An American Homestead

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.