An American Homestead

It has been awhile since I updated, this time of year is so busy for us that I do not have much time to get online and make a proper post.

Things are as they should be I guess at the farm. It is still very hot and sticky, although the past few days have been a bit better. If you can consider 3-4 degrees a bit better.

We continue to extend the goat pen out every chance we get. We are hoping to get the pen eventually all the way around the east side of the barn and down about 50 yards towards the back of the house and back up. We have to do it a little at a time, due to always needing supplies and the heat being so bad after noon that it is just too hot for strenuous work. The goats are doing great though and I hope we will be having a baby or two next Spring and I can start milking. I just got work that someone has a Lamancha about the same age as Narcie for free in Tellico, so we may be hauling a goat in the back seat of the car this evening! The hog is doing very well and getting fatter by the day. I am excited that I found ways to can bacon, chops, and pulled pork as well as sausage for the winter. It will be nice to fry some bacon for a change. I had the chance to speak with my cousin this weekend, the one we got a bunch of wood from in early Spring. He asked if I ate deer, boar, etc. His wife does not eat deer and he is a big hunter. He plans to share a deer with me this winter and maybe even a boar and a bear if he gets one. I have never canned bear so that will be an interesting experiment. All of the other animals are doing well. Tucker and SadieMae are fine. Not sure if I posted it earlier but one night 2 weeks ago the dogs acted like they were killing something under my car at midnight. Chris got up, got a light and I called the dogs to me over to the bed. A puppy about 3 months old ran across the porch to me, got in the bed and slept there all night. It is a male, yellow lab mix pup. Possibly mixed with Shepard. It had a collar on as well. We figured it was lost, but no one ever showed up for it. No one on our 2 mile “block” owns the pup. I think someone set the little guy out. Well, we named him Buford D. Honeybun and he has already outgrown the collar he had on. He obviously chews every thing he can get his mouth on, which is probably why someone set him out. He is a sweet little thing and Tucker loves having the extra buddy around the get into trouble with (and blame things on). We had a problem of Tucker taking one of Drop Dead Fred’s kittens and playing with it. When Sadie took them, she would carry them to her bed and lick them and take care of them. Tucker wanted them to play with her, mind you Tucker is a puppy herself, even if she is bigger than Sadie now. We found one out in the yard one night, still alive, but obviously played with. Tucker and Buford were reprimanded and the kitten returned to Fred. The next day we got home and the kitten was not so lucky. It had gotten off the back porch (where they are safe) and Tucker decided to play again. Sadly the kitten died. So we have 13 cats now. That next day Cutie beat the crap out of Tucker’s face for getting too close so I guess that was payback. We made the decision to get rid of the chickens for the time being. They had stopped laying, a combination of age and heat I suppose. Regardless, it made no sense to carry water up there for them and buy feed for them for no reason. They were too old to be good for eating, so I put them on Freecycle. The same little old couple that took the insulation from the old house was the first to contact me. Saturday morning we gathered at the barn and caught them all in their coop. One escaped after we got it in the cage in the truck. I figured the dogs would kill it since it ran off into the woods. We left the coop open that night and Chris found it on top of the run about 9pm. We got it back in the coop and it is now waiting in a cage at Amanda’s for the couple to come and pick it up today. We are going to make some revisions to the coop this Winter and then get some new chicks in the Spring.

