Fall is in the Air

Well its starting to cool down here. Its been in the 80's this week and by the weekend it will be in the high 70's with high 50's at night.

Last week was a busy week, between doing all the extra transcription and trying to get the canning and freezing done I need a rest! The freezer is getting fuller with corn, green beans, okra, tomatoes, spagettic and peaches. I have 2 shelves in my pantry full of jars of spagetti sauce, tomatoe sauce, tomatoes, green beans, peaches, salsa, green tomatoe relish and dill and sweet picke. There are still some green peppers in the garden and cherry tomatoes. Also the potatoes need to be dug. Chuck built a large potato bin under the house and the neighbor is keeping his potatoes in it. He has a basement but in the winter he uses a wood furnace for heat so his basement is to warm for keeping potatoes down there. Joe has about 12-15 bushels of red and white potatoes in the bin. They do have all their jars of goodies down there plus a freezer full. Jan has been giving me pointers on how to can certain things like the peaches. I think I will do some pears as well if they give us some pears again this year. Its really not hard to can just time consuming. Next year Chuck is going to fire up the wood stove in the shed and do the canning out there. That will save on electric to plus time. We have given a couple of our friends some of the things we have canned plus fresh vegetables when we have to much to use up ourselves. The neigbors just gave us a huge sweet potatoe squash now to figure out how to preserve that!

We finally got the office/spare bedroom painted and back together. Chuck just has to move the treadmill back in here from the porch. Its been out there since early July to make room for someone to sleep in here. We hope the start repainting and redoing the main bathroom. We are having a bathroom cabinet made for in there since the smallest one we have seen is still to wide (its a very small bathroom). New fixtures for the shower and walls and a new sink for the cabinet. We have a pedistal sink in there now which we will be giving to Chucks sister she is redoing her bathroom and wants it.

Family Visit and Canning fun!

Al though we didn't do alot while the kids were here everyone seem to have a good time. Kristy's favorite thing to do was to take a book and read out on the back porch. She was amazed that she could sit out there and not sweat like FL. Plus she didn't have to worry about people always showing up there. They left to go back to FL on July 21st the house was sure quiet after they left. The cats that had been hiding out the whole 2 weeks that they were here finally came out of hiding. Two of the cats got out somehow one of which was gone for four days! Guess they don't like their routine being messed up! Talk about set in there ways! The cats learned to run whenever Lilly the 20 month old was in site! All except for the youngest cat Cricket.

Speaking of cats a long haired black female showed up and we didn't know that Kaylee and Jynna were feeding her! She is also pregnant. This was confirmed yesterday when we took her to the vet. We left her there to be spade. There is a male cat hanging around if we can catch him will get him fixed as well. I guess thats one drawback to living in the country!

I am still putting up vegetables. I sent Kristy home with Spagetti sauce, dill pickes and potatoes. Joe keeps bringing us veggies (excess from his garden). We have gotten tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and beans. I still have a few more pickles to put up this time sweet pickles. His tomatoes got some kind of disease from to much rain and they are rotting before completely ripening. We picked some green tomatoes and I made a couple of jars of sweet relish. Corn and pole beans went into the freezer as well as yellow squash from our garden. We are still getting cucumbers, tomatoes and onions and the potatoes should be ready to dig up. Joe says he will have about 40 bushels of potatoes and asked if he could store them under our house this winter. Chuck is in the process of building a bin for the potatoes. Joe has a wood stove in the basement so its to hot down there for the potatoes to keep. Hopefully, they will keep well under the house.

Thank heavens for my Ball books since I never canned before the books have been a big help.
I hope to put up more veggies next year.

Visitors

Well today our youngest daughter and her three daughters will be driving up to TN from FL. Its about a 12 hour drive and their air-conditoning quit in the van so they decided to travel at night. They will be spending the night at a motel between Atlanta and Macon. Hopefully they will be ok and won't have any car trouble. When they get up here we can take the van in and see whats wrong with the air conditioning. Hopefully it just needs freon. The two oldest girls are so excited. They drove up here in Nov. for Thanksgiving and now they will see how pretty it is up here in the summer. They want to hike in the woods and go swimming in the lake. We have a huge lake nearby. We hope to have a pontoon next year if they come back again which I am sure they will.

