Thank You Each for Your Sincere Concern

Prior to today, the most amount of email I've gotten in response to this blog concerned soap making and butter churning. But certainly the post yesterday on my fin has gotten the attention of many of you. I really appreciate all the concern and well wishes. I'll post a few of the comments I received below, so that you can see how much my blogger friends love me and are concerned for my well being:

1 - "I always knew you were special, but I had no idea you are half fish"
2 - "Sharks have fins toooooooo!"
3 - "Will you join the circus now?"

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. And speaking of pictures, I drew one to help explain my fin:



I swear to you, this is a very close duplicate of the picture the specialist actually drew for me. I am not lying. At any rate - that Homer Simpson looking thing is actually all the root openings at the top of my tooth. The fin is that thin line coming out of the top of one of those roots. Apparently it is almost microscopic, but for some reason Dr. Specialist is convinced he will see it when he slices my gum open and be able to remove it. I asked him if there is any chance he will cut a nerve and I will have facial paralysis the rest of my life. Do you know what he said to me? He said "There is always that risk, but it is very rare". VERY RARE??? That's exactly what he told me about having a freaking fin in the first place!!! Great.

So now you know all I know about my fin. And my fin and I are just fine for now. After next week, my fin will be nothing but a memory and I will be able to smile about it - that is if my face isn't paralyzed from the surgery.

It's been snowing here all day long. I would guess we have about 3 - 4 inches now. I took some pictures earlier - they appear kind of hazy because it was snowing like crazy when I took them. Oh - and they were taken out a window because, as you know, I don't do snow. I put them up on the website and will add more as the day progresses. Check them out!

OK, I've got to go start making some soap for Valentine's day. Just wanted to check in with y'all and express my appreciation for all the warm thoughts and wishes and concern for my fin. I can sure feel the love.

Bee Free,
Penny

Snow - Do I Really Have to be Included in This?

I think I've mentioned before that I'm not a cold weather person. I really just don't care for cold weather. Not only do I really dislike bundling up in clothing, cold weather is.... well... cold. Not a big fan of cold.

But it's cold on the homestead today. And it's snowing. Snow is really pretty if you are on the inside looking out. But I don't like actually being in the snow. Not only is it wet, it's.... well.... cold.

Everyone in this house handled this snowy day differently. Elvis handled it like this:




Priscilla handled it like this:




And Bernie handled it like this:



Bernie's always showing all of us up by gathering firewood and stuff.

And I handled it by taking pictures in the house and out the windows. The truth is, I did actually venture out. In keeping with my vow to make it outside at least one time a day during this winter, I decided to get all brave and stuff and wander down to the mailbox to check the mail.

Our mailbox is at the bottom of our driveway - which is about 1/4 of a mile. It's ordinarily a nice walk, so I decided I would bundle up and head on down there. All by myself. I was in a pretty good mood as I put on my snow boots. By the time I got them laced up, I was starting to get a little annoyed. The are bulky and cumbersome, and as I tried to put my snow suit on over top of the boots, my mood was deteriorating. By the time that ordeal was over, I was starting to sweat and get pretty irritated. I finally managed to cram my hands in my gloves and get the stinkin' top of them over my sleeves. As I put my hat on, it got hung up on my pony tail. I squished it on and loudly announced "Well THIS is fun!!" as I stormed out the door.

As I walked along in the winter wonderland, looking at beauty of our woods covered in a white blanket, and listening to snow gently hitting the tree limbs as it floated to the ground, I couldn't help but wonder why the hell I was outside in this mess! But in truth, my spirit lifted with each step and pretty soon I was skipping right along with a song in my heart. OK, maybe I wasn't skipping, and the song was likely me wheezing as I huffed it up the hilly drive, but still, I did get in a better mood.

Our mailman is unpredictable and unreliable on a good day, so I have no idea why I expected a snowy day like today would be any different. He had not shown up yet. I closed the mailbox and started back to the house. About halfway up the drive, I saw Bernie walking down towards me. He probably figured I was in such a foul weather mood that I would throw myself in front of the first car that passed down our desolate road and he came to check on me. We stood and watched the snow for a few minutes and then headed back to the house. I threw a snowball at him and ran in to the comfort of our fireplace. Which is where I plan to stay until all this snow melts.

Bernie did head out early this morning to do a little turkey hunting. But apparently the turkeys don't like snow either, and stayed holed up the whole time he was out there. He came in looking like the Abominable Snowman, but he looked happy, if not a little disappointed.

Hey - here's a picture of the cheese we're making. It's been sitting for about three days growing it's rind. In a day or so we'll dip it in wax and get it started curing. You can't really tell in this picture, but it weighs about two pounds:




That's a good looking cheese right there now!

