted. The rock wall got built around the garden and Colleen ceremoniously placed her garden gnomes in their appropriate spots. After that, all of the gardens got a good watering.

As you might have expected, we were in the pool by the middle of the afternoon. We knew Alex wouldn’t be home on Friday night. He was house sitting and pet sitting so Colleen put together a couple of her quiches for dinner. No, we didn’t eat both of them, the extra effort to make two instead of one is very minimal and the extra quiche would keep us in lunches for a few days. We spent Friday evening relaxing and I even watched a couple of old episodes of Mountain Men. I watched the show on my tablet, but that was the only TV I’ve watched in a couple of weeks since the last time I watched a couple of other episodes of the show. I’m just not much of a TV watcher and apart from the occasional baseball game, watching Mountain Men is the only other TV show I’m likely to watch.

Saturday was wood splitting day. I got down to the woodpile as early as I could to get going on it. I say as early as I could because I sure ain’t going to be doing anything without my morning coffee first. Anyway, while I was down there, Colleen started cleaning and reorganizing the back porch. We freed up a lot of space when we put the roses and lilacs in the ground on Friday. She finished her little project and then grabbed her rake and started in the backyard again. It was a little before lunchtime when I put the maul up. I had finished splitting all of the oak! The temperatures climbed rather quickly during the morning. Colleen called it a day for raking not to long after I finished. We did put another metal half-cord firewood rack together, but we were done after that. It was lunchtime and after lunch we headed straight for the pool.

Alex showed up for a while Saturday afternoon while I was on the front porch enjoying a cigar in the shade. He’d been house sitting at an old farmhouse since Friday evening and the gig lasts until July 4th. He needed some clean clothes and a few other odds and ends. I found out that he had replaced the starter in his Explorer earlier in the week, too, so everything was good by him. We asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner, but he didn’t saying he needed to get back. After he left, Colleen and I decided it would be a perfect evening to grill steaks. Colleen even experimented with a new recipe for brazed zucchini. It was good, but she’s got a bit more work with it until she gets it just right. The rest of the evening was quiet and I even called it an early night going to bed before the sun had set.

It’s been a quiet morning around here so far. I’ve been writing. Colleen is in the backyard raking. Since I’m finished splitting firewood for the time being, I may get back to digging post holes for the chicken pen. That’s another big project I want to finish this summer and maybe have chickens in the coop before we head back to school. I’m sure Colleen and I will find time to get into the pool today as well. It’s hard to believe that we’re already in our third week of summer break, but it sure has been a good one so far. Sadly, I also have the feeling the rest of our break will fly by on us. I sure could get used to living this way, but that won’t happen for another six years. Oh well, we’ll just keep plugging along and moving forward one day at a time. We really love this approach to a simple life. There isn’t much for us to worry about for sure. We get up every morning, grab some coffee, decide what needs to be done, and do it. The only thing we know for sure is that life is good up here on our hill and that all is right on the homestead.

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July 08, 2018: July 4th And A Weekend Gathering After The Fact

Summer is definitely here! Last week sure was a hot one. We had triple digit heat indices pretty much all week until the rain cooled things off on Friday evening and through Friday night. Colleen and I were able to get out into the yards most mornings, but the heat of the day usually chased us to the pool by midday. Once again this summer, the pool is proving to be quite the relief from the North Carolina summer heat. Needless to say, we keep the fans running around the clock and for the most part the house stayed fairly comfortable. The evenings would get a little sticky as the humidity crept up, but for the most part it wasn’t too terrible. Of course, we would be pretty worn out by the time the days ended so sleeping wasn’t too big of an issue for us. Saturday cooled off nicely after Friday night’s rain and this morning everything is quite pleasant. I am afraid the heat will be back starting tomorrow, and it looks like we’re in for another stretch of hot weather for the week ahead of us. Yep, summer is definitely here in Central North Carolina!

Monday started like out most Mondays. Colleen was out the front door, headed to the laundromat, after she finished her coffee. I worked in the gardens some during the morning. Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, I had to pull the cabbage we had growing in the back raised beds. Worms! The cabbage in the front gardens is doing okay, but I am keeping an eye on it. Only about half of our bush beans sprouted. I guess it must have been a bad batch of seeds. The Lima beans on the other hand are really thriving. Cleaning up the gardens didn’t take a bunch of time and Colleen did get to harvest some fresh oregano and sage to dry. After the gardens though, it was back to digging post holes for me. Colleen got some more raking done, too. It wasn’t long after lunch before the heat of the day chased us into the pool.

For all that was typical about Monday, the late afternoon and evening turned into something very special. An old friend of mine from college was in the area and stopped by for a long overdue visit. It was hard to believe it had been 30 years or so since we had last spent any time together. We sat on the back porch sipping whisky and smoking cigars, getting caught up on our lives. The conversation was awash with memories of our college days and old friends, and our families and the different roads our lives had taken. The evening passed all too quickly, but both my friend and I have agreed to not let so much time slide by us before we get together again. Getting together with my friend after so many years was very much like realizing my kids are grown and on their own now. Where did all the time go?

Tuesday morning showed up right on schedule, but there was not any hole digging or yard raking that was going to get done. Colleen and I started the morning slowly. Waking up with coffee was, as usual, our first order of business. The temperatures were climbing fast so Colleen and I decided to do a quick market run and make a swing by Lowe’s garden center. I came home from Lowe’s with some packages of bush bean seeds to replant my garden and Colleen came home with a bunch of flowers to add some color to her new garden. Needless to say, we spent the early part of Tuesday afternoon planting flowers before we headed to the pool. I did cook dinner Tuesday evening on the grill. The grilled yellow-fin tuna was easy, but Colleen let me use her big cast iron skillet to try her new braised squash recipe out on the grill. I can proudly say, “I nailed it!” After a hot day, a dinner of braised squash and grilled tuna was just what the doctor ordered.

Wednesday was the 4th of July and, unlike so many years in the past, Colleen and I spent it quietly at home. There was no family gathering or fireworks this year. I did get to spend a good bit of the morning, on the phone, talking to Louis who had to stay on base for the holiday. Colleen was busy in the kitchen making a batch of potato salad. Colleen’s logic said that you had to at least have some potato salad on the 4th of July. Colleen and I did get the last of our berries picked off of the black raspberry bush on the back porch. We only have one black raspberry bush in a pot on the back porch. In all, I’d say we got a good cup of berries from it. In the grand scheme of things, though, that isn’t a great deal of berries, but Colleen came up with the idea of making some black raspberry extract to go with our homemade vanilla extract. The rest of our day passed quietly and uneventfully in unusual fashion for a holiday.

Thursday found us gearing up to get ready for our planned gathering of the clan on Saturday. We needed to make a quick run to Costco and the market. We found out on Tuesday that Al and Alysia we’re hoping we’d bring smoked ribs to the festivities. Okay, no problem and smoked ribs have been a 4th of July standard with the family for quite some time. Once we got home from our little outing, Colleen started organizing her recipes and ingredients and I cut down three slabs of ribs into groups of two or three ribs each. Colleen dry rubbed all of the ribs and found a place for them in the refrigerator. This is always easier said than done. The rest of the afternoon and evening was quiet. Colleen set her kitchen in order and I finished working on a computer project I had started early in the day.

Friday had rain in the forecast for late afternoon and through the night. Right after I finished my coffee, I got the smoker fired up and got the ribs going. I have a variety of smoking woods from which to choose. Hickory is usually my standard go to for ribs, but this year I decided on cherry wood. While I was babysitting the smoker and getting it to settle, Colleen was down by the shed raking another section of the lot. She was feeling guilty because she had let it slide for a day. I sure don’t know why, with all the work she puts into it, and she still has a good bit of summer left. Anyway, the heat got the better of us by noon so we found ourselves in the pool earlier than usual. That worked out okay, though, because after lunch Colleen made her coleslaw and deviled eggs for Saturday. I pulled the ribs from the smoker just as clouds started to fill the skies. Oh boy was this ever a good batch, too. The bones pulled easily and cleanly from the meat and there was a thin, very flavorful crust, on the top of the meat. Colleen and I decided right then and there we had to have ribs and some of her 4th of July potato salad for dinner.

It rained all Friday night and into Saturday morning. Alex showed up right on time. Colleen and I took care of a few last minute things and then loaded up the truck and headed west to Al and Alysia’s place for the gathering. The sun was starting to chase the clouds by the time we got there and it was bright and sunny by the time the other guests started to arrive. Al and Alysia had invited other friends to the gathering and surprised us with one special guest. One of Alysia’s high school and college friends who spent so much time at our house, that she became like another daughter, was in town from Colorado. The kids had invited her and her family, but kept it as a surprise for us. It was so good to see this now young lady whom we had not seen in almost 10 years. Everything about the gathering was fantastic. Colleen even brought and cracked open the bottle of moonshine she had won at the murder mystery dinner party we attended in May. We got home early in the evening. We were a bit worn out and tired from the traveling and the afternoon’s activities, but there were big smiles on our faces from spending a wonderful afternoon with family and friends.

This morning I was quite surprised to wake up to unusually cool midsummer temperatures. It was only 60 degrees on the back porch when I got out there with my morning coffee. I’m not complaining, mind you, because this is a welcome break from last week’s heat. I’m not too sure what Colleen and I will do today, but I’m sure we’ll be outside enjoying the cooler temperatures. I suspect after the big to do yesterday, today will be quiet around this place. I’m pretty sure Colleen wants to have a Sunday dinner, too, even if it is just for the two of us today. It sure does look like it will be another peaceful and calm day up here on our half-acre. I’m not real sure what’s going on in this crazy world today, but up here on hill life is good and all is right on the homestead.

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July 15, 2018: Summer Break Is Half Over Already

Colleen and I are half way through our summer break and we’re not quite sure what has happened to it. It’s not like we’ve done anything extraordinary. Apart from running errands, the furthest we’ve been away from our half-acre hill was the Saturday afternoon we spent at our daughter’s house. We did shell out a couple of hundred bucks on a new swimming pool, but I wouldn’t call that extravagant and it did replace the pool we had for the 10 years prior to this year. For all the things our summer has not been in some people’s eyes, it has been a great summer for Colleen and me so far. The weather has been pretty good. We’ve handled the bumps in the road without too much difficulty. Everybody is healthy and happy so what else could we ask? The world is a crazy place, but up here on our little hill everything is tranquil and there is very little for which we want.

After our afternoon of family and festivities on Saturday, last Sunday turned out to be a slow day. In fact, I don’t think Colleen and I really got moving until lunchtime. I finally got around to doing a little maintenance on the back porch. One of the cross braces needed to be shored up. The fix wasn’t terribly difficult, but it was at the point where it needed to be done. I spent the rest of the afternoon digging post holes for the run around our chicken coop. Oh boy, it sure isn’t much fun digging through clay and having to get by tree roots and rocks. While I was outside Colleen spent the afternoon sewing window screens to fit our windows and replacing the old screens with the new ones. We have weird windows. The windows are tall, didn’t have screens on them originally, are mounted with hinges on the sides, and open like doors. A few years back Colleen figured how a way to make screens she could mount on the inside of the window frames that didn’t get in the way when we opened and closed the windows.

Monday started out like most other Mondays around here with Colleen heading down to laundromat first thing in the morning. Colleen spent the rest of the day running up and down stairs to keep loading the dryer and putting away the dry and folded clothes. In between all of that, she did her usual Monday housework. Heck, she even managed to put a patch on a pair of my threadbare work pants so I can get another year or two of wear and tear out of them. All the while Colleen was inside I was outside tending the gardens or digging post holes again. I never did get the root out of that fourth hole. I did get a couple of decent sized rocks loosened up and pulled out of the hole, however, at least I can get the metal post deep enough in the hole now. I still need to scratch up a little extra money to buy enough concrete to set the poles in the post holes, one thing at a time.

Tuesday I had a dentist appointment. I’ve always had problem with my teeth and a few years back I got a good infection in my gums. I don’t think I ever really got rid of it completely, but I’ve able to keep it in check for the most part. Earlier this summer it started to get away from me again so I bit the proverbial bullet. I had two teeth pulled out in late June and Tuesday I had four more teeth taken out. Apart from stitches in my mouth right now, my mouth feels better than it has in a very long time. I should be getting my bridge and crown within the next two weeks. After I got home, I was pretty worthless so I took some ibuprofen and a 3-hour nap. Colleen spent her day raking down in the southeast corner of our lot. At least there is plenty of shade there. After dinner, which was a bit weird missing a bunch of teeth, I felt well enough to do some weed whacking on the eastern property line.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty sedate as I tried to get back to feeling normal after my dental adventure on Tuesday. Colleen spent both mornings raking. I hit the tall weeds with the weed whacker in the mornings and evenings to avoid the heat of the day. The heat indices climbed back up into triple digits and chased Colleen into the pool by noon on both days. I did find some shade on Thursday and spent a good bit of time cleaning my chainsaw and making sure it was sharp. I wouldn’t have believed the dentist trip and heat would have drained me so much, but it sure kicked my butt. I didn’t feel like I got too much done, but, in hindsight, I guess I held my own at least. Apart from her raking, Colleen went about her daily activities all the while keeping a watchful eye on her stubborn husband who kept insisting he was fine. Alex made it home Wednesday evening after work and after nearly two weeks of house sitting. By Thursday evening, everything up here on our hill had managed to get back to its usual routine.

Friday mornings have become our new time to get our weekly summer market runs out of the way. Colleen and I, by accident, found out that there usually aren’t a lot of people in the stores on Friday mornings and we like that. As you might expect, with a market run on the schedule, no yard work got done on Friday morning. Colleen checked her pantry and larder, put her shopping list together and by mid-morning we were on our way. This is the time of year we have to really watch our budget. Colleen and I got our last paycheck on the 1^st of June and won’t get another one until the 1^st of September. We were in and out of the store in no time. We got back home about lunch time, got our stores brought into the house, and had a little lunch. Colleen chased me from the kitchen so she could get everything put away. I got on the computer to do a little website work. Not much else got done Friday afternoon except for Colleen frolicking in the pool. Alex got home early. Dinner was a simple meal of hot dogs and beans. After dinner I did some more weed whacking and Colleen watered our gardens. In the grand scheme of things, it was a quiet and peaceful day overall.

Saturday found Colleen and I back out in the yard. I finished the last of the weed whacking. Colleen got back to her raking, well that and waging war on some vines climbing up one of the trees. We actually got a slow start on things and ended up working into the heat of midday. With the tall weeds out of the way, the maple tree that Steven and Alex had dropped for firewood was easily accessible again so I fired up the chainsaw and got to cutting it up. I hadn’t finished cutting and hauling all of the wood by the time the midday heat chased Colleen and me to the shade and then the pool, but I made a dent and there is still a good bit of summer left in which I can finish the work. Colleen and I spent the rest of the day more or less just kicking around the house. Colleen made a couple of her potato pies for dinner and, after dinner, the evening passed quietly into night. There is always more stuff to do around this place, but, after the week we had, we saw no point in trying to work ourselves to death.

Anyway, here it is Sunday morning again. It’s a beautiful morning and not too terribly hot, yet. Alex is still asleep and James may be heading this way before too long. I figure we might get to do a little fishing today. Colleen is already on the front of the house raking the yard and the dogs are outside keeping an eye on her. Colleen told me she’s on a mission today because she’s close to finishing the job. I’m not sure if she’ll finish today, but soon. As for me, I think I’ll get another cup of coffee and some breakfast. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do today. That’s pretty much the way most days go around here. Colleen and I take a look at things and then decide what direction in which we will go. It’s a simple life and it’s a good life. We don’t let things bother us and everything gets done in its due time. The world is a crazy place, but up here on our little half-acre on the side of our hill everything is calm and peaceful and all is right on the homestead.

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July 22, 2018: A Quiet Week And The Winter Wood Starts Getting Stacked

Well, it’s actually been kind of a quiet week around these parts. The weather has been pretty cooperative and not terribly hot. The dentist didn’t pull any more of my teeth this week. Colleen and I didn’t stray too far from home, but then we rarely do anyway. There were no unexpected emergencies with which to deal. I think this has been the first week all summer where everything was calm and peaceful. On the down side, Colleen and I did realize we had reached the halfway point of our summer break. It’s hard to believe to summer is just whipping right by us. I’m not complaining though. This has been a fantastic summer so far and we’re looking for the second half to be every bit as wonderful as the first half. I will say one thing, if this is any indication of how my retirement is going to go, the next six school years better pass quickly.

I sure didn’t do a lot last Sunday. I had hoped to go fishing, but that never happened. I just hung around on the back porch and wrote mostly. Colleen spent the better part of the day raking the lot on the east side of the house. Since I hadn’t done a whole lot during the day, I volunteered to cook dinner to give my darling wife the evening to relax. I cooked everything on the grill, the baked potatoes, the braised summer veggies, and the pork chops. Dinner turned out wonderful if I do say so myself. The braised veggies turned out to be the highlight of the meal. Colleen has been playing with the recipe the last few times she’s made them and this time, following her directions, I think we nailed it down. Looking back, I’m thinking I may really have needed the down day on Sunday to relax.

Monday rolled around and with it Colleen’s usual run to the laundromat first thing in the morning. I figured it would be a good day to get out and cut some firewood, but my chainsaw didn’t quite agree with me. I spent most all of the morning disassembling and reassembling the dang thing. I didn’t get it started or running until after lunch. Once it was running better, I decided I probably should get some cutting done. That wasn’t one of my smartest moves. Oh, I got a bunch of the smaller stuff from the maple tree on the ground cut up, but the high sun and the midday heat reminded me why I try to get as much work done around here as I can BEFORE lunch. Anyway, after I cut what I could and hauled everything I had cut to where I was going to split it, I called it quits for the day. I think even my socks were soaked with sweat by then. Colleen spent the day in the house running up and down stairs to dry, fold, and put away laundry and to vacuum. I say vacuum, but maybe collecting dog hair might be a better description. By middle of the afternoon we were both cooling off in the pool.

I had plans for Tuesday. I had a late morning dentist appointment. I headed down there and actually came out of the dentist’s office with the same number teeth with which I went in this time. The only thing the Doc took out was the stitches in my mouth. Everything was healing just fine and the next time I head into the office to see him will be to get some new teeth. Colleen had gotten out in the yard in the morning to do more raking. When I got home from my appointment Colleen had finished her raking project and was working in her gardens. I knew there was a weather front moving into the area, so after a bite of lunch, I headed to the river to get a little fishing in before the storms showed up. It was the first time I got to go fishing this summer and I sure called it one wrong. Fishing was slow. Besides a bunch of small blue gills, the only thing I caught was a turtle. Fortunately, I got the hook out of its mouth without hurting it. It was sure happy when it got back in the water. Around 5 o’clock there were some dark clouds building to the south of me and the rumble of distant thunder let me know my afternoon of fishing was done. Oh well, a bad day fishing is still better than a good day doing most anything else.

Tuesday’s rain had passed through during the night and come Wednesday morning, the sun was shining and everything was starting to dry out. I spent the morning buried in gardening books. It’s getting time to start thinking about planting our fall and winter gardens. I don’t know much about kale, but it seems like it might prove to be a good over winter crop and ideal for ground cover in the gardens too. Things had dried enough by the afternoon so I was able to get outside and cut up some more of the maple tree that was on the ground along the eastern property line. I figure I have another day or two of cutting and then I need to split it all to let it finish seasoning. Colleen spent her day in the kitchen. It was experiment day for her. She ended up working on three new test recipes. Her pasta salad turned out okay, but her cookie bars and zucchini and tuna fish patties came out fantastic! Even though we didn’t spend much time outside the day proved to be a very productive day.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were dedicated to hauling split firewood and stacking it in the winter ready racks. Alex had to work all three days so it was just Colleen and me out there at the wood piles. Colleen and I managed to get a little bit more than a half cord hauled and stacked each day. Since all of the wood is either on the back side of the house or at the bottom of our hill, everyday proved to be a dandy workout for us. We managed to get all of the wood in the seasoning racks on the east side of the house moved. The wood at the bottom of the hill down by the wood line really is a lot of work to move, but we’ve at least managed to make a dent in the first pile. Almost everything we’ve moved so far has been oak, dense and heavy. Colleen worries about me so we’re only filing my wheelbarrow about two-thirds full since I’ve got to push it up the hill. Her garden wagon has been a real plus this year. We fill it up just enough so she can get it up the hill. Even with us moving two loads of wood at a time up the hill, the going is slow and arduous at best. We had hoped to move a full cord on Saturday, but it didn’t take us long to realize we were spent after moving just a half cord. There’s still quite a bit of wood at the bottom of the hill, but even with that I’m thinking we may come up short for this winter’s supply, so I’m keeping my eyes peeled for any opportunity to add to our racks. I’m even watching for a chance to start building our supply for the winter of 2019-20.