We went fishing at Kim and Bob’s lake a week or so ago. It was probably the worst fishing trip I have ever been on. Not only was it too hot to breathe, my Zebco rod and reel is a piece of crap! I had not fished in many years and then Chris and I decided to start fishing again. I used to own about 4-6 Zebco’s back in the day. They were all very good rod and reels. I remember being able to catch well over 100 catfish in one night with those rods and reels. So I KNEW I could not go wrong with a Zebco. I don’t know if it is because I got it at Hell-Mart when we were still going there or if Zebco has decreased its quality like everything else in the world. I had the absolute worst luck with it and eventually had to do some internal operations on the guts of the reel. It started casting 100% better. Then suddenly it stopped casting again and the slack was so bad I could hardly get even the smallest fish to reel in. I lost several good bites because of this. It was hot and I decided to walk to the other side of the lake and sit under the only shade to fish some more. I had two rods, got them both loaded with fat worms, cast them out (not and easy task for that POS Zebco), I laid the rods down in front of me and picked up my bottle of water to take a sip and relax. I mentioned to Chris that when I get the rod and reel home I was going to take much pleasure in busting it all the Hades with a hammer. Just as the water hit my tongue, I watched as my rod slid off the bank, under the water and out of sight. The catfish had to be HUGE and the rod and reel never surfaced again. My guess is, from the direction it was headed, the fish went under a downed tree, POS Rod got hung up under there and eventually the fish got off the hook. At least that is what the bubbles told me! I did not even get upset, that is how pathetic this rod and reel were. Even the rod was a POS. The cork at the handle was lose and twisted around when you needed a good grip. The only thing that bothered me was I lost a good supper and the fact that I wasted $30 on that darn thing months ago! Now I don’t have $30 to spare to buy anything else and I have no rod and reel. My plans for canning fish this Fall went into the lake, attached to the mouth of a huge catfish that not only took the POS Zebco, but my very last treble hook, which in my opinion was more valuable than the Zebco! We have no more trebles and I cannot afford to go buy new fishing supplies right now! I suppose we will have to rely on Chris’ fishing skills to feed us now (*rings hands and worries that we will starve!) lol.

I convinced Amanda she needed to learn how to quilt. She eventually showed an interest. I had a quilt top my mother had made before she died. She was planning on making a quilt out of it if she had another great grandchild. She gave it to me a long time ago, when she was first diagnosed with cancer. I figured it would mean a great deal to Amanda and Perrin as well if Amanda hand quilted the top. So I got her started on it. I just kind of figured that she knew how to sew. I am not sure why exactly I thought she knew how to sew but I was sorely wrong. I saw her sewing on the quilt and thought she knew what she was doing. Then she mentioned she was having trouble tying knots on the end of the thread. I saw how she was doing it and I would have had a nervous breakdown. So I showed her how to wrap the thread around your finger, roll it off, pull it and there is a knot. She was very appreciative. She got the quilt done and even the binding. She was proud, I was proud and Perrin LOVED it. Amanda was then addicted to quilting, much to my pleasure and pride. So she decided to go out to Hobby Lobby and get herself something else to quilt. She called me and found a design in a book there she liked, she picked out the material and called to ask how much she should get. When I got off work she cold not wait to show me what she had gotten. It was beautiful colors, some that I probably would have chosen for a quilt myself. They were earthy colors of greens, golds, creams, burnt orange. So it was time to start cutting out the quilt and I asked her where the pattern was and well, it was at the store, she had not bought the book. She did not think we needed a PATTERN! So she drew out what she had in mind and we went through my million quilting books and could not find the patter, so we took the idea and made a pattern ourselves. I cut it out on a stencil sheet and she proceeded to cut out her pieces and started sewing them together this weekend. I gave her some tips and got her started. I have to say, I am VERY pleasantly surprised and thrilled at the difference from the first one to this piece quilt she has started! Her stitching is beautiful, her pieces match perfectly at the corners and she got 10 squares done this weekend and they are so pretty! So I spent time with her this weekend, working on my own quilts. I have to say that it has been very nice to spend time quilting with my daughter. Now if I can just sucker my other daughter into quilting and maybe get Lakota started on one as well, we will have our own special little quilting bee. I plan to get in touch with Anna as well and get her pulled in (she has been trying to get me over to knit for ages and hopefully things have calmed down enough in our lives for me to take her up on that in the next few weeks.) I would love to get together with some people like that, everyone bring a dish, have a little lunch and spend the afternoon being crafty! Regardless, I am very proud of Amanda!

Our friend Joanna has left for over a week for Green Corn on the reservation. We are house sitting for her until she gets back. This means we get to drive to Tellico every day until the 23rd and feed her wolves and cat. In some ways I am looking forward to that, in some ways I am not. It will add something every evening that will take about 3 hours of our time. This means out animals will get off schedule and I will get off schedule and it is certainly a long way to drive (*thinks gas money!). We may end up spending the night up there at least once to save on gas money and travel time.

