Pizza Sauce from Scratch (Using a Steamer Juicer)

Because I was not preserving the final product, I used yellow tomatoes in with my reds to make juice. If you are hot water bath canning, you will want to use only the red tomatoes which contain more acid.  Juice and sauces made from yellow tomatoes can be frozen or canned in recipes that have a lot of vinegar which raises the acidity level.  Just be sure to find recipes specifically for preserving yellow tomatoes if you are going to use the hot water bath canner.  Aren't these colors beautiful together?  Here I used a variety of heirlooms.  Pasta sauce tomatoes such as Romas make the best sauces because they have lest juice and more meat, but with a little extra simmering time, you can make any tomato work for sauce.  

Having an abundance of tomatoes in the summer is a blessing but also a responsibility.  We can only eat so many of them fresh.  That means I need to come up with creative ways to preserve the bounty.  Besides simply canning whole tomatoes, tomato juice and making ketchup, I also make our own spaghetti and pizza sauce.  Sometimes, I go ahead and make the sauce and then can it but often I just use the canned juice to make sauce as I need it.  I love to smell the sauce slowly cooking on the stove during the winter, the seasonings filling the house with their delightful aroma.  One kitchen tool I invested in a couple of years ago that has been a real time saver for me was a steam juicer. While they are expensive, they certainly pay for themselves in the time they have saved me and with how they make dealing with large amounts of produce a much easier process.  When I am pushed for time, using my steam juicer to extract the juice from fruit allows me to can or freeze it with little effort.  

  I had a ten pound box of tomatoes over the weekend that I needed to use before they went bad.  I simply washed them, quartered them and put them on the stove in the juicer.  Within thirty minutes I had a good bit of delicious tomato juice.  I used part of it in my vegetable soup (some of which we ate and some of which I froze for later meals) and the rest I used to cook down and make pizza sauce.  There are all kinds of recipes to season pizza sauce but I usually just toss in my spices, keeping it simple.  I always use garlic and oregano, salt, pepper and a bit of sugar.  (If I am making spaghetti sauce, I add bell pepper and onions when I make my juice, giving my final sauce a little bit different flavor than my pizza sauce, although I have used both sauces interchangeably.) 

One thing I do is pour the weaker, thinner water off that comes off the tomatoes first.  Then I am left with a thicker juice to begin my thickening process.  Once the tomatoes have been steamed, I use a wooden spoon to mash them down to get as much of the pulp as possible.  Simply toss the skins and cores that remain in the strainer basket.  (Pigs and poultry love them!)

How do you make your pizza sauce?  Do you have a recipe you would like to share?

Nothing can compare to homemade sauce!

Deep Dish Pizza in Cast Iron Skillet

Who doesn't love pizza?  The really nice thing about pizza is there are so many different things you can do to individualize it.  I had somehomemade meatballs and decided to make a deep, dish meatball pizza in my Lodge, cast iron skillet.  The results were delicious and somewhere between an amazing meatball sandwich and pizza.  Hands down, everything seems to taste better when cooked in cast iron.  

One just can't go wrong when they start with homegrown, home canned tomatoes.

I drained (and drank) the juice  off the tomatoes and then cooked them down with seasonings: a little salt, a little pepper, and oregano.  (I often add garlic as well.). 

A vintage, red, Pyrex bowl just makes the whole process that much more fun.  Making pizza dough is a simple process and well worth the effort.

First the crust, then the sauce, lots of meatballs made from our pastured beef and then covered in mozzarella cheese.  I baked it in the oven on 400 degrees until edges were brown.

Delicious!


If you are looking for a basic pizza dough recipe, here is what I use:

3 Cups of Flour
1 Teaspoon of Salt
3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
1 Cup of Warm Water
1 packet (or two to three teaspoons bulk) yeast

Mix together the flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl.  Mix yeast and sugar in a large measuring cup with warm water.  (Note:  I buy yeast in bulk and use between 2 and 3 teaspoons of bulk yeast.  A packet of Fleischman's yeast works perfect in this recipe.  A packet contains 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast.  I "proof" the yeast since I buy it in bulk and keep it on hand in the refrigerator.  By mixing the sugar and warm water with the yeast and allowing it to stand for a few minutes, it activates the yeast and gives the dough a head start.  If the yeast doesn't activate, or bubble up, then your water is too hot or too cold or your yeast is no longer any good.  The best temperature to activate the yeast is 110 degrees F.)  After your yeast has proven that is happy and active, mix the dry and wet ingredients together.  You will need to add more flour to the mixture to form a dough that is not sticky and that can be worked and rolled easily.  You don't need to let your dough rise for a long time, but I do like to put my dough in a slightly warm oven (no hotter than 150 degrees) for a few minutes to allow it to start rising.  I coat the dough in olive oil lightly before I place it in the oven to rise. When the dough is springy and starting to rise (probably 10 minutes or so) then you can roll it out or use your fingers to shape it to your pan, stone or skillet.

The recipe above turns out most like a traditional crust.  Sometimes when I have a lot of cows in milk and I am trying to find ways to use my dairy products, I use milk instead of water and butter instead of olive oil.  This also makes a nice crust.  The recipe is basically the same, but here is a previous blog post I wrote on making pizza dough using honey and dairy and here is one where I ground wheat and made a wheat crust.

I also have a recipe for sourdough crust at this link.

For this particular deep dish pizza, I coated my iron skillet with a little olive oil and used my hands to work the dough across the bottom of the skillet and up the sides.  Then, I covered the bottom with my pizza sauce.  (I used canned, whole tomatoes this time but often I have pizza sauce I have canned on hand.)  Using the meatballs added a lot of volume to the pizza giving it a full appearance when it had baked.  I generously covered the meatballs with mozzarella cheese and baked in a preheated oven at 400 degrees until the edges were brown.

Homemade Pizza

There's nothing better than homemade pizza made from as many zero mile ingredients as possible.

While I don't grind my own flour and don't grow all of the seasonings (something I really need to do is start an herb garden!) many of the ingredients are from right here on the farm.

To make the dough you can use a breadmaker on the "dough" setting or you can mix up the ingredients and make it the old fashioned way. I have done both:

1 Cup Raw Jersey milk
3 Tablespoons of Honey
3 Tablespoons of Raw Jersey Butter
1 tsp. salt
2-3 teaspoons of yeast (or one packet)
3 cups of flour

I melt the butter and warm the milk to about 110 degrees. I add the honey, salt and yeast to the warm liquid. I then mix in the three cups of flour. You may have to add a little more or a little less flour to make the dough pliable and not sticky.

Let the dough rise while you simmer the homemade sauce:

I make the sauce from tomatoes that I canned this summer.