Rain moved into the area on Saturday night and this morning it’s still raining gently. Colleen and I expected that would be the case so we started adjusting our plans yesterday afternoon. If everything works out for us, we may take a trip to the Farmers Market today and get some tomatoes to can and add to our larder for the upcoming year. We’ll probably want to be on the lookout for cucumbers too so we can make some more dill pickles. It’s still too early for apples and pumpkins, but they are on our list too and fall will be here before we know it. Heck, we’re just getting over the shock of realizing our summer break from school is already more than half over. We sure can’t worry about that though because there is still a lot to get done, so we’ll make the best use of our time whether we have, sunshine or rain. So far, all I can say is that it has been a really fantastic summer albeit a quick one. Colleen and I will keep taking things one day at a time. Life is good up here on our hill and there’s nothing better than waking up every morning knowing that all is right in the homestead.

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July 29, 2018: Is July Really Almost Over Already?

It’s hard to believe that July is almost over. Last week was the last full week of the month and August starts on this coming Wednesday. It sure hasn’t felt much like summer with the way the weather has been lately. It seemed that it rained every morning from Sunday through Thursday. Some of those days we were lucky enough to see the sun during the afternoon, but it was never out long enough to dry anything up. At least the gardens fared well. As luck would have it, here it is Sunday again and we have gray skies and the possibility of rain showers popping up everywhere. Come to think about it, it hasn’t just been the weather of late that was screwy. The weather all summer long hasn’t been quite right. We’ve had a few hot days, but this summer hasn’t been terribly hot around here. Since I’m talking about it now, watch Mother Nature mess with our heads, because that’s how she is, and crank a heat way up for the last half of the summer. There sure isn’t a whole lot I can do about the weather, so we’ll just wait and see what comes our way and deal with it then.

Sunday’s gray morning gave way to a bit of sunshine in the afternoon. Colleen and I made the 2-hour round trip the NC State Farmers Market right around lunchtime. With rainy weather forecast for the upcoming week, we figured it would be a golden opportunity to get a little canning done. We ended up coming home with 60 pounds of Roma tomatoes. Since we got home in the middle of the afternoon there was no way we were going to start canning late in the day, so the tomatoes went in a cooler with a little of ice to hold overnight. On Monday morning after Colleen got back from doing the laundry, the two of us dove right into our canning. It took us the better part of the day, but we had everything done and cleaned up before dinner time. Our 60 pounds of tomatoes yielded 18 stuffed quarts jars of canned tomatoes.

Colleen and I spent Tuesday inside all day. We got a bunch of cleaning done and we got to work on a few projects we had laying around. Wednesday started out pretty much the same way, except I had a dentist appointment in the middle of the day. Right before I got home, one dandy storm cell blew up over our hill. By the time I got home the rain had all but stopped. Unfortunately, the storm took the power out as well. The power was only out for a couple of hours, but the afternoon was shot. I guess the two biggest things to come out of Tuesday and Wednesday were first, all of the work Colleen did in her cookbooks over the two days and second, was me getting my set of teeth on Wednesday. In all this summer I’ve had six upper teeth pulled and now, I have a near full set false teeth to replace all of the missing ones.

Thursday turned out to be the craziest day of the week. The rain had ended before day break, but everything was still soaked. Wet or not I figured I needed to do something outside so I grabbed my chainsaw and headed out to finish cutting the maple tree on the ground into rounds for splitting. I got through about half of the main trunk when the seal on the bar oiler let go and I had bar oil all over the place. That was the end of my tree cutting for the day. With all of the storms and rain, not much had been done with the pool all week, so next on the list was pool maintenance. I changed out the filter cartridge and went to start the filter and found out it was dead. The new filter is a pool side mount filter and the cost of replacing one is dang near as much as I paid for the pool and filter. Fortunately, I had saved the old filter from the pool we had last year. It took me a little bit of figuring, but I managed to run the water through the broken new filter to the old filter and everything was up and going again by the middle of the afternoon.

Despite a bunch of unexpected hiccups during the day on Thursday, everything started looking up during the evening. Alex got home right around dusk after working late to make some extra money. He told me it wouldn’t be any problem for him to borrow a chainsaw from work so we could finish cutting up the last of the maple tree. He also said he might be able to get a bunch more hardwood brought to the house from the trees they cut on the job. He even pointed me in the direction of getting a new and affordable chainsaw to replace my old one. Of course, I will have to do some budget juggling to pull off getting the new chainsaw, but everything was sure looking a far cry better than it did around lunchtime. I guess that just goes to prove that everything happens when it should.

Friday was market run day for Colleen and me. Like every summer, our budget is getting tighter the deeper we get into summer. I still needed a lawnmower so we ended up going to Walmart for our run. I checked out what they had for lawnmowers and opted for one at half the price of my original budget. I had to forego the self propelled model that I thought I wanted. After we got our groceries and other supplies paid for and loaded into the truck, I shot back into the store to get the lawnmower. We got everything home and after lunch I pulled the lawnmower from the box, put it together which wasn’t difficult, and gave it a test try on the side yard. I was very happy to find the mower I picked was both light and easily maneuverable. I didn’t take me long to realize it was a better choice than the self propelled model I had originally wanted. I always say everything happens for a reason. I figured the reason out this time a bit quicker than most other times.

Saturday gave us a beautiful morning and Colleen and I didn’t waste the opportunity to get outside and get some work done either. Friday’s sunshine had dried everything out nicely so cutting the grass in the backyard was the first thing on my “To Do” list. While I was cutting the backyard Colleen was raking up the doggy land mines in the side yard. After that, Colleen and I were back in the wood hauling business. We moved another half cord of firewood up from where I had split it at the bottom of our hill and stacked it in the winter ready rack. That gives us two and half stacked cords of firewood with about that again to go. Of course, Colleen could not abide the mess of bark and wood shards left on the ground so she had to rake the area clean. There is still a little bit of a pile of split wood down there that we’ll have to bring up to the racks and there is a pile of hickory that needs to be cut and split before it can be moved. Once I get my new chainsaw, it looks like I’ll be back to cutting and splitting firewood again. There’s a bunch of cut maple on the other side of the house that needs to be split as well.

Saturday afternoon warmed up nicely without getting blast furnace hot. It was still hot enough to chase both of us into the pool by early afternoon. After our little break to cool off, Colleen paid the end of the month bills. This is always the tough time financially since neither Colleen nor I have been paid since the end of May and won’t get paid again until the end of August. The rest of the day was pretty quiet. Having been somewhat of a busy day, Colleen and I elected to have pizza for dinner. The pizza place isn’t nearly as busy on Saturday evening when compared to Friday evening. It was the first pizza we have had since I had six teeth pulled earlier this summer. Happily my new teeth worked just fine so it looks like pizza is back on the menu.

Well, it’s Sunday morning and Colleen and I are getting ready to head out to the Farmers Market again today. We’ll be looking for cucumbers to make this year’s batch of dill pickles. Alex was up early today too. He’s already cut the last part of the trunk of the maple tree that I couldn’t finish earlier in the week. I guess it’s true what they say, “All’s well, that ends well.” Even with a few bumps in the road it has been another great week. Colleen and I did get our letters from school reminding us that our summer break is rapidly coming to an end, but we still have three weeks so the letters got put up for the time being. It’s been a great summer so far. Like usual, we haven’t got nearly everything accomplished that we had hope to get done when our break started. We’re used to that though, and everything will sit and wait for us to get to it sooner or later. Life is good up here on our hill and without a doubt, I can truly say, all is right on the homestead.

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August 05, 2018: The Rain Has To Stop Some Time

It’s hard to believe, but here we are and it’s the first weekend in August. For the life of me, I cannot ever remember August ever starting out so dang wet, either. The rains rolled in last Sunday evening and, apart from a few hours during a couple of afternoons, it has rained every single day this week. Most of the time the rain wasn’t too bad, but Thursday turned into a day of gullywasher after gullywasher. Friday’s rain was not hard, but it was steady up through the afternoon. The wind started to pick up a bit too. Between the soggy and saturated ground, the light breeze, and more rain on Friday, the roots of some rather large trees started to pull out of the ground along the sides of the ravine that had runoff racing through it and the trees came crashing down. All of the rain had pretty much left the area by Saturday morning and the sun made an early appearance, hanging around all day Saturday and through this morning. Unfortunately, the forecast calls for the rain to be back in the area by midweek.

In anticipation for the rain at the start of last week, Colleen and I headed down to the Farmers Market on Sunday and picked up a bushel of pickling cucumbers so we could can dill pickles on Monday. While we were gone, Alex finished cutting the last section of the trunk of the maple that I couldn’t finish cutting the week before when my chainsaw died. We ended up getting home a little after lunchtime, so we grabbed ourselves some leftovers before we tackled the afternoon. Colleen decided our cucumbers needed washing so she washed and dried each and every one of them before putting them in a cooler to hold over night. Alex took off to go fishing with Steven in the middle of the afternoon. I headed outside to stack all of the maple that Alex had cut up. Any upcoming break in the weather we get will most likely find me out splitting wood again since I only have a week and half of summer break left.

Monday was laundry day and dill pickling day. Colleen was out the front door heading to the laundromat right after she finished her morning coffee. I started setting everything up for our canning adventure while she was gone. Colleen was back in less than an hour with the washed laundry and two extra cases of quart jars. The Dollar Store is right next to the laundromat. Once Colleen got the clothes started in the dryer, our pickling started in earnest. It took us all morning and into the early afternoon, but by 2 o’clock we had turned a bushel of cucumbers into 29 quart jars of dill pickles. We tried something new this year. We only sliced the pickles in half instead of into spears. With any luck, the pickles will be crunchier this year, but we won’t know for sure until we get to try them. The pickles have to sit for at least two weeks before we can open a jar.

The rain pretty much kept Colleen and me in the house and limited what we could do Tuesday through Thursday. Colleen decided to make another run to the laundromat on Tuesday to wash linens. The rest of Tuesday and right through Thursday she spent cleaning the house and baking. I helped when I could and stayed out of her way when I couldn’t. I spent a good bit of time in front of the computer working on website maintenance and school related stuff. By Thursday both of us were bumping into walls and each other as we both started to get a minor case of cabin fever. Alex had a particularly rough Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday he was driving the company truck towing a trailer when the wheel of the trailer caught the edge of the pavement and jerked off to the side of the road taking the back end of the truck with it. Thursday he was a passenger in another truck that ended up getting into a minor accident because of the heavy rain. Fortunately, no one got hurt and vehicle damage was minimal in both cases, but Alex came home both nights looking like he had been wrung out and hung up to dry.

Friday morning started with Colleen and I heading out after our morning coffee to do our weekly market run. The rain hung around until the early afternoon. The sun actually came out for 5 minutes until Colleen said something about it and then it got scared and hid behind the clouds for the rest of the day. I took advantage of the break in the rain to walk around the place and check things out. I didn’t see any of the trees that we had heard fall earlier in the day. The yard had a few new runoff ruts in it and it was cluttered with dead limbs and branches that the wind had blown out of the trees. The gardens were holding their own. The beans and Lima beans looked like they were starting to get flowers, lots of flowers. The pool, on the other hand, while not cluttered with debris to the extent one might expect after several days of storms was rather full of water. The water level was within a half-inch of the top of the pool. I ended up siphoning out about 400 gallons of water to get the water level back down to its usual level. Alex came home feeling pretty good on Friday night having not been in any vehicular incident for the first time in two days. Alex didn’t stick around long though. He headed over to James’s place for the night.

It may have rained Friday night, but Saturday morning the sun was shining. Colleen and I were still enjoying our morning coffee when Steven showed up to take down a dead tree for the neighbors. Alex had to go to work so I helped Steven by running his rigging. Steven is darn good at what he does and he proved it again Saturday. The tree that had to come down was 10 feet from the deck. Piece by piece, limb by limb, the tree came down. Not one piece of wood other than a few twigs hit the deck. Then Steven dropped the last 30 feet of the main trunk right in between a couple of other trees without hitting them either. This was no small tree. The base diameter was 24 plus inches. We had the job done by 1 o’clock and Steven headed on his way to another side job for the day.

The rest of our Saturday was pretty uneventful. Alex got home from work. Steven and Anna Maria swung by the house later in the afternoon for a quick visit. Colleen put together some Italian sausage subs for dinner. Alex took off after dinner to spend the night at James’s place again. Colleen and I spent the evening relaxing and trying to prioritize what needs to be done around this place before we heard back to school in a couple of weeks. We’re looking at a couple of days of sunny weather before the rain comes back. I’ll need to get the yard cut for sure and our gardens sure could use some attention. With any luck, by the time Labor Day gets here, we’ll have the fall and winter gardens planted too.

It’s turned into a beautiful morning and as much as I would like to just sit on my back porch and enjoy the day, there are things that need doing. Colleen already has the dogs outside with her and she is working in the front yard. Our summer is screaming by us, but what a great summer it has been so far. I dare say it has been one of our best summers ever. There is still a bunch to get done, though, before school starts back in a few weeks. Heck, before we know it, school will be in full swing and we’ll have our eyes set on our Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Yea, I know it’s only August. Well, I better get moving. Things sure won’t get done with me sitting up here on my back porch. Even with all of last week’s rain, it was another great week up here on the hill. Everyone is doing great and life is good and that is how things should be because all is right in the homestead.

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August 12, 2018: It Was The Last Full Week Of Summer Break

This is it folks. This weekend is my last weekend of the 2018 summer break. Teacher workdays start this coming Thursday. Colleen and I have had a great summer despite the wonky weather we’ve had. The weather didn’t disappoint us last week either. Everything was dried out enough on Sunday and Monday so Colleen and I could get outside to work. There was plenty of sunshine during the days, but the rain seemed to find us every evening. Mother Nature hit us with the worst of it on Wednesday afternoon and through the night. They sure were some dandy storms cells that blew up on us. The ground was still pretty saturated so when the rains became torrential and the wind started to really blow, trees started pulling out of the ground. Fortunately, all the trees that fell around here weren’t close to the house so nothing up here was damaged. The rain stopped and we had sunshine again on Thursday afternoon. The rain came back Thursday night, and Friday night was a repeat of Thursday night. Yesterday we had a break again and today looks to be about the same as Thursday and Friday. The constant through all the weather flip flops was the oppressive humidity. Fortunately, it never got hot enough to drive the heat indices above the century mark.

Colleen I spent last Sunday working out in the yard. She got her rake and cleaned up the storm debris from the previous week. I got the lawnmower and weed eater out and took care of the grass before the place turned back into a hay field. I guess we stayed busy out in the yard until early afternoon by which time we were both wringing wet with sweat. Like I said, the dang humidity has been oppressive. It got to the point where we just had to call it quits so we put our stuff up and headed for the pool to cool off. Other than that, Sunday was pretty uneventful. Alex went fishing with Steven during the afternoon. Colleen experimented in the kitchen with a new recipe. I sat in front of a fan and worked on the computer. Since it was basically the start of my last full week of summer break I saw no reason to bust my tail anymore than necessary. Anything that wasn’t done could wait until I got around to it.

Monday morning rolled around and I guess it hadn’t rained too hard Sunday night because things weren’t too wet. Colleen headed down to the laundromat first thing in the morning. When she got back and got everything going in the dryer in the basement, we headed outside to take advantage of the sunshine and cooler morning temperatures. Our big goal for the day was to get the last of the split oak firewood brought up to and stacked in our winter ready racks. We did run into a little excitement in the wood pile at the bottom of the hill though. It seems a couple of northern copperhead snakes had taken up temporary residence in the pile. Fortunately, I saw them before the saw me. We’ve really only got three venomous snakes around here and the copperhead is the most prevalent. Snakes don’t bother me much, poisonous or not, so I just used a long stick to convince the snakes they should move along. Both ended up just sliding down into the ravine over the tops of the leaves. Colleen and I finished moving the rest of the wood, cooled off in the pool, and then took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Tuesday and Wednesday were “locker reset” days for Colleen and me. What that means is that Colleen and I go into school before most of the other teachers and all of the students and check the lockers and change all of the combinations in time for the start of the new school year. Colleen and I have been doing it for more than a dozen years now. It’s sort of a “quid pro quo” thing. We got up Tuesday and Wednesday morning, Colleen made us a couple of sack lunches, and we headed on our way shortly after Alex left for work. We managed to get more than half of the lockers done on Tuesday before we came home, and we finished everything up shortly after lunch on Wednesday. By the time we had finished, we had changed and checked every single locker combination in the school. The only thing left for me to do is to build the database with the locker assignments for the kids. That won’t happen until right after the second week of school when everything starts to settle down.

We got home early Wednesday afternoon. I opted to take the rest of the afternoon off, but Colleen didn’t feel like just sitting around the house doing nothing. She ended up grabbing a rake and working to clean up the backyard. The first of Wednesday’s rain showed up as a brief, light shower. Colleen was already soaked with sweat so she just kept working through the rain. If anything, it cooled her off some. Eventually the rain stopped. Colleen had had her fill of raking and called it an afternoon not long after that. Colleen took a quick dip in the pool after she finished. Her time in the pool was short lived because she started hearing the rumble of thunder off to the west. Colleen was only in the house long enough to dry off and change out of her swimsuit when the wind started to howl and the skies opened up. One heck of a storm cell blew up right on top of our heads. The skies went black, the lightning lit everything up and the thunder rattled the windows. We could hear trees crashing down from the wind too. Fortunately, no one was hurt and apart from some dead limbs and branches in the yards, nothing was damaged either.

Wednesday evening Colleen realized we were running low on some of our regular larder staples. She decided to put her weekly menu together and to make her market list. She suggested we do our weekly market run on Thursday morning instead of Friday. I had finally figured out how to pay for a new chainsaw so I asked Colleen if she wouldn’t mind us picking it up before our market run. Since we really didn’t have a lot planned for Thursday, Colleen thought that was a good idea, too. I ended up getting a nice new toy for myself. The new saw has a 20-inch bar. When it comes to chainsaws, size does matter. Friday was supposed to be a decent day so we planned on cutting up more firewood. All our plans changed in a heartbeat when Colleen spotted chicken breasts on sale at the market. By sale, I mean buy two bags and get three free. Colleen had been waiting all summer for a good chicken sale so we could can chicken. This was the sale and Friday’s plans quickly got changed to another canning adventure. We could only afford 12.5 pounds of chicken, but it was all boneless, skinless breast meat, perfect for canning.

Thursday’s other big highlight didn’t happen until after Colleen and I got home from the market and got everything put away. It had been two months since Colleen and I had started vanilla beans steeping to make our own vanilla extract. Every day for two months Colleen would go into the basement larder, check on the bottles, and give them a shake. Thursday we brought the bottles upstairs and ran everything through cheesecloth to filter out the vanilla beans. The homemade vanilla extract smelled so much better than the regular store bought stuff. Colleen felt inspired to try baking with them, well, one of them anyway. We made three different types of extracts, one made with vodka, one made with brandy, and one made with spiced rum. I asked Colleen if she could make some hermit bars. What we didn’t realize was that her recipe didn’t call for vanilla. Well, Colleen always says a recipe is just a guide and she added a half teaspoon of the spiced rum vanilla extract to the mix. Wow! Colleen’s hermit bars were already one of my favorites, but the spiced rum vanilla extract brought them up to a whole new level. The spiced rum vanilla extract is now a permanent ingredient on her recipe.

There was a definite air of excitement around this place on Friday morning. After Colleen and I finished our morning coffee we got everything set up to can our chicken. I set up the table and the stove outside for the pressure canner. Colleen started prepping and filling the pint jars with chicken. We had decided to raw pack the chicken because Colleen wanted to use it for an ingredient in her cooking down the road. Colleen’s prepping entailed cutting the chicken into chunks and adding a little salt to the bottom of the jars. Colleen filled and capped the first seven jars and into the canner they went. Our 16-quart pressure canner holds seven pint jars comfortably. Colleen and I are a team, so once the jars were in the canner it was my job to watch the canner and make sure it stayed at 12 pounds of pressure. It’s an older pressure canner so that means I have to make minor adjustments to the fire because the pressure swings a little. For an hour and fifteen minutes I sat there keeping an eye on things and keeping the pressure between 12 and 14 pounds. Since we only had 12.5 pounds of chicken we only had two batches to can. We ended up with eleven pints of canned chicken that got added to our larder.

Given the busy week Colleen and I had, Saturday proved to be relatively calm. Of course, the overly oppressive humidity went a long way to limiting any extra effort we may have wanted to exert. I finally got into the gardens after a week of failed attempts. Colleen harvested some Swiss chard, oregano, and sage. Colleen will dry the herbs and store them to be used in the winter months when we don’t have access to fresh herbs. After I cleaned up the gardens, I even started planting our fall and winter stuff. If everything grows, which is always a big if around here, we should have more fresh chard, spinach, and late season radishes. There are still green beans and Lima beans in some of the other gardens, but I’m not decided as of yet on what to plant there once all the beans play out. Our gardens haven’t been wildly productive this year, but they are doing better than last year, and we seem to be getting better at it with each progressive growing season.

The sun has burnt off the morning clouds. I’m not sure how long the sun will be with us today though. As has been typical for this August, there is the threat of rain in the afternoon forecast. If nothing else, the gardens are staying well watered. I sure would like to get something constructive done today. My summer break is all too quickly winding down. I still haven’t fired up the new chainsaw yet so that is always an option. Colleen is of the mind to do some experimenting in the kitchen today. It looks like we’ll be trying something new for Sunday dinner. It sure was busy last week up here on the hill, but it was a great week. No matter what comes our way this week, you know Colleen and I will take it one day at a time and one step at a time. That’s the best way to keep everything simple and not be worrying about things. There is so much crazy stuff going on in the world these days, that a person could worry themselves sick about stuff that really doesn’t matter or about which they can do nothing. Up here on our little hill, things are quiet, calm, and peaceful. Life is good and all is right on the homestead.

