quiltys41

Here is where our place is and the road/lane to it. Just in case yall ever want to come calling! Q

Here is the map in case anyone was searching for it like I was lol. It only took me half an hour to find it! Q

<snicker, snort> I am so sorry I posted that picture (not). LOL...I can't help myself! I loved doing IV's in the hospital. A lot of times I was the one they would call when they had a really tough one no one else could get started! But that happens a lot when you work in ICU. We got people with mostly no veins due to illness or age. Some even the docs couldn't get so then we would have to put in a central line. Just in case yall need IV's in the valley, now you know who to call! {{{{{everyone}}}}} ~~~~~~~~~~ I don't know if Mt. R or Mother can put my post I just made in order with the others? It's from yesterday and I forgot to post it last night. Of course yall speedy people got ahead of me today and already posted todays stuff lol!! Now mine looks all out of place! Poor little post... Q

　 Hubby is going to go hunting early next week again. He's afraid that we will get caught short this winter with the possibility of Jerry being here. We also turned another row in the garden today and will turn another Monday. I have to plant half a row of okra yet plus a few more other things, like extra hill or two of squash, etc... just so we have a little cushion. I think we would have enough food, but it's always nice to be sure. One other thing that got set up was hubby's still! It's about time too. I wish I would have had some of that to make toddy's with when I was down sick. He's got it out next to the river. Made another fire pit and then got it set up. He uses an iron work stand with an old autoclave which looks like my canner, but twice the size!, for his cooking pot. That has a coil that comes out of the top of it where the steam rises into. That coil comes down and curls around awhile. It sits inside a plastic water barrel. The end of the coil comes through a hole he made in it at the bottom and sealed with silicon caulking. Out of the hole, comes the finished product! Good corn licker as old Popcorn Sutton used to call it lol. My hubby had talked to ole popcorn a time or two about a still. Popcorn was pretty well known, about the most famous moonshiner around too. It was a shame when he passed. But, hubby carries on part of his tradition so that's good. Hubby comes from a line of shiners. Matter of fact, he is the fourth generation. Family has been making it since they came here from Ireland to the hills of TN. It might be illegal, but it is a proud tradition in his family and from our part of the country. Now, most of what he makes is called "sippin whiskey" and runs about 85-90 proof. Some folks like their shine "hot" which means it is over 100 proof. Not him, he likes it smooth and easy to drink. He takes pride in it and everything is cleaned down after every run weather it needs it or not. It's all filtered, only pure spring water, preferably limestone fed. But it isn't something to mess around with. Remember, he grew up learning this skill, and it IS a skill. You don't just pick up the parts and get to it lol. Nope, a lot of trial and error and please do remember it IS illegal! Make it and you run the risk of revenuers at your door. But with the way the world outside is right now, I doubt if anyone from the BATF is going to show up in the valley. And he got his mash going for it today too. I hated to use the corn, but after he gets what he needs out of it, the mash will go to the animals after a couple days of drying, to use for feed. So it all manages to work out in the end. The mash is what you cook in the kettle to make the whiskey out of. It's made from corn, sugar or honey or molasses (molasses = scotch), yeast and water. It is the amounts that are so secret that most shiners wont allow anyone around when they are making up their mash. Hubby is no exception to that rule lol. Add too much or not enough of one thing and your shine could come out not tasting very good! Now he wanted to get this up and running since we will be having visitors. He's making the first batch, about 2 gallons, for me. I will be making tinctures for folks and having it on hand for antiseptic purposes. He's afraid some of these new folks could be sick and bring it with them. And he knows I am down to next to nothing on the antiseptics and down to none at all on the tinctures. Now would be a good time to be making them too with the new blooms and all the plants coming out that are needed. And the blackberries should be ready the same time as the mash is so I can make blackberry cordial with some too. LOL I give that, just a sip mind you, to the ladies having a rough labor. Kind of relaxes them a tad bit and makes it go easier. Plus it isn't too bad for a night time tonic before bed! Better than any sleeping pills. So hubby should be ready to start cooking in about 2 weeks. I hope that will give me enough time to do the tinctures. I am afraid it will be cutting it kind of short, so time is of the essence here. They have to have a little time to work up. Plus that will be about the same time that I am ready to start my canning season with the blackberries. I have enough surejel and clearjel for this year, maybe next, but then I will have to start digging up the arrowroot and drying it out and then pulverizing it into a fine powder to replace those two things. It works great for a thickener. Not just for canning but also for gravy and puddings and such too. We are planning on going up to the lodge tomorrow for services and hubby needs to get the oxen to Jerry too for the trip back to the Rockin J. I know I am going to cry again watching the child ride off out of the valley, sure as shootin I will. But I just keep trying to remind myself that it may well only be another 3 weeks or so? before he is back around us for good. So just another 3 weeks of hell again. At least this time I know where he will be and what he is up against where as before I had no earthly idea. I just keep praying for the Lord to watch over my boy for me and keep him safe until he returns. We sure could use his help around here too. He has some muscles on him that would stop a freight train lol. I doubt if he would have had any problems lifting up logs for the barn. We will have to see if he wants to hook his 40 acres on to ours some how. Would be nice to have him on the other side of the little river to us! I'm sure we could help him get a cabin set up over there and get him some chickens and such too. I was hoping that he would be able to make it out here today before the night got too close, but he must have had work to do while he was here since we didn't catch sight of him. Just knowing he was here in our valley, safe from harm at the present was enough for my mothers heart! Oh, the chickens lol. Whitey managed to hatch out 5 little orange peepers. She keeps hiding her eggs on us. But that's okay cuz right now, we need the chickens. Our little flock is growing and growing! They are just so cute! This is our second bunch so far. With Thelma and Louise laying too, it isn't hurting anything to let Whitey go sit a few bunches. We are still getting plenty to eat and since we don't always have them for breakfast, I get a few extra for noodles and bread and such. I just don't want any to go to waste. And I think from here out, we will just put something in the nest for her to sit on and take the eggs out. Two flocks is enough for now. I want them all laying before winter sets in. I hate the thought of little chickens in the winter, they might freeze to death! We took a ride this afternoon over to the mt3b's place. We had been wanting to at least pay them a call anyways since they had been out to our place a couple of times and we hadn't been to theirs at all that I could remember. But some times my rememberer isn't too good. Can't help what you can't help lol. But we had a fine time talking and sewing up some quick stuff. Seems A will be getting a baby! I will have to go through my material and batting that I brought with us and make her a baby quilt! I do love doing that but this one is going to have to be a quickie quilt since they should be here in a few short weeks. Then there is all the extra planting to do not only what we had already done, but now they were wanting a community garden too! Lots to dream about tonight...blessings to all. Q (note, this is yesterdays post...I forgot to post it last night...sorry! Will post todays entry tonight some time } Q) 　