Our daily schedule is kind of crazy right now. When that happens, it causes chaos in my body. Schedules are important to my peace of mind and health. With the trips to Joanna’s every day and having to move everything we do to be done prior to noon because of the heat, it has been tough lately. This weekend we got all the barn stuff and pens and fencing and animal stuff done early. We were just soaked in sweat and hog juice by noon. Chris was soaked in goat pee as well, because Goatsie decided that when Chris was standing in the pen making decisions, it was the perfect moment to mark him as his very own, and he did. He peed all over both legs. lol So we headed to the creek and luckily on Saturday morning there was no one at our favorite little spot. It took me about 2 seconds to strip off and get in the creek to take a bath. Sunday morning we were not so lucky, and we were really looking forward to spending time in that same swimming hole, cooling off and getting clean. There were several people there so I went back down the creek and found an even better spot. I really enjoyed getting clean and cooling off in the cold creek water. I feel very fortunate that we live so close to 2 rivers and several mountain streams that are large enough to swim in and cool off.

Johnnie has been busy canning and drying apples and even canned some apples for us a few weeks ago. She has been giving us apples every few days as well. Don told Chris they were through with their grapes if we wanted to come and get some of them. So we went Saturday morning and picked grapes. I have enough to make some grape jelly and plan to do that this week. A lot of the canning is done and I am thankful for that. I appreciate having the food to can and will never ever complain about having to can food, but I am glad the canning season (other than the meat part) is almost done. I can maybe focus my time on the other million things that need to be done. Muscadines will be coming in next month. I won’t be canning any but you can bet I will certainly be eating some! Look forward to that!

The kids are back in school and appear to be enjoying it so far. Lakota is doing very well and really likes her teacher. Devin got the teacher he wanted and is doing great. Perrin started big kid school. They have staggered days this week, so Chris is at Amanda’s house all week. I pick him up at 1220pm and take him home then go back to work. He goes back full time next week and Kids Connection starts back next week so Chris will be free to get things done at the farm during the days again!

I have been more tired than normal lately and it is effecting my health a little bit. I am making an appointment with the Doc to have things checked out just to make sure everything is OK. I imagine it is just the heat, but with my health history, I probably need to make sure everything is OK. Other than that everything is fine. I am putting some pics up on photobucket later today and will post them all by the end of the day.

I hope everyone is staying as cool as possible!

All together now…everyone say…”IT IS HOT!” My goodness I seriously do not remember another summer like this for a long time. It is just draining, DRAINING all energy hot. Every single ounce of energy I have in me is drained on a daily basis in a matter of one hour after opening my eyes every morning. It has been tough. I am not even going to try to pain this picture pretty, because it is NOT. Staying cool at the house has been MORE than a challenge and when the index got around 107 we actually started spending more time at Amanda’s. I started having a little trouble breathing and my sugar dropped considerably to a dangerous level. No sense killing ourselves. We could have sat in the spring or even the root cellar, but at least at Amanda’s I can get some quilting done. There is no way I am covering my body with a quilt at the house when it reaches 110 degrees inside. It is all not worth having a heart attack over. I have been thinking about how people handled heat like this when they had no electricity. Things were a little different back then, for one, you never got used to having an air conditioner, so there was no going from 72 degrees to 105 degrees instantly. Things like that make it hard on your body to adjust. We are managing though and it has still not been so horrible that I plan to get electric. I do plan to get the house wired for electricity though. Don happens to be a certified electrician and well, if we rewire the house now and get him to sign off on it, it could save us a LOT of money in the future. In addition to that, it will bring the value of the farm up a bit and we will have it all done just in case something happens and we find ourselves in need of a fan, oxygen concentrator or anything like that as we age. As bad as I hate thinking about having electricity in the house, I do have to think ahead and am not stupid enough to think that we may not some day need to have it. So we will prepare and have it ready for it, but just not get it hooked up and turned on.