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August 19, 2018: Poof! And Just Like That Summer Break Is Gone…

It sure was fun while it lasted. This summer break flew by in a heartbeat. The weather was weird this summer and it never got really hot for an extended period of time. It was one of the wettest summers I can remember in a while, too. Last week was no different. Evening and nighttime rain showers in the beginning of the week guaranteed the following days would be oppressively humid. Colleen and I made the best of things getting outside to work when we could. Thursday and Friday were classic August summer days with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the low 90’s. Just my luck those were my first two days back to school. Saturday morning was a mix of clouds and sunshine along with a wonderful breeze until middle or late afternoon when the rains came back into the area. Saturday night’s rain hung around until just after midnight. Things are still wet this morning, but it looks like we’ll have some sunshine by midday. Of course, the way things have gone all summer, the sunshine is supposed to give way to rain again this afternoon and evening.

Being as how last week was the last few days of my summer break, I tried to find a little time to kick back and relax. That didn’t work too well. I did get to just piddle around the house last Sunday afternoon, but even then I was busy taking care of a few odds and ends. I think the humidity stayed above 60 or 70 percent all day. Somehow, even with the heat and humidity of the afternoon, Colleen managed to put together a Cuban Steak dinner for Sunday evening. It was a new recipe she had wanted to try. The rains rolled in again on Sunday night and gave everything a good soaking. The rains did manage to cool things off some, but they sure didn’t do much for the lingering humidity.

Monday started out like most of our other summer Mondays. Alex left for work, I moved my truck and Colleen threw her laundry bags into the trunk of her car and headed down to the laundromat. I was determined to take the day slow and easy, but Colleen was home within the hour like usual and I was getting antsy just sitting around. Colleen got the laundry drying in the basement and started her usual Monday housework. I grabbed my new chainsaw and headed down to cut up the pile of limbs and branches down at the bottom of the hill by the wood line. That involved as much sorting through the tangled pile as anything else. The new chainsaw worked perfectly and by early afternoon I had all the wood cut up and ready to split. Colleen wasn’t quite so lucky with her housework. The vacuum cleaner threw its belt, leaving Colleen with an old, smaller stand by vacuum cleaner to finish the job. Let’s just say small vacuum cleaners and two shedding dogs is not a compatible mix.

We didn’t get a lot of rain on Monday night, but the wood I had cut on Monday needed to be split and stacked before I headed to school on Thursday. Since none of the wood was particularly large, I think the biggest piece may have been a foot in diameter, Colleen offered to give me a hand with the splitting. Colleen would set the wood on the chopping block and I would split the stuff. There was a bit more wood than I had figured, but we had it all done by lunchtime. It didn’t take much convincing for us to decide to leave the stacking until Wednesday, so we headed up to the pool to cool off. After lunch we headed out to Walmart to get a few things, the most important of which was a new belt for the vacuum cleaner.

It didn’t rain on Tuesday night so Wednesday morning Colleen and I got to move and stack all of the wood we split the day before. Just like the splitting, the hauling took more time than we anticipated, but we got everything done by a little after lunchtime. Colleen spent the afternoon baking so she had stuff for my school lunches on Thursday and Friday. Lunch at school is a brown bag affair and has been ever since I started teaching. Since Colleen spent the afternoon in the kitchen, I cooked dinner on the grill, everything, that evening. The grilled baked potatoes and grilled pork chops are easy. I’m getting pretty good at braising vegetables in a cast iron skillet on the grill, too. We called it an early night Wednesday because come the morning, both Colleen and I knew we would be rudely woken up by our alarm clock.

It was back to school for me Thursday and Friday. Fortunately, there were no scheduled meetings. The meetings are all packed into this coming week. I pulled into the parking lot with the rising sun on both days and spent my time in my classroom getting things ready for the upcoming semester. I did get a visit from a former student of mine that graduated way back in 2005. She had her two young sons with her too. It really doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago she was sitting in my class, but, gosh, her young boys sure made me feel like I was getting old. While I was at school, Colleen was at home holding down the fort. She spent her days working outside in the mornings and in the house in the afternoons. Thursday when I got home, she marched me out to the back porch so I could see how she had cleaned up the storm debris around our shed. I have to agree with her when she says we have the best looking dirt and moss around.

Saturday morning Colleen and I got outside and were able to get a good bit done before the rains showed up on Saturday afternoon. Colleen kept at her raking, cleaning up the storm debris behind the shed. I started splitting the maple firewood rounds I had stacked up earlier this summer. The heat and humidity chased us to the pool in the early afternoon. I ended up taking a 4 hour long nap after we ate lunch, which proved to be a two-edged sword. I felt great at 7 PM when I woke up, but I couldn’t get back to sleep until after midnight. Colleen spent the afternoon doing a few small things around the house and relaxing. Now that school has started, our whole routine is turned on its head again, but hopefully we’ll catch our stride again before too long. That’s how things go around here. Just about the time we get really comfortable in a routine, everything changes and we have to readjust.

It looks like we may be in for some more rain today. While we’ve enjoyed our Friday market runs all summer, today we moved it back to Sunday mornings. I’m looking at a full week of school starting tomorrow. It’s just a week of teacher workdays so Colleen will get to stay home because she’s a teacher’s assistant and the system doesn’t want to pay her to be at school if the kids aren’t there. I’m not real sure what we will do today after the market run. I guess anything that does get done will depend greatly on the weather. There isn’t much we can do about the weather, so we don’t worry about it. We just go with the flow. Even with a couple of school days last week, we had another great week up here on our hill. For here on out, our weekends will be busy and we will be looking forward to our time off to get a few extra things done. Payday is a week from this coming Friday and after that it is on to Labor Day. That’s a bit far out for us to make concrete plans, but we are hoping to get some canning done. That’s how things go around here. We take what the day gives us and make the most out of it. Life couldn’t be better for us. Every new day brings lots of new potential and no matter what comes down the road, we take it in stride because up here on our hill, all is right on the homestead.

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August 26, 2018: The Show Must Go On!

Oh, how I do miss my mornings on the back porch. Sadly, last week reminded me of just how special that quiet time in the morning really is. The kids start school this coming Monday, but teachers had to report all last week. After a rather wet summer, last week’s weather behaved more like it should in August. Any rain we got was confined to the late afternoons and evenings. The week started out with some pretty typical late summer heat. The temperatures at the beginning of the week climbed into the low 90’s, but by the time Friday and Saturday rolled around things had cooled off into the low 80’s and as an added bonus, the nighttime temperatures dropped into the upper 50’s. It certainly made for some very comfortable sleeping. Unfortunately, I missed most of the beautiful daytime weather during the week as I was stuck in an air conditioned building. After spending all summer without air conditioning, I found working in it to be somewhat uncomfortable. I suppose now that school is getting ready to start, I will get used to it again.

I didn’t have to be at school until 8 AM every morning last week, but I elected to get there at my regular time of 6:30. For the most part, the week was one long series of meetings. I took advantage of getting there early to get some work done in my classroom. The early mornings and lunch time were the only times any teacher could really spend in their room. Tuesday was the worst of the meeting days. I had to head down to the county office for some county sponsored training. Not only did I have to spend all day in training, but I had to drive home in the start of some horrible rush hour traffic. My effort was hardly worth it. As the day’s lessons droned on, the instructors words became more and more incomprehensible to me and I started to develop a migraine. The migraine magically disappeared once everything was done and I got out of the air conditioned building. I can’t say where as I got much out of any of last week’s meetings, but I got all the right boxes checked off so no one can say anything to me. If the meetings last week weren’t frustrating enough, we have another mandatory meeting after school this coming Monday. Is there any wonder why, once school starts, at the end of the day you can find me on the back porch smoking a cigar and sipping scotch?

Colleen’s week was far more productive than mine. Colleen got early jump on things Monday morning. She was out the front door shortly after sunrise heading down to the laundromat. She spent most of her Monday drying laundry and giving the house a good thorough vacuuming since I had replaced the belt on the vacuum cleaner last week. With school starting back up this coming Monday, the laundry gets shifted to Monday afternoons. Since I have meetings every single Monday of the school year, Colleen and I take two vehicles to school and she stops at the laundromat on the way home. She’ll spend the rest of her Monday afternoon and evening drying, folding, and putting clothes away.

Tuesday turned out to be an interesting day for Colleen. Colleen absolutely hates to go shopping. Every so often my darling wife has to bite the bullet and this year she desperately needed some new school clothes. It was early in the afternoon of my training session when I got a text and a picture. Colleen had spent the morning at the local mall going through the clearance bins. She was very proud of herself having brought home quite the wardrobe haul. By some standards it probably wasn’t a lot, but it was easily one of Colleen’s biggest clothes shopping trips of her life. I really have to tip my hat to my wife too. She brought everything home for right around $200. Fortunately, we had that much room on a credit card because we sure didn’t have it in our budget. Needless to say, Colleen was very happy with her new wardrobe and I was very excited she found clothes that was both comfortable and that she liked the way everything looked. My school shopping for clothes isn’t nearly as involved. If a need a new pair of slacks or shirt I just sort of walk through the men’s department at Walmart and grab what I need when we make a market run to Walmart.

Wednesday and Thursday Colleen stayed close to home while I was in school. Wednesday was a beautiful day so Colleen spent most of the day outside. She decided she had had her fill of the squirrels dropping hickory nut all over the middle section of our driveway so she dragged out her broom, her rake, a coal shovel, and her wagon and cleaned up every nut, crushed nut, or chewed nut. After that she did some work in the yard and found that aphids had all but decimated our Lima beans. I read somewhere that wood ash will keep the aphids away. I guess we’ll have to try that next year. Thursday was a baking day for Colleen so she spent most of the day in the kitchen. Since Colleen and I both bring our lunches to school, Colleen likes to make sure we have an ample supply of muffins and other sundry goodies readily at hand for making lunches. I came home on Thursday evening to, among other things, a fresh batch of blueberry muffins. Colleen had made a second batch too and put them in the freezer.

Friday morning both Colleen and I headed into school. Colleen helped get her base room ready while I tried to get some work done in my classroom between the coming and going of freshmen. It was freshmen early start day where the school makes a big to do for the freshmen to help them ease out of middle school and into high school. I’ll be teaching one class of predominantly freshmen this semester. I was surprised at how many kids actually showed up on Friday. I had to chuckle to myself at all these little kids with the same look as deer caught in the headlights of a truck. I usually do not teach freshmen, but this semester the school needed a teacher that could work with a group of at risk kids and I have one of the best track records in the school. Normally, I would scoff at the idea of teaching freshmen, but I am generally looking forward to it this semester. As it turns out, I’ll need to write a new curriculum for the class too. After we got home from school, Colleen and I took Friday afternoon off from doing anything in one last attempt to relax.

With school getting ready to be in full swing, the weekends up here on our hill get real busy. Colleen and I have to squeeze as much work into the weekend as we can. This Saturday served as a stark reminder that our summer break was done. We started early while it was still cool outside. The first thing we did was to harvest another meal of green beans from our garden and then Colleen helped me finish splitting all of the maple that had been stacked and seasoning. We’ll move all the split wood to the winter ready racks after school during the week or maybe next weekend. After a short break and a little lunch I headed out back to cut the grass and Colleen was holed up in the kitchen baking. Colleen made a batch of her special Blondies and some oatmeal cookies. Of course, as chief quality inspector, I had to try both with a cold glass of milk when they came out of the oven. Everything turned out perfectly.

Here it is Sunday morning and Colleen and I are getting ready to pick up where we left off yesterday morning. We’ve got a market run ready to go and then we’ll spend the day getting ready for our first day of school with the kids tomorrow. Summer passed too quickly and now we find ourselves changing up our daily routine again. That’s how things work around here. We’ve got no complaints though. We lead a simple life and take things one day at a time. It’s a good life for us and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Every day is a new day with new challenges and always lots of potential. At the end of each day we always find a reason to be thankful and celebrate. It’s how we make sure that we’re always headed in the right direction and that up here on our little hill it can always be said that all is right on the homestead.

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September 02, 2018: The First Week Of School!

School started for real this week, but what would the start of school be without a few hiccups? Mother Nature decided to throw another week of summer at us and as luck would have it, the AC at the school wasn’t working properly. We enjoyed bright and sunny days outside for the whole week. The temperatures got up to 90 degrees and the humidity was oppressive. The classrooms were warm to say the least. Teachers and kids were wilted and worn at the end of each day. A couple of days I even looked like I had been splitting wood. Colleen and I fared okay though. We’re used to not having AC during the summer. Some teachers didn’t do so well and threatened to show up in bathing suits if the heat persisted. It felt like things were starting to turn around by Friday. Under those conditions, I really need to tip my hat to the other teachers at school for keeping everything moving forward. Hopefully, the AC will be working by the time school starts on Tuesday because it looks like we’re headed for another warm and sunny week.

School just doesn’t start and stop when Colleen and I enter and leave the building. We started our school work last Sunday afternoon. We had made our market run in the morning just so we could spend the afternoon getting ready for school on Monday. Getting ready for me means making sure I have lesson plans, presentations, and worksheets ready to go. Usually, I can build a lesson plan from various modules I’ve developed over my years of teaching. This year I’m building a new curriculum from scratch so there is a bit more work involved in developing lesson plans. Getting ready for Colleen means menus are planned, meals are prepared in advance where possible, and there are ample lunch supplies to get us through the week. During the school year, all of these things are routine for us. Last Sunday, after a couple of months of summer break, getting started proved to be a bit challenging. We got everything done though.

Monday morning rolled around and like every other regular school morning the alarm clock started screaming at 4:30. First day of school or not, Monday is wash day up here on our hill so Colleen had two bags of laundry waiting by the front door. As luck would have it, I had an after school meeting on the first day of school so Colleen and I were heading to school in two vehicles right out of the gate. Despite bumping into a few walls and each other getting ready, we managed to get out of the house and to school at our usual time. Much to our surprise, we walked into a sauna when we walked into the school. The heat made for a tough first day of school. Colleen left with the last bell of the day, stopping at the laundromat on the way home. I didn’t end up leaving school until 4 o’clock. Colleen had the laundry well in hand and dinner warming up in the oven when I got home.

The rest of the week went about the same way. The mornings got a bit easier and the school wasn’t quite as hot. Tuesday Colleen got stuck in an unexpected and poorly coordinated meeting after school. I just hung around waiting for her since we were in one vehicle. Wednesday passed without incident. Thursday proved interesting as the school ended up having two fire drills. The first one was planned. The second one, two hours later, was not planned. Apart from having to stand out in the heat, the kids thought it was great. Friday was a quiet day at school for me. I gave quizzes to all of my classes and even managed to get them graded and into the computer before Colleen and I headed out for the afternoon. The week was long and tiring for both of us. It was all I could do most evenings to find my way to the back porch to enjoy a cigar after dinner. All in all, though, it wasn’t a bad first week of school.

When the last bell of the day rang on Friday, a good many teachers headed out with plans to spend the long Labor Day weekend at the beach or some other destination to relax. For Colleen and me, it marked the start of a very busy weekend trying to get caught up on the things that didn’t get done while we were at school and a few things we wanted to get done to keep things going around here. Since Friday was our first payday since the end of May, the first order of business was to get the bills paid once we got home. With the bills paid, it was off to Cracker Barrel to celebrate another summer survived and the start of the new school year. It would have been great if we had gone home and relaxed after dinner, but we didn’t. We headed to Walmart to get our weekly market run out of the way. We ended up getting home between 8:30 and 9 o’clock. Alex helped me get the groceries into the house. Colleen chased me upstairs to bed while she put the groceries away. It seems my darling wife starts to worry about me when the circles under my eyes get too dark.

Saturday morning Colleen and I were up before the sun. Both of us sat there for awhile nursing our coffee. After a week of getting to school before sunup, Colleen and I would not be denied our quiet time in the morning with our coffee. Colleen found her way to a recliner. I found my way to the back porch where i enjoyed my coffee and a visit from a little friend. Having sufficiently cleared the morning fog from our brains, Colleen and I headed out to the Farmers Market in search of pears. That proved to be incredibly unproductive and we came home with a scant half-bushel. It seems that pears are not an orchard fruit of choice in these parts. I think it’s time I start to consider planting pear trees around here. On the way home we stopped at Costco to get some burger, a couple of pork butts, a few steaks, and a small package of lamb chops. We will can the burger this weekend and in the next week or two, smoke the pork butts and can them.

After lunch Colleen started breaking down the Costco packaging into portion size packaging for the freezer. Knowing full well the rest of our weekend would be every bit as busy as it had started I headed out to the cigar outlet to get myself a few special cigars for the long weekend. I like trying new cigars and the place I go has a huge selection. I’m like a kid in a candy shop at this place so I have to be careful. By the time I got back Colleen was just finishing up with the meat. She was frustrated and tired because the job took her longer than she had planned. Knowing she was really not of the mind to make dinner, I suggested we go get takeout pizza. It proved to be the perfect suggestion and after Colleen finished cleaning up we headed out. There wasn’t much else we got done on Saturday evening.

I didn’t sleep well last night so Colleen let me sleep a bit later than usual. We had plans to spend today canning so when I finally did get downstairs Colleen had already started getting things set up. I guess I’ve been sitting here on the back porch long enough. Things won’t get done if I don’t get moving. We’ve got tomorrow off, too, and I’m sure we’ll have something that needs doing. Our first week of school is behind us now and next week looks like it is setting up to be another good one. Colleen and I will find our footing soon enough. I guess things will start getting busier the closer we get to Thanksgiving too. It sure isn’t anything we worry about though. If and when something comes down the road we’ll deal with it then. There sure isn’t any point in getting worked up over what might be when there is stuff happening right now. It’s a simple strategy for us, but it is the secret of our success and it’s a good feeling when we look around and know that all is right in the homestead.

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September 09, 2018: The Summer Just Won’t Quit…

I know it’s still summer and will be for the next few weeks, but Mother Nature wants to make sure we don’t too quickly forget about it. Hot and humid were the key words this past week. I think every day got up to 90 degrees or there about and the humidity made sure the heat indices got close to the century mark. We finally did get a little rain on Friday and Saturday night, but it sure didn’t do much to cool things down. Traveling to school in the mornings before the sun came up wasn’t too bad, but coming home in the mid afternoon heat was tough. In the evenings the humidity would get so thick you’d need a machete to cut through it. Our floor and ceiling fans really earned their keep last week and made things livable by keeping the air moving in the house. I think it’s supposed to be a little cooler this coming week, but I don’t see a break in the humidity. Just to make things interesting, by the end of the week we should be dealing with Florence coming in off of the Atlantic Ocean.

Last weekend was a long holiday weekend, not that we did much relaxing. By the time Sunday rolled around, Colleen and I were ready to go with our planned canning. I peeled, quartered, and cored our half-bushel of pears. Colleen made a light, cinnamon syrup and packed the pears in quart jars with the syrup. I hot water bathed the filled jars. Our half-bushel gave us a dozen quarts of canned pears. We weren’t done when they were finished though. We also had 7 pounds of hamburger meat that we wanted to can on Sunday too. Canning hamburger is pretty basic and the toughest part of the job is babysitting the pressure canner for 90 minutes. It was a long day for Colleen and me, but we had everything done and cleaned up by 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

Monday, Labor Day, turned out to be a little slower paced for us. Colleen headed down to the laundromat first thing in the morning. As luck would have it, one of the washing machines she was using got hung up in the rinse cycle so she ended up bringing home a bag of wringing wet clothes. Fortunately, she was able to hang it out in the yard to let most of the water drip out of it while she had the other clothes in our dryer. Once she had finished the other clothes the stuff hanging outside was dry enough to be finished off in the dryer. I spent the day working on the computer getting stuff ready for school. Colleen spent her afternoon baking to make sure we had lunch supplies for the week. I finished up just in time to cook dinner on the grill. I’m actually very competent on the grill and it gave Colleen a break from being in the kitchen.

Tuesday through Friday were school days. Like usual, we were up at 4:30 and out the front door by 5:45. We get to school right around 6:30 which gives us a little time to have some coffee and get settled before the kids show up. The school’s AC was working a lot better last week so the heat in the building wasn’t terrible. Of course, there were some who are used to a house maintained at 70 degrees who complained about how hot it was. I just had to shrug my shoulders. I sure wouldn’t want to pay their electric bills in the summers. The toughest part of the day for Colleen and me was the ride home in the afternoon heat. By the time we got home we were pretty spent from the day so not a lot got done once we were home. Friday afternoon we did stop at Costco on the way home and picked up 30 gallons of bottled water. When Florence popped up in the Atlantic, I got a bad feeling. Colleen and I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Friday evening after we got home it took everything we had just to get back into the truck to go get pizza for dinner.