Somebody asking for one of these?? I am really goot at starting them! Q

　 June ? the valley Well to say we had a shock today would be putting it mildly. AAAAhem.... We woke up today to an overcast sky. At least the rain had stopped for now. What's that old saying about being careful what you wished for? LOL I asked for rain, we got rain. All day yesterday. Now, maybe a little sun Lord? If you wouldn't mind... But I wrangled up some breakfast, the usual. Eggs, toast and milk. Coffee too. Can't do without the coffee lol. One of my packages unopened yet was from Tampa, so I knew we had plenty of coffee beans to last us a couple of years. Never do want to see me without my coffee..anyways, I cleaned up around the kitchen and got set to bake some bread while the stove was hot. Hubby went out to the barn to do the rest of the morning chores. I had already milked the girls and gathered eggs. Sorry, not much order to the entry today. I'm still a little shaken up. Best tell ya what happened before I end up tearing this page out and starting over! Long about mid day, we heard someone coming up Mt. Dew Lane to the cabin. Wondering who it could possibly be after all the company the other day raising the barn, I just figured someone forgot some tools and came to retrieve them. Nope, I heard a "Hello the house!" called out. I hear hubby call out "Come on ahead" so the rider came on up and talked to the hubby. I hunted up a brush and smoothed out my hair, pinning it back as usual. I put on a clean apron and headed out to see what was going on. Well here was this nice younger gentleman talking to the hubby. I didn't recognize him. He worked security for the Rockin' J and was sent to the valley to tell us all to expect new folks from the ranch moving in and wanted to know if we could spare any or all of our oxen to pull wagons with. Hubby told him that there were three he could take with him, but the one oxen was "with child" so to speak and didn't think she would make it back in time before she had her little one. Not wanting them to be responsible for that, he just figured it was better to leave her here. Which the young man quickly agreed to. Hubby asked him if he wanted them now and he told him if hubby could just get them to the Lodge before Sunday morning it would be better than him taking them now. He had other stops to make along the way first. Then he handed me a couple of letters. Took hubby out to his horse and pack mule to get a couple of packages from it for us and told him there were a few bigger ones down at the Lodge yet for us. Oh goody, more stuff lol. I sat down on a stool outside the cabin while hubby talked with the young man some more about what things were like outside the valley. Hubby got the man some coffee as they chatted. I got him some milk for the coffee and sat down at the table inside instead. I spread the letters out and started reading. The first one was from my daughter. She had made it to TN with her brother. How old was this letter? I looked. A month and a half! Well all this worrying lol...anyway, her and the hubby and both boys were in TN and doing okay. Rough trip but they made it. Cave was topped off with supplies after they got there. Might be moving over there shortly? So were they at the cave now I wondered. Her brother had gotten the garden in okay, enlarging it with them in mind on going there. Good, so at least they would have fresh food. Lights were going on and off but the generator was working well. She had canned up the meat out of the freezers and they had unplugged them. Wonder if she propped the lids open like I told them to? No matter. Next letter was from her brother. Said his sister had gotten there okay. Garden was in, yeah your sister already told me that lol. Had been hunting and got 3 good sized ones, 2 bucks and one doe without a young one that they had followed awhile. Good, so they had meat. Yep, they had been doing a lot of fishing. Oh, got a smoke house set up. Then I saw the young man and hubby watching me read the letters from the doorway, not wanting to crowd me as I read I supposed. I continued on with the letter...son says "Hey Mom, I have to tell you something." I'm thinking oh great now what??? He says "Don't you recognize him?" I flipped the letter over looking for a date. What I saw was NO postmarks??? Huh? I looked back at the letter....don't you recognize him? Him who? Son wrote...Mom look at the guy who brought you the letter. Take a good look. I know you haven't seen him in 10 years, but geeze Mom!!! Oh CHIT. I looked at the young man gracing my cabin door. Oh Lord tell me it's really you? Is it you? My son who has been in the army special forces for 10 long hard years? Is it you Jerry??? He ran over, lifted me up off of my feet and said "Hi Mom! It's really me!" He put me down and I sat down hard on the ground. I couldn't even stand up. All the worrying and the tears and the fears and the waiting and wondering if he was alive or dead and all the never knowing anything flooded back at that moment. All 10 years worth and I lost my legs out from under me, went to the ground in a heap of tears!!! I cried like a baby for a long time today. I am still sniffling hours later. But it was him, my oldest boy Jerry. He had been released from the Army and stopped by to see his twin brother in TN before hiring on to the Rockin J for security there with the Rocks. They had really liked that he had spent so many years on the special forces teams. But I'm jumping ahead here....Anyways, hubby and Jerry lifted me up off of the floor and got me sitting on the edge of the bed. Jerry knelt down beside his ma'. Oh that was so nice! Lordy, I never expected to see the child alive again, not after all these years and no word. But here he was, now, right in front of me. I hugged him so tight. I didn't want to ever let him go again. But I knew I was going to have to. So I looked at him, studying the face that had grown up. He had just turned 18 when he went into the Army. He was 22 when he made it into the special forces part. He looked like his father when he was younger. I wondered if his brother had told him that his dad had passed awhile ago. Yes, and he had went to pay his respects at his grave too. Seemed to have good manners, this young man. I wanted to get to know my son again, find out what he was like. Was that little boy still there inside? Would he still like eating the same foods? I wanted to get to know him so badly. Well I got myself pulled together, which wasn't easy and still am breaking out in tears thinking about it. But we talked for awhile. He told us just exactly how bad it was out there now, the raids, the gangs and bandits on the highways. Truck hi jackings, the banks not doing good, stock market was a lot worse now. Occasional brown and black outs, sometimes for days depending on what part of the country you were in. He said the cities were the worst. With the truck jackings food wasn't getting in and they had no way to garden there and feed themselves. Children there were starving. It was a bad mess and he didn't see how this country could hold together much longer. It sent cold chills up my spine to hear all the reports. I didn't know what to think. So I asked him if he thought there was a chance we would end up in a war with someone. He said it is always a chance, but a better one now. I asked Jerry if he was going to stay in the valley or go on to the Rockin J to stay there? He wasn't sure about staying there or if he would come back here with the wagon train as security detail for that and then work as security here in the valley, guarding the opening pass down into it. He said Mr. R still wasn't sure about it. I told him to please ask Mr. R if he would allow Jerry to do that, please. It would be so good to have him here in the valley with us. We needed help and we needed some family here too. Jerry told us the other kids and grands were safe and sound at the cave. He had helped finish moving them before he left to come to the ranch. So we didn't need to worry about them now. They had all the supplies we had to leave behind, plus the family lands on the river and were doing well with it. I just couldn't get over Jerry being here!!!!! My long lost son as I used to call him lol. He wasn't lost, just gone for a bit. Now that I knew where he was and what he was doing, it felt like a big load was lifted up off of me. I said so many prayers today for that boys safety in the coming weeks. I said one asking for Jerry to be here in the Valley with us too. Oh, yep, he is still single he said. I wasn't surprised, Jerry loved to date and have fun with the gals, but his Army life always had to come first. I imagine more so when he went into spec. ops. And then came the dreaded time that he had to leave me again. I hated it, I didn't want it to happen!!! No!! I just got my baby boy back, I didn't want him leaving again already!!! But he had to go, others were depending on my boy, well young man lol, for their safety on the wagon trip back here. I said a prayer over him, hugged him tight, sent him on his way with a sandwich and more hugs and then he was gone back down Mt. Dew Lane. I ran to my bed shedding tears the entire way. Hubby followed me inside, sat on the bed with me, just holding me tight while I cried it all out. He handed me new Kleenex and brushed my hair back from my face, trying hard to kiss the tears away. I looked at him, my darling husband. The man I loved and honored. I straightened up and hugged on him real tight. We whispered I love you's to each other. Hubby asked if I was able to fix some dinner for him. If not, he would cook. I told him no that I would be happy to make dinner if he didn't mind a few tears in his spaghetti sauce! We both laughed. I set to cooking him dinner, thinking about Jerry the whole time. It was so nice to have seen him again! I loved all my children, but you always seem to have a special spot for your oldest one. Even if it's the oldest of twins lol. So there we are dear journal. A few letters sit here beside me on the table. Packages are in with the other unopened ones. And dear Jerry is down to the Lodge getting things ready to leave the valley and go back to the Rockin J so they can bring a wagon train back here. So much in one day. I didn't hardly get anything done today. But then again...I got a lot accomplished! Q

　 June 3 the Valley Rise and shine! That's what I heard this morning. I felt like just pulling the covers up over my head and hiding the day away in here. I didn't want to get up and that's not like me. But it's going to be a dull dreary day. It was already thundering by the time we had gotten up this morning. So we had breakfast and made our way outside to the barn to do chores and make sure all of our animals would be safe if the storm turned bad. Can I add here that I hate thunderstorms? I really do and to be outside in one was taking all I had not to bolt and run back to the cabin and safety. But I finished the milking and gathered eggs and got everyone fed. Hubby had work to do in the barn, so I took my treasures and headed for the cabin with them. I figured out how much milk I would need for the day and how many of the eggs and set the rest aside to take to the spring house. If it quit thundering and raining that was. I'm not going out in this mess. It would be my luck to start out to the spring house with a basket and umbrella and get hit or the tree I was next to get hit lol. Nope, I'll wait, thanks anyways! So most of the day today was cooking scrubbing, and cleaning the cabin. By lunch time I was ready for a little fresh air, so I opened the cabin door a bit to let some inside. Was getting stuffy in here! After lunch, since it was still kind of yucky outside, I started work on my quilting I had sitting in a frame in the front room. I don't often have time just yet to do that, it's more a winter activity, but I am thankful when I have days like this where I can work on one for a few hours. Dinner was simple yet filling and hubby and I went to bed early, listening to the rain outside as it gently lulled us into a deep sleep. Q

June 2 the valley Well here we are, alone again. I got chores done by dawn's early light lol. All the animals are to pasture, chickens are pecking away out to the garden, dogs are out looking for a stray rabbit. Took most of the milk to the house today. I am doing baking early to keep the heat down to a minimum. I did 2 loaves of bread and another batch of biscuits and 2 batches of dishpan cookies before lunch today. Hubby loves dishpan cookies and they are easily made from preps. Takes a lot of flour and sugar though, but sometimes you just have to have little comforts like cookies. It makes all this hard work worth it! I fixed hubby and I some of the last of the goat in tortillas with some fresh greens and a bit of horseradish sauce. I hope that root takes that I planted when we got here. I don't know what we would do without horseradish sauce! It goes on a lot of stuff we eat. We use that like some people us ketchup or mustard lol. Oh and it goes so good on a bowl of soup beans in the winter with a slice of hot corn bread. Yummy! Hubby went back to work after lunch and I sat down with some cream from the milk the past two days and made some homemade butter with it. We had other cream in there for coffee in the morning too. So I didn't use quite all of it. I love butter for cooking and baking too. It goes so good on baked potatoes and hot corn bread, fresh biscuits. Those are just a few of my favorites. I had one of those simple churns from Lehman's. It has a glass jar and a hand crank paddle in it. Takes a bit to work up the butter then get the butter milk out of it, but it's worth it. We save the buttermilk too for cooking. It just isn't thick enough to drink on its own, even if you cool it down. Oh, hubby and I are going to wait on the box in the floor. He and I figured it's like the other boxes sitting in a pile on the bedroom floor. They still aren't open either and the mess on the floor isn't in our way right now, so other things take precedent over that. He said maybe in a few days we will open it up and take a peek. He is more worried about fixing my mess on the floor than he is on finding out what's in the box lol. Typical male. Now, had he found the box, it would have been opened that minute and probably held a kings ransom in gold lol. So we just get to sit and wait until he decides it is the right time. Grrrr.... I took a walk around the garden this afternoon, then the dogs and I walked down to the cornfield. Both of them look great right now after everyone worked on them. Bet it wont look this good in about two weeks. Less if we get a good rain. And speaking of which, we really haven't had a good one for awhile. I wonder if this is a dry time in the valley? We got a good steady drizzle few days back, but we need rain. A good all day gentle rain right now would do wonders. Even the berries could use it and now would be the perfect time for it too. And it wouldn't hurt a bit for our water supply either. I haven't noticed the river going down any since there was such a flood a few weeks back, but if this keeps up, it will. I guess tomorrow would be a good time to walk around the homestead and gather plants and roots for medicine and food before stuff shriveled up on us. Dinner tonight was a kiss type dinner. With all the rich food we had the past couple of days, we decided on just pancakes with blackberry syrup and some fried eggs with ice cold milk to drink. It sure hit the spot! Some times we both just get hungry for breakfast at dinner time. Always happens about the same time too. They say as a couple grows together, their tastes in things do too. We are starting to think alike, scary! LOL, no not really. I have a good man and I thank God for him every day (IRL too). We sat outside the front door of the cabin this evening for awhile watching the lightening bugs flash on and off and two of our crazy hounds trying to catch them. It was more fun than we have had in awhile with the dogs! I think we laughed till our sides hurt watching the two dogs jumping up into the air, leaping and barking, trying so hard to catch those flying flashing little lights hehehe. The other three dogs just peeked up at them like they had lost it. Other times we were just quiet, sitting there looking out over the homestead, holding hands. One time hubby did say how much he wished at least one of the kids could have come with us. Not so much to help us out, but because we felt cut off and alone some times without any of them here. I agreed but reminded him that we did have each other and they had known what would happen, so not much else we could do. After all, they were grown now and had kids of their own to care for. Well at least two of them did, we were never sure about Jerry and we seldom even spoke his name. It's late and I have managed to write myself into a funk again. Guess I will close this up and head to bed... Q

