Monday, September 25, 2017

Monday Journals



September 22, 2017
  I ended up watching Alissa’s two all day Monday, Tuesday afternoon until 8:30 pm and then again for a few hours on Wednesday.  I had a large truck load of items to price, get inventoried, take to the antique mall and arrange on Tuesday.  In addition, I needed to move all the personal items I could possibly get moved so that Alissa and Gab and the girls have room for their things.  We filled a trailer with furniture that included antique pieces that Mike had bought for me after we got married and some comfortable living room furniture for the SW Virginia home.  We bought the house furnished which enabled us to “move right in” and start enjoying it the day we closed, but the furniture that was left was extremely uncomfortable.  In addition to all the moving, Mike decided it was a good time to mow down about 50 acres of hay and get it up.  He was stressed, I was stressed and we both worked our behinds off for three days, pushing to get everything done.  We left early Thursday morning and Mike’s mom came along for this trip.  We stopped once we got in the area and had brunch at our favorite, little, family restaurant called “Crooked Oak”.  Upon arriving to our SW Virginia home, we had a trailer load of furniture and personal items to unload and put away.  This home is much smaller and already pretty full and it also contains lots area where walls have been knocked out to provide a more open living area, but that has left very little wall space, especially since the wall space that is available has heating registers on them.  Still, this little traditional farm house is much easier to decorate and arrange than our Octagonal home in Staunton.  It was a challenge getting things in and arranged but Mike and I were much more relaxed by this time, having gotten the most pressing things done earlier in the week.  He and I have completely different ideas about most everything, and arranging furniture is no exception.  Fortunately, we were able to laugh about it and in the end, came up with an arrangement that made both of us happy.  Every time Mike’s mom comes down, we are so busy that we don’t have time to really entertain her, so we decided this time we would take her and do some sightseeing and things she enjoys.  We do have some more contractors coming to give us bids on a roofing job and some gutter work and Mike is still working on cleaning up brush and trimming trees.  I’ve been finding homes for the small items, clothes and books I brought from Staunton.  The good news is the most pressing of the moving is done.  We still have a lot to move, sell, give away, and do at both places but we can take our time in doing it and not feel so pressured now that we have space made for the kids.  It will be an adjustment as we learn to all live together in Staunton, and we will have times when I am sure we will find it difficult.  I especially need me time of being totally alone and it’s doubtful I will have that there, but I think this will be so good for the Little People.  

September 24, 2017

This has been a week too full to journal.  I really miss it when I am not able to process my thoughts on paper, but some weeks are just so busy being lived, that there’s no time to write about it.  One day while Mike’s mom was with us,  we took some time off in the afternoon and went to the Blue Ridge Music Center that sits just right off the parkway near Galax, VA.  Mike and I have been there once before for their “jam” session where a group of local musicians get together and play and sing.  They meet from noon to four on Friday during the summer and until the last of October.  (They have groups each day of the week that play for free but on Friday it’s a collage of locals who just get together to sing and play.)  I so enjoy listening to the music even though as a younger person, I swore I would never listen to blue grass.  Guess we do change as we age.  My feet were stomping to the music and my hands clapping and eventually one of the leaders of the group came back and asked me if I wanted to join one of the ladies who was “flat footing” which is a traditional style of dance in the Appalachian Mountains.  I did want to join her but was pretty sure I would make a fool of myself, so I declined. 

Saturday, we got up early and went to a local auction.  It was an estate sale held on the grounds and it was a warm but beautiful day for it.  We stayed for a while, but prices were too high and we had forgotten to bring a chair for Mike’s mom to sit so we didn’t stay all day.  Later that evening, we went back out to our regular Saturday evening auction house.  I just wasn’t into it that much for some reason so the best part of the night for me was the great, big banana split that Mike and I shared. 

After attending several weeks ago the Rock Church at Buffalo Mountain that was one of the rock churches built by the Presbyterian Preacher whom I recently read about in the book THE MAN WHO MOVED A MOUNTAIN, we received a card in the mail inviting us to come back to their homecoming service this weekend.  Mike’s mom is currently reading the book and we thought it would be fun to take her and let her see the church for herself.  I fixed potato salad, sliced homegrown tomatoes and homemade BBQ meatballs made with our beef.  There were tables piled high with good, mountain cooking for the potluck meal.  I noticed the other dishes of sliced, homegrown tomatoes, several dishes made with pumpkins, apples, cabbage and other mountain grown produce.  It was a delicious meal and the people were so friendly and kind.  Mrs. Anna Childress is the daughter in law of Bob Childress, and will be 95 years old in the next month.  She was one of the first people to greet us when we first came to the church and is such a delight.  She is bright and energetic and I would never guess her age.  She and another gentleman whom they brought from the nursing home for today’s service were both members of the church back in 1929 when it was built by Bob Childress and the community who worked together to provide a building for worship.  After church, a man and his wife invited us to their home when they found out that we enjoy historic old houses.  They live in a gorgeous, new home that is solar heated with radiant heat in the floors and all the amenities, but they started out in a little cabin that is over 150 years old and made of Chestnut logs.  They were kind enough to show us their homes and give us a jar of honey they had harvested from their hives. 

We didn’t get a lot done over the weekend in the way of work, but the time was well spent with Mike’s mom and it felt good to get some of our sentimental pieces of furniture moved and into our new place.  As much as I loved our Mountain home before, having these sentimental and well-loved pieces as well as some of my favorite books moved and in place makes the place even more comforting. 

One event that's not comforting and yet still fills me with awe is the howl of a coyote.  This morning before daylight a pack of coyotes howled just outside our window.  My mind fears the day when we bring our livestock because I know the coyote are bad and will put them at risk.  Yet, the wild, free, unrestrained cry of the coyote has always been a thrill to me. 

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Soul Full Sunday

Image courtesy of Miscellaneous Media Photography

“History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.” 

~ James Fenimore Cooper,The Last of the Mohicans.  

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Old Fashioned Rhubarb Pie





While I love Strawberry~Rhubarb recipes, I also like just a straight forward Rhubarb Pie.  Mike brought me some beautiful rhubarb from the garden and asked for a pie this past week, so I thought it was a good time to include my recipe here on the blog.