As for staying cool nights were presenting themselves to be a problem. I think that is going pretty good though. We have the bed now on the front porch. It basically is a screen that goes around a picnic table, like a tent. We have it on the end of the porch with the bed inside. I have a bucket of cold spring water beside the bed every night with a few washrags in it. When I am overly hot, I just get one of the rags, wipe down with it or lay it across my face/head/body or around my neck or wrists. This seems to cool my off pretty good. I also have a small sprits bottle with cold water and the mist from it is nice falling on my face when it is very hot. Generally about 10pm it starts cooling off enough to sleep easily and it has not been so bad it keeps me awake all night.

Other than all of that, the news of the day is canning! We have the root cellar pretty stocked with a variety of fruits and veggies. I have decided to can some unusual items this year as well. I found a cool website on creative canning and plan to put up some things like lemon chicken, bourbon chicken, sweet and sour chicken, white bean chili and even bacon! I want to get a good variety in there so we can just grab a jar of something and call it supper without spending much money at the store for groceries. When the hog is ready, I plan to can sausage, bacon, chops, bbq pork and lots of other things. So instead of having a choice of ground deer, stew meat deer or deer dear….we will have our choice of pork, beef, deer, chicken and even fish….yes….I intend to can some fish. From what I can find, you can successfully can fish in large pieces and then take it out and fry, bake or whatever with it. You can even can it like tuna or canned salmon pieces and make a salad with them. So this will be the year of experimentation!

The kittens are growing up fast and are adorable. We will be putting them outside in a few days. Sadie loves it when we stick them out for a little while. She gets to lick and love on them as much as she wants to. Butters has started sleeping with us and that is nice. Well, the head butt kisses and entire face licks at 3am are KINDA nice! lol All other animals are doing well and growing like weeds.

It is such a busy time of year right now. I seem to be doing something all the time. Besides that, there always seems to be some pressing issue that needs to be taken care of. I think I have already canned more food this year than any year before. I have started teaching Amanda how to quilt. We are getting the grandkids more since school will be starting soon. Perrin is taking Taekwondo now and has classes 3 days a week. He is doing very well and is always excited about the class. When the weather cools off a little we have to tear down the old shed and build the new one, get more wood stacked in the woodshed (luckily we have enough cut for another winter and that is a lot off our minds), we need to get the summer kitchen done, even though we will not be using it likely until next year. We have lots to do and this Fall we will be planting figs, cherries and plum trees. I owe so many emails and need to call my friend Don as I have yet to forward him the emails I sent that went into my draft folder. I feel behind on things and rushed and I hate that feeling. Busy is good, but overwhelmed it not so good!

I did force myself to take a day off yesterday. I was about to pop a cork and we had all 3 grandkids. We threw some food in the car and headed to the creek. We ended up staying all day. They played in the water, built sand castles and ate tuna and peanut butter….not together thank goodness. It was nice to get away and not have to handle hot jars and lids or sweat in the garden or fret over this or that needing to be done. It took awhile for me to be able to relax a little and actually enjoy being there, but eventually I caught myself in the water laughing and having a good time. It was NICE!

I hope everyone is staying cool. I have lots of pics I will be putting up this week.

Well I intended to set the possum free this past weekend but I ended up with more things to can than I anticipated. So she is still residing at the farm for now. I really need to get her up in the mountains so she can prepare a new home before winter and hopefully find herself a good man and have a bunch of youngins next Spring.

Devin turned 7 on Saturday and we had a party at Shannon’s house. He loved the scooter we got him and we all had a good time there. Lakota ended up coming home with us and has spent a few nights with us now. Saturday I went to the market and took Shannon with me. I stopped and talked to MillieRuth. Her cow is giving milk again and I will start picking up my milk on Thursday evenings. I may make some home made ice cream this weekend. After the party, we discovered we would be house sitting for Don and Johnnie while they went to visit his sister in Alabama. I also discovered that Johnnie is tired of canning and wanted me to have the 2 bushels of tomatoes laying in her living room floor. So we started canning and I got all the peaches done. On Sunday I started canning after breakfast and got a run of pickled okra and a lot of delicious tomato juice done. I finished up about 930pm last night. I now have a BUNCH of apples to can and in the next few days will be canning beets.

