Quiet Saturday

Well, after the Homecoming parade, picnic, and game yesterday, Pat's birthday was down at the Hub. I got home at 1:30 AM, but got right back up at 6:30 AM as always. We are out of bread, so I needed to bake more. If changes happen the way I hope this week (further, deponent sayeth not!) I might have my time cut shorter than ever, so today I am baking two batches - one whole wheat and one oat batch.

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary. Mike is cleaning the 'stuff' out of his closet to go up into the attic - suitcases, an army cot, all sorts of things under the list of 'don't need now, will need later or someday'.

It was chilly this morning, and poor little Phydeaux's old bones just couldn't take it. So I put him in his turtleneck sweater, which of course he hates. But he has stopped his shivering and is nestled on Mike's bed. He dug his way under the comforter and sheet. It feels good to me - lovely and cool - and I am quite comfortable. Sasha is of course a walking rug - but she got so jealous when we put on Phydeaux's sweater that apparently she wants one of her own! LOL Dogs.

Looking forward to the real cooler weather....

Beans Tonight

Ummmmm. I love baked beans.
But I don't just pour 'em out of a can, uh-uh, no way. First I fry up about a pound of those ends and pieces of bacon til it is crispy. Then I toss in some onion, and brown it. Then I mix up my sauce - I can't tell you what is in it of course, but it is sweet and tomato-ey with a peppery spicy tang to it. I cook that a little bit til it gets almost like caramel, then add the beans, stir well, and either bake or simmer til done. With cornbread or home fries - you have a meal.

There used to be (and maybe still is) a brand of beans that comes close to mine called (I think) Big John's. It started with some of the same stuff I do, but somewhere along the way they lost that additional bite, that flavor tang. Maybe its all that bacon grease; who knows?

So since we went to town this AM, I fried up some of those end pieces to make bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches (with homemade oat bread, toasted) for a quick lunch - and used the rest of the bacon to do the beans.

Think I'll make a BIG pot for the town picnic Friday, and see how it goes over. They have to know the new girl can cook, after all! And maybe some itty bitty corn muffins, too....

The Onions! Are Up!!

Yup, there they were this morning. After an inch of rain last night (I'm surprised any hit the ground, the wind was blowing so hard) I had little green stems, about half an inch high, popping up in 2 neat little 25 foot long rows.

Ummmmm. Onions!

I finally managed to get out on the roof of the porch and paint my bedroom window frames. Then I had to repaint the basement door one more time; it really looks good. Mike was kidding me about the red rectangles on the door; I told him that since the door and the house were white, and on the north ( incoming snowdrift) side, we might need to find that door! Being very fastidious, he put a good strong molding around the door too, to help seal it against the weather.
So I painted that red, too. You can see it even behind the storm door. 'Way kewl.

I made sausage and gravy and biscuits and green beans for lunch, and then I cleaned up - really scrubbed - the kitchen. I love the smell of Ajax powder; so clean and 'bleachy'.

I went out and scrubbed that area rug one last time. The smell is gone at last. I need to hang it now instead of having it spread out on the pallet on the sawhorses and spray it down really really well one last time tomorrow; that should do it for the smell and the colors. It practically glows now.

Tomorrow we have to go to Valentine to pick up Mike's meds. We also need some cash - it's Homecoming on Friday, and we need to go to the town picnic and then the game. The picnic is free but the game is $2 apiece. Plus Pat and Cathy and I are going out again this weekend for Pat's birthday... I need to bake some more bread, there's only 2 loaves and some rolls in the freezer; I'll do that Thursday I guess.
So busy...
But - the onions are up!

Work and storms

Well, yesterday was supposed to rain, first in the AM and then in the afternoon/evening, and by golly it did! (I love Weather Underground - FAR more accurate than the Weather Channel -who diss us in the flyover states- or local advisories.)

So I was down in the basement all morning, testing and repairing Christmas streetlights (look, the Village takes a whole DAY to set up alone, with the train and all) and reorganizing my craft bucket while I was doing laundry. Ever wash 'snow'? well, my snow blanket had to be washed, and the miniature skating pond had to be finished, and I am working on a ceramic water feature for Enid (shhhh) using seashells and ceramic pixies. I've got all the 'plug-in' lights for my ceramics in one central place, as well as all of the feathers and ready-to-use decorations for the mistletoe balls and baby wreaths. I then put together another wizard and a dragon.

