September 25, 2011



Rising sun on western clouds




Purple thistles gone to seed

 

The first day of Fall just sneaked right by without any fanfare, which isn't too surprising since Summer was acting like Fall and now Fall is acting like Summer. The last few days have been in the low seventies and we have woken up to 58. I'm sure this is all because I put flannel sheets on the bed.


Mentally it has been very difficult for me not to do any wood cutting, splitting or stacking for the past two days. Of course my back would not have let me do it even if I had tried. So I re-arranged my craft area to make room for the boxes of things we brought from storage. Unpacked a few of them and found places for the paper, fabric and other items. Most of what we have left in storage are craft supplies, genealogy information and shop items. There is also a trunk, a table and a cabinet. I can put the cabinet in my craft area, but I haven't a clue as to where the table and trunk will go. I have become pretty handy at using all available space in our 1025 sq ft home, but some things just will not fit. Once we finish the other two walls in the great room, I will have a 24 ft long shelf across the front of the house for many of our large knick-knacks. Like our antique bowl and pitcher that we just brought up and is still in the box. It will most likely stay in the box on the porch until the shelf is up. Then there are all of my candy molds. About twenty years ago I had a small, in-home business of making molded chocolate candies. I loved it but just did not have time to keep up with it, work a full-time job, raise a teenager and be a wife. Maybe now I'll have time to get back into it for gifts. I know my friends and family would love that! Right, Sandy?

Sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning, there was a pack of coyotes nearby, howling and yipping for Dinga and Jesse to come out and "play." It's only the second time that has happened since we have lived Up Here and it is so eerie. Like something out of a Stephen King novel. Especially since I am by myself, as JB left for Seattle Friday morning.

Went for our usual after dinner walk with the dogs Friday evening, and hiked up to the peak on our south ridge to make up for the exercise I didn't get during the day. Saw a rubber boa snake on the trail which looks and feels like it is make out of soft, brown rubber. It's about the fourth one I've seen this year, which is fairly normal. Still have seen only the one rattle snake, which is not normal but very good as far as I am concerned. Saturday afternoon we went for a short hike down the road, but didn't see any snakes or wildlife of any kind.

Finally found the booklet to our dehydrator in one of the boxes we got from storage. Definitely want to try dehydrating some potatoes, squash and fruit. Don't know if I will get any canning done this year except maybe some more pie filling. That is so easy and so much less expensive that buying it ready made.

In the past week JB has had to switch from the electric coffee maker to the manual Melitta in the morning. The lazy Fall sun isn't on the panels any more at 7:00 a.m when JB wants coffee, and the automatic maker one pulls too much electricity, as does the toaster oven. The Melitta makes great coffee, just takes longer as we have to boil the water to pour over the grounds.

Sure wish I new how the wasps were getting in the house. They started swarming this weekend, which is late this year, and Saturday I must have swatted 15 or 20 of them up in the loft. I haven't finished caulking all around under the eaves yet, but will do that as soon as my back is feeling better. I think they are getting in around the windows also, I just can't figure out how.

The pine trees are have started to shed our fire starter - their needles - just in time to harvest for our winter fires. I rake them up into big, plastic garbage bags and store the bags in one side of the outhouse for the winter. And I clean our yard at the same time. We only had a fire in the wood stove the one day so far, but I know the cold weather will be here for the season in the not-too-distant future.