Here is my recipe for pie crust

For the filling, you will need the following:

5 Cups of Sliced Rhubarb
1 1/4 Cups of Sugar
5 Tablespoons of all purpose flour
Cinnamon to taste if desired (about 1/4 teaspoon)

Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon together then toss rhubarb in the mixture until rhubarb is coated.  Pour into the bottom pie crust.  Dot with butter if desired (about 1 o 1 1/2 Tablespoons) and then cover with top pie .  For fun, youthe  can use a pie bird like I did in this post, or you can cut vents in the top crust, or prick with a fork after you trim and seal pie crust along the edges.

Bake at 375 degrees until the crust is golden brown. 

Delicious by itself or served with fresh cream or ice cream.  Or, if you are like my husband, just put pie in a bowl and pour milk over the top of it!


Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Barn Restoration

We are making slow progress, but at least it's progress on the barn restoration project.  We had the lumber delivered this past week for the board and batting.  In the mean time, Mike worked on cutting off the limbs from the old elm that are hanging above the barn.  Probably the smartest thing to do would be to take the elm trees out completely but they have been there for so long that I hate to cut them.  The old corral fence was falling apart from age and weather and Mike started taking it down and cleaning up around the area.  Years of decaying leaves and dirt that has washed from the hills had covered up a concrete pad outside the shed along the back.  Mike dug down enough to find it but will wait for the heavy equipment that we will bring down from Staunton once his nephew is through with it (His nephew is in the process of building commercial chicken houses.)  The barn is actually not in bad shape.  It needs a few structural repairs (nothing major that we have found) but mostly just a good cleaning and face lift on the outside with the new lumber.  With a few days in Southwest Virginia and a few days in Staunton each week, it makes it hard to get as much done as we would like but we are trying to enjoy the process.  






Monday, September 18, 2017

Monday Journal Entries




September 13, 2017

I missed two days with the journal because I have been so busy I haven’t had time to write.  We got back to Staunton just in time to unload the car and head for church with Alissa and the girls.  It was the first time I had seen Analia in her new glasses and she was so precious she about took my breath away.  I don’t know what it is about those thick, big, glasses on that little girl that makes her seem so sweet and vulnerable.  Rory was all smiles when she saw us.  Mike held Rory for a while but when she got fussy, I took her and stood at the back of the church with her so that I could keep her quiet during the service.  She almost went to sleep, but she is too nosy to give up willingly.  She was desperate to see everything. 

After the service, I made lunch by throwing together a bunch of leftovers, some of which I had brought with me from our Mountain Retreat and the rest I scavenged out of the frig and freezer.  We ended up with a decent meal and Alissa, Gab and the girls were there with us.  I needed to work but was so tired having been going full speed since 4 am, that I took a nap instead and when I awoke, it was time to get ready for Kenny’s 60th birthday party.  Kenny is Mike’s older brother and the one who was recently diagnosed with the tumor.  I am never one for parties, especially when I know I can’t just disappear on the sidelines somewhere but I felt it was important and wanted to be there to celebrate Kenny’s day.  I survived although I was very uncomfortable. I know I make reference to my being an introvert often, but it affects my life so much.  I am so extremely uncomfortable in a crowd of people.   Mostly, the folks there were farmers and that gave us common ground to talk about, so it wasn’t too bad.   

The twins didn’t come on Monday but Analia and Rory were there. The twins are getting busier and busier with their scheduled lives and come to stay less and less.  They are scheduled to stay with us every Monday but often have other things going on that keep them away.  Kristin said they were starting soccer and they go to preschool three days a week.  I always regret that we don’t get to spend as much time with them and I appreciate the time we do have.  I am thankful that we have been able to be a part of their baby, toddler and preschool years.  Hard to believe they, along with Analia will start kindergarten next fall. 

 Rory is so busy, always thinking of new ways to stretch her wings.  She crawls well and pulls herself up and stands holding on to things now.  However, when she grabs on to something unstable, she ends up taking a tumble.  I probably am an overprotective grandma but I hate for her to bump her head and cry, so I try to stay right with her and keep her from falling.  The good news is she actually slept an hour and a half for me, which she does at home but never does at Tita’s house.  Analia also laid down and took a nap.  She took her glasses off before she laid down and when she woke up, I wondered if I would have to tell her to put them back on.  She looked at them several times after she woke up and then picked them up and put them on.  Poor baby just can’t see without them and when she has them on she is always exclaiming in amazement at things she hasn’t seen before.  When the girls left Monday evening, I wanted to walk but felt like I had too much work to do, so I didn’t.  I got supper made and a few things done around the house and the animals tended to before heading off to bed.  Walking and writing have both taken a back seat to more pressing things this week. 

Tuesday I awoke bright and early and started going through things, packing, and getting space ready for Alissa and Gab to start moving their personal belongings in.  I finished cleaning out the room that Analia will use.  The only thing left to do is remove the furniture, give it a thorough cleaning and move her bedroom suit in.  That room had held all my sewing supplies, machines and material.  All of that has now been moved to our Mountain home. Mike voiced his disapproval that the contents of my sewing room took precedence over other things that need to be moved but I told him there was a method to my madness.  Really, I just wanted to get one room completely cleaned out and that room was the most logical one to work on first since we are still currently living out of the master bedroom.  Mike and I had talked about moving into the downstairs bedroom but decided to leave that room as a playroom for the kids (as it is currently set up) and we will transform a portion of it into Rory’s room.  When I do have all four kids, I keep them all downstairs where they have a lot of area to romp and where it doesn’t matter how many toys they pull out.  I think this will be a better arrangement as far as the kids are concerned because it really won’t change things for them.  Fortunately, the upstairs guestroom that Mike and I will move into didn’t need to much in way of preparation.  There were some boys clothes I had held onto that had been given to us when the twins were born but Hudson never needed them.  They are kept well supplied with more clothes than they can wear and it seemed a shame to hold on to them when someone else might be able to use them, so I simply donated them.  My Christmas wrapping paper and some old pictures are in that room but won’t be in the way for now and I started moving some of our personal belongings that we will need in Staunton over to that room.  Hopefully I will get the remainder of our things moved out of the master this coming week. 