Alex’s Explorer started giving him problems on Monday so it pretty much stayed parked in front of the house all week. Steven gave Alex a ride to work all week. Tuesday when the boys got home after work they crawled under the hood of the Explorer. I have to give the boys credit here. They talked about the problem and then started going after the simplest potential fixes first. The first thing they changed was the spark plugs. It didn’t fix the problem. Wednesday Alex changed the spark plug wires and that didn’t do it either. Thursday was Alex’s birthday so he didn’t work on his truck and James picked him up after work. Alex took Friday off from work and spent the day at James’s place most likely playing video games all day. Steven brought Alex home on his way home from work. Saturday morning Alex was under the hood again, this time he changed out the coil, and jackpot. After all of that, it seems that Alex’s Explorer is running just fine once again.

Saturday actually turned out to be a relatively slow day up here on the hill. Colleen and I weren’t in any particular rush to get going in the morning. I had hoped to get the pile of split maple moved up to the winter ready piles, but before that was going to happen I had to make and end piece to hold the piles in place. Our metal racks are filled and the last cord of wood is being stacked on palettes. I hunted around for some old scrap wood and found what I needed. After a little bit of cutting and setting a few screws the end piece was finished and in place. The humidity was oppressive on Saturday just like it had been all week so I decided it wasn’t with the effort of moving the split firewood. It’s not like we’re in dire need of it at the moment and it will get done in good time. Colleen spent her day cleaning the house. Actually, what she did was mostly wrestling with the vacuum cleaner trying to keep up with the dog hair. Since Saturday was our 18th anniversary, we opted to just spend Saturday evening relaxing.

We got a little more rain last night and the humidity is thick again this morning. Colleen and I will play catch up today. We’ll need to get our market run done before lunch. After lunch Colleen will be baking for the week and I’ll be in front of the computer doing schoolwork. The week is shaping up to be a busy one at school for me, but that is just how things go. Some weeks are easier than others. Our biggest concern for the coming week will be Florence. If the storm hits the North Carolina coast just right, it will come straight inland and really create a mess in these parts. The last time that happened was in 1996 with Hurricane Fran. This whole area was dead in the water for nearly two weeks. The best Colleen and I can do is to make sure we have all of the necessary preparations in place. For now though, it’s just a waiting game. Whatever happens will happen and we will deal with things one at a time. We should be just fine, but I’m not so sure about everything else around here. It was a hot and busy week for us up here on our hill last week, but all’s well that ends well. Life is good and once again I can say without a doubt that all is right on the homestead.

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September 16, 2018: It’s Been One Heck Of A Week!

What a week it’s been! Last weekend Florence was still quite a ways off shore, but it caught everyone’s attention, well, at least for those of us in the Carolinas. For the most part, the week was pleasant enough weather wise. We enjoyed big blue skies and white billowy clouds for the first part of the week. The storm had gotten close enough by Wednesday that most local school systems shut things down for Thursday and Friday. We were in line for a direct hit. Florence, it seems, had a mind of her own though, and made some last minute path changes, moving further south and in a more westerly direction than all original indications. The storm really didn’t start showing up until Thursday evening. For the most part, around here, Friday and Saturday were just cloudy and breezy with a little bit of rain. The worst wind gusts were Friday afternoon and even then they weren’t too bad. We did get a little bit of rain and most of that was on Friday night. Fortunately, we had prepared for a direct hit from Florence, but as it turned out we only ended up in her outermost bands so we were in good shape. From the looks of things down on the coast and southeast of us, we really dodged a bullet this time.

The three days of school we did have turned out to be a real challenge. The mandatory meeting we had on Monday kept me at school longer than usual. Tuesday was an insanely long day because it was “Meet the Teacher” night. I didn’t get home until right around 9 o’clock at night after having started my day at school at 6:30 in the morning. Thankfully, I was able to take a break in the middle of the afternoon and enjoy at least a small part of the beautiful day. Wednesday I was stuck in training all day. I sure wish the school system would stop looking for the silver bullet to fix their problems and let the teachers get back to the basics of teaching. With all this stuff they keep throwing at us and then changing it, it’s no wonder the young teachers don’t stick around very long. If enduring the day long training wasn’t enough, I have one more day of required training to attend in November. Rarely, do I consider anything a total waste of my time, but this training is as close to it as I’ve ever experienced.

Colleen’s Monday was pretty typical. She headed off to school with two bags of laundry in the trunk of her car. She left school with the last bell of the day and stopped at the laundromat on the way home. By the time I got home she was well on her way to having the clothes dried and put away. Tuesday there wasn’t much for Colleen to do around the house since most of our preparations were done for Florence, she did stay up late worrying about me until I got home. Wednesday the kid she helps didn’t show up at school so we shot text messages back and forth while I was in my training. We had planned on going to school for a half day on Thursday, but the county changed their minds on Wednesday and closed schools on Thursday too.

Thursday and Friday Colleen and I spent the day at home making our last preparations around the house for the storm. It wasn’t all that much really. I strategically placed some rocks and cinderblocks around the yard to break the water flow that could potentially cut deep gouges into the side of our hill. Colleen took all of her plants off of the porches so they wouldn’t get pummeled by the storm. Colleen even moved the coffee table from the living room to the bedroom so she had enough room for everything. The clouds in Florence’s outermost bands started to roll into the area around lunchtime. It was hit or miss, mostly, in the early afternoon. We even got a glimpse of the sun later in the afternoon to remind us that no matter what the storm brought our way, when all was said and done the sun would be back. After all of our preparations, I realized right then and there that everything was going to be just fine up here on our hill. Looking back on it now, I believe it was my Mom letting me know she would be looking out for us. We got the first of what little rain we would get from the storm right about sunset.

Florence made landfall at dawn on Friday morning about 4 hours or so southeast of us. I didn’t realize it at the time but the track and position of the storm left us out at the very fringes of the storm. The wind was gusty all day up here and we got the occasional stray rain shower, but certainly nothing to indicate a major hurricane was tearing up the coast. We’ve had lines of thunderstorms move through during the summer which were far more violent than what Florence was doing to us. By late afternoon all of the kids had checked in with us to make sure we were okay and to let us know they were okay. Colleen did a little baking in the afternoon. Steven and Anna Maria actually came by the house, but since Colleen was getting sick we shooed them away after a short visit. Alex and Steven disconnected the video game console from our TV and then the kids all headed back to Steven’s place to play video games all night.

Colleen was starting to feel the ill effects of the head cold she managed to pick up. We ate an early dinner of leftovers so there would be less in the refrigerator if we did lose power. After dinner I made sure the camping lanterns we had were placed in key places in the house. I’ve broken a toe or two trying to navigate the floors in the dark around here. That was the last thing we needed with the storm passing through. The rain started falling hard and steady right before sunset. It was the hardest rain we had seen since Florence made landfall. It didn’t last very long before it turned into nothing more than a soft, steady soaking rain. There was nothing else Colleen and I needed to do or could have done at that point so we called it an early evening and headed off to bed.

Saturday morning rolled around and the rain had all but stopped. The morning skies were dark with thick gray clouds and the day didn’t lighten up much at all. There were still some wind gusts, but they were even less pronounced than on Friday. For all practical purposes, Florence had missed us. Colleen woke up with a full blown cold and the start of a good case of bronchitis. That pretty much set the tone for the day. Colleen spent the day between the bed and the recliner trying to get comfortable and stop coughing. Alex spent all day at Steven and Anna Maria’s place so things were nice and quiet for Colleen. Colleen and I had just gone upstairs to get ready for bed on Saturday evening when Alex finally came home. The rain started falling shortly after that and pretty much kept it up all night. It was the most rain we had seen from Florence up to that point.

So here it is Sunday morning again. The skies are still gray and the rain is still falling. Florence has been downgraded, but we’re still in for a couple of days of rain. Colleen is feeling a bit better this morning. We won’t be heading out for our usual market run today. We had stocked up last week in anticipation of Florence. I’m not sure if there will be school tomorrow. Between power outages and flooding, the county where we teach is still a mess. I will, however, most likely spend the afternoon doing school work just in case. I managed to stay in contact with all of our kids over the last few days and everyone is fine. I’m not sure if any of them will venture out and come for a visit. Under the circumstances and knowing that everyone is okay, I certainly understand. Florence has done her best to ravage the coast line and the low country, but up here on our hill all is fine and dandy, albeit a bit wet now. Colleen and I are taking things one day at a time. It seems like we have weathered another dance with Mother Nature and come out of it none the worse for wear. We’re not sure what the next few days will bring, but this morning as I look around it is very reassuring to know that all is right on the homestead.

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September 23, 2018: To Heck In A Hand Basket!

Some weeks are better than others and, well, some weeks, like last week, blow up in your face. Last started with hurricane Florence blowing through, and dropping enough rain on us to keep schools closed on Monday. Colleen, Alex, and I all ended up with full blown head colds. Everything really unraveled on Wednesday when we took Daisy to the vet. The news was not good. Daisy is in the advanced stages of lymphoma. Even though the weather cleared up for the back half of the week, everything was turned on its ear as Colleen and I tried get our minds wrapped around the fact that Daisy was terminally ill, and how to change our daily routine to make sure Daisy was comfortable, and was getting all the needed care we could give her. During the course of the week we had let pretty much everything, but the absolute necessities slide, and when Saturday rolled around we were finally able to start moving in the direction of getting everything caught up.

Florence made landfall last Saturday morning and crawled inland all day last Saturday and Sunday. We were at the very fringe of the storm and didn’t see much rain until Sunday night. Once the rain started, we got a good 18 hours of steady, hard rain. The pool which had been drained down 8 to 10 inches got filled up again. Two big oak trees down along the wood line at the back of our property uprooted and fell. One is still hung up, hanging over my work shed. The creek at the bottom of the hill flooded the only road in and out of our place. Fortunately, school had been canceled for the day, but Colleen and I had no plans of going anywhere anyway. Colleen and I were also battling the onset of one dandy head cold. I ended up taking three naps just on Monday. By late Monday afternoon the rains had stopped, the creek waters had receded, and the sun was shining.

Tuesday morning Colleen and I headed into school after being out for five days thanks to Florence. Even after three straight nights of double doses of NyQuil, getting up on Tuesday morning was rough. Fortunately, the meeting I was supposed to attend Tuesday after school got postponed. I had forgotten all about it anyway. The remnants of the head colds that Colleen and I had been fighting made for a very long day. To matters even more interesting, Alex came home after work with looking lousy thanks to the head cold that got him too. On Monday evening Colleen was petting Daisy and noticed what appeared to be two very swollen glands at the base of her jaw. Daisy had been very lethargic the previous weekend and she wasn’t showing any signs of getting better so Tuesday evening Colleen and I decided it was time to take Daisy to the vet. Since Wednesday was a school vacation day, Colleen called Alysia, our oldest daughter, who works for a vet on Tuesday evening and asked her to make an appointment for us the next morning.

Poor Daisy was clearly in a bad way so when Alysia called at 7:30 on Wednesday morning to tell us we could get an 11 o’clock appointment, Colleen and I jumped on it. The vet for whom Alysia works is about an hour away, but he’s a darn good vet. Colleen put some blankets on the back seat of my truck and I had to help Daisy get into the back seat. Daisy loves to go for a ride and usually has no trouble hoping right into the back of the truck. Once we got going, Daisy got comfortable making sure she could catch the wind from the open window while were traveling. The ride to the vet’s office was tense. Colleen and I were both hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Our hearts sank when the vet came back in the the examining room with Daisy and said, “There’s no good way to say this.” Daisy is in the advanced stages of lymphoma. We not sure if Daisy has weeks or months left. The vet put Daisy on steroids to help make her comfortable. Our ride home was even more difficult than our ride there in the morning. The ride was quiet and there were tears, plenty of them. Somehow I managed to get some school work done when we got home and Colleen managed to put together a dinner, but by all measures, Wednesday was a very tough day for us.

Thursday and Friday morning it was back to school for Colleen and me. We were still in shock over Wednesday, but at least our head colds had eased up considerably. Alex stayed home from work both days, again still in the throes of his head cold. Fortunately, there weren’t any scheduled meetings after school on either day. Colleen finally got around to the week’s laundry on Thursday, stopping at the laundromat on the way home. Daisy seemed a bit better on Thursday afternoon and then better again on Friday. We know there is no way she will ever be her old self again, but she seems happy and thankfully she is still wagging her tail like always. By Friday evening Colleen and I were both drained. It took about all we had to head out to get pizza for dinner Friday evening. Somehow Colleen managed to find the energy both Thursday and Friday after dinner to take Daisy for walk around the neighborhood. Daisy looks worn out when she gets back home, but our little girl really loves walking around sniffing every little thing along the way.

Saturday morning we had to get ourselves reorganized and start putting the pieces of our happy little homestead back together. Daisy seemed more lively and comfortable so that made getting things done much easier. We ended up braving the crowds at the market on mid morning Saturday. It didn’t take us long at the market to remember why we don’t like being there on Saturdays. We got in and out as quickly as we could and got back home in time for lunch and to get some stuff done in the afternoon. While Colleen spent the afternoon in the kitchen, Alex and I tackled cutting the grass and cleaning up the yards. After Florence’s rain and several days of warm, sunny weather, the yards were once again overgrown and looking rough. It’s not like our yards are ever really great looking, but at least after Alex and I were done they didn’t look neglected.

The onset of fall means the start of soup and stew season in the kitchen for Colleen. Dinner on Saturday evening was gumbo for Alex and me and Sopa de Pollo Picante (spicy chicken soup) for Colleen. Colleen is not a fan of gumbo. I suppose there was some work we could have done after dinner, but between the heat and humidity of the day, and the things we had done, neither of us had a whole lot of extra energy. Colleen took Daisy for a slow, leisurely walk around the neighborhood while I did some research on a hydraulic log splitter. With all of the wood down on the ground from Florence, Colleen and I both agreed it was probably time to make the job of splitting firewood a little easier on my back.

This morning actually started at 3 o’clock for me. I woke up to the sound of Daisy lapping up water. Rather than risk an accident and ultimately stepping into a wet spot on the rug, I got up and let both dogs go outside for a quick run to take care of their business. I didn’t have any trouble falling back asleep once they were done. Since the dogs had been outside at 3 o’clock this morning, Colleen and I got to sleep until sunrise which really didn’t happen because of all of the cloud cover. Colleen and I will look at our list again this morning and figure out what we can get done. This evening we will get ready for school again tomorrow morning. Sometimes life throws you unexpected curve balls and that was this week for us. Things were rough for us, but we’re not complaining. We take each new challenge as it presents itself and do the best we can. I think we’d go crazy if we didn’t take things one day a time. Every day is a new day, and it’s only fitting that we make every new day as special as possible. No matter what life hands us or how bad things may seem at the moment, we are thankful for the bounty we do have. Our life is good up here on our hill and there is nothing better than looking around and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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September 30, 2018: We’re Getting Back To Normal, Kind Of…

It was another busy week last week, but nowhere near as crazy as the week before, though. I’m not exactly sure what happened to the month of September this year, but it seems to have blown through in a heartbeat. Not that the month didn’t leave its calling card. School geared up into full swing, summer slid into fall, Florence beat up a good part of North and South Carolina, and, of course, we found out our poor Daisy has cancer. I think it rained last week at some point, but I’ll be darned if I can remember when. I want to say it was Thursday evening. Mother Nature didn’t seem too keen on letting us forget about summer so we had to deal with the heat and humidity during the week. Colleen and I hit the ground in a full gallop on Monday morning and things really didn’t slow down until Friday for us. Now, here we are on the last day of September and we’re still trying to catch our breath.

Last Sunday the lion’s share of our day was spent getting ready for school. I had lesson plans to make and Colleen was busy baking. Somehow in the midst of all of that, we even managed to get the last of the split firewood hauled up to the winter ready racks and stacked. Thankfully, Alex was out there helping us because Colleen and I were still fighting off the last of our head colds and hauling all that wood winded us very quickly. Alex was fighting off his cold too, but the extra hands really helped. We still could use some more seasoned firewood for our piles, but Alex says he can get us some from the lay down yard where he works. Of course, we’re talking a good size truckload and once it gets here we’ll be hauling wood again. At least, according to Alex, the wood will already be split.

Monday and Tuesday were long school days for me. I had meetings after school on both days. I didn’t get home until right around 5 o’clock on both days. Colleen did her usual run to the laundromat on Monday afternoon. Colleen and I were both starting to show the signs of the wear and tear of the last few weeks, too. It seemed like we hadn’t stopped running since before Florence showed up. By the time Tuesday evening rolled around we were both bone tired and worn out. I guess with all the starting and stopping of last week and trying to adjust to a new routine for Daisy the chaos of the week just sort of caught up with us. Even as tired as we were, we could see things starting to settle down and we were hopeful that we might catch our stride again by the upcoming weekend. The weekend was still a few days away though so Colleen and I were doing our very best to stay focused on the day at hand and taking things one day at a time.

Wednesday was a crazy day and we knew it would be. After school Colleen and I needed to take Daisy to the vet. I gave tests to all of my classes and Colleen made arrangements to get out of school a few minutes early so we could beat the bus and carpool traffic. Everything went well and we were on our way 5 minutes before the last bell of the day rang. We live about 45 minutes away from school and after stopping at home to pick up Daisy, we had another hour drive to the vet’s. The appointment went well. The steroids Daisy is now taking are working. We noticed Daisy was peeing a little blood so the vet gave her some antibiotics for a UTI. Someone must have been watching out for us because we didn’t hit much traffic going or coming home. I can’t say the same for the folks on the other side of the interstate. They weren’t quite as lucky as we were because we passed a 5-mile backup when we were heading home.

Thursday and Friday were not tough but we struggled to get through both days. Our routine with Daisy was getting easier and it seems Daisy’s inside accidents had pretty much stopped. Friday was payday so Colleen and I went to the Cracker Barrel for dinner. We got there early so there wasn’t a crowd. Even as tired as we were, we decided to get our market run done on the way home so we wouldn’t need to do it on the weekend. Fortunately, it was a very light run. Colleen and I got everything into the house in one trip and Colleen had everything put away in 15 minutes or so. Colleen took Daisy out for a walk, but after that everyone was spent.

Daisy has been waking me up in the middle of the night when she drinks her water. It was no different early Saturday morning. Usually, I will get up and put both dogs outside. Saturday morning was no different, however, I made sure the dogs could not get back into the bedroom so Colleen could sleep a little later. Daisy doesn’t seem to mind going out so early and I think that has a lot to do with limiting her accidents. Overall, I’d have to say as the week went on, Daisy’s days got better. Colleen takes Daisy for a walk in the evenings on school days and in the mornings and evenings on the weekends. Daisy gets worn out easily now so she likes to lie down on the cool floor by the front door after her walks. I don’t know how much more time she has with us, but she is happy and holding her own right now.

Saturday rolled around and even as tired as we still were, there was stuff to get done. Colleen was really worn out from the last few weeks. She managed to pay our bills on Saturday, but that was about it. I managed to convince her to take a couple of naps and that seemed to help. Alex had gotten home early Friday and started cutting up the uprooted oak tree that was on the ground thanks to Florence. I headed down back on Saturday morning to finish the cutting and start hauling the wood up the side of the ravine into our backyard. I had gotten most of the limbs smaller than 8-inches in diameter cut up and hauled up the hill when Alex found his way down back to help me. We ended up getting everything cut up and most everything brought up the hill. I guess there is about one-third of the trunk left to go. The real trick to the whole operation was to get everything cut without it rolling down into the bottom of the ravine. Six rounds escaped and rolled down the hill. Alex said not to worry about it because he would get them when he finished getting rest of the wood up the hill.

Today promises to be a busy Sunday. I have school work to do that will keep me in front of the computer all afternoon. Colleen is planning on doing her weekly baking. The day should be pleasant weather-wise so I just might grill for dinner. It’s wild to think that tomorrow is the first day of October. If October blows through the same way September did, the holidays will be on us in no time. Still, Colleen and I are taking things one day at a time. We’re finally settling into somewhat of a routine again and we’re doing our best to make Daisy as comfortable as possible. The world keeps turning and we keep taking things one day at a time. It makes for a good life no matter what comes our way. While we are sad about our poor Daisy and we try not to think about when it will be her time to cross the rainbow bridge, we are thankful for the time we still do have her with us. In the face of everything that has happened, life is good up here on our little hill. Today the sun is shining and all is right on the homestead.

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October 07, 2018: We’re Moving Forward, But Still Fighting Headwinds

Last week was as calm and routine of a week as I can remember around here recently. Still, around here, calm is a relative term and if you’re not paying attention, something will come up and bite you. Mother Nature decided to give us one more run of sunshine and summer heat last week. The temperatures never quite touched 90 degrees, but the heat indices easily cleared that mark. There wasn’t any rain to speak of all week either. Even though the weather was beautiful all week, it sure didn’t feel very much like fall which is something I’m quite looking forward to enjoying when it gets here. I’m not sure this coming week will feel much like fall either, but it is supposed to be cooler than last week. I think we have some rain heading our way as well, but not until the middle of the week. With any luck fall will start to show up before too long.

