Sat. 09/18/10 Rainy again!

It's raining again today!

Raindrops on the rainwater catchment tank. This is a metal ring with no bottom, so that's why it's lined with a huge tarp. It's about 30" deep and 8' across. Someone mathematical can figure out how many gallons that holds. (I expect an email or a comment with the answer! lol)

This can't be OUR kitten...it's laying like a normal cat!

"Odie" laying on her blanket on the porch (taking from the kitchen window).


I quietly got a chair and climbed up on the kitchen counter and held my camera up over the wall and snapped this picture of an unaware Steven!
He does a lot of his writing in the morning.



We had apple pie for breakfast. I made this pie last night with the FIRST APPLES from our own apple trees! After six years of watering and caring for these trees, and going through the sadness of having a rabbit chew the bark off and kill and/or damage our fruit trees, it's amazing to finally get apples!

I'm wanting to say "...and that's freshly whipped cream from our own dairy cow" but we don't have a cow! It's cool whip on the pie.

Since I'm running around with my camera today Steven decided to do something to look busy. He filled the kitchen sinks with hot water off the woodstove, for washing dishes. In this picture he's refilling the kettle.
Technically, he could have brought in a bucket of rainwater from one of the barrels by the house (which are pretty clean), but we often don't think of it. It just means we'll have to haul more from town when we go, to refill the jug.

Keeping his patience and still smiling!
Digital cameras are SO much fun!

I decided to do something useful for a while. I tore open used teabags, which have dried near the woodstove over the last few weeks, and dumped the contents in an old hot chocolate can. Later I'll take them out and sprinkle them on the garden. I've heard that they add minerals to the soil, so I've been doing this for about 2 years now.
The garden does pretty good, despite our climate. Don't know if the tea stuff helps, but apparently doesn't hurt.

Steven and I chopped all these onions yesterday, thinking Tristan would be home over the weekend and run his generator. But he went to Kalispell to hang out with Tim and the other kids, and it's cloudy, so not enough solar charge to run the dehydrator.

Not a problem! I just put the racks in the oven and the pilot light will create a warm, dry environment to dry the onions. Just slower, that's all, but still works!

(Kitten) "Nyah, nyah! I'M inside and YOU'RE not!"
(Dog) "Ha ha! You're stuck inside and I get to play out here!"

There's the wallpaper trim (fishies and bottom-of-the-sea pictures).

The picture above it is from Patty. The caption on the picture says "Everybody out of the tub", and that's a shark fin behind the duckies. Not sure what all shows up on everyone's computer.

A close-up of the trim.

There's the trim behind the toilet and dresser. I'm going to put extra sheets and stuff in the bottom drawers, and things like medical supplies and lightbulbs and stuff in the top two drawers.

There are various little shelves on top of the dresser and toilet that'll be put up. I confiscated Emily's "Little Nemo" stuffed fish to hang in the bathroom!
We don't have the vents and stuff hooked up for the composting toilet yet.

This squash on the lawn swing is what I picked this week. I have a bunch more, too. I dehydrated some already, but I can't keep up with it, so I'm going to Can some of it.

This picture was just a few minutes ago. It's 48 degrees and still raining. After Steven fed the woodstove he headed down to his workshop in "the shack" to work on reloading ammo.

I'm going to finish the story I'm editing. It's the last one right now, so maybe I'll have some time to work on my own writing before I get more sent to me to edit. In addition to the magazine articles I should be writing, I have a couple of fiction stories in the works, as well as a couple of other projects.

Earlier this week I read on the news about a 6-year old girl kicked off her kindergarden cheerleading squad because her mother complained about some phrases in their cheers being a bit racy for such young children. It's sad the girl got punished for this, but...

Kindergarden cheerleaders? What happened to letting kids just be kids? I watched the video and these looked like miniature high school kids out there.

These are 5 and 6 year old little girls! I know little girls like dress-up and such, but still! They should be absorbed with the innocence of childhood. They should be playing dress up with dollies, not on a football field.

My opinion, yes, but I firmly believe we take away childhood too early from our young people today.

Good grief. Kindergarden boys playing football, kindergarden girls being cheerleaders...

What's left for them to look forward to when they get older?

When I was in school you grew up knowing that when you got to a certain grade, certain activities or classes became available to you.

I believed in Santa Claus until second grade.

If my parents were still alive, I'd thank them for allowing me to have that magic so long.