June 1st in the Valley This has been one of the most wonderful of days, well the past two have been really. With all of our friends here helping us get things finished up today and all the building going on yesterday, I am going to have to take tomorrow and just walk around the place and take inventory of what all got done lol. People were all over our homestead, some I didn't even recognize, so they must have been some of B's people. I was having so much fun learning barn raising and how to use horses or oxen to pull the logs up into place with and how to get them fastened in once they got there. Mother's folks were all over that barn climbing around. At first I thought that girl was going to fall right off, but she stayed with it and showed the men what for hahaha!!! You go girl! (old saying by now I suppose.) But there was so much more going on, doors being made, chinking that I paid close attention to so I could do the inside of the cabin myself. Oh and let me tell you, that goat that Mt3b's had cooked and brought with them, along with the bread and that...boy was it ever good! So tender that it just kind of fell off the bones and flaked right up to make the most wonderful sandwiches or tortilla wraps! I never had goat before now and it wont be the last time either! I still am not quite getting the tortilla thing down yet. I guess it is just going to take some practice on my part. Kind of like making flat bread is all. I never did that well either hehehe. And let me tell you, I managed to pocket some extra biscuits and honey too that she had made and brought over. Just a little slice of heaven! I felt like a pig making my way through 4 of them lol. And then hiding a few extra for later, well, I just couldn't help myself! I have had biscuits from all over this country, from NY to Co, from MN to FL and all points in between too. But hers with that honey on them were some of the best I had ever been lucky enough to taste! Mother was kind enough to explain some of the medicinal plants that I needed for this hanging on flu or what ever it is. I am at a loss as what to call it. Never ran into anything like it before, so I guess we will treat the symptoms fearing that it is a virus, which means no antibiotics ever made will get rid of it. And I know we will run out of those before it's all over and then we will have to depend on the herbals to get us though what ever we get ahold of illness wise. But I did try making a tea of the things she left with me. Ugh, I was never so happy to have had mt3b's honey before now lol. That is some nasty tasting tea, so maybe it will work just fine! They say that if it tastes bad, it will work. This stuff should work real well then. And once I get up to snuff, I will take my plant books with me and the ones Mother told me to get will be the first ones I look for around here. I have seen a few of them down by the river, so I will start down there looking. I hope I happen on another mint patch too. I will dig part of it up and transplant it up by the cabin. Mint grows like weeds too, you have to keep it in check or it will spread out all over the place. I hated to see mt3b and her clan leave yesterday. I think I hugged the stuffings out of her again lol. But I can't help it. I had grown so close to all these people that I called strangers at first. During all that we went through on the trail, all the trials we faced together. It put a bond there that wont be broken. And when we have to say good bye to each other, it just is so hard. I know they are but a horse ride away, still it's not easy. And I know over time that our two families will grow stronger as friends since we are closest together in the valley and they have been so good about coming to help us. I think once that we get all this stuff finished, we will be riding over to see them and help them out more often than we have now, which has only been once? Or have we went? I can't remember though this fog in my head from the flu. Isn't that something when you can't remember things? But I do miss them. And then Mother and her family, bless their hearts. Riding all the way down here to help us, when all the while they had so much to their place that needed done. They too are such a blessing to us. Mother and her knowledge that she so freely shares with others about plants and such that will take care of our health. That is a big thing right there, for out here, if you don't have your health, you are in danger of not being able to make it at all. So that makes what she shares so very important. But I hated to see them all go. I hugged on Mother until I thought she wasn't able to breathe lol. Hope I didn't hurt her! I just wanted to hollar out "You can't go!!" when they were riding away. It took all I had not to run after them. As it was I was crying so hard that hubby just grabbed me and held me tight, telling me that it was okay. We would see them again and maybe one day soon we would go ride up there and give them a hand getting their place ready for winter. Winter? That brought me right out of my funk. winter. Oh gee, were we near ready for that? I had so much to do here before winter sat in. I needed to go get busy, check the berries since they should be ready in a few short weeks. I could take one look at them and tell you just how long it would be before they would be ready to pick. A thing I picked up in TN from our old place. We had wild blackberries all over there and I could do that every year, tell when they would be ready. Hey, we weren't going without jelly jams, and preserves! Or the syrups either for things like pancakes and waffles. Maybe if I could figure out how, we could have some ice cream too! Wouldn't that be a treat for the 4th? I had one or two pints of syrup left that we had brought that I could save for that! That got me to wondering if anything at all had been planned up to the Lodge for the 4th this year, or would we skip it this year knowing how hard everyone was working on their places, trying to get it all set before winter arrived? I would have to ask next we saw someone from there. Well I got to feeling like my eyes were burning again once I started in on my chores. I finished up milking the girls, got the chickens and the dogs fed, then started up on the oxen to turn them out to pasture when the world started spinning. I had to sit down on one of the logs that didn't get used yesterday before I fell down. While waiting for the world to stop spinning I thought I had best get back to the cabin before I ended up passing out in the barn. Nice as it was, I didn't want to spend the day on the floor in there, not that P&N would leave me laying lol. So I got up real slow like and made my way one cautious step after another, slowly to the cabin. This was one of those days where I wish we had a radio so I could call up the hubby to come help me. He was around here somewhere, but I didn't catch sight of him, so where he was here was anyones guess. More than likely he was out helping do something with some of the folks that were still here working on stuff. So I made myself some willow bark tea with two teaspoons of willow bark steeped in hot water for 20 minutes. I killed the waiting time by doing dishes up from breakfast and sitting up a table of leftovers outside for lunch. Now willow bark, along with most any herbs that kill off a fever or pain, is very very bitter. So here went some more of that wonderful honey into my tea. I didn't know what to use to kill the bitterness, so I just covered it up with something sweet. I drank that down quick so that it was still warm and went to make the bed and do some other household chores. I figured if the world was going to spin, I'd rather it spin inside where at least I would be comfortable if I passed out hahaha. Maybe I would get lucky and do that on the bed? Nope, I started feeling okay by the time I was done straightening up in our bedroom area. I decided to get some biscuits made for dinner while the fire was still up in the wood stove. I wanted the baking done while it was still morning. Baking inside in the cabin on June 1st while it was getting hot outside wasn't fun. So I tried to switch my indoor cooking to mornings so the cabin would be cool by dinner time. Oh, I hope that willow bark tea doesn't hurt anything in Mothers tea that I took? Could something in there be what made me dizzy? Gonna have to look it all up... Then I went over to the cook stove, well I tried to when I managed to trip over one of those dern stones that was loose up by the fireplace. That's it, that was enough. I was fixing those today! So I got busy and got the biscuits done and got a bucket and stuff together to take up the loose stones, clean the space out and then put them back lower in the ground and then grout them in with some clay from down at the river. Well there were 4, or was it 5 stones all loose there in one spot. I tried to get them up out of the floor but I needed something to pry them up with. I went out to find a good sturdy stick to help with. Took me a bit but I managed to find one. I got up under the corner of what looked to be the loosest stone and pried it up so I could get ahold of it and pull it up out of the floor. I just kind of scooted it across the other stones to get it out of the way. That's when I found it, the wooden box. Sitting there in a hole under the stones. No wonder they were so loose! I took me the better part of an hour to get all the stones up off the box. But I did it, and wouldn't you know it, the box is too heavy to lift up out of the hole? And the lid is nailed on so that no stick is going to get that loose. I needed either a pry bar or a hammer. Too bad I had already had lunch laid out on a table outside for everyone. It was just left overs from the last two days, but it was good! But that meant no one was coming to the cabin to help either. This was going to have to wait until hubby got home tonight before we could open it up and see what was in it. I thought about that box all day long as I went about looking at berries, doing more chores and helping clean up after lunch. I dreamed up gold coins, silver coins, strands of pearls and other precious stones. Or big hunks of gold mined out of the river there by our house. Oh wouldn't that be nice? But where in the world would we even get them weighed out and be able to use them at? No where no lol. Here they were and here they would stay. Maybe we would find nothing but more dirt in it. Maybe it was empty! Ha, wouldn't that be a kick in the pants! Be about my luck too! Hubby came back to the cabin to get me. Everyone was getting ready to leave before it got too far into the afternoon. All that they had come to do for us was finished. Even P&N had finished chinking the barn! Some of the B's folks were still here today also, working on the little odds' and ends of things that weren't done yesterday. So hubby and I hugged them all, asked what they needed and when so that we would be able to help them as they had helped us. Promises of letters and notes to be sent, help to be given, warm hugs all passed out, the hubby and I watched them all leave. Sadly too I have to add. It was such fun the past two days having them all here and now they were all gone. It was so quiet here now. Too quiet. Back to just myself, the hubby and the animals. It got me to missing the kids, especially our one son Jerry who was in the Army special forces. We hadn't seen nor heard from him in 10 years now. We just knew he was alive by the fact that we didn't have his personal effects here with us. Just like the Chaplin told us as our son went into training. That no news would be good news. I couldn't help but let a tear or three flow, missing them all so badly. But it was their choice not to come even knowing they wouldn't be able to contact us should something happen. Kind of like what we had with Jerry. I missed my oldest son, he was the oldest of the twin boys. Still, a mother seems to always hold a special place in her heart for her first born and I was no exception to that. He had no way of knowing where we were. I felt bad about that, but it couldn't be helped. We were here, he was God knows where and that was just how it would be. Still, it's almost too quiet here now. Hubby and I had a quiet dinner, with neither one of us saying too much to the other. We were both lost in thought, the wooden box in the floor all but forgotten for tonight. We went to be tired, quiet, exhausted, but happy that our place was now ready for winter or what ever may come. We were now secure. Our barn up and done, same for the lean-to, both corrals, the smoke house and the spring house. The garden and field all planted and weeded. Even watered this day too. We had been blessed with good food and fellowship. So why did we both feel so darn sad? Q 　

