quiltys41

Well don't look at me lol! I can't even remember what day it is IRL to figure out the Valley calander. And even after writing things down and sticking them in a binder, I can't remember what I have done and haven't done in the Valley either lol. Q PS...will there be an announcement in the valley for folks to gather at Mothers on the 1st? Or are we just all going there to help with something else or ?? And if I have stepped on anyones story line, sorry! We try to keep off to ourselves in the South so that don't happen.

Hubby and I got up early this morning. We had a lot to do today including getting ready to go to N's tomorrow and help with getting the cabin up. I had a lot of baking to do. We went out to the barn and the chickens were in a hurry to get out and scratch around already. I threw them some scratch corn and a few table scraps of salad left over from the night before. That calmed them down as they dived into it. Never saw chickens so much in love with greens before lol. Hubby turned the others but the goats out to pasture. I got the girls milked and took the eggs and milk to the house. I would need those for today's baking. Breakfast was fried eggs, toast and coffee and then we were off and running for the day. Hubby was going to hoe some down in the corn field and the garden today so that it didn't get ahead of us. There are a lot of daily chores like weeding and stuff I probably wont add into the journal any more. It's hard boring work that doesn't need describing in detail every time we do it lol. I'd bore yall to death with that. But I was getting ready to bake a couple of loaves of bread and on top of the stove, I would be cooking rice pudding. Yummy! I knew that I would have to save some out for the hubby for here at the house too. He doesn't like sweets though. If I didn't, I would be in deep doo. Same with a pie. We would have to leave one of those behind here at the house too. I managed to get 4 loaves of bread and 6 pies done today. 2 apple, 2 blueberry, and 2 cherry. I would have loved to make a sweet potato pie, my specialty, but we used all those up for slips in the garden. I would have rather did that then short ourselves any. I sat out jars of pickles and jars of applesauce too that were to go with us tomorrow. I kept having to check my list to make sure I wasn't forgetting things. I checked down in the spring house and saw we had almost 3 dozen eggs backed up. With it being summer, I figured that if I made deviled eggs it wouldn't hurt a thing since the hens were all laying an egg a day now. So I boiled up a dozen and a half and got those done up too on my "down" time lol. That was when I had stuff in the oven cooking and was just waiting for it to come out. After dinner tonight hubby and I got some stuff loaded into the wagon to take with us tomorrow also. I took some of the new quilts and some of the camp chairs with us too so there would be plenty of place to sit down at also. I was looking forward to sitting on the ground with a quilt instead of boring tables. With part of the food loaded except for things like the eggs, which were down at the spring house, we loaded up some of hubby's hand tools. He had a hand drill that was large enough for the holes if they decided to use pegs instead of nails too. All kinds of interesting hand tools like that. I was having fun helping him and finding out what all they were. Good thing he is the carpenter of the family because I couldn't make heads nor tails of most that stuff. He says much the same of my sewing supplies and tools. We finished loading what we could into the wagon and headed off to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a fun day, full of work and full of fellowship. Q

Hey, just so yall know, it has taken me almost 4 hours to get back on line. I got caught getting that security virus again. I got it off the computer but it has rearranged my security and ate part of my programs. I don't know if/when I will make it back. It's going to have to go to the shop to get fixed. Had to boot up in safe mode to get this far...colors are like on an xray lol. And I got it from the Microsoft site!! I am so sick of pop ups now I could scream.... Q

Tuesday - the Valley Well we got up early this morning and we both decided after doing morning chores and eating breakfast that we would both be out and about. Hubby was going to start taking the trees down to N's place that had fallen during the storm. He figured that would take the whole day and then he would stay and help with what ever they needed. I told him about us women needing to come up with something to feed everyone with that came for the cabin raising. I showed him the list and his eyes bugged lol. I told him, again, that I didn't think we would even half of that, but it was interesting to see what others had for a menu for the old barn raising's in the past. Just trivia, not a set menu LOL. He said he would leave the food to us ladies as long as it wasn't liver and onions, he didn't much care! So we ganged up, got the chores done and sent the animals to the corrals, except for Lucy the horse, she would go with me and pull the wagon. And Ethel wasn't happy that she wasn't going this trip. She stomped and snorted all over the corral. I snuck her some greens and she settled down, happy that she got a treat and no one else had. Hubby was going to use one of the oxen, Lulu, while leaving Muffy in the corral. With her being about due, he didn't want her doing any hard work. Of course Marilyn and Georgia didn't care, they just chomped away at some nice green bushes lol. I was really beginning to have a soft spot in my heart for those two goats. They were really sweet and never gave me a problem when I milked them, even if I didn't know what I was doing at first. I got the house tidied up and myself and took off down to mt3b's place. Nice little set up that they have going. It looks so peaceful here! I could imagine her and SF out in the garden and the barn doing their chores for the day with the animals out and about, sun shining and all being right with their world. Yep, very peaceful indeed. I heard one of the dogs barking before I saw her. Good guard dog! Looks more like a small pony lol! I grabbed mt3b and gave her a hug. I noticed she looked tired out. And not too happy either. I debated on whether to talk to her about going out alone or not after that. But I had to say my peace, after all she was a friend and I didn't want to loose her to some stupid wild animal. Nope, couldn't hold it, first chance I got alone with her, she was going to hear about it. And she did too. I just hope I didn't disrespect her by raising my voice in her house like that. She should know better, I hope lol. I'm just worried about her is all. Anyways, we talked about getting a spread together for those coming to help with N's cabin. I showed her the list I had found in an old cook book for barn raising's. She was going to fall over I thought. Why is that everyones reaction? Seems like a normal list to me? LOL I am going to put that list away and never scare folks with it again. I had to explain that I knew we wouldn't have that many folks. Not even half of that. It was just a fun thing to look at, a bit of history. Gee, that's the last time that list sees the light of day! We did figure out a few things for the menu. I will make a deer roast to bring and do some bread rolls too. Pickles, pies, maybe some rice pudding. I have some arrowroot drying so if I can get it pounded out into powder to use to thicken it with, then I'll make the rice pudding. I'll hunt around here for some greens to add to the salad too. We have a little spinach and leaf lettuce coming up. I don't know how much of it will be ready by then with a bunch of it getting beat down by the hail and the heavy rains. But we will make due. I left there to come home after lunchtime. I really wasn't hungry either having had a big breakfast with the hubby. But I needed to get home and think about getting some dinner started and do chores too. I had a few things to finish up for the addition, mostly sewing stuff, but I thought I would be able to finish it by bedtime tonight. I wanted to get a jump on it. I gave mt3b a big hug before I left and promised to come back and see them again. She sure is a sweet lady. I am glad they are neighbors and friends. Hubby got home about mid afternoon. They had gotten a good bunch of logs down to N's place for the cabin. He didn't know if that was enough or not. But he didn't think they would have a problem getting more after that storm had blown through our end of the valley so badly. He said they had also raked out where the old cabin was so that any hot spots would cool off by the time they were ready to build. It was a long day for us both. We ate dinner, I sewed while hubby went out and got the livestock into the barn for the night. He brought some eggs in too and laid those on the table. I would use those in the morning for breakfast. Then it was time for "lights out". Had to git this all wrote down first. I am liable to forget something by morning lol. Q

LOL Mother, I agree on the amount of food needed off of that list! I thought I added we would only need half of that, if that much...better go back and make sure I posted that! I was looking at it as getting rid of food on hand I had stored, like the pickles lol. Wanted to free up the limited jars I had available for the new canning season coming up...but it is an interesting little bit of trivia, that list is. I used to get a lot of questions from folks on how did we ever know how much food to make lol. That list is the secret to it. I agree about thanking Mt. R for this! Yes, I have learned so much writing along here with all of you! So much I would have never known had I not done it and did all the research I have done. And we aren't done yet lol. Hey, maybe we wont have to get another tornado? LOL I have a feeling she is going to snow us in with an early blizzard though... Q

LOL okay but ya' know at least I sent it only through the SE corner of the valley. I didn't want anyone getting hurt and I based that on what actually happened here IRL 2 years ago. One minor change, we were in the garage, not the barn! And the hail storm part hubby told me about with the river and all from when he was living in Colorado back in the '70's and 80's. He was down by Boulder when that happened. He said quite a few people got killed in that flash flood, can't remember which river it was on and he is asleep...but they were supposed to be camping right on the river that day and he decided at the last minute not to go. He lost a couple of friends in it though. So you have to be very careful of the flash flooding. Good thing he said out there that it doesn't last long...once the rain comes down from the mountains in a rush, it's about done for. It's so nice to have hubby helping write this after having lived out there in the mountains lol... Q

　 We got news this evening that there was to be a cabin raising on Thursday, so hubby was outside today trying to figure out if any of our downed trees could be hauled down there by the oxen and put to use in it. Why not if they are already down and not split up the middle? I am trying to plan out some food to take down there with us. I guess hubby can walk the oxen down with the logs and I will take the wagon on up ahead or behind him. I do imagine there will be quite a few folks there so best make a bunch of what ever it is we are taking. I will go out tomorrow and see if there are enough berries left that weren't beat off the bushes in the storm. If there is, I will use those and either make a cobbler or pies to take. I have a ton of pickles we need to use up too, so those will get taken. If that bunch of mule deer don't leave the corn alone they will be on the menu too! Dern things keep nibbling away at the poor stalks trying to come back. I'd take some fish, but everyone around here can get that any time so I want to have something special. Maybe get some of our ground meat out and some grape leaves, some spices and some rice and make some stuffed grape leaves. Pour a jar or two of tomato sauce over that and stick them in the oven...yummy! I am going to have to get my Mennonite cook book out. I have forgotten what all to have at a barn or cabin lol raising! Quite the list too... 　 Here is the list as I found it : 115 lemon pies 500 fat cakes [doughnuts] 15 large cakes 3 gallons applesauce 3 gallons rice pudding 3 gallons cornstarch pudding 16 chickens 3 hams 50 pounds roast beef 300 light rolls 16 loaves bread red beet pickle and pickled eggs cucumber pickle 6 pounds dried prunes stewed 1 large crock stewed raisins 5 gallon stone jar white potatoes and the same amount sweet potatoes ENOUGH FOOD FOR 175 MEN FOR ONE DAY Mennonite Community Cookbook Not that I think we will need that much food, we might need to scale it down to half of that. I need to write it out and go over and see A and mt3b to see what they think of it? I think we all have enough rice and milk to make the puddings. Might be a little skinny on the chicken but we will make due. I have one ham here we can spare. Maybe need to do roast deer instead of beef or they may want to use some of the bear meat? The bread and rolls can be done easily enough. I have the pickles. Ucky prunes, maybe another type of fruit? Stewed tomatoes would be better LOL. Potato salad instead of the potatoes they have? I know, I have enough pie filling here to feed an army! I am going to go out to the fruit trees in about 2 days. If the fruit isn't dropping off then, it wont do it. And if it is going to stay on like it is now, there will be a bumper crop, so no need to worry about more pie filling. We can divvy it up so that I am not making all the pies here by myself. Humm...now I am really thinking we can do this with just the three of us and any extras folks bring would be added to the tables and enjoyed by all! I am going to ride over and see her in the morning! We need a way to feed all the folks coming to raise N's cabin! Not too much else going on around here today besides clean up from the storm. We were glad to find out the tornado seemed to just hit the SE corner of the valley then moved on out. That was a blessing! Q 　

CeeGee it is so good to see you back again!! I hope you start posting soon...after that storm we sure could use some lifting up! Q