With everything that has been going on around here of late, Colleen and I started our school week a bit on the tired side. Fortunately, the week at school passed relatively without incident. Monday I had my usual meeting after school and Colleen stopped on the way home to do the laundry. I thought I had another meeting on Wednesday, but I screwed up the dates and the meeting was actually scheduled for Tuesday. The meeting turned out to be a quick one and Colleen and I were only a little later than usual getting home. The rest of our week at school was quiet for the most part. I spent Thursday reviewing and then gave quizzes to all of my classes on Friday. Giving tests or quizzes on Friday always makes for an easy slide into the weekend.

I’d have to say our week was less chaotic, but certainly no less trying on our hearts. Daisy is dying. There is no easy way to say it. We are doing everything in our power to make her as comfortable as possible for the time she has left with us. We changed the timing of her meds a little. We’ve split the steroids into two doses, one in the morning and one in the evening. It was a positive change for her, eliminating the ups and downs caused by taking them only once a day. The later part of the week was mostly good. Our baby girl is weak but she is moving around a bit more. She is still bright eyed and wagging her tail so it isn’t her time quite yet. The vet said she would let us know when it was time for her to cross the rainbow bridge. Sadly, Colleen and I both believe that day is quickly approaching.

Tuesday proved to be an interesting day up here on the hill. Colleen and I had just stepped out onto the front porch to go to school in the morning. No sooner were we out the door when we heard tearing and scraping, tree limbs breaking, and then a loud crash and thud that shook the house. The rains that Florence brought with her softened up the ground enough for root systems of two oak trees on our back property line to pull out of the ground. One tree fell harmlessly to the ground. The second got hung up in another tree and was hanging precariously over the top of my work shed. Everything let go Tuesday morning and the tree came crashing down on the roof of my shed. There wasn’t much we were going to do right then so after we looked at what had happened we headed off to school.

When we got home on Wednesday afternoon Colleen and I took a good look at the tree and the shed. The shed is beyond repair. Fortunately, my band saw wasn’t damaged, but there wasn’t much we were going to do on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon Colleen and I moved the band saw from the shed to our basement and started making plans on how best to clean up the mess. I guess we’ll try to get as much out of the shed and relocate it into the basement, then I’ll try to salvage as much lumber from the shed as I can, and finally we’ll cut the tree up into firewood. The whole clean up is going to take some time and right now time seems to be in short supply around here.

Colleen and I knew we were in for a busy weekend. We started putting everything in motion as soon as we got out of school on Friday. We stopped at Costco on our way home for the first part of our weekly market run. We got home a little later than usual and the girls were chomping at the bit to get outside. Daisy was having a good day and Colleen was even able to take Daisy for a short walk once we got home. Once the dogs were settled, it was back into the truck for Colleen and me to get pizza for dinner. As tired as we were, the pizza proved to be a real life saver for dinner. We didn’t do much after dinner and, in fact, we called it an early night so we could get a little extra and much needed rest.

We slept a little later than usual Saturday morning. I guess we really needed it, but once we were up, we were running again. Our first order of business was our regular market run. Mid to late Saturday morning is not our favorite time to head to the market, but there was a lot on our plate. We had planned a pretty healthy market run too. Payday was last weekend and it was time to restock everything that was getting low in our larder. One bright spot for the whole trip was walking through the Christmas decorations. Yes, I know it’s only October, but Christmas is special to us and it was a nice, albeit short diversion. We ended up getting home and getting everything into the house just around 2 o’clock.

Colleen and I spent Saturday afternoon canning. We put up 5 pints of stew meat and 4 quarts of French onion soup. It may not sound like a whole lot, but the meat and the soup are both canned under pressure so the processing time is close to 2 hours for each batch. Like any of our canning operations, the whole process is a team effort. Colleen prepares everything and jars it up. I watch the pressure canner to make sure the pressure holds relatively constant. Yesterday while I was babysitting the canner with stew meat in it, Colleen was making the soup. Once the meat was done the soup went in the canner. Because we had started later than we wanted in the afternoon, dinner ended up being a little later than usual too. After dinner we were beat, but had enough energy left to walk the dogs and clean everything up before we headed to bed.

It’s still early on this pleasant Sunday morning. The sun is just now coming up and the birds have started singing. Today I will get ready for school and Colleen will do her weekly baking. Daisy is not doing well this morning. I think she is telling us she is ready. Colleen and I are devastated. We’ve both been dreading this day. Unless things change dramatically during the day, I think we will have to take Daisy for her last truck ride tomorrow. Colleen and I will do everything possible to make our baby girl comfortable. We will get through today and the next few as best we can, putting one foot in front of the other. This place will just not be the same without Daisy running around. Even after she is gone though, she will live forever in our hearts to remind us that even in the face of hard times and adversity there is so very much for which to be thankful. It will serve to remind us that no matter what happens up here on our hill, when we look at this crazy world we will know all is right on the homestead.

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October 14, 2018: A Tough Week, But We Made It!

Last week started out on a devastating turn to the worse. Not long after I had finished writing last week’s blog, our beloved Daisy crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Colleen and I were a wreck. We had only found out Daisy had lymphoma less than 3 weeks earlier and fortunately she was active and happy until the very end. She used the last of her strength to climb a flight of stairs to the landing where she always loved to lay and look out the window. It was there that she quietly slipped away from her earthly bounds. Thankfully, Alex got up and helped me dig a grave for our baby girl. I’m not sure how long it took us, but when we had finished we laid our dear sweet Daisy to rest wrapped in her favorite sheet on which she used to lay on our bed. Once we had her body buried, Alex carefully and meticulously laid a pile of stones on top of the grave. He even left a spot for us to securely place a flowerpot of daisies next spring. Somehow, we all managed to make it through the day and I even grilled some steaks for dinner so we could celebrate Daisy’s life and all of the joy she brought into this house.

Getting up to go to school on Monday morning was no easy task. Colleen and I were still reeling from the loss of our darling Daisy on Sunday. We did what we had to do though. We put one foot in front of the other and just got through our morning ride, getting to school at our usual time. School was not too bad and at least working with the kids kept us distracted. Of course, since it was Monday, I had to stay after school for a meeting and Colleen dutifully stopped at the laundromat on her way home. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings each got progressively easier. Nothing of consequence happened at school on either day so were able to get out of the place and come home at our usual time. We were still distracted with the loss of Daisy and hardly noticed that Michael was bearing down on the coast of the Florida panhandle. We got home on Wednesday afternoon to find out that schools in our area would be closed Thursday in anticipation of tropical storm Michael blowing through the region.

Colleen and I slept a little later than usual on Thursday morning. We had our morning coffee and did absolutely nothing after that. It seemed that since before Florence came through the area we had been going at a full gallop. It was just one thing after another. With Michael due to show up on Thursday afternoon, we just finally took a day off. To say we needed a break might have been an understatement, but we did. Colleen and I both found it amusing that it took a hurricane for us to finally stop and catch our breaths. I thought about covering the hole in the shed roof, but never did. Fortunately, Michael shifted its path and the eye of the storm came right over our heads. That turned out to be a good thing because it was the shortest path through all the bands of wind and rain so we were relatively unphased by the storm. The counties surrounding us weren’t quite as lucky and a lot of trees and power lines came down. As of Thursday night, when Colleen and I went to bed, school was scheduled to resume on Friday morning after a 2-hour delay in the start time.

For some odd reason I woke up in the middle of the Thursday night. I got myself a midnight snack and a glass of milk. I had a niggling in the back of my mind so I checked the news for weather cancellations. Apparently, a good bit more power got knocked out than anticipated because all the schools in the area had canceled classes for Friday. I made sure I turned the alarm clock off before I crawled back into bed. Buttercup, being Buttercup, made sure we didn’t sleep too late Friday morning and Colleen did panic for a minute when she woke up and realized the alarm was off. A quick check of school cancellations put her mind at ease. Colleen took care of Buttercup, made the coffee, just sat back, and enjoyed her unrushed morning coffee. I got up a little before sunrise and found my way to the back porch with my coffee. It was a bright and sunny morning to the point where you would have never known a tropical storm had just moved through the area the day before.

After taking Thursday off from doing anything and having a decent night’s sleep, Colleen and I felt pretty good on Friday morning. Steven came and picked Alex up for work so it was just Colleen and me all day. Colleen made her menu for the upcoming week and put a market list together. We headed out the front door in the mid morning to get our market run out of the way. We came back home and had a very pleasant lunch. After lunch I headed out back to finish bringing the firewood rounds that Alex and I had cut last week from where they were on the side of the ravine up to the pile that needed to be split. I finished that job and then I grabbed the hedge shears and pruned a boxwood bush that had gotten a little wild looking out by the back porch. While I was outside, Colleen was in the kitchen whipping up a big pot of minestrone soup so we could can it. Once the soup was ready it was my job to babysit the pressure canner. Colleen made enough soup to keep me watching the pressure and adjusting the heat for four and a half hours. It was a very big batch of soup. We ran two groups of jars through the canner because the canner only holds 5 quart jars at a time. In total, we canned 9 quarts of homemade soup. When I finally got to bed Colleen said I was snoring as soon as I shut my eyes.

Saturday morning started out pretty much the same way Friday did. Steven came and got Alex for work. Colleen and I took a run down to Lowe’s to get some starts for our fall and winter gardens and some parts so I could repair a toilet. We also got a pot of daisies to put on Daisy’s grave. When we saw that there were daisies at the garden center there was no way we could pass them by. We came home, ate some lunch, and then I fixed the toilet. With the trees that fell during hurricane Florence, Colleen said it was time for us to get a hydraulic log splitter. I would do it by hand with a maul, but Colleen says my age is catching up with me. Maybe she’s right and I have slowed down a step or two. Anyway, after I finished with the toilet, Colleen and I headed out to Tractor Supply to look at a logger splitter they had on sale. They only had a display model so I’m going to have to order it online and have it shipped to the store before I can pick it up. While we were at Tractor Supply we were wandering around the store and Colleen found a pair Wellies. She has been looking for a pair she liked for a very long time and didn’t Tractor Supply have a pair in her size and on sale. No sooner did we get home and the things were on her feet. She said she was breaking them in. Kind of makes me wonder about my darling wife.

Fall has definitely arrived. It’s a cool and crisp Sunday morning. Like always there is a list a mile long of things that need doing. With any luck I will get the fall and winter gardens planted today. Colleen, most likely, will be in the kitchen for most of the day. It is still surreal to me that we lost our Daisy Belle last Sunday. Colleen and I are still adjusting to looking and expecting to see her in her usual spots. I will say that even though we are still quite sad, the days are getting easier to get through. Even Buttercup is adjusting to having run of the house again. The change of seasons brought so much change up here to our place up on the hill. I suspect it won’t be long before we stack our first rack full of firewood up on the back porch and put our first fire in the fireplace. I’m not really sure what has happened to our year, but it has flown by us. For the most part it’s been a terrific year with the exception of losing Daisy. We will always remember the joy and happiness she brought into our lives and celebrate all of the good times. Through it all, Colleen and I are still incredibly thankful for everything we have up here on our hill. It is always reassuring that knowing whatever comes our way, we can look around and know that all is right on the homestead..

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October 21, 2018: We’ve Got Our Feet Underneath Us Again

Another week has passed, and now we are looking at the last full week of October. After a 4-day weekend last week, thanks to hurricane Michael, last week was about as uneventful as they come. After Michael cleared out, we got a couple of warm 80 degree days and then weather became decidedly fall-like. We got a little rain on Wednesday during the day, and then the temperatures turned to the cool side of things. The mornings were in the upper 40’s and the day time highs just barely made it over 60 degrees. The rain came back on Saturday morning, but by mid-to-late afternoon the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to burn off the leftover clouds. The temperatures stayed in between 60 and 70 all day, but on Saturday night the mercury dropped into the low 40’s making for a chilly morning this morning. Chilly or not, the sun is shining this morning and we have the start of a beautiful fall day.

It was kind of a goofy week at school for Colleen and me. I had meetings after school on Monday and Wednesday. Colleen had a meeting after school on Friday. Wednesday the sophomores took the Pre-ACT test at school so everything got turned on its ear and not much got done. Colleen and I did our best to get stuff done around the house during the week, but for the most part we just held things together enough to get us through to the weekend. We also realized that Thanksgiving was just about a month away. That’s not a problem, but things are going to start to get real busy around here as we try to clean everything up and get ready for the holidays. When Colleen used to be a substitute teacher she could take a day off if she needed a little extra time. Now that she is a full time teacher’s assistant there are no days off in the middle of the week.

Since last weekend was so chaotic around here, I tried to get a few of the undone tasks taken care of during the week. Since it was warm on Monday when I came home, I headed right out to the gardens to get our winter gardens planted. I pulled all of the green beans out of one garden and planted lettuce and kale. We had left one spring garden fallow all summer because it only gets sun in the spring and the fall when there are no leaves on the trees. I planted that garden with more lettuce and some Swiss chard. We also have one garden with Lima beans. It had gotten pretty wiped out by aphids during the late summer, but the plants had come back and were loaded with flowers so I left that garden in tact in the hopes we might get a late crop to harvest. I figured it was worth a shot even if nothing comes of it.

I got home Tuesday after school and was pleased to see everything that I had planted on Monday had taken. That’s always a good feeling. Small game hunting season opened on Tuesday too. Since we were testing at school on Wednesday, I didn’t have any prep work to do for classes so I sat on the back porch with my air rifle waiting for the squirrels to show up. I saw two all afternoon, and both of those were too far off to take a shot. On Monday afternoon there had been at least a dozen of the critters running around in the back yard. I didn’t squeeze off my first shot this season until Thursday. As luck would have it, I flinched and pulled the rifle down just enough for the shot to go low. The squirrel jumped and hightailed up a tree. With a single shot air rifle, you only get one chance. Nothing else got close enough for a shot even though there were a bunch of the little demons running around.

The rest of our school week was pretty humdrum, go to school in the morning, come home, eat dinner, get ready for school the next day, go to bed, and then repeat everything the next day. Friday afternoon was a little different though. Colleen had a meeting after school so I got home before she did. I let Buttercup out for her afternoon adventure and then I fished the leftover soup out of the refrigerator. We were going to have it for dinner and I needed to get it ready to be heated up. Colleen texted me when she got out of her meeting and I started to warm the soup up. By the time Colleen finally got home, the soup was hot and we sat right down to dinner. It was such a beautiful late afternoon that we both filled a big cup with the soup and sat on the back porch while we ate. Alex had gotten home before Colleen did, but he left again because he was going to spend the night at Steven’s place. The boys had lined up a side job for Saturday morning. It wasn’t long after sunset that both Colleen and I headed upstairs to bed. Going to bed early for a little extra sleep is a real luxury around here.

Colleen and I were both up pretty early Saturday morning. It was a gray morning. We were just starting to see the rain that we had been expecting, too. As much as we dislike going to the market on Saturday mornings, we decided this weekend it would just be better to bite the bullet. Colleen put her weekly menu together and then her shopping list and we were off. Surprisingly, the market wasn’t slammed full of people. We were able to get in and out and back home well before noon. Once we got everything into the house, we took a little break for lunch. After lunch Colleen got the groceries put away and set her kitchen in order again. It was still raining and we had to reorder the priorities on our “To-Do” list so we could get something productive done in the afternoon.

With the temperatures starting to get cooler Colleen decided it was time to clean our floor fans and put them away for the winter. With the holidays quickly approaching, I decided it was time for the rugs to get their semi-annual steam cleaning. While Colleen was disassembling and cleaning the fans, one by one, I was upstairs. Steam cleaning rugs is a slow process. I cleaned up one bedroom, moved what I could out of the room, vacuumed the room thoroughly and then steam cleaned the rug. I’ll have to wait for the rug to dry out before I move everything back into the room. Once the room is dry, in a day or two, I’ll move everything back and then start on the next room. Colleen was still working on the fans when I came downstairs so I cleaned the back porch, assembled the new firewood rack for the porch and got everything set up so we could start moving firewood up to the new rack. By the time I finished, Colleen had finished the fans and it was time for dinner.

There was still a good bit of daylight left after Colleen and I finished dinner so we decided to make the best of it. We ended up hauling firewood from the winter ready piles up the stairs to rack on the back porch. We only filled about a third of the rack, but that was still more than enough this morning. As it turned out, the house stayed warm enough over night that we didn’t need to start a fire. Alex got home after dark and he and I sat on the back porch, talking for a while. Of all of our kids, Alex has always seemed to be the one to sit and talk with me about things. He may be 22 years old, but I really enjoy having him around the house. He’s even old enough now that I will often ask for his opinion on things. I suspect he will be the one who will be around to take care of Colleen and me when we get older.

This morning sure has turned out bright and sunny. Colleen and I are up and moving around. We have the usual Sunday stuff to get done. With any luck we might even squeeze a few extra things into the day. Colleen and I finally seem to be back on even footing after the crazy last month we’ve had. We’re starting to turn our attention to getting ready for the holidays too. All the kids are doing well. Everyone is still excited about Steven and Anna Maria having a baby. March can’t get here soon enough. Life is good. Colleen and I continue to take things one day at a time and not worry about what the next day may or may not bring our way. We know we have something really special up here on our hill and we are thankful every day for everything we have. It’s certainly a crazy world out there, but up here on our little hill we know that all is right on the homestead.

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October 28, 2018: Fall Is Here For Sure!

Another week has come and gone. As school weeks go, while uneventful, this one seemed to drag on for a month. I suppose the cool fall temperatures that have finally blanketed our area had a lot to do with that. Crawling out from under warm and cozy blankets into cold, dark mornings is certainly not the most pleasant way to start a new day. The weather for the most part, despite being cool, was quite wonderful all week. There was lots of sunshine for most of the week. The rain we did get, showed up Friday morning when Colleen and I got to school and didn’t let up until sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning. It was a bone biting rain too. Friday night we lit the first fire of the season in our fireplace. The sun did make a few brief appearances on Saturday, but not enough to dry much of anything out. It looks like today will be sunny though. If we’re lucky the temperatures might even reach 60 by late afternoon.

The last week at school felt excruciatingly long. By Thursday both teachers and students were more than ready for the weekend. Monday and Tuesday found me staying after school for meetings. Colleen had her usual stop at the laundromat on Monday afternoon. Wednesday Colleen and I took a little detour on the way home and voted early. That’s one more thing off of our “TO-DO” list. Midterm exams started on Friday. I didn’t give my kids a midterm. The school leaves that up to the teacher’s discretion. I did give one of my classes a quiz on Friday. The other classes were not ready for their quiz so I moved it to Tuesday of this coming week. There was a full moon on Wednesday and the kids were goofy, but nothing out of the ordinary. My planning period turned into an administrative support period all week. I covered the start of the period for a teacher who has been out sick. The class has a reputation for being somewhat unruly so I was asked to rein them back under control. I had to clean up some locker issues and run daily reports too. Then just for good measure, I worked with a kid who has been having issues outside of school. This I don’t mind doing at all. None of it was anything spectacular. In fact, it can be said the week was rather mundane, long, but mundane.

A steady and hard rain showed up Friday morning providing a less than wonderful start to the day. Unfortunately, staying in bed under our toasty warm covers was not an option for Colleen and me. On the other hand, Alex got the day off because of the weather. Colleen and I got out of school as quickly as we could after the last bell of the day. We knew we were in for a busy weekend so we stopped on the way home to get our weekly market run out of the way. Fortunately, it was a light run by then and we didn’t get too wet getting in and out of the market, and then getting the groceries into the house. The weather was miserable enough though to deter us from going out to our usual Friday night pizza. Instead, Colleen brought some of our home canned turkey soup upstairs from our larder and it was soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. There’s nothing better than soup and sandwiches on a wet and dreary fall evening.

Saturday started out slow as Colleen and I would not be denied starting our day with a leisurely cup or two of hot coffee. Once we got moving though we were all out, all day. Our first order of business was a run to the Farmers Market for a bushel of Rome apples to make this year’s batch of apple butter. As things turned out we opted out of making the apple butter on Saturday afternoon in favor other things that needed doing. Colleen ended up baking all afternoon and into the early evening. Alex and I ran to Tractor Supply Company to pick up our new log splitter. The log splitter was one of those things you had to order online and then pick it up once it got delivered to the store. The log splitter also had to be assembled once we got it home. Alex and I took care of that during the afternoon, well, mostly Alex. The boy has definitely developed a passion for working with his hands and putting the log splitter together was like play time for him.

Colleen really had herself a day on Saturday. Before she even thought about getting dinner ready she had 24 corn muffins baked and a batch of “Creamsicle” cookies. The cookies were supposed to be for our lunches this week but they are quickly disappearing. Dinner was a breeze for Colleen. We had an old New England traditional favorite, hot dogs and baked beans. I think there may even be a little left for my Sunday lunch. After dinner Colleen was back in the kitchen to make one her family’s tried and true treats, Grammie Nellie’s Brownies. The recipe has been handed down through Colleen’s family. Just to make the evening a little bit more interesting, I had gotten Colleen a couple of scratch off lottery tickets when I picked up our Powerball ticket. I’m not sure if I can retire yet because I haven’t checked the numbers, but one of Colleen’s scratch tickets was a $50 winner. It was just the icing on the cake to our wonderful Saturday.