　 Monday Wheeee are we having fun!!! I am so enjoying having all our friends here! The rest of them having showed up today to help raise the barn! Which is now up thanks to all of them. We couldn't have done it without their help! I didn't get to watch all of it or the lean to and corral being built either. Was too busy working in the cabin preparing food or out in the garden helping weed it or just talking to everyone and trying to catch up on all they had done since we got our homesteads. One thing we did all agree on...we loved having our own pony express! Now, if someone needs help, all the have to do is send the message out and the next day answers should be coming in that help is on the way. I think that was such a good idea. Have to find out who thought of it and give them a big hug and a jar of my famous blackberry preserves LOL. Last night was such a joy. I was too tired to write last night and do it justice. Mother's came in first leading the way followed by others. Hubby got them all settled in around the fire and I got our 30 cup coffee pot out and going over the fire. We sat up a little table close to the fire with cups, fresh milk and sugar, spoons and I had those 2 pies I had baked earlier to put out also as a little bedtime snack. They lasted all of 10 minutes LOL. We talked and we talked until I was about sure we had talked ourselves out only to start up again! I noticed the men all gravitating to the one side of the fire and us women to the other side so as not to get the men involved in our "Hen party". Needless to say there was a "Rooster party" going on on the other side of the fire LOL. I think the men were talking just as much as we were, only I heard them talking about building the barns for everyone that needed, how they had built what they had going and stuff like that. Not us ladies! We all caught up on families, recipes, decorating and cleaning tips, you know...the good stuff! It did catch up with me though. I'm still not feeling well, but not being one to complain, I just forgot to mention it? Or I just glossed over it more likely. I think Mother noticed right off though. I could see her sizing me up when they first got here. I need to ask her about a few plants I want to try for medicine for this. I hope I remember! There has just been so much going on, it's hard to think sometimes. I had to roast coffee beans this morning so we would all have enough to drink today. Good thing we had that 100 lbs of green beans and the hand grinder. It's just a small one, but that's about all you need. 16 oz. of green beans roasted and ground up will give you over half of one of the regular sized containers of ground coffee. So that's what I made up. Longest part was waiting the 4 hours for it too cool off enough for the roast to take. I will have to write it all out some day so the directions are in here. Well the garden is going gangbusters after that drizzle the other day. It was steady and all day, so it got watered really good. Some of mt3b's folks were kind enough to finish that job up for me. I had gotten about halfway done with it the other day. Just one of the many wonderful things that got done! And someone, not sure who, made a door for our spring house, some of the others started chinking the cabin too! Looks like smaller sized fingerprints in some spots, so maybe some of the ladies or the teens? I don't know, but will be forever grateful to them all. Mt3b's arrived this morning and dern if they didn't bring an already grilled goat with them! Oh my was that ever good and just right for what was needed with everyone around the place working! And they had brought bread and tortilla's too! I love tortilla's but I haven't a clue as how to make them come out right lol. One of these days, I will take the stuff to make some over to mt3b's and have her show me how to do it so they turn out. One of Mr.Q's favorite meals is Wet Burritos and I have everything I could use for it except the dern tortillas. Oh wouldn't that make a nice surprise for him? And Mt3b had a basket just full of her wonderful biscuits and that super tasting honey too! I was just in seventh heaven eating those with a good hot cuppa fresh roasted and ground coffee! LOL I wanted to take a nap right after breakfast this morning after eating all of those 3 big biscuits! I was surprised I ate that many too. My appetite hasn't been much punkin lately either. Maybe it will be better after all this work has been done? I have to say right here, that I had never dreamed all of this would happen, the barn raising and all. We really aren't the kind that go around saying we need this or that done and would you mind helping. It's just how things are where we come from. You don't even mention it unless it is a really big need. I never dreamed that Mother would get all these people to come here and do all this for us when I just mentioned it to her in the message. I was looking for more like hints to use like wedges, maybe ropes and pulleys and such we could use to raise it ourself lol. Of course none of this could have happened to begin with if N hadn't been coming over and helping Mr. Q fell all those logs for the barn and the lean to and the second corral next to the barn. So, now we have our little barn, our lean-to up, the barn corral done, our pasture corral done, the spring house secured, we have our little smoke house done and we have moved into the cabin too. Oh and the garden is weeded as is the field part way done with the animal corn in it for feed. I feel like I need to give back to all of them in a big way, a really big way. The only thing I can think to offer is free medical care. I wont charge a soul who has been here for quite some time. I just couldn't do it. This means that much to us! We did find out what all the fuss was with the wolves and coyotes the other night. Seems the mt3b family came up missing some meat they had hanging out aging from where they had been hunting. And that SF is under constant watch by his better half lol! I don't blame her, that could have been worse than it was. A lot worse. But, if the coyotes are on the hunt, how much longer would it be before they got brave enough to come up here? Even with the dogs, they might be bold enough to try something. Wolves don't usually attack livestock unless they are really hungry and have no other means of feeding themselves, so wolves I am not so worried about. It has kind of rattled me that the bears roam so freely. I would hate to see our dogs get tangled up with one. So having the barn to put everyone in or next to is a bigger blessing and a load off of my mind. Bigger relief than I think most here realize for us. Well the barn....it was fun watching what I could see of it going up. The men had dug the footers out so they could lay the first round of logs evenly and square. Hubby had his transit out and his plumb line going too. He had his six footer level going all around the logs checking it out. They had some kind of system going for lifting the logs into place. It was amazing to watch them working so well together. All like a well oiled machine, lifting log after log into place, after having the ends measured out and notched top and bottom so the next ones would fit. Just like real life Lincoln logs lol. I did notice they had a bit of a time putting in the middle logs for the inside partition walls. They were a little back of center so that the entrance part of the barn was bigger and a working area, and the stall part was in the back of the barn, well protected from the elements. The goats will go back in there and the horse, who is getting fat and sassy and will need to start being ridden regular before she gets too sassy lol. Oh...shoot...I need to let everyone know that I need to breed her! Best do that while they are all here! Anyways, back to the barn...I think we will go ahead and put the chicken coop in the front part of the barn too because of the dern coyotes. And then the dogs can sleep on the hay out there with the animals and keep watch over them. Our dogs are half Aussie Shepard. Working dogs. They have to be given a job to do every day. If you don't they wont ever be happy dogs. They just kind of mope around. I think the mother, Doe, already has gotten the idea that they are to protect all the other animals now, just like they did back home in TN. At least she has started going back to it and the others will soon follow her lead. But they can sleep in the front part of the barn with the chicken coop. Now, if the weather gets really bad and threatening, we can put the oxen inside the barn. There is room for two of them in the back and then we can put the other two in the front for now. That is another thing we need to take care of. We don't need four oxen, maybe the two females. I have to find someone to take the two males off of our hands. Well it has been an exciting day for sure and one I hate to see come to an end. I am looking forward to finishing things up tomorrow as some are staying to help finish chinking the barn for us! Now, I am going back out to the camp fire and rejoin the group for some good juicy gossip and finish up left overs from lunch! Q