All the animals are doing fine at the farm. The heat has been hard on everyone. SadieMae has adopted Drop Dead Fred’s kittens and wants to love and lick them all the time. I have been taking her in the house lately and letting her eat inside. She is a skinny dog, has been skinny since we got her. The build she has mostly makes her that way, plus the fact that she is overly active and can jump trees. I worry about her being so skinny so I broke down and got her a bag of her favorite dog food (Rachael Ray) and we let her eat in the house. Why in the house? Well that would be because Tucker Muffins has Prader Willi Syndrome and nothing can eat anything peacefully outside without Tucker standing inches away…waiting for a morsel to fall onto the ground so she can gobble it up before it hits. I noticed this morning that it appears to be working as Sadie is actually developing some meat on her bones. I don’t know how much longer it will work though, because she is obsessed with those kittens and would rather lay in the floor and bathe them all as opposed to actually eating her food. She shoulda been a Mama. I wish I had let her have one litter of pups before I got her spayed. Last batch of kittens Fred had, Sadie retrieved one from the pond when it fell in and stayed right with it until she knew it was OK. She does not even like Tucker to be around those kittens.

The heat is still with us, although we did get a little bit of a break when it rained. The sweet potatoes and butternut squash are both doing OK in the garden. We cut the corn and it was puny because of lack of rain, but still edible. The tomatoes are coming in well and the Basil has done great. Not much stuff left to worry with in the garden. The rains have come but it is a little late for most things.

I will be canning chicken this weekend and more soup I think. I am hoping that on Sunday I can take off and make a trip to a creek somewhere and rewind. I am pretty tired. It takes so much time to can foods and before you know it the entire day is gone. It pays off in the end, you have an entire grocery store free at your fingertips, just feet away from the house that will supply you for months. Stocking that store sure takes a lot of work though!

Everything else is going great. We are tired, but that is to be expected this time of year. I will post pics some time later this week.

If you have been expecting an email from me the past month or so, I probably already sent it. I just discovered this morning when I went to my sent folder to see when was the last email I sent to a friend I have not heard from in a month, that Yahoo has been puking my emails into my draft box and almost everything I have sent out the past month or so is sitting in the draft box and was never sent.

I apologize for that and will be sending out emails to folks again beginning today. I actually was able to use my feeble brain and fix the issue without calling Obama!

Again I am so sorry for anyone who thinks I have ignored them or do not care enough to reply!

There is actual RAIN on the RADAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hot…hot hot hot hot hot hot hot! It is HOT. 100 yesterday with heat index over 105. No rain in about a month or more. Not a drop, not a single drop of rain has fallen onto the ground of my poor old dried up farm! We have been able to keep some things alive in the garden by carrying water from the spring up to the garden. 530am water is being carried from the spring to water the goats, chickens, pig, pour some in a hole for the pig to wallow in, water for the cats and possum and inside animals and even for the ponds of goldfish. We have a light chance of rain today, I think 40%. I am about ready to do a rain dance or something to make at least a few drops of that 40% fall onto my farm. I cannot imagine what hell we would be in right now if we were still on the hill at the other place with no water source. Things do happen for a reason I suppose. The spring and branch on our farm, the creek out back, it is the life of the entire farm and I am every so thankful we have those things there.