I add salt, pepper, garlic, (home grown) onions, (home grown) bell peppers, and oregano to taste and simmer. The secret is to let it simmer as long as possible so that the flavors mix. After the sauce has simmered and cooked down, I thicken with tomatoe paste.

While the dough is rising and the sauce is simmering, I cook my farm raised, pastured, ground beef.

I then grate my homemade Mozzarella Cheese made from raw Jersey. milk.

I then roll out my dough, apply my homemade sauce, top with burger and mozzarella and bake.

Yummy!

Monday Journal Entry

January 18, 2018

This winter will be remembered as “the cold one”, at least until another winter comes along.  We tend to forget and think our current situation is “the worst it has every been” in most instances.  The past few years have been so mild that I think our perspective is a bit skewed this year about the cold.  Of course, the battles we have had first with getting a heat source installed and then with fighting a poorly insulated farm house have made the situation feel a little more desperate.  Then, there is the contrast of being back in Staunton in the well-insulated house with more than adequate wood heat where the kids keep the temperature turned up past 70 degrees.  This makes our little farmhouse in the mountains seem even colder after being more than toasty in Staunton.  We are back to Laurel Fork and working hard to keep the temperature at a comfortable 65 degrees while the wind blows with a chill of  about ten below zero last night.  The good news is that it is supposed to warm up some today.  We had a mere dusting of snow on the ground in Staunton when we left Wednesday afternoon.  We had several stops to make, including stopping in Salem to pick up our car that was finally repaired after our incident on Thanksgiving Day when we hit the deer.  After 10+ weeks, almost eight thousand dollars (all but the deductible paid by the insurance company), and a wait of two of those weeks for the insurance company to determine whether they wanted to simply total the vehicle, we finally have the car back.  From Salem, I drove the truck and Mike drove the car on to or home in Laurel Fork.  The further south we drove, the worse the roads got, and of course by this time it was dark.  I’m never overly comfortable with driving in winter conditions because I am much to practical to assume that nothing can go wrong.  However, having lived in Alaska and out west for a number of years, I have enough experience driving in winter conditions that I don’t panic.  As we were driving last night and passing only a car here or there along the way, I thought about how I would much rather take my chances out on these back roads with only an occasional car than to be out on the interstate or on the more travelled roads in the Valley.  I know I would feel differently if I went off the road and a car didn’t come along and I was without cell phone service, which could definitely happen, but I figure I am less likely to have an accident here.  Ever since moving to Virginia, I have said that it’s not the bad roads that make me fearful but rather the inexperience of people who are not use to driving in those conditions.  When we finally arrived at our house, there appeared to be about five or six inches of snow on the ground in our little “holler”.  We didn’t have a lot to unload this time.  I have been going through boxes of small things at the house and sorting lots of paperwork, throwing away what I can as we try to downsize and organize slowly as we move.  This trip I only had one box to bring where I had consolidated several boxes into one unit.  We were able to get into the house quickly and start the job of trying to warm the place up.  We cut the heat back on the propane while we are away and attempt to use the fireplace to help supplement when we are at the old farmhouse.  This morning, Gabino called to tell us that the electricity had been out several times during the night, was currently off and the house in Staunton was getting cold.  He was working towards getting the generator running there but the electricity did come back on before he had to fire up the generator.  With the milder weather and no major weather events the last several years, we have not had to use the generator in Staunton.  The generator there runs off the PTO on the tractor and there have been years when we had to use it quite a bit, but thankfully, this time it wasn’t necessary. 

January 19, 2018

We had to go into Hillsville to conduct a little bit of business and also pick up a few things at the grocery store yesterday.  Mike also ended up buying a new chain saw while we were in town.  He had been price shopping and found that one of the local businesses was competitive with the prices he had found on the particular model in which he was interested.  He and Gabino have been struggling with the chain saw that he had, and so far, no one has been able to repair it.  While Mike was checking on the saw, I sat in the truck and made some calls to get information on some bills I needed to pay for my grandmother.  Our cell phone service is so poor in Laurel Fork, that it’s difficult to have a conversation on the phone.  I feel like we are prime candidates for those cell phone commercials where the guy keeps saying, “Can you hear me now?”  I never mind the lack of service though, because it means that things are quiet for us when we are here.  Most texts come through eventually in their own time, so that’s our most reliable way of keeping in touch with the kids back home.  In an emergency, they will text and tell us to call and then we can find that one spot in the house where we have phone service, or we can go outside and take a hike to higher ground where service is more reliable.  Mike said something today about advertising that we have steers ready to be butchered.  I know the time is coming soon when I will need to reactivate my farm page on Facebook and try to re-establish some connections through that page for our business.  It definitely hurt us in some ways for me to shut that page down, and so abruptly.  (I wrote about my break from social media in a recent, stand alone blog post.)  There was a time when I would even dream of leaving social media and my connections there through Facebook.  I had worked so hard for so many years to build and establish those connections, starting with a mass email list that was sort of like a farm diary, then becoming involved in an online forum that supported family cow owners, and on to the start of my blog with a very simple post in July of 2008.  I believe it was a couple years after that I started the farm page on Facebook.  At the time, I started it kind of “tongue in cheek” as a way to poke fun at the popular online phenomenon “Farmville” and later realized I had tapped into something that worked to promote our small, family farm.  Of course, as time went on, I found more and more people utilizing Facebook as a means to promote their farms.  Walking away from ten years of “self-advertising” of our farm and the products and livestock we had to offer was a little bit disconcerting to me but at that moment when I made the sudden decision to leave social media for a while, it seemed like the best option for our family, and indeed, it has turned out the sabbatical has been a real blessing.  It feels like now though that we need to return sometime in the near future and begin to build again what we so abruptly left.  Because of the changes we have made, the transitions that are taking place, the fact our focus is different, and because the nature of people seems to be if one does not keep the momentum going then they lose interest, it just feels like things will be different when we return to our social media connections.  Whatever happens, it will be ok. 

I was able to spend some unhurried time in the kitchen today.  I don’t know who is happier when that happens.  Mike loves to eat, although one would never know it by looking at him, and I love to cook.  There’s nothing more satisfying to me than using the ingredients that we have set aside to create a simple meal.  I used our ground beef and some canned pizza sauce made from ingredients from our garden to make homemade pizza.  Using the oven helps to warm the old farm house and I decided that I wanted to make a Hot Milk Cake to go along with some of the strawberries from last year’s garden that we had frozen.  I made the cake in a cast iron skillet and the skillet lended itself perfectly to that particular recipe. 