　 July 19 - the Valley Yesterday was such a mess, it could have been worse though. There are still a few spots where the hail is drifted up against the cabin. I didn't say much about the hail yesterday because of the fear from the tornado. But the hail had come down so hard and so fast that it actually drifted up against the cabin on the south side in the west corner and the west side on the south corner. That was the direction the storm had come from. When we looked out over the valley yesterday afternoon after the storm, it looked like a sheet of ice in spots over the valley floor. It must have been one heck of a powerful storm to contain so much rain and hail. Our little river is finally going down this evening. It came running down out of the mountains yesterday evening with a roaring. It wasn't enough water to wipe out anything but it kind of looked like a mini tsunami as the water came down at the front of it. It kept running like that for a little bit then started tapering off fairly quickly. But the water is still up from it's normal. Later today should see it back to normal. I gathered up the quilts and sheets and pillowcases from the yard and the garden and some from the barn where I had tossed them. Time to do some laundry. At least the rain barrels had clean water in them to use, because the river was a muddy mess right now. I got them all soaped up and started scrubbing the mud and muck out of them. Picked out the leaves and sticks as I went too. Oh what I wouldn't have given to go to a laundry mat right about now! It took all morning to get the stuff washed and then after lunch, I got it all rinsed out and hung up on the line, on the wagon, over the back of two chairs I hauled outside, up in a tree, well anywhere I could really. We might have too many sheets for just the two of us, but with the kids coming, including Jerry, I wondered if we had enough? SF came today too and let us know they all made it okay. Well except for P's cabin? It got hit by lightening and burned to the ground. We were so sad to hear that especially since he was one that had volunteered to go help bring the new folks back to the valley. He said they were riding up to the lodge to find out how everyone was. Said he would be back later with the news and then went back home. Hubby checked the corrals this morning and made some repairs to them before he could turn the animals loose into them. One had 3 rails broken on it so he had to replace those and get them secured. The horses and the oxen went out first. Then he checked over the other one and it was okay, just limbs and such down inside it. He got the goats staked out in the yard near the side of the house where the tree had fallen. They could start cleaning up the mess there. After lunch, he ended up picking up the branches and such out of the yard. I had a nice pile of kindling for the stove this winter! We went down to look at the corn field after dinner. It was starting to come back up but there were places we could see now that were a loss. Not too much, but out here any losses would hurt. I had to wonder how our neighbors fared through all this. We had no idea if they were okay or not. Hubby and I discussed going to the Lodge tomorrow. We had no idea if they would have services or if everyone would be home still taking care of the mess this storm had caused. Q

LOL she probably did Mother...then you know you will have to post about it too! Q

　 June ? - the valley Yep, I have no idea what day it is because I am still so shook up after that storm this afternoon. I really thought that tornado was going to come down and get us. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened and certainly wont be the last. And I knew it was going to be a bad day when I tried to get up out of the bed this morning. Oh man the migraine was back, which only happens that bad when the barometer is falling. And my hips were so bad I had to roll out to the side of the bed then slowly sit up and then slowly get up. It's all gone now too, the headache, the body aches. As soon as the front went past it, all of it eased off and all it took was about a half an hour. Hubby is the same way with the aches too. His knees swell to the size of basketballs (IRL too) and he can't hardly walk. So we both hobbled over to the sink and washed up. I went out to the kitchen and made some breakfast. Except I didn't have any eggs, so I had to stop and go help with chores to get the eggs lol. Well as soon as I went outside it was so muggy that it felt like "air you can wear" lol. Humid as all get out. Okay, there is another clue. Sudden humidity changes are NOT good when it's weather worries. Then I saw the oxen out in the corral and they were under the trees, standing close together, butts to the south. Okay, when they bunch up and stand out in the open with their behinds to the wind, it will probably rain. But, when they end up in the trees with their behinds to the wind and all grouped up close together, then watch out. I have only seen cattle/cows do that three times. And all three times we have had a tornado within a mile of us. The closest one was within a quarter mile. And when you live out in the country, that close looks like it is going to be right on top of you! As it was, it looked like it was across the street because it was so big (IRL it was an F4!) and angry looking. I hurried out to the barn, grabbed a few eggs from beneath the girls and told hubby to come eat quick so we could get ready for the storm. He followed me inside and I finished cooking while he checked the roof and windows. We quick gobbled down breakfast and he got back to work finishing morning chores. I went and got dressed for the day. LOL This wasn't going to be fun...it was either a dress or my long blue jeans skirt. I had visions of Marylin Monroe over the subway grate hehehe. I went around the outside of the cabin first looking for things that were loose that needed picked up. I took the folding chairs and the camp stove and put them into the back of the wagon that was still sitting there in the open. Open? Wonder if it would fit into the barn? I ran and asked the hubby what he thought. Nope, he told me but he would hook one of the oxen up to it and pull it over right next to the barn. At least that would give it a little shelter. So while he was doing that, I finished putting up the yard stuff that was loose. Now at mid-morning and being so humid, I was sweating like a piggie. I went and grabbed my neck cooler and soaked it good. I grabbed one for the hubby to done up in camo and got it soaking for him. 10 minutes later, I wrung them out lightly and put mine on. Ahhhh...I took the other one out to him. With all this work in the humidity, we had to have a way to keep cool or else risk a heat stroke. I went back to the cabin to get covers for the row crops just in case there was hail. I didn't think we were close enough to the river to have any problems from it. It was up a ways when we got here due to the heavy spring run-off and rain, so we had kept things back a ways just in case. While we worked you could feel the humidity climb. Hubby and I were having a hard time breathing in this thin humid air. I thought we were getting acclimated to the altitude. But this proved me otherwise. Both of us huffing and puffing away, we slowly got things done. He had the chickens in the coop since he didn't let them out to begin with. They are just too hard to chase down during the day, and with us being new to chicken raising, we weren't sure if they would come back to the roost before the storm hit. Better safe than sorry. By now it's about noon, so I went in to make a bite of lunch for the two of us. Once we got done eating you could hear it... Thunder off in the distance. And it was a low growling roar too that just seemed to go on and on and on. I was getting really worried. Hubby stayed cool, as men are want to do, but I knew inside he was a mess too! I asked him what he thought we should do now. He told me we needed to get as many of the animals as we could into the barn. I went and untied the girls from where he had staked them in the yard early this morning. They just looked at me like "Hey! It's not late in the day yet! We're still eating!" lol. But they came along peaceable-like lol. I got them into one stall for now. They both had room to lay down in there and hubby had put fresh hay in, so they were happy campers. Hubby went out to get the two oxen and put them in a stall each. The dogs would come into the barn on their own once it started to rain. So now we have the animals in the barn and secured. We started covering the garden using the light-weight material first and securing it down with shovels full of dirt on the edges. Yeah, it was going to make a lot of laundry, but I would rather do that and have crops as not! So we covered things up, the tender things first like the turnips, potato plants, and that. We took sticks and put them in the dirt beside each plant to help hold the sheets up off of the plant directly. That might help keep them from getting broken or snapped off. I wrapped the tomato plants up using pillow cases since they weren't too big yet. We had them staked up so I slipped the pillow case down over the plant gently, trying to keep all the little branches of it tucked inside without breaking any of them off. I did snap a few little ones, but not too many. They should be okay. We kept working on the garden and the thunder kept getting closer and closer to us. You could feel the vibration in the ground up through your feet. We couldn't see SF's and mt3b's place from ours. I hoped they were busy getting things battened down too. I asked hubby if he thought he should ride over there and warn them, but he was sure SF had figured it out by now. About that time here came W and SF riding like the devil himself was behind them and they were Daniel Webster! SF threw a barometer at hubby looked around and said that he seen we had figured it out already. Hubby told him yes, asked SF what the heck he was doing out riding when the storm was so close? SF said he brought us the barometer and was supposed to tell us about the storm via a rider sent from Mt.R's. Hubby sent SF and W right back to their place after watering the horses. Hubby and I went back to the corral to grab our two and get them into a stall in the barn. We had two left, but they were pretty big stalls. They didn't act like they wanted to be separated so they went into one stall together, pushing against each other for comfort I imagined. SF and W left as a light mist settled down over everything. Never saw that happen before the storm hit before? Maybe it had something to do with being in the mountains? Very strange...Oh the thunder was rolling!! Loud, so loud you wanted to cover your ears! My head was pounding so bad by now that I thought I was going to heave all over the barn. Hubby ran back to the cabin and shut the door and the front window I had opened for the air. He came back to the barn with my pillow and a quilt off of the bed. He made me at least sit down on the floor of the barn, looking out the door off from a corner near the front of the stalls. It was dark back here, a comfort to my head for sure and for certain. Thunder louder and now we could see the lightening hitting down to the south west of us. It was getting really dark out, the clouds rolling in were almost black they were so dark. And they had that rolling, boiling look to them like they were on high on the stove. Looking at the clouds boiling around, I was watching for them to roll horizontally. The birds stopped. It got quiet. Everything was still and the humidity was so oppressive you almost couldn't breathe! Shhhh...nothing moved. Even the wind laid down. The chickens were still. The horses pushed closer together. I saw one of the oxen look out the barn door. She shuffled closer to her stall mate. Hubby was stock still looking out the front of the barn door. I got up to join him. Funny how nature knew what was coming. It was as if everything from humans to insects felt it and we all were holding our breath, just waiting. I prayed it would pass us by just like the finger of death back in Egypt did during the Passover that we would observe a few short weeks from now. Still. Quiet. Humid. Black clouds rolling and boiling as they sailed by us, marching their way up through our valley like an army of destruction. Hubby heard it first. We both looked to the south west. All I could think of was if SF and W made it back before it hit? They lived to the SW of us! OH please NO Lord! Please, spare them, spare us too Lord!~ Here it came down into the valley. It was dark, large, angry and churning as it charged down toward us. That had to be at least an F3 if not an F4! Tornado!!!! hubby yelled out at me! He grabbed my head and turned it more toward the south than the southwest. Oh maybe it wouldn't hit SF's place! Oh thank you Lord. But wait...oh no! It looked like it was rushing right toward us! The wind picked up almost gale force from nothing at all. It felt like something was sucking all the oxygen out of the air, I couldn't hardly breathe. The dogs were all huddled in the back corner of the barn whimpering. I went back to sit with them and calm them down. Hubby shut the barn door since things were flying at him with it open. Small sticks, leaves, twigs...it all came flying into the barn. He came back to sit with me and the dogs and we held hands, waiting for it to either hit us or go bye us. No words passed between us, just a look that said "I love you!". We both knew it would be a hit or a near, near miss. We each grabbed a dog under each arm to keep them here so they wouldn't try to run. The other animals started stomping in their stalls, the chickens squawked something awful. But all their carrying on didn't cover one bit of the sound of that tornado. It growled at us! Reminded me of that movie "Twister" where the tornado's they always ran across had a growl to it. Well, that's true, they do growl! And it sounded nothing like a freight train to me being that close to it. It just growled and the wind blew so hard I thought the barn would come down on our heads! We could feel the walls shaking and the ground felt like it was thumping. Maybe that was just the trees that were falling or being pushed over by the tornado? We held our breath for a long time, it felt like forever. In truth it may have been a minute or two. No longer than that though. We listened to it as it blew by us. We were spared! It was passing!! Thank you Lord! We both breathed a sigh of relief. We heard it going away from us now. Hubby just looked at me. He held his hand out and I took it. We prayed right there. We thanked God for being faithful and answering our prayers. We believed He would keep us safe in the raging storm and He did! Hubby and I got up and went to the barn door. I looked at him and nodded. He slowly opened the door. Oh my!! What a mess! There were trees down all over the place! But the cabin stood! It had held together just fine even with the new addition on it. Whew! But the garden, oh no, the garden. There was a tree down over where the potatoes were growing. It wasn't an oak tree but it wasn't a sapling either. That would have to be cut up to remove it. I prayed that it didn't hurt the potatoes any, that the branches kept the worst from happening to them. Please Lord, just one more little favor? I prayed. There were limbs and leaves everywhere! Most of the quilts over the garden had stayed put, the sheets were half up and some of them missing all together. I bet those would be found sometime hanging in a tree lol! There was another tree down on the other side of the cabin. It had just missed falling on it. I wondered how the roof had held up being made of sod? Hubby and I went to check it out. We had to kick things like small branches out of the way to get inside. He got the door open and we peeked in. It looked dry to us! Now we had to check the addition...up stairs was fine! I didn't see any leaks and neither did he, so yippeee!! I sat down at the kitchen table. I was exhausted and so was hubby. I noticed my hips and head not hurting so bad and I asked hubby about his knees. The swelling was still there but it wasn't as painful. Well good, maybe it would all be gone by morning. But...the mess outside wouldn't be. It was going to take close to a week to clean all that up, I would bet on it. Hubby thought so also. We will use the hand saws to cut the wood up and stack it for next year. Hubby thought some of the other trees that went down might have already been dead since a few hadn't leafed out yet. Those he could cut up for this winter. It would make nice firewood since they looked to be hickory trees. I fixed us a little dinner and we ate. We went out to take care of the animals and calm them down. But they seemed okay. We left them in stalls for the night. Not enough light left to check the corrals with now. I got to thinking about the others in the valley. How did they come out through this storm? Did it hit anyone we knew? Was everyone okay? I wanted a phone so bad at that moment! You could still see the lightening off in the distance and hear the rumble of the thunder. Hubby and I stood outside the front door of the cabin watching the storm as it finished it's trip across the valley. It held the rain we so desperately wanted to water our crops with. It rained so hard and hailed so hard that it had blown over a good bit of hubby's corn field, but he thought it would stand back up by morning. I hoped the others faired as well as we did or better. It was pretty with the lightening flashing near dark. But it had been a long day and we were both tired. We shut the door and headed to bed, hoping our Northern friends were okay... Q