Then I made a big lunch, and carried the old door outside to set up for Mike to work on. We have a lot of old doors and trim and boards to play with, and the door into the basement from the outside needed replacing. It faces North, the side that takes the most wind, sand and snow in the winter. So we had a nice solid door downstairs, with good sturdy panels - all it needed was to have a new doorknob and some faults repaired and to be planed and sanded down a little. So I put it on the back of the pickup for him(wide area, easy to stand next to and work on), and Lake was in the corral looking depressed. I got the curry brush and went into the corral and started brushing her. Within 5 minutes I was surrounded by horses! Everyone wanted attention too. I felt like a teacher in a schoolyard - no, wait your turn, Lake gets hers first! Pretty Boy and Snip kept nuzzling my neck and elbows and back, while Willie just stood there patiently. There are honeybees everywhere, and a group of them decided it was time to harass the horses. There were four that stayed around Snip, and they were flying toward his legs, butt-first, to sting him! There was some kind of residue on the horses; like thick sticky pollen, and all I can figure is that the horses found a honeybee nest and had plowed through it. It was a little difficult getting them all brushed with them stamping and biting at the honeybees, but I did it. They all got their 'love' and neck cuddles and - then I went back to the laundry and the basement.

Mike called me when he was done and we took the door to the basement doorway and hung it. Then I had to take a break from the basement work - the door needed paint. So I got my white paint and the red for the trim and went to work. By the time I had gotten the first coat on, it started to cloud up - from the southwest, big black dark clouds. Arrgh. So I put the second coat on, and scurried back inside.

The wind picked up to 40 mph, and the warm air inside the house dissipated quickly as the cold wind blew through it. It was lovely and cool inside, and blustery and stormy outside. The lightning was incessant and the thunder rumbled across the hills, echoing. We got a little hail for about 20 minutes, and then the rain came. The wind was blowing so hard out of the West that it made a mist out of the rain! After about two hours, the rain stopped, the thunder faded into the east, and all was silent except for the slow drip-drip of water from the trees.

So today I'll put another coat of paint on the door, and drain the water barrels from last night. It is lovely and cool and clear this morning, 63 degrees, and no rain is predicted for at least 5 more days.

Best Laid Plans

Well, I WAS going to paint my bedroom window today. Fortunately it is big enough that I can crawl out onto the porch roof from the window, and even though it is slanted I can stand on it and work.

But today the turkeys were back, and a stray dog came up into the yard to chase them, and they went up into the trees. Tammy wanted pictures of her Dad in the corral, so I took them this morning while I was out taking pictures of the turkeys in the trees. Then we emptied the horse trough that I had brought up to the porch two months ago when it was so hot - Mike can't swim any more, but I wanted him to be able to sit on the porch and at least be able to put his feet in the water when he got hot. The sump pump put the water out to the poplar and ponderosa pines and the red dogwoods, while I watered the rest of the yard. Then... we decided to tackle the woodburning stove.

It is a cast iron stove, and as you can see there was a leak up in the roof that dripped down onto the stove - or, it would have, were it not for the cast iron pot on it. Unfortunately the pot had apparently overflowed onto the stove a couple of times, and underneath the pot was rusted some, too. The bottom pipe was rusted pretty badly, so it had to be replaced - not a fun thing to do! - and the cast iron would have to be cleaned.

Now, I've owned cast iron all my life, and the one thing I know about it is that, as heavy as it is, it rarely rusts through. You can take a rusty piece of cast iron, wire brush or steel-wool it down, and then oil it and heat it and it will come back black and shiny. Of course it takes a lot of effort!

Of course the pipe wasn't cast iron, so it had to be replaced. We'd bought the pipe, we just weren't looking forward to wriggling it out of place, and wriggling the new one in. There was a bird's nest in the cast iron flue, so we cleaned that out and reused the flue - not hard; drill two holes in the pipe and insert the flue. As rusty as the pipe was, the flue wasn't damaged at all. I thought it odd, though - we've had two fires in the stove since we got here, and the birdsnest didn't burn up! Another nice thing to see was that there was no creosote in the pipe, all the way to the roof vent 12 feet up. If a fire has very little smoke and the fire doesn't have a lot of green, damp, or 'oil' wood like pine, it will burn cleanly and not leave the residue that starts chimney fires and burns down houses.

It took us about two hours all told to do it - and then I spent another three hours scrubbing out the pot and lid, and seasoning them in the oven with oil, and then scrubbing down the stove and oiling it, too! So here's the finished project:

We got on the roof and "buttered" the roof seal with heat caulk; it had been tarred in place but the tar had cracked, hence the leak.