Thank goodness they like dill pickes I have so many jars made. I seem to get cucumbers and squash every day. Even a few tomatoes. Potatoes will be ready soon. Well I will write more later and post pictures of the family later on.

Garden Bounty

I have been busy the past couple of days canning pickles and freezing squash. Our neighbor brought over a bucket almost half full of cucumbers last night. I guess they must have planted alot but didn't need to can anymore. I went over to their house on Sat. and Joe's wife Jan was canning pickles. Canning is something that I have never done. She gave me a jar of sweet pickles that she put up last summer and boy were they good she also gave me the receipe. So I have spent the last 2 days canning pickles. I went out and got a canning pan with rack yesterday and its alot easier and it holds 6 jars at a time. The pint jars take 5 minutes and the quart 10 minutes to process. I also made some sweet zucchini pickles. Walmart sold packages of the kosher dill, reg. dill and bread and butter pickle mix. I don't care for the bread and butter mix so will use Jan's receipe next batch. The kosher dill and regular dill turned out good. I found a receipe in my canning book for dill pickles and made a batch today. Hope they are good. Now to find a place to store them all. I plan to make some pickle peppers to. Our daughter and 3 grandaughters are driving up from FL on Monday and they all love the dill pickles and daughter likes sweet pickles. My husband doesn't like sweet pickles. Can't wait till they arrive it will be fun to cook for all of them and the grandaughters want to learn to cook and sew. I hope that they will stay longer than 2 weeks though. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving.

We have potatoes about ready to harvest plus our neighbor has given us a bunch of red potatoes from his garden and green beans, onions and okra. We pulled some of the onions which still need to grow and the radishes are about ready. We only have 2 cucumber plants but are getting plenty of cucumbers. Lots of yellow summer squash and yellow crook neck squash and even have had some cherry and regular tomatoes and some cabbage. The peppers are slow growing as is the egg plants. The garden is doing well because of all the rain that we have had. I am surprised things grow this well in the hard clay ground. When the potatoes are done plan to put some greens, spinach and winter cabbage in. I think the garden will do even better if we get a load of top soil in there before the spring.

Garden Bounty

We are already getting vegetables from out garden. This week it has been yellow squash, red and green lettece, romaine, zucchini and cucumbers. We had so much lettece we shared with friends. Picked head of romaine and red lettece yesterday. Chuck brought me one cherry tomatoe yesterday hopefully, we will have some tomatoes soon. We hope to plant some fall crops as well, like greens and such. The potatoes plants have flowers on them which means we have some potatoes to eat soon. The neighbor brought us some red potatoes from his garden nothing like fresh potatoes! We have a good variety of veggies out there to enjoy all summer. Fortunatley, we have been getting rain on and off and don't have to water the garden. We have city water here believe it or not. Well thats all there is for this time.

Hummingbirds

The hummingbirds are finally back again. They showed up as usual in early spring but then they just dissappeared. Not sure but maybe they were nesting away from here. This didn't happen last year - they came and stayed. Oh, well. We had to get two feeders - one for the back porch and another for the front porch. When too many get around they tend to drive each other away from the feeders. I took these pictures standing about 3 feet away from the feeder. Once they get used to you being around, they just carry on as usual unless you make a sudden move. They're neet to watch. They make all kinds of noise and they do have a song - of sorts. We have about 4 different Hummer families and they're all of the Ruby Throated variety.

This 'n That

Well, decided last week to go looking at trucks just to see what was out there and wound up with a new chevy truck. We paid less for this one than we did our last truck and got more truck to boot. The garden is slowly coming around. This is the first year that there has been a garden in the yard and the clay is almost like concrete. We put some top soil down to mix in but apparently not enough. Will remedy that next year. We have potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, pole beans, peppers, squash, egg plants, okra and onions. Recognize the thing that looks like an old outhouse. That's a toilet paper holder. The door opens and you can store up to 4 rolls of paper in it.