LOL Please no comments on my dinggy ness lol...I am just going to make a storm post for today and squeeze it in on the same date, just make it look like a different date. Hubby says its a new world for me ever day when I get out of bed anyways! I'll just make another world lolol... Q

Ack!!! I already posted for today before you put up the weather alert! Sorry about that.... Q

LOL I will have to look at my gals ears when I go out to feed them in a few... Q

　 June 15/16 - the Valley Made a new set of curtains to cover the front window, then laid down most of the day. Severe migraine did me in (IRL too). June 17 - the Valley Not too much better but able to doodle around the cabin today. At least I got out of the bed and able to write a little. Not really up to cooking or cleaning but I did it anyways. SF and W came over today (and yesterday??) to help Mr. Q down some trees for the addition to the cabin. That is such welcome help we cannot thank them enough! I guess the headache is gone too since the chain saws didn't bother me one little bit like they did yesterday. I spent most of yesterday with my head under pillows as the guys cut down trees. They all opted to use the chain saws since they considered this an emergency trying to get housing set for all the little ones that will be coming into the valley. Word is there are quite a few orphans that have showed up at the Rockin J, so hubby and I are thinking we may end up with more than one or two. I started some more veggie plants out under the cover of the wagon for now. I think we might get by one what we have planted, but, if we did it would only be one years worth and not two or three. I will not have it cut that close. If we had a crop failure next year, that would be the end of us. So, just to make sure, I am starting some more plants and I think I will have hubby go get one of the plows at the Lodge and we will add more to the house garden. If nothing else, we will get the fall garden made bigger with all the root crops we can get in now and then later with all the greens we can get in and things like turnips that will do double duty as a root crop and as a green. I finished two more quilts off yesterday. It was nice busy work yesterday evening after hubby made dinner for us. I could do that pretty well, the sewing machine noise and all. I just wish I knew how big these kids are so I could start on making clothes! Well, at least I can keep them warm lol. I got the cattail flour sifted in with my regular flour today. It looks a little funny and it doesn't feel like "flour" but I think it is going to work okay. We will see Friday when I have to make bread for the Sabbath. I am trying to think through this fog that the migraines always make me have for days after one of them happen. It's almost like being hung over. Your head feels funny and sick to your stomach and you head is kind of fogged in bad like a North Florida airport in late winter LOL. Yeah, that bad. I got to doodling around this evening. We brought a bunch of 1/2 gallon glass canning jars with us. I figured 5 lbs. of carrots dried make 1/4 to 1/2 pint dried. I think we will dry everything we can dry and put them into the 1/2 gallon jars until they are gone. I have close to 3 dozen so we might just squeak by with our little family just using those for the dried veggies. Then I have some jars that didn't travel well and have cracks in them so they wont be able to be used again to can in them or they will break. I will use those too for the dried stuff and put a top with a used lid on those. If I keep them in a dark, dry place...they will be okay to use for that. I still have to come up with something to keep the potatoes and turnips in that we don't dry. I have made many hash browns before with taters, but that was with a dehydrator. And lemon juice. I only have a limited amount of citric acid like that. We are going to have to come up with something else to use cuz I doubt if the crystals came through in any of those packages. I didn't see a company logo on the outside box of any of them, I don't think. Maybe I should open them all before the kids all get here? Will talk to hubby about at least opening the bigger one we hauled up from the Lodge last time. I am hoping that really big one is the couple of solar panels. I know we had the few battery's with us strapped to the under side of the wagon. I don't know if we have any way to ever charge them up though? Hubby knows about that stuff, I don't. Guess I need to talk to him on all this. Then I could at least write it down in here lol. Hubby said he is going to start weeding and cutting down trees for wood. That is going to be his main things to work on until the corn is ready. Since we don't know how cold it is going to get here, we will keep cutting wood until the first snowfall and beyond if we are able to I guess. It is going to take a lot of wood to keep us all warm. And I imagine Jerry wont have time enough to get his place started before the winter sets in either, so he may have to stay here with us too. I just wish he was here now to help us with all of this stuff. And we would be able to help him too. Oh well, he should be back shortly with the wagon train. It will be so good to see him again! I sure missed that child when he was off traveling the world and doing good!! Nice that he did that and all, but I AM a mom and I want my kids as close as I can keep them now and out of harms way! It's bad enough he is away now and working security. I am just thankful it is with the Rocks! LOL that sure was a surprise, him standing in our doorway like that! The good Lord sure does take care of us! I just can't wait until he is back. or did I say that already? LOL, well mom just can't help it! Guess I had best be off to bed. I still need rest after this awful headache the past few days. I am counting on tomorrow being better yet! Q ========================================================================== 　 　 June 18 - the Valley It's been a long hard day trying to catch up with all the work I had to let go by being down with a multiple day migraine. There is nothing you can do to fight it off though when they last 5-7 days and you are out here in the wilds. I did break into my stash of pain medicines and took the morphine I had been prescribed for it. Only for two days and knew there was no risk from getting hooked in that length of time. It did make things a little better, at least I hadn't had any vomiting. And no nausea either. Those are the worst two things to go with the migraines that are so hard for me to deal with. But it is finally going away now and all that remains is the feeling of being hung over. I managed to get out to the barn this morning to milk the girls. They were both ready too. I was wondering while milking them, if and when we needed to stop milking them so we could get them bred. I wouldn't mind a bit having our own herd of goats. They sure pulled their weight around here! Our front yard was about half mown lol which was better than none at all. And with the chickens scratching around, we had no ticks in the yard grabbing onto every passing person/animal. Good insect control and plus that they had managed to chomp down a lot of needless vines and undergrowth around the house too in the fruit trees and around blackberry bushes. I was really pleased with them and promised them both a special treat when the fruit started coming on. I would bake them both their own version of cobbler lol! Yep, they sure were sweet! And our chicks were growing by leaps and bounds with them still hanging around mom yet, but starting to inch out into their own territory. They were just too cute and I figured they would be laying before the end of the summer/fall season. I wasn't going to push them to lay by bringing in artificial lighting, we didn't have a way to do it right now anyways. The oxen...well they were cows. I had let Jerry take the bulls back with him to pull a wagon for the new folks coming in. Hey it was the least we could do to help out. Well that and taking an orphan or two. We just felt like it was what the Lord would have us to do, not wanting to see any harm come to His little ones. I gathered up the eggs out of the nest boxes and got the milk container and headed back to the house to make breakfast. I wanted to get hubby fed and dishes out of the way before the guys got here to work on the cabin addition again. I was wondering how come they were all working on the cabin again? It just hit me. Remember I had been out of it for a few days now. They were just supposed to be helping fell logs for the walls. So, didn't they have enough yet? I hadn't been well enough to go look outside since what we were doing was on the other side from the barn. The wall inside was solid yet, no hole for a door. That wasn't supposed to happen until after the addition was done anyways. Okay, going to have to pin hubby down on this when he comes in for breakfast. I got a bowl down and cracked 4 eggs into it after washing them off a little. Then I poured in a little milk, added some salt and pepper and whisked it all up. I put it into a cast iron skillet that I had heating on the stove. I slowly stirred it around in the pan with a spatula. Then I went to cut a few pieces of bread and set them into the old fashioned non-electric toaster. I sat that on the stove and finished making the scrambled eggs. I set the table and put the muscadine jelly out too for the toast. After a quick clean up around the kitchen, I went out to the front porch and gave the cast iron rooster bell a few tugs. That would call hubby up from the barn alright. His signal that food was on the table LOL. It didn't take long for him to come in from the barn. And it didn't take long for me to ask him what all the racket had been the past few days either. He told me it was all the guys and him out cutting logs and such. I asked him if he didn't think we had enough. He told me just maybe now that they had them worked down into planks for the flooring too. They had so many different sizes, opting to use them as wide as the tree had provided, so the floor upstairs would go together much like a puzzle with them having to figure out the total length and width to make sure they would have enough. And did they? Well hubby took me by the hand and outside we went. The walls were up! They had the first layer of outside boards in around the floor upstairs too and a set of stairs laid on the floor waiting to be put in. Oh my, I was about in tears! I had NO IDEA they had gotten this far! Hubby said since they opted to use the chainsaws on it, this was going a lot faster than if they did it by hand. But they had all agreed that the children were worth every drop of gasoline they had used. And that getting the children a home, some kind of normalcy, was just as important as anything else we could all do for them. I was going to cry. Here three big strong men had put a bunch of small children before themselves, before anything really. And they hadn't even met them yet? How much of a blessing was that?! I knew every one of these men would make wonderful fathers! That any child placed with them would be very lucky to have them. I was so touched! Hubby said today they would try to finish up the inside work. Then it would be up to me to put the finishing touches on. I saw poles sticking out of the logs where the beds were to go. I knew when I saw the Y posts what they were making for beds. The regular old type ones that the pioneers used to make by attaching two poles coming out of the logs to be met in the floor at a 90 degree angle by a Y post stuck in the floor to make the 4th post of the bed. The other three were made by the walls themselves. There would be no moving these beds around upstairs lol. The kids would have to sleep where they were made and couldn't scooch them together in the middle of the room LOL! I was just so happy to see them there. I was overjoyed and so thankful. I got hubby back inside and got him to eat breakfast. I told him that they would need the energy if they were to finish this out before night fall. I got a load of laundry around and took it down to the river to do so that I would be out from underfoot. I knew they would be working in the cabin today also, cutting the door frame out to the new addition and framing that in. So I did outside chores most of the day. At least the garden is all weeded! I went down to the spring house with the dogs too for awhile. There were just a few berries ripening up. You know, the first ones on the end of the bunch. They never seem to even make a whole cup, just enough to tease you and let you know that they taste good and the rest would be ready in another week or two lol. But I tried to stretch them out for dinner and made a one-person cobbler out of them which hubby got as a reward for all his hard work. He looked like a little kid eating it too, cobbler all over his chin! LOL! I did harvest more grape leaves too, and more mint. I don't think you can have too much mint with as much tea as we had been drinking. I knew we would have to gather a bunch of it for making it through the winter with. I had a big ceramic jug that they could go into once I got them all dry and crushed. Then I would make a tea bag out of some muslin. I would make a couple of those so that we had enough. With that problem solved, I checked the laundry. Nice... laundry was scattered all over the ground. I looked at the goats and one of them was wearing a pair of jeans over her head LOL. Oh, no, I couldn't tell who did this now could I?! I gathered up all the "clean" laundry and headed back to the river to do it all over again. LOL, they just looked so innocent too! Yeah, well, remind me not to stake them so close to the clothes line again will ya'? I did move the goats and I did manage to get the clothes washed again just in time to fix dinner. The men had been banging and sawing all day long. I couldn't wait to eat and then go see what was done. I knew they had gotten the doorway done, since there was a blanket hanging there with a hand lettered sign on it that said simply "STAY OUT! NO GIRLS ALLOWED!" That got me to giggling while I was cooking. Like a bunch of little boys they were, building a club house or something like that. I noticed all the banging and sawing had stopped. I saw W & SF ride off down the trail back toward their place. Well, now lets see if hubby comes to get me or not? So I got dinner on the table and rang the rooster bell. Nope, hubby just came in and washed up at the stand and came to the table. I asked him to say a prayer over the meal and to please, also bless the new addition to our house. He did and wasn't too long winded about it either. Not like him to rush through a meal, he ate this one in a hurry. I hadn't even finished mine when he grabbed me by the hand and took me over to the curtain they had put up leading to the addition. Hubby said he was wanting to show me what they had done before the light went for the day. He took the curtain down and I saw the stairs ahead of me on the back wall. In front was two large rooms separated by a short wall running short ways toward us. There were two door ways to each room and the stairs were out on the end of the hall way. One of the rooms had a built in bed. The frame was there and the webbing. It just needed a mattress put on and the bedding. The other room was wide open. I noticed there was a window behind the stairs! Where did they get that? Hubby said he used our last piece of Plexiglas to make it with. Just the Plexiglas with a simple frame around it. Nothing fancy, just something to let the light in with! We went up the stairs and there were two rooms up here also, but they are separated by a hallway. Each room has three built in beds, one on each corner and the fourth corner is taken up by a doorway. At the end of the hallway up here was another window! Okay, now where had this one come from? Hubby said that W and SF had brought it over yesterday and donated it to the addition. Oh now that was just too nice. All of their time plus a window? Hubby said he thought that they had gotten it from the old homesteaders house and sized it down, made out of one of the larger ones that broke. Made sense, it was a fairly small window at that. But it's okay, wouldn't let too much heat out up here with it that little! And just enough light in to see to make beds and such...I was so touched. I started crying. Yeah I cry at the drop of a hat. But this was different. I just started praying over the addition while we were up there looking around. Seems I need to get busy and make 7 mattresses. 7?? Did hubby really think we would need that many? He just smiled at me and said "You never know, you just never know!" He had that twinkle in his eyes too like he gets when he is up to something. Oh no you don't! Put me down!!! 　 Q

