August 31, 2011

Supper has just ended and the kids are falling asleep. It’ll be an early to bed sort of night around here. The central air is running full bore. Hopefully these will be the last days that it will be needed this year. Summer is now behind us. This coming weekend will mark the official end of summer to many. I for one, am glad to see it go as I’m no fan of heat. While I prefer spring to fall, only because I know what comes after the latter, I welcome the cooler 70’s for highs. I can’t think of a more perfect day than a sunny, breezy day with occasional puffy clouds; highs in the 70’s, low humidity, and an evening cool enough that a small fire feels nice.

Karen had a fun day today as it was her first day back to school. Preschool here starts later than regular school. It sure whooped Karen as she is already in bed – fully admitting that she is very tired.

We’ve been having troubles with fruit flies as of late. I finally threw in the towel and today we turned to chemicals and bug bombed. It did the trick. While the house was fumigating, we took a trip out to see our new wood ground that we just received permission to enter. It’s pretty rough going. There aren’t any real paths or drives of any kind. You just drive out into this great expanse of pasture. It’s very beautiful out there. We had to make our own paths. Since we received an inch of rain or better yesterday, the ground was soft in spots, so we were careful not to tear anything up. We were in 4X4 and had to climb up over hills that we couldn’t see the other side of. The weeds were tall so we were hoping that we wouldn’t drop a wheel in any holes or ruts. The tires on our pickup aren’t the greatest. If I keep cutting out on this guy’s land, I’ll be forced to invest in better tires.

We were told that the best dead wood was on the southwest side of this property. It took us awhile to figure out how to access this area. Again, we had to make our own path. There are a few really nice oaks that are blown down, and at least one hickory. There were a few hickory trees standing there next to the downed ones. Now I have a spot to pick hickory nuts as well. I wish I had a book that helped me identify trees better. Most books help you if the tree is alive and you can see the bark and leaves. However, for trees that have been dead a year or two, there is very little help. A book that showed the grain of different woods as well as colors of the grain, etc. would be very helpful.

Tomatoes are going gangbusters. We took a break from them today. We’ll be back to canning tomato sauce tomorrow. We had a jar break in the water bath canner last night. Oh, what a mess that made!!! Nothing tastes better than homemade sauce that we make here from these vine ripened tomatoes.

We’ll be doing tomatoes tomorrow, then Friday night we get all the kids for the holiday weekend. Saturday includes a trip to Waterloo to pick up an heirloom and a few other things, then Sunday and Monday will be days to work on firewood. Next week when the kids are in school, I plan on being out with KinDee cutting firewood. I’m hoping that we can fill the basement come mid to late October, just before the snow flies! Finding this source of better firewood is a God send! It takes a load off of my mind.