It is still cool enough outside to be able to get a good night’s sleep. Well with the exception of last night which was weird. I woke up at 130am and could not go back to sleep. It was not the heat or cicadas or even the neighbors over the hill. At 3 I nudged Chris enough until he made a noise and then asked him if he wanted to go into town to Scottie’s and get a bite to eat. lol Poor guy. We used to do that a lot, get up in the middle of the night and drive into town for an omelet and oatmeal. We have not done it in MONTHS and months! So he said yes and I was dressed in about 2 seconds. We went to the 24 hour diner, a little grease joint in town called Scotties. There are two old ladies that work there at night and I just love them. One has every health problem known to man and will tell you about every single one of them and even show you her swollen feet to prove it. The other just works hard and says things about the owner under her breath and refills Chris’ coffee over and over. We get to hear things like “this town don’t sleep”, “just when we think we can set down a minute someone walks in to eat, no one sleeps”, “nobody else mops the floor so I be darned if I’s going to”. Lol I suppose that would irritate or piss off most people but I get a kick out of it. So we ate a bite and headed back home. Chris was out as soon as his head hit the pillow. I laid there listening to Azrael purr on my stomach and Sadie sneak back under the bed. Morning came too soon! But back to the heat, the night’s have not been effected too much with it yet. We still need to get the quilt next to our feet and cover up with it about 1am. So far sleeping outside has been a pleasure with no irritation or discomfort. If it ever becomes a burden or something unpleasant, we will just move the bed back inside.

Perrin went to his first TaeKwonDo class yesterday. He has shown an interest in a few things, with this being one of them. He also wants to play every sport known to man I think. He did very well yesterday and seemed excited about the classes. He participated, concentrated, was respectful, and put forth a genuine effort in the things he did. Amanda signed him up for 9 weeks to see how he likes it. He takes classes 3 times a week. He got his uniform yesterday and was quickly informed he is to NEVER kick me or his mama and if he does he will not be allowed to return to classes. I look forward to seeing him progress with this.

I plan to take some updated pictures of things this weekend and will post them soon.

Personal note to Don: my emails have bounced back for a few weeks now. I then found all of them in my draft folder. I sent another one out this morning and am going to send one by phone as well. Please let me know if you get them. If I do not hear from you by Monday, I will call you Monday evening.

Still very busy on the farm! We are canning food as fast as we get it. We spent two days straight canning corn, beans and tomatoes. We got pickles in the crock that will be canned this weekend. I have more beans to string and think I will can them with some of the small potatoes we got from the garden. I am hoping to can a lot of soup this year as well. It is simple and easy to open up a can in the winter and make a pan of cornbread for supper. I am looking for new and exciting soup recipes to can, so if you have any favorites, send them my way! I will also be canning beets this weekend as well. Beets are actually my favorite vegetable!

I am at the point of praying for rain. We have not had a drop of rain at the house in weeks now. All of the rain barrels are empty and the garden desperately needs some rain. We are currently carrying water from the spring to the garden and all the barn animals. I sure would be nice to see the rain barrels full of fresh water again. Everything is drying up, everyone’s gardens are drying up, yards look dead. I suppose the one good thing is that we do not have to mow the yard. That in itself is an ordeal with a push mower!

The holiday has come and gone and well, I am glad it is gone. Now if only my redneck neighbors across the hill can understand it is over and stop with the fireworks every night til after midnight. Lol As I have stated before, I am NOT a fireworks person. I did not even go to any celebrations this year. I canned veggies ALL day Saturday AND Sunday! When we got done at 7pmn Sunday night, we went over to Shannon’s. Tim grilled steaks and chicken, Shannon made her wonderful potato salad, Amanda bought all kinds of goodies, I took maters and cucumbers over and we ate dinner. They then proceeded to watch some crazy movie called Zombieland, that I had zero interest in. I went to town and bought vinegar and sugar for my pickles and then did a word puzzle book until it was time to leave. They shot off some…yes….fireworks….before we left. The kids really enjoyed them. I enjoyed one of the neighbor’s dogs who apparently escaped its pen and slobbered all over me for 15 minutes (and then tried to follow me home).

Yesterday we went fishing in the early morn. We barely got a bite, the private lake we go to was just way to hot for those fish to want to move around enough to eat a worm. We gave up in a few hours. I brushed Tiny, the horse, and we visited with Bob and Kim for a few minutes. Then we got cucumbers in the crocks for pickles and decided I needed to relax with what few hours I had left off work. We headed up past Tellico, went across the Cherohala Skyway, down to Santeetlah Creek (my favorite place in the world) and found a nice secluded spot. After cooling off in the very cold water, we relaxed on a blanket, had a sandwich and some watermelon, then worked on word puzzles together until we realized we had lost track of time and it was after 7pm. The drive home was nice, we stopped to visit Don and Johnnie for a few minutes and I fell asleep shortly after my head hit the pillow.