It might be tomorrow before I get caught up...all kinds of stuff happening here and to top it all off, I have a splitting migraine. If one more dog barks, I am going to cry... Q

　 Monday in the Valley Well hubby and I never made it to the lodge yesterday. We got stuck at home working but we felt like with the time growing shorter until everyone returned from the wagon train, our time was better spent working toward that end instead of going away for a whole day. There was just too much to do. After breakfast this morning, I managed to finish up one quilt and get half way done with another. Having cut out stacks of 12 x 12 squares on the cutting for the first one helped that along! I had also cut the sashing too while cutting to begin with. While not the prettiest quilts, they were meant to be for general usage, not for pretty lol. They would work on most our beds we planned to put up. No larger than ours, a queen sized brought from home, these would be ones hubby made from medium to smaller sized logs for the frame and then the lashings would be either rope or something else we dreamed up after sifting through some "how-to" books we had on hand. Our set of the Foxfire books were becoming invaluable to our set up here with everything on the homestead. Hubby even found pointers in them for his mash for the still LOL! And that still? He had a barrel of mash working. And it was still bubbling along, so he figured he had at least three days before he would have to start cooking. That was good since SF and Krew were coming tomorrow to help him cut logs for the addition. Something we had a feeling we would desperately need. And I hoped it wouldn't be crowded right off the bat! I had the pitcher and basin stand in the bathroom downstairs and there it would stay along with the chemical toilet until hubby had it plumbed up. That was a ways down the road yet though. We had to get the cabin done first, then the amenity's. It wouldn't be hard to do though, biggest thing was going to be some kind of septic system. I knew he had some of the bigger 4" PVC we had brought, but I didn't think he had any of the regular black sewer type flex pipe. I hoped he could dream something up, pretty sure he could. Well after the quilting and another round of baking, I stared at the laundry pile. Nope, Mondays are laundry days and I was just going to keep that as it was. No sense messing with my set way of doing things. I wanted a routine, at least while it was nice outside lol. So I went outside to check on the hubby. He was supposed to be doing the morning chores out in the barn. I got out there just as he was finishing up. He had a good mess of milk and eggs and had already turned everyone out to pasture and set the chickens out to peck around. I led them out into the garden so they would eat the bugs for me off of the plants. Hopefully, they wouldn't eat the plants too! Most days they were pretty good about not eating them. Once in awhile though, they did get ahold of a few. This wasn't a time that we could afford it. We needed every last plant we had. So I thought better of it and led them around the other side of the house where the mint garden was by laying a trail of cracked corn. Works like a charm! I got a look at the garden while I was out there. I grabbed a hoe and started to work on the weeds. There really wasn't that many, but I wasn't about to let it get that way either. I saw hubby heading down to the corn field to check on it. He had his side arm on, good. One less worry, I went back to work on the weeds. About mid day, I had tackled most of those and went inside to get a jug of tea ready to sit in the sun. Some folks let theirs sit out all day. I don't. Half a day is enough for me. Otherwise it gets too strong and the tannins start to build up making it bitter. I like tea on the weaker side and not bitter. I did put some mint in the water along with the tea bags. It would be a nice drink along with the fish we would have for dinner tonight. I hated about missing going to the Lodge today, but hoped the others would understand. I knew the ones that already had family and other children arriving on the next wagon train. So much work, so little time. I grabbed the "ToDo" list and started checking things off. The garden was as big as time would allow. Logs would be cut tomorrow. I was working on the quilts. Hubby already enlarged the coop. I still needed to gather cat tail flour, berry leaves, grape leaves and the likes. Hubby said he was going to set up the wood stove in the barn later on toward fall so that was a wait and do later item. Beds would be made after the addition was put on. I would need pillowcases. I already had sheets. I grabbed a bolt of some nice white cotton material that had little pink roses and ribbons winding through it and started cutting. It wasn't anything to sew up the two sides and put a hem in them at the ends. Took about an hour and I had three sets all done. Okay, cross that off the list. I still had a few hours before it was time to make dinner. We were waiting until later in the day to eat. With it being so hot now, it just about made us ill to eat while it was still to hot out. We waited until near dark when it started to cool off. Even then, most times we ate outside instead of in the cabin where it was still pretty hot. And it was either prop the door and window open, letting it cool off inside and fight the bugs for now, or leave them closed and be miserable lol. So, until I could get screens made with some saplings for frames that would fit both and the rolls of screen I had tucked away in the storage, I would fight bugs! Best put that on the TODO list also before I forgot about them. I got my cloth grocery bags, checked my .380, and hollered at the hubby to let him know I was going to check berries and would be mostly down around the spring house gathering grape leaves and such. He waved back and nodded his head to let me know he heard me. I whistled for the dogs and here they came bounding and leaping through the tall grass just wagging tails and tongues, ready to do what ever Mama wanted them to do. I told them we're going to the spring house and they took off down the trail ahead of me. I thought about what we would use for mattresses on the beds as I walked the trail to the spring house. Maybe since I didn't have enough feathers saved up yet for that, we could find something else nature has provided for them. I wondered if the combination of a few things would work, say cat tail fluff and grasses, some straw maybe. I knew they used corn husks and such too, but wouldn't have any of those until this fall at the earliest. Well maybe we could make do with some pine boughs and the feathers we had saved so far and such. With the quilts on top, it should keep the kiddo's nice and warm come winter. If not, there was always sleeping on top of something out in the front room! I noticed the berries were still not quite ready yet along the trail. Maybe another two weeks yet before that would happen. I sat to gathering grape leaves, making a small stack in my hand then placing them into the bags so that they didn't get all wrinkled up and such. It would take more unnecessary time spent straightening them all out if I wasn't careful now. I got a good bunch of those and put the bags down to cut out some dead vines. That would help the new growth and it would also give me the vines to work with back at the cabin. I wondered just how strong they were? Could I use these to help with the slatting on the bunks? Maybe lashings for the logs on the bedpost? Would have to play around with them back at the cabin to see how easy/hard they were to tie off and such. If nothing else, they would make a pretty wreath LOL. I gathered some mint too while I was down there. It was really growing strong here by the river. There were some other things growing too, different herbs and such. I wanted to transplant some back to the cabin, but didn't bring anything with me this time to dig them up with. Maybe on my next trip before the berries were ready. I also got my gallon sized baggies out and hung the bags up in the tree branch near the rivers edge. I waded around the edge of the water where the cat tails were at. I gently got ahold of each cat tail and put a baggie over it then tapped on it. Oh cool! It worked just like Mother said it would! Before long, I had a big baggie full of cat tail flour. Hummm I never used this before but Mother said just to sift it and it was ready. I was thinking I would cut it half and half with regular white flour as a stretcher for now and see how it turned out. I was betting though from the looks of it, some mighty fine biscuits were in the offing! I gathered up my stuff and called up the dogs. Here they came, bouncing and barking away. They had that look of "Yeah mom, we're here. Wanna play too?" I had to laugh at the bunch of them. I told them "Home!" and off they went down the trail ahead of me. I knew they would make sure the way was safe ahead and wasn't disappointed. I got back in time to spread out the grape leaves inside the smoke house to dry and hang the grape vines inside the barn for hubby to mess with later on. I got to making dinner and after we ate, we just sat outside the cabin door on a couple of stools hubby had made out of log halves and put some saplings on them for legs. Pretty sturdy too. It was starting to cloud up to the north of us so we figured we would get some rain here sometime soon. Good we needed it. Time for bed, blessings to all! Q

