quiltys41

nope we are OK just will not be back Wow, that is really sad. I was enjoying the teaching you brought to all of us in the story. You have quite a bit of that, all good too that not only benefits those of us writing this, but the readers out there that are learning so much from what you teach in the story. It could one day save their lives ya' know...I'd hate to see that come to an end. I do hope you will both change your minds about leaving the story. Jeri

Awww you want we should slow down a bit for you? Hey Annarchy?? In case I hadn't said anything...I love your posts to the story!! Q

May 19 - The Valley Hubby and I hurried to drink our coffee and get to the little cave entrance under the side of the waterfall. We could hear the dogs barking and growling at something already this morning. I was hoping that it was each other they were barking at. Please Lord, let it be that and not some animal with rabies or worse yet. So he got the .45 and I got my .380, we each grabbed a shake up flash light and I grabbed the good Coleman lantern. I also started stuffing things like a mask, gloves and a trash bag into my pockets. On a last thought, I grabbed a shovel on the way to the cave entrance. I thought if it was a rabid animal and we had to put it down, I didn't want to handle it directly and we would put it into a plastic bag to cover the odors after we buried it. I didn't want something digging it up either. Off we went down the short trail to the side of the waterfall. It was up the little hill there to the river. The trail was down off the side of the river a ways, down in almost a gully I guess you would call it. Hubby pulled the brambles away from the entrance carefully. I could hear one of the dogs in there, it was Dammit. She was the only one not outside with us. I called her to come out and here she came sheepish looking? Why I wondered. Just what did she have in there and if what she had in there is what they are all arguing over maybe? I hoped anyways. Hubby asked me if I thought he could get in there and back out again with his big belly? I tried so hard not to laugh. I told him, yep that he was super stretch man, I knew he could do it. He acted like he was going to try it and I stopped him. I asked him just how he thought I would ever get him out if he got stuck half way? It's not like there is 911 here to call ya' know! He thought about it and told me okay, then I would have to go in. Ha! I am the only person I know that has claustrophobia worse than Mother does!! Okay, I could do this...just peek in the opening first...I inhaled really deep and held it then got down on my knees and peeked inside with a doggie kiss for luck from Dammit. I was well back away from the actual entrance a few inches. I didn't believe what I just saw and had to sit down. Deep breathes,,,one, two, three, four. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Breathe...Hubby asked me what was wrong...I was so pale that he thought I was going to pass out. Well, it was an idea. There was, oh man, ugh, there was a...oh do I have to tell you this? Okay, I will. Ugh. There is a body in there! No, not a skeleton, a body. Or part of a body!! Oh its so creepy. The clothes are half rotted and just hanging on it and it is sitting up kind of leaning back against the rock wall there. There's bugs on it...all over it. Oh man, it's awful. It's mostly skeleton with some skin and stuff on it yet and ugh... Please I don't want to tell you any more. Can't we just roll a bunch of rocks in front of the opening and leave it in there? I don't want the dogs getting any more of it's bones out here. That's just too creepy even though I know they don't understand. It's just old bones to them. Still, it isn't right. Please, lets go get some rocks to block this off with? Hubby got down on his hands and knees to take a peek inside. He agreed we needed to just seal up the cave. So both of us started back up the path to the cabin to get the wagon and one of the oxen to pull it. We would collect rocks and seal the opening shut, after making sure that none of the dogs were in there LOL. Or any other critters. Just the body. Which means I would have to look in there one more time. Ugh! I didn't think I wanted any dinner and was telling hubby that when we came up the trail. I saw some dandelion greens and some fiddle heads peaking out so I grabbed some, and a few other luscious greens too for dinner tonight. Maybe my stomach would settle down by then lol. Then I saw MT3B!! I ran up to her and hugged her so tight I thought I would cut her air off lol. So I let go and we started talking ninety miles a minute at each other and hubby rolled his eyes, that thing that guys do when women folk get together and start chatting like magpies LOL. She had brought us one of her goats, a charming little girl named Marilyn. Seems she thinks trading us a milking goat just for teaching her about wild plants for food is an equal trade? I felt bad taking a goat for what I would have given her for free and I tried to tell her that, but she wasn't having any of it. So, I agreed to teach her what I knew about wild plants for food in exchange for the goat. I was just looking forward to the company really. It was kind of lonely out here after all the company of the wagon train. Well Mt3b took us over to the corral where she had put Marilyn with the oxen to introduce us. I really took to that goat, she is just SO sweet! And she loves being scratched and rubbed behind her ears. I am really going to love this goat raising! She has a goat to breed Marilyn with too, so that will work well. I wondered though if Mother would still want to give me her goat too? I would really enjoy having two goats and especially one from Mothers group. I knew we couldn't drink all the milk but I was thinking more along the lines of cheeses along with the milk. I had grew up eating goats cheese and loved it, especially my uncles smoked flavored cheese! Oh, that was so good and I really wanted to try my hand at making it so badly that I had packed supplies for it in faith that we would end up with some goats once we got moved into the Valley. I just hoped that I had bought the right stuff lol. Mother would be able to tell me if I had or not, I wasn't sure if mt3b's made cheese from theirs? I will ask next time I see her. Well we got to talking about the honey and I thanked her again. I was really glad to have that instead of sugar! Maybe we would be lucky enough to find a hive on our place some day. She told me about Chef and his funny faces and we both got to laughing over that. And she told me all about her place and I really wanted to go see it. Maybe once the garden was in I could do just that! So I took her around our place even inside the cabin though it wasn't all cleaned up yet. She got a kick out of the fireplace and the loose stones. Hubby made a deal with her for the boys to come help us a few days again. I hated to have to do that, but there is only so much us older folks can do and then we need the younger kids and their muscles for help with the rest. We made sure not to ask them to do too much or work too long, we didn't want to take advantage of them at all. We owed them so much already. Mt3b said she had to get back to her place and get some much needed planting done. I hated to see her leave and told her so, but that I understand that the gardens have got to be put in asap. I gave her another big large huge hug before she left lol. I sure did miss her. I confess to shedding a few tears as she rode off on her donkey toward home. I didn't feel real comfortable telling her about the body though. I was still trying to take it all in myself. Hubby came up with the wagon and one of the oxen. We went out to the river and started gathering up some of the bigger rocks that we could move and put them up on the back end of the wagon to take over to the little cave. A wheelbarrow would have been easier, but we didn't have one just yet. If we could find a wheel, hubby could make one. Or make a wheel, but that wouldn't last as long as a store bought one. Maybe someone up to the Lodge knew where we could find one around here. Making the cart part of it wouldn't be hard. Well we had enough rocks so off to the cave we went, not far away. We called all the dogs up making sure the head count was right lol. I still had to look in there and make sure nothing was in there. So deep breath, down on the knees, and one, two, three, ....look! Ugh, it was still there. I made myself look around the cave. I didn't see anything else moving around in there. I took a long stick in there and hit it on the ground a few times and yelled inside of it "anyone home?". Well I didn't know what to say...any wild animals in here? Like they would come out and say "why yes there is, thank you for asking!" LOL...No movement so we started stacking out and up until we had the front entrance to the cave sealed shut. Hubby looked at me funny so I asked him what was wrong. Well, he said, that was the first time he had ever kind of buried someone. Shouldn't we say something like a prayer or ??? Oh geeze, yeah we should. I was so creeped out over all this that I didn't think about it. So we held hands while I said a prayer there at the cave entrance for the unknown dweller. Cave of the unknown dweller...humm. Had a ring to it doesn't it? So tonight after dinner we are sitting here around the campfire. Trying to imagine who they were and what was life like here for the the person inside the cave. I am trying to imagine why someone would curl up against a cave wall or crawl up in there to die. Did they think they would never be found? Maybe they were sick and didn't want anyone to find them for fear that they would spread the disease? Were there Indians in the area and they hid there waiting to come out and never did? What had happened?? Q 　 　 　