 I also got the linen closet cleaned out  in the bathroom. It was emotional going through and finding a pillow case that my friend Liz had made for Josh when he was young.  It is a tree frog print.  He loved frogs.  I held the pillow case for a few moments and thought of how he liked to sleep with that on his pillow on his bed and how his head had laid on that pillow case many times.  I thought about giving the pillow case to Analia but decided to wait until she is just a little bit older.  I also got some items priced and over to the antique mall.  While I was there, I rearranged the displays in our booth to make things look a little different.  Tuesday afternoon and evening I had the girls again while Alissa went to class.  Mike separated the cows for me which left them bawling all night for their calves and the calves returning their call.  They only get separated once a week so that I can get milk for our personal use. 

Mike has been busy this week farming.  He planted orchard grass in one of our hay fields and he also planted orchard grass for a neighboring farmer while he had the drill on the tractor.  He had hay to deliver to a new customer and he found out that the customer was a world renown violinist.  He said the man was very nice and told Mike that he would love to give our grandchildren lessons and he invited us to come to a concert sometime. The night Mike delivered the hay, he had a flat on the trailer and had to leave it and go back for it the next day.   

This morning, Wednesday, I got up and milked the noisy cows who were happy to be reunited with their calves afterwards.  We had moved the herd to a field across from the fields where they usually are kept.  They have to walk across an area that is not fenced to get from one pasture to the other.  With the ornery bull in the mix, I try to give them a wide berth, and especially when a cow is in heat, like today.  Typically, I would wait for Mike to help me, but I wanted to get the cows back with their calves and decided to do it by myself.  Of course, everyone did exactly what I wanted them to do EXCEPT FOR ONE!  That’s usually the way.  One little heifer decided to go walk about and it took me a good twenty minutes and a trip around the house before I finally got her reunited with momma. 

I didn’t get the floors swept and mopped last week in Staunton and with all the moving in and out we have been doing lately, things were pretty tracked up and dusty.  I managed to get the downstairs swept and mopped well and the kitchen done.  The rest is going to have to wait for another day.  We had intended to get away from Staunton around noon but once again, it was around 4 pm before we headed out.  Traffic was bad on 81.  It usually is no matter what day or what time of the day we leave.  I thought for sure there was going to be a wreck in front of us when twice a big semi cut a car off really short.  I have a friend who tells me that she prays for us to have safety as we travel.  I’m feeling pretty certain that an angel must have been on a mission today to answer my friend Dianne’s prayers. 

When we finally arrived at our Southern Virginia home, we saw tracks where the ground had been cut into by a big piece of equipment and about the same time Mike and I said, “I bet the lumber is here!”  We both jumped out of the car and ran to the barn to see.  There it was our beautiful, aromatic, freshly cut lumber for the board and batting on our barn.  After taking a picture to document the progress, I sat down on the lumber and made my nightly call to my grandma.  It got dark as I sat there and all the stress of the beginning of the week started to melt away.  That’s what this mountain home does for me and just one of the reasons I love it so. 

September 14, 2017

I’m up early with cup of coffee in hand sitting in my favorite spot to journal where I can eventually watch the sun finally make its way over the ridge.  I jokingly told a friend that the sun is up for an hour before we see it in this hollow but there wasn’t a lot of exaggeration in that statement. 

As we made our way south yesterday and got into the more mountainous regions, I began to see color in the trees.  It took me off guard.  Of course, it’s almost October and the trees change sooner along the Blue Ridge.  The pop of color was beautiful and I am looking forward to experiencing our first fall as home owners in the Blue Ridge.  For the last four years we have taken a day or two and made our way to this area to enjoy the fall colors.  Four years ago I never would have dreamed that we would now enjoy the views driving to our own mountain home. 

With the cooler temperatures at night, we have not been sleeping with the windows open.  I sure do miss hearing the sounds of the creek at night.  It always helps me sleep better to hear the water moving.  The springs on our property create the stream that runs down one side of our house and empties into another stream running which forks just beyond our bedroom window as it is met by a stream that runs through the neighbor’s property and flows from there under the road into “our” stream.  We are told where the two streams meet and widen that there are trout and good fishing.  Everything is so grown up there and snaky that we have not been able to go down although there is a gate there where at one-time folks could walk through.  I don’t know that we will ever get everything done we would like to accomplish with this place, but one of the things we would like to do is clean out all that brush so that we can walk down to the fishing hole. 

September 15, 2017

Yesterday evening I got the sickest I have been since I had my gall bladder issues a year ago.  Gall bladder surgery was a life changer for me.  I know it’s a simple surgery, but I had suffered on and off for over twenty years with flare up and couldn’t get any doctors to take me seriously because my symptoms weren’t typical and they wouldn’t run any tests.  Part of the problem is that I am pretty tolerant to pain and avoid doctors.  Every time I go to see a doctor, I act tough and downplay the symptoms or when I get really desperate and explain how bad I feel, they have always looked at me and exclaimed how healthy I look and dismiss me as a hypochondriac.  At any rate, other than feeling more fatigued, having less energy, and aching more than I did before I hit menopause, I have had a really good year.  I have not even had a cold and very little allergies with which to contend.  I don’t know if I had a 12-hour virus or if I ate something that was bad.  I tend to think it was the latter.  I had a sandwich left over from a restaurant and I pulled the meat off of it and ate it early afternoon.  It wasn’t long and my stomach began to hurt.  Being who I am, I figured I would just ignore it and go on with my plans to hike up the back forty.  I took the hardest route to push myself but by the time I got through walking a couple of miles, I was feeling pretty bad.  I sat down to talk to my dad on the phone and by the time I got off the phone, I felt so sick I didn’t even want to stand up.  I ended up laying around and sleeping the rest of the evening with my stomach pretty messed up.  I woke up feeling fine this morning and I really think it was the meat from the sandwich that I ate but that could just be coincidental.  I have eaten very little meat that over the past four or five years that we have not raised ourselves and I am usually very careful about what I eat when I eat out, mostly choosing vegetables or fish unless I know where the meat has come from.  When I began eating this way, I did it for a short term just to bring awareness to locally, humanely grown pork and beef.  After a few weeks of swearing off “feed lot” and “high production” meat products, it became a lifestyle for me.  Over the years, I occasionally eat something so as not to offend a host or I give into a moment of impulse when a particular dish looks really good and I have almost always regretted the decision.  I am not sure why, but most of the time when I eat meat from other sources, it affects my stomach.  At any rate, eating the meat off the club sandwich definitely proved not to be in my best interest and I don’t think I will be wanting to regress to eating mass produced, preservative filled meat for a very long time.