But we weren't done yet! D'ya see that little door in the wall to the right of the stove? That door is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen, because it opens onto a wood box that has been built onto the back of the house. So I got the wheelbarrow and filled it with all different sizes of wood from the pile next to the garage, and then brought them over and stacked them neatly into the enclosed wood box. Mike helped me by breaking up the twigs into small pieces and putting them in a bag that we keep in the woodbox so that they are readily to hand. No spiders or other late night surprises in the house because of the wood indoors, and dry wood that is readily available without having to go outside, especially in snow.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow, Maybe I can get to that window and paint!

Turkeys, Paint, and Tacos

Here's what we saw first thing this morning in the garden -

The turkey chicks are getting BIG - ready to crown a dinner or two. I've been putting corn out to keep them around; now I'll aggressively put it out the last 3-4 weeks to help sweeten the meat and fatten the little darlings. I hate the feathers but I do love the meat!

And I did get up on the ladder and onto the bay window overhang to paint; now my house looks like a candy cane and seems so clean and pretty. It will make a perfect backdrop for my Christmas lights! See the scarecrow on the front porch? The garden where the turkeys were is on the right, right behind the East side porch, which we call "the verandah".

And since it's Mike's day to cook, he has planned tacos, burritos, and refried beans. This and the Hub are about as close as we get to "fast food" any more!

We went to Valentine yesterday, and the road back was so beautiful with all of the leaves turning bright colors. We want to go down to the river this weekend and take pictures of the glorious fall colors here. The reds and yellows are iridescent!

But right now, I've got to go turn off the sprinkler on the onions and get washed up for dinner!

Fear

I am NOT afraid of heights! (Yes I am.) Am NOT. I am afraid of falling, which is NOT the same thing.

I happily worked the night shift on computers in a 48 story building, and used to go up to the top to look out over the city to watch the snow come in like a rolling wave. Once we scurried up to the top to watch the newspaper warehouse burn, down the street from us - all those heavy giant rolls of newspaper could not be put out for hours, and it was awesome to watch, especially because it was snowing -hard! - at the time. I wished I had a camera, the shots were just amazing, clouds of snow and burning paper whirling about... I danced on the roof, loving the height and the beauty of the night. I love going up in a glass elevator on the outside of a building.

When I was a kid I was the original "yard ape", always up a tree and climbing higher. I felt safe in trees - lots of branches, I was a tiny thing, and I could climb higher than anyone else. When the wind blew I would hang on and rock to and fro with my tree...

But going up on a ladder scares the bejesus out of me. Long narrow ladder. Wide load butt. Topheavy front end. Paint can in one hand, paint brush in the other. Big flat feet that catch on rungs going up, slide around them going down. Why do they make rungs round? Good. Lord. I have to paint those window frames and the trim while it is still pretty out. Have. to. The house looks unfinished. I'm all there is, the only one, to paint or climb. The windows are too small to be climbed out of. It's all up to me. If I could, I'd lash a rope around my waist and rappel down the house, but I can't. So it's the ladder or nothing. I'm not afraid, I'm not, I'm not. (Yes I am.)

Remember - three rungs up over the edge at all times. Remember - angle it outward, the wider the angle the less chance of slippage. Who made roof tiles so slippery? Who thought gutters should be so fragile? Watch the window, idiot.

OSHA like the idiots they are say no ladder should be climbed after it is raised until it is tied off first. Tied off? Who's up there to tie it off? How did they get there without a ladder? OSHA. Paugh. What a typically brilliant, totally useless idea.

OK, my hands are gripping the window frame like it was my last dollar. I can't paint like this. Let go. Let. GO. Don't drop the brush. Don't drop the bucket. Don't drop the brush INTO the bucket. Put the bucket on the roof overhang. Careful - it's slanted. There. Paint out to the left. Good. Paint out to the right. Good. Paint very carefully in the middle. Good. Now climb back down and move the ladder three more feet and do it again. WAIT - don't forget the bucket!

I am not afraid of heights. Am. NOT.

Impatience

I knew better, of course, but I had to go check to see if the onions were peeking up through the mulch today. It will be at least two weeks before they get big enough to cut; and we may get a frost by then. But that's OK, they'll be back in the spring. They're not up yet. A watched onion never sprouts, I guess!