January 21, 2018

Some mornings when I wake, my mind is so full of things I want to journal and this morning is one of those times.  However, the thoughts I have don’t always evolve into words, try as I might.  Overwhelmingly this morning I am just feeling a sense of gratefulness.  I have lived, at 50, twice as long as my mother lived and over twice as long as my son lived.  I use to wonder if I would live to be thirty.  I don’t think those feelings were odd for I have heard of others who experienced death of a close family member at a young age, and they too wondered if they would die young.  It wasn’t something upon which I dwelt, but I did think of it from time to time and hope that I would have the opportunities to experience my children lives and possibly even my grandchildren.  Here I am, middle aged, and more than ever I am faced with the reality of the brevity of life.  And those thoughts, though they sound some what melancholy, are in fact what makes me grateful.  I am grateful that although my body is aging I am still well enough and strong enough to do the things I enjoy.  I’m slower and lack the energy that I had even two years ago.  I feel the signs of aging and I see the signs of aging when I look in the mirror.  But, I am still strong and healthy even if I am slower, and slower and less energetic is not always a bad thing.  I have gained so much by slowing down and choosing what is important, rather than just trying to do it all. 

With warmer temperatures the last two days, the snow in the mountains started to melt.  It’s not completely gone and it’s still very wet, but a lot of it has come off the ground, and patches of brown grass can be seen everywhere.  The nicer weather made it comfortable for Mike to work in the barn.  He was even able to do some staining on the exterior yesterday afternoon.  The temperature was borderline for staining being in the low 50’s and it was very windy, but he did get the one side of the barn itself painted.  He still has to stain the back side of the shed that is attached to the barn and hopes he might be able to get that done today.  While Mike worked on the barn, I worked on the chicken house.  This particular house was what I would term a “commercial” house for probably the 1950’s era.  It is two stories with the upper half mostly being used for storage and the bottom half being used as a shop in recent years.  I am going to clean out the upper portion of the chicken house and use it for my birds.  I got a lot done, but there is still a lot to do.  The folks had stored remnants of carpet, probably from the 50’s and all kinds of wire, tongue and grove flooring, wall trim bundled together, shingles, pieces of ceramic tile, cardboard, old hoses and inflations from the milking parlor, glass jars, cans, old pieces of stoves, wire racks and the list goes on and on.  I made piles on one end of the large chicken house: scrap metal for salvage, garbage to go to the landfill, vintage items that might sell, and items we can repurpose.  And, I carried out piles and piles of wood scraps, old lumber, old boards and trim to be burned in a huge bonfire.  I uncovered a section of the flooring that will have to be replaced along the edge of the building where a large vent meets the metal roof and where the rain has been coming in and completely rotted out that small area.  I swept up a lot of dirt, pieces of broken glass, and small pieces of trash.  I was covered in dirt and dust by the time I had put in half a good three hours of work in the chicken house, but I was happy to see the progress I had made.  One of the things I enjoy about being in Laurel Fork is taking the time to do things that I enjoy even if it takes a little extra time and effort.  I decided that since we had a nice fire going in the fireplace, I would cook split pea soup in the dutch oven over the coals.  I got so carried away outside working in the chicken house, that I didn’t go in to check on the soup for a while and I did burn one little portion of it where the dutch oven didn’t get rotated away from the heat.  However, the soup was delicious.  This is the second time I have cooked on the hearth in the last few weeks and to me its just so much fun.  I’ve always enjoyed dutch oven cooking over an outdoor campfire, so it’s kind of neat to be able to do that right on the open hearth inside our home.  There’s just something satisfying to me about keeping a fire going and using the fire to cook.  In Alaska, I loved to use my old wood cookstove.  It took some dedication to start the fire, get the oven to the right temperature and fix a meal, but to me it was a skill worth practicing and I did it because I enjoyed it.  I feel the same way about cooking on the hearth.  I wouldn’t want to have to do it all the time, of course, but it’s fun to do every once in a while.  While keeping the fireplace burning has taken up a good bit of our time while we are in Laurel Fork, it has been fun using it to supplement our propane furnace.  We heat with wood all the time in Staunton, but we don’t get to enjoy the view of the flame.  It is much more efficient to run that outdoor wood boiler though!  We left Laurel Fork late this afternoon after going to church and then hanging around the house for a while.  Mike or I neither one wanted to leave and I always see that as a good thing.  I took a short hike up to “the back forty” with the weather being so nice today.  The ground was soft, slippery, and muddy but the air was warm with temps near sixty and the view of Buffalo Mountain never disappoints.  On the way back down, I startled a fox who wasn’t expecting to see a human obviously, slipped around the tree and down into the woods where he felt safer. 

January 22, 2018

It’s Monday and the Little People and I are well into our day even though it is not quite nine o’clock.  I was up a little after five, showered, dressed and picked up the house a bit.  Since the girls have been up, we have made breakfast and cleaned up, washed the big window on the door and wiped down the stainless-steel refrigerator, cleaned the high chair, made the beds and gathered the laundry for washing.  It’s always fun to see the joy on the faces of the Little People when Mike and I arrive back to Staunton and I am always thankful we have the opportunity to make these day to day kinds of memories with them.  One thing I really enjoy about being in Staunton is the gorgeous sunrise that greets us most every day.  With wide open spaces here, we get the views that we don’t get in our little holler in the mountains.  I love both places and today just feels like we have a balance in our lives and have the best of both worlds in so many ways.  I miss my animals when I am away from Staunton as well and it is nice to be able to view them from the windows and spend time in the barnyard petting them.  I remarked to the kids this morning how round and fat the Jersey girls are getting.  The good hay and the babies growing in their bellies along with their winter fur makes them look plump.  I love to hear the sounds of the goats calling when I open the kitchen door which sets the turkeys to gobbling.  The young heifers come running when they see us, thinking they are going to get another flake of hay, even though they don’t need one.  Life is good.