I didn’t accomplish a whole lot yesterday before I started feeling bad.  I did some housework and made a run to the dollar store.  The dollar store is only a couple miles down the road and is really the only source to purchase things economically unless we drive about 15 miles.  There are a couple of general stores where you can buy everything from expensive gas to expensive canned goods but I try to stay away from those places.  I know for years they were the only places for the locals to get anything if they didn’t want to drive far and I am sure the new dollar store has really hurt their business.  I also made Mike a rhubarb pie before I started feeling bad.  He had brought the fresh rhubarb from Staunton and requested it.  I often make pies with an extra thick crust around the edges because we both love the crust so much.  I know that is not “the right” way to make it but we sure do like those thick edges.  I told Mike if I entered any pies into a contest I wouldn’t be able to make those thick crusts.  Yesterday I did it “the right way” and made thin edges on my crust by cutting off the extra instead of turning it under.  I took those pieces and rolled them out, spread butter on it, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.  After baking it crisp, it’s a delicious treat right out of the oven.  I remember my grandma do this when I was a little girl and it brings back good memories. 

Once again, we are disappointed in the local contractors.  The man who is to work on putting up the board and batting on the barn has so far been the only person to show some real effort.  I had high hopes for the contractor that came by last week and spent several hours talking to Mike.  However, when Mike talked to him yesterday, he was already backing out of the jobs that we had hoped he would do for us. 

September 16, 2017

This day is the anniversary of the day when Josh’s heart stop beating here on this earth and the hearts of all who love him were broken.  As a mother, I believe his soul is as peace but my heart still cries out over our loss.  I have learned to live with my grief, but that event forever changed my life and the lives of those who love Josh.  Especially on this date am I forced to remember just how evil this world is and I must call upon Grace to help me to have the strength to allow Love to rule.  I have seen a lot of tragedy in life, things that have shook my world to the core and things that I recognize in others as leaving deep pockets of grief.  Even with the pain, I know that I have so many good things to consider and that has always been a source of strength to me.  Recognizing the pain that others face helps me to not be so self-centered that I think I am the only one who hurts who has suffered tragedy.  As humans, we all know pain and we have all been hurt and wronged and felt the sting of a cruel world.  It is what we do with the pain that comes from that grief that marks us as men and women of character or as individuals who take our hurt and then hurt others in return.  I wish that I could say that I have always chosen the path of Love and that I have never allowed self-pity, pain, selfishness, anger, bitterness or any other negative emotion to choose for me a path other than Love. I wish that I could say that I never allowed my grief to wear me down and the loneliness and isolation that come from grief cause me to act out of character or with lack of judgment.   I can’t say that I have always made the right choices but I can say that I keep coming back to believing, no matter how many times I feel pain brought upon me either by my own actions or the actions of others, that Love is the only option for real peace.  After nine years, my heart still doesn’t understand how darkness and evil can be so strong.  The events that led to Josh’s death are unfathomable and heart-wrenching.  I know as I proclaim love and take my stance again violence, against the taking of human life in any form, and as I follow my beliefs that Jesus taught a radical way to live (something I aspire to but have never come close), that many (I would say most) think I am absolutely insane.  The only time I have “lost my mind” is when I stop letting Love rule my heart.  That is when I have done the most damage to myself and others.  Living out love is never easy but it’s always easier than choosing hate, revenge, or selfishness. 

This must be the day to journal about my feelings because in addition to the grief that surfaces today with the nine-year anniversary of Josh’s death, my heart is feeling the bitter sting that comes from the reminders that resurface from those who want  to find  fault, tear others down, meddle in the business of others with intent to criticize, condemn or even worse, destroy. 

I am a “writer”.  Writing has always been as compulsive to me as breathing.  It’s not a matter of choice.  It’s a matter of survival.  I have chosen to write in many ways over my lifetime that have allowed my thoughts, feelings and the events of my life to be “public”.  When one does that, one subjects themselves to the critical and gives those individuals the fuel to pick one’s life apart.  Mostly I think people are pretty careful about admitting where they get their information.  They don’t want to be perceived as a voyeur.  But social media especially gives a tool to those whose jealousy, hate, selfishness or condemning nature seeks out way of destruction.  Life has shown me time and time again just how low people will go to destroy the lives of others and many times they do so with the pretense of actually caring.  At fifty years of age, while I still believe the answer is Love, I’m also very tired.  When I was young, I wanted to change the world.  I would read books of how people went into the most challenging of situations and would come out triumphant in some manner because they persevered.  I saw the glory of the end of the story and didn’t really understand just how hard it was to live a lifetime, sometimes, before seeing results.  And often, the results were only seen in retrospect (and sometimes not at all).  My idealism downplayed the struggles because I could read and see that loved triumphed at the end of the book.  Always, always, always I have held to idealism and hope and bounced back to believe that I can conquer the world no matter what has hit me.  Here is what I now I understand:  Love is still and always will be the answer but it doesn’t always have a storybook ending and mostly it is misunderstood and often it is abused.  Still, love is the only right way to meet every aspect of life.  The more I understand Love and the more I allow myself to let love flow through me, the more it doesn’t matter who understands or accepts the story that is my life.  And I think, that at fifty, I understand that Love doesn’t change the world in the ways we sometimes imagine, but it changes those who choose to allow love to be their guiding force. 

So, on this day of remembering my greatest loss and reflecting on the hurt caused by others to my family not just from that event but from others in the past years, I pray that God renews in my heart the desire to choose Love above any negative response or emotion.  I pray that He will help me to continue to forgive when others pry, condemn, stalk, gossip, misunderstand or flat out seek to do evil or harm.  I pray that He will take the hurt and bitterness that I feel and transform it into an aggressive Love that burns like a hot fire. 