Perrin spent the night Friday and Saturday nights. He is just amazed that we sleep outside now in a screened tent. He thinks it is way cool! He thought the cicadas were amazing creatures AT FIRST. After about 30 minutes of trying to imitate them, he was then begging them to please be quiet so he could sleep. Lol He also thought it was cool that we LET Daddy Long Leg spiders sleep in the tent with us!

All of the animals are fine, growing like crazy and bringing much needed life to the farm. It is nice to have running water on the farm with the branch and spring. If we were still at the old place, we would be in a world of mess when it comes to water. There was no water source other than a half dried up pond and a seasonal branch that ran dry every summer. No water up on the hill where the house was. Having fresh water right in front of the house is nice, very nice.

I hope everyone is fairing well. Try to stay cool (well I reckon with air conditioning that is not too hard to do lol). Enjoy your gardens, veggies, home, animals and family! That is what life is truly about!

Constant activity on the farm and we are very happy it is full of life and movement. Not so very happy about SOME events, but things could be worse.

1st some pics of the meet-up we had on the farm:

Folks enjoying themselves at the farm

Roasting the pig (it was DELICIOUS!)

This pig was stuffed with sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, celery, whole herbs and spices, injected with apple juice and apple cider vinegar, wrapped in cabbage leaves and roasted slowly over hickory.

We have been taking the kids down to the creek in the evening to swim and cool off. Luckily we live very close to the Hiwassee and Ocoee rivers and various mountain creeks. On fine Saturday, Lakota spent 5 hours in the cool waters of Spring Creek, cannon balling, diving and having a blast. Towards the end of the day she hurt her foot. That night we found ourselves in the emergency room. I am NOT pleased with the service we received at Athens ER. We arrived at a little after 10pm, because her “pointing toe” lol, was badly bruised and swollen. She could hardly walk and was in a lot of pain. There were not a LOT of people at the ER but maybe about 2 before us. We did not get called back to a room until 130am! They took 4 people in front of us that came in after us, because apparently menstrual cramps, a cough and a headache were more important than an 11 year old with a possible broken bone. They did an x-ray (at this point I had asked for a blanket for Lakota about 6 times and never received one).  When she returned from the x-ray she said he told her to hold her foot still and she informed him if she was not freezing to death, maybe she could. The nurse entered the room AGAIN without a blanket. So I opened up the cabinet doors, got out about 3 towels for a pillow, grabbed the ten or so gowns in the cabinet and opened them all up in front of the nurse and covered Lakota up with them. She fell asleep about 2am. The Doctor finally decided to show his face about 230am and informed us the tow was badly broken. I won’t go into exactly what I said to him at the time, but I was not pleased she had sat at the ER for 4 hours with a broken bone while someone who had been coughing less than 24 hours went before her. So she has an ortho boot now and crutches. This would be her 6th broken bone I think. Poor kid!

It has only somewhat effected her activity though. She was back at the creek the next evening swimming in the water. No diving, cannonballing, jumping or anything like that. She was only allowed to swim and dog paddle. The cold water helped with the swelling. She has been back several time since. Her tow is still swollen pretty bad and bruised, but she is doing OK.

Perrin turned 5 years old on the 14th! We took him out to his favorite restaurant and he had a blast!

Perrin and Amanda

Perrin turns 5!