Monday Journal

August 8, 2018

I wondered if with time we would have any regrets about moving from the Shenandoah Valley or if our place in the mountains would cease to be a refuge and place of peace for us.  I wondered if when we moved the Jerseys and began once again to fall into the routines that make it hard for us to “get away” if our new place would lose its magic.  Instead, what we have found is validation after validation that this move was right for us.  So many things could have stood in our way and kept us from making the changes that we have made.  Looking back, it almost seems surreal that things would come together and that Mike and I would end up on the same page about such a big decision.  Our relationship is stronger, our love deeper, our time together almost always a daily routine instead of a few words over the phone or exhausted conversation over a 9 pm summer supper trying to communicate quickly with tired minds so that we could get a few hours sleep before heading our separate ways.  We mostly worked independently in those days in order to keep different aspects of the farms operational.  With both of us having a different focus, we were mostly pulled in different directions.   We did what was necessary then, but we are now fortunate to have a chance to live our life differently, while still holding on to a way of life that is so important to us. Perhaps, in some ways, we are living that lifestyle even more fully.  Working together has taught us to communicate better. Sure, we still get angry, frustrated and raise our voices or argue over stupid things. but more often than not, we are focused on a common goal or seeking to find a joint solution to a problem.  Sometimes, I catch my breath and have to pause and just count my blessings.  Mike and I love each other deeply but we have not always acted like it.  We have both hurt each other by being selfish at times.  We have let our differences cloud our views and distract us from the areas in which we have common ground sometimes.  We have both gone through significant loss, reacted differently to those losses, and allowed the grief to distract us from our relationship with each other for a time.  I know for myself, when my son passed away, that I went several years so absorbed in my own grief that I could not give be present in my relationship with Mike or with others who were dear to me.  Somehow, someway, all that is good and right about our love and our relationship has persevered through even the most difficult times, and for some undeserved reason, God has smiled upon us and given us the opportunity have this place where we are free to be ourselves, love each other, and be free of the many stresses and distractions that use to be a part of our life.  It is evident that there are those on the outside looking in who do not and will not understand, who will judge, who think they know when they don’t.   Only the two of us know the full story,  the pieces of the puzzle that seemed so scattered only to come together one step at a time to bring us to this place and this time. 

Mike left on Monday morning around 4 am to go back to the Valley so that he could make a second cutting of hay.  It has been a hard year to make hay there with all of the rain.  He didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want him to leave, having grown so accustomed to his presence and feeling especially close to him lately.  I have never been afraid to be alone and I can fill my days without ever seeing or talking to another human.  But, I have been super emotional the last month and really didn’t want to see him go.  I never let on to him that I don’t want him to go.  We knew when we made the decision to move to Laurel Fork that there would be times when we would have to be apart, at least for a while.  I always tell him to go on and do whatever he needs to do and that I understand.  I do understand, but this time I missed him before he was even gone.  Now it is Wednesday and he hopes to be here around midnight.  I am waiting up for him because I need to hug him and he needs to be hugged. 

I miss the grandbabies badly now.  I don’t see them but a couple times a month because I am tied to the cows here.  That is really the only hard part for me.  There’s nothing that I want or need to go back to in the Valley except for our children and grandchildren who are there.  I have a few friends there but because of the way Mike and I worked, my interactions in person with those friends was usually brief and infrequent.  Emails, text messages, and personal messages on social media kept me in touch with them even when I lived in the Valley and sustains those friendships now.  I just never had the time to break away from farming to “hang out” or visit and I’m such an introvert anyway that I just don’t do that sort of thing. And, if I am honest, I allowed the loss of my son to isolate me even further.   I feel that I have spent more time getting to know people here than I ever did in the valley.  That is mostly a reflection on me, not on others.  My point is that I just didn’t make connections or form relationships there that made it difficult for me to leave.  The pull of my babies being in the Valley draws me back and makes me long to go for visits, but otherwise, I have not been this content since I lived in Alaska and I dare say that I have never been happier.  I don’t take it for granted.  It has been a very long road getting to this place in life.  I am thankful from the depths of my heart. 

August 11, 2018

While Mike was away, I kept busy.  It is amazing how much there is to do and how much I can accomplish when I don’t stop to cook meals and when I stay focused on “my own” projects and work rather than stopping to help Mike or converse with him.  However, focused I was this time, I still would have rather had him here than away.  That is truly a “first” for me.  I love him dearly and enjoy being with him, but I am a person so focused on goals and accomplishing the work I set out to do, that when I get a chance to be alone and focused on tasks, I always embrace it, never feeling lonely are afraid to be by myself.  This time with Mike gone, I accomplished all the things I set out to do, was focused and ok with being by myself but I missed him so terribly. 

One of the things I had put off for a while was cleaning the chicken coop.  It felt good to get it cleaned up and new straw down for the hens.  I also made mozzarella cheese.  I had not done that in a long time and it felt good to be playing with large quantities of milk again.  With our dryer out and Mike not having been able to fix it, getting clothes washed and dried has become a major focus.  I feel like I devote a lot of time to making sure we have clean clothes.  I really don’t, but I do have to plan.  For days we had so much rain that I couldn’t get my clothes dry.  Now, we are having late afternoon and evening storms and showers almost daily.  I make sure that I have clothes in the wash before daylight and then I hang them on the line as soon as the sun comes up, giving them enough time to dry before the afternoon showers.  While I love to hang clothes on the line and do it more often than not, I have always relied on having that back up dryer for clothes I wash in the evenings or when it rains.  The positive side of having a broken dryer is that it has forced me to “go green” and stop relying on the electricity sucking machine.  Mike said he needs to get me a new dryer and I told him that I am not in any hurry because I have learned how to manage the clothes without one with a little extra dedication to the task.  It has been funny though because when we have a sunny day, I have strung “extra” lines between trees and anywhere I can find so that I can wash sheets and larger items in addition to a load of clothes.  Those who pass by our house see plenty of clothes blowing in the breeze and our entire yard crisscrossed with clothes lines. 

Of course, adding to the daily routine is milking Princess.  I had let the other mommas get by with simply raising their calves.  Shar can do that without being milked at all (although I did milk her some in the beginning) and Promise can do so after a few weeks if I don’t take steps to increase her milk production, which I did not do this year.  As a result, they both only have enough milk to feed their calves unless I separate the calves for twelve hours.  Even then, they don’t give a large quantity of milk because they have not been milked regularly to get them to that point.  (A cow, like a human, makes milk based upon demand.  If the demand is not there in the beginning, then their bodies will cut back to what needs to be produced just for the calf, generally speaking.  There are exceptions to this, but mostly it is true.)  When Princess calved, she had a lot of milk as she is a high producer and while I didn’t want to push her to produce the maximum that she can produce, I want to keep her in enough milk that we have plenty for the table.  I chose to take my chances at milking her once a day.  As a ten-year-old cow, I know her well, and I knew that milking her twice a day would increase her production quickly which would also put her in a higher risk for developing milk fever which she is prone to as well.  I took my chances that milking her once a day would be enough to keep her from developing mastitis and it has been.  On once a day milking, she is currently giving me 2.5 gallons of milk a day which is perfect as far as I am concerned.  As the calf grows, she will take more of that milk but I anticipate still having enough to keep us in milk for a while.  For all of the first week and part of the second, getting Princess to adjust to a new routine in a new place was difficult, but she has settled in now and will leave her calf outside or in the barn and come in for her “treats” willingly.  We were also dealing with a minor but hurtful injury to her left, rear teat where the skin was torn back, making it extremely sore, especially when the inflation is placed on the teat and begins squeezing the milk out.  She kicked a lot and when Princess kicks, she goes for gold.  Being tender makes it difficult to get all the milk out of the quarter which can lead to mastitis.  I was diligent to stick with it, kicking and all, in order to make sure that quarter remained healthy.  Every night after milking, I put an antiseptic on the wound that also helped to seal it off.  It is looking much better now, although still tender.  I am hoping she doesn’t’ open up the scab and that we don’t have to start all over with the healing process.  A teat injury is so difficult to get healed. 