September 17, 2017

Two events worth remembering from yesterday I wanted to get down in my journal:

 I saw an elderly lady yesterday to whom I had sold some Christmas lights at a yard sale.  I mentioned to her that I remembered her.  She said that she hadn’t decorated for Christmas in years after her husband was killed, but that her great grandchildren were now living with her and she wanted to decorate for them this year.  I responded that “Little ones make a difference, don’t they?”  She responded that indeed they did.  She went on to explain that it was her great grandson’s birthday and that he was two years old.  She spoke his name.  I heard it and I smiled inside.  Mike asked her, “What did you say his name is?” To which she replied, “Josh”.

How sweet.  A simple little reminder that although we may be consumed with grief, there is still joy in the world.  While my heart was hurting over our loss of our Josh, this great grandmother was celebrating the life of her Josh who was bringing her hope and joy and causing her to feel like Christmas again.  It’s these little reminders that life continues that bring me hope and joy. 

Last night we went to the little auction house that provides me so much people watching entertainment.  Every weekend, the auction house has a 50/50 raffle and the money is split between the winner and the staff.  Mike and I never participate.  Last night, the money was going to be given to the auctioneer’s granddaughter whose baby had been born ten weeks premature and is in NICU.  At first I said I wasn’t interested in a ticket but then decided that I wanted to give some money.  I suggested just giving them the money but Mike suggested going ahead and getting the tickets and then if we won, we could donate the whole pot back to the baby.  As I said, never do we buy raffle tickets or gamble in any way other than farming, which I always say is the biggest gamble of all.  When the ticket was drawn, we won the winning ticket and were able to donate the proceeds back to the baby.  Again, a simple thing, but it brought me joy and I was thankful that a new life was benefited on the anniversary of Josh’s death.  God is good to me. 

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Thursday Focus on Vintage and Antique: Pie Birds





Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing—
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in the counting-house
Counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey,

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes.
Along came a blackbird
And snipped off her nose.




History isn't clear as to whether this old rhyme we learned as children was the inspiration for "Pie Birds" ( also called pie funnels, pie ventilators, pie cups, or pie chimneys) or whether pie birds were the inspiration for the poem.  What we do know is that the concept of creating a funnel to allow the steam to escape from meat pies and to help hold up the upper crust, is older than the production of pie birds.  An un-named baker in King George III's kitchen is credited with creating a funnel or vent to keep the steam from meat pies from making the crust soggy by propping it up away from the crust.  The vents kept the pies from bubbling out around the edges and created a crispier crust.  (Evidently King George complained a lot about soggy crusts.)    We know that pie funnels have been in existence since the 1800's but pie birds as we know them today became popular in the 1930's and beyond.  





I recently used my vintage pie bird to make a fruit pie.  I wasn't sure what to expect but was delighted with the results.  The crust was indeed less soggy and browned so well.  And, let's not forget the real reason to use a pie bird is because it's adorable!



For more information please see: 





Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Barn Restoration Project

I decided to keep a photo journal of our barn and outbuilding restoration project at our South West Virginia Property on Tuesdays.  I  may not have an update EVERY Tuesday but I thought it would be fun to document the process as we go along.  The outbuildings, fences, and garden area need A LOT of work.  We plan to use board and batting on the outside of the barn with rough cut lumber.  The shed on the back of the barn we are going to keep but remove the  metal siding and replace with wood.  There are places in the barn roof that need patched and it has to be painted.  There are some places inside the barn that have rotted out and we will need to shore it up and make sure it is structurally sound enough to last another hundred years.  Mountains of old hay and trash have to be removed.  The old, commercial chicken house (probably from the 50's) has to have new windows, new guttering, has structural damage and is full of stuff that has to be removed and cleaned up as well. We will have to build adequate fencing around the chicken house so the chickens can scratch.  I have always had free range birds but don't think that will be an option here as there are too many predators.  The garden area hasn't been used in years but once grew enough food to supply the family as well as the community as it has been reported the woman who lived here canned and preserved food for her family as well as selling canned goods to the community.  We will have to build tall fences around the garden area to keep the deer out.

View of the barn as we walk from the house.

Side view of barn as seen coming from the pasture and "back forty".



Mike had already done a lot of work here
removing trash before I took the picture.
  A six bay stanchion area is a dream come true for me!


Back side of old chicken house.  Has a wood burning stove and is
two stories.  We will use the upstairs for our chickens
and downstairs for storage and/or dog kennel.  A lot of work here
and not sure if we can save this building for long term as the
backside underground is beginning to fall in.  We think we
can preserve long enough to last the rest of our lives.  We are 
going to try.

Yes, this was once the garden area.  It needs a lot of work and
yes, it slopes.  It is mountain property and there
is very little flat land.  Will be a might different for
us gardening here.  The locals grow some awesome 
mountain cabbage!  

Monday, September 11, 2017

Monday Journals







September 4, 2017



Here’s to a busy 48 hours!  Analia and Rory will arrive in just a few minutes.  The twins are staying home with their daddy today who is off from work, so it will be a little slower here today.  Then, they will be back tomorrow afternoon.  In between, I need to try to start moving our personal items from upstairs so that Alissa and Gabino can start moving some of their things in as they get a chance.  It’s going to be quite a month but I am so excited that things are coming together for us to be able to make SW Virginia our primary residence this soon.  We really didn’t anticipate things coming together for us this quickly.  The contractor contacted us yesterday and the lumber for the barn will start being sawed on Tuesday and will be delivered by the end of the week!  Mike has started trimming trees around the barn and cleaning up brush around the outbuildings.  When we return to our Rural Retreat, he will begin taking the old metal off the barn and the shed so that the men can get the board and batting up as quickly as possible.  Exciting times and a lot of work coming up!

I woke up this morning to a nice, long email from our son in Thailand.  I just love getting emails from Mikey and hearing about their life.  He is having such an adventure and while we miss him so much, we are thankful for his happiness.  He and he fiancĂ©,’ whose parents are from Thailand, have built a beautiful new home there.  They manage some resort properties for Marisa’s parents.  I am ashamed to say that when I was still on Facebook, I didn’t take the time to write and keep in touch with people on a more personal level like I do now.  I really enjoy the intimacy and the details shared with the few folks whom I keep in contact with by email and by writing letters.  I feel like my life is richer in so many ways since I left social media.  I do miss all the casual contacts and keeping up with everyone.