We're safe and sound on our homestead and watching the snow from the windows right now. We have a nice fire going and are hunkered down for the evening. I can't wait until spring.

Bee Free,
Penny

Welome Back to the Homestead - Now Get Busy!

After a few days of near 80 degree weather, we were socked by a Nor' Easter. High temperatures in the 30's and a few inches of snow. Ugh. It started snowing Friday morning and didn't stop until after dark Friday night. The roads were treacherous, so after fighting our way home from work in the city on Friday afternoon, we decided to hold off until Saturday morning before heading to the homestead to check things out.

We managed to get to the homestead just fine, but about halfway up our 1/4 mile driveway, we were greeted with a tree that had fallen across the road. It was a small pine, but it was large enough to block our way. We got out, walked up to the house, procured the Trail Blazer and a chainsaw and headed back down to clear the road. Here's a couple of pictures of the tree and Bernie attacking it with his chainsaw:





After we got the tree cleared, we rode on up to the house, only to see that another tree had fallen on the backhoe. So much for a nice relaxing weekend on the homestead. Fortunately, it landed on the boom and not the cab. There didn't appear to be any damage to the backhoe:



Bernie checked out the backhoe and realized the battery was dead. We put a charge on it, and he cut up as much of the tree as he could. Once the battery is charged, he'll move the boom and hopefully bring the remaining piece of the tree down to a height he can reach.

UPDATE: Bernie got the battery charged and he managed to get the backhoe from under the tree. Then he took the bucket and beat the tree down to the ground so he can cut it up later. I put some pictures up on the website. Check them out.

I mixed up 4 pounds of deer jerky earlier this week, and today I put it on the dehydrator. It's smelling pretty darn good, and should be finished in a short while.

Next weekend we'll be here Thursday night so we can hook up with the company coming out to replace all the tires on the backhoe. It will be a nice 3 day weekend out here, and we're really looking forward to it.

The bees are doing great. I am so proud of them for making it through this most bizarre winter. Today they were really busy cleaning out the hive and dragging the dead bodies out. I'm sure they are looking forward to spring. I hope it's right around the corner.

Bee Free,
Penny

What a Difference a Day Makes!

When we went to bed last night we were under the distinct impression that we would wake up to some "snow showers". When we woke up this morning, we found we had accumlated between 7 - 8 inches of snow showers! It was quite a surprise. And it continues to fall as I am writing this. The weather people are telling us to expect sleet this afternoon. I hope they are as wrong about that as they were the snow showers. Snow is so much easier to deal with than ice is.....

The snow is absolutely gorgeous and I snapped a few pictures when we headed out for fire wood and to clean off the bee hive entrances. It apparently sleeted first, as the hive entrances were encased in ice under all the snow. We dug them out - and the girls are snuggled down so tightly they didn't even venture down to see what all the noise was about. I hope they stay warm.

Well, we would normally head back to town today, but it's looking like we'll be stuck here at the homestead over night. We should be able to dig out by tomorrow and get on the road. Hey, there are certainly worse places to be than here!

Bee Free,
Penny

Andirons from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

You may recall that last week I mentioned that Bernie and Tex were working on making us some andirons that circulate heat for our fireplace. Well, they did - and those andirons produce more heat than I would have thought possible. These are certainly not the prettiest andirons you will ever see, but I'm here to tell you they work! I put some pictures of them up on the website, and included some pictures of the modifications we had to make. If you are using a fireplace and looking for a way to get more heat out of it, I highly recommend making these. I estimate they spent about 4 hours making them and they are a heat generating machine!

I also started a Homestead Pictures - II project on the BackToBasicLiving website. I really had to do that as Homestead Pictures - I was getting rather lengthy!

And finally, we checked in on the bees and they seem to be holding up really well in all this cold weather. We saw a few of the girls out and about. They were cleaning house and dragging out the poor little dead bees that didn't fair very well in all this cold weather. I put a picture on the website of the girls around one of the hives. Scroll to the bottom and click the picture dated 2/24/07 to enlarge it and you can see the girls around the entrance, and the dead bees just outside of it.

It's only Saturday, but I wanted to get the pictures up for you to see. I can't wait to sell our home in town and get out to our homestead full time. I plan to keep you busy looking at pictures of all our projects and reading my words of wisdom and wit on homesteading.

Bee Free,
Penny

Ice is Really Hard - and I've got the scrapes and bruises to prove it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had snow last week that covered the ground about 3 inches before it turned to sleet and covered that with about 3 inches of ice. Well, while we were at the homestead this weekend, it flurried off and on and left about 1/4 inch of snow on top of the ice. That actually seemed to help with traction and I found walking outside a little easier. Until this morning.....