Thanks Ann and Leah. Q

　 May 31 - The Valley We have the happy problem of having too much milk. I have to figure out how to make some cheese out of it. I would love to have some cottage cheese, and mozzarella type too. That would give us cheese for what we eat mostly which is Italian type foods like pizza, spaghetti, etc...and some cottage cheese on top of fresh greens would be so tastey. Maybe I should write mt3b and Mother a letter asking them if they know how to make this stuff. I never have had this kind of happy problem before now. Should have gotten a book on it. Maybe they have one up to the Lodge I can check out for a few days. I could write all the info down here and then send the book back with the rider maybe? I imagine I wont be the only one needing it. So I would rather get it back sooner rather than later. We have jars and jars of it in the spring house. Even the dogs and the chickens are getting some milk! Speaking of dogs and chickens...Hubby and I heard the wolves and coyotes in different parts of the valley last night howling for all they were worth. Something got them really stirred up bad last night. I don't know what it was, but hubby and I are really worried now about getting that barn up and getting ALL of the animals under cover at night. I want to make the barn a little bigger, but I don't know if we have enough logs. Maybe just having the oxen in a lean to and a corral next to the barn at night will help. We have GOT to do something with the goats too. I am so scared that the coyotes will come down and get them. Probably have less of a chance of that happening than some of the others in the valley though. We have a pack of dogs already (5) and coyotes are SO scared of dog packs that they rarely if ever go near a place that has dogs. But wolves? I don't know much about them... I had found out how to make my own pectin/Sure-Gel so that we could have jellies and jams, preserves and such too. And it wasn't near as hard as I thought it would be. And it would use the single crab apple tree out back. I had thought and wondered why would anyone in their right mind plant a crab apple tree on purpose, and now I know. It's used to make pectin with! And it explains why it is off away from the rest of the trees and in by the berries and such. You don't want it to cross with the regular apples. I don't know how much distance you needed between them and I was hoping it was far enough away. But right now, I was just tickled to death to have that little tree! Oh, before I go on with the pectin, I wanted to add this and that is that we will be trying to make more trees to plant next year. Just the fruit ones so far, then we will move on to others like maples. Okay, now for the pectin. You take around 18-20 gallons of crab (or other) apples and wash well. Put them in a large stock pot and add enough water to cover 2/3 of the bottom of the apples. Let them come to a boil until the skins start to break and they get mushy. Take an old tee shirt or cheese cloth and cover a 5 gallon bucket with it, securing the top. I use kitchen string and tie it around the top of the bucket, leaving the tee shirt or cheese cloth to hang down into the bucket. Now take the hot apples and liquid and pour it into the cloth strainer on the bucket. You need to stir it around a few times until it stops dripping. Don't mash or press the apples. That will make your pectin cloudy. It is still usable that way, you will just have cloudy jelly is all. Once it stops dripping, take the cloth with the apples in it off of the bucket. Either feed those to the animals or use for compost. Now with the liquid you have in the bucket, take one tsp of it and put into a little alcohol. It should gel right up. If it doesn't or isn't as thick as you want it, take the liquid in the bucket and heat it back up until it comes to a boil. Test it again. It should be right, if not, keep cooking until it gets where you want the thickness of your jellies to be. 20 lbs. of apples should get you 8 or 9 quarts of pectin. Now the back woods folks do can this up to save to use the next spring before the apples come in but the berries are ready. Mind you, I don't think I would do it this way unless tshtf, and I would never tell a new canner to do it this way either, but if tshtf then you can't just run to the store buying things either. So here is how they do it. Bring the pectin to a boil and pour into hot sterilized jars leaving one inch of head space. Wipe down the rims and put on lids and rings. Use wide mouthed jars is easier if you are using the quarts. Place the jars upside down on a clean towel and let set over night. Cover the jars with another towel to let them cool slowly. By morning, once you turn the jars over, they should be sealed. Now here is how they use it...Use 4-6 Tablespoons of pectin to each cup of fruit. Now after you figure your pectin you need add that to the amount of fruit you have. That total will tell you how much sugar to use; 4C. fruit + 1 C. pectin (4 TBS x 4) = 5 Cups sugar. I hope that was fairly easy for it to be figured out in the future. Wonder if yall will still be using such things as tablespoons and cups to measure with in the kitchen? I have a couple of pies set out to make today. One apple and one cherry with some of the filling that we had brought with us. Also have 2 loaves of bread ready to rise up too. I don't know why I am writing in this so early this morning. Maybe it's because I have the time. And I think that is what I will do from now on. When I have a few minutes, I will catch this up instead of waiting till night. Most nights lately I am too tired to move by bedtime lol. Hubby went out fishing early, so he should be back shortly to clean them up or hand them off to me and go do something else. I love to clean fish. I know, I am one strange woman lol. But I have been doing it since I was old enough to scrape the scales off of a fish with a spoon! I don't like to fillet them though. There is something about leaving the bones in that gives it a little extra good taste. I hear the dogs barking so I bet he is coming up the path. Best close this for now and see what he caught. We wanted to go to the Lodge today but as you can tell, there is just too much to do around here to go traipsing off! --------------------------------------------------------- Later.... Wow, tonight has been such fun!! Mother, her hubby and some of her family came!!! I was SO happy to see her that I about squeezed the living daylights out of her lol!!! Hubby and I were just finishing up an early dinner, thinking we best head on to bed since we had planned a full day for tomorrow. I think our plans have changed lol. But we were so happy to see so many of our friends show up tonight. They are all camped out around our old campsite where we kept the fire pit. Good thing I had cleaned it all out LOL. We sat up late and talked and talked, catching up on what each other was doing. I was really interested in hearing about the caves, even though Mother wasn't really "into" them (hehehe), her hubby just chatted away along with the rest of her family about what kind of caves they found and how they were putting them all to use as part of their homestead. And here I thought we were lucky finding that little one for the springhouse! I am just green with envy over those! Of course, we will have to give them a walking tour in the morning. Seems we will have to do it early, mt3b and her family are coming too!! Seems that little note I wrote to Mother about ideas for putting up the barn was taken care of lol. They are all going to come tomorrow and help us raise it! So early on I will have to get up and get breakfast and start cooking up a storm. I don't know how I am going to feed everyone or what, but I will figure it out. I didn't think to ask Mother if they brought anything. I just figured since we are the ones getting the barn raised we ought to feed them? I don't know, will ask Mother that in the A.M. It was so nice though to see all our friends pulling in and the ones coming tomorrow too will be just as welcomed as the ones who got here tonight! Oh this is just going to be such fun! I wonder if they would mind helping put the lean-to and the corral on it also while they are here? Oh and please, if any of them EVER need anything, we will be right there. Now I would love to write down all that we talked about, but it is so late, well early A.M. technically lol and I need my sleep for in the morning. Hubby is already snoring (IRL too lol) so off I go to bed. I will write a big long note about all this as soon as I get the chance. I don't want to forget any of it by not writing it down here. Oh how I wish they could all stay longer. Why didn't we all stay together closer after leaving the wagon train. I think I am going to cry my way to bed... Q

( I am adding a second post tonight trying to get caught up from illness and winter storm delays lol. Hope no one minds that I did this...) Q ----------------------------------------------------　 May 30 - The Valley Well it has been a few days since I last wrote here. I do hope the reader of this in the future will understand. Maybe even have gardens and crops and animals of their own to tend to. It's been a week of getting into a routine here. Getting up in the morning to milk the goats, who are doing just great by the way, and then making breakfast and getting the hubby off to do his work. We are all moved into the cabin now and using it and the wagon for some storage of the things we brought with us. I still have not had time to open any of the packages that got sent here or the ones from the Rockin J that we picked up either. And it's a pretty big stack of boxes and crates in the corner of the front room. I do need to get them opened and put away. Maybe I will just wait until Christmas lol. But there may be things in there that we need, like canning jar lids and such so I need to get to that soon. I finally got around to getting a sourdough starter. I used some potato water, a little flour and just a pinch of yeast to be sure. I put it in a ceramic bowl that has a lid to it. I didn't put the lid on just yet though. I covered it with some cheesecloth and put it on the counter in the kitchen. I do hope it turns out. The last one I had at home got moldy. It caught some bad airborne yeast that occurs naturally. I was going to scrub the kitchen down and try it again, but we ended up coming on the wagon train instead. I am thinking though, since there is no real pollution around these parts, that I shouldn't have a problem with bad starter. I will know in another few days. Also along those lines....I can't wait for apple season so I can get a mother going out of some cider to use for vinegar. I figured mine kind of close for this canning season and a little extra to use for cleaning. I will have to use the mother for more vinegar if I want to have any more for next year. It isn't too hard to make and I am following an old timey recipe out of an old cook book. Cross your fingers on that one too once I get it going. I cleaned out the fire pit yesterday. I took the ashes and hauled them by the bucket fulls to the fruit trees. Those get spread around the trunks in at least a 2" ring, especially the peach trees. What it does is keeps the fruit borers out that will kill a tree and the fruit real fast. Have seen them infect a full sized fruit tree and ruin it in under one season. So after I did that, I mixed up some spray with dish soap, hot sauce and water. I used that to spray the trees with. Bugs hate it and it is a good natural spray that wont hurt the bees. They don't much care for it, but after the fruit sets is when you really need it. Keeps the birds off of it too. I put extra hot sauce in it since I have a bunch of dried peppers in strings that we brought with us. Wouldn't be a problem to make our own sauce from that. And I could get it as hot as I want it that way. Hubby doesn't eat it, so it's just me and I don't mind giving some of it up to have fruit. There really aren't too many problems that I see with the trees here. Mostly birds and the run of the mill bugs. Nothing big like back home. One year we had the fruit canker so bad that they had to tear out and burn a lot of the citrus orchards. That hurt the citrus farmers so bad that a lot of them never recovered. They ended up selling off most their land in what had become prime locations all over Florida. The one closest to me ended up being a Lowe's. I would have rather had the orchard. The smell of the citrus in spring time can't be explained enough to make you realize just how wonderful it is! It is so strong though that when you drive by one, it almost over powers you right out of your vehicle. Some of the things I miss about Florida was that and getting shrimps right off of the boats as they came in with their catch. It tastes nothing like the ones you buy in the store. They are so much better! When I moved to TN, we had friends that would on occasion, drive to the docks and load up fresh catch into coolers with dry ice and bring them back up. I always tried to get them to bring me 5-10 pounds. Half would be eaten and the other half went into the freezer. I think it is going to be a long time, if ever, before we taste shrimps again. Well some things you just have to give up to stay safe. I have been weeding the garden right along, using my hoe and pulling by hand for the close-up work. Things are starting to come up and you can almost tell what they are supposed to be lol. Hubby said his corn is coming up down to the field too. He is going to have to keep an eye on it come fall/ late summer. It's going to attract a lot of wild life. Maybe we will get a few deer then too. Wouldn't hurt to have one or two extra in the smoke house. We used to go through 2 deer a year in TN. We would make steaks out of the back strap, or tenderloin. Then we would have the stew meat, lots of roasts and the ground meat that we did ourselves. We put bacon in it to give it a little fat. I suppose we could just use lard out here. Have to keep it really cold though. Maybe put it in the spring house after hubby fits some kind of door for it. I don't want to put too much in there before we get a door on it! Anyways, we never used to cut roasts out of our deer back home until I tried a different recipe, then it was cut all the roasts we could LOL. I would put the roast in a crock pot earlier in the morning as I could. Add one can of cream of mushroom soup to it and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and a handful of dehydrated and chopped onion. Let it cook on high for at least 6 hours then turn it down to low. Add some water as needed so you had some gravy. Oh my is that ever good!! It is so tender that it just falls apart with a fork. Hubby got so that he would rather have that then steaks cut out of the meat and fried up. We had deer as our main meat. Some folks use beef. I think beef has a gamey taste LOL. I don't much care for it, give me deer any day over beef. And that was what we had for dinner tonight too. Deer roast and some fresh greens in a salad. Stewed tomatoes. Fried okra. And fried green tomatoes. NO, I didn't get them out of the garden, I can them every year so I can have fried green tomatoes at Christmas and during the winter. It is really easy to do. Just clean your tomatoes well and cut them to 1/2 to 1" slices. Put those into a pint jar, or large mouth quart jar if you have a big family. And a pinch of salt. Some folks use 2 tsp of lemon juice or other citric acid in it. Our family never does, but then we are used to it that way. If you are new to that or a new canner, use the citric acid, please. I put the lids on and process them for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. The don't get mushy at all and keep their shape real good. When you fry them up, it takes you right back to last spring in the garden too. They taste just like fresh ones! But hubby and I love fried green tomatoes and can't ever get enough of them. Got to be careful though doing that or you wont have any red ones! I was just sitting here wondering if anyone has gotten my letters yet? Can you tell I am starved for company? Hahaha. I sure do miss everyone. I cling to hubby like a long lost puppy dog, I know it. But I can't help it. Boy do we ever need telephones lol. That would kind of clutter up the landscape though so forget that. I will just have to learn to be patient. We're coming from an instant, have to have it now! time into a time where everything old is new again and there is no instant anything. Kind of a culture shock really. Maybe that is what's wrong with me lol. Culture shock? Naw...I was raised this way and lived it later in life too for almost 20 years. We were Mennonites living in the heart of an Amish community. Most of the things we are doing now out here are old hat to me. Others of it are new. I don't mind any of it though. Kind of reminds me most days of my childhood. Brushing out the dust bunnies in my mind as to what my mom and my grandma used to do and how we lived back then. Makes me stop and think and that's good. Oh hey! Before I forget...we have baby chicks! I heard them peeping, that is what made me think of that. I am looking forward to having more chickens. We had 2 roosters and 3 hens. One of the roosters turned himself into chicken Parmesan when he tried to spur me (IRL too!) the other day. Hubby went out there and grabbed him up by the neck and swung him around a few times. Bye-bye rooster! And we could instantly tell the difference in the chickens. They are now more calm and are more likely to come up to me when I feed them scraps. They wouldn't do that before. He sure was tastey! But Whitey had a clutch of eggs she was sitting on awhile ago. We just let her go broody on us. That was the whole reason we brought a rooster. And the girls eggs are a LOT bigger now too. Louise is laying ones almost twice the size of Thelma's eggs. And the chicks are so cute, just little orange fuzz balls right now. I pick them up every so often for just a second so they get my scent and get used to me handling them. I can't wait to see who is what lol. Well time to get to bed. Hubby is done with his reading so off to bed we go. Q

