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.

Barn, Outbuilding, and Grounds Clean Up.

Although we had rain for the weekend in Laurel Fork, the weather was decent on Thursday and Friday and we were able to get serious about cleaning up the grounds.  Mike and Gabino worked on servicing the loader while still in Staunton.  They loaded it on Wednesday and we drove down Wednesday evening.  Was a little different pulling such a load as we traveled, especially when we got into the mountains, but all went well.  

An old bus sat abandoned for years.  Someone at some  point had turned it into a chicken house.  It was full of metal laying boxes and feeders.  It was a real "eye sore" and I was happy when Mike was able to get it onto the trailer.  There was a good bit of metal off the sides of the shed (that we replaced with wood) as well as other scrap metal that we scrounged up around the property.  We were quite the site pulling this bus and load of metal down the road to the scrap yard.   We have several more loads of scrap metal, I am sure.

Mike pushed over a lot of brush.  The place is covered is some sort of bush with horrible briars all over it.  It has taken over in places.  (I am not good at identifying plant life.)  The brush had grown up around this old piece of equipment to the point we couldn't even see it.  Mike got it removed.  It is in very poor condition and we probably won't try to save the piece in its entirety.  We will probably salvage some key pieces and then scrap the rest.

 The most interesting part of our clean up was discovering this cinder block structure under the bus.  We had no idea it was there until we removed the bus, which must have been placed there to keep animals from falling in the hole.  I would assume it is some type of cistern but I am not 100% sure on that.  If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.  There are no pipes going in or leading out.  It is a solid structure with a roof and a single hole in the top.  (Someone had filled the hole by placing the top half of a metal, five gallon milk can in the top).  There are no steps or anyway to access the inside of the structure, so I am assuming it was not used as an underground root cellar or storm shelter.

Here is a view of the inside of the structure.  We will probably just fill it in with dirt but my mind is working as to what and how we could repurpose it.

Clean up is always messy business and doesn't leave one with a lot of beautiful pictures to share until it is all finished.  As we continue with our clean up and restoration projects, I wanted to present the "before" photos as well as those lovely, picturesque "after" photos.  Thanks for following along with us on this journey.

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. 

Friday Farm Photos

Barn and Outbuilding Restoration Update

Occasionally on Tuesdays I like to update the blog with our barn and outbuilding restoration projects at our mountain property.  While Mike worked on the barn this past week, I was able to do some clean up in the old chicken house.  I guess some folks would simply tear this building down, as it does have some structural damage that we need to address, but I love it and want to try to salvage it.  Perhaps with time, the building will succumb to the shifting of the mountainous terrain, the pouring rains and the shifting soil, but I believe there is a lot of life left in this abandoned house.  The folks who flipped the farm house didn't do a lot to this building other than to pain the outside and put a brace in the bottom where the wall was shifting.  We plan to put a new metal roof on it, replace the windows, replace some bad flooring around the vents in the second story, move some dirt from the back that is causing pressure on the building, put in some fencing around the house for the birds, and perhaps eventually put board and batting on the top section so that it matches the barn.  

When we arrived in Laurel Fork on Wednesday evening, there was about six inches of snow and ice and the temps were still not conducive to outdoor work.  By the weekend the weather had changed for the better, even though it was still quite wet in our "holler".  (I just love the vintage thermometer and original, vintage glass window panes on our back porch at the Cape Cod, cottage style farm house.)

The following is the "after three hours of cleaning out trash" picture.  For the second level, one walks through the door at one end of the building.  At the far end are some nesting boxes.  To the far right is what I assume was used as a brooder at one time, so I kept it.  With a little repair and a heat lamp above, it will make a great place for baby birds.  Our whole farm uses spring water on a gravity feed system.  I have never had running water in a chicken house but the cinder blocks are a trough with access to water from the spring.  There is a flu coming up through the floor with a place to set up a wood stove downstairs.  I love the simplicity but functionality of it all.  At one time, I suppose this was a "commercial" set up.  Just the second floor will provide far more space than I need for my flock of birds.  