　 May 18 - The Valley So now we are wondering where the dogs are coming up with these bones and who or what do they belong to besides a skeleton. What is it of? A bear? I haven't seen a bear skeleton before so I don't know what those bones look like. I know cow, deer and other such creatures. And I know human remains. I swear the one hubby had last night was human. He did take them away from the dogs and put them up high in the cabin shelf inside the door for now until we figure out where they got them. I am wondering if it might have been bones of the previous owner??? Hubby didn't seem too bothered by all this, but I was really creeped out! I mean what if they died of some disease? Would it still be carried around in their bones only to crop up again in some unsuspecting person handling them? Or was it just that they got caught out in the open defenseless either against wild animals or the elements themselves? I had no way of testing the bones to make sure, but I didn't want to just handle them bare handed either. I thought it best to get rubber gloves on when handling them, put them in a plastic baggie and take them into the Lodge for the owners of the Valley to take care of and decide what needed to be done with them. I thought a Christian burial was in order IF we could find the rest of the body? If it was a body and not an animal. We were going to have to go out looking for it. With the dogs leading the way hopefully.... In the meantime, I got some breakfast going. Just two eggs this morning though instead of three. Seems Louise has decided to sit the eggs. She has hers, Thelma's and Whitey's eggs from yesterday in the nest box she likes and she is sitting them and wont be moved lol. So, since it's spring, I let her sit them. I do hope we have chicks running around! May have to make a little pen for them and keep the dogs away until they get more recognizable as chickens so they don't mess with them. And they wont wander off that way either. I got a look at the tomato plants and the pepper plants but I need to check the garden soil temperature before planting them today. I do think they are big enough to go. Not as big as I usually get them, but I think smaller seedlings will be okay here and I will leave at least two seedlings out anyways. I will plant those outside the house closer to the door just for eating maters! Yummy. Now in order to check your garden soil to see if it is warm enough...this is really scientific stuff and it gets pretty "deep". First, make sure no one is coming over to visit. You don't want anyone around that doesn't know you well when you do this. As you will see why in a minute...make sure the area is clear of all unwanted eyes, such as small children, ex spouses, etc...Next, undo the belt buckle of your pants and undo the fly and buttons. Next pull down your pants and sit on the bare ground. If you can stand to sit there for at least one full minute without your behind getting too cold, then it is ready to plant!! NO, I am NOT kidding lol. I have friends back home who do this every year and by the signs too! I confess, I do it too. And it has never failed me yet LOL!! During breakfast, we decided I would pack up the bones that we had and hubby would take them up to the Lodge this morning. I told him that we needed to get the plow back there too, but to take it over to Annarchy's place first since it was sort of on the way and see if they might need it. Also to tell them to keep an eye out for bones their dogs might drag up. We weren't even sure they had dogs, but since he was stopping there...anyways I asked him to stop at the bulletin board too and see if anyone had left a reply yet about the goats. And to check with Chef too while he was there. Maybe someone left a message with him about goats? Who knows....well Chef might. He seemed to know a lot about what went on in the valley. Kind of like information central LOL!! I would keep the dogs close today while he was gone and wear the .45 also. We had lesser calibers but I didn't want to come up on a bear with just a .22 in my hands! All that would do was make him/her madder yet. So I thought this might be a good time to do the cleaning on the cabin and stay close to camp. I saw hubby off with the plow and the bones right after breakfast. It was just getting light out so I was hoping he would make it home before dark. I wanted to move the wood stove into the cabin today but it could always wait until tomorrow. I knew the two of us got it into the wagon, so I supposed we could get it out also and get it into the cabin without too much fuss. Before hubby took off, I got my cleaning stuff out of the wagon after moving some stuff off to the side. Hubby took some of that stuff and put it outside near the tent. I hoped it wouldn't rain today or I was going to have to drag all this stuff into the cabin with me. I found my cleaning bucket there near the stove. It had scrub brushes, rags, ammonia and greased lightning too. I was going to hate to see that get used up because I used it on everything! I was just going to have to be real careful on what I cleaned with it to stretch it out. But for heavy grease and grime build up it couldn't be beat. I took the cleaning supplies to the cabin and went to the river to get water. I took the dogs and had my gun on just in case. I was worried that since hubby was going away from the homestead, something would happen. It usually did anyways. After dragging two buckets of water back to the cabin I began cleaning. Window first. It was just one near the door so no big deal. I wanted to let as much light in as possible so I could see to clean. I propped the front door open too. One of the hinges was squeaking badly. It was pretty rusted up so hubby was going to have to replace that one. Most likely he would make a wooden one with a wood peg to keep the two parts together in the middle with. He once saw the guy on PBS who lived in Alaska by himself for a year and he built his own cabin right down to the hinges, which got hubby interested in it and he read everything he could get his hands on about it. http://www.aloneinthewilderness.com/building_the_cabin.html Right down to making your own hinges lol. Once the window was clean, and with that door open, you could see inside just fine. The fireplace was stone and it took up the better half of the back wall of the cabin. It had stone on the floor too out into the place about 4 or 5 feet. It wasn't a smooth edge to it either leading me to think that they had intended to make the entire floor out of stone laid down into the dirt and then grouted with clay maybe? At least it looked like it. There was a sink with cabinets, very rough looking ones, under it. And a bank of cabinets up along the wall over the sink. Cabinets yes, doors no. You could see everything inside of them. That's okay, I have enough cute material I could cover them with until I could get doors made. Yep, I was the finish carpenter of the family. Hubby did the big stuff and I did the end parts, like doors, finishes, handles, etc... Well I got the fireplace dusted and cleaned out. I looked at the stone ledge over the fireplace. Something about it looked funny. It was kind of large and almost out of place in the little cabin. But hey, what did I know. Maybe they had plans to expand and wanted the stone work finished for that. It got cleaned too. Everything in here was covered in a ton of dust and cobwebs every where. My broom was covered in them by the time I took it outside to shake it off. I almost twisted my ankle the one time walking on those stones leading up to the fire place. There seemed to be a couple of loose ones. I would have to get them up, the spot cleaned out and then set them back in and re-grout them. Later. I had enough to do just cleaning in here without adding to that. I could fix the floor one day when it was raining outside and I had to work indoors. Those were also the days we would work on re-chinking the cabin, and with most of it already fallen out on the floor, it wouldn't be too hard of a job to get it done. Just takes time and a careful hand. Hubby would work on the outside as he could. It just had to be done before those first winter winds blew. I didn't mind a breeze going through in the summer. It was just that the bugs would probably get in too. Hadn't thought about that. Humm, maybe we needed to re-chink sooner than we thought. I didn't want to put my food into the cabin and have bugs getting into it. Best leave it in the containers I had them in and use the glass half gallon canning jars as canisters for now like I had in our old place. At least the counter was big enough to kneed dough on. Not too much bigger though. I had a feeling who ever built this was a guy who was single! There seemed to be no womanly touches here or they disappeared long ago. I stopped for a bite of lunch and took the dogs with me down to the waterfall to eat. I thought about what we would need for the cabin. I needed something strong in the kitchen, yet not too big to kneed bread and such on. The counter was a little too tall for that. I thought it would be nice if we had a table made out of a thick cut of trunk wood from the bottom of one of the trees. I could strip the bark around it and sand it all down. I could make up some stain from the bark and finish it with that. Hubby could use his hand drill and make some holes underneath of it so we could use some small strong saplings to make legs with. Yes, that would go on the "honey do" list! Lunch was over so time to get back to cleaning. And I needed to think about getting dinner around too before hubby got back from Annarchy's place and the Lodge. I thought I would run down to our spring house too before it got too near dark and get some of the wonderful fresh milk that P&N had brought from mt3b. I cheated and had tasted it after it cooled off lol. It was so good to taste some real milk again, not that stuff they say in the stores is milk. No, real milk, either from a goat or a cow, tastes nothing like that watered down stuff in the stores. I had grown up on it, but this was a new thing for the hubby. I was hoping he would like it. And he was going to get some with dinner tonight. I was just hoping that dinner would turn out okay! I had tomatoes, onions and green peppers soaking in water to rehydrate, gotten out a pint jar of sauce, a pint jar of canned cheese, and a part of the stick of pepperoni we got back at that homestead and had to mix up some dough. I was going to make him some home made pizza for dinner, along with a glass of nice cold milk. I knew that was one of his favorites and he missed his "junk" food so much that I wanted to make a real treat for him after being such a good sport and running the plow up to A's place and going to the Lodge too. After getting the dough done I spread it around the bottom of our largest dutch oven. I then put the sauce on it and shredded some of the canned cheese over that. I had to be careful with the cheese, it was kind of mushy but still tasted pretty good. It was hard to grate though. Then I sliced some of the pepperoni and put that on with the veggies. A little more cheese shredded on the top and I put the lid on the dutch oven. I took it over by the fire pit and dug a hole next to it for the dutch oven to go into. I put a few coals on top, about a shovel full and then some dirt on top of that. I figured it would be done in about a half an hour. If not, I would sit it over some coals, put some on top too and finish it off that way. I hadn't cooked pizza outside before, so this was kind of an experiment, one I hoped worked out lol. Already having my gun on, I called up the dogs and we went down to the spring house to get the milk while the pizza was cooking. I moved aside the blackberry brambles and ducked in. Oh it was so cool in there! I wanted a peek down into the pool too. Nothing but cold clear water. It was so nice to have found this place! I poured some of the milk into a quart canning jar and put the rest back down where I had gotten it from. I left the cave and heard the dogs growling. It was up ahead, more toward the pool there on the river with the funny smelling water. So I went on ahead, moving a little quicker than I would have so I could get the dogs to quit and see what they were up to this time. I got to the pool and looked around. Where were they? I heard them but didn't see them. Okay, so I went up ahead on the path. I was almost back to the homestead, right dead behind the waterfall when I heard them again. They sounded like they were in the river? No way, how could that be? I moved closer to the river bank but it was hard because it was so overgrown with brambles and such here and there was the waterfall that went up over the little ridge while the path was lower down below it. I figured the best way was straight ahead so I put the milk down on the path and started to move some stickers aside so I could climb up the little hill to the top of the waterfall. As I moved the sticker bushes aside, I saw it. Another little cave. At least I thought it was little. The opening was just enough so if you stooped down real low you could go in there. I wasn't doing it without a light and a back up. No telling what was in this one. But the dogs were in there growling at something or each other. It was getting late too. Hubby should be back any time. Best thing for me to do was to go back to finishing dinner for him first. Then when he got back I would have him go with me to find out what was in there that interested the dogs so much. I went back and set the table and all that stuff, getting ready for dinner and trying to take my mind off of that little cave or what ever it was. I wasn't so sure I wanted to look in it myself. Think I will leave first looks to the hubby. And I was getting pretty tired and it was getting late. I wanted to nap but knew that I would be up all night if I did that and we just didn't have the batteries or candles to spare for me to waste reading all night long. Not like I could play games on the laptop now lol. That would be some extension cord! Then I heard him holler "Honey, I'm home!" Whew! Finally! I was beginning to think he got lost lol. I let him alone long enough to put the oxen and the wagon up. Then I launched into my story about the cave, while he was telling me about his trip lol. We both stopped, looked at each other, and busted out laughing. I let him go first. He said that Annarchy's needed the plow badly. They were still turning garden space by hand. So he made sure they knew how it worked, how to hitch it up and helped them by showing them how to plow a few rows. He watched as they plowed a few on their own and said that he had to get up to the lodge too today so couldn't stay too long. He talked to Annarchy for a little bit, telling her I sent my best wishes and hoped to see them soon. He told them how we had been doing here. And then he said that there were a couple of packages in the wagon that he picked up. They were mixed up in some others at the Lodge and someone had kindly straightened all them out and sorted them, giving each person theirs by their boxes they had for us there. Oh, I was wanting to go open them now, but I still had that stack in the cabin from the last bunch at the Rockin J that I hadn't even opened yet lol. I needed to do that soon. Then he told me that there was one milking goat for us at the Lodge. That Chef was using it right now for milk and he wasn't sure that they didn't need it so he left it there telling Chef we would be up this week end to pick it up. He wasn't sure if I knew how to milk a goat or not and he didn't want to bring it home if I didn't because he had never milked anything in his life. I told him I milked cows before, so it couldn't be too much harder, could it? He didn't know lol. I would ask Chef this week end. I bet he would know and could show me how since he was doing it already. And Chef said he thought someone else might be thinking on it too since our note on the board disappeared today. Or yesterday. He wasn't sure which one, just that it was gone. And it had still been there after Mother brought the goat down for us. Wheee! We finally will have our own milk!! Oh man, that was one HUGE problem solved for us. I was so worried we would have to go back or something for lack of dairy products. It was one thing that we HAD to have in our diet for the arthritis. I should have known the Lord would provide and I felt like a duh! for having such small faith that He could do something like that for us. He will provide our needs. I knew that. But... no but. I had forgotten prayer and I had forgotten to give it up to Him. I had fallen in my faith and my belief in Him. I felt awful about that but happy He still had faith enough in me to provide a way for us to get our milk. He is so great! And so is Mother! I will have to get with her and find out what she would like in return for the goat and find out what this particular goat was like. I had a ton of questions for her already. Oh then I told hubby about what the dogs had found in the side face of the waterfall. He seemed interested. But I think he was more interested in the pizza I dug up out of the pit and uncovered. He was like a little kid! He grabbed me and twirled me around saying "I got pizza! I got pizza!" Hahaha, he was too goofy! I told him to put me down before we fell down and I would get him a nice cold glass of milk to go with the pizza. Oh he loved it. I got two slices out of that whole big pizza lol! He just grinned at me. Rut rho, I know that twinkle in his eyes! We made sure the animals were down for the night and okay, then he chased me back to the tent yelling "I had pizza! I had pizza!" What a goofy Gus! I wont say what happened. We just had a really good night and slept like rocks! The cave was all but forgotten for the night.... Q

I was sent an email last week-end with some more pics in it that would work well with our valley. I hope I attached them right lol. Q

Don't feel bad...I caught Mother reading over mine the other day too!! She is such a stinker! {{{{{Mother}}}}} Q

I just wanted to leave a note for everyone. I wanted to tell yall how much I am enjoying reading everyones posts to the story! Not only am I learning from writing this, but I am learning tons of stuff from yall's posts and links too! Thanks everyone, you're doing wonderful work! Q