I also began letting Princess and her calf, Little P, stay out at night.  Princess gets so depressed when she is not with the rest of the herd.  Cattle are herd animals and to separate one really has an impact on their morale.  Some of them, like humans, deal with alone time better than others.  Princess is not one of those.  She gets very agitated, anxious and then depressed when left alone, so I try to keep her with the herd as much as possible.  Even when we let her out into the smaller pasture where she could be “next door” to her herd mates in the next lot over, she would stand at the fence, looking over and longing to be with them.  Knowing Little P was faster and stronger now, I decided it was safe enough to let them back out with the herd at night.  I had feared attacks by predators when the calf was just born and weak and a story a lifelong resident told me did nothing to ease my fears.  She told me that a friend of hers had on video a large bear, picking up one of her jersey calves and dragging it away.  Evidently the bear had been coming in and being a nuisance and this farmer had been told that the bears have radio collars, are tracked, and that shooting them is punishable with high fines and even jail time.  Thus, when the bear came in and scooped up the calf, all she could do was watch and video tape it to prove it had happened.  My friend saw the video tape and said that she would not have believed it had she not seen it.  I am not sure, jail time or not, that I could have stood their recording.  One never knows for sure what they will do in a crisis situation, but I don’t think I could refrain from doing something to try to save the calf.  My friend went on to tell me of someone who had a bear stand up in the window and look in at her sleeping baby in the crib at their home.  She said the paw prints were on the window and yet, she was told that shooting the bear would be punishable.  I hope I am never put in that position.  I lived for years in grizzly bear territory in Alaska and have had a number of personal encounters with bears.  I respect them and those who know me know that I don’t even like to hunt because I am such an animal lover, but when faced with crisis situations in Alaska, I always had a weapon and knew that I could use it to shoot an aggressive animal should the need arise. 

On Wednesday, with Mike gone, I went into Galax by myself.  It is an easy 45-minute trip. While most of the trip for me is made by traveling Highway 58, there is no heavy traffic like in the Valley.  I had multiple, routine appointments and those went well.  Arriving early to the Twin County Hospital in Galax for a Mammogram, I walked in the lobby and it was completely deserted.  There were no people coming in or out, there was no one at the desk.  I spent a few minutes looking around the area trying to decide where I was supposed to go for my mammogram and the whole time, I saw not a soul.  The hospital reminds me of hospitals from my youth and I figure it was probably built in the 70’s or earlier.  Even as I made my way down the halls and to the radiology department, I met very few people.  The medical professionals I passed were all friendly, smiling, and sometimes saying good morning as they passed.  The waiting room was busy but not filled to capacity.  I noticed that with a room of perhaps a dozen people, I was the only one with a cell phone out.  The whole scene reminded me of another place and time.  The lady who registered me was cheerful and kind.  The radiologist who performed the test was not as friendly but was not unpleasant and was extremely efficient, getting me in and out quickly.  I was satisfied with the experience, my second within a one-week period at Twin Counties Hospital, having gone last week for a battery of blood work.  On both of my visits, I felt valued and felt I was given good care. 

My second appointment for the day was with the optometrist, and a follow up visit from seeing them for the first-time last year around this time.  I feel like I get excellent care at this facility and I am pleased with how thorough they are.  The cost of a visit reflects the fact they are state of the art, and we do not have vision insurance, but I know when I walk away from t here that they have given me a thorough exam.  The vision in my right eye remains the same but in my left eye had become slightly worse.  However, after I told the doctor that my insurance would not pay for vision, she agreed that I would be all right to wait until next year’s visit before replacing the lenses in my glasses.  We also talked about the dry eye syndrome that I have, and with one of the tests, she was able to confirm my need for treatment or prescription drops.  However, again the cost was so high to remedy the situation, I chose to continue with using over the counter drops and dealing with it.  Without prescription insurance, the drops are evidently well over a hundred dollars, the treatments range from several hundred to 750 per eye depending on what treatment is best for each individual scenario and the testing to find out which treatment is best for the individual runs about $250.  I told the doctor I would just live with it for now.  She was kind and understanding and told me if we meet our $7500 deductible on our medical insurance for the year (which we have only done once in the last 13 years) then come in because it was considered a medical condition and would be covered by the medical insurance.  I am thankful that my difficulties are so minor, really nothing. 

I am thankful also that after not feeling well and thinking perhaps there might be something more seriously wrong, that blood work and lab tests have all come back negative and my two to three-week bout of feeling poorly and running a low-grade fever off and on seems to be nothing more than some sort of viral infection.  I am feeling much better now, back to normal in fact. 

I accomplished a lot while Mike was gone, checked off a lot of errands and caught up on some paperwork that had been hanging over my head.  I got some things ordered from Amazon that I have been putting off for a year.  All in all, it was a productive three days, and I stayed very busy, but I sure was glad to see Mike walk through the door at almost midnight on Wednesday.

Thursday, Mike got caught up on mowing, something I didn’t push myself to do this time while he was gone and I canned another round of tomatoes that he brought with him from the garden in Verona at his mom’s place.  I was able to put up 10 more quarts of tomatoes, putting my total of canned goods for this season up to around 150 jars of various produce.  I would love to put up about that much more and have my shelves filled for the winter, but I know we are set for this winter, even if I am unable to can anything else.  We might not have all the variety we want, but we will have plenty of homegrown goodness to eat over the winter.  The garden in the Valley is winding down.  Mike said maybe we would get a few more tomatoes and there are some beets, beans, and a few other things in the garden.  He will be tilling it up soon and planting grass seed there, this being our final year to grow veggies in the valley.  It is the end of an era for him and I know he is sad about that but we are also looking forward positively to the future, growing things in raised beds and learning to make things work for us here in the mountains.  Some things will be different here with gardening but we will grow, learn, and move forward.  It is bittersweet but also an exciting time as we watch things come together for us more and more here at our mountain home.  We will also be having an auction at some point in the near future to sell off some of our equipment.  Again, a bittersweet point in our lives, harder for Mike than for me.  Soon, we will be completely removed from the farm where Mike’s mother lives, his nephew already renting the place for going on two years.  We still have our 50 acres and home in Staunton where Alissa and Gabino are living with their two girls.  We have beef cattle there, hay fields, and soybeans this year.  As time goes by, we have made decisions and other decisions have been forced upon us that necessitate our drawing to a close our ties to the family farm and while that is hard and in many ways very sad, we are blessed to have so much positive in our life, and a place where we feel at home in Southwest Virginia. 