May 25 Garden - weeds are starting to sprout up right along with the seeds. Not too many though since the sod was taken up before it got plowed. Just the deep rooted ones I suppose. So it shouldn't be as hard to keep this weeded as it would if you just plowed the sod under. Ugh. Our garden back to the other place was like that. I fought weeds for years because I am one of those folks that still hold to gardening the old fashioned way, in rows. I don't do raised be gardening and all the fancy stuff. Just plant in rows and be done with it. Today though since N is here to help the hubby, I spent time watering and weeding out there. And I planted some more stuff like acorn and butternut squash, more blue lake green beans (can a person ever have enough green beans?), and more onions and carrots. The carrots can winter over in the ground. Yep, you just cover them real well with straw, hay or grass clippings. Then go out and dig them up as you need them. They wont grow much at all, but they don't rot or freeze either. And that is just that much less storage space you have to find for them if you went ahead and picked them. Hubby and N spent the day bringing down a few more trees just in case they would be needed for the barn. We had a picture in one of our books of a small log cabin barn, so we counted up the amount of logs that were used in it and it came in just under 90 logs. That is how we came up with that number. Now, we just had to figure out how to get it set up. There was no way, with me being sick still that I was going to be much help to him. And he was chomping at the bit to try to fit this in between having things planted, and my canning season going to start in a few short weeks. Once that started, I go non-stop until deer season is over. Doesn't leave us much time and we can't really waste it waiting on me to recover fully. I told him that I would do my best to help, but he wont hear of it saying that I might do more harm than good by not being fully recovered yet and set myself into a relapse or worse, get pneumonia. And it wouldn't be hard to do with the drizzle we have had on and off. Not complaining one bit though. We need it for the crops and that new sod roof we have. Hubby wants to get the barn up now, now have to set up irrigation lines. We have all that PVC that was strapped to the sides of the wagon yet and we haven't touched it, but thinking that he wants to plumb the house with it instead. But the drizzle has given me an excuse (besides being sick) to be inside the cabin cleaning it up and working on getting it squared away. The stove itself took 3 days of hard cleaning. It was a mess. So was the fireplace. Looked like someone never cleaned it up. I got it clean as I could. Still, the mantle looks funny, almost too big for the fireplace. Maybe when I clean it next it will look better? I hope so cuz it is bugging the husband too. He has to have everything plumb and square or he can't stand it. Oh, I did manage to get some stuff out of boxes and into the cabinets. Mostly my baking stuff so I wouldn't have to search it out every time I made biscuits or bread. And that's most days. Then what I couldn't get put up, we have sitting around in containers waiting for shelves. I told hubby that if he took the milk crates and the wood boxes and stacked them up then secured them to the wall somehow, I could fancy them up with all that material that I had brought, to use as shelves and storage like cabinets too. So he will take a look at that and see what he can do. We live by the use it up method of decorating lol. We take what we have and make use of it anyway we can. Like our mattress which is sitting on top of a bunch of rubbermaid containers. It has our winter things in them and some other stuff we wont need for a few months. It's a little uneven in spots, but we aren't having any problems sleeping on it until he can get a frame made. Works for us! And I drape the quilt down the side that opens into the front room so you can't tell what's under it lol. Looks just fine. Wouldn't notice it on a fast horse in a driving rain! Hubby surprised me yesterday. He has been down by where we had our tent pitched was making camp when we first got here. I could hear a lot of hammering going on but had no idea what it was for. LOL I had my own work to worry about. He had made us a small smoke house! It's not too big, but he made a lot of drying poles for me in there using some limbs we had trimmed off of the trees he has been cutting down for the barn. He had stripped the bark off of them first before securing them in the boards on the side of the smokehouse. And there is a table in there that he put together using some smaller split logs. It's rustic but very nice! He said that he is going hunting soon and knew we would need somewhere to hang the meat. I guess he remembered me saying that we wouldn't have enough jars to can meat now. Unless it was spaghetti sauce or chili, maybe a few of stew, but that's it. And we needed a place to cure the fish at too, so it would be in there. His family used to smoke their meat too when he was little, so this was something he was familiar with and knew about how much room we would need for it. I just hoped I had something to store the dried meat in lol. I was so impressed that he had done this all on his own. I think that his getting out here and working has helped him a lot. Before we came here, he didn't move around too much, surely didn't build log barns and such! But he feels better now that he is making things with his own hands, working the land. It helps his outlook on life too. I am just happy to have a smokehouse now too. Just hope ours don't fill up with bees LOL!! We had a rider stop by here today. It was one of B' group that was going around the valley delivering messages! Kind of like a pony express all of our own. I wasn't quite expecting something like that to come to our door so I didn't have any messages ready for him to take along. I did so want to see everyone though, missing all the time we had spent together on the trail. I was feeling pretty lonesome out here at the end of the valley with most of the people back further north of us. But it was where we chose to settle down, so not complaining, just wishing. I asked when he would be back around next and he wasn't sure. So I did ask if he would mind waiting just a few minutes while I wrote out a note or two for him to deliver. I guess the piece of pie he was offered kind of got him off that horse and willing to wait LOL. He and hubby got to talking while I scribbled out a note to Mt.R. checking to see how she was doing and one to Mother asking after her and telling her that we had the logs ready to raise our barn, but were in need of help, did she have any ideas? I also sent one to Annarchy's since I didn't see them often either just to say "Hi!" I didn't send one to mt3b since we just saw each other. And I sent one to the AH's asking after them too. I gave him the notes with everyones names wrote on the outside of the envelope. He thanked me for the pie and I thanked him for being so willing to wait. And he was off again. Wonder if he will go on through dark nights, sleet, etc...??? I am so tickled that we have our own version of the pony express! Now when I feel like writing a letter, I will have someone to send it too lol. I can write to my dear friends even if I can't get a letter out to family. And that will help get rid of some of this loneliness, looking forward to getting letters from them! Well I do have more to write, but it is getting so late and I don't want to use up all the lamp oil. So off to bed, will write more tomorrow night. Q

Well it sure is pulling a lot of things from my way back memories of how my grandma used to do things. Especially the herbal stuff she used to use for medicine, some of the edible greens and things that naturally occur out there for food. Some of them maybe better off left in the dust bunnies of the mind too, like dandelion greens wilted with bacon grease...yuck! I think we should have brought more Plexiglas up under the wagon for a green house. Right now, we just brought enough for a cold frame. As to stocking up from this, yes. I have went way back to the basic flour, salt, sugar type things. I had one lady ask me in Kroger the other week what I was going to make with a 25 lb bag of sugar, a stand of lard and 25 lbs of flour lol. I told her that hubby loves biscuits. She looked at me and her mouth just hung open hehehe. Or I will grab three or four of something if they have it, not knowing if there will be more there when we come back. It has made me think seriously of how to store things here to get the most use for the space we have available. Q