One thing I have been thinking about recently is how we as humans just see a portion of someone else’s life and make judgements.  We all do it.  Some of us struggle more than others with being critical.  Human nature wants to cut others down in an effort to build ourselves up.  It’s also easy to look at others and see all that they have and feel like life is perfect for them and not for us.  I think because I have had so much tragedy in my life and because my heart is tender toward the suffering of others, I have never struggled much with jealousy but our family has certainly been the object of it and the destruction it brings many times.  We have been targeted by others who are jealous of any success or happiness that we might have and who have worked overtly to bring us down.  I didn’t even realize it at the time but in retrospect, I can see where the jealousy revealed itself, festered, and then targeted our family until we made efforts to buffer ourselves with boundaries from those individuals.  The really sad thing is that in every case, a friendship was lost.  Oh, that doesn’t mean that we don’t or won’t still have a relationship with those individuals, but the relationship has been stunted because we have had to protect ourselves from the personal attacks.  Someone else’s life can look so good from the outside looking in but we never know what kind of things they deal with on a daily basis.  And it’s easy to be critical without knowing all the facts.  A critical nature on the other hand (something that is just as destructive as jealousy in my opinion) is something that is more of a struggle for me than jealousy but still it’s not one of the “sins” I struggle with the most.  However, I feel that all of us struggle with being critical to some extent.  We don’t like the way someone else lives, or the choices they make, or the way they wear their clothes, or the music they choose to listen to, or the way they are raising their children, or the church they attend, or their choice of candidates, and the list goes on and on.  We all struggle with this because we feel our way of life and our thinking is the right way.  I try to be conscious of having a critical nature and work hard to curb that in my own life.  Again, having been the object of intense criticism, has hurt me deeply.  I guess putting my life down in a journal and sharing it on my blog as well as having participated in social media for so many years and mostly sharing with others the positive things and even with the negative, having a positive attitude towards it and seeking the lessons and looking for the good causes some people to be jealous and critical or perhaps there are just those who are so filled with their own pain, that they in some twisted way are seeking someone to tear down.  While it hurts to be the object of someone’s judgements and criticisms and even worse, thinking on these things has brought me full circle to check my own heart and mind and to find out where I can do better to be less critical and destructive.  We can’t change anyone else and it’s not our responsibility to do so.  It is our responsibility to change ourselves.  That is how we change the world. 

September 7, 2017

Really, I can’t keep up.  I only had Alissa’s two on Monday (the twins stayed home with their dad who was off work) and then again for about four and a half hours on Tuesday evening.  However, they just exhaust me anymore.  The baby is such a happy girl, until she realizes that momma is not there to nurse her.  She really doesn’t want to take the bottle and once the hunger pains have set in and she refuses the bottle, then the fussies start.  She also doesn’t sleep well at all at my house.  She will only take a thirty-minute nap in the morning and then if I’m lucky, another thirty-minute nap in the afternoon.  (At home, she takes a morning and afternoon nap for an hour and a half or more.  When Rory is sleeping, I try to do something with Analia, Hudson, and Ella like play a game, work a puzzle or read a book.  And I also try to get meals together for them while the baby is asleep.  It makes for a non-stop day with no breaks for me.  I’ve taken care of children all my life it seems.  I helped a lot with taking care of my baby brother and sister as I was 14 and 16 when they were born.  Then, when I moved to Alaska, I babysit children around the clock, sometimes even having a baby spend the night at my house.  Then I raised my own two while often working with preschoolers at church.  All of those years I was high energy and it didn’t matter how many I had to watch, I was on top of things.  Now I feel like all I can do is manage and barely at that.  I guess that’s a sign that I really am getting old. 

There’s not a whole lot of time it seems between when I watch the kids Monday and when they come back Tuesday afternoon.  I rush to get things done around the house, at the antique mall, and run errands.  This week seemed especially rushed.  There’s a push now to get the house to a point where Alissa and Gabino can start moving their things in.  In fact, I have already made a spot in the basement where they can store some of the items they don’t need right away.  I pushed some of our things out of the way so they can pile their things there.  Then, I started cleaning out the closet and everything stored in the spare bedroom that I use for a sewing room.  It will become Analia’s room.  I made headway but didn’t get quite finished.  When I can get some strong guys to help me, all of the furniture in that room will be moved downstairs to set up the bedroom for Mike and I to use while we are in Staunton each week.  All of the fabric and sewing supplies we loaded in the truck to bring with us to our second home which is soon to become our primary residence. 

This whole process is going to be difficult but good for us.  We are “downsizing” through all of this and moving into a home that is about half the size of the one we are leaving.  We have to decide what is important to take and what we can leave for the kids and what we need to just cull out of our lives.  The disorganization of the house drives me crazy but I am trying to practice just letting it go and focusing on the fact that this is all for the best for everyone.  This is going to create an amazing environment for Analia and Rory as Mike and I live there in Staunton with them and are able to help care for them while Alissa goes to school and works.  I think the girls will be more settled with time as it will “their” home and we will just be there to help out.  Their routines won’t have to be interrupted, at least on the days we are there to keep them.  The good news is after it is all said and done, I will have to spend far less time cleaning house!  Our house in the Valley is 4000 square feet and our house in the mountains is less than 2000 square feet.  That means right now I am maintaining 6000 square feet of living space and once we are completely moved and settled here in about a year, I will just have the smaller house to concern myself with.  The reality is, the upstairs of our Mountain home is mostly guest and storage area, so that leaves me with less than 1000 square feet to keep up with on a daily basis.  Our large Valley home has been a blessing and continues to be a blessing and I am thankful for it.  It was home for many years to Mike’s two children, and then it became the only stable home my two children ever knew.  We have welcomed adult children back to it when they needed a place to get their feet back under them and we have filled it with grandchildren.  We have had plenty of space for everyone and for guests on occasion.  We have been truly blessed and leaving it is definitely bittersweet but leaving it in the hands of Alissa and Gabino means that we are not really leaving it but just giving it up for someone we love to continue to fill it with memories. 