After we got some things done around the house Thursday, we went into Galax late afternoon and went by Briar Patch to check on our booth and put a few more small items in there.  We ran a few more errands and then we went by Felts Park to check out the 83^rd Annual Fiddler’s Convention.  I really didn’t know what to expect and my introversion and social anxieties made me chicken out at the last minute, telling Mike that I just wanted to go home rather than get out of the car and walk inside the park to face a new experience.  The thought of the reported 40,000 people in attendance in a little town that typically boasts 7,000 permanent residents was just too much for me.  Mike, knowing me well, pushed me to go anyway.  He knew I wanted to experience it but that I was letting my anxiety get the better of me.  He promised me if I felt uncomfortable that we could leave at any time.  It was one of those instances where I knew he didn’t care one way or the other if we went, and that he was doing this for me because he knew it was something I would enjoy.  We found a relatively quiet spot towards the back of the bleachers, but far enough down that the evening sun would not burn our necks.  Competitors come from all over the world for the competition.  While we listened, we heard a banjo player from Norway as well as one from Australia.  Of course, there were many local players as well as people travelling from all over the United States.  Because I enjoy watching people and absorbing the different personalities and characteristics of individuals within a crowd, I watched closely as people walked up and down the path between those of sitting in the bleachers and those sitting in the lower section in chairs, closer to the performers.  There were people of all ages enjoying the family friendly atmosphere.  No alcohol allowed, plenty of security from local law enforcement, and old-time mountain music seemed to draw a crowd of friendly, relaxed, pleasant people.  There were folks there dressed like “mountain men” with overalls, long beards and wide brimmed hats.  There were “original, old hippies” as well as a younger generation of hippies, including one long haired young man who played most excellently in the banjo competition with bare feet and a huge smile, gazing out into the audience as it played with ease and brought down the house.  There were “old women” dressed far too young and “young women” dressed far to old.  I smiled when I saw a group of teenage girls and reached over and nudged Mike.  “Look at those girls”, I said.  They look like me when I was in high school and shortly thereafter.”  The clothes they wore had a vintage feel to them and made me think of the late 80’s and early 90’s.  It wasn’t what I was used to seeing kids today wear.  One girl in particular kept my attention.  She was full of life and all over the place, joking with her friends one minute, talking to a young sheriff’s deputy the next minute, and then flat foot dancing with an elderly man on the sidelines.  She made me smile and remember a time when I believed that the world was all good or at least, if it wasn’t that it could be.  It reminded me of a time when I believed that I could and would make a big impact on the world just because of my love for people and my willingness to make sacrifices to make a difference in the life of others.  I smiled at the young girl’s eagerness for life and I hoped that she would never lose her joy or her faith in all that is good.  As I watched the people around me, I kept seeing a very old man walking around with a board used by flat foot dancers.  He looked to be close to 90, was dressed well, and had a large hat on his head.  He was thin with a quick smile and it didn’t take me too long to figure out that he loved attention and he loved the ladies.  I watched him from a distance the entire night as he continually pushed himself to the forefront of all the happenings.  If someone was taking a video, he would position himself to be in it.  He had no shame in asking if he had made it into the recording.  He could dance and dance well.  I am not sure how anyone his age could pull of the moves that he had, but he was actually quite good and quite energetic.  After listening to the competition for a while, I asked Mike if he wanted to walk.  There were various venders set up and we walked rather quickly through them and found our way on the edges of the campground where people in tents of various sizes and all makes and models of campers and RV’s were packed in side by side.  Again, the diversity represented by the inhabitants of the campground was profound.  Who knew that so many people from so many different backgrounds would enjoy the old-time music of the fiddler’s convention?  As we began to walk through the camp, we found group after group of musicians singing, some with just a few people standing by to listen, others with large crowds.  The music represented was everything from gospel, to blue grass, to old time music, and old country.  Before leaving, we stopped where a large crowd had gathered.  There were perhaps a half a dozen flat foot dancers keeping the beat as the group of musicians played.  It was a lively crowd, and lively music.  I can watch the flat foot dancers for hours, never getting tired of watching their feet move with the beat of the music. One dancer not old enough to go to school, another looked to be near 90, and every age in between, they represented an Appalachian tradition that is still alive and well.  Flat foot dancing is typically passed from generation to generation, the younger generations learning by imitating the freestyle dance moves of their parents and grandparents.  This moment standing on the sidelines and absorbing the spirit of the group gathered around was hopeful to me.  There were so many different people represented in that place, brought together by their love of old time music and regional dance.  It seemed at that moment that the world was a good place filled with good people. 

August 13, 2018

Friday, Mike and I got up and made the trip to the Roanoke Valley to attend the produce auction.  We didn’t buy anything and would not have gone except that we had a truck load of boxes to sell.  We accumulated a number of produce boxes over the years and have them stored at the farm in Verona.  Mike has begun trying to clean up and clear out his things there and the boxes need to go.  The gently used boxes go into the auction where the growers place their bids, paying pennies on the dollar compared to new box prices.  It is a win/win for everyone.  We need to find new homes for the boxes and we make a few dollars in the process.  It would be easier to pile them up and burn them, but our nature is to try to reuse, salvage, recycle and find purpose for anything that is still functional. 

Friday, like most of our days, was a typical, normal, routine day and yet I ended the day thinking, “I have waited all my life to be where I am right now.”  On the way to the Roanoke Valley, Mike and I started talking and our conversation, although not profound, ended up being a time of deep connection and intimacy.  It was a simple day.  It was a beautiful day. 

Saturday, I spent a good part of the day getting caught up on washing up the clothes and hanging them on the line while I made butter and mozzarella cheese from our fresh cow’s milk.  I was happy with almost three pounds of mozzarella, two pounds of butter and about a gallon of cultured buttermilk from my efforts. 