There wasn’t much downtime on Saturday for anyone, but somewhere in betwixt and between our running around, moving firewood, baking, and all the other little things that kept us going I managed to find just enough time to sit on the back porch and add our first fresh squirrel to the freezer. I had missed one or two of the little demons in my earlier attempts, but not yesterday. The squirrel sat still long enough for me to line up the shot, I didn’t flinch, and my shot was true. It wasn’t long after I shot the squirrel that I had the thing skinned, cleaned, and in the freezer. If I can get a few more in the freezer, I dare say paella will be in the menu again. I know a lot of people turn their noses up at the thought of eating squirrels, but the meat is lean and quite tasty.

This morning is just downright gorgeous outside, but today is apple buttering day. Colleen and I will be busy most of the day since the stuff has to simmer for three hours before it is ready to be put in jars and canned. We have a bushel of apples to do and that should yield about 12 pints of apple butter. That will last us until next apple season. Of course, there is the usual cleaning and schoolwork that needs to be done as well. It doesn’t seem like we give ourselves much time to rest on the weekends, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. All the things we do, we enjoy and we’re looking forward to the point when taking care of our homestead becomes a full time way of life for us. It’s a simple life and a good one. There’s nothing better than looking around at the end of a day, being thankful for everything we’ve accomplished, not wanting anything more than we already have, and knowing that all is right on the homestead.

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November 04, 2018: Thanksgiving Is Coming And Quickly At That

Well, there are now just two and a half weeks until Thanksgiving. Last week was another long week at school, but we sure couldn’t have asked for better fall weather outside. We saw plenty of sunshine with some very pleasant temperatures and the only rain we got came on Friday. Even then it wasn’t a torrential rain and it was just what our fall and winter gardens needed. The rain cleared out sometime Friday night and Saturday was a picture perfect autumn day. It was the first day in a while I really got to dive into our “To-Do” list. Unfortunately, Colleen spent the day trying to fight back another case of bronchitis that she picked up last week. It looks like we’re in for another wonderful day today until tonight, anyway. The temperatures are supposed to be a bit cooler than Saturday, but there is the promise of lots of sunshine during the day. I do have some schoolwork that needs to be done so I’m not sure how much of the day I will be able to enjoy outside.

Last Sunday proved to be a busy day for Colleen and me. We had gone to the Farmers Market on Saturday to get a bushel of apples and Sunday we made this year’s batch of apple butter. As rule apple butter isn’t terribly difficult to make, but it is a time consuming process. I peel and core the apples and then Colleen slices them up so they can be turned into mash. I guess it took us a couple of hours to get the apples to that stage. After that the spices got added and everything set to boiling down into a thick, rich consistency. The boiling part takes three hours or more usually. Typically we do that outside on a gas camp stove out on the back porch. It was kind of breezy and cool last Sunday so Colleen decided it would be better to do it on the kitchen stove. It was 7 o’clock in the evening when the last batch of pint jars came out of the hot water bath. It’s a good thing we have plenty of canning jars because we underestimated our yield by a lot. Our day of making apple butter yielded us 30 pint jars. I think we should be set until apple season rolls around next year.

Monday showed up with the usual unpleasant sound of our alarm clock at 4:30 in the morning. The last few weeks at school have seemed long and drawn out and last week was no different. I had my usual mandatory meeting Monday after school. Colleen did the laundry at the laundromat on her way home. The kid that Colleen works with at school didn’t come to school until Thursday so Colleen ended up filling spots to help out the SPED group for most of the week. I gave quizzes to a couple of my classes on Tuesday. Friday was homecoming so not much schoolwork got done because of pep rallies during the school day. By the time Colleen and I got home Friday afternoon, we were wiped out. On the bright side, Wednesday was payday for us.

Realizing that Thanksgiving was coming up on us quickly, the week marked the start of my mad dash to get the rugs steam cleaned for the holidays. Steam cleaning the rugs is a slow and methodical process around here. I had started the week before in the guest room. That rug took longer to dry than I expected. Monday, after school, I started to tackle the stairs and landings. The landings aren’t so bad to do, well, except for the fact that the dogs like to hang out on the landings. The stairs present an entirely different challenge because they all have to be done with the hand attachments. It probably doesn’t help that the carpet is 20 years old and the stairs are a high traffic area either. I managed to get the two landings and one flight of stairs finished by Wednesday evening. I had plans to do the last flight of stairs on Thursday, but as so often happens around here, I got sidetracked after school. I finally finished the stairs on Saturday.

Thursday when Colleen and I got home from school, Alex was already home. Steven was here too. Colleen and I had stopped at Costco on the way home so I blew the horn for the boys to come and help unload the stuff from the truck. Both the boys came out from the back side of the house. They made unloading the truck a quick and easy job. Once we got everything into the house Steven started giving me a hard time about why my log splitter wasn’t ready to go. That’s when I realized what the two boys had been up to when we got home. Steven and Alex has checked the engine oil and filled the hydraulic fluid reservoir. They were just getting ready to start the thing when Colleen and I pulled into the driveway. After all of the stuff from Costco was in the house, the boys and I headed down back to start the log splitter. It started up quite easily. The boys bled the air out of the hydraulic lines, turned the engine off, and then moved it down by the wood pile. We fired the thing back up and everyone took turns trying it out. When we got done playing with the new toy it was time for dinner, and cleaning the rug on the stairs was the furthest thing from my mind.

Even though not much happened at school on Friday, the day really wore on everyone as teachers spent the day babysitting and watching the clock. It really was the last thing Colleen and I wanted to do after another long week. The day long rain only helped drag the dreary day out, making it feel excruciatingly long. Colleen and I were so tired after school we stopped and picked up pizza for dinner on the way home just so we wouldn’t have to leave the house again once we got home. We finally got home, took care of Buttercup, and then sat down to eat dinner at 4 o’clock. Alex got home at his usual time. We had already finished our dinner. Colleen and I spent the next little bit bumping into walls, each other, and anything else that happened to be in our way. About sunset we finally gave it up and headed to bed.

Buttercup woke us up at 6 o’clock on Saturday morning. Colleen could have used some more rest because she woke up coughing up a lung with the onset of her second bout of bronchitis since September. Even with her bronchitis, there were things to be done like every Saturday, so after we lounged around enjoying our morning coffee, Colleen made her weekly menu and her market list and by 9:30 we were heading out the front door. The market run was a small one, fortunately, and we were back home before noon. While Colleen put the groceries away I finished steam cleaning the rug in the last flight of stairs. After a quick bit of lunch I started steam cleaning the dining room rug. The dining room, like the other rooms on the first floor, has to be done in two parts because of all of the furniture. After I finished the half of the room to which I could get, I chased Colleen upstairs for a nap and I took a break and had a cigar on the back porch. Colleen came back downstairs after an hour or so and I was just getting ready to split some firewood. Colleen was feeling well enough to spend some time in the kitchen baking while I was down at the wood pile. I gave up on splitting wood about the same time Colleen was getting ready to make dinner. After dinner Colleen headed back upstairs to bed and I hung out on the back porch until after dark and then I headed upstairs to bed.

It’s a crisp, bright Sunday morning up here on the hill this morning. The deer are up early this morning and wandering through the yard. The time change didn’t get me any extra sleep last night. I was up and wide awake at my usual 5:30 that is now 4:30. Saturday night was when we had to turn the clocks back an hour. Today should be a little less hectic than yesterday. There are still plenty of things that need doing, but most of the day will be spent getting ready for the upcoming week at school. Next week there are the usual barrage of afternoon meetings and I will have to attend an off campus training season all day Thursday only to return to school for a parents night. At least next weekend is a three day weekend and our Thanksgiving break is the week after that. Hopefully Colleen can find some time to get a little extra rest today so she can shake this bout of bronchitis. No matter what ultimately does come our way, Colleen and I will take things one day at a time. With everything going on in this crazy world, Colleen and I will keep things basic and simple up here on our little hill. The real secret to being happy is not letting things you can’t change bother you. There’s no better feeling than coming home thankful for what you have, not wanting the things you don’t have, and knowing that all is right in the homestead.

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November 11, 2018: Baby It’s Cold Outside

The leaves have all started to change color and the cold weather is starting to move into the area. It took the better part of the week, but Colleen and I have finally started to adjust to the time change. The weather was a roller coaster ride all week. Earlier in the week we had sunny skies and temperatures up in the 70’s. By the time Saturday got here, we were covering our winter gardens to protect them from freezing night time temperatures. The only real rain we had was on Friday when a cold front pushed through the area. The sun came back for the weekend and with it there were cold, crisp, blustery winds. Yep, it’s mid November in the heart of the Carolinas. Of course, with the onset of real autumn weather came a good number of new additions to our “To-Do” list around here. Just to make things even crazier, the holidays are right around the corner too. Thanksgiving is just a week and a half away.

It was a tough week at school for Colleen and me. There was a 2-hour delay to the start of school on Tuesday for the election. I had meetings after school on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday, both Colleen and I had training off campus. My training was all day long and Colleen had to drive about 45 minutes during rush hour traffic to get to hers. I guess mine wouldn’t have been so bad except I had to go back to school after my training for parent conference night. The turnout for conference was low with only about 10 percent of my kids’ parents showing up. I sat there, for the better part of two hours, looking at an empty classroom. The handful of parents that did show was for those kids who are doing well this semester. I ended up getting home shortly after 8 PM, feeling very frustrated. At least when Colleen and I left school on Friday afternoon, it was for a well earned 3-day weekend.

A 3-day weekend and the start of the holidays less than two weeks away spell only one thing aroubnd here, a busy weekend. Colleen and I decided to get pizza for dinner Friday on the way home. It was early, but I had plans to start working on my weekend “To-Do” list Friday evening. I had steamed cleaned one half of the dining room rug earlier in the week. The rug was dry by Wednesday night so Colleen and I moved the table to the clean side of the dining room. I would have steam cleaned the rug Thursday night but I didn’t get home until 8 o’clock and I was wiped out. It had been a long week at school, but I had enough energy left on Friday evening to give the second half of the dining room rug a thorough vacuuming and then hit it with the steam cleaner. It wasn’t much, but it was one less thing to do on the weekend. Sometimes, it’s the small steps that make all the difference when it comes to tackling a long list of things that need to be done.

Saturday morning rolled around and after enjoying our morning coffee it was blow and go all day for Colleen and me. The daytime temperatures only got up to about 50 degrees, but we sure couldn’t have asked for a prettier day. Sitting on the back porch watching the sun come up had me planning all kinds of things to do outside. The sun was just starting to chase the morning chill from the air when Colleen stuck her head out the back door. The old saying goes “The best laid plans of mice and men…” and when Colleen said she wanted to get the market run done for the weekend, my plans melted away. Colleen already had her market list in hand so we headed out the door after a short time. With the holidays around the corner it was time to stock up for all of Colleen’s planned cooking and baking so we headed Walmart. Well, one thing lead to another and after about two hours in the store we were checking out with two full buggies of Christmas presents and groceries. Once we got home Colleen and I hustled the Christmas presents upstairs while Alex brought the groceries into the house. It’s not even Thanksgiving and our house is already filled with the anticipation of all of the holiday activities.

Lunch on Saturday was just some leftover pizza after we got home from our market run. After lunch Colleen started putting the groceries away. When it comes to Colleen’s pantry and groceries, most of her cooking and baking ingredients get taken out of their original packaging and re-stored in clear, waterproof and bug proof containers. Of course everything has a very specific place in the pantry. With the holidays fast approaching, putting groceries away turned into a thorough cleaning and reorganizing of Colleen’s pantry. That carried over to our freezers as well because turkeys were on sale and we bought three 15-pound birds. We used to get a big 25+ pound turkey for our Thanksgiving gathering of the clan, but a few years ago we started going to two smaller birds, one for traditional oven roasting and one for smoking. The smaller birds cook quicker making getting everything ready a whole lot easier.

While Colleen was busy in her kitchen I was down at the wood pile splitting firewood. My new log splitter is certainly earning its keep. We lost two good size oak trees when hurricane Florence blew through in September. Alex had cut up one of the two and left me with a large pile of unsplit firewood. I had started splitting the wood last weekend, but I didn’t have the time to finish the job. Yesterday, I had that time. I spent a good two and a half hours in front of the log splitter. When I finally turned the log splitter off, all of the wood was split and sitting in a pile waiting to be moved to the seasoning rack for next winter. Colleen says we need a system of conveyor belts now. We’re already set with firewood for this winter. I’m not done yet though. There is still a tree lying across the top of my shed waiting for Steven and Alex to cut the thing up. We’ve got one more tree with the base rotting out that Steven and Alex will have to cut down too. I’m not sure when the boys will get to the two trees and between those two trees and the pile of split wood I figure next winter’s firewood is in good shape.

There was still some daylight left when I finished splitting wood and since I was on a roll I grabbed the leaf blower from the basement and headed out the front yard. Alex had gotten home early on Wednesday and he was cleaning up the backyard when Colleen and I got home from school. I didn’t have a whole lot of time before sunset, but since Alex did the backyard, I did manage to get about a third of the front yard blown clean on Saturday. It will need to be done a time or two again before Thanksgiving, especially since we love to decorate our yard for Christmas right after Thanksgiving. Anyway, with the last little bit of afternoon still hanging on, Colleen and I covered our winter gardens in anticipation of Saturday night’s sub freezing temperatures. Fortunately, we’re not expecting many nights like Saturday night so with any luck we should have fresh greens until well after Christmas. Interestingly enough, our Lima beans plants that got nearly destroyed by aphids in late summer are heavy with young beans. I’m not sure how those will play out, but Colleen and I are hopeful. I do so love the extended growing seasons here in Central North Carolina.

Here it is Sunday. Our cool predawn morning has turned into a bit of a blustery day. Since I couldn’t get to the living room and family room rugs yesterday, they are on the top of my list for today. I already have a nice fire going in the fire place with a fan circulating the warm dry air to help dry the rugs once I start. I do want to mention that today is Veterans Day and I want to thank all of the veterans and active service members for everything they have done and will continue to do for this great country. Today also happens to be my darling wife’s birthday. Without her our little homestead would be nothing more than another house on a hill. Colleen is the heart and soul of everything that happens up here on our hill and the biggest reason why I can always say that all is right on the homestead.

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November 18, 2018: Wow, This Thursday Is Thanksgiving

Okay, it’s almost time for the holiday festivities to commence. We have family coming to dinner this evening and Thanksgiving is this Thursday. We did have a 3-day weekend to celebrate Veterans Day last weekend and it was a most welcome break. It was a beautiful long weekend until the rains showed up on Monday evening. Once the rains got here they decided to take up temporary residence and stuck around until Thursday evening. We easily got between 5 and 6 inches of rain in that 72 hour time span. All of the lakes and reservoirs filled up to over their high water marks. One creek over which Colleen and travel on our way to and from school backed up so much the water was over its culvert and only inches from the road. Everything was still pretty wet on Friday and Saturday, but at least we had plenty of sunshine. The day time temperatures never got above 60 degrees, but we sure couldn’t have asked for prettier fall days. Today and, in fact, most of the upcoming week looks to be much the same. To make things even better, Colleen and I only have school on Monday and Tuesday.

Last Sunday was the least busy day of our 3-day weekend. It was Colleen’s birthday so I saw no need in rushing her through her morning coffee, not that she would have anyway. She did get up and start moving around in her own sweet time and she ended up in the kitchen making a pan of lasagna and some gluten-free treats for Anna Maria. The kids either came for a visit or called to wish Colleen a happy birthday so the day was full of starts and stops. I finally did get into the family room, moved all of the furniture to one side of the room, and steam cleaned the rug. Alex chipped in on the work load and blew all of the leaves off of the front and backyards. That was as close to a day off as we had all weekend.

Monday showed up and it was a whole different story. After Colleen and I finished our morning coffee we hit the ground running. Colleen headed out to the laundromat first thing in the morning. Steven swung by the house to get Alex so the two of them could work on some stuff at Steven’s place. I started getting things ready so Colleen and I could run some errands once she got back home. Colleen and I had decided it was time to give the guest room a face lift so we had plans to go out and get a 10×12 area rug to put on top of our 20 year old carpeting. We got it home and after some furniture moving, we had the rug down and the room put back together. Of course, while the furniture was all in the wrong place Colleen made sure she cleaned all of those hard to reach spots in the room.

The rug in the dining room was finally dry on Monday so after lunch Colleen and I put the dining room back together. After that Colleen headed into her kitchen for an afternoon of cooking and baking. I started moving furniture out of the way in the living room so I could steam clean that rug. The living room rug is always the last rug to get cleaned. It dries the fastest because the fireplace is in the living room. Colleen ended up making some French meat pies and then experimented with a new Christmas cookie recpie that turned out fabulous. As my darling wife was feeling artistic, she put some real fancy crusts on the meat pies too. She finished all of her baking just in time for dinner. I finished my work in the living room right before dinner. After dinner Colleen and I did what we needed to do to get ready for school the next morning. We were both pretty well worn out when we finally went to bed.

Our four days of school for the week were pretty uneventful. I worked with my kids reviewing for a big unit test in Friday. Colleen shadowed her one on one kid for most of the week. Colleen did have so more training to attend on Wednesday, but it was on campus so it wasn’t a problem. The kid didn’t show up on Friday so Colleen filled in where she was needed all day. When we came home Thursday afternoon, we found that the boys had cut up the tree on the shed and moved it all to the ground so I could cut it up into firewood. Thursday after school I didn’t have the time to cut up any firewood though, instead I got to steam clean the second half of the family room rug. Friday we got home a little early and I was able to get the second part of the living room rug cleaned. All the rugs needed to be dry by lunch time today because we have family coming to dinner this evening.

Saturday ended up being a crazy, run around, get things done kind of day. The first thing I did when I got up was to get the fire going in the fireplace so we could keep warm dry air in the living room all day. Colleen was still nursing her coffee in bed when Steven showed up to get Alex because they had a side job to do. After that it was a mad dash for Colleen and me. I ended up fixing a toilet, replacing burnt out light bulbs, and tending to the garden work that needed doing all while keeping the fire going. Colleen was dusting and cleaning everything until about mid afternoon when she started cooking and getting anything she could ready for this evening’s meal. Somewhere in all of the day’s activities we even got the family room put back together because the rug was dry. Fortunately, there were still enough leftovers in the refrigerator that we were able to eat dinner on the fly. When bedtime rolled around we were exhausted, but feeling like we had accomplished what we had set out to do in the morning. Alex didn’t get home until after I went to bed, but as it turned out, the ground was still too wet so the boys never did get to do their side job.

Colleen and I are very excited to have family coming for dinner this evening. It definitely made for a crazy Saturday yesterday, but our holiday cleaning is done early this year. Usually we’re putting rooms back together on Thanksgiving morning in the midst of Colleen’s cooking. Unless I miss my guess, the day before Thanksgiving should be a piece of cake this year. Of course, the day after Thanksgiving is when all of the Christmas decorations start coming out around here. While everyone is heading out on the morning of Black Friday, Colleen and I will be out looking for our Christmas tree. That is about the only time we leave the house on that weekend. We’ve already started our Christmas shopping and we’ll pick it up again on the next weekend. There are just too many people out and about for us on Thanksgiving weekend.

I’d love to linger on the back porch this morning. It is a beautiful morning. However, there is still way too much to get done. The living room needs to be put back together, Colleen and I need to get a quick market run done, and of course, Colleen has some cooking to do. I will keep the fire going all day so everything will be toasty warm when our guests arrive. Fortunately, I do not have anything to get ready for school tomorrow so I won’t have to spend any time in front of the computer after dinner. Our little homestead is already buzzing with excitement for the holidays. It’s one of our favorite times of the year because we get to spend time with friends and family. Life is good up here on our hill and all is right on the homestead.

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November 22, 2018: More Thansgiving Memories

Ah, Thanksgiving, the start of our holiday season up here on the hill. Sometimes all the kids show up and sometimes only one or two kids show up. This year all but one of the kids showed up at least for a visit. Stephanie, our youngest daughter lives 1000 miles away so time and money get in the way more often than not. Steven and Anna Maria were trying to split time between us and Anna Maria’s parents so they stopped by for a visit just to see everyone. We were eight at the dinner table today, James, Donna, Al, Alysia, Louis, Alex, Colleen, and me. Just like every other family gathering there were smiles and laughter and more food than could be eaten in one sitting. James and Donna were expecting guests later in the afternoon, but they spent a few hours eating and visiting. When they left, Louis and Alex went with them. Louis and Alex will be back tomorrow. Al and Alysia hung around and visited for a while, but they had more than an hour drive to get home so they left with enough time to make it home before dark. Tonight it will be a quiet evening with just Colleen and me at home.

After our feast today, a feast at which I ate far too much, I found myself out on the back porch enjoying a cigar and thinking back on the year and in some cases all the other years that have slid by so quickly, leaving only memories and the stories that are born from those memories. There are a few memories I cherish dearly from my youth. Sadly, holiday memories of my youth were rarely magical as my father was a hard man and rarely found the joy or happiness in the simple pleasures of life. It was not that I did not love my father because I did, but we rarely saw eye to eye. Perhaps my fondest memory of my father was hunting together on Thanksgiving Day. We only did this together a few years between when I was old enough to hunt and before I went to college.