Driving back and forth between the two houses each week gives Mike and I a lot of travel time together.  The trip takes close to three hours, sometimes more if the traffic is bad or if we stop more than once.  It’s hard for me to stay awake in the car.  I am one of those people who stays on the move for 18 hours a day most days, but when I do sit down, I go to sleep.  It doesn’t matter where I am.  I have even found myself drifting off to sleep in church or at an auction.  To keep Mike’s mind active and to keep him from getting tired, I have started reading out loud while we travel.  I can’t read on the back roads because I get car sick and have to watch the roads.  Once we get onto the interstate, I have about two hours to read.  Mike is not a reader.  In his entire life, he can only remember reading through one book.  I have tried to get him interested in books before with no success.  I have even tried reading out loud to him before and he just laughed at me, made jokes, and wouldn’t pay attention.  Recently I picked up the book THE MAN WHO MOVED A MOUNTAIN that was published in 1970.  It tells the story of a man who grew up right in the very area where we bought our second home and describes life in these parts back in the 1920-s and later when this part of the Blue Ridge was mostly cut off from the rest of the world.  The stories mirror those of the old west with senseless shootings, killings, and a general lawlessness fed by bootlegging and alcohol.  The book is filled with history of the area and is most interesting to us as we settle here.  The surnames in the books match names of descendants on the mailboxes along the route to our home.  All in all, a very interesting read for us as we travel.  While filled with wonderful local history, the true story’s underlying message is one of love and how love conquered even the most difficult situations.  It’s refreshing to read stories like this.  Sometimes it feels like love never wins with all the evil in the world.  Sometimes we need to be reminded that reading the story and viewing history in retrospect, often helps us to see things we don’t see when we are living through it. 

It's chilly here in the mountains this morning and I am thinking more and more about winter and the reality of taking care of my Jersey girls in the unpredictable weather that goes along with this country.  In no way will it ever compare to the winter adventures of my time spent in Alaska but with enough time spent in these mountains with livestock, I know there will be difficult situations to overcome.  I am anxious to get the barn done.  I had thought about removing the shed on the back of the barn so as to give it more of an aesthetic appeal, but upon considering the possibility of some nasty winter storms coming down this mountain hollow, I decided to leave it.  If things get bad enough, I can lock the girls in the large lean-to area and they will be sheltered from the weather and easy to feed.  The history of the smaller Jerseys that I keep is that are descendants of mountain stock, so we shall see if they remember their roots and make a go of it here.   We bought a generator for our Mountain home.  We have one at the house in Staunton and there have been years we have used it a good bit.  I have a feeling we may be using the generator a lot here. 

September 8, 2017

Yesterday was one of my favorite kinds of days.  I call it a “nesting” day.  Imagine the little momma hen fluffing her feathers, turning this way a little, that way a little, scratching around in her nest with a watchful eye, finally setting herself down with an air of importance and looking pleased and comfortable with her surroundings.  That pretty much describes me when I am all alone in my house for the day.  With a watchful eye I make my way through “my nest” cleaning, straightening, and arranging and then when I am all finished I “set myself down” and enjoy the view.  And I got to spend unhurried time in the kitchen.  Still I try to cook from scratch and not buy processed food even though we do so much traveling.  We do stop for a meal more than we use to but I try to feed us before we leave or when we get to one home from the other.  However, often our meals are small quick meals or larger meals that are made quickly and I don’t like to be rushed in the kitchen.  Yesterday I was able to slow down and enjoy my kitchen and that always makes me happy.  There were a million and one things I could have been doing outside and the weather was gorgeous, but I needed a day to just putt around the house.  It’s good therapy for me.  I made a cherry pie with a lard crust.  I had rendered the yard several months back using our outdoor fire pit.  When I make pies with lard crust, I no longer trim off the extra dough.  I simply take it all and turn it under at the edges making a thick edge of crust.  The lard makes it taste better than a donut and we both enjoy it so much, it seems a shame to waste it.  I’m aware that award winning pies have a relatively thin crust and I wouldn’t win any ribbons with my thick edges on my pies, but we would almost fight each other for that thick piece of lard crust.  When I make pies to share, I always trim back the crust so it’s not so thick.   The cherries were some I had put up in the freezer.  I used half sour cherries and half yellow cherries.  I think sour cherries make the best pies and the yellow need to be used up but don’t have the flavor of the sours.  Mixing together in a pie is the perfect combination.  I had put a lot of bell peppers in the freezer to use later, but had four left out that I needed to use, so I made stuffed peppers and a small meatloaf to take back to Staunton with me for the kids to have for lunch on Monday.  I made mashed potatoes and used the cream off our raw, Jersey milk.  We had some beets in the cellar and I peeled them, sliced them thin, seasoned with butter and salt, covered with aluminum foil and baked them in the oven.  They taste so much better cooked this way as one doesn’t lose any of the juice or flavors like you do when boiling them.  I took some green beans out of the freezer and seasoned them with bacon grease.  The meal was delicious and I enjoyed having the time to not only relax making it, but also to sit down and enjoy it without feeling rushed. 

We have some neighborhood dogs that show up when I am cooking.  I never feed them, although they look a might bit skinny.  I believe they are hunting dogs and their owner must not restrain them.  We don’t have that issue in the Valley.  All dogs are restrained, fenced, or walked on a leash.  One almost never sees a roaming dog in our area.  I don’t have a fence nor do I chain my dogs in Staunton, but we live back from the main road and I have trained the dogs to only go so far on our property.  It concerns me that these dogs run loose because I don’t want them here when I bring my own dogs eventually.  I’m never mean to the visiting dogs.  In fact, I don’t even raise my voice when I tell them to go home.  I speak to them in a conversational tone but never do I feed or pet them, although I would love to, because I know they would be here all the time.  Another time we had a larger, German Shepherd looking dog that arrived.  He had a collar and I thought we were going to have to go find his owners.  I didn’t make over him because I didn’t want him to stay.  (People make this mistakes with stray dogs so often.  Once a dog gets attention or food, then they will keep coming back.)  I watched him all day and wanted to love on him so badly.  He came up on the covered, wrap around porch and would watch me through the screen door.  He really wanted to come inside.  I would ignore him but smile to myself.  Finally, he got up on the wicker lounge and sat there looking out.  Eventually, he grew tired and lay down and took a nap.  We had somewhere to go that evening and still there he was, parked on our porch.  I told Mike that if he was still there when we got home, we would have to try to find his owners.  When we returned, he was gone and we have never seen him again. 