　 May 17 P&N were here today to help us again. Oh that was so nice of them to come help us while the rest of the family is in town! We do so enjoy their company and only wish that our house was ready for visitors instead of making them work on the house lol! Now we have our garden almost finished with me putting the final touches on the other day after getting our three sister plantings done. They are so easy to do. Take your corn and plant it in hills, we do ten stalks to the hill, thinning in the spring to get the 10 healthiest looking stalks. Then plant your pole beans just outside of the corn, we use blue lake for that. They are the easiest to pick, top yields and grow like weeds. Then plant your squash just outside of the beans. It MUST be a winter squash to make it a true three sister garden. All winter squashes vine, which is what you want it to do. Summer squashes don't such as zucchini and yellow crook neck. They bush out. You want them to vine so you can wrap the vines around and around the outside of the corn in bigger circles as you go/grow. It helps keep the weeds out and the corn/squash/beans each put needed nutrients into the ground for each other. They are a natural trio all going together well. Then for an extra added help, I plant marigolds around the outside of each three sisters to help keep away the squash bugs. We have been planting it this way for years and it has always worked well. People don't often believe our corn easily tops 12' tall until they came to our house and seen it for themselves lol. Anyways, with P&N there, the sod roof was on quickly with all the brush and downfall I had collected the other day and put in front and back of the cabin for the guys to use. Also hubby had some of the black walnut saplings down for the edges already cut and ready to go. Each one was between 3" to 4", just right from what we had been reading. And hubby and I had moved the sod over by the cabin a little at a time each night after dinner. So everything was in place and it took no time to get it all up and laid then fastened down. The guys also got it watered the first time for us too which was nice! The slow drizzle today just wasn't enough to water it with. Yipee, now I can work on cleaning the cabin and getting us out of the tent and into it! The guys are all out working on the corral now with the black walnut saplings hubby cut down. I love the black walnut for ground posts since it takes them forever to rot out, if they ever do. And they are strong too, so the animals will be hard pressed to break any of the posts or any part of the corral. I hope they have time to do the coop too, but if not, I am sure hubby can get that put up tomorrow. It wont take long since we are using our home made cages we had them in during the trip here as part of it. And you can make nest boxes out of anything. I have seen chickens that loved to nest in a beer flat lol. As long as it is easy to get the eggs out of, and will stand up to the weather, I don't really care what he makes it out of. P&N gave me some honey comb that mt3b had found on their place before they left for the day. Oh that was so nice of her to send it over like that! What a sweet lady to think of us! I was going to have to send her over something too. Maybe some fruit when it was ready? A nice big bushel of apples and a bushel of cherries or two also. That would be nice for her family. But I was so thrilled to get that bucket just full of honey comb!! Earlier I sat the comb bucket up on a platter, a very large platter. Then I took the honey comb and set it up on the edge of the bucket so the honey would drip down in it and the platter would catch any that didn't quite make it into the bucket. I wanted the comb for candles! Later I sliced the comb in half then sliced it into two pieces half the thickness, and warmed it just a tad over the fire, so it would make it pliable enough to bend. I cut a piece of my kitchen string off of the cone for wicking. I took the comb and dunked it into a bucket of water swishing it around carefully to wash all of the residue honey out. Then I got one half thickness of the comb warm, put the string on the top near the edge and let it hang out a tad at the bottom and started with that end rolling it around the string until I had come to the end. You need to do this fairly quick while the wax is still pliable. Once it is rolled, kind of smooth the edge out. Now cut the end off of the string at the bottom. There, one honeycomb candle! I had enough that I could make four large candles out of it, rather large ones too that would last a long time. They were big enough that they should last at least 12 hours each. That was 48 hours worth of light! I covered the bucket with the honey in it for later use. Like at dinner on a few of my biscuits. I thought maybe some fried eggs, biscuits and honey for dinner with some tea would be nice. So I set our little table with one of the new candles, hoping for a nice soft glow around our food. I decided to use our good china. I mean what better guest would I ever have than my soul mate? None that I could think of and he deserved the best in my eyes. He has worked so hard and so far out of what he normally could do. I knew if he kept it up at this rate, he was due for a crash. But if I kept him fed well and watched him and slowed him down when necessary, it might not happen at all. He is so precious to me that I want nothing bad to ever happen to him. I said a little prayer while cooking and watching him work around the cabin until dinner. I asked God to please give him the stamina needed to get us into our home, help with feeding us and let him not feel the pain quite so bad as he had. I got the table all done up with the candle, china and good linen that I had packed for the trip. It looked so nice there with a bowl of heavenly biscuits, cut china relish dish full of honey lol. I would do the eggs when he came up so they stayed hot. Right now, he was busy moving the oxen into their new corral. I think they would like that better than being tethered. At least they could go under that big tree hanging over it if it rained. We would get a lean-to up soon for them in the corral. That would work for them until we got our barn up. We really did enjoy the meal and were thankful we had gotten a little rain this morning. And afterward, while it was still warm and light out, hubby asked me to take a walk with him over the grounds. We wanted to explore at least one corner of the property before dark. We would get to the other three eventually. So we set out going the direction of the cave. We both wanted to know what was down the end of that animal path, if it ended at all or just went on up into the mountains. So off we went with head lamps and shake up flash lights and the dogs, just in case it got dark before we got back. The dogs ran up ahead of us and winded something and off they went barking away, sounding as happy as a dog can be I guess. I was so glad we brought them along. They were trained to hunt small game like squirrel and rabbits. Which there were plenty of in the valley from what we had seen. We enjoyed the walk on the path, checking out the different flowers on the bushes around the path. We had so many blackberry bushes around here that we would never lack for fruit with them alone. I didn't see bushes though, I seen jars of jelly and quarts of juice lol. And it all looked good to me, knowing I had a berry screen for my Victorio strainer, it would make easy work of juicing them all out! As we walked on we found different kinds of flowers and plants, even a wild rose that was blooming. I wanted hubby to dig that out and put it up by the cabin, knowing that after a few years it would spread out and want to take over where ever I planted it. I thought it would be wonderful on the corner, any corner of the cabin would do. So we tagged it with the orange tape and went on. We went up over a little ridge and then back down again. We must be getting closer to the edge of the mountains. When we topped the ridge and started down, you could see a pool up ahead right off of the river. Like a small pool you would have bought, maybe 24' around? No bigger than that though. And I noticed the dogs weren't drinking out of it, but at the river instead? Okay, what is up with that? So hubby reached down and lifted some of the water up in his cupped hands. One it was warm and two, it smelt of sulfur. Hubby and I weren't sure, having never seen one before but wondered if this could be a hot spring? And why did it smell like sulfur? I told him we would borrow a book from the library when we went to take the plow back about this stuff and see if we could figure out what it was. I was just wishing I had a bathing suit on lol. I would have loved to jump into the warm water and just soak. But it was still on the cool side out, so while soaking in warm water would be fine, the getting out wouldn't be. That would be cold! And this Belle wasn't getting cold on purpose, no thank you ma'am. Or sir. We kept on walking till we thought it was far enough that we should head back now as the sun was starting to get that golden tint to it like it was getting ready to start setting. So we called up the dogs and told them to go home. They ran off ahead, tails wagging, barking and yipping away. We just followed behind like the dutiful humans we are lol. We got back to the camp just as the sun set. We banked up the fire and pulled up chairs, sitting there talking about what all we had found on our walk, holding hands the whole time. We talked about where to put the rose bush for me. And I asked the hubby about maybe moving into the cabin now that the roof was on. He said sure we could after it was cleaned up and he had checked the chimney. He thought we could get the wood stove moved in off of the wagon too. But he hadn't said anything about it today...why not I asked him. He said that he thought I was enjoying being out in the great wide open and that I would rather live in a tent than the cabin. I wanted to throw a skillet at him! The big goof! So we made plans to get the cabin cleaned up tomorrow after we had finished all the planting and checked seedlings and such. Oh it was going to be a great day...finally, moving into the cabin! Just as we were all cuddled together in the tent, the dogs started growling. I got worried after they didn't stop in a minute. I asked hubby to go out and check on them. It wasn't like them to growl like that! I sat there in the tent listening for anything unusual, ready to spring up and out the tent flap in a hurry. Hubby came back in the tent holding something asking me what did I think this was that they had? He shown the light on it for me. A bone? He said yes, they had a few of them out there and they were about to fight over them. But, but,but...it looks big! Almost like a human leg bone! Q

　 May 16 After having a hard time falling to sleep last night to the sound of chain saws??, I finally got to sleep about 10 pm. That was pretty late for us. Hubby had a hard time too. We wondered who would be breaking the silence of the night with those, certainly not any of our group! After that rough night, we got up this morning and had our usual coffee and biscuit with jelly. After breakfast, I decided to take a walk around our place this morning and see what all we had in the way of edibles. Some things are easier for me to identify with the flowers on, so off I went, plant book in hand just in case I found something I wasn't sure of. I started out in the back of the cabin just checking out the back 40 lol. I saw some trees out in the distance that were flowering, so I was hoping for fruit trees. I brought a roll of orange plastic tape with me to mark my finds that were to be used by us. I put a stick in the ground near where I found the mint and tied an orange flag on it. Once the grass go up, I didn't want to loose track of that mint patch! As I got closer to the flowering trees, I could tell they were fruit. Either apple or pears since they looked similar to me, but I was betting apple. I made a note in my book to get some soapy spray mixed up for them so to keep the insects down and the yields up. There were about 4 or 5 of the same kind. And then I saw two trees with the white flowers edged in pink. I did a happy dance right out there in front of the tree, God, and everyone. Yes! Cherry trees! I figured who ever lived here before must have planted them since there was only two, so I would need to start a couple more from these parent trees before they died off. Something else that needed our attention this year! So much to do...well off to the east there were just 4 more flowering trees, so I went to look at them and then I wanted to keep going east then back north then west along the river and back to our place. The last four trees might be peaches! I would know more once the fruit sets. Now, if we didn't get a bad cold snap, which I doubted with it being the middle of May, we would have pies, fried pies! And I could use the fruit to dry, can, and well eat! This would be so helpful for our diet. I found so much on that walk, I even found some brambles that I recognized as soon as they grabbed ahold of my clothes. I had spent the better part of my late springs tangled in them lol. They were blackberries! Oh I can make the best blackberry jelly! It even won an award at the fair. And a good blackberry cobbler hot from the oven was not to be missed. If we just had a goat so I could churn some ice cream.... I stumbled over so many things this morning that I have forgotten half of them. I got so excited over my finds that I forgot to write them all down lol. But I get like that a lot. One thing I was SO happy to find up by the river was arrowroot! Oh man, we wouldn't have to worry so much about what if the potatoes failed now. They are just as good as fingerling potatoes. And they have so many uses. I could dry and grind them up as a thickener too. That would take the place of my ClearJel in my pie filling recipes! And it was great to thicken other things with too like gravies. Oh yes, that was the find of the day! Once I got to the river though up by where the falls are at the end of our property, there is an animal trail that goes up toward the mountains. I had seen it a few times from here. I stared at it while doing the laundry, wondering where it led to. So today was the day to find out. I took off down the trail. I went down it a good ways as it curved around and seemed to come back on itself almost. I could hear the waterfall not too far away back behind me. What? Now why would animals take a long way around? I stopped at the river and looked at the trail which went further back along the river and toward the mountains. I was curious as to what made them take such a wide trip around the river in that spot instead of just cutting right up and then back down along the waterfall? So instead of following the trail, I started going toward the camp instead of going east. I didn't get very far. Nope, as soon as I started moving a clump of blackberry bushes to the side to go through them, I saw it. It's an opening to a cave! I talked to Mother almost a week ago and told her that I thought there was one here somewhere. And I was right, there was. It's back behind the waterfall! That right there made me think this was going to be a very wet cave, on that wouldn't be livable. But I was going to go get hubby and the gun and maybe we could use this for storage? I was hoping it would be big enough for that and maybe a place to hide out at thinking that if things were getting that bad in the world, sooner or later we are going to be found. And if the folks that find us are not so nice, we would have to have a place to go to, somewhere safe with supplies. That was what I was hoping for anyways. So I headed back to the house, got the gun, went down to the field and told the hubby what I had found and we set off to go back to the cave. I did remember to grab one of the hurricane lamps too when I was back at the house and when we got to the cave entrance, I lit it for the hubby. He took the lamp and the gun and went in. Two of our mutts went along with him inside the cave. Hearing no barking or shooting I went on inside. What I saw in there was perfect! on the back side of the cave (must be right behind the waterfall) water was doing a slow run into a little pool, then out of the cave under some rocks in the wall. It was so cool inside there! As in brrrr cool. It looked to be big enough so we could store some things in here hubby said. I asked him if we could use it for storage and a spring house and he said he didn't see why not. He also thought that even though it felt cool now, it might also be warm enough in here in the winter that it didn't freeze. Okay, that led me to thinking that it would be a nice place to store boxes of food. I kept all my canning jar boxes and once the jars were filled, I put them back into the boxes and then into storage until needed. This would be a good place to store those boxes! Hubby said something about putting his still up in here too. I had to laugh and I asked him if he thought he had to hide from revenuers yet? I told him he could just go ahead and set his still up over by the river if he wanted to, near the waterfall if that helped any. He just grinned! I told him my thoughts on hiding here if anything happened. He thought it was a good idea and that when we moved into the cabin, maybe we should seal up our tent in a bag really well and store it in here or near here too. Also he said if we were going to use it for that, we shouldn't use it for a spring house. A trail to the door of the cave was a dead give away. I thought about it and told him I thought it would be okay no more than we would need to get in here to use it for both. I checked out the pool with my feet. They were hot and tired from all the walking. Oh geeze that is cold! And I got chilled from that with it being so cold inside of there, almost like being inside of a fridgerator...oh hey! A built in fridge! Okay, we got out of there and said we would talk about the things we could use this cave for more tonight before we went to bed. But right now he was hungry and would I please stop and fix him some dinner? LOL, so we went back to our campsite. I cooked and he got out some paper and a pencil and started doodling. I think we have this cave thing figured out now! Q