Before we bought the property from the couple who restored and "flipped" the house, the property had set empty for a number of years.  I am still trying to piece together the history of the place, but it appears that other than an occasional get away a couple times of year by the Jackson Family and the pasture being rented out to neighbors for their cattle, the property had sat empty for many, many years.  I gathered up the metal and other salvageable items in one pile.  (Note the built in wooden feed box behind all the junk.  I just love details like this.)

I gathered a  huge pile of old wire, inflations and hoses from the milking parlor, and just general garbage.  Underneath are rolls of used carpet that was taken up out of the house and stored in the chicken house.  Evidently sometime in the 50's or 60's from the style of carpet, I would say they covered the original hardwood floors.  

The floor is all good except for this section around the vent that I uncovered when I moved a pile of shingles, old carpet, old tile and tongue and grove flooring removed from the house at some point. This section will have to be replaced and the roof repaired.  

While I was working in the chicken house, Mike was working in the barn.  Actually, this is a shed attached to the back of the barn.  We decided to leave it so that the cattle would have shelter during bad weather.  There was a feeder that went the entire length of the shelter.  We decided to take the back part out so that we can easily drive a loader through that area, making clean up a lot easier as we get older.  Mike has been working to replace the broken pieces to the feeder and make a trough in the bottom.  

And, while we had temperatures over 50 degrees, Mike was able to stain the side of the barn that had not been stained yet.  He still has the back of the shed to stain when we get another nice day.  

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 Journals

January 11, 2018

We are back in Laurel Fork and the thought foremost in my mind is how wonderful it feels to not be cold.  Last week was so reminiscent of my days in Alaska.  The temperatures, of course, did not compare to the 50-60 below zero we had there during a cold snap, but the cold that radiated from the walls and windows and the winds that drove the cold into our poorly insulated farm house sure did remind me of those days.  Today it was in the 50’s and raining and it just felt so good not to have that debilitating cold.  I finally got the Christmas tree down today.  I always leave my tree up until after Epiphany but because we had that whole section of the house blocked off as we tried to keep the rest of the house warm, the tree sat untouched until we returned to Laurel Fork this week.  With it being warmer outside and comfortable inside, I was able to tolerate the closed off portion of the house and get the ornaments put away.  (I had already taken down all the other decorations in the rest of the house.)  Mike worked inside the barn as it was much to nasty to be trying to do anything outside.  The ground was just saturated, soft and slimy.  Anywhere we didn’t stay on gravel, cement, or blacktop, we simply slid or sunk into the mess.  There’s a huge, attached shed on the back of the barn and it has a long, wooden, feeding trough in it that needs repair.  We decided to take down the back section of the trough so that the cattle can have a lounging area in inclement weather and so that we can get a loader in there to clean it out.  It was a quiet day and a day to get down to the nuts and bolts of all the little things that need to be done.  Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday were busy days as we were in Staunton to catch up on things there.  Mike always has things to do around the farm (home place in Verona where his mom lives and where his nephew is leasing now).  When in Staunton Mike still eats breakfast with his mom, helps her around the place with anything she might need, helps Matt feed the cattle, catches up on delivering hay to customers, often helps Gabino cut wood so that we have wood for the outdoor boiler that heats our house in Staunton, works on equipment (this week it was brakes on one of the farm trucks), runs errands, and such.  The winter routine is slower but still busy.  (In the summer he is busy making hay and tending to the garden as well.)  Monday was the first day of Alissa’s new schedule which keeps her away from home for about 14 hours.  The girls were really good for me and Rory did well.  She is much easier to keep now that she is walking and able to eat and drink well rather than just relying on nursing.  (Neither of Alissa’s girls would take bottles hardly at all.  Instead, they would just scream from hunger and wait for momma to get home