Garden is Done

We finaly got the vegetable garden and the herb garden planted. We still have to plant the onions and we have packets of seed to plant radishes, beets and carrots. Chuck worked all day Saturday on raised gardens out in front of the porch and the side of the house. We got railroad ties to use to enclose the garden then put down weed cloth then put in the top soil. Chuck went and got a load of top soil and got it all in and the left over soil went in the veggie garden. Tonight we planted Caladenian bulbs. We had planted some our first summer but they didn't come up last Spring. Maybe the clay ground was to hard or the cold weather affected them coming back up. They should be pretty when they come up. Hopefully, tomorrow I will get some flowers for the side garden. Still have some more planting beds to clean out and replant. I will post some pictures later on.

We are still working on the house inside. Our next big project is cabinets for the laundry room and tile for both bathrooms. This summer Chuck will put a metal roof on the out building since it is leaking badly. Alot of the shingles are off the roof we do get some strong winds here on the mountain. Always many projects to do when you own a house. Well thats it for this time.

Spring has Sprung

I haven't posted in awhile been busy with company March and April. In March or son visited from Fl. We hadn't seen him since we moved from FL in Jan. 2007. He is pretty busy managing a busy Hooters in Port Richey, FL but had 2 weeks of vacation to use or lose so visited us for a week. He flew into Nashville, Tn on March 31st. We had to travel 2 hours to pick him up. Stephen liked where we lived here in the mountains, but wouldn't want to live here himself, to remote. He did say it would make an excellent vacation home. He did get some rest while here and we all went out to dinner on my birthday to my favorite place, Red Lobster! The visit ended to quickly. He said that he would be back again and bring his finacee next time.

Chucks 2 sisters from IL were here for Easter. They arrived on Thurs nite and left to go home on the 13th. Diane of course had to work while here she brought her lap top and her fax machine with her. I managed to get my work done as well. She has her own business and if she doesn't work, she don't get paid! Thats her only source of income. Diane's son was visiting from CA he was buying a car in the St. Louis, MO area and came along with them. We had a big dinner on Easter Sunday and not alot of leftovers either. We all do like to eat.

The weather here has been rainy on and off we did have one sunny rainless day while they were all here. Its still kinda cool and the heat still comes on at night. Its cool so far today and probably more of the same tomorrow then it warms up into the low 70's. Its been so rainy we haven't had a chance to put in our garden yet. Got a few plants already. I will have my herb garden as well. We plan to plant potatoes, onions, cabbage, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, okra, egg plant, lettece and beets. A little of every thing. Alot of people around here do gardens and they also put up stuff in the freezer or canning.

Well its time to make that trip to town. Diane gave us a lap top computer so I need to take it in and see why it won't power up.

Spring Time

Well now! Spring appears to have sprung here on the mountain. Weather is warmer but ya never really know for sure. Just two days ago we had ice on everything above ground. Some of the trees were down on the road and we had to cut our way down off the mountain to get to Jamestown. Spring also revives Cathy's Honey Do list. I finally finished her back splash for the kitchen. We used a beadboard panel and moldings and glued them to the wall. Lots of cutting around switch plates and the window but its done. Joe came down and gave me an arrowhead he'd found in his garden plot. He recently plowed a plot for himself and also plowed a 15' x 50' plot in my back yard for Cathy's garden. Anyway- he invited me to search his garden for arrowheads. I spent about 2 hours scouring his plot but didn't find much. After I had been searching for a bit, Joe drove down and handed me a baggie full of arrowheads he'd had in the basement for awhile. He wanted to get rid of them and figured I'd want them. He figured right. I try hard to classify these things but man there's just soooooo many different styles and types that it's really difficult. When I first started I thought that I'd be dealing with mostly Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky types. But the early indians did a lot of traveling and swapping so it's not really unusual to find arrowheads from Maine or Illinois and maybe even Texas. It's an extremely interesting hobby that provides you with an education in Archaic and Paleo history.