　 Middle of June! - the Valley Wow, time is flying by! Seems like we aren't near as far along as we need to be before winter arrives. And I need to make sure we have enough to do during the winter so that we don't get cabin fever! I best be watching the Library for not too often checked out books for the hubby. He loves to read in his spare time. Something he hasn't had any of lately. And neither have I. There is always work to be done and how we will handle winter is anyones guess. I suppose there will still be chores with the animals and such but nothing that will take all day like we have now. I wonder if I could convince hubby to take the small wood stove we brought with us and set it up out in the barn so he could use a bit of it for his workshop? Maybe go out there some days and work on some furniture for us? I bet he would like that! I will talk to him in the morning about it! It's been another busy day at the homestead. And I am thankful to God for giving us so much to do and so many blessings around our place too. Even though it is the Sabbath and we are to rest this day, I know the good Lord realizes since we are homesteaders, we still have to do chores every day lol. And I try to keep it to just that and no extra work like laundry and such. Fishing is more a relaxing pleasure though, even if it does provide food for us. It still gives us time to relax and sit there on the rivers edge thinking about things that are His and even reading the Word too. So hubby and I planned on spending the afternoon fishing and the morning doing chores and having church between the two of us. It was nice this morning with us cuddling together for awhile before we ever got out of bed. Just a few extra minutes of quiet. Then we got dressed and headed to our work, him to the barn to do the chores and me to the wood stove to cook breakfast and set up the table. Once those chores were finished, we cleared the table and spent time in His Word together, always a good thing! I cherished those times we did it too. Then after a quick bite for lunch, we grabbed the rod and reels, dug a few worms out of the compost and set off down to the rivers edge for an afternoon of fun and relaxing, in other words, fishing lol. It wasn't important today to be catching fish, just the time spent together and having a little fun. It was so nice out today too, just the perfect day for it. I couldn't see anyone wanting to work on such a nice day! I had grabbed the journal that we found inside the box in the floor too. I figured we might have time to look it over while we were fishing. I was curious as to what was written in it. Hubby seemed like he could do without ever knowing lol. But after baiting my hooks and casting out, I sat the rod down on a Y stick in the ground and then finally, opened the diary. It had a leather strap all the way around it and as I undid it, the leather came loose. Well I could fix that with a needle and sew it back on later. I opened it up and saw a picture of a piece of deer hide stretched out on a rack. It looked like it was sewn on with strips of something? Just a rectangular frame made of saplings maybe. They were thin but must have been sturdy to hold that hide in place. I'm thinking the straps maybe were made of other hides? It was kind of neat to see the way they had strung it up and gave me ideas of how we could do our own that way. 　 Then I looked over at the writing on the other page. UGH!!! It isn't English! I think it maybe French? I turned to the back of the diary and there was a picture, well a few of them really, but one was of an Indian lady in her deerskin dress, long hair, beads all over and it said Ma femme, Mon amour which I knew had something to do with my woman or wife, my love. Must be the woman of his life, his wife maybe? She sure was pretty. Maybe those deerskins were hers? Or a present for her? We had seen signs of him, but not any of her being here? Oh my, another mystery. I put the diary down to catch the fish that had been nibbling on my line. After catching him and rebaiting my hook and getting it set back out, I showed hubby the pictures and asked him what he thought. He agreed it was probably his common law wife, maybe even his wife married to him in an Indian ceremony. He thought she was pretty too. I asked him why he thought we hadn't seen anything of her around here. He figured that if the man had died, she may have gathered all she could take and left to go back to her people. Well that made sense but why leave the deer skins? He said maybe she hadn't known about those or the diary in the floor. I sat back down staring at my pole. Hum, I had to wonder if the guy in the cave was the trapper now. Or was he? I'm thinking he spoke French, so maybe here it would be a French Canadian trapper and his wife? I don't know. All I know was the key to all this was written in French. A language that I didn't speak. And I couldn't read it either. I guessed we would have to take the diary down to the Lodge after all and see if there was anyone around here who spoke French and could translate it or read it to us all. It would be interesting to find out what happened or what was going on around here at the time they both disappeared. Indian wars? A raiding party? Or was there some illness going across the land at the time? Oh what a mystery we had here! I put the diary up in my bag and settled back to fishing along side the hubby. That's when we heard them, like a pack of elephants coming through the tall grass lol. Good thing they weren't hunting! It was SF and mt3b! Just splashing their way across the river...so much for fishing LOL. Seems they were out looking for the local wild foods and came across some they wanted to share. Wild strawberries and a couple of pecan seedlings too! I was happy to get those and wanted hubby to plant them up by the cabin in the morning! I heard the story of how she wandered off taking just the dog with her, knowing full well there are wild animals on the stir. Just the other day SF himself had a run in with a bear. What could she have been thinking?? I was getting a little steamed with her myself, especially so when I was told her hearing was going! So she wouldn't even hear a wild animal if it came up behind her? I wondered if she had any idea just how stupid that was? We could have lost her!!! I couldn't stand to loose a friend I just so recently made, one who had come to mean quite a lot to me, almost like a sister! I wanted to shake her, hug her and cry with her all at the same time. Hubby got me calmed down though and I put it into a file to bring up with her at a later date...then we went on talking about pigs and did they have any they wanted to barter? Or any that would be ready to butcher by this fall. We were going to have to have the meat, but more importantly the lard. We also wanted to get a couple of them so we could start our own little bunch. What do you call a bunch of pigs anyways? Certainly not a flock lol. Wonder what it is...oh well. They offered to get us a pair of theirs that were from different parents so we could have a breeding pair of our own! To wonderful and an answer to prayer! So, now we will have at least one for butchering this fall/winter and a breeder pair of our own! Yep, we were going to have to build them their own little house, the barn was too full lol. Maybe we should add onto the barn too? Oh and speaking of barns, SF and crew are coming tomorrow to help hubby fell some trees for the addition onto the cabin! I wonder if hubby will drag out the chainsaws? This really IS kind of an emergency, they do need to come down fast and many need felled to get what we need for the cabin. I talked to him tonight after dinner about it. He said he would think on it tonight and talk to SF about it tomorrow and see what he thought. Hubby did agree that we were going to have to get moving on this. No time like the morning! We did ask them to stay to dinner with us, but they wanted to get back before it got too dark out. I understood and told mt3b that I would come over one day soon and take her out with me looking for berries and such. Maybe we would just have to team up on the berry picking! That will get us both out of the house for awhile and get the berry picking done too. It is always more fun to have someone along with you. Makes the work go faster too. I was sad to see them leave but we were so glad that they had stopped by. Dinner was kind of quiet, both of us lost in thought. I was sure he was thinking about the addition to the cabin since he was doodling on a piece of paper. I was worrying about the food end of our additions. It would all work out in the end, I was sure. I spent awhile taking it to the Lord in prayer this evening, asking for help and wisdom. He is so good to answer my prayers all the time lol. I even got some work done on one of the quilts. Just a simple 12 x 12 squares of different patterns and colors. Kind of material prints that a child might like. It should be done tomorrow if I get time to do the binding. It was a quilt as you go kind, so the last thing left was to secure the binding all the way around it. Well it's late so I'm off to bed... Q

　 June 11, The Valley Preparation day is always full of work. But it's a good type of work, getting ready for the Sabbath. I got laundry done this morning down at the river, hauled it back up and hung it out on the clothes line. I had a batch of sour dough bread rising while I was out doing that. Once I got the laundry hung up, I got the bread in the oven. It's getting too hot now to bake inside during the day. Even with the window and the door propped open, it's still too hot. So I think I will switch my baking to either first thing in the morning before or right after breakfast or I am going to have to rig up something outside. Maybe go back to my sourdough in the dutch oven over a camp fire. It's pretty easy to do, you just get your fire going, mix up your dough and get it inside the dutch oven. You make it in round loaves for that instead of bread pans. I suppose you could put it inside the dutch oven in a bread pan if you want, but I'm not into making more dishes for myself to wash lol. I take my dutch oven and pre heat it in the fire. Then I sprinkle a little corn meal on the bottom of the oven before putting my sourdough inside. That gives it a little extra crunch on the bottom and helps keep it from sticking too. Now real carefully put your dough into the oven. I make a couple of cross cuts on the bread just to decorate it. Now put the lid on it and set it close to the top of the fire. Take a shovel full of coals and put it on the top of the dutch oven too, you want at least 16-20 of them on there. What you are aiming for is an inside temp of around 450 degrees. Now turn your dutch oven about every 15 minutes out of the coals that have burned down. Cook it for 45 - 60 minutes. 45 if you have really hot coals and 60 if they aren't. That should give you a good loaf of sour dough bread. Now if you don't know, always let your bread cool completely before slicing it. Wont fall that way! No matter what your mouth and stomach are telling you, don't do it lol. Don't cut that loaf until it cools LOL. After getting laundry and baking done, I went down to the spring house with the eggs from this morning. I was wanting to see what all we had in there that needed used up before I went planning dinner tonight and tomorrows lunch. Who ever put the door up was nice enough to make a path to it and cut the vines back also. When we found the cave, the vines didn't have much for leaves on them. Now that I got to looking at the vines as they draped down over the cave sides from up in the trees, I recognized the leaves! Those are grapes! I knew they couldn't be muscadines this far north and west, but the leaves weren't much different. And the leaves I would harvest too for medicine. They were used as a poultice for wounds. Old Indian lore said they cured everything from snake bites to lust LOL. I didn't think I wanted to cure the last one, but I would have to see if my books had any other uses for them. This was a good find for food and medicine! The grapes were just forming clusters of what looked to be a good harvest of grapes! I could make so much from these. From jelly to wine. The skins would be used as animal feed. Nothing from these would be wasted. I would thin out some of the vines and the ones that I cut would be used too for baskets and such. I would love to make a nice grape vine wreath to decorate for the front door of the cabin! I could put different things in it for the different times of the year too. Oh this just made my day finding the grapes! I was betting they were frost grapes too since those are native to the west and they love to grow along streams and river sides. I ducked into the spring house thinking about the grapes, not watching what I was doing and tripped and fell. I got up and checked myself over. Nothing but a cut on my hand is all. I would clean that up when I got back to the cabin. Got to watch yourself out here. A simple cut could become infected quickly if not cared for. It looked like we had too much milk for the two of us. Best go through recipes and start looking for ways to make things out of it. I was going to have to get with Mother and find out how to make cheese! Eggs were just about right with us having them to eat at meals and in the baking too. I was worried that we would run short until the chicks started laying though if we ended up with children here. I'm sure I could get some from somebody around the valley until ours kicked in. We also had other foods in there keeping cool. Kind of like a walk-in refrigerator. I wondered if hubby could rig up some kind of shelving in here for us? It was that or stacking the crates up in here to use that we hadn't used in the cabin. Most of them were still in use with all our things packed in them from the trip out here yet. As they emptied, I would bring them down here to be put to use I supposed. Well time to head back to the cabin. I made sure to watch where I was going this time. The dogs all barked and played their way back to the cabin with me. Nice to know there wasn't anything around right now that could harm us. I was getting worried though with all the bear and wild animal run ins that were happening in the valley. It was to be expected though as we moved in on what was once just their territory alone. Now they would have to learn to live with us or become food for us. I went nowhere without my side arm strapped on. Not even to the river to do laundry. Nope, not after seeing mama bear and her two cubs on the way to the Lodge last week end! And here berry season was a few short weeks away which would draw the animals in closer yet. I hoped everyone was keeping that in mind, but I was about sure they were. I got to thinking about the TO DO list hubby and I had made up. The garden was as big now as we could get it and most of our seed for the year was planted already along with the potatoes and onions. Most of the onion would be dehydrated to keep longer, the rest kept for seed for next year along with the seed tops we harvest. The chicken coop was done. We had only cut down a few logs so far for the addition. Have to get busy on that. Maybe Sunday we would start in on it. We would also need more quilts this winter, so I was going to have to whip out a few simple ones just to have them done and ready. Fancy ones could be worked on in the winter. This was going to require the treadle machine and a few nights in a row to get some cranked out. We would have water alright on the inside of the cabin since hubby fixed the pitcher pump in the kitchen sink right after we got here. He still had all that PVC pipe and fixtures yet too that we brought. And the long handle pump that we brought. We didn't bring leathers though. Hubby was going to make those out of groundhog hide. That was some tough hide too, better than cow leather. But you had to work with it before it started to dry. Right after you scrape it out, you need to cut it to what ever shapes and sizes you need before doing anything else to it. Hubby made some boot laces out of it back home and he is still using those years later. For that you take one piece of hide and cut it into a continuous long strand about 1/4 to 1/2" wide. Hang it out in the sun to dry for a week or so. Once it's dry, it is very hard to tear or cut. You can use it for boot laces or even leathers for the water pumps! Just about anything you need a strip of leather for, this can be used for it. We were also going to have to start raising some pigs. I guess the closest to us would be mt3b's with the pigs. Unless we could get orphans who brought farm animals with them, which I wouldn't even count on, but was possible, we would need to make arrangements with someone. I knew there were also a few of the B's group up north of us, as most folks were lol, that were raising them also. They had some at market weight from what we had heard at the lodge last week-end. It might be worth hubby's time to go up there one day to check on it. If he could get one male, one pregnant female or one who already had hers and brought those too, it would be ideal for us. We would butcher out the male and render the lard, which was the only fat we used. And although I brought a few stands with us, it wouldn't last forever and with kids around, we would run through it faster than we did now. So I talked to the hubby about it at dinner time tonight. He agreed on the idea and said he would go in the next few days on the trip to look for pigs. I would stay home and build another stall in the barn with the lumber we had left over from the barn raising and smoke house building. It would be cobbled together, but they wont be able to get out of it lol. I was also going to have to use the last of our roll of farm fencing, the roll to be cut in half, which would give us two 4' tall rolls, and send that around the bottom of the corral. Then I would use what ever I could find to finish it out with, knowing that those two rolls would never make it all the way around the bottom of the corral. Had to have something there around the bottom to keep the piglets in and predators out! Hubby said he would start over to SF's and mt3b's place and then go up to the B's place to see what they had available. Even if he was only getting a market weight pig from B's, he also thought that he might ought to take enough along that would get him through the night too...just in case he had to stay over. It's a long trip up there and back. Hard to do it all in one day. I needed to do a few things myself, like gather some of the natures bounty around us to put to gut use as food! Mother had told me about cattail pollen for a flour stretcher. And we had those by the boat loads all along the river's edge here. It wouldn't take too long for me to gather some that way I suspected. And I needed to get some more mint picked and dried. I was using the smoke house for now with all the tables inside it and no fire. Didn't have to worry about the wind that way lol. Or take up room in the cabin with stuff spread out all over. I wanted to get some berry leaves too for adding to tea in the winter and fall. Those were ready even if the berries weren't yet. And there were other things like the grape leaves too. I would pick the biggest ones to use in food like for wrapping rice and meat in with a sauce over it. Yummy. And also would need some for medical reasons too. There was so much ready to gather that it would take the better part of a day for just me to do it all in. I would do it on a day that hubby was home for sure. I didn't want to be the only one around, even if I did have a gun with me, if a bear happened to bump into me in the berry patch! Well it's getting late and I want to get a start on cutting out some material for those quilts. So will call it a night and get to it! Maybe tomorrow I would start looking at that diary we found... Q

