Tues. 09/14/10

While waiting for the teakettle to get hot this morning the cat condescended to share her chair with Steven!

The apples are getting big! It's exciting to finally get some apples on our trees!

It's hard to mow back in the orchard because beautiful weeds like these keep springing up!

There's a bumblebee on the lower, right flower.

I know everyone stays awake at night wondering how our Jerusalem Artichokes are doing...well, rest now...here they are!

They're doing great!

This is the picture I'd like to see last thing when I go to bed! My pansies!

That flower "pot" is a car tire with the side wall cut out and the tire turned inside-out.

The dogling and the goatling have become friends. They like to run in circles and try to decide whether to play like goats or like dogs...

Mon. 09/13/10

The kitten just loves to play with my throw rugs.

It's like a morning game with her! She's always in "kill" mode in the mornings, bouncing through the house, grabbing legs, laying in ambush, and if all else fails, she messes up the rugs and rolls around in them! After our first round of things to do in the morning, Steven and I sit by the woodstove with our hot chocolate, which is boring to the kitten! Even if it's too warm for a fire, we heat the kettle on the propane range, then sit in our chairs by the cold woodstover and enjoy our hot chocolate!
The days kind of fall into a pattern. Cover the garden at night, uncover it in the morning. For me, this itme of year, I check for whatever is ready to be harvested in the garden, water what needs watering. Right now I'm still giving the little fruit trees a bucket of water apiece once a week.
Over the morning, while the grass is dewy and the air is chilly, I take care of "inside" things, do whatever cleaning needs done, chop vegetables for dehydrating, put dried herbs in jars, stuff like that. Make muffins, or pie, or rolls. A lot of times I don't mention them on here because it gets repititious.
This afternoon I was cleaning things up around the yard and putting things away for winter. I walked past the hammock a couple times and heard it calling me.

This is the view of the sky from the hammock, looking to the right of the tree at my feet.

And the view to my left.

The sun was warm, and I could hear nothing but the breeze in the trees and the occasional chatter of a squirrel that wished I'd leave!

One of the things I love best about living here is that we can't see anything manmade from our place (other than our own stuff!) and we usually can't hear manmade noises, other than occasionally a neighbor's generator in the distance, or the far-off sound of a train.

We are very blessed.

Near the hammock is Steven's wood-splitting area. The kitten was stalking bugs on the firewood.

Something had her attention!
(Telephoto. She was about 10' away)

There's that squirrle, on the lower left branch, about half a foot from the trunk.

It keep chattering away at me, then it would grab a pine cone from out on the end of the limb, then run off with it. A few minutes later it would be back.

It was probably about 50' from me, and this is the strongest telephoto my little camera has!

O Happy Day!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life!

- and -

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Sun. 09/12/10

The kitten curls up with the lamp to peruse the latest issue of "Popular Mechanics".

I made waffles on the woodstove this morning. The batter is in the bowl on the stool by the door. You can see batter oozing out of the waffle iron.
I place both halves of the cast-iron waffle ironn on the stove to heat them. Then I pour some batter on one half, then put the other half over it, hooking the "hinge" as I do. After a minute or so I turn the whole thing over for another minute. Depending on the heat of the woodstove, it cooks faster than my electric waffle iron. We have to start the generator to use the electric one.

I use a welding glove that comes up halfway to my elbow when I'm working around the woodstove. Here you can see one of the waffles, which were very delicious. One of my favorite ways to eat them is to put butter on them (real butter. Not margarine crap), then huckleberry syrup and whipped cream!

I went up to milk Kathleen's goat after breakfast since they were going to be gone, and on the way home I drained a couple of persistant puddles. We keep a small shovel in the car, which came in handy. You can see the handle standing up toward the left of the picture, where I dug a trench for the water to drain out of. One or the other of us do this a couple times a year, since they eventually fill in with silt and gravel as it runs out.

Steven worked on his motorcycle today. He's got it on a cement block (oh, how redneck!!!) and has just taken off the front tire and is setting it aside. He had to replace the seals on the shock absorber. We also have a new tire for the front, which he'll be mounting when he's done with the seals. We also had to buy a new battery for the motorcycle.
It's worth keeping it running. It gets 50 mpg.

"Odie" thinks that being petted is more important than letting Steven work on the bike!

Pictures from Marge

My sister, Marge, emailed these pictures to me after she got home, from her camera memory card.

Shopping at Wal-mart!

The kitten stretches out

"This is my impression of a sleeping cat"

It was 40 or colder each morning while she was here, and we had a fire in the woodstove to take the chill off in th cabin. I like to sit with my back to the stove and let the heat sink into my bones. The kitten likes to sit on my lap for her morning petting.

This was the evening before she left, when her and I took the canoe out on the lake. Somewhere farther down on this blog is the picture I took of her from my place in the back of the canoe.

It's amazing we didn't tip the canoe when she turned around to take my picture!
That would have been a fun memory I could have teased her about for years!

The morning she left, we had to get up at 5:00 and leave by 5:30 to get her to the train station in Whitefish. We didn't start a fire because we'd be taking off, but it was cold in the house, so I had one coat on and another over my legs. That amused Marge, being from a warmer climate, to see me draped in coats on Aug. 29th!

I think when we get our first snow I should mail her a snowball! Or at least take a picture of one and email it to her.

Sat. 09/11/10

I've already posted a couple pictures below these, of Tristan and the fire dept. remembering 9/11.

"I'll subdue this stool if it's the last thing I do!"

"Okay, I give up. I'll subdue this tail instead!"

"I'm....HUNGRY!!!! Where's...my...food...???"
(This was actually a yawn that I got lucky enough to catch with my camera! Not a very flattering angle!)

Let's see...what did we do of interest today? We had to pick up a sack of "goat feed" from the feed store, and stopped by the fire department to take a picture of the guys there. Steven worked on the Stihl chainsaw today, putting on the part he had to order for it. That took about 3 hours, but he says it's working now.

The starter is going out on the Cherokee, but we can't afford a new one right now, so we're just praying either it keeps working for a while, or that we simply won't need to go anywhere for a while, at least farther than we can ride our bicycles! lol

I painted the bathroom (Becky's old room) today, finally. We bought the paint a year ago, but one thing led to another and I didn't get the room cleaned out and ready to paint until now. That's just the first coat and it's not real even. After I took this picture I painted the second coat, but by the time I was done it was getting dark.

I took the new dog, "Odie" for a walk this afternoon, just near our place, but it was nice to see that she stays with me. She ran ahead a few times, but never more than about 50', then she'd stop and look back at me and wait, or run back to me. She leaped over a small fallen pine tree once and it was beautiful! She has a graceful jump! Wish I'd gotten a picture!

And she doesn't chase the chickens! Praise God!

The cat, however, is still wary. Not scared and angry. More curious than anything.

There's a real chill in the air tonight. We've been covering the garden every night, but tonight is one night where it really needs it! I bought 4 large flat sheets (mostly queen-size) at the thrift store, for $1 each, to add to the collection of sheets and blanket to throw over the plants.

Remembering 9/11

Members of the TFS (Trego-Fortine-Stryker) Volunteer Fire Department took turns standing all day with the truck by the highway, in memory of the Firefighters and others who lost their lives at the WTC in New York, Sept. 11, 2001.

Left to right is Elizabeth Williams, Isaiah Williams, Tristan (our son!), and Robert Braun.

Taken farther back to show the fire hall too.