Last night after supper I took a walk.  I usually like to take my walks in the morning but it was nice to get out and see what is becoming familiar in the fading light of the evening sun instead of the early morning light with which I usually view it.  Mike walked with me and we both wore a jacket to ward off the mountain chill of a pre-autumn evening.  The hills on the back forty are steep and one gets a good workout.  In the mornings, I usually startle a flock of turkey but on our evening walk, the only birds I saw were some variety of yellow finch.  There were about a dozen of them feeding on the thistle, chirping and calling to one another.  They were bright and cheerful and were always a step ahead of us it seemed.  My favorite thing to do from the top of our property is to take in the views of the Buffalo Mountain.  It has become to me not “Buffalo Mountain” but “The Buffalo Mountain”.  I’ve always been one to seek out the highest points and rest my gaze there.  Somehow those higher elevations symbolize hope to me.  Always, wherever I have been, I seek out the mountains.  I guess that’s why the flatlands have always made me feel like I was suffocating.  I remember in Alaska I would go to a favorite spot behind the Baptist church where my grandfather was pastor and just sit and gaze at the beautiful Alaskan Range on the other side of the Delta River.  Time and time again at various points in my life, those mountains would give me the strength to keep on going.  When I was in Northern Montana, it was the beautiful Canadian Rockies that gave me hope at a point when I was all alone and trying to find myself out of an abusive relationship.  In Colorado, it was the solitary hikes I took daily in the Rockies that kept me from going insane.  When I lived in Bedford and Forest, Virginia, it was the drives to the Blue Ridge and my visits to the Peaks of Otter that settled my soul.  Living in Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley, the expansive views of the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains have filled my heart with peace time and time again.  In the last few years, Mike and I have made fall trips to this area of South West Virginia and soaked in the atmosphere of the beloved mountains and when I climb our little piece of mountain property, stretching my limbs, breathing a little heavy, and making it to the top, my eyes seek out The Buffalo.  Now the dreams of youth are gone and I have grown up, adult dreams that are a little more realistic but the mountain still symbolizes to me Hope and Faith and that feeling inside of me that no matter how ugly the world may get, there is still beauty to be sought out and higher elevations to attain. 

September 9, 2017

It was another beautiful day yesterday.  I awoke before dawn and the sky was so clear and bright when I looked out the window.  Later, when I took a morning walk, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue and clear.  I startled some deer on my walk and they bounded off from the edge of the pasture into the tall pines that line our property. 

We spent another glorious day at home where I could do more nesting.  I was able to get the upstairs thoroughly cleaned, even the large closets that I need to start packing with items from Staunton.  I dusted them and mopped the floors.  It felt good to get some details done in the house.  We had an early supper of filet mignon, macaroni and cheese and the leftover green beans.  Afterwards, because I still had plenty of daylight, I took another walk up to the highpoints of our property where the views are just amazing.  Mike had a contractor come in and this man seems promising.  We shall see.  We have some work that we need to do on the gutters on the house, some detail work on the inside of the barn, the roof of the barn to patch and paint, and perhaps eventually a bathroom added to our guest cabin above the garage.  The other contractor is supposed to do the board and batting on the outside of the barn.  The lumber was supposed to be delivered this week, but it was not.  So, we shall see how that goes.  We are learning that it’s almost impossible to get anything done here.  No one seems really serious about working. 

It's been cool enough this week that the furnace has come on during the night.  We have it szet back to 60 degrees but it has been getting down in the 40’s here at night.  It really feels like fall is just around the corner.  While the 16th of September is such a hard time for me, marking the anniversary of Josh’s death, I try to get through it be celebrating the coming of fall, the season that he loved so much.  I will be bringing my fall decorations to our Mountain Home and decorating here this year instead of in Staunton. 

Mike spent the afternoon working on the barn.  He tore down some metal, removed trash from the milking area, and started getting the old, nasty hay out of the barn.  He had a huge bon fire in the evening burning up some brush, trash and some of the hay he had removed from the hay loft.  There is a ton of work to do to get the barn cleaned up and repaired. 

Today we did go out to two different auctions.  We went to our favorite auction house which is about 45 minutes from our home.  It is the one where the owners are so honest and fair.  I can truly appreciate their integrity after attending various auctions.  It seems that being deceitful goes with the territory with most auction houses.  We didn’t buy much but got a few bargains that we can price and resell.  I wasn’t happy tonight at all when we went to the Entertaining Auction house that is about 20 minutes from our home.  I have learned to really enjoy a lot of the people there but the racism is driving me insane.  Mike just keeps telling me to be calm because we are living here and he doesn’t want me to tick everyone off.  However, I am only being outwardly calm until I have the opportune moment to say what I need to say.  I will never pretend to go along with such evil.  I can’t.  I don’t want to.  And I won’t.  Tonight, there was an old record sold reportedly entitled KKK by Johnny Reb.  The auctioneer said, “The record has “Rebel” written all over it and for those of you who are upset about the statues being taken down, this record is for you.”  Oh! How I could hardly contain myself! And folks want to pretend like racism is just fringe group that marches in Charlottesville! These are “good, honest, everyday, God loving, people next door” types.  The kind of people you want to be your neighbors (if you are white) and the kind of people who would do anything for you (if you are white).  Racism is alive and well and maybe more outspoken than at any other time in history in certain places.  I wanted to buy the record and break it in two right in front of everyone.  Instead I sat and watched as the little 45 record sold for ten dollars and had multiple bidders.  One of the things I have learned reading the book A MAN WHO MOVVED A MOUNTAIN is that Buffalo Mountain was once owned by the Lee family of Robert E. Lee fame.  So, I do understand that the folks who are native of this area are proud southerners.  What I can’t understand, is how people can’t see that racism is wrong no matter what.  I think what slows me down in my response is not that I am afraid of responding to the racism but I really do understand where these people are coming from and how that the way they have grown up and lived and where they have been raised and their lack of exposure to people who are different from them and their unwillingness to see that people are all the same no matter what color the skin might be or where they might be from fuels their racism.  In this instance, fighting fire with fire will not work.  Carefully spoken words dropped at the right time to make people think and lots of love are the only way to possibly shake someone up enough to make a difference. 

Tomorrow, we are getting up super early to get things wrapped up here in the Mountains so we can head back to Staunton.  I promised Analia we would go to church with her there tomorrow.  Then, we have a birthday party to attend for Mike’s brother, Kenny.