　 May 15 Rise and shine! Time to plant our garden. Well after I got done working that last quarter of the garden anyways. After breakfast of fried eggs and ham we went to work. He went back to work on finishing the field maybe by nightfall and I would finish working the soil in the garden and start planting~oh the seedlings were up also! It took me about three hours to finish smoothing out the soil for the garden. Then I went and got my very large cone of kitchen string and a stack of short sticks to use as row markers. I did this every year, tied the end of the string to one stick, let out enough to stretch out the length of the rows then tied it off to the another stick and cut it. Now figure out where and how you want your rows done. put one stick in the end of the row and take the other stick down to the end of the row, stretch the string tight and put it in the ground. Now you have a straight row to plant using the sting as your guide. I got the hoe out and made my row in the dirt. Then I moved to the next one and did the same. I did that until I had one half of the garden done. We always did ours this way, half rows, half hills. Well the hills went into a row of sorts too though. Corn, cukes and melons got put into the hills. The cukes would get a fence for climbing onto to make the picking easier. These were heirloom pickling cukes. If you wanted some to eat though, you just let them get a little bigger. Although they did have a bite to them lol. Mellon's just vined all in between the row crops to help hold weeds down. Along with grass clippings and anything else no longer usable for something else would be used for weed control. I got the potatoes eyed and planted into a row along with some onions. Next I got the zipper cream peas ready to go for the hubby. He always got the job of planting those every year because those were his favorite thing out of the garden next to ripe tomatoes. I put the cukes in and got the string "fence" made in between a small sapling that had been cut down and then cut into two pieces for this. I dug the holes for the tomatoes and the pepper even thought they were not big enough to go in yet. I had to use hubby's post hole diggers for that. We have a special way to plant those that ensures good growth every year and NO blossom end rot. I put in lettuce and held the turnips for the fall garden. By then, it was time for lunch so I went on up to the tent. Hubby was already there having a glass of tea. I told him what all I had planted already and he wanted to go plant the zipper cream peas, so off he went with his iced tea to the garden. I got out a pot and put some water on to boil. Then I went into the wagon and got out a jar of spaghetti sauce and meatballs and a small fist of spaghetti noodles. We could really use the carbs working like we had been! And it would make enough so that we had some left for dinner too. Since I would still be planting, leftovers would be a welcome treat today. We still had plenty of tea in the jug yet too, so we were all set. Hubby thought he would be able to get the field finished by sundown. I told him that I would probably have the garden planted by then too except for the tomato and pepper plants. If I had a chance this evening, I would dig out the EarthWay in the wagon for the corn field tomorrow. If we used that, the planting would all be done quickly. We could set the depth guage on it for an inch lower than we wanted and that should take care of the unevenness of the ground without having to bust it up finer and rake it over. I was looking forward to having everything planted finally and then we could begin the coop, the barn and corral and then the cabin. Q

　 May 14 - The Valley Yesterday was so much fun! And we both needed a break from all the seriousness around here. But now it is time to get back at it and get to working. Since hubby has a plow now, he will finish the rest of the garden today and then start on the corn field after lunch. He should have it done by tomorrow evening. Then he can help me finish up the roof. I will be getting started on that today. First I need to gather up some small branches and pine needles and other light bedding for the sod to take root on up on the roof. You don't want it too heavy so putting a lot of soil up there for us is out of the question. Hubby looked at the underneath and didn't see anywhere it looked like it was rotted through, didn't see any broken slats or anything like that so he thought it would be okay to lay the sod up there. I was wanting to get it done before the sod was no good and before we got a heavy rain. We had no idea if there was a rainy season here like there was back home, so if it started raining, when did it stop? I was thinking about putting the roof on while I was walking around near the cabin picking up the bigger branches that had fallen and putting them in a pile near the sides of the cabin where they would be needed. I noticed we had some black walnut trees too. They would make excellent posts for the corral and for the chicken coop. And they weren't too big around, just about right for posts too. I noticed the grass was coming up pretty good around the cabin too. We were going to have to get a goat, but so far, no one had left any message near ours on the bulletin board in the Lodge about having any that they wanted to trade or barter for. Funny too since so many people seemed to have them. Oh well, so it goes. We will just have to do without dairy products. Which isn't good for either of us since we both have arthritis so bad. We had a dairy cow but had to sell her before we left. I don't think she could have made the trip or we would have brought her along. We stopped for lunch, just biscuits and country ham with a dab of mustard. But it was so tasty and the country ham would give us a much needed salt replacement with us both working so hard. And we had iced tea to drink. I found some mint growing in our "yard" so I picked some of that and put it in a gallon glass just with a lid. I set it in the sun all morning and it was ready to go. I made it twice as strong as normal, so when I mixed it with some water from the river it would be pretty cool. I'll take the jar down after lunch and sit it in the water so it cools off. That way it will be ready for dinner too. We just loved mint tea and were so happy to have found that on our property. Speaking of which, we were going to have to take a day off, or I was, and go for a long walk. I needed to find out what grew around here for wild plants. Some of them could be harvested for food or medicine. I really wanted some jewel weed for hubby lol. He can look at potion ivy and get it. Same with oak and sumac. And the jewel weed would cure it right up every time. We even used some on the littlest grandbaby one time for a bad diaper rash. We put it on at night and the next morning it was gone. After lunch, since hubby had the garden done, I went to the wagon to get out the seeds while he started on turning the field for the animal (and our) corn. We would use some too for cornmeal. I could give up a lot of things to come here, but one I wasn't giving up was cornbread and hush puppies lol. I grabbed two hoes and a few different garden rakes out to work the soil down to where it was ready for planting. For a garden, you can't just turn over dirt and start planting lol. That just makes big clods of dirt that you have to break up and rake out before you can plant. So I sat out the seeds on the back of the wagon for me to sort through later this evening. I might get to plant some of it if I got it worked over good this afternoon. So off I went to the garden area, with hoes and rakes in hand. It was time to get to work! Hubby was already back at work plowing the clearing at the edge of our property down father by the river. That is where the corn went and we are hoping that it is so close to the water that the dirt will be as nice and rich as it was up to the house...or better. The dirt down by the main river, the one going to the Lodge, was dark black. If you spit in dirt like that...it would grow lol. It was full of silt from the river among other nice to have things. While our soil at the house wasn't that dark, it was close to it. I couldn't get a good look at the soil in the clearing from where I was at so I would have to wait until later and ask hubby about it when he got up to the house for dinner. I spent the afternoon hoeing and raking till I thought my back was going to beat me up the way I was beating on it. I would be really lucky to stand up straight tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe the one after lol. But, hey I figured I could plant if I am bent over, right? LOL maybe I should put those seeds in a box on the floor of the cabin for now so I can reach them better tomorrow. I could tell it was getting late, the shadows were getting long and the light was getting a golden color to it from off of the mountains. So I picked up my hoes and rakes and cleaned them off with a rag for now and set them inside the cabin door. I needed to get over to the wagon and the tent and get dinner going. I got the smaller dutch oven and a pint jar of chicken chunks. I also got some dehydrated onion, carrots, celery, parsley , salt and pepper. I stoked up the fire and set the little dutch oven on the tripod grate over it. I emptied the chicken in the dutch oven and got another pint of water from my water bucket and put that in. Then I added the dehydrated veggies and the salt and pepper to taste. I got the flour, baking powder and lard and mixed up some dough. Once the chicken stuff had cooked up and the veggies looked more normal, I put a little flour into the liquid to thicken it up some. Then it was time to put the dough on to the top of it by the spoonfuls. I put the lid on the dutch oven and left it alone for about 20 minutes. Peaking into the dutch oven, my stomach growled at me. I sure worked up an appetite today and I figured this chicken dumplings would put some good stuff in my tummy and make it happy! I took the dutch oven over to our little table and set it on a cast iron trivet. I set the table and went down to the river to get the tea. Ha, while I was there, I saw a few catfish rolling. Oh man, that made me want to call off dinner and go fishing instead, but I didn't lol. Hubby came up from the field when I called him in. We had a nice dinner and then we decided to call it a night with it being dark out and all.... Q

Pain? NO WAY!!!! Thanks to your comments we have been able to look at some things in a different way and find answers plus you have come up with some things that we have over looked. The only reason I remember about the altitude is I was posting on night and the one of the boys come through and asked if he needed to use the high altitude recipe. And yes I have problem breathing at higher altitude. Even just changing it by 400 feet. When we went to B'ham I did a lot of walking and had to go at a slower pace because I couldn't catch my breath. I will second just about all of that! Leah, I love the comments and stuff you add! No way are you a pain! It helps jog the memory and makes us think about different things, sort of gets us out of our ruts! Here's a link to my recipe for the biscuits I have been making in the story and IRL http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?au...E=03&id=112 I put directions in there for both regular baking and for baking in a dutch oven outside for camping, etc... I think somebody asked me for it but I can't remember who it was LOL... and I am not even 50 yet, geeze. Will try and post some tonight. I have been so busy though I haven't had time to write plus it was Sabbath too. I love all the posts yall made, now if I could just catch up lol. Q