　 June 10th - The Valley Hubby is off to hoe the corn field this morning since that little rain we had the other night. The weeds are starting to pop up out there. I got the garden work to do this morning too. Weeds aren't too bad there because we took the sod off first. But there are still weeds. Always will be too lol. I don't care what you do, they always manage to find a way to get in there. Then I thought since it is getting so hot out now during the day, that we would go down to the river and sit in the shade, maybe do a little fishing. I am hoping to get enough that we can have some for dinner and put some in the spring house for tomorrow night too. That would get meat for two days and cut down on what we are taking out of our preps. I would rather have the fresh meat anyways. Hubby thought about smoking some, but it would be late by the time we got back, cleaned the fish and I had dinner on the table. Since safely smoking fish took at least 4 hours with the internal temp of the fish staying above 160 degrees, we wouldn't have time to do it. Maybe one of these days when things slowed down a bit. Well the weeding is done and we got enough fish for a few meals. That was mighty tasty fish too. Hubby said something while we were fishing about there being too many fish in the little river. So I am betting this fall, he is going to be setting up some fish on poles in the smoke house lol. Going to have to get my knives sharp for that since the fish has to be sliced real thin for it. I'm sure he can do that for me, since he has that grinding wheel out in the barn set up now. And we got to talking while we were out fishing too as most folks do to pass the time. He is worried that with us getting older, that we need to have Jerry here and maybe we should take more than one of the orphans coming into the valley. With just the two of us, it is too hard out here and we aren't getting any younger either. There is no one with out them, to take care of us as we get older either. We had no family with us. What if we both caught sick and couldn't ride for help? So he is wanting to get more than one child. Maybe a teenager? Oh I told him stories about my being a foster parent back in the world. I told him about my getting the teens out of gangs and what all that involved. The attitudes, the anger, the hurt and the needing to feel like they belonged and were loved by someone. He thought we could handle it. I wasn't so sure. But, I was willing to at least try it. And then he said maybe we should get one or two in the 5-10 year old age group too. I laughed and asked him if he was wanting stair steps? That's a passle of kids that their ages are close together. He laughed and said he guessed that he did. I asked him where was he putting all of these kids at with a one bedroom cabin? He had a plan...I just knew he would lol. He wanted to make the addition on the end two stories. Okay I thought. If they use the hoist and the oxen to lift the logs up with, it might work. He said he had it planned out how many trees it would take and how many floor boards he would have to lay. They would just be square rooms with an opening in the floor for stairs for now. Nothing fancy. And the bathroom would be downstairs with us. Okay I figured that will give us three extra rooms and a bathroom with the addition. That was a lot of trees to cut! He said we could get a start on it tomorrow then when Jerry got back it would go a lot faster if he would be able to help us. I wasn't sure about all this, but okay. I will give it a shot. If we could get at least two rooms in a lower addition, it was worth it. And raising more kids, well that sat pretty good with me too. I always wanted a football team of my own but couldn't have one. Maybe this was His way of granting that for me? Then again, who's to say there were that many orphans coming to the Valley? Hubby thought there would be quite a few with what's going on in the world. I was unsure but told him that we would let Mr. S and Mr. R. know that we would take more of them on if they had more children that needed a home. Oh boy. This is going to take a lot of prayer! Blending a family isn't easy by a long shot. But once it happens, everyone is so blessed by it. Hubby went out after dinner and got the chicken coop expanded. It didn't take long at all since all he had to do was tack on another nest box and give it a little more moving around room to it. He did the evening chores too while he was out there. I came out right as he was getting done and we watched the goats and the oxen for a bit. The horses were off to themselves as usual and the chickens were back to the roost already. I wondered if we were going to take in orphans if we would get enough milk from the two goats. We might have to use the oxen for milk also. Hey why not. I bet it was just as good as cow's milk! We had one set to calve soon, maybe we needed to breed the other? We made our way back to the cabin. Hubby sat down to read about a few things and I got some mending done on his jeans and my jean skirt. We were wearing out clothes here faster than we ever did back in the world. I got that done and started in on the journal. Well it's going to be a long day tomorrow. Best get to bed. Q 　

　 June 9 - The Valley 　 Got up early today and got around for chores. Getting plenty of eggs now and the little chicks are running all over the barn like it's theirs lol. Girls are still giving lots of milk, for which we are very thankful! I still haven't had time yet to figure out how to turn their milk into cheese. It can't be too awful hard, others are doing it. That means my simple mind should be able to figure this out. It looked like the dogs had been hunting again this morning. There were little tufts of rabbit fur all over the yard. Good bet they caught something too lol. Well we got the rest of the sweet potatoes planted today. Not much else got done though. Hubby turned the soil ahead of me and I followed along behind him planting slip after slip. Around noon, I took a break from planting to get some lunch. It gave him a chance to get ahead of me too. I took a little walk after lunch to go check the berry bushes. They were just turning dark red so shouldn't be too many days now before they were ready to pick. Good because we were on our last jar of pancake syrup and down to the last few jars of jelly too. Since I didn't have a freezer now, I was going to have to do some dehydrating this year...more than what I was used to doing. Good thing I brought my Stocking Up III book along. It had a lot of info in it on how to make a solar dehydrator and trays to use outside too. I had plenty of cheese cloth, so covering the stuff so it wouldn't get buggy was no problem. I just needed the trays built to use, along with everything else lol. This starting over from scratch wasn't for sissies or the faint of heart! And who was it that had the nerve to call this the Golden Years??? Must have been a teenager lol! Only thing golden was the sunsets. My those were pretty too...I don't know what happened to my brain today. I just seemed so scattered like that. I got back to the garden and finished up helping hubby turn the row and then got the rest of the sweet potato slips planted. We cleaned up the tools and went in for a dinner of roast deer sandwiches. After dinner, Mr. Q and I sat at the table trying to decide what to do next, what was more pressing that needed taken care of now. To me, it looked like it all needed done now. But hubby thought since the chicks were around now, he needed to enlarge the nest boxes and the coop a little to accommodate the babies. So he put the on the "TO DO" list. I also needed to get the dern floor fixed in front of the fire place. It was a mess still having that hole in the floor and the box staring at me all day, every day. We decided we could do that now, so hubby grabbed a hammer out of his tool belt and got to working on the lid. I stood by anxiously waiting to see what kind of treasures were in the box, dreaming of gold nuggets and such. Hubby pried up the lid a little at a time on each side, not wanting to break it. I just wanted it off! It was a good size hole and a good sized box, so there was a lot of space in there to fill up. I watched as he finally had the top loose. I asked him what he thought was in there, "Nothing but air", he said and laughed. I wanted to just stick my tongue out at him! I said "I think it's gold! Why else would they stick it in a hole under a rock in the cabin so no one would find it?" He just looked at me and laughed saying something about a wild imagination. Yeah, that's me okay? Lets get the lid off already! He picked it up carefully as he could but it broke into pieces. He picked them up real gently and laid them to the side. There was some sort of cover under that. Hubby picked it up and looked at it. It was a deer hide that had been tanned. A good sized one too, probably a buck. He handed it off to me and I looked at it, turning it over. It was tanned on both sides. One rather large piece of material. Might be able to make something out of this! Oh how I wanted a deerskin dress or a skirt! This might just work for half the dress! Okay, what else was in there? Hubby pulled out another skin! Tanned on both sides also. Humm now why would they put these down here? Hubby thought since it took them a lot of work to get them done, they may have left them to make clothes out of and didn't want someone to steal them. I didn't know, sounded like a good idea to me. I didn't see anything else in there, but hubby reached down in and pulled out a little book from the corner. It had a well worn leather cover on it. No name or anything, just a leather cover. Hum, wonder what it is? Hubby opened it up and said, "It looks like someones diary!" I wondered if it belonged to a trapper? Maybe someone trying to homestead here? Hubby set down to read it at the table. I looked in the box and yep, it was empty now. No gold, but treasure just the same. It would be so interesting to read the diary and see what it was! We would have to take this to the Lodge the next time we went up there and show it to Mr. H or S or maybe Mr. Rock if he was here. I would give it to them too if they wanted it. Maybe it would give them some history on the Valley? Q