Well sorry everyone that I have missed a few days. Our best friend passed away Sunday night late and it's been a really rough week so far. Hubby and he had been friends over 40 years, so it really hurt him bad. I had known him for 10 years. It was like loosing a very close brother for us both. I have spent my time between comforting him, helping arrange things, and getting ready for this winter storm. So now that I am back, I may get gone again lol. There is a REALLY good possibility that our power will be off by tomorrow night, so that means I will be off line. And it wont warm up here until some time next week, so it will be that long before they start working on the power lines! But for all our readers, I do apologize for being gone so long. I did manage to post one part I had been working on all week and will try to get another post or two in before tomorrow night. After that, who knows besides God lol. Hugs to all... Q

　 May 24 Well we have had a busy few days. All the plantings are done now, so it's weed, weed, weed and water, water, water! I have never had so much work nor felt so rewarded for it in all my life. I think I finally figured out what was so wrong with me back in the "real" world...I was born a century later than what I should have been. I mean it! There is nothing in this world that has come to mean more to me (besides people like family and friends of course) than being able to feed ourselves and be pretty much self-sufficient. It's not easy by a long shot, but it's a tired that makes you go to sleep at night feeling good about the long day of work you put in. I just wish we had done this sooner since we aren't spring chickens any longer. And I think I finally got where the saying young as spring chickens comes from lol. For those that don't know...most chickens are hatched in the spring. So those are the young ones. So you must be feeling pretty old then lol. I do some days out here, but it's nothing but a good feeling. Well hubby has felled about 90 trees since we got here, which is about what we figured would make a barn big enough for the goats and the horse and maybe the oxen, but they would just go in the barn if it was bad weather. It would be a little cramped up for a bit, but as soon as it cleared, we would let them out again. Plus we will have the lean to overhanging off the edge of the barn. Maybe eventually we will wall it in too as another part of the barn just for them. We will just have to hurry and get it up and we will need help for that. I don't know if it would be worth the trip up to the lodge again just to ask if there is going to be a group barn raising going on? Or if they are going to have teams going around to help folks out that need it. Might do that on our next trip up there instead. It's an all day thing for one of us to go and right now we have more work than we can handle without one of us being gone all day for just that. I think we will wait and see what the plan is on the next trip. Yep. Times like this is when I miss having a telephone! So far though, hubby has cleared out the dead wood too and has the big stuff ready to either cut into boards, since he wants to put a floor in the cabin and will need some planking for stalls in the barn or if we want to do the barn planking and the rest for fire wood. I know if he was able, he would cut down some more good trees for it and thin them out some where it's so thick, like closer to the river. And he just might if he decides to use that chain saw of his. He has been saving that though for emergencies. I think he is wanting to cut down the older trees around the cabin in case a big storm was to come up. That would keep them from falling into it. Might not be a bad idea. He could use those for planks and some wood shingles, then save the dead wood for fire this winter. I have been helping him with the smaller stuff cutting it to size for in the wood stove and in the fireplace. And cutting up some kindling too. When we have a chance, one of us goes fishing down at our little river here. We have a few different fish and we are careful to only take the bigger ones, leaving the smaller to grow and breed. I don't think we have made a dent in the population there are so many from being here years with no one fishing. One other thing we watch for is if they are females with eggs. You can tell underneath them toward the back, they are pooched out and look like they are about to have young ones lol. Except they lay eggs instead. While fish eggs deep fried are very tasty, we wont do it just yet. Not until we need to thin them out some. And then we wont take many. We did have some bream the other night that tasted just this side of heaven! Hubby says it's because they live in such clear unpolluted rivers here. That makes their meat taste all that much better. All I know is they taste great! I have been eating bream since I was old enough to catch fish and none have ever been this good. I don't think I could ever get tired of eating fish lol. Well as for the goats...Marilyn and the other goat...you know, now that I think about it, Mother never did tell me if she had a name? I can't just keep calling her "the other goat" now can I? Wonder what I should name her? I am going to have to think on that. She is kind of short, very pretty. And easy to milk too. Just hops right up and stays put. So does Marilyn. Neither one of them are hard to take care of and they have done wonders with the grass near the house. I try to stake them close together, but not close enough that they can get tangled up with each other. I am getting more milk than we need. Got it in half gallon jars down in the springhouse cave. I have been making a lot of sawmill gravy with it and of course hubby is back to having at least one big tall glass of milk at dinner too. He just loves it and I knew he would. I told him right off what it was and he was kind of doubtful but tried it. Now he says he wouldn't do without it lol. Men. Go figure. But, we both have to drink it since it does help fight the bone loss with arthritis. Me especially now with the "change" going on lol. I don't want to end up as one of those hump back old women. It might fit some, but I wouldn't look good that way. And I was sick there for a few days, but am feeling a little better now. Enough to help with chores around here anyways. I'm not quite back on my pegs completely, but another few days and I should be. I can't quite see me sitting around feeling blah while hubby does everything and I don't do a thing. Just don't work that way out here. Everyone has to do their share as long as they are able to, and especially when there are only two of you to begin with. Now if P&N or someone had been here to help him out, I might have changed my mind on that. As it is though, I am going to have to hunt down some plants for medicines here soon while most of them are in bloom and fresh. It's the newer plants that sometimes have the best stuff to them when you use them that way. I don't know why, it just does lol. Here's an example...Jewelweed for poison ivy or oak or any of those. It is the sap from the newer weeds that packs the most punch. It will heal the skin up faster than the older plants. Now the older ones still work mind you, they just don't seem to be as potent. I will have to look up which ones work for what and take my field guides with me and my list and set to work. Maybe tomorrow or the next day if I feel up to it. Then I will either dry them or I will use my hand crank blender and make a paste out of them. The paste will go in the spring house in pint jars or half pints and labeled what they are and what they are used for and how much. The dried ones will go into jars also, but they can sit up on a shelf and labeled the same way. If you get them labeled good, then someone like the hubby can grab it and read it then make the tea or whatever is needed if you get sick and can't do it. It's just a good safety practice too to have them done up that way. My grandma taught me to do that. I remember when I was a kid. There were rows of stuff like sticks, leaves, powders and roots all dried out and in jars in her basement on the canning shelves. They got the top row all to them selves. I never thought about them being up on top, but I suppose that was to keep us kids out of them lol. And that isn't a bad idea either for those with little fingers around. I took a look at the garden after lunch today. Some of the things we planted are already coming up, like the beans. I hope the soil was warm enough for the corn. LOL I did the test, so we will see. Another day or two will tell. If it isn't warm enough when you plant it, the seed will just sit in the ground doing nothing and if it's wet out, the seed will mold in the ground. Then you are in trouble. You wont have any corn crop if you don't replant it. So I am watching the garden and hubby is watching the field pretty close too. We really are going to need that crop to feed our animals with. Hubby says if it gets too dry, he will fix us up a watering system with some of that pipe he brought with us. I hate to use it for that though. He has that well point he brought with us and the pipe so he could plumb the house. I really do want that pitcher pump in the kitchen sink! I don't have to have plumbing in the bathroom. I can carry it in there in buckets if I have to. And we can heat the water on the wood stove too for warm water, so no biggie. It would be nice to have hot running water, but it isn't going to kill me off if I don't have it. Wasn't all that long ago that most folks didn't have hot running water inside. They were heating it on the stove too. Might be a problem as we get older, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I think that gets me caught up for now. So I am going to close this up and go lay down for a bit. Still needing naps and such yet from this flu or what ever it was. Q

This is hard to do today. Work I mean. And that is all there is here right now, work. W. O. R. K. I feel awful and you can't take off a day because you are sick either. So I made myself a tea this morning with willow bark and some ginger and bucked up and got going. It wasn't too bad with a little of the honey in it that mt3b gave us. I made some at lunch and at dinner tonight. Still sipping on it as I write this tonight. While I don't feel all that great, the fever is down and the congestion isn't as bad. If it gets worse, I will send hubby in search of something different to use in this abundant land. There are so many plants here to use for all kinds of illnesses. But you need to know what you are doing. A good field guide is a MUST have so you can safely identify what you are looking for or have found. And a good book telling you what to use and how much and should you make a tea or what with it? I use a couple of different books for that and we brought all of those with us. I know that soon the medicines people brought with them will run out and then what? We will have to use what nature and God provided us then. There is an old Indian saying about using medical plants that I always tell people. It's the first thing I teach them. They say that for every helpful plant you find there is a harmful one near by. And for every harmful plant you find, there is one that is a cure not far from it. Keep that in mind as you wander around looking at plants for natural medicine. Well the animals got fed and watered today. I milked Marilyn and talked to her for a little bit, and the oxen too. I think they could tell that I wasn't feeling too good. They seemed awfully friendly and attentive. They are such a blessing in our lives. Now, we need to get ready to go to the Lodge for the meeting. If we had another horse, we would have ridden those instead of taking the wagon. But then we couldn't have stopped and went fishing again in the big river on the way home for just a bit. It was fun as it was however short. At least we did catch a couple for a late dinner tonight. We had a good time at the Lodge today, getting there about mid morning. Well it wasn't as many people as we thought we would see there. One that we knew well anyways. I was sorry to miss so many that had traveled with us on the trail. I hoped that all was well with them as they built up their homesteads. Maybe I should get the horse saddled up when I felt better and all the garden was planted. And before harvests started to make rounds and check everyone's health? I would have to see what the hubby thought of that. I was just afraid that if I did that, it would be expected. Which wouldn't be a problem later, but until we had the barn done and everything settled for us, it just might be. I couldn't in all good conscious leave hubby to do all the work by himself while I rode off having a grand time chatting away while checking people over, now could I? Maybe I should just drop that idea for now. I was so happy to see Mother at the Lodge. I keep thinking about her and her family. They sure are a good group. I am sorry that we are just so far away from each other. I miss everyone so badly. Must just have a case of the blahs from this flu bug or what ever it was I had. Left me feeling a little ugh. I didn't have a fever or I wouldn't have went to the Lodge, potentially spreading what ever it was all over the valley. But I got to talk to Mother and find out about the goat and her peculiars, you know, how she liked being milked, what she liked to eat...stuff like that. Mother is such a wealth of information about goats. And other things too like plants and edibles. I wondered how much more she could teach all of us in the valley. Maybe once they got settled, she would consider teaching a few of us what she knows, especially the younger folks. Hubby and I hated to leave the Lodge and considered spending the night, but we did have animals back at our homestead that needed cared for so we said our good byes and headed on out. We gave the goat a ride in the wagon lol. I'm not really sure she cared for it, but I sat in the back with her, trying to keep her from being so nervous about the ride. I don't think Chef wanted to see her go lol. But she is here with us now, out in the pen with Marilyn and they seem to be getting on just fine. Well it's late and I am bushed. I'll write more tomorrow. Q 　 　 　