Sunday, I got up early to get more clothes washed, hung up to dry, and milk the cow before we went to church.  After church, we had leftovers for lunch.  We had a number of tomatoes that needed to be preserved but not enough to get out the canner.  So, I made some pizza sauce using the peppers and tomatoes form our garden as well as the oregano and basil that I have growing in containers right outside the back door.  The house smelled so good while the sauce was cooking.  I couldn’t wait until later and had to go ahead and make us a pizza for our supper.  I used my sourdough to make the crust, our Italian pork sausage, the mozzarella I had made on Saturday and the fresh, homemade pizza sauce.  I cooked it up in my Wagner, cast iron square skillet and it was absolutely delicious.  I was able to freeze enough sauce for four more meals. 

It’s Monday morning and we have been up since 3 am with a busy week ahead of us.  We have some really exciting things to look forward to this week as well as some events that are going to be extremely difficult both physically and emotionally.  My human nature wants this week to be finished so that the difficult part can be behind us but I know I need to take each moment as it comes and try to experience it as best I can and make the most out of each situation. 

Monday Journals

January 25, 2018

It’s Thursday morning and after a busy week in Staunton, Mike is ready to get something done.  The loader had been loaned out for a while and needed to be serviced and had some needed repairs as well, so that was one of Mike’s projects when we were in Staunton at the beginning of the week.   Mike and Gabino worked on the loader, on one of the farm trucks, and on the furnace in the house that isn’t running correctly.  I am not sure what all else he had to do, but I know he and Gab were super busy and we didn’t see either of them until well after dark for the three days we were in Staunton.  I watched the girls for about 20 hours total, got my hair cut, worked at our booth at the Antique Mall one afternoon, went shopping at Sharp Shoppers (a discount grocery store), cleaned and wash more clothes than I care to think about.  The girls have been really good for me these past few weeks.  I think they have settled in more this semester and know more of what to expect from the house full of adults.  They do wear me out though.  I am always so exhausted when we leave Staunton.  Rory is very busy and you can’t take your eyes off her for a minute and any time she is sleeping, I am trying to give Analia some individual attention, or catch up on something in the house that needs to be done.  The trip back to Laurel Fork was uneventful, thank goodness.  I’m always glad that Mike is such a good driver but especially when we are travelling pulling a long trailer and this time with heavy equipment.  We didn’t have any trouble, but we definitely felt the pull on the steeper terrain as we got closer to Southwest Virginia.  There’s a particularly steep stretch with three lanes outside of Christiansburg where the semi-trucks always slow way down.  We weren’t going as slow as some of them in the far-right lane, but we didn’t have the speed we normally have when we are travelling.  I was glad when Mike decided to park the trailer across the road once we got to Laurel Fork, rather than try to back it in over our little bridge in the dark.  I have no doubt he could have done it, but I am always a nervous wreck when we do that in the dark.  We had to carry our personal items and the groceries I brought up the hill to the house, but that wasn’t too bad.  We just left everything else for later.  I thought I would sleep really well being so tired but I had a really hard night with a lot of pain in my lower back.  I have always had some back issues and one of many reasons we cut back and didn’t do mobile produce this year is because of the amount of lifting I have to do.  I just can’t do it all day long anymore.  I imagine years of lifting far more weight than I should have has taken its toll on my back.  I don’t do so much lifting right now as far as farming is concerned, but I do lift my Little People who aren’t so little.  Even Rory is a big girl for her age and I’m sure my back was just strained from lifting the girls so much over the last few days.  At any rate, I had a miserable night but I’m hoping a few days of babying my back will put me back in the game. 

Mike brought the loader with us and can’t wait to get it off the trailer and start pushing brush, gathering scrap metal and cleaning up around here.  He laughed last night and said his daddy sure did like to use that loader, and I remember how much he did.  Pops would run the loader with a big, ‘ole grin on his face and would push down everything in his path when he got on a roll.  Mike is a lot like him in that regard. Mike made mention that he hoped his daddy was getting to drive a big combine in heaven because Pops had always wanted to run a huge combine out west.  I remembered a conversation we had one time about heaven and we were all wondering what it must be like.  Everyone gave their ideas and then Pops, in his slow, thoughtful way, said he thought we would all have jobs to do in heaven and he figured he would still be farming.  Farming is all he ever wanted to do, and is in fact all he did, up to the moment he passed away.  (He was preparing corn for planting and we found him behind the tractor with his head up against the planter when he passed away.  He looked as if he were smiling.)

When the sun came up this morning, it didn’t take us long to figure out that we had a trespasser while we were away.  There were tracks all over the yard and it was evident the intruder had larger than average feet.  He must have been especially inquisitive because he walked all around the barnyard and then came through the small gate that leads from the garden area into our steep back yard.  At some point, it either got too steep for him or he was frightened and we saw where he had slid down the hill, taking some of the grass with him.  We are sure it was one of our neighbors.  The neighbors are so nosy, always watching us and looking for a chance to interact.  While no one lives directly across the road from us, a prominent land owner and business man pastures his draft mules in the meadow in front of our house.  Evidently, one of the mules escaped and came over to see what was going on at our place while we were away. 

January 26, 2018

Yesterday was a super productive day for Mike.  He got started early and in fact, refused to even eat breakfast because he wanted to get started right away.  (We later ate a breakfast sandwich for lunch and then had a good supper that evening.)  He gathered up a lot of scrap metal and put it on the trailer, including using the loader to pick up an old abandoned 50/60’s school bus that had been on the property forever.  At some point, someone had used the old bus for a chicken house and it was filled with nesting boxes and feeders.  It was completely rusted through in spots.  I had worried when we bought the property that the bus would sit there as an eye sore for the rest of my life.  But, true to his word, Mike got it moved.  Once the bus was moved, we discovered a large, cinder block structure underground.  We assumed it might have been a cistern, but it was much larger than the cisterns that I have seen and it was completely dry.  There were no pipes going in or out of it and there was a hole at the top.  Someone had taken a five-gallon milk jug, cut the bottom off of it, and placed it in the hole.  It fit perfectly to fill the hole.  My mind instantly began thinking about what we could use it for rather than just fill it in with dirt.  I thought perhaps we could turn it into an underground root cellar, but we will have to see if that is practical and if the place is even salvageable.  As Mike pushed down some brush and piled it up, he uncovered an old piece of farming equipment that appears to be a horse drawn harrow.  It is in pretty poor condition. 

I made some single pie crusts yesterday and used one to make a strawberry pie.  It tasted pretty good, but didn’t turn out very pretty.  I have another crust that I think I will use today to make a cream pie of some kind.  I love the lard crusts.  They are just so much better.  We didn’t raise any hogs last year with all that we had going on in trying to transition.  We didn’t want to ask the kids to have to care for them as they can sometimes be a real pain, especially if they get out of their pen and start roaming.  I hope to get some babies this spring and raise them as feeder hogs and then butcher in the fall.  I am missing not having our pork.  I am glad that I still have some lard and that it has not developed a strong taste. 