As we were packing up to leave the homestead and get back to town to do our chores, I decided to take some leftover dinner rolls out to the edge of the woods for the birds to nibble on in this ice covered tundra that used to be a nice feasting area for them. As I stepped outside, I tested my first few steps and discovered it really did not feel that slippery. The little bit of snow that topped the ice really seemed to have helped. I went prancing out towards the woodline and suddenly my feet started sliding. My legs twirled in place, similar to those cartoons characters that hit a slick spot, and all of a sudden BAM - my legs came flying above my head and my rear end made an abrupt contact with the ice. I threw my arms out to catch myself and as I slid across the ground I could not help but wonder if those birds would appreciate my efforts, or if they were laughing their feathers off. When I finally came to a stand still both elbows were bleeding and my rear end hurt. I hurled the bread as far as I could and slowly made my way back into the house.

Once we got back to town, Bernie took off to Tex's house - they're going to make some andirons for our fireplace that will blow the heat back into the room. I'll be sure to post pictures of the final product on the website. I stayed home to clean house with achey elbows. We're going to talk to some real estate agents and pick what we hope is a good one to sell our home in town for us. We really need to get this thing sold - keeping up two homes is really wearing on us.

I took a picture of the beehives while it was snowing. I really hate leaving the girls there by themselves, but they seem to be doing pretty darn well on their own! I also updated the website album with a picture of snow coming down on the homestead.

Oh - if you haven't signed up to be notified when the blog is updated, you can do that on the right side of this page.

Bee Free,
Penny

A Taste of Real Winter at the Homestead

We were supposed to be at my step-daughter's wedding in Mississippi this weekend. But Old Man Winter had other plans and dumped about 3 inches of snow, covered in 3 inches of ice on Shenandoah Valley. We had planned to drive down, and that little bit of a winter blast came at exactly the wrong time for us. We're pretty unhappy about it.

Since we can't be in Mississippi this weekend, we decided we needed to come out to the homestead and make sure the ice didn't bring a tree limb down on the house or cause some other disaster that needed tending to. We worked Friday and then took off for our homestead immediately after arriving at our home in town and throwing a few things in the truck.

Bernie has a Ford F-350 Diesel Duely. We call it the Big Growlie. I honestly didn't give much thought to it as we headed towards the homestead until Bernie said "I sure hope we can make it up our driveway." Gulp. I had not thought about the last 1/4 mile that would bring us to our little home there. The driveway is curvy - and it's got a couple of steep hills. And we had a fair amount of ice. Oh boy. This could get hairy. And it did.

Bernie made it to our driveway just fine. The first thing he encountered was a steep hill down. He put it in 4 wheel drive and took it very slowly. We did pretty well - no real slipping or sliding. He made the sharp turn to the left with little trouble and then started up the incline. We only made it a few yards before the wheels started spinning and we stopped moving. I had managed to NOT say a word (very unusual for me) and to just about tear the arm rest off by holding on so tightly. Bernie backed down the hill a little and then gunned it forward. We were sliding a fair amount, but he kept it under control. It took quite a few minutes to make it up the steep hill, but he did it! I almost passed out from holding my breath, and my hand went numb from clutching the arm rest so tightly, but we made it safe and sound. Whew!

We unpacked the truck - which was not as easy as it sounds as we were skating on ice the entire time. The ice was so thick we didn't even leave feet print!

We weren't expecting to be here this weekend, so we had very little groceries. We decided we needed to go to town and buy a few staples. I ran around and took some pictures of our Winter Wonderland, while Bernie went down to check out the road. He came up to get me and let me know he would feel better about it if we spread some gravel on the steep hill that goes up at the end of the driveway. So we grabbed the Trail Blazer, loaded it with gravel a couple of times, and spread it on the hill he was concerned with. He also decided that he would leave the truck at the beginning of the driveway when we returned. So when we finished with the gravel, he drove the truck down, and I followed him in the Trail Blazer. He made it up the hill just fine!

We got the necessities we needed at the grocery store, which mainly consisted of beer and the ingredients for lasagna, and we headed back to the homestead. As planned, we left the truck at the front of the driveway, loaded the Trail Blazer with the groceries, and headed up to the house.

I've got the lasagna on now and it's snowing again to beat the band. But it's a long weekend for us here, because of the President's Day holiday. So we'll have all day tomorrow to shovel snow and do fun things like that.

By the way, we checked on the bees. I was actually pretty scared when we first saw the hives. They were covered in ice, and the bottom openings were sealed with it. But we removed all the ice and put our ears to the hives and could hear them angrily buzzing inside. These poor little girls are obviously NOT cold weather creatures. I told them it makes no sense to me - they are RUSSIAN bees for heaven's sake. That seemed to make them buzz even more angrily. I quickly removed the ice and left.

Bee Free,
Penny