On Sunday last week, Chris’ ex wife Laura and her husband and 2 kids stopped by. They are on vacation from MI and spent a few days at the farm. We were so happy to have them. Her and Chris are very good friends and I just adore her. She is a sweet person and I love her whole family. We sat up their tent late Sunday and the oldest boy, Vinncent (12) slept in a tent we already had set up. I had to work on Monday. They got the tour of the farm, the kids got to spend time with all the animals. Chris took them to the Mennonite Market and they picked up picnic supplies and went to the creek midday. When I got off work, I got Perrin from school and we met them down there. We roasted corn and had a great time. We all played in the water and headed out before dark. On Tuesday, I dropped Lakota off at Amanda’s house and they al stayed home and got laundry done and spent time at the farm. I picked up Lakota and after an appointment we all headed up to Tellico. We stopped by Tellico Grains Bakery and bought bread and sandwiches for a picnic. I LOVE THAT PLACE! If you are ever in this area it is a must see! Laura and Eddy (7) rode with me up the Cherohala Skyway, Chris road with Ben and all the other kids. We enjoyed the ride and went up to Joyce Kilmer. We had a nice picnic together, the sandwiches from the bakery are delicious! They hiked the trail and I stayed down with Lakota and talked about boys. lol  After that we went down to Santeetlah Creek and they set up camp for the night. We all played in the water and we hated to tell them goodbye. Wednesday they headed to Cherokee, NC and Ashville. I hope they can come back for a visit again this Fall.

Laura, Ben, Vinncent and Edwin at Joyce Kilmer

I am REALLY enjoying the screened in bedroom outside. I have slept so much better since Chris put it up and got the bed in there. Last night it was actually cool enough to need a thin quilt on the bed. SadieMae sleeps under the bed and of course Azrael sleeps right on top of me or between our heads! I fall asleep very easily with the owls, whip-poor-wills, crickets, cicadas, frogs, etc. Lakota has been sleeping on a cot beside out bed and sleeps soundly all night. We pick up Perrin today and will have him for a few days. He is always excited about sleeping outside!

The garden is doing OK, but is certainly getting dry. We will be digging the taters tomorrow morning. I hope we get LOTS! The winter squash is growing very well and we are getting tomatoes like crazy. The okra and beans did not fair well, strange enough. But we have plenty. This is our first garden at the farm and we are pretty pleased with the results. We do plan to fix a good gutter system on the barn and try to hook up about 4-8 plastic 55 gallon rain barrels to collect water for the garden and barn animals.

Speaking of animals, they are all doing well. The new kittens are gorgeous and I will get pictures of them this weekend. The hog is growing bigger every day and getting plenty of food. The goats are great. Narcie Bell lost her voice for 4 days and that had me concerned. I have no clue what caused it but she barley had a voice for 4 days straight. Then it came back to normal. I think maybe she got a briar of some sort in her throat is the only thing I can figure. She seems to be perfectly fine now. We plan to continue fattening the hog up and will plan to slaughter and can the eat this Fall. I hope Goatsie and Narcie mate next Spring so we can start milking next year. We have a hen setting on eggs right now so hopefully we will have chicks in the next few weeks. Road Kill is wonderful and growing like crazy. I am posting some pics I took this morning. I plan to keep the sweet baby another week or so and then plan to set it free in a safe area. I got teary eyed this morning when I was thinking about it, I swear the darn thing is just the sweetest little thing ever. I cannot stand to watch it live in a cage and never have a chance to have a free, happy life and get married and have kids and all those things all animals should have the chance to do if they choose. But when you look at these pics, you can imagine how hard it will be for me.

Road Kill

Road Kill

Road Kill

Chris helped Don get his corn cut Monday morning. I think he said they had 56 dozen ears. They shucked it all and Johnnie and her sister in law canned it. They are finished with the corn, but there was a bit that was still on the stalks, too small to pick days ago. Chris went over to help Don with something this morning and they picked the rest of it for us. I will be canning it tomorrow. I also got a bunch of cucumbers to go with my own, so I will be canning that as well. I need to make pickles this year. Along with all that will be the beans I will be canning this weekend. So needless to say, busy does not describe how things are right now for us. I am just thankful we have the stuff to can and know it will be on the shelves in the root cellar for winter.

So for now, harvest time! We are busy, things are moving at high speed. We are enjoying things and even though we still have tons of work to do, we are able to find some time to relax and enjoy things a little bit.