May 13 Well we aren't near along as I would like us to be but that's going to change here shortly. Today was our day to go into town and also to do some fishing on the big river leading out of the valley, coming from the south end of the lake. We were up before the sun, getting the chickens out of the cages for the day so they could scratch around while we were gone. We fed the oxen for the trip and the horse got fed too. I hated to leave it tied up while we were gone, but not having a corral made yet, there was no other option. If we had 2 of them, we would hitch them up to the wagon instead of the oxen. But since we needed the wagon today, the oxen would go with us and the horse would stay behind. After we got the animals all fed, I got the fire started back up with the coals that were left from the night before. Our usual half strength coffee was all that I wanted. And the vitamins lol. After coffee was done, hubby went out and got the oxen and got them hitched to the wagon. Since most everything we would need was in the wagon already, I just got up in it with him, sitting close enough that I could feel his warmth. And off we go to the Lodge! I was just so happy to have a day off from working the homestead. I wasn't really getting it off, just getting some away time. Plus we needed the fresh meat in our diet too. So the fishing would be both relaxing for us, plus it would provide food too. Since we left just as it was getting light out, we figured to be at the Lodge by at least 10 am. And if we were only there for a half hour to an hour, that would leave us a couple of hours to fish until we had to head back home again. I had to leave some time to clean fish in the daylight and to cook dinner too. So if we got home about 5 p.m., that would work out really well. And if it was later, then we could always pull the sawhorses and the rest of our make-shift table up to the campfire for light. I didn't want to get our oil lamps out and use those yet. I wanted to save those to use the first night we were in our cabin! Then we could keep using them, but the first time out here I wanted to kind of be special, if you understand that. We talked about what all we needed to do at the homestead yet to get things where we didn't just fall on our faces and fail. We had the sod sitting in piles around the garden for the cabin roof, so we needed to do that right after getting the garden finished and getting it planted. Which meant we were already behind on it. Hubby and I would have to get up to the roof and get some of those branches and pine needles and stuff on it so he could lay the sod down on it. Then we would need to lash it down and then water it. We needed to hurry with that before the grass in the sod all died off! And we needed to hurry with the garden since we had no earthly idea when the first frost was here. Next would come the chicken coop and a lean to and corral for the animals. We weren't going to worry about a fence for the garden this year unless we got a lot further ahead then we were now. We needed the cabin fixed and a barn built first. I grabbed some paper and a pencil from my box under the wagon seat and made a list of what we needed to do and in what order. It just got longer as we rode along. Now how come as you cross things off of a list like that, you end up adding two or three more things to it?? We got up to the river and started heading north toward the Lodge. As we rode along, I was watching the river for a good place to stop and fish on the way back and maybe have a sandwich for lunch if I could talk Chef out of two lol. I saw a few places that looked promising before we got to the lake. I wasn't really interested in fishing the lake today since I was wanting to fish more down toward the south end of the river. There is a bend we come to in it when we first get to it to follow it up to the Lodge. That was where I thought we should try fishing at. It would be over half way home so less chance of the fish dying on the stringer on the shorter trip and if we ever wanted to catch some trout, it would probably be there instead of on our little river. With the Lodge in site, I put the paper and pencil away and smoothed out my skirt and brushed my hair with the brush I keep under the wagon seat. LOL, I use that spot like a glove compartment hubby says. Hubby pulled around back to the corral and I jumped out of the wagon. He was going to stay out back there with the guys and catch up on "things". Ugh, guy talk, no thanks lol. I am going over to the medical cabin and check on Mt. R.'s I told him. I opened the door, but I didn't see anyone at the front desk. So I just hollered "Hello the house" and went on back. Mr. Mt. R. was out getting something or doing something because he wasn't there. Mt. R. was there but she was sleeping. So I stood there taking a quick look/see at her…breathing was slow and easy, no rattling or hitching or gurgling. No coughing or anything like that…good. I got a little closer so I could take her pulse real quick. It was around 72 so that was great! I figured her blood pressure would be okay since her pulse was normal and it wasn't really strong nor was it real weak and faintly felt. That was great too. Her color was a LOT better than the last time I saw her. She had some pink back in her cheeks now. But those eyes, she still had the look of someone who is really tired, about tired as a body can get. Yep, she was improving, but she still had a ways to go. I slipped quietly out of the room so as not to wake her up. I really wanted to talk to her, to catch her up on what was going on in the Valley, but I knew that rest was so important to her right now. A lot more important than my need to tell of the goings on of a group of people who loved her and thought the world of her. Yep, it was that important she rest. I left the medical building, still not seeing anyone and went over to the Lodge in search of Chef lol. Well Chef was in the kitchen, as usual. Making up something for the B's for dinner. I asked him if I could scrounge around for something to make sandwiches out of. He told me he had some already made up from lunch if I would like to take two of them, I was welcomed to them. He got me two out of a little cooler he had there on the counter and wrapped them up and handed them to me. I gave him a big hug and told him thank you so much! I went back out of the kitchen into the large room with the fireplace to see if anyone was around that I knew. No one there the I knew well, so I decided to head on out to where hubby was and see if he was ready to go. I was hoping that he had a plow loaded up into the wagon by now to use on our field and the rest of the garden that we hadn't been able to turn yet. We were going to need it now that P & N wouldn't be there this week-end to help as they had told us before. I guess they were going to stay at home and help mt3b get their gardens turned since they were further behind that we were. And I was glad they were staying to help family instead. It showed what kind of guys they were. They had left a note for us at the lodge not knowing if we would get it or not by the week-end, they had asked one of B's guys to deliver it to us on his way to their place by Friday afternoon. I found hubby ready to go out back. So, I got in the wagon still holding on to the sandwiches and away we went. Time for fishing!! It was the slowest ride I think I ever had in that wagon lol. I wanted to be fishing already and the slowness of the oxen made me want to yell. I could walk faster lol. But I shouldn't't ever look at things that way. It was just the excitement of getting to spend time with the hubby doing a thing that we love to do together that was making me so antsy. A few hours later, or what seemed like an eternity, we were at the south bend of the river, the turnoff to home for us away from the water. Hubby saw a good place to fish. He stopped the wagon and we got out, him to tie off the oxen and me to get the rod/reels and tackle. I grabbed a can out of the back of the wagon too and my little hand shovel. We had to find bait first. There was a log not far from us so I went to it expecting to roll it some and find more grubs. What I found were some really large night crawlers instead. Oh wonderful! Now we would catch some really big fish with these, I was hoping! We found a good place to sit on a big rock near the shore not too far from where we had left the wagon. There was enough room for both of us to sit on it and put the bait can and the tackle box on it in between the two of us. That way we didn't have to get up and walk back and forth all the time we were there, using up precious fishing time lol. Hubby baited his hook first after checking his line and tackle. I started checking over my stuff too and baited up just as he was casting off. I watched him cast off. He was so good at it that it was like watching Bill Dance or one of those pro fishing guys. I always tried to copy just what he did, but I always managed to make a mess of something lol. I went to cast off and he started yelling. SO I stopped and looked over at him. His poor rod was bent about in half! "Get the net! Get the net!" he was yelling. I told him that I didn't know where in the wagon the net was! He gave me a look that could have killed lol. I knew better and should have had that ready too, but in all the excitement, I had totally forgotten about the net. Dumb move! So he reeled in the fish a little and it would take off, then he would reel some more and a little more, all the while that rod bent darn near in half. Some times I would see the first ring on the tip go into the water even though he was struggling to keep it up out of there. And the fish would tug his line and you could hear that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of the line going out against the drag. So he tightened the drag just a notch and kept on fighting the fish. I forgot about casting off and put my rod down just in case he needed me to help him get his fish in or get something for him. He was fighting the fish for all he was worth. I don't know if the fish was getting tired yet, but the hubby was. I could see it in the way he was holding his rod with the tip now staying in the water more than it was out. His arms were getting tired and it seemed like he had been doing this for an hour when it really had only been about 15 minutes. I saw the line start to slack up about the same time the hubby did. He started reeling in as much line as he could as fast as he could since the fish was now swimming back our direction…toward the shore line. At first I thought the fish had gotten away but every once in awhile, it would go to one side or the other, but never back out into the deeper water. He must have been getting tired too. Hubby had him almost reeled in! Woo hoo we would have fish for dinner! I could almost smell it cooking over the fire! Hubby looked over at me and smiled. I asked him if he needed me to do anything and he told me yes, to just keep standing there at the ready and looking cute! Ha, the sweetheart! He got in one more good run of reeling in the fish and up it came out of the water!! Oh Lordy be!! It was a monster! Clearly over 20 pounds worth of fish just jumped out of the water in front of us, wiggled and then dove back into the river. He was still hooked good, probably swallowed it by now with all of the fighting that was going on back and forth between the fish and the hubby. I just stood there with my jaw on the ground watching hubby fight this big monster fish! It was beautiful too…a dark grey/smoke colored with small white speckles all over it. It must be a trout by the spacing and size of the fins. Oh I love the taste of trout too cooked over an open fire with that smoke taste all through it. Yummy! Hubby gave one last good reel in and the fish was on the shore, laying there panting like he was tired as he was ever going to get. Hubby walked over to the shore and looked down at the fish. "Buddy you put up one heck of a fight, be proud young man. But you're mine now, the good Lord put you on this earth to serve a purpose and that is to feed man. And this man is going to meet you up with Mr. Cast I. Skillet just as soon as we get back to our camp!" And with that, he reached down to pick up his prize on the shore. I looked at him and smiled. I said "Lets see if I can catch me one of those!" He told me good luck and that he would be back at the wagon cleaning his fish and if I needed him to sing out. That was if he wasn't back here fishing again yet. LOL I wanted to catch one of those lake trout so bad! So I casted out and sat on the rock waiting, waiting, waiting..hey! A bite! My bobber sank with the blink of an eye so I pulled up hard on the rod to set the hook in the fishes mouth. I started reeling in. Oh this one was a good one, I could just feel it! He pulled on my line like the other had done to the hubby's line! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz out it went to the deep water. Okay, keep the rod tip up out of the water girl, reel in but don't fight him too hard or he will buck and run out even farther and break the line! Okay we have some slack now so reel it in slowly and evenly. So I reeled in a little bit. No fight so I reeled in some more. The line tightened up and then "PING", I felt the line break! OH NO, not now!!! Chit~dern it all anyways. So I quick reeled in the line. When I got it almost all the way in, I pulled the rest in by hand and sat the rod down on the rock. Taking the end of the line, I got into the tackled box and oh no hey. Look at that line! It looks like it has been bit! It has two little string looking things with a ^ look to it. Oh no, this can only mean a couple of things, all of which meant I needed a steel leader on the end of the line, not just regular fishing line. So I got out one of the steel leaders and tied it on using a triple knot system that had always worked for me in keeping the hooks tied on well. Then I picked out a good heavy steel hook, about the size I always used for cats. I got a look at the bobber and it was set where I wanted it. I put some new bait on, closed the tackle box and fastened it shut tight. Then I said a quick prayer and casted out again. I went right around the same spot that I had done before figuring there ought to be more than one fish in that area. So I sat again, waiting patiently, we sort of lol. No bite, no bite , bite! Down went the bobber again in the blink of an eye and it went deep and fast this time. I let the drag off and let him run with it. If this fish was what I thought it was, we were in for a good long fish fight and I had to do this careful or I would loose him. I let him go until I had only about a fourth of my line left and then put the drag back on to where I had it set before. Then I started a slow reel in. Oh he fought me so hard! I would reel in a little and he would take about a third of it back out again. I would reel in more and he would take it out. We went back and forth like that for what seemed like the better part of an hour. It wasn't though, hubby said it wasn't even 15 minutes lol. Well it seemed like hours to me fighting that fish. Stubborn thing! I kept reeling in slowly because I knew that if I tried to fight him or do this too fast, he would take off for the really deep water and get tangled in dead fall down there. As it was, this river was unknown to me. There might be dead fall anywhere along it now with the recent flooding too. So I kept reeling, and reeling. All the while he is pulling out about a third of what I reel in. Finally, slack in the line. He must be tired, I hoped, and ready. So I started reeling a little faster. He still fought me, but nothing compared to what it was before. Hubby came up to the rock to see what I had been hollering about. He got up to the bank to wait for me to reel it on in. I told him to be very careful getting ahold of this fish because I had to put a steel leader on to catch it with. His eyes bugged lol. Yep, I told him, it's going to be a doosey! And with that, in he came. All laid out on the bank, shining in the sun light. A good 20 pound gleaming yellow and green fish with nice cream colored spots all up and down the fish! I had caught an anglers dream if you wanted a good large fish with lots of fight to it, a Northern Pike!! WHEW!! Only thing is when you catch them you MUST have a steel leader on your line which is just a piece of steel wire with a hook or loop at both ends. One end gets tied to your regular fishing line and the other end gets a good strong hook on it. The reason you need these for Pike or Muskie, is because they have a mouth FULL of little sharp pointy teeth! They will bite your line off which is what happened to me the first time when the line broke. The fish bit it off. I had an idea that is what it was when I saw the ^ shape at the end of the line! Most trophy sized pike are 20 pounds +, but this one wasn't going to get mounted. Oh no, he was getting cleaned and then made into fillets! Some folks don't like to eat pike because it has a lot of little bones in it, but, if you clean it right then there are no bones and lots of good clean tasty fish! With just the two of us and having each caught 20 pounds of fish each, we decided it was late enough, we had enough fish so we packed up and decided to head back to the homestead. Hubby got one of the #10 washtubs back off the side of the wagon and put water from the river in it. I helped him carry it back to the wagon and we put it in the back end. He then lifted the stringer with both fish on it into the washtub. We both got back into the wagon and headed for home. When we got back, he turned the oxen out to graze, while I got the fish cleaning station back up and ready. The I walked back out to the wagon and we brought the washtub up to the house. If we had thought about it, we could have dropped it off before heading around out back lol. But we were both still pretty hyped up about catching those fish to think about it. Common sense seemed to have left us for a few minutes lol. I stoked up the fire and got a skillet ready for cooking. This one was my biggest skillet. It says you can cook one dozen eggs in it without a problem, so that gives you some idea how big it was, it you don't still have it hanging around in the kitchen yet. Hubby got the fish finished about the time I had gotten a few of our potatoes sliced up along with half of an onion to set in the skillet and fry along with the fish. I didn't have time to make any corn bread so I got a quick batch of biscuits going in the dutch oven. Hubby cleaned up the fish cleaning station while I made dinner. And he got our little table ready for dinner too, complete with a couple of our little taper candles in the two crystal holders we had for them. Then he took off down by the river for a few minutes. I was so enjoying cooking over an open fire. Didn't know how I was ever going to go back to cooking inside on a wood stove again! Ours wasn't too big either, so I wouldn't have much more room to cook than I did now. Maybe I would just cook in the fireplace lol. It did have that iron swing out bar in it, so I knew who ever lived here before cooked inside in it too. I had to wonder what happened to the folks or person who lived here before us. What ever happened to them? Did they just up and leave or did they get sick and die? I knew we hadn't found a skeleton here, so if they did die, it was away from the cabin. Then again, we really hadn't had time to go exploring either lol. If it was a ways from the cabin or the river we hadn't looked at it yet. And there was that animal path leading farther into the woods away from the cabin more toward the mountains that I wanted to go follow when I got an extra hour or two…and about that time, hubby reached around from behind me and showed me a big bunch of spring wild flowers that he had been picking for me down at the river. Awww…so sweet! Well needless to say, we ate a little faster than normal, cleaned up the area well and headed off to ah sleep. Yeah sleep, that's what we will call it for now! Q 　 　 　