Almost time to cut the sunflower heads for the seeds. Once dried, I'll save the largest head for seeds for next year, and shell and use the rest for bread additions, even nuts in cookies and on top of casseroles. It's the simple things we like. Like the bookcase Mike built this week, of old discarded boards that were on a shelf in the barn, the boards that perfectly match the rustic and rough grey wood of the walls of the family room; it looks like it has always been there.

I can't dig the horseradish until the first killing frost. That great big patch out there is calling me like a siren, though. There are so many things I want to try with it; not just making my own sauce (I do love the extra bite of horseradish on my rare meat), but seeing if I can make the sinus cures and muscle rub with it as well. Fascinating stuff, horseradish. Who knew? I've never grown it before; the clay soil in SC just wasn't conducive to it. But here in the sand it grows wildly, even almost joyfully, springing up thickly, its wide leaves waving and rustling in the wind.

But something I've never read about and am thinking about - you know, you can make capascin oil, from ground dried hot peppers mixed with vegie oil and water, to keep animals and bugs off of plants; it is a natural insecticide and deer don't like it either. But I'm wondering if the flavenoids in the horseradish root will do the same? I've made up my mind to experiment with it. The gophers don't seem to like the roots much, they avoid the patch; and although the grasshoppers and cabbage moths seem to like the leaves, they don't seem to handicap the plants any. Still, it is worth a shot - use what you have.

Working on cutting up old clothes for a quilt pattern right now. So many of this size, so many of that size. I made quilts when I was a young mother the first time, so long ago that it has taken a while to come back to me - but it has. Why cut up perfectly good material into tiny squares or strips and resew it? Because, out of something old and faded or outgrown, or otherwise useless, I can make something warm and pretty and uniquely - me.

For some reason Lake has been spending a lot of time in the corral; she seems to like our company more and more. When I took a break, I went out and brushed her again today. When I am old and decrepit, and can't do anything but wander around and eat, I hope someone feeds me Oreos and brushes my knots out too. Her constant presence of course has increased my supply of readily-available horse poop; it's time to rake out the barns and corral again, add it to the compost pile. I dug into it yesterday to dump in some potato peels and egg shells, and the still-green-but-dying petunias from the pots; everything was turning black and really working. No poop smell, just dirt and rot. Can't wait until the leaves start falling - more mulch for the pile! Scraping it off, digging more in, digging it down deep then repiling it, is keeping it warm and active. Temps are in the 80's all this week, with 50's at night; good for rot.

I just love how things can be recycled over and over; green to poop to green again, seeds to flowers to more seeds and more food, maybe even horseradish to help things grow. Old clothes instead of being sold for a quarter or thrown away, turned into something useful again. Watching and waiting for the natural cycle of growth and death and rebirth is so like the advancing season of fall, when things start to slow a little and one can think about the changes, plan for them.

I am learning patience again.

Rain and Cold, Oatmeal and FIRE!

Yesterday wasn't really COLD, but it was wet. Wet all day, a slow and drizzly rain without wind.

Oatmeal was on sale a few days ago, 10 lbs for $10. I snatched it up, right next to the 25 lbs of sugar for $12 ($5 off), more honey and raisins. So yesterday morning I made a huge batch of oatmeal/raisin/pecan cookies while I was puttering about the kitchen. I will buy things on sale - IF I normally use them. And in the fall and winter, I use a lot of oats; must be the Irish in me, but I LOVE oats. I made a huge casserole of garlic pasta, Italian sausage, and limas in my Alfredo sauce, and that went well with the tomato/basil bread and cookies.

While I was preparing lunch, the bus went by from the school, loaded with football players. Oh, crap, I had forgotten about the game! So I went out to Mike's shop, told him lunch was ready, and reminded him of the football game. We ate lunch and went. It is only five blocks to the football field. It was great fun; everyone was there, and the bank put on their annual brat grill (free to all) but we had already eaten. The Color Guard from the American Legion presented the colors, and even in the rain all cowboy hats, baseball caps, and even helmets were off the heads and over the hearts of everyone there. We sat in the drizzling rain and cheered the team. I had gotten a heads-up from my friend that THIS was probably not the game to watch, as this visiting team always beats our Cowboys. They are some very big boys, and Mike and I discussed the need for our local fellas to maybe switch to pork chops, collards, and cornbread for a dietary supplement. In the programs we were handed at the gate, there were the names of every single player - and his parents.