　 June 8 - the Valley Another day, another dollar! Well something along that line lol. It just means I got a lot accomplished today. I got breakfast early, ran out to do barn chores of milking and feeding, gathering eggs and putting that up. Then I brought some of the cream inside for butter and eggs too so I could get a batch of noodles made and drying out. I also got two loaves of sourdough bread made up and one batch of dough made into rolls. I even managed to squeeze in a batch of biscuits too for tomorrows breakfast. Hubby was wanting biscuits and gravy. Sounded good to me too! I also got a deer roast going for dinner tonight. It was fairly easy too. I got out my smaller dutch oven and browned a good size roast in some Worcestershire sauce and dehydrated onions. Then I added some salt, pepper, milk, flour and dehydrated mushrooms after taking the roast out of the pan (back at home I just used a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of the flour, milk and mushrooms). You whisk that all together until it's kind of a gravy consistency. You don't want it too thick yet, make it a little runny. You could thicken it up after the roast was done. If you didn't, the gravy would scorch on the bottom of the pan. You put the roast back into the gravy and put the lid on it. Let it cook on real low heat (medium low is good) all day. After about 6 or 7 hours it should be fork tender! Serve it with mashed potatoes and your choice of side veggies and you have a meal fit for a king! I serve rolls with it, but you could use plain bread or biscuits too. I had hubby clear the sod for another row in the garden today. I told him if he got time to turn it, but that it wouldn't need raked so much. I was going to put the sweet potato slips out. I figured it wasn't going to freeze by now, so they should be safe. That would make them ready to dig by mid-September. Should be just about right. What I was aiming for was the first killing frost of the season. It takes between 90-120 days for sweet potatoes to grow, depending on what kind you plant. We grew mostly centennial ones, which are the big thick orange bakers. Those run 100 to 110 days, no matter what they seed companies tell you lol. If you dig them up in 90 days, you get small thin ropes with a bump in the middle of it! I try to let them go the full time each year. One year we had to dig them up 10 days early, they just weren't as good as if we would have waited longer. They like full sun too, lots of it and warmer temperatures to grow right. I felt the soil and guessed at it to be warm enough not to send the slips into shock. And we made our own slips each year. You should only ever have to buy one set of slips. If you leave one or two potatoes in a dark dry place for a month, then bring them out into the light, they should start to sprout. You cut the sprouts out of the potato along with a chunk of it and put that into a small peat pot to root. Once it roots, you will see leaves start to form on the sprout or shoot as some folks call them. What it really is, is the potato vine. That's what they call a "slip"! Centennials like to vine all over if you let them lol. But once you have a good vine growing and the soil is warm enough, cut the bottom out of the peat pot and about half way up the side of the pot. That's so you get the roots. And the roots will form into potatoes! Now, once they get established in the garden and start setting out vines and runners all over, you can either let them grow out or do like we do and cut them back. But no shorter than 5 feet! If you keep them at about 5 feet long, then the plant puts more into building roots/potatoes than it does into building up the vines! So then you get nice large potatoes instead of little ones with tons of vines attached. I never knew that part until I got to talking with someone near us that farms sweet potatoes for a living! I had never seen it in a book anywhere, never heard anyone talk about it or nothing. But it's a neat little trick that all the farmers around us seemed to know. So we tried it one year and it worked out great! But we as a family ate more sweet potatoes than we did white ones. Those were kept for mashed and for hash browns more than anything. Me, I'd rather just eat sweet taters lol. Especially roasted or made into fries. Yummy! So after dinner, I got another long row planted...all out sweet potatoes! With the soil we had here, I figured if the weather cooperated, we would have a bumper crop. We were going to need one. But it was hard to kill them off. You either had to have long days of hard rains and no sun or you had to have a lot of cold freezing days together. I didn't see either one happening soon, so that would help us a lot. I would keep out one slip though. That one I would put into an old pot in some soil I got out by the river. It was going to sit inside by our only window and I would let the vines grow as long and as many as the plant wanted to provide. They have the most beautiful dark green and purple leaves and vines to them. Makes a very pretty house plant. And since I left all but one golden pathos behind, I was starved for house plants! Heck at one time my house was so full of plants, hubby started referring to it as "The Jungle" lol! As for storing them, we just put them in either cardboard boxes or plastic milk crates lined with newspaper in a cool place. Just had to make sure they didn't freeze. A root cellar would be ideal, but I think here we would have to put them in the spring house. I doubted if it would freeze in there with a spring running in it. That would keep it just warm enough. It was getting about dinner time, so we put the garden tools up after cleaning them off good. We had a bucket with sand and oil in it that we used to keep them clean and ready to use. So in the bucket they went and we did the milking and gathered any stray eggs. Hubby ran the milk we didn't need for tonight down to the spring house and I went on into the cabin to get dinner on the table. The whole place just smelled so good with that roast cooking in there all afternoon! My stomach got to growling so that the dogs looked at me funny. Hubby got back and right as he went to shut the door, I heard thunder off in the distance. Well, seems like we would get a storm tonight maybe. When we finished dinner and all was done and put up, we went out to sit in the evening air and just relax for awhile. It was so nice here in the warm evenings. We were both too tired to be playing in the river tonight. Just watched the lightening bugs and the threatening sky. Lightening flashed brighter as it got darker in the valley. It was pretty, if you like watching that kind of thing. I would rather have been in bed and when I told the hubby that, off we went. Q 　 　

　 June 7 - The Valley Well it was a long ride home yesterday. Mostly thinking along the way about bringing in a young one to the homestead. I had been a foster parent for awhile, mostly for troubled teens coming out of gangs. That was a, umm, challenge lol. Our home at the time was even shot at once, the gang members trying to shoot the child that left! Oh yes, it was a lot to handle, but maybe the child we were taking in, or siblings, wouldn't be quite that bad. I hoped, but was prepared for it if it was. I got to thinking about how nice it was seeing everyone again too...Annarchy and her family, the Mt. R's, Mothers bunch, mt3b and SF and their family, the B's group too! There were almost to many folks around. I had a hard time picking out single voices instead of just a roar. That often happened to me after the strokes, all the voices of a conversation just turning into a roar. Hard to talk to more than one at a time that way! Especially at the medical building! I didn't realize so many were that interested in natural medicines. Showed me huh? LOL, it was nice telling the war stories though. The longer you are in medicine, the more of them you have too! And working the ER/ICU, I had a TON of them LOL! I just hope I didn't bore anyone with them! Oh what fun it was to share that all again.... Then it was back to what would happen at our place once the wagon train got back and the orphan came with us. Well one or two of them anyways. They never did say how many there were did they? No matter.... I thought about the extra space we would need. Ours was only a one bedroom cabin, so that was a big challenge right there! Was it possible to enlarge the cabin? I turned to the hubby to ask him when he looked at me funny and said "Do you think we could make the cabin bigger?" I about fell out of the wagon seat laughing! I was just like us to run on the same thought train and had happened a lot since we got married. I told him that I was going to ask him the same thing. He explained that he thought if we expanded either all the way along the back or just all along the one side it would be workable. I thought the side would be easier, he agreed. Once the walls were up and chinked outside, he would cut a doorway on the inside of the cabin, giving us basically two more rooms inside then. I asked that one be made a bedroom and the other a bathroom of sorts. Until he could plumb us some water in. He thought it would be easier to plumb a new structure than it would be the existing one, so he was busy thinking up the plans to do that the rest of the way home. I worried about the clothes. I doubted if they would have much, if anything in the way of clothes. I had no idea how old they were, male or female, or sizes, so the most I could do was worry lol. We would have to cross that bridge when it came. The other thing was to make sure we had enough food for at least two more children and one adult. Our garden would have to double! But it was getting late to start long season things. It would have to be short growing time stuff like green beans and the like. It was my year to do a bunch of beans anyways. So more would be added. We kept our garden on a rotation. We built up our stores to be three years at a time on veggies that way. If we planted something one year and it failed for some reason, then we still had a years worth in reserves. If it failed the next year too, well then we were out of luck. Most times nothing failed two years in a row though. So while one year we would plant corn in one spot, the next we would plant beans or peas in that spot. Every year saw tomatoes and peppers planted and a few other things also. Most veggies were on that two year rotation though. It was also too late to plant corn this year. No way it would be ready before the first frost, which would kill off most veggies. It would have to be doubling the root crops under ground. That would help keep them from dying off on the first frost and let them continue to grow some. Especially turnips, but then I can't say as I knew too many kids that like those LOL! Seemed to be an acquired taste as an adult, if at all lol. We usually grew them just for the greens. Which would be doubled this year too, but we could do that in the fall garden. Oh, there was just so much to do! First would have to come the garden and the house space. The rest could wait. I wasn't sure if Jerry would be staying with us or staying at the Lodge since he was still part of Mr. Rock's security team. He might have to stay at the Lodge for now. Which was okay, at least we would be able to see him more. I sure would like that! I was hoping once he was able that he would build a cabin on his own land adjoining ours, maybe on the pasture land we wanted to see about buying from Mr. J. that was just to the south and the east of ours in the clearing. We wanted that to raise horses in. Maybe put another barn there and a lane leading from one barn to the other. I was just wanting my son close to me. And if he got married, then he would be raising his family near us too. Oh goody, more grandkids!!! We loved kids running around, but we had married too late in life to have our own together, so we just blended what we already had and called them our own. No one minded that a bit! Today saw much of the same thing...thinking about enlarging the cabin was going on in the hubby's head. Since he staked out corners and put string around the space lol, I would say it's a safe bet as to what he was thinking. He starting digging the trench for the first set of logs after lunch! I got dinner ready today a little early so that I could get out to the garden this evening and do the weeding. I wasn't going to get out in the hot sun during mid day and do it. Nope, work smarter, not harder! I switched weeding time to evenings now for the rest of the summer. Then hubby and I could cool off and clean off with a dip in our little river. It wasn't too deep and was more like a slow moving stream down by us where it emptied into the pond. Nice little place to be and not many skeeters either since the water wasn't standing still. We did seem to be getting our share of biting flies though. I hated those things! They hurt like the dickens when they bit you! But we got to splashing around in the water tonight, just relaxing and having fun together. And well, one thing led to another....hehehe. Q

Okay, as long as yall don't mind it out of sink neither do I. Oh and yep, just tell the tech to call me...I'll be right up lol! Q