One Thanksgiving in particular was special. I grew up in New England and by Thanksgiving the weather was almost always rather cold. My father and I got up well before dawn so we could be out in the field at first light. We ate breakfast, bundled ourselves up, and then headed out to his truck, putting our shotguns on the rack in the back window. Our dog, a German Shorthair Pointer, bounded up into the front seat between us like usual and we were off. There wasn’t much in the way of conversation, but there never was. With my dad, things had to be just so or they were wrong. We spent most of the morning hunting pheasant in corn fields and when we came home we had three beautiful birds. After the obligatory pictures, I cleaned the birds which was always my responsibility and presented them to my mother. We didn’t have turkey that Thanksgiving. We had pheasant.

Thanksgivings up on the hill are vastly different than when I was a kid. Colleen and I are up at dawn to make ready for the arrival of our kids. We’ve worked as a team for as long as I can remember, and holidays are no different, in fact they are kind of special for us. There were a few years when Alex and I did go hunting in the morning, but we haven’t done that in a while. A few years back Colleen and I decided that instead of one big turkey we would cook two smaller turkeys, one oven roasted and the other smoked. So it was this year. Admittedly, Colleen still does most of the cooking by far, but smoking a turkey is all me. With our morning coffee done, Colleen set about stuffing the turkey for the oven and I got the smoker ready. This year I used cherry wood for the smoke. Usually I’m back and forth between the smoker and upstairs trying to finish cleaning up the house while Colleen cooks. This year we finished cleaning up the house on the Sunday before Thanksgiving so I just stayed outside and babysat the smoker.

One of the first things we ever did here at this house was to dig and line a fire pit with stone. Over the years the fire pit has been a traditional gathering spot for the family, especially the kids. Once the smoker was going I figured it was time to light the fire pit. It was barely 40 degrees outside. Alex is our only kid still at home so looking outside and seeing everyone around the fire in the pit is now one of those cherished memories. The most cherished of those was from Christmas Eve in 2010 when all the kids were here, all the kids were hanging around the fire pit, and it was snowing. This Thanksgiving while I was helping Colleen with carving the turkeys I looked outside after I had finished and all of the guys were hanging around the fire pit, talking and laughing. It was a wonderful sight, transporting me back in time to their youth.

Thanksgiving dinner was incredible this year. Colleen really out did herself. Everything was on the table pretty much right on schedule. There was more conversation around the table this year than I can ever remember too. I guess I can attribute that to the fact that the kids are more grown up now. I’m not really sure how Louis managed to eat though. He was regaling everyone with his tales of army life. The boy reminds me of Max Klinger from M.A.S.H. and ironically enough Louis is the company clerk too. He isn’t trying to get out on a Section 8 though. We were all laughing so hard it hurt at times. Dinner lasted a good long while this year. It seemed like no one was in any particular hurry to be anywhere else. Everyone ate their fill for sure. The desserts which Colleen had arranged so nicely on a side table sat there untouched after everyone had finished eating. That always seems to be the case in this house. Sadly, after dinner everyone mingled around for a little bit and then one by one my kids started leaving to head back to their own homes.

The fire in the fire pit has long since burned itself out. The dinner table is still littered with plates and leftovers. I’ve been tending the fireplace which now only has a low fire burning in it. Colleen has put some Christmas music on the stereo and is in the kitchen cleaning up. I would help except for one small, minor detail. The dishes on which we ate dinner are from the 1930’s and they belonged to Colleen’s grandmother. Colleen has forbidden anyone from helping her with the dishes. They are precious to her and it would kill her if anything happened to them. Come to think about it, she’s about the same way with her Christmas dishes. Cleaning the dishes after a family feast is almost a ritual for Colleen. Sometimes when we have eaten late, I can remember her being up until 2 in the morning cleaning everything. I don’t think she’ll be that late this year.

Tomorrow morning, Colleen and I will sleep later than usual. We only have one thing planned and that is to get our Christmas tree. We are not big shoppers and the idea of fighting Black Friday crowds doesn’t appeal to us in the least. The tree may go up on Friday, but it won’t be completely decorated until Saturday I’m sure. Putting the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving is another one of our traditions that Colleen and I started for the kids. The tradition stuck and it just won’t seem like Thanksgiving weekend if it didn’t get put up. I guess the tree going up officially marks the start of the Christmas season. Yes, indeed, it was a good Thanksgiving this year. Colleen and I, like every year in the past, have so much for which to be thankful and though today is a celebration of giving thanks, not a day goes by when we aren’t thankful for our lives because up here on our little hill, all is right on the homestead.

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November 25, 2018: Thanksgiving Is Over. Here Comes Christmas!

What a week it has been! Colleen and I finished cleaning the house just in time for our little family get together last Sunday evening. We survived a quick 2-day school week. Thanksgiving came and went in the blink of an eye. The Christmas tree went up on Friday and we spent the weekend decorating. Colleen even managed to get all of the Thanksgiving leftovers taken care of by turning them into tasty post holiday treats. The weather has been pretty terrific all week with the exception of Saturday when a front moved through and brought a cold biting rain with it. The rain moved through by later Saturday afternoon. This morning there is sunshine on the eastern horizon with a few clouds floating overhead.

Every year, starting at the beginning of November, I embark on a quest to give all of our 20 plus year old wall to wall carpeting a good steam cleaning after a long summer of family and dog traffic. Ostensibly, my goal is to get the rugs ready for the holiday season. Most years the last rug, usually the living room rug, doesn’t finish drying until Thanksgiving morning. Colleen and I always seem to be racing the clock, at the last minute we’re rushing to get the furniture back in place before our guests arrive. This year our time table got moved up a few days and Colleen and I were putting the living room back together on Sunday in anticipation of our brother in law’s and other guests’ arrival for a small family get together. We did it, and by the time everyone showed up, the dinner was finishing up in the oven and the place was set to rights.

Colleen’s little dinner party came off flawlessly. She treated everyone to a wonderful dinner that started with a hearty corn chowder similar to the one served at the City Tavern in Philadelphia. Dinner, itself, was a wonderful Yankee pot roast and homemade biscuits which was just perfect for a chilly fall evening. Dessert was a traditional Boston Cream pie and fresh strawberries on a homemade biscuit topped with homemade strawberry sauce, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate syrup. Colleen even put together a vegetarian version of the pot roast dinner for our daughter in law. Anna Maria was still raving about on Thanksgiving when she and Steven stopped by for a visit. The biscuits Colleen made for Anna Maria’s dinner were gluten-free too.

On Monday and Tuesday there was school for both Colleen and me. I had meetings after school on both days. On Monday Colleen and I took separate vehicles so she could stop at the laundromat on her way home while I stayed after school. Tuesday the kids got out of school at lunchtime, but the teachers got stuck in three hours worth of meetings after the kids were dismissed. Colleen stuck around waiting for me so she wouldn’t have to make up her time later. Because we had finished cleaning the house on the weekend, Colleen and I both got a rare night off at home. We took full advantage of the down time and didn’t do much of anything othe3r than relax infront of the fireplace.

Wednesday morning was a bit different for Colleen and me. Instead of a mad dash to finish cleaning the house, we enjoyed our morning coffee and then went out to do a little Christmas shopping. We figured there won’t be so many people out the day before Thanksgiving. We were wrong! We got the store and wasn’t there a dang line longer than a football field waiting for the store to open. Needless to say, Colleen and I were in and out of the place as quickly as possible. We grabbed a quick bite to eat on the way home and then spent our afternoon getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. Colleen was busy in the kitchen cooking and I made sure my smoker was clean and ready to go and there was plenty of chunks of chopped cherry wood for smoking one of our two turkeys on Thursday.

Thursday morning Colleen and I were up before the dawn. There were turkeys to be cooked dinner. Colleen stuffed the bird for the oven and I fired up the smoker. Both birds were cooking shortly after sunrise. While I stayed outside to babysit the smoker Colleen was in the kitchen doing the cooking that needed to be done for all of the side dishes. Fortunately, Colleen had done a good bit prep work Wednesday afternoon and evening. To keep myself entertained outside, I started a fire in the fire pit. When the kids were younger and still living at home, the fire pit was their gathering place, especially on holidays. As I stood there watching the fire burn, I couldn’t help but think back on the memories of past Thanksgiving. The kids all started to show up right about noon. As I was carving the turkeys and Colleen was getting everything ready for the table, I realized that none of the guys were in the house. It didn’t take long to find them. All of them were down by the fire pit.

Thanksgiving dinner came off without a hitch. It was a grand feast. Of course everyone ate too much and dessert didn’t get eaten until a good while after dinner was finished. Like all our clan gatherings, the end seemed to sneak up on us and before Colleen and I knew it, all of the kids were saying their goodbyes and heading back home. In what seemed to be a blink of an eye, our home that had been filled with chatter and laughter all day, turned silent. Colleen put some Christmas music on the stereo and started her cleaning. I, whom Colleen had forbidden from helping with her grandmother’s antique dishes which had been handed down to her, headed out to the back porch to reminisce about this Thanksgiving and our bygone holidays.

Friday was our traditional Christmas Tree Day. Once Colleen and I finished our morning coffee we headed out to get the tree. That was the only place to which we went not wanting to deal with all of the Black Friday crowds. When got home we put the tree in a bucket of hot water on the porch like every year. Colleen had ordered a cabinet that was delivered earlier in the week to replace the small bookcase in the family that had broken, so I spent the lion’s share of the afternoon putting the cabinet together. Once the cabinet was together, the Christmas tree came into the house and we set it up in its stand. Normally, I would put the lights on the tree once it was up, at least, but not this year. I hadn’t eaten all day and was feeling somewhat out of sorts. I called it an evening and went to bed. Colleen and Alex stayed up for a while and ended up putting up a wall mural in the living room.

Saturday showed up and we didn’t slow down. Colleen spent the morning in the in the kitchen turning the Thanksgiving leftovers into soup stock and pot pies. We moved Colleen’s new cabinet in place and I spent the morning cleaning up the mess I made pulling everything out of the old bookcase. After lunch I spent the afternoon getting all of the lights on our Christmas tree and keeping the fire in the fireplace burning low. The ornaments got put on hold until today. Colleen had pulled the bigger pieces of her Christmas village up from the basement Friday. She spent every bit of Saturday afternoon and a good part of Saturday evening setting it up in living room. I don’t think Colleen even took a break to eat dinner until she had finished. There was no way we were going to get the tree and get the village done at the same time around all the displaced furniture.

This morning the air is cool and damp. The sun has finally burnt off the morning fog. It’s going to be another busy day today. The ornaments will be hung on our tree. I’m sure Colleen will start decorating the family room. This afternoon I need to get into my schoolwork to get ready for the upcoming week. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Christmas is now just a month away. I’m sure Colleen and I will be so busy that the next 30 days will zip by us. It’s like that every year. You won’t hear us complaining though. Our house will be filled with the sounds of Christmas and most importantly there will plenty of laughing, smiling, and new memories being made. We will, indeed, be busy, but none of what we do will seem like a chore. Christmas time is a magical time for us. So today as I look around, again thankful for the wonderful life Colleen and I share, I can see without reservation that up here on our little hill, all is right on the homestead.

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December 02, 2018: We’re At ElfCon 5 As We Countdown to Christmas

Well, here we are, November is done and December is here. I have a hard enough time keeping up with what happened last week let alone the last eleven months. I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by us. Oddly enough, for as quickly as 2018 has passed, last week seemed long and drawn out. The roller coaster weather ride probably did not help that very much either. The rains moved into the area last Sunday evening and hung around through midday Monday. Behind the rain, there was a cold front that pushed our morning temperatures down into the mid-20’s for a couple of days. We didn’t really see things start warming up until Thursday afternoon. By Saturday we had temperatures close to 60 again and today we might even see the 70 mark. There was plenty of sunshine from Tuesday through Thursday too. Friday the clouds moved back into the area and it tried to rain. Come to think about it, I guess it did rain a little Friday night into Saturday morning, but by the middle of Saturday, rain had moved back into the area for real. The rain kept up through the night and while it stopped before sunup today, there is now the possibility of thunderstorms later this morning. Yep, I meant roller coaster when I said roller coaster.

Last Sunday afternoon Colleen and I decorated our Christmas tree, but we didn’t finish. You just can’t finish decorating a Christmas tree without candy canes, and the tinsel doesn’t get put on the tree until after the candy canes are hung. It’s just the natural order of things and besides I think it’s a law too. As it was, it took Colleen and me until about 3 o’clock to get the ornaments on the tree. We had to give up the decorating at that point so we still had time to get ready for school on Monday. Colleen did some baking before dinner and I worked on school stuff for my classes. After our 5-day break for Thanksgiving, getting in front of a computer was the last thing I wanted do. It all comes with the turf though, so I took a deep breath and dug into my work.

Monday morning showed up right on time as our alarm clock started screeching at 4:30 AM like usual. There was nothing in particular that made the week anything but ordinary. Colleen and I took two vehicles to school on Monday so Colleen could stop at the laundromat on the way home while I stayed after school for a meeting. I recused myself from my meeting after school on Tuesday. The faculty meeting scheduled for after school on Wednesday got canceled. Thursday I spent reviewing material with the kids and Friday I gave all of my classes a quiz. One of Colleen’s coworkers said goodbye on Friday because she was retiring. Lucky her! We got home at our usual time on Friday just in time to start our crazy, busy weekend. After this weekend, there are only three more until Christmas. Oh yea, we got our school pictures back during the week too. Colleen and I had them take one of us together just for kicks.

Even without meetings after school, Colleen and I spent our afternoons just trying to keep things moving forward around here. Colleen got us through the week on lunches and dinners composed mostly of Thanksgiving leftovers. She did make a casserole that didn’t include turkey once in the middle of the week, but that was just to give our taste buds a change of flavor. I’m not complaining mind you. I happen to like turkey salad, turkey pot pie, Thanksgiving sandwiches, turkey soup, and French meat pie. Most of our evenings were spent doing a little more decorating or getting ready for school the next day. It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that we really got rolling on getting anything major accomplished. Colleen did manage to get our second Christmas tree put up in the family room somewhere in there too.

Friday when we got home we were looking at gray skies and the threat of rain. Colleen and I were eyeing Saturday morning to put up our outside Christmasn decorations. Before that could happen though, I needed to blow the layer of leaves off of the front yard. As soon as we got home from school I headed outside. It took me a good hour and a half and all of the available afternoon light to get the front yard cleaned. While I was doing that Colleen sat herself down at the dining room table to pay our bills. Friday was payday and we needed to see what we could budget for Christmas. It took Colleen as long to pay the bills as it took me out in the yard. We sure didn’t do much else the rest of the evening other than a little decorating.

Saturday showed up cloudy and gray. Colleen and I had made plans to put up our Christmas lawn decorations and with rains due that afternoon we knew it would be our only window of opportunity. After we finished our coffee and got dressed we were out in the front yard. One by one Colleen reverently brought each of the decorations. While I was hanging lights and garland on the house, Colleen would assemble and place each decoration for our annual outdoor Christmas display. As each decoration was ready, I would stop my work, run the extension cord to it, and then secure it to the ground. This went on all morning and through the middle of the afternoon. We did stop at lunch time for a cup of hot turkey soup, but it was just a quick respite. The weather finally told us it was time to stop a little after 3 o’clock when a heavy mist moved into the area. Even after a good 6 hours of working out front, we still aren’t finished. With any luck, we’ll be able to finish after school on the upcoming week.

After working outside a good bit of Saturday, the last thing Colleen wanted to do was make dinner. On top of that we had plans to do our weekly market run that evening. It didn’t take me too much effort to convince Colleen that we should go out to dinner before we headed to Walmart and that is exactly what we did. After sitting down to a very nice dinner at the Cracker Barrel, Colleen and I realized just how tired we were. Nonetheless, the market run had to be done so off we went. We even managed to get a little Christmas shopping in while we were at Walmart too. It was 8:30 when we finally got home, and while not particularly late, it felt like midnight to us. Neither Colleen nor I stayed up very long once everything got put away.

It’s far too wet outside this morning for us to finish our decorating outside. That’s probably a good thing since we have a long list of things that need to be done inside. I think I’ll finally be able to finish decorating the Christmas tree. Once our Christmas tree is finished I might even start wrapping the Christmas presents. There is always some miscellaneous cleaning that needs to be done. Colleen wants to make her Christmas fruitcakes today along with all of her usual weekly baking. I have work to get ready for school this week too. Colleen and I are looking at another 5-day school week this week. We’re not expecting a whole lot to happen. I suspect it will seem like a long week again with our Christmas break looming just three weeks away. We’ll try to get things done at home after school because time is getting short before Christmas Day. I’d have to say though, that last week was another good week up here on the hill. Colleen and I will be busy again this week just like last week, but we are excited. There’s nothing better than hearing Christmas music in the background as we look around our little sanctuary up here on the hill and know that all is right on the homestead.

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December 09, 2018: Just A Little Early For A White Christmas

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Colleen and I are another week closer to our Christmas holiday. Friday marked the halfway point of our four week run from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It was a good week too. School seemed to pass quickly. Our weather is still all over the map. Last weekend we had plenty of sunshine and this weekend we have gray skies and snow. Snow in December is not unheard of in North Carolina, but is rare. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve had measurable December snow storms and things really ended up being a mess. This weekend we’ve got some snow, 6 to 10 inches worth of the white stuff, and they say we’re getting some freezing rain thrown into the mix too. I do not believe we will have school on Monday. I’m not sure if or when the county will cancel school tomorrow, but Colleen and I are keeping our eyes on the news. Who knows, we may get a long weekend. If the roads are bad enough from the melting and refreezing, we may even get Tuesday off as well.

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Our school week was quiet on all measures. The kids were starting to get a little goofy, but I’m not sure if that was for Christmas or the forecasted winter storm. Colleen and I did manage to stop by a few stores on the way home during the week. On Monday when they started taking about snow for this weekend, I stopped at Costco to get some bottled water. By Wednesday, it seemed pretty certain we were going to get some winter precipitation this weekend so Colleen and I stopped by the market on the way home. The shelves would have been empty if we had waited until Friday. In North Carolina, the mention of snow in a forecast sends everyone scrambling to buy bread, milk, and eggs. You would think by the reaction of folks in these parts they were getting ready for a French toast party. We only really needed some milk, flour, and a few other ingredients from the market so Colleen could do some baking and cooking once the snow started. Alex stayed home sick on Thursday. Colleen and I came home to a warm house because Alex had the fire going all day. The kid even filled up the wood rack on the back porch in anticipation of the weekend. Friday, Colleen and I stopped by a discount department store looking for a few Christmas presents and then it was a quick run to pick up pizza for dinner. We had plans to go Christmas shopping on Sunday, but as the forecast got worse we knew we would be staying home.

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Like I said, as weeks go, last week was pretty quiet. This year there is a four week run between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal except at this time of year, Colleen and I have to squeeze all our decorating and Christmas shopping pretty much into our free time, which translates into our weekends. Going out during the evenings just doesn’t work for us. Getting up at 4:30 in the morning and going all day at school does a good job of taking it out of us. Needless to say, we try to save our energy and rest during the week because our weekends are busy. In the past, when Colleen was a substitute teacher, she could swing a day off in the middle of the week to help get caught up. Last year she started working full time as a TA and everything sort of snuck up on us. I don’t even think we managed to get all of the decorations up for Christmas last year. This year we’re doing a whole lot better, but we sure are counting down the days until our Christmas break.

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Just like the last several weekends, this Saturday was a busy one for us. We knew with the winter storm rolling into the area, anything that needed doing outside had to get done on Saturday. Colleen and I were out the front door working on decorating the house just as soon as we finished our coffee. It was cold and gray, but it was dry. It didn’t take long for the cold to start getting to my hands and to Colleen’s ears, but we got all of the ladder work done by lunchtime. After a quick bite of pizza for lunch, I was back outside finishing stuff up. Colleen stayed in the house and started hauling boxes of inside decorations up from the basement. I had forgotten just how many Christmas decorations we had amassed over the last 18 years. I finally finished everything outside around 3 o’clock. Colleen was still emptying boxes and putting decorations up. Eighteen years ago when Colleen and I got together and started decorating for Christmas for Louis and Alex, who would come to North Carolina from Louisiana to spend Christmas with us and the other kids, I sure don’t remember my knees being so creaky as I would go up and down the ladder.

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Colleen dragged box after box up from the basement Saturday afternoon. Santa and his reindeer got put up on the window ledge near the ceiling in the stairwell. That’s no small feat either. I had to bring the extension ladder in from outside once I was finished with it. Colleen finished decorating our second Christmas tree in the family room. Any number of various Christmas decorations got placed in their designated nook or cranny, and there are still a couple of boxes to empty sitting in the middle of the family room floor. Fortunately, the weather today has pretty much guaranteed we won’t be leaving the house. After going all Saturday long decorating, sitting down to a dinner of hot dogs and beans was nothing short of divine. It’s a simple enough dinner, but it also happens to be one of our favorites. We didn’t do much more than a little extra decorating done after dinner before we called it a night.