Oh, yeah, they don't play the games at night, but at one o'clock in the afternoon. I like this better - no sitting in stands as the sunset blinds the players, and no slowly freezing to one's seat as the sun goes down and the nighttime kicks in. We don't have a large set of bleachers here - but it's ok, everyone brings chairs or sits in their cars facing the field, and blowing their car horns on good plays. We don't have built-in bathrooms, but semi-permanent portapotties, and no one complains. We are a small town and no one demands anything, because they know who pays for it and who has to take care of it.

So anyway, we went home after the game. The house was very chilly, damp from all the rain in the air. So I fired up the cast iron stove. Now, this stove is small, the firebox can only take wood that is 22 inches long or less, and it sits in a corner of the family room on a brick pedestal. But with a pile of twigs to start, and three small logs, and some careful adjusting of the flue and intakes, I had a rich red glow from it in half an hour, that lasted until we went to bed at 11. With the placement of an oscillating fan in the doorway, the whole house was at 70 degrees all night, and even this morning.

Today I'll put my onions in, and tonight there is a 'smoker' at the fire station. This is a big barbeque they have every year, $10 a head, all you can eat, that lasts from 5 PM until 1 AM, beer extra. BEER? Yes, BEER - you see, the folks here are grownups and don't need a nanny government telling them that they are not mature enough to drink. The fire department has to pay $40 to renew their liqour license annually. LIQUOR LICENSE? Yes, that's what I said. Again, no Eastern cramp about "what if" or "we have to MAKE them responsible" - since they are all adults, they are assumed to BE responsible. And - gasp - they ARE. Imagine that.

As we slide into fall, the smell of the woodsmoke from our fireplace, the sounds, activities, and smells of fall are everywhere. And we are loving it.

The Poop on Walking Onions

YAY!! The Walking Onions are in!!!

Booo... I haven't dug their bed yet. Dangit. Oh, well, they'll keep for a couple of days as long as I keep them cool...

Walking onions - those heirloom buggers that actually produce bulbs at the TOP of the stems, not the traditional root crops. No Vidalias here - the soil is too alkaline, and sandy to boot. Of course, the winter weather would nosh all over any sweet soft onions anyway.

But walkers - man, have I waited to try to grow these! Non-hybrid, which means that I can save any production and replant without worrying about any silly extra stuff getting in the way of yearly production. Long keepers, too; up to 12 months if harvested and stored correctly. And the best part - this fall I can use whatever comes up as green onions (betcher I'm gonna dehydrate those too); and then when the winter snows hit and they die back, I simply wait til spring when they will pop back out again.

They are called "walking onions" because when the tops fall over with the bulbs attached, they plant themselves where they fall if they are not harvested. So they will 'walk' all over a garden if not maintained.

I DID manage to get one of the pole barns and the main corral raked up yesterday, so I have horse poop in a pile, along with my kitchen compost, right by the garden gate. I soaked it for three hours yesterday. It should be working and getting 'hot' even in the cool weather - lotta green, lotta bug activity, lotta brown material and the manure, mixed together and sopping. So by spring till-in I should have some good water retention as well as nitrogen working. There will be residual calcium, too, from all of those eggshells.

Finally living in a place where one can pile up horse poop without comment and complaint from the neighbors! Of course, once it starts working, the only thing it will smell like is - dirt. I've thought about making those cool little manure animals for decoration and fertilizer, since I have the molds and kiln and all - but 1) I'm selfish about my poop, and 2) I don't think the smell of baking manure would be too - um, inspirational!

Hi to Blondie and Casey, and much love. You guys would love it here! I'd ship the bread but it doesn't have preservatives so it might not hold up well! Guess you'll have to come out to get a taste... grin.

What a Sweet Smell!

It is dismal outside, cool and cloudy and drizzling rain. A perfect day to harvest the basil and thyme seeds and leaves. A quick stripping, and into the dehydrator the leaves go, into small 'snack' Ziploc bags the seeds go, for next year's tantalizing and spicy harvest.

Today is Sunday Chicken Buffet day at the Hub; as the leaves dehydrate and fill the air with their sweet and spicy odor, we'll go down and socialize. Yummers.

Doing laundry too, nice smell from the basement of clean linens, rising up thru the basement door and wafting on the slight breeze from the dryer vent outside.

And to top it all off I dug out my "fall" decorations; they have been tightly wrapped in plastic bags and boxed up since last winter, along with the cinnamon/clove potpourri I sprinkle liberally about this time of year. Ummmm...