'nother winter day

Well - got up this AM to another inch and a half of snow on the ground. Ain't too cold tho only about 32 out. Saw about 5 or 6 deer browsing in the pasture the other day but by the time I got my camera they were skeddadling across the fence and into the woods. The neighbor and I have seen this group traveling around the mountain in recent weeks. Joe was telling me about an Elk that he saw along the road further down the mountain about 2 weeks ago. Didn't know what it was at first so he slowed down and stopped to watch it. The Elk didn't seem to mind the audience either. When Joe looked back there were other cars parked behind him watching also. This is the first sighting of an Elk in this part of the country that I Know of. We also have a big gaggle of turkeys that range over this part of the mountain. The last count I had was about 40-45 of them when they went trooping along my back fence line. Most were Young'ns with older hens leading and trailing the pack. Interesting stuff that I get to see off my back porch. Think maybe I should be hibernating in this weather but got work to do. Finished putting up rain gutter to keep Jim's stall from flooding and finally found a saw mill that had saw dust to sell. Baldwin's over south of Jamestown had a little accumulated that they sold me. With the economic low we're having, requests for lumber are well below last year. Ah - But not to fear - Obama's gonna fix everything with our tax dollars. Just keep paying IRS because if'n ya don't, ya just might wind up as an appointee on Obama's cabinet - Heh! Heh! Heh!

Winter's Reality

Been snowing for the past couple of days. Hasn't been above freezing yet but the wind has laid a bit and it's not so cold. Roads are slick and it's hard to drive to the top of the mountain so we just stay at home til it starts to melt, probably tomorrow or thursday. Cathy has an appointment in Cookeville thursday PM so hopefully the roads will be in better shape. Mailman parked in our driveway this morning and walked up the road to deliver the mail. That's dedication for ya. Getting sick of all the inaugural crap on tv. Haven't seen any decent news for the past 3 days. Now that Obama has been sworn in and after DC has it's drunk'n party tonight - maybe things will get back to normal. When I was stationed in DC, our command provided personnel for security at the inaugural balls for Bush 41 and Reagan. What a zoo. Lots of celebrities, dancin', drinkin' and partyin'. When I was assigned to the DC municipal auditorium ball, I had to pull a partially nude woman off one of the tables where she was dancin' for everyones pleasure. Only one of many such incidents. As a sailor, i've witnessed some wild parties but never anything like these. But I guess that's what you get when you spend hundreds of millions for a party. Unfortunately a larger part of that funding comes from tax payer dollars!!! Oh well, it's only money. There's more where that came from. No sarcasm here, eh! Must be the weather. Hopefully 2009 will be better than 2008 and our economy will turn around again. There's just too many people out here in the hurts with no way out.

New Year

Well - it's a whole new year - 2009. Happy New year to ya'll. Hope this year is even better than last. Of course with the exalted Obama in office - what could possibly go wrong :] Our weather has really been wet for the past couple of weeks. Although we need the rain it sure does put a damper on activities. I've been trying to replace the steering gear on my 89 Bronco for about 2 weeks but the weather isn't cooperating. I did manage to get it started and with better weather will have it on the road soon. I took a couple of pictures off our back porch this am. The fog is soooo thick you can almost cut it with a knife. Sure can't see far on these mountain roads. Talked to a friend of mine, who is in Florida, and he says they're still in a drought. Have been for a couple of years. Its dry and humid as usual so I guess I shouldn't complain. We have work scheduled if the weather lets up. Ken has a job closing in a small barn we built and about 600' of fencing. That'll be good for about 2-3 days. Time drags by when you're cooped up with nothing to do. Reminds me of my submarine days when we were on our way home and had channel fever. There's nothing to do so you sleep a lot but you can only sleep so much then you really get bored. Fortunately it only lasted about a week or so. Gotta go to the big town (Jamestown) today to stock up on supplies.