May 21 - The Valley Can you call in sick out here? Oh I felt so rough around the edges all day. Almost like I was getting the flu with the achey feeling everywhere. I thought I had a fever this afternoon and had just a minor one. That could have come from working in the sun too though. I just don't feel too punkin' though. Well best get on to telling you about our day today and get myself tucked in. Marilyn is a doll! She is so loving and I talk to her when I milk her in the morning and the evening. She seems to act like she understands me already, I don't doubt she is pretty smart. She enjoys being out with the oxen and sticks pretty close to them during the day. I will be happy to get the other goat from Mother though so Marilyn isn't so lonely by herself, being the only goat and all. Oh I know she likes the oxen, but it might be nice for her to have a friend there, someone she can talk goat with LOL. We did some cleaning up in the yard today, stacking branches, using the scythe to keep the yard down to a short growth. I needed to start staking Marilyn and the other goat once we got it out in the yard during the day. With that and the chickens scratching around, it should keep down the ticks. I hate ticks having been bitten who knows how many thousands of times by them. Nasty little critters. But we got a kindling pile going for the wood stove and a wood pile of smaller stuff for it too. And then we have a wood pile going of older felled stuff that is already seasoned. That's for the fireplace this winter. So now we have all those going in different places and can add to them during the year for this winter when it will be needed the most. Like I said, I think we have enough wood for the barn down now. Hubby is considering using the two man saw for cutting some planking for flooring in the cabin instead of just dirt floors. I don't mind the dirt, it's all packed well, not loose like out in the yard. I can deal with it, but it would be really nice to have wood floors inside! There is that part thats got the big stones in it near the fireplace. We will have to keep that there. And the loose stones will have to be taken up and fixed then re-grouted. But that wont take long either. Not much will take long, just cutting the planking for the flooring. He could use the chain saw for it with the guide thing he has, but he doesn't have the still up and running yet so he doesn't want to use what little gas we brought until he can make some ethanol to replace it. But if he gets to feeling as bad as I am, he might just use it anyways. Hubby went down to our river to catch some fish for dinner tonight I hope lol. At least I had stuff out to go with it if he did. Those tomato plants looked fine this morning that we planted in the garden yesterday. Just a little wilt to them, nothing more than you would normally expect though. I planted the peppers the same way early this morning before breakfast too. There were only a dozen of those. I had 6 green peppers and then 3 jalapeño and 3 Cayenne peppers. But they are in now too. I know I fixed lunch because I remember eating. I just don't remember what it was lol. No biggie, just have to keep tabs on that. I shouldn't be forgetting things that just happened a few hours ago. I don't think I can write any more tonight. I am just going to sign off and sit here quietly with the hubby and stare into the fire, enjoying the sounds of the night. Q?

Oh man....while surfing the net today, most of the day (it's all Cat's fault!! LOL) I came across this really neat site that has a huge page full of links to stories and on line books wrote by people who did the real wagon trains back in the 1800's. There are a bunch of them that continue on like we are with Wagons Ho and tell about their lives as they settled in to their new homesteads. My eyes are about crossed from reading these very interesting stories! Here is the dangerous link lol http://www.over-land.com/diaries.html Just make sure you have at least half an hour to bookmark links if you don't have time to actually read these hehehe.... Q

Oh that is too cool!! {{{{Cat}}}} thank you so much!! I am copying it to cd now! Q

I was looking for resources for the wagons ho thread and tried this link. Sadly, they have taken it down and only have 4 of all those on the list available any more... Q

I think we would have needed a second wagon to bring all that we wanted to. I would have liked to have had a bigger wood stove, more fencing, solar panels NOT on order LOL, more corn for the unexpected animals, couple more stands of lard and some extra dried meats/ canned foods, I could go on and on. But like I said, in order to bring all that for just the 2 of us, it would have taken a whole nother wagon! Q

　 May 20 - The Valley I felt so good when I woke up this morning. Maybe I just worked too hard or something. Just seem so sore tonight. Almost makes it a chore to milk Marilyn but it isn't one. She is doing very well today and seems to enjoy her new home. Well hubby finished telling me about his trip over coffee this morning. Seems the B's don't quite know what to make of the bones our dogs keep finding. And when he mentioned to them about them possibly carrying diseases, hubby said they didn't even want them or to touch the baggie they had been in. Hubby assured them that we should have been sick by now if they were carrying anything. And both of us were fine, so there might not be any worries there. The guys wanted to know where we found them at and hubby told them that we weren't sure, but were watching all the dogs to see if we could figure this out. He asked them if it could possibly be the previous owner of the cabin? They just weren't sure on that either. Of course that was all before he came back home and we found the body thing in that little cave. After breakfast, I decided to get the packages all into the cabin and stop dragging them all over the valley. I didn't want to completely empty out the wagon into the cabin yet, we still had that chinking to do first. It would be easier if I didn't have to move everything out of the way. So, hubby and N went off to make our chickens a coop out of their cages they had now. We didn't need a tractor because the dogs didn't bother them. So they free ranged during the day. All we needed was a safe place for them to roost at night away from predators and up off of the ground for many reasons. I wanted it close to the cabin so we could hear them squawking if they were disturbed during the night. Hubby agreed and he and N set off getting the rest of the short black walnut saplings that had been cut down the other day to use as legs for it. Then they would put a platform of some kind on that then set the cages on top of that for the coop. We would keep the doors open during the day for the girls to get in and out of. I went out to the garden to check on that and check the tomato and pepper seedlings to see how they were. I had to get those tomatoes planted! They looked about big enough and I thought nothing ventured, nothing gained and figured they would do well in this rich soil. So I went out to the garden and made sure the holes hadn't been covered over. They were still okay so I got the tray with the plants on it, leaving two tomatoes for closer to the front door, and my Epsom salts and the chum bucket. Whew, that was ripe lol. But it held the magic potion for the tomatoes and pepper plants. I was glad to have it even if it did stink to high heaven and made me want to gag. Now here is my secret to planting tomatoes every year so they grow great and have no blossom end rot. It's also how I planted all 22 plants in our garden. In that hole we dug earlier with the post hole diggers, add 1 TBS. Epsom salts and one fish head and a little guts (IRL add 3 TBS of Miracle gro if you have it instead but the fish parts ARE better). Now, cover that with just a little soil making sure it is all covered well. Now sit your tomato plant down in the hole up to the first set of true leaves. Pinch those off. Now cover up the hole with soil. Give it a little water to get it started and to lessen the wilting. That's it, that is the secret. The Epsom salts is what gets rid of the blossom end rot. You can use too much though and kill off the plant so be careful. No more than a tablespoon per plant. By the time I had 22 of them done, hubby and N had finished the chicken coop and had started felling a few trees for the barn. It was time for lunch. I just heated some of our tomato soup up and a glass of the mint iced tea. We were about out of that gallon, so I made another one to sit in the sun this afternoon. It would be ready by dinner time. One thing about the mint, it turned out to be Mountain mint, common in the US and lower parts of Canada. It was supposed to be good for the pain associated with arthritis among other things. Explains why I was feeling less pain and requiring less of my dwindling supply of pain medicine. I also made up a sourdough starter too while I was working on food. I made ours with flour, water, a little of the honey mt3b was kind enough to send us, and a pinch of our precious yeast. I mixed it all up in a ceramic bowl and put a piece of cheesecloth over it so that it could breathe but the bugs wouldn't get into it. That got set in on the counter in the cabin. I would wait a few days and see if I had gotten it growing right this time. If so, I would be making bread this week-end, maybe Monday. I did have a few biscuits that N gobbled down with some honey and home made blackberry jam on them for dessert. That was after he finished up the rest of the tomato soup too. I think the boy has hollow legs LOL. I wonder how mt3b kept them all fed! After lunch, hubby and I got back to work. With the corral up and holding, the next thing was to cut down some more logs for the lean-to and the barn. I was starting to wonder about making a barn out of logs. Might it be better for us to connect the barn to the house? I wondered how hard that would be. Hubby just looked at me and went off to cut logs. I followed along, trimming them down as he brought them down. I tried to sort the branches as to size, some for wood in the cabin, some for the wood stove, some for other uses. I would take all the little branches and pile them up on the far side of the yard away from the garden as a haven for rabbits. They would be needed this winter for food. We would also use some of that for kindling in the wood stove. I would rather have cedar, but hey, you take what you get out here and be happy with it! We had just about enough logs cut for the cabin, but we would still need more for furniture, heating next winter an other things around the homestead. So , no time like the present to get it done. Since we were both pretty tired, it was just country ham and eggs for dinner, tuck in all the animals and after washing up a bit, we were off to bed wondering what we should do first tomorrow. I felt so bad that I had to wonder if I will even make it out of bed.... Q

Annarchy...that is going to be a beautiful house! I love it! You are such a talented artist. I can't even draw a stick figure LOL Q