All these smells make me want to make some spicy tomato/basil bread, to get ready for holiday baking already. The house just glows with soft lights and intoxicating, comforting scents. Ahhhhhh. A perfect "gloomy" day.

Sigh.

Well, it has been a busy two days. Pickled some and dehydrated some yesterday, then helped Mike load the pickup with not one but two loads of trash for the dump (Wednesday is Town Dump Day). Then I went to a meeting in Valentine; while I was there I got a library card.

Today I started in immediately this morning, canning the last of the pickles and making more bread. Today's bread was light and moist and poufy, rising pretty quickly and prettily, and came out with a flaky crust and a soft interior. I made noodles to go under the last of the beef stew for lunch. Then after lunch I sat down to rest.

20 minutes later my right shoulder that had been grumbling since the dump trips finally, truly started to ache. Sigh. So I helped Mike tarp the wood pile ( it is supposed to rain tonite) and put everything away. We walked the yard with the puppies and talked about what we were going to do with the stuff around his shop, still piled on the North side.

Barb came up and told us that there was frost at their ranch this morning in the valley. Frost already! We didn't get any here - their ranch straddles the SD line north of us. But still....
I checked on the sunflowers; they are doing well and in two more weeks I should have scads of seeds. As long as we don't get a killing frost they should be OK.

I stll have to clean the kitchen ( I am a messy pickler and baker!) and grind the dehydrated tomaotes into powder. When it rains tomorrow I should have everything pretty much done and can look at the book I got from the library. It goes deeply into the plants, soil makeup, and water resources around here. I need to have an idea of the different things I need to look at - like soil acidity/alkalinity, etc - and figure out how to deal with the 'noxious weeds' here. I'd rather starve them out than try to fight them continually!

So tomorrow I can rest this silly shoulder. Maybe!

Weird Day

Well, I had made a huge pot of beef stew this morning (we eat our big meal at lunch now), and had been out in the pasture gathering up deadfalls for the woodpile. I was just about to sit down to lunch with some of that homemade bread, when I noticed the oddest thing - there were 10 students with a guy dressed in jeans and a tie standing outside my pasture gate. I put my food up (Sasha is not above eating off of a plate on the counter) and wandered outside. It was the HS class from across the street, learning about plants. I invited them into the pasture where there are lots of different plants - everything from yucca and cactus to grasses and black-eyed susans - and we talked about weather and soil types and how they influence zygonomic and rhizonomic reproduction. The teacher was thrilled that a mere passer-by put so much emphasis on plant life, and was as excited as he to share that knowledge.

Yeah, I know, everyone thinks I just like plants. No one knows that I have studied everything from plant structure and flavenoids to plant reproduction, alkaline vs acidic soils, and even CO2 uptake by plant life. I may have started life with a green thumb - but I have to know WHY things work the way that they do. That's why I want to put rabbits in my greenhouse - not only do they provide one of the most perfect organic fertilizers on the planet, but because rabbits in a greenhouse can contribute up to 300% of the necessary CO2 for plant 'green-up'.

Anyway, it was a good day, and they will be back now that they have permission to come into the pasture and explore and learn about plant life.

I finally ate my lunch an hour later, and then went out and cut up that firewood, did two loads of laundry, and picked up that wire fencing that was strewn about in the east garden and propped it next to the garage. Whew. Guess I'll have to pickle and bake tomorrow - plus I have a Community Development meeting in Valentine tomorrow night. Sigh.

Cold Front

My brother's house in Soda Springs, ID, got 3 inches of snow yesterday, from the same cold front that swooped though here last night. Of course he lives in the mountains, even though we are basically on the same latitudinal line. So all that cold front did here was drop an inch of really fast, really cold, really driving rain over a couple of hours - and take the temps down to the low 40's. It is supposed to get even cooler tonight, down to 38. Perfect for the first of September!

Yup, time to start getting out my fall decorations, and getting ready for Halloween, and planning for the cool weather. I dried apples yesterday and made apple/pecan bread, and I've still got some more cucumbers to pickle and tomatoes to dehydrate. Then of course we have stopped buying the soft and gummy loaves of store bread, so there's bread to be made. We also were informed by Lake the horse that she was NOT happy about all of those huge tree limbs near the watering trough, so I'll be gathering those today.

Lots of things to do today and this week, and with the coolness in the air, it will be so much easier to move and get them done. Looks lke the summer with all of its grinding heat is over. Now comes the real work!