One of my projects yesterday was to remove the ashes from the fireplace.  We let the fire die out when we go to Staunton and when we return, the cold ashes need to be removed.  Mike has been doing it because there wasn’t a lot he could do outside when the weather was colder, but with the warmer weather, I told him I would take over that project freeing him up to clean up outside.  I also filled the wood box, and then Mike wanted to know if I would make a fire since the evening temperatures were starting to drop.  I laughed and asked him if he thought I could do it right. ( He and I both know that I can build a fire, but Mike likes to tell me how to do things and then I just go right ahead and do them my way anyway.)  By the time he came in, I had a roaring fire going in the clean fireplace and I was happy to know that I hadn’t lost my skills.  When it was so bitter cold, Mike and I took turns waking up and adding wood to the fire but last night, although cold, wasn’t terrible, and fire died down overnight.  I secretly hoped Mike would wake up before me and build another fire so the bedroom would be toasty when my toes hit the wood floor, but alas, that didn’t happen.  The house wasn’t uncomfortable though and cooking breakfast warmed me up.  I always turn the oven on warm and put our plates inside to heat the up so that when I put our eggs and toast on them, they stay warm longer.  Afterwards, I open up the door and let the heat escape into the room and that always takes the edge off the cold.  That and the hot coffee I make in the old enamel percolator help with the morning chill.

January 27, 2018

After breakfast yesterday, Mike and I took the trailer loaded with scrap metal to the nearest scrap yard which was about thirty minutes away.  I am sure we were quite a site with that old bus strapped down on the back of the trailer and all the rusted-out metal as we headed down the highway.  Watching that huge crane and massive claw pick up that bus like it was nothing and drop it on the mountain of metal was pretty cool.  I was impressed with the crushing power and strength of that claw and yet the precision the operator had to pick up small items as well.  It was fun to watch.  I would have gladly paid to have that old bus removed from the property, but it was nice to get some money from the scrap yard for our efforts.  Afterwards we made a stop in Hillsville to pay our propane bill and then we headed home.  Mike immediately went back to work outdoors as he continues to pursue reclaiming the property from neglect.  I took a few minutes in the afternoon to walk the “back forty”.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and it was quite chilly but still a nice walk.  I worked on hauling enough wood to get us through the night.  There was some dried wood that Mike had left on the ground, some odd pieces that he didn’t stack.  I picked those up and put them in the wheel barrow, hauling them down from the barn.  Then I got several wheel barrow loads full of the old wood that was cut and stacked in the bottom part of our double decker chicken house.  The old, commercial chicken house had a wood stove in it at one time and there was a good bit of maple wood stacked there.  There is no telling how old that wood is or how many years it has been stacked there.  There is enough dried wood on the property to last us for years with the downed trees that need to be cut up, which is another reason I would love to get a wood stove or wood cook stove in the house.  For now, we are using the old wood and cleaning it up.  Every time we build a fire it feels like a dual-purpose scenario.   Not only do we get to enjoy the fire, warm ourselves, and keep the fuel bill down but we are also cleaning up piles of wood that have been sitting here on the farm for many, many years.  The maple wood has been setting for so long that it is covered in inches of dust and dirt and cobwebs.  It’s nice to be able to use it for something purposeful rather than just throw it on a bonfire. 

I love to use my cast iron cookware when we are in Laurel Fork.  I really miss it when I am in Staunton.  Nothing beats cooking with cast iron and using pieces that have been around for decades just feels good.  We have been eating so much beef because we didn’t raise any pork last year.  The beef is delicious and we are blessed to have such great food and to know where our food originates.  However, we are kind of getting tired of the same menu all the time.  Last night I wanted to mix it up a little bit and while I used the same old ingredients, I presented it a little differently and the meal ended up tasting really good.  I made meatballs, cooking them up in my Wagner skillet.  Then, I used my Lodge skillet to bake the potatoes.  I peeled them as this time of year after being stored for so long, they are beginning to sprout and shrivel a bit.  I put a little butter in the bottom of the skillet and melt the butter and warm the skillet in a hot oven.  Then, I placed my halved, medium sized potatoes in the skillet and put them in the oven to bake.  On occasion, I turn them so that all the sides get browned.  Once the potatoes were cooked and sprinkled with a little salt and a lot of pepper, I added the meatballs and the covered the entire dish with a white sauce and sprinkled with parsley.  I was able to keep this dish in the oven on warm for a good while to keep it hot until Mike came inside.  (I never know how late he will be for supper and I try not to use the microwave.  Eventually I hope I get brave enough to just throw it out.  At this point, I rarely use it anyway.)  I made some broccoli to go along with the meal.  I had intended to make a cream pie with the crust I made yesterday but when it came down to it, I decided to use the last of the yellow cherries I had in the freezer here at Laurel Fork and combine them with a pint of sour cherries I had canned to make a cherry pie.  I turned out really good and I liked it even better than the strawberry pie. 

January 29, 2018

The rain and the snow first take turns, then they fall together.  It’s a dreary, wet, cold Monday but I am tucked inside the warm house with the Little Girls and the smallest one is finally taking a nap.  Fussy has been the best descriptor for her and it had already started yesterday evening when we arrived back in Staunton.  This week is going to be mostly focused on the kids and grandkids.  I’m watching the girls today, getting together with the twins tomorrow, and have the girls again tomorrow night.  Thursday and Friday I will be keeping Analia while Alissa attends and speaks at a conference in North Carolina.  Alissa and two of her friends, also in the Masters program at James Madison will stay overnight with us in Laurel Fork.  I don’t plan on getting much done this week other than spend time with the Littles and their parents.  But, it looks like it is a good week for it because the weather is not supposed to be very nice and there’s probably not a lot we can get done outdoors anyway. 

Backing up a bit, we didn’t get much accomplished on Saturday either.  It rained pretty hard at times and was just generally wet and muddy.  Mike, who loves basketball and played twice a week up until he hurt his shoulder and had rotator cuff surgery, watched UVA play on TV.  Sunday, it was still drizzling in the morning but folks seemed to be cheerful and in good spirits at the little church we have been attending.  The homemade muffins and coffee probably helped and of course, all the warm hugs from new friends.  We hung around the house where I made a deep-dish pizza for lunch and then headed back to Staunton late afternoon.  By the time we reached the Interstate, it was raining pretty hard and the weather coupled with the heavy traffic made it a tough drive for Mike.  Back in Staunton, I stopped at the Dollar Store to get chocolate chips for Alissa who was making cookies.  She had a delicious soup ready for supper. 

I am thankful for these routine, uneventful, normal days that might seem a bit boring.