Well thanks so much for those links!! I know I will be needing them pretty quickly here in my part of the story. That sure is going to help a LOT! Q

LOL you just gave away my whole next post in one paragraph! Shame on you! Mt3b it will be nice to have you posting to the story even if life is getting hectic out your way. That makes it all the nicer to know you took time out of your very busy day to think about us all and join in with us on the story. I can't wait to read how Annarchy builds their place! And am really enjoying reading about how Michael and Lori are doing theirs. Well off to work on my next part... Q (covering her journal so Mother can't read it hehehe)

Another day another dollar? LOL how about another chore. We are about snug as a bug out here together, me and the hubby. I think God is really using this time for us to come together more as a couple. We seem to be closer now than we ever had been. All this fresh air and working hard, side by side was really doing us some good. I was just wishing that we had one day off in seven like was instructed for us to do. I didn't like having to work on the Sabbath, not one bit, but it was the only way things would get done. We were already behind as it is in getting the garden in. All this busting ground by hand was for the birds…now wait one minute. If the birds hunt all day for food and they get a break, how come we can't have one? Okay, I thought while making coffee for the morning, I am going to talk to the hubby about this one and see if we can't take off tomorrow and go up to the Lodge. I was worried about Mt. R. and wanted to see how she was doing. I didn't like being way out here not knowing and no one to just pick up a phone and call me either. And I wanted to check on mt3b too. Last we knew she was still sick, doing some better but still pretty sick. What if she had taken a turn for the worse? Surely SF would have had someone ride out to get me? Hubby mumbled his way to the temporary out house. I think he said good morning! I had coffee ready for him when he came back. Whew, was I going to hate seeing him without any coffee. Maybe I should take some of the green coffee beans I had so many of and see if they would grow? I mean I knew I wouldn't get enough to have it every day, but if I grew enough little bushes in say a green house? Yeah, right. Where out here would I get the plastic or windows for a green house? It wasn't going to happen. There were just going to have to be some things we gave up all together and that was going to be one of them. But, I wasn't giving up my smoking. No way, no how. Not coffee and smokes. I had enough tobacco seed to keep us going for awhile. You can put enough tobacco seed in a space the size of a stamp to grow a whole field. And its about the thickness of a stamp too. Well maybe just a tad thicker. Point was I had a plain white envelop full of tobacco seed and I was going to start a tray of it after breakfast so they could get going. I just hoped they matured before the first frost. I had no idea when that was here, so I felt even more pressured to get the garden in and growing now. Not tomorrow, now. I did talk to the hubby about going into check on Mt.R. He thought it would be a good idea for us to go. Maybe even make a day of it and catch an hour or so on the main river or the lake and get some fish? Oh thank you thank you thank you! I grabbed him around the neck and about squeezed the wind out of him! Fishing! Yes! And that would settle what was for dinner tomorrow night too! So I was pretty light hearted as I set out to get my tobacco plants started. It's not too bad. You just have to plant them different than anything else you have ever put in your garden. The seeds are so tiny you could fit about 25-30 of them on the head of a pin. So what I do is take a q-tip and roll it around in the seed. That way you don't loose any to the wind. Well let me start at the beginning of this. Get a tray of rich dark soil that has NO weeds in it. That is THE most important thing. Now get your soil pretty moist. I usually use an old rusted baking pan to do this in. After you get the soil ready, take your q-tip with the seeds on it and roll it across the wet dirt real lightly. You don't want to mash it down in, you just want the seeds to kind of fall off onto the dirt. Don't cough or sneeze while you are doing this or you will send your seeds flying! Now once you have covered all the soil with the q-tip ( you may have to dunk it back in the seeds once or twice more), then you cover the pan with Saran wrap. I didn't have any of that along so I just used a plain old piece of plastic and a piece of kitchen string tied tight around it to keep it on. Now, sit that in a dark place and forget about it for 3 days. Once your 3 days are up, then take it out and sit it in the sun with the plastic still on. It needs at least 6-8 hours of sun a day. It should sprout right up in two days. If it doesn't then start over. If it does, just keep it watered by the bottom. Don't ever pour water on tobacco plant seedlings. Always water them at the roots. It's easier if you have one of those plant flats that you can sit in a shallow pan. That way you can put the water in the shallow pan and let it wick up into the dirt. I had to improvise and I stuck a straw down into the dirt and poked it in so that it hit the bottom of the pan. Then I took an old syringe and slowly shot the water down the straw and to the roots. Takes a long time that way, but hey, when you don't have all that fancy stuff out here, you have to think of other things to take their place. After the seedlings get tall enough to reach the Saran wrap, then you can take it off. Then keep watering it from the bottom. Once they get two sets of true leaves, then even though they are so small, you can plant them in the garden. You dig the holes deep enough to bury the plant up to the first set of leaves, take one of the seedlings out of the dirt (yep, by the bare roots) and set it in the hole then cover it up, give it some water as you cover it and that's it. Now you can treat it like any other plant in the garden. It's just getting the seedlings started that is so tough. 　 So with the tobacco seeds planted, I got to thinking that my dress was looking kind of well, dirty lol. So time to find a place for the clothes line. This was going to take both of us so I went around out beside the cabin where hubby was working and had him come help me. He had been working on chopping off branches from those trees him and the guys brought down for garden space the other day. He said we would need to cut the branches up for lashing and such for the sod roof. So since to him, both things being equally important, he just switched back and forth working on one for awhile and then the other. He said it kept him from getting bored. Ha, there was no getting bored out here. Too much to do for that! So we found a good shady spot that was getting a good breeze not that far from the cabin to put the clothes line and got it hung up. We had to keep it on the other side of the cabin from where we had the horse tethered for now so it didn't get tangled up in the clothes line while we were off working on something else. And that was another thing we had to get done pretty soon. Some kind of barn or a lean-to for the horse and the oxen to get out of the weather in. I knew we were going to need a barn, but that was awhile off yet. First would come the chicken coop so we could get them out of the back of the wagon at night. We were lucky enough that the dogs had been raised around chickens and just left them alone. One of the dogs gave Roo a wide berth since she and he had it out soon after Roo arrived. He got her on the nose lol and she didn't much care for it. She didn't want a repeat of that either since she wouldn't get anywhere near the chickens now. But we did need to get them a coop made. I think we would use the cages for part of it and just make a small simple coop on stilts so they had a roosting place and night and let them lay in there also. I hoped. But hens have a way of wanting to lay anywhere they thought their eggs would be safe at. They loved to play hide and seek with them lol. I didn't. Off to start the laundry I went. I decided to just do it down by the river. I took the dirty clothes, the wash board and a bar of soap and threw them in the two #10 washtubs I had taken down off the side of the wagon. I got the clothes pin bag out and went over and put it on the clothes line. I grabbed the wash tubs and off we went to the river. I put one tub in the river tipped kind of to the side to catch some water in it and then hauled it up onto the bank. I did the same with the second one. Then I got the washboard and soap out and set those in the first tub. Then I got out some clothes from the laundry bag. Whites first, then light colors and lightly soiled stuff then the jeans. All we had was jeans. He wore pants and I wore the long jean skirts to my calves. I put the whites and under ware in the first tub and let them soak for a minute. I took the soap back out of the water since it softened a little and set it on top of the laundry bag. After soaking a bit, I took the soap and rubbed some on the clothes then scrubbed the clothes against the wash board, turning the clothes as I went. Once scrubbed I put them in the other wash tub to rinse. I got all the clothes done and got them rinsed out. I dumped the water out away from the river so not to get soap all over in it. If I would have had the garden going I would have had hubby help me put it out there. But I did take the rinse water and pour it out over where I had planted the horseradish to give it a watering. I then took the clothes over and hung them out on the line to dry. We had some left over cornbread and fish from last night so that is what we had for dinner tonight. I didn't want to let it go to waste. After dinner we walked around our place checking on the animals and just enjoying the evening for a change. Well it's time to put this away again for the night. Q 　