　 June 6, 2010 - The Valley Well it's been quite the day here in the Valley. I had a hard time watching our son ride away this morning, back out into the world with all it's bad happenings going on. I prayed especially hard today for that young man. I keep wanting to call him my boy when I could plainly see that he was all grown up now. No longer that sandy headed lanky boy that went into the Army a few years back. No longer content to don a hand-me-down and discarded uniform and go out into the palmettos and play "Missions" with the neighborhood boys, he was one who built upon his dream and did the real thing. Now he was working security for Mr. Rock and at the Rockin J ranch. God had made sure to keep his promise to bring my baby back to me safe and sound. While I knew in my heart He would, we are all human and still have that "worry gene" lol. I think women and mothers get a double dose of it too. And I was so glad that he was where I could get ahold of him, where I could maybe see him more often than once in 10 years. Where if he decided to settle down and get married, maybe I could go to the wedding! Where I could watch his children, our grandchildren, grow up. If I held out that long and God didn't call me home first lol. Well, anyways, he was off back on the trail again to the ranch. He would be working the wagon trail as security. We didn't know if there would be more than one wagon train coming in over time. But as long as they were running, he would be providing security for them. Last night before turning in, I got out our Lehmans catalog. I had brought it to look at, my dream book, and figured if nothing else, we could burn it in the stove for heat! I got out pen and paper and drew up a list of things we could use more of. It wasn't undoingly long, but it wasn't short either. And then I added to the bottom of it things like salt - as much as you can get us. Flour - at least 100# and same for sugar. I didn't add yeast since I had the sourdough starter going now. I think hubby may have put it on though for his shine lol. I also added Plexiglas or as many old windows as you can bring. I wanted these to make us a green house with. And the one thing we really needed that was fairly cheap, one old steel drum, 55 gallon size. We would cut that in half, using one half at a time for a fire pit in the barn raised up on legs or a stand. It would only be lit while we were out working in the barn for any length of time. Or we might just leave it whole if it had a top with the metal ring for it to close it with. None of the things we put on the list would be luxuries. All were things that would be needed here in the valley. I dug out most of the cash money we had left. Then I got to thinking that I had no idea if it was good? I would have to ask Jerry before giving him the other, the gold and silver we had. It wasn't all of it, but it was a sizable chunk. There wasn't anywhere here in the valley to spend it anyways. Once I got that done, I wrote a note for the bulletin board in the Lodge. "Wanted: One good riding horse. Prefer a mare who has foaled at least once. Will consider trading oxen for it. Or other trades considered. See Mr. Q. or leave message here on the board." I didn't know if we would get any nibbles, but we both needed to have our own horses. I could still ride after the strokes. It was about the only way I had that I could still get around any distance. I sure couldn't drive even out in the world. I hadn't drove a vehicle since Oct. 15, 2005. But a horse? Oh yeah, I could still ride just fine. I didn't think I would be doing any breaking any more but I could ride lol. And I didn't much care for riding double like we did going to mt3b's place either. I wanted my own mount! The reason I wanted a mare who had already foaled once was I wanted a "known". Meaning I wanted to know how they did having the first one. If they had a hard time with the first one, good chance that was how it would go with the next one. Yes, I realized that they could have a problem anyways, but I felt like I would have less of a chance of having to get out the equipment to pull the foal out this way. And we did want a foal, or a few of them. I wasn't opposed to raising horses here in the valley. If we did that, we could ask for another parcel of land to the south of us and use it for pasture for them. Until now, I hadn't heard of anyone raising any horses to sell here. Might even be open to just trading for them too if it was something that we really needed. Not only that, but it would solve the problem of what kind of business would we do way out here at the south end of the valley, away from most of the folks. I was going to have to talk to hubby about doing this. Was easy enough that he and I could both do it. Maybe get Jerry in on it too and make it a family business. He could do the breaking if he was able. And from the looks of him, he was able lol. Well we headed out to the Lodge this morning after doing chores and making sure all the animals were set for the day with extra food and water just in case we got held up late. Just hope the girls wouldn't suffer any if they weren't milked right on time. Still had some learning to do about the goats, didn't I? I brought along a lap blanket, there was a little nip to the air this morning. I also brought some extra seed that we had like green beans, okra and turnips. I had gotten purple top by mistake last year and we didn't eat turnips, just canned up the greens. So I would give these to Chef. I was sure if anyone could make turnips edible, he could do it lol. We also tied the horse and the other two oxen along behind the wagon and hitched up our males to the wagon instead of the girls. We didn't know if they would have enough oxen without our two we had promised. It would be slow going. But, if they needed the wagon too, they could use it. We would just ride the horse back with the female oxen in tow. That would also mean we had to leave the packages there until another trip too. Either way, the male oxen were going on another wagon train lol. So we had to bring the girls along to pull the wagon back if they didn't need it. I guess our horse would just be along for the exercise then lol. I pocketed the note, the list and all of the money for Jerry. We double checked everything and everyone lol, then we were off. It was just starting to get light out when we got to the turn off from Mt. Dew lane to the big river. We followed the river all the way up to the Lodge, riding in silence most of the way. Both of us were tired and wishing we were back in our warm cozy beds listening to the sounds of morning, not being out in it! But there was work to be done, always was work to be done... Once it got full light out, we could see the tracks in the soil ahead of us. Looks like the Mt3b clan had already gotten ahead of us. LOL they were going to think we were old farts or something with as long as it took us to get somewhere! I munched on a biscuit and gave one to hubby as we rode along in the morning quiet, enjoying the ride and the sounds of all the animals and the rushing water going back the other way past us. It was a beautiful place, here in this valley. Almost as nice as back home in TN. But not quite lol. Our home place was green as green could be. And no mountains, just gently rolling hills. This was like being in a beautiful human terrarium ringed in by mountains hehehe. I had hubby stop the wagon. I hushed him. I felt like we were being watched. But neither of us could see anything as we looked around from the wagon seat. We were as quiet as we could be. Then hubby grabbed my head and turned it with his hands. "Over there across the river", he whispered. I looked but didn't see anything. He told me just keep looking and wait a few minutes. Okay I thought, this had best be good. After two or three minutes of waiting, I was rewarded with seeing a small black head pop up out of the bushes at the waters edge on the other side of the river. And then there were two little fuzzy black heads with long noses! Bear cubs!! I didn't know weather we should go or sit here and watch them playing! They were just having a grand time along the rivers edge without a care in the world. Then we saw her, the mom. She stood up out of the bushes. It was big!! Course I had never seen a bear this close in the wild and was starting to feel just a tad bit uncomfortable with it this close, even if there was a river in between us. She was up on her back legs looking at us and then let out a roar that about chilled my blood cold. Okay hubby lets get moving. We are a rolling smörgåsbord dear! So we went off in the direction of the Lodge, leaving momma and her cubs to play in the sunshine. We had just pulled up to the Lodge out back to unhitch the oxen when folks started coming up to us. We got hugs all over from folks we didn't even know lol. Seems Jerry had been telling stories around the Lodge about our little get together! Oh that boy! He's still not too old to get a switching! LOL! Hubby went off with the guys saying he would catch up with me in a few minutes. Yeah, I knew what he was up to lol. I saw a few women standing around and made my way over to them. No one I recognized so I decided to go on inside and pin up my message about the horse. Instead I ran into Mt3b. Seems they weren't as far ahead of me as it seemed, they had just gotten here not too long ago. Funny we never seen them ahead of us, they might have taken the inland route where as we had followed the river instead. I told her about seeing the bear and her cubs. She just shuddered. I don't think she will ever get over that deal with SF and the bear. Don't blame her one bit either! We talked about gardens and barns and such for a few and then hubby called me to come on into the Lodge and get seated. I hugged mt3b and told her that I would talk with her later today if we all got the chance. I scooted on inside and instead of going to find where hubby was seated, I went on over to the bulletin board instead and took my note out of my pocket and pinned it up and said a quick prayer. We really did need another horse. Hubby would have to have a way to get around quickly if I was out riding circuit doing house calls. We will see what happens. I went to find Jerry next. He was just coming out of what they were using for an office here. I explained the list, handed him the money. He told me it really wasn't worth that much any more. That inflation was running rampant out in the world outside the valley. I asked him if he thought he would be able to even spend it? He didn't look like he was real hopeful about it. That's when I gave him the rolls of silver coins we had stashed back. There were 6 rolls of quarters, and 6 of dimes. His eyes got big and asked where we had gotten all that. I told him it was part some we bought and other we ran into getting change lately. Seemed like everyone was busting into their coin collections to get money enough for food and such. He just laughed. He did ask if we had enough here should we need it and I assured him we did. I also gave him the few gold coins we had gotten over the years. He didn't want to take them saying it was just too much. I explained to Jerry that if he ran across a good deal, if they found someone selling in bulk, heck maybe even a trucker wanting to sell his load and just go home, to take the money and buy whatever he could in what ever quantities that he could get. I told him that we could also give others part of it if it was just too much for the three of us and they could settle up with us later on. He agreed to do it when I put it to him that way. The two of us went out to the great room to find the hubby. He and Jerry talked a few minutes and then shook hands. I looked at my boy with tears in my eyes already. I knew what was coming and I was dreading it so badly! He grabbed me up off of the ground again and hugged me tight. Jerry told me not to worry (like that was going to happen, not!) and that he would be back in a few weeks with any luck. Oh I cried, but I told him to go with God and stay safe. He assured me he would and then he turned and left the Lodge. I instantly felt empty, like I had lost him again. I cried into my hubby's shoulder as he held me. I didn't want to stay here, not if my boy wasn't here! I wanted to go home. But we were already here, so we stayed for the meeting. I sniffled through the whole thing too. Seems they are going to start moving the Rockin J folks here. It's getting bad out there even at the ranch. There are gangs roaming around, criminals out and about, folks just wanting to shoot up places. Wrestlers on the rise trying to steal the livestock so that they even have to guard the animals now too. And the attacks come at all different hours of the day and night. No one knows when they are coming. Gas has skyrocketed, travel restrictions, all kinds of evil seems to have been loosed on the world now. I listened, all the while worried about the kids in TN, but I knew where they were at was safe, even if the nukes flew. And hubby's family was right in the area too if they needed anything at all. So they were okay. My worry turned to Jerry now as he was leaving to go back into that mess. So many of the folks here had loved ones coming to the valley! A lot of our friends had heard from loved ones this week end and you could see the smiles and the looks of relief on their faces finally. All the tenseness was faded into the background once again. Some of our friends who had heard from their families found out in those letters that they were on the way to the valley. I prayed hard that they would all have just as great of a reunion as our little family had done. During the meeting you could hear sniffles, and not just mine lol. I thought it was tears. After the meeting though, you could tell it wasn't. Some people seemed to either have allergies, not uncommon this time of year, or they had a cold going around. Not something I wanted to share with them lol. Hubby and I went outside once the meeting was over. He saw Mr. S and Mr. H over at the corral and went to talk to them. I went to the ladies as usual! I guess Chef was making some kind of lunch for us all but I was so tired and emotionally drained and just wanted to go home and lay down. It had been a long day already and it wasn't but half over! I got caught up on all the local gossip of who heard from what part of their families and who had folks coming to the valley and such. One of the B's ladies said she had been hearing about the numbers of orphan's on the rise lately. Parents getting killed trying to protect them from car jackings, home invasions, etc...but there were a LOT of kids out there now without parents. Some out wandering around without a clue as to what to do or how to feed themselves even. I had to wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Rock were picking any of these little ones up around their area. I didn't know, not for me to worry about. Not yet anyways. But like I said, I was tired, I wanted to go home. I looked around for the hubby and found him out in the corral looking at a horse, a mare, with Mr. S and Mr. H. LOL, hubby flicked a gold coin up in the air and Mr. S reached up and grabbed it, sticking it in his pocket. Hummmm, did I just get another horse there? I had to find out what this was about... We packed up to go with all our packages from the Lodge...finally! And we were lite two male oxen which got taken back on the wagon trail..,on the trail again, it's so good to be back on the trail again...hummmm...lol...song is now stuck in my head for the next day I suppose! Anyways, I hugged Mother after chatting with her for awhile and all of us ladies poured on the biggest group hug you ever seen! It was so good to see everyone but good to go home too. We also had one extra horse with us!!! Yep, hubby got me that mare! Now...what to name our two horses? I couldn't just say hey horse!...already have the chickens named Thelma and Louise...going to have to think on this one. And half way home hubby dropped the bomb shell on me. Mr. S and Mr. H agreed to sell hubby a horse if he would think about doing them a BIG favor. They wanted us to take on one or two of the orphans that were being taken in at the Rockin J ranch. It was getting so that there were a LOT of them coming in! So, for their safety, Mr. and Mrs. Rock wanted them moved to the Valley asap. Hubby agreed to talk to me about it, but one look at him, that look on his face like a lost puppy dog and that little whine thingy he does...I was a goner. How can a wife say NO to that? LOL So, one of the B's guys are coming out tomorrow to talk to hubby and he will send back word to put us on the list to take one (or two if siblings so they don't get broke up) of the orphans. Not saying we will get one, but we will see. And here I thought it was Grandma City! Evidently not. I'll take it to the Lord in prayer tonight and see what His will for us is. Got a few weeks to find out what that is. Now, journal reader, I want to write more, but I am so so tired that I keep nodding off into my pages. Will write more to you late....blessings to you... Q