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There’s probably a good 8 inches of snow on the ground right now and it’s still coming. The forecast is calling for the snow to change over to freezing rain later this afternoon. It’s a safe bet that Colleen and I will not be going to school tomorrow morning, and maybe not even Tuesday morning. It’s all good though. We have plenty of firewood and Colleen is planning on cooking today. Even if we do lose power for an extended period of time, we have a propane stove on which to cook. We did lose power this morning for about 5 minutes. This early winter storm is giving us a chance to catch our breath as we head into these next two weeks before Christmas break. It sure looks like it’s a good day to start wrapping Christmas presents, too. Snow in Central North Carolina never really lasts too long, so by midweek everything should be back to normal around here. Today, though, Colleen and I are being treated a snow storm reminiscent of our youth in New England. Our little hill is a winter wonderland today and with a warm hearth in the living room, and a large pot of soup simmering on the stove, things couldn’t be better. Yes, indeed, it can truly be said that all is right on the homestead.

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December 16, 2018: The Snow Turned The Week On Its Ear

It’s been one heck of a week, mostly thanks to Mother Nature. The 6 to 10 inches of snow we were supposed to get last Sunday turned into 15 inches of snow followed by a few hours of freezing rain. Monday morning the snow came back and added another 3 inches on top of everything. Just to make things even more interesting, the daytime temperatures got up to about 40 degrees and then plunged back down into the 20’s on Monday and Tuesday night. The roads were pretty much impassable on Sunday and for the better part of Monday. By Tuesday, the main thoroughfares were passable, but the residential and secondary roads were still in tough shape. On Wednesday morning everything was a sheet of black ice. Everything got back to normal by Thursday, and then on Friday the rain showed up and stuck around until this morning. Colleen and I stayed home on Monday and Tuesday because schools were closed. We did have school on Wednesday, but it started on a 3-hour delay. All I can say is “Welcome to the start of winter in Central North Carolina!”

The snow days Colleen and I enjoyed on Monday and Tuesday proved to be the break we both needed. Monday we sat around with a fire burning in the fireplace and did almost nothing. Colleen had made a big pot of beef, bean, and barley soup along with some fresh bread on Sunday so she didn’t bother to cook anything on Monday. She did do some vacuuming around the house and I managed to find enough motivation to shovel the snow off of the porches. Alex managed to get out of the driveway and get down to the store in his Explorer on Monday afternoon when the roads were slushy. Okay, so it took Alex 45 minutes to get out of the driveway, but he did it. Steven and Anna Maria showed up in the late afternoon to check in on everyone. It took Steven putting his truck into 4-wheel drive to get out of the neighborhood to head home. When they left, the sun was still up, but hanging low on the western horizon.

Tuesday was a little better as the snow and ice started to melt by midday. Steven picked Alex in the morning up so they could go to work. The day was actually quite nice with plenty of sunshine. I spent the morning doing schoolwork, but as soon as things warmed up enough, was outside moving snow and ice off of the driveway and our cul-de-sac. I was anticipating having to go to school on Wednesday, and there was no way I wanted to fight the mess on the street, so I cleared a path so we could get out. Colleen was back in the kitchen on Tuesday, making scones, potato pies, and her Stroga-Knock-Off. Her cooking would carry us through breakfasts and dinners for the rest of the week making it easier for us to get back on our routine. Colleen and I were pretty sure the kids would be rambunctious at school after a couple of snow days and we would be worn out at day’s end after having to corral kids all day. This proved to be exactly the case all week long.

Wednesday we started school on a 3-hour delay, but Colleen and I got there as early as we could. We ended up leaving right around sunrise. I had to spread wood ash from the fireplace all over the last 20 or 30 feet of the driveway because it was a sheet of ice. We took our time heading into school and did so without incident thankfully. We did, however, pass an overturned box truck and a crumpled SUV in one intersection and a few cars in the ditch along the way. Getting home wasn’t a problem on Wednesday. Alex had gotten home before we did and had even put a fire in the fireplace and had his work boots on the hearth so they could dry out from his day of working in the snow.

Thursday it was time for Colleen and me to start playing catch up. Colleen had put two bags of laundry in my truck when we left for school. I dropped her off at the laundromat on our way home. I headed home to take care of Buttercup. I got Buttercup squared away and I jumped back into the truck and headed back down to the laundromat to get Colleen and the washed laundry. Alex got home just a few minutes before our return and was just sitting on the stairs peeling off his wet boots when Colleen and I walked into the house. I cleaned out the fireplace, but for some reason we never did put a fire in it on Thursday, in between her trips from the basement to the 2nd floor with the dry, folded laundry, the two of us tried to figure out exactly what we needed to do to finish our Christmas shopping. Colleen did get a big surprise on Thursday when she realized all three of her Christmas cacti were either blooming or getting ready to bloom.

The rain moved in on Friday morning and Alex got another day off when his company shutdown operations for the day. Colleen and I had a pretty typical day at school, but knowing that Alex had been home all day to take care of Buttercup, we decided to do some Christmas shopping after school and before we came home. Colleen and I are not shoppers and 2 hours in a store looking around was all we could handle. On the way home we stopped and picked up some takeout pizza for dinner. It was well after sunset when we got home, but Alex had plugged in the outside Christmas lights and had a nice fire going in the fireplace so our afternoon adventure ended on a very merry note. Colleen and I didn’t stay up very long after we finished eating our dinner.

I was up before the sun again this morning. Colleen got up a little bit after I did. I nursed my coffee on the back porch as the last of the rain moved out of the area and the sun lit up the morning sky. Everything is far too wet to do anything outside, but that’s okay because Colleen and I have stuff that needs to be done inside. Tomorrow we start our weeklong run into our Christmas break. The two days we had off for snow at the beginning of last week is paying dividends right now. Apart from the usual baking and schoolwork that needs to be done, there are presents to be wrapped, but neither of us are on the brink of exhaustion so we will get things done today. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just 9 days away and that 2019 is just over two weeks away. Don’t forget that winter officially starts this Friday too. It sure has been one heck of a good ride this year. Oh sure, there have been high spots and low spots, but overall it has been a great year. Colleen and I are looking forward to our break and our time with the family. We are very thankful for everything this year has brought us and perhaps most thankful for our simple life up here on our hill where all is right on the homestead.

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December 23, 2018: ElfCon 2: Christrmas Is Almost Here!

We went from 15 inches of snow to start two weeks ago to balmy 60 degree days to start last week. The weather stayed pretty nice for the first part of the week, but did we ever get a good soaking when the rain showed up on Thursday and stuck around through Friday. When the rain finally did leave, it took a good part of the warm temperatures with it. We had lots of sunshine on Saturday, but the temperatures just touched 50 degrees. The forecast says we are in for much of the same thing today. In fact, besides some cool temperatures it looks like we’ll have a good bit of sunshine right through Wednesday. Sunshine and cool temperatures is the next best thing to a White Christmas which we will not see once again this year. No matter, Colleen and I are on Christmas break, Christmas is this Tuesday, and our kids will start showing up on Monday evening.

The weeks before Christmas break and spring always get school kids acting whacky and last week sure wasn’t an exception. It’s not that they did anything bad, but they were squirrely because they knew Friday would be the last day of school until after the New Year. Colleen and I managed to get to school early every day except Thursday. The alternator in my truck died so we had to shuffle vehicles and take her car. Apart from the excitement for Christmas, the week was pretty normal. Colleen and I tried to stick as close to routine as we could. There was still a lot we needed doing to get ready for Christmas, and we knew this weekend was going to be very busy.

Colleen did the laundry on Monday while I stayed after school for my usual meeting. I got home a few minutes before sunset. The leaves on the trees are all gone now and in the last of the afternoon light I was treated to a spectacular view of the sun bathed treetops in the lowlands. Not much got done other than laundry after school on Monday, but that was okay because we had just come off of a very busy weekend. I’ll have to admit it was a relaxed evening and really started setting the tone for our upcoming Christmas celebrations. I’ve just had this feeling since Thanksgiving that this year Christmas was going to be something special up here on the hill.

I had another meeting after school on Tuesday. It was a short meeting so Colleen and I came to school together and she waited for me at the end of the school day. We got home later than usual, but there wasn’t any urgency to the afternoon. While Colleen was getting dinner ready, Anna Maria and Steven showed up with a new Christmas sweater for Colleen. Colleen already has a rather eclectic collection of Christmas sweaters, but this new one was something else. There are lights on the sweater that twinkle and blink. All I could think was that if she wore it to school some kid would have an epileptic seizure because of the lights on the sweater. Colleen’s Christmas started right then and there. I don’t know how the kids do it, but they always come up with some gift that is both totally unexpected and perfect when it comes to Colleen.

Wednesday proved to be an interesting day. It wasn’t so much what happened at school, but rather what happened after school. Colleen and I stopped at PetSmart to get a sweater for Buttercup. Buttercup is a 130 pound Boxer-Labrador mix that just doesn’t like the cold. She took to the sweater like a fish to water. After we got home and got the sweater on Buttercup, Alex showed up with a deer in his Explorer. It was a yearling that he had hit on the way to work. There was no damage to his Explorer, but Alex wasn’t going to pass up fresh venison either. He field dressed the deer and let it hang at work. Once he got it home, he started taking the meat off of the bone. I’ll give the boy credit, he is good. I think it took him just under 3 hours to get the job done. Needless to say, we have some very nice roasts, a back strap, and a good bit of stew meat in the freezer now.

Thursday morning Colleen and I ran into a little trouble. I started my truck up, and the warning lights on the dashboard lit up too. Rather than risk not making it to school, we just put our stuff in Colleen’s car and left the truck in the driveway. After school I got the truck down to the garage with hope they could get everything put back to rights by Friday afternoon. I sure didn’t want to be one vehicle down going into the weekend before Christmas. We still had Christmas shopping to get done. We took Colleen’s car to school on Friday too. My mechanics, true to their word, had my truck ready to go on Friday after school. Other than picking the truck up from the shop on Friday after school, Colleen and I did relatively little to close out our school week.

Saturday was the start of our Christmas break and a three day mad dash into Christmas Day. I barely had time for a second cup of coffee and Colleen and I were out the front door. During the week some of our kids let us know they would be coming home on Christmas Eve to spend the night. Colleen had already planned a Christmas brunch, but now she needed Friday night fixings. Colleen ultimately decided on putting out a taco bar so there wouldn’t be a lot of cooking and serving involved. Colleen has never done a taco bar before, but Friday evening she figured out what she wanted and Saturday it was an early market run to get everything she needed for the taco bar and her Christmas brunch. After the market run, it was a trip to Costco to get the things we needed in bulk, like 5 dozen eggs. We finally got all of our running around done, got home, and got settled a little after lunchtime.

After lunch Colleen started baking biscuits and bread and I headed upstairs to wrap Christmas presents. The only real breaks Colleen and I had were when I would bring her an armful of presents on which she would put tags. No one can read my writing or printing so I don’t do tags. The sun had set when I finally just had to give up the wrapping. The work table in the guest room was covered with various sized pieces of wrapping paper and there was still a pile of gifts in the floor waiting to be wrapped. Colleen had pulled the last of her bread out of the oven and she was done for the night too. We had a late dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, cleaned up, and headed off to bed. I fell asleep well before Colleen did, but when I rolled over at 11:30 she was sound asleep, sitting up in bed with her tablet on her lap.

I was up before Colleen this morning and well before sunrise. After taking care of Buttercup, I was able to sit out on the back porch for a while. It’s not likely I’ll have a second cup of coffee this morning either. Colleen and I have plans for our annual mall trip to look at decorations and get those few last, hard to find Christmas presents. We usually get home after lunch and I suspect Colleen will be in the kitchen again while I head back upstairs to wrap presents. With any luck I can get everything wrapped by tonight, but I still have a small window of time tomorrow if necessary. No matter what happens today, there will be Christmas music playing on the stereo, and Colleen and I will be doing everything to pull it all together for Christmas. On the bright side, my days of staying up into the wee hours of Christmas morning putting things together for the kids are now just delightful memories of Christmas past. This Christmas is already promising to be something extra special with most of our kids here and those that live close by getting here first thing in the morning. Our Christmas ready status has been dropped to ElfCon 2, everyone is excited and looking forward to the celebration, and, of course, all is right on the homestead.

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December 30, 2018: And So We Come To The Close Of Another Year.

Christmas has come and gone and now we are waiting on the arrival of the New Year. Colleen and I are still on our Christmas break and we have enjoyed what for the most part has been a beautiful week. From last Sunday up through Thursday we had bountiful sunshine. Some clouds started to move in on Thursday afternoon. The front edge of the storms that had been moving across country finally got here Thursday evening and with them came the rain. Friday was soggy as it rained all day long. Fortunately, we didn’t get storms anywhere near as violent as those that went through the heartland. By yesterday morning, the rain had moved on and the sun found its way back through the last of the lingering clouds. The sunshine was short lived though, as the clouds and the rain have moved in once again this morning. It’s okay though, the clouds and rain should clear out this morning and the sun will be back this afternoon.

Last Sunday was a busy day for Colleen and me. Once a year we head to the mall. Now, the mall is only 20 minutes away, but Colleen and I are not fond of crowds and there really isn’t much we are ever interested in buying at a mall anyway. Nonetheless, we do like to look at Christmas decorations and the mall does a very nice job with them so we make it a point to get out that way right around Christmas. We treat ourselves to lunch while we are there too. Like always we got there within minutes of the mall opening its doors. There were only a few people there and there was plenty of parking. This year we even had a little Christmas shopping to do to fill a few holes on our Christmas list. We wandered the mall and found those last few, hard to find gifts that would be just perfect for our kids. Around 11 o’clock we headed to the food court for our traditional Philly cheesesteak sandwich, fries swimming in cheese and bacon, and tall lemonade. After we finished lunch we had just a few more stores we wanted to visit and we were done. When we left, the parking lot was full and people were still streaming into the place.

I guess Colleen and I got home a little after 1 o’clock, but taking the rest of the day to relax was not an option. Colleen spent all afternoon back in the kitchen baking bread, biscuits, and cookies for our Christmas brunch. I headed upstairs to the guest room to wrap presents and wrap presents I did. Oh, I took a few breaks to bring wrapped presents downstairs so Colleen could write out the tags since my handwriting can be difficult to read, and I took a break for dinnert too, but by 8 o’clock all of the Christmas presents were wrapped. Needless to say, Colleen and I were both exhausted when we finally went to bed.

Monday was Christmas Eve and there was still so much to do to get ready for Christmas Day. Colleen spent all day in the kitchen getting ready for our Christmas Eve taco bar buffet dinner and prepping whatever else she could for the Christmas Day brunch. I ran a few last minute errands in the morning and generally did whatever I could to help Colleen. Al and Alysia showed up in mid afternoon. Rather than travel on Christmas Day, they would spend the night. Steven showed up a little later to visit for a bit. The kids visited and played video games in the living room. Steven and Anna Maria had plans for a Christmas Eve dinner at her parents’ house so he left after a short visit. Louis showed up just in time for dinner and he was going to spend the night too. Steven and Anna Maria showed back up around 9 or 9:30 after their dinner. I had already gone to bed, but the kids stayed up visiting until midnight.

Christmas morning Colleen and I were up early, well before everyone else. I came downstairs to find Louis curled up asleep on the love seat in front of a burnt out, but still hot fireplace. I guess it’s true what they say about soldiers, they learn to get their sleep anywhere they can. The boy never woke up while I cleaned out the hot ash out of the fireplace and relit the fire. After her morning coffee, Colleen was busy in the kitchen making her frittatas, French toast casseroles, and all of the other fixings to go with brunch. After a bit, Al and Alysia found their way downstairs. Alex wasn’t too far behind them. Louis finally decided to wake up and all of the kids sat in the living room surfing on their phones or playing video games. James called about 9:30 and said he and Donna would be over in 30 minutes or so. Alysia tracked Steven down about 10 o’clock and Steven said he and Anna Maria would be there in 30 minutes. James and Donna and Steven and Anna Maria showed up right after 11 o’clock. Colleen and I half expected that as our kids are notorious for being late.

Once everyone was here, the cedar log got ceremoniously put on the fire, and with all of the gifts now under the tree, the annual Great Boudreau Paper Tear started. When you have six kids and all of the in laws gathered to open presents, there, inevitably, is Christmas wrapping paper flying everywhere. That doesn’t even include the wadded up stuff being thrown at each other. In between opening all of the presents, Colleen was shuttling back and forth between the kitchen and dining room getting the brunch on the table. By the time everyone else finished opening presents Colleen still had a few presents left to open, but the brunch was on the table. Colleen was a bit disappointed about being in and out of the living room and not watching a good bit of the paper tear, but her brunch was a stunning success. Everyone ate their fill and some may have eaten even more than that.

Once brunch was done everyone hung around and visited or played video games. Al brought a video game that let everyone use their phones for controllers. The living room turned in a big laugh-a-thon and when it was all done, Colleen had smoked everyone. Sadly, as the afternoon waned, the kids had to head on their way home. We said our goodbyes, hugged everyone, and Colleen and I stood on the front porch as one by one the kids departed. Everyone made it home safely and by 4 o’clock the house was quiet with just Louis, Alex, Colleen and me still at home. Colleen made a pot of corn chowder for dinner Christmas night. Though the night ended quietly, this Christmas was definitely one that will be remembered fondly by everyone.

Wednesday morning Colleen and I slept a bit later than usual. We savored our morning coffee a bit longer than usual. Colleen decided that the table linens needed to be washed so she carried two bags of laundry to the laundromat. Louis had let his girlfriend, Micayla, borrow his car over the Christmas holiday so she came by right before lunch to collect him. We had a mini-Christmas as she opened her presents. By lunch both Louis and Micayla had left. Colleen finished drying the laundry and we didn’t do much else for the rest of the day. That was as close to taking a day off as Colleen and I get.

Thursday we started the de-Santafication process. While Alex and I spent the morning moving firewood, first to refill the burning rack on the back porch and then moving the pile of split wood by the wood line to the seasoning racks for next winter, Colleen started to disassemble her huge Christmas village in the living room. I’ll bet there are 4,379,219 parts to that thing and every one of them goes back into its own box or package. It took her every bit of the day to get the thing put away. By the time dinner rolled around she had the wall mural down and all of the boxes were lined up in the entry way waiting to be brought back down to the basement. Colleen jumped at the idea of pizza for dinner. Oh, did I mention she did two more bags of laundry at the laundromat first thing in the morning.

Friday morning brought the rain and cool damp air. Colleen was back down at the laundromat with two more bags of laundry. I don’t think there is a dirty piece of fabric in this house right now. Over the course of three days, Colleen washed everything in the house, table linens, bed linens, towels, blankets, dog blankets, couch covers, and all the usual clothing. Once she got back Friday morning, the Christmas tree was next on the list to come down. First the candy canes came off, and then the ornaments, followed by the cranberry bead garland, the special lights, the regular lights, and then the angel on the top of the tree. In the end, there was a naked tree with just tinsel standing in the middle of our living room. Colleen and I rather unceremoniously took the tree from its stand and carried it out to the front porch where we tossed it over the rail to be dispatched at a later time when the rain wasn’t falling. After lunch we kept going, making our way into the family room, and by 4 o’clock three-quarters of our Christmas decorations were boxed and ready to be returned to the basement until next year. Fortunately, Colleen and I received a gift card for Cracker Barrel as one of our Christmas gifts. We cleaned up and treated ourselves to Friday night dinner out.

The last of Friday’s lingering clouds melted away with the bright sun yesterday morning. Alex was out the front door fairly early to go do a side job with a couple of guys from work. Colleen spent the morning finishing up the last of the inside decorations. There wasn’t that much left to do and she was able to finish everything at an easy pace. After lunch we were both outside to take down all of the lawn ornaments. By 4 o’clock we had all of the ornaments out of the yard, boxed up where appropriate, stored in the basement, and we had all of the extension chords picked too. Of course, there are just paths through our basement now. I guess I could hace taken down the lights and garland on the house and porch, but I just didn’t have it in me. They will have to wait for another time. Alex got home while Colleen and I were eating dinner. He had stopped and had pizza with the guys before coming home so he wasn’t hungry. After dinner everyone just sorted of kicked back and relaxed until bedtime.

This morning a cold and biting rain greeted me when I came out to the back porch with my coffee. It’s not that it was particularly cold, but a cold rain always makes it seem worse. As the sun started to climb over the horizon the rain finally gave way, but the air was still damp. I got to watch the deer move up through the ravine. The wet forest leaves made their passing all but silent. I’m not real sure what today has in store for us, but there is nothing of major concern to be addressed. We have just about finished safely storing our Christmas decorations until next year. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and the end of another year up here on our little hill. I can’t say what the New Year will have in store for us, but Colleen and I will greet it with open arms. We’ll take each new day one as it comes, make the most we can out of each day, and be thankful for the bounty of that day. 2018 was such a wonderful year and we’re looking forward to much of the same in 2019. Colleen and I want to wish everyone a prosperous and Happy New Year. May you find the peace and tranquility in your lives that we have found up here on our little hill, where every day is special and all is right on the homestead.

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