Annarchy that's good. One thing though, hubby and I aren't anywhere near that trappers cabin lol. Q

Michael that is great. I already have it printed out here at my desk to use for my journal entries! Thank you so much for taking the time to do that for us! Q

Well since Mt. R. said that MOST gardens will be dug by hand and since after three days we are still trying to get ours dug, I was hoping for a hardship allowance on using one of the plows for the garden and for our field for the corn. I think I still remember how to use one lol. But it's been awhile so I would rather go watch Michael just to make sure I can remember. Will have to show hubby how since I doubt if I would ever be plowing again anyways. But if not, that's okay, we will just have a smaller garden and figure out what to do with the animals with no corn field lol. I knew we should have brought that hand plow from Lehmans LOL... Q

Tuesday evening from the campfire: I heard P & N get out and about this morning, but wanted a little more rest so I stayed in the tent with hubby. I thought about the day ahead. I needed to get organized better or I just wasn't going to get much accomplished at all. Yesterday consisted of not much more than cooking. While I liked it, I didn't want it to be my sole focus here. I did manage to get the tomatoes and the peppers started. I would get more started this morning. Then I had plans on turning over some old logs near the stream to see what was under them. I was hoping for some bait to go fishing with. If we didn't get some meat soon, we would be reduced to eating the bait lol. and UGH. I knew they had LTS foods back at the Lodge, but what some folks didn't seem to understand was that was considered a "hand-out" and where we came from, you didn't take those. You worked for your own food provided by your own two hands, not someone else's. Call it prideful or whatever, it was just how things were done. And hubby, being more stubborn than even I am, wasn't about to take that. Not for food. He would take the help with the land because that was something he would help them with. We didn't have any LTS foods to give back. So, we were stuck with hunting and fishing for our own. I would keep the bigger ones I caught, if any, for dinner. The rest would go back in, but I wanted to see if there was anything in there and just what kind we had. Might have to fill a couple of buckets with water and go to the big river and get fish, bring them back and stock our pond/pool/whateveryacallit. Then in another year, we might have some big fish in it. And hopefully they wouldn't eat up the little fish. It looked like there was enough other natural food in there for them though so they wouldn't have to do that. Well enough figuring, time to start doing. I shook the hubby awake which he didn't like. He would rather be kissed awake but that's not going in this journal lol!! So he got up with me and I fixed the coffee. He went off to the curtains. Lighting the fire was harder this morning. Lots of dew from last night. Seems like the humidity was picking up. Uck. Good now I can sweat like a pig while I am working. I might end up in the river if it got too hot lol. Hey, ever see pictures of people fly fishing? Okay, so I wasn't fly fishing today but it wouldn't hurt if I stood still to be in the water would it? Of course not! Neither one of us is much on breakfast. We usually only eat one meal a day even back at the homestead. We just didn't have the money to spend on all that food anyways. We did down some weak coffee and take our vitamins. I had brought plenty of those along. I got to wondering about those packages in the wagon too that weren't opened yet. Would be nice if one of them was the radios we ordered with the solar charger for them. We ordered a lot of solar stuff since we didn't want to bring it on the trail bouncing all over the place and getting broke. But now we may never see any of it. Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. Oh milk, yummy. Hadn't had any of that in awhile either. I wondered if anyone had seen my want ad at the Lodge yet. We needed the dairy from goats. And our dogs had been around goats before. Worst part about that was them trying to herd the goats around all day and the goats wanting no part in the deal lol. So, coffee done we set off to do our thing...hubby to the garden and me to the seeds. I got out the eggplant and it got started. Then I got out the horseradish roots I had packed away and went in search of a place to get that planted. I wanted it somewhere out of the way, but not too far. Somewhere we wouldn't mash it down. I figured over by the river was best so I wouldn't have to water it and it would be pretty well shaded. So with the plants all started, I grabbed the fishing pole of mine, the tackle box, a hand spade and the horseradish. Oh and the stringer! Got to have that! And I grabbed an empty pint jar out of a box in the wagon too. I was going to put the bait in there. I saw a log down between me and the river that looked to be pretty well rotted. So I got over to it and hacked at a few places with my hand spade. It broke apart in little pieces and bugs scattered all over the place. Bingo! Okay, I got it rolled a tad bit and looked under it. Oh boy grubs! I took the end of the spade and flipped out a few of them into the jar. I moved down the log a bit and turned it again. More grubs! So I got some of those in the jar. I figured I had about a dozen and that would do for now. Okay off to plant the horseradish! I picked a place back from the river a bit. I didn't want the root getting rotted from being too wet. And I got close to the tree as I dared thinking that as this grew and spread out, I didn't want to have to fight tree roots for it. So I slit the end in the middle up about an inch to help the roots start growing and dug a little hole, one just deep enough to put the root in with the slit side down at the bottom. I stuck the horseradish in, said a prayer for God to bless and multiply it please cuz I loved the stuff, and covered it up. Now...to find a nice place to sit and fish. I walked along the river bank looking for a log. I was wanting that to sit on since I forgot to bring my folding chair like a dunce. Not seeing one I just picked a pretty place and one where it looked like there might be fish and sat down on the ground. I wasn't thinking about ticks or ants and such, I just wanted to fish lol. Well guess what happened later? Yep, tick bite. Sheesh, you would think a nurse would know better? Not exactly lol. But I got my rod out where I could look it over good. It seemed to survive the wagon ride okay. The hook was still on the end anyways. And I had a bottom rig on so I started fishing for cats first off. Now cats are sneaky just like their land namesakes. You can't just jerk up a cat. Nope, it's a cat and mouse game with you being the mouse. He will take a nibble of your bait, mouth it around then spit it out quick like. And you just sit there watching the end of you pole bob up and down. Then he will quit. Oh man, you're thinking, lost him. Wrong. Give him 10 to 20 minutes, he will be back. And start doing that all over again only a little stronger. But don't pull up just yet, he isn't done! No, we have to play his game awhile longer yet. He is gonna leave that bait alone another 10 minutes or so. Most likely this time he will mouth that bait real good and take a big long bite at it and your pole is going to look like the end is touching the water...NOW!!! PULL IT UP AND SET THE HOOK!!! You are going to have a large fight on your hands now. If he tries to pull out, give him a little line. Then keeping the tip of your rod pointing up, well as much up as you can, reel him in slowly. He might fight again a few times, so let him have a little line again. Then start reeling him in again. Slowly, you don't need to run a race here, you just want some food and he is it. Once you get him up near the bank, you will either have to net him and let him get tangled or just do like I do and reach down and pick him up carefully under the barbs. Yes, barbs. They look like little hand saws and if they get in you it hurts like the dickens getting them out. Or you have to push it the rest of the way through. Had that happen before too. So, that is how we now have this 10 pound catfish on the bank at my feet! I will get the hook out of his mouth and get him on the stringer then go back for one more. Then I will move on down the river to see what else is in here. Most times where you have cats, they tend to run off the other fish and keep the food all to themselves. Can you tell I been fishing for cats for a few years? LOL!!! Well I ended up with another cat, this one a little smaller than the first one. So I went closer back toward the camp and to the pond. I wanted to see what was in there. I switched my bottom rig for a hook and sinker and bobber. I set that to about 7-9 feet. Baited up and threw it out. I sat on a log this time. And it didn't take long to start getting a bite. These fish had no idea what being caught was all about lol. I was gonna show them. I got a lot of little nibbles so I knew there had to be bream (bluegills to yankees lol) in there. I reeled in to re-set the depth to about 12 feet. That should clear the nibblers out and get into the bigger fish. Threw out and didn't hit bottom either. Wonder how deep this thing is? Meanwhile, the cats on the stringer are trying to get off, rolling all over in the shallow water, splashing around and acting like spoiled kids that just got punished and sent to their rooms lol. I yelled at them to knock it off, not like they would understand me. I told them I had a friend they were going to meet later if they would just be good. Mr. Cast I. Skillet! Hehehehe... I just love to fish. God sure has a sense of humor creating these things. Catfish have whiskers so long lol. Whiskers on a fish...too funny. Whao, pay attention here, my bobber is gone! I yanked up on the pole quick as I could to set the hook. It took me a little bit but I got the fish reeled in and reached down near the bank of the pond to pull it in. Crappie!! Oh man, oh man. I love crappie and they were big where we came from. Not in size but big as in they drew in the tourists every April on the TN river. Big fishing shows like Bill Dance and them all came there in the spring to tape shows while they were fishing for crappie. And the tourneys, sakes alive at the people fishing tourneys there. I was glad to see the fish almost like it was a long lost friend lol. He helped me be not quite so homesick knowing that they were here too. Yummy, we would have NO problem eating now! Between the fishing here and they veggies in the garden, greens all over the place, yep, we would eat good now and fresh too. I would save up the canned stuff for the winter. I caught another 5 crappie and took them and the cats back to the camp. I got the makeshift table out of the wagon after putting all the little trays of seed pots in the cabin for tonight. I set it up over by the river and set to cleaning the fish. The crappie got scaled, the cats got peeled. It's not hard to skin a cat if you know what you are doing. I watched a guy on you tube skin one in under a minute once! Amazing thing was he did it just like me only faster lol. I put the chum into the river for the turtles and took the fillets and rinsed them off. I put those in a pan of water to soak until dinner time. Next I wanted to make some bread to go with dinner. So I mixed up some cornbread. Now here is how you cook your cornbread over open fire. I have my mix all done up and grease the inside of a pie plate. Put your mix in there. Now get out your dutch oven and line the bottom of it with some rocks all about the same size. You are going to put your pie plate on the rocks so you want them kind of even in there. Sit your pie plate down on the rocks and put the lid on. Now put your dutch oven over a shovel full of coals, and put about half a shovel full of coals on the top. You can do this off to the side of your main fire. It should take just as long to cook in there as it does your oven. When you think it should be done, careful lift your lid off so you don't get ashes all over your bread. If it isn't done put the lid back on and let it cook a little longer. You can bake bread this way too and even biscuits like hubby does. Some people even make pizzas in theirs. All it takes is a little practice to get the time and temp right. So once hubby was done turning the part of the garden he wanted done today, we had a nice dinner of fish and cornbread and some canned corn. Since we were both tired, we just cleaned up and called it a night. I fell asleep in no time flat, dreaming about fishing.... Q

Oh wow!! It is sooo good to see you post even just a little! This is a GOOD thing! LOL A plow?? When did we get to use them? I thought we had to do it all by hand?? Oh cool!! We might have to ride into town and borrow one for the south end of the valley for 2 or 3 days! This digging by hand is for the birds lol. It would make a better garden though. And it would have knocked us right out of having raised corn for the animals. No way we could have dont that this year. Okay, I will get you wrote in on that stuff too, not tonight though cuz I already have todays wrote so I can post it tonight. We can all write in something about you 2 tomorrow though. I am going to ride into town with hubby to pick up the plow so I can check in on you. Will get that part added in. Do you have any idea how bad we mis you? Sniff, sniff...I sure hope you get to feeling better soon, not for the story, but because I know you want back on your feet! Q

We got back to the homestead right before nightfall. Both of us were tired so we set up the tent for the night and didn't bother with a fire either. Hubby lit the Coleman stove and I heated up a quart of stew. We ate it without bread, just a bowl each and then headed off to bed. Next morning, we rose to the clatter of birds chirping and playing dodge 'em with each other. I got up and gathered some firewood after putting my robe on. It was still a little chilly out. Hubby had parked us near the fire pit we used the other day, so that is where I made the cooking fire at. I got out the tripod and stood it up over the fire pit. Next I put the grate on the pegs that are about half-way down the tri-pod. I got the coffee pot and went over to the little river to get some water in it and the bucket I brought along. Since it was going to be boiled, I didn't worry about needing to filter it. And since we would be using it for our drinking water until we got a well in, we weren't going to filter it anyways. This water was coming down out of the mountains from what we saw on the map. And with no people around or large herds of animals,etc...we weren't worried about it being polluted. So I filled both containers and headed back to the fire. I got the coffee out of the storage in the wagon and put a scoop and a half in the pot. We were scaling back our coffee drinking starting this morning. Since we would run out eventually and with no supplies coming in, might as well get used to not having it. Which sucks, but hey, what are you going to do? So coffee went onto the grate to boil. I got the cups out of the wagon and sprinkled a little sugar in them. Grabbed a spoon too. Hubby had gotten up while I was at the river getting water. He was standing in front of the old cabin staring inside of it. So I went over to see what was so interesting. "Hi darlin", I said to him. "Hi back" he said. "What is so interesting in there this morning?" So he showed me. The floor is dirt. The inside is dirty as all get out. There are cracks in the fireplace. Almost the entire cabin needs re-chinked. We need a roof so it's going to get sodded. There was no shutter for the window. Ugh, he kept going and I wondered if it wouldn't be easier to build a new one. So I asked him that and he said no, because neither one of us could fell trees enough to make on before the snow falls with all the other work we have to do. So we went over to the fire to get coffee and talk about the roof. Seems P and N were coming back this morning to help him finish the garden. They were all three going to be cutting and digging out the sod, laying it to the side for the roof in pieces about a foot to foot and a half wide to at least two to three feet long. I liked the idea of the one and a half by three foot pieces. Not so many to worry about fastening down to the roof so they didn't slip off before becoming "fixed" in place. So he said that is what size they would make them then. After they got the sod off then they would turn the soil. That would help keep the weeds and grass in the new garden down also by taking the sod off first. Made a lot less work in the long run. So we finished our coffee and got dressed for the day. I told hubby I figured it would take us awhile to get the cabin livable, so I was going to go ahead and set up a camp outside for us here today. We would use the wagon as storage and a roost for the chickens for now. We would be staying in the tent while we worked. So I left that with the sleeping bags, quilts and pillows with the hand cranked light hanging in it just as it was. Since the tent was big, it came with a built in awning, which I rolled out and got the poles stuck in the grommets and then the ground. Now we have somewhere to sit under cover. And a place to sleep. Next I sat up the two folding chairs and the little plastic table for our "dining area". LOL, hey it's not much, but it's home. I kept the tableware in the back of the wagon. Along with the cast iron pots and pans. Didn't want them out in the elements. I did a little straightening up in the wagon so I had room to make a little table of sorts. I was going to go out by the garden area and get myself a bucket of dirt and start making my seedlings. I got the bag of paper pots I made the other day and with my dirt and seeds, I filled one up with dirt and then put the seed down in the middle. Then i wrote what was in it on the outside in marker. I put them in a tray and set them off to the side until I got all of them finished. It took about two hours to get them all filled and planted. Then I took a small cup and put the water into the bottom of the tray and took the tray out into the sun on our little table. I said a prayer over them asking God to please help me out here with these plants, how we desperately needed them for our food and would He please bless them? That done, I set about looking for something to make for dinner. I knew we were going to need bread of some kind so I settled for biscuits. First I had to get the portable saw horses off of the side of the wagon where they were still lashed onto. I set those up over by the fire pit and then grabbed that piece of wood out of the wagon I had used for a table to make the seed pots on. Getting that all cleaned up and ready, I mixed up my biscuits and got them rolled out. I just used a drinking glass turned upside down and floured for my cutter. Once cut out, I placed them inside of a cast iron baker and sat it on the fire. You had to watch them careful for this or they would burn on the bottom. And you can't open the top either to check on them or you let the heat out. Kind of like making rice lol. No peekie!! I usually leave them on the coals about 5 or 6 minutes the take your baker and set it up on the grate there on the tri-pod for 15 minutes. They should be done all the way through by then, but keep your nose peeled just in case you have your fire too high. Next thing I wanted was some polk weed. Not knowing if it grew around here or not, I went into the wagon to grab my plant book. "Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants" was going to come in really handy out here with no supplies and us basically having to live off the land. We stood a good chance of ending up like the Indians before this was all said and done. Or further back yet... So off I went, book in hand, in search of my polkweed. I knew what it looked like having fixed it before, but what if I ran into something else interesting? I went down to the river to walk along the bank and see what I could find. Well the walk along the water reminded me of one important thing...we had no latrine! After walking the banks and finding some new polkweed growing, I took only what I needed for one good little pot full and headed back to the wagon to find a shovel. Lol, I had important work to do! Getting that done back in the trees, and deep and away from our camp a bit, I got some old curtains and strung them up in the trees around the pit with some rope. I got the bucket and seat we had been using in the wagon and put that in there along with one of our precious few rolls of tp. I had to unsmash it to make it look round again, put a bit of kitchen string through the middle and then tied it to a tree inside the curtain. There, not back for rigged up! With that taken care of, I started gathering wood to cook dinner with since mine was running low. Not a hard chore when your place is in a grove of trees. I got the fire stoked back up and set a pan of water on the grate to boil. I picked the bugs off the polk weed and swished them around in the water bucket to rinse them off. I then cut them up into about 4" square pieces. I let them come to a boil, then drained off the old water and put new in. That's the trick with polk weed, you have to boil it 4 or 5 times, changing the water each time or you WILL get sick from eating it. Old timers call polk weed eating a "spring tonic" and it kind of gets rid of the winter blahs and thins your blood back out again for the summer or so the tale goes. All I knew was I had been eating it every spring since my grandma fixed it so many years ago and I was a little girl. I went into the wagon looking at my jars of meat. Not too much left. One of us was going to have to go hunting or fishing or both pretty soon. I got a jar of cubed deer meat that was seasoned. That would go good enough. I wanted mashed potatoes too, but I was saving the taters. They would go into the garden. When dinner was done, I went out to the garden area to see how the guys had faired today. There were stacks of sod all over around the garden and the guys were still turning dirt by the shovels full. I hadn't bothered them all day. I tend to stay away when men are working unless they specifically ask me to be there. Just too much manly man stuff that goes on lol. All that guy talk just gets to me after awhile. I told them that dinner was done but they wanted to keep working until they either got done or the sun set on them. So I decided okay I can keep it warm for them and see what else I can get into. Maybe go look around in the cabin? It was too late to wander off away from the camp or I would have checked out the river a little better. So off I went into the cabin. Talk about dusty and dirty? Well this place had both in abundance! Dirt floors too, ugh. Maybe we could fell a few trees and get them cut up into planks for floors and such? I hoped so. I stayed in there looking around and thinking while starting to clean a bit until time for dinner finally. I went back to the fire when the guys came over. Got them dinner spooned up and we had fresh cool water out of the river to drink with it. Tasted good too, almost sweet! I couldn't wait to make tea with that! Well, we sat around the fire for a bit after dinner. P & N were leaving in the morning to go to their place to check on W&A. We hated to see them leave but they promised to come back and check on us soon and we told them that we sure did thank them for helping us out like they did and would love to have them and the rest of the family drop by any time! Hugs and handshakes all around, we retired for the night, everyone to the sleeping bags! Q

Hubby showed up around 11 this morning wanting to take me back to the homestead with him. He said that it is too lonely there by himself and we need to be working on our place. So mother and Mr. Mt.R will be keeping an eye out on mt3b since she seems to be doing better today. I packed up my dirty clothes into the to go bag and said quick good byes to Mother and everyone who had gathered for the Sunday meeting. I wouldn't be staying since we wanted to get home before dark. Hubby was out by the corral waiting on me and talking to the guys out there about our horse. We would be taking the horse with us today, tack and all. I really hated to leave everyone but I was anxious to get back to our homestead and check out the cabin and where they were putting the garden. I had seeds to start also for the peppers and tomatoes and such to put in the garden. There was plenty of work for me to be doing there, Lord knows. So off we went, headed back to the our homestead. We had time to talk on the long ride home. I kept an eye out on our new horse who was tied to the back of the wagon following along as we went. Seemed to be doing okay back there with the occasional tug at the rope probably because it wanted to stop and graze on some of that new green grass coming up lol. But we talked about the garden getting turned over. They had to cut down a couple of trees so that the garden wasn't some weird shape once it was done. The trunks were still there for the moment, but hubby was going to use the oxen to try and pull those up out of the way. He figured that he and I could get that part done ourselves. Q

Thanks for those reminders Mother. We had figured about a 3 hour trip up to the Lodge from our place by wagon/oxen. I just want to get out of the lodge lol. mt3b...I hope you get to feeling better real soon. We will miss you but want you better. Stay in bed, get rested up. Take your medicine. Chicken soup is good! Hugs to you... Q

I wanted to make this extra entry into my Journal to cover what else happened yesterday.... After checking Mt. R. I left the medical cabin and went back to the Lodge. I talked to Mother for a little bit. She wanted to know how we were set for supplies. I told her we were running a little thin but we could make it until the garden started coming in. I had planned on looking for some greens tomorrow, but I figured I would still be here at the Lodge. I knew I wanted a mess of Polk weed for a spring tonic. Then I was going to look for dandelions and some fiddle head ferns if any were still left. I told her we had fish in that pond but we didn't know what kind yet since we hadn't been fishing in it. And there was always the river to fish in. Hubby was also going to do some hunting for small game or a deer if he could get one. He had hunted elk before too but wasn't sure if they were around yet. He would have to get up in the mountains for that and there just wasn't time to do that right now. We could make do with small game instead plus what I had brought that was canned up. Yep, thin but do-able. Mother said her good byes and walked off looking a bit on the troubled side. And now she has me wondering what is going on with all that? Is someone about out of supplies and doesn't know how to get more for themselves? Well, I think we will be okay, so at least she wont have to worry about us. I went back to check on mt3b. Her fever was up. Darn. I knew it was going to do that since she had been so flushed and sleepy earlier. Now she was just zonked. That was from the fever though. I don't even think she realized I was there to see her. I took her temp...102. Alright, that is about where they body gets itself up to so it can fight off what ever the invader is. We used to think 101 was it, but they found out researching it that 102 was the "golden" temp. I had SF making sure she drank every drop of the willow bark tea for the fever whether she liked it or not. It wasn't supposed to taste good lol. I also told him to come get me if it went up any further. I would be staying in the lodge again tonight it seemed. So, here I still am, at the Lodge. I sent hubby back to the homestead with P&N to get the garden broke up. And what ever else it was they had planned on. This is the first time in 10 years that we have been married that we are spending the night away from each other. I can't say I much like it either. I can't sleep and I don't have any interest in eating. I just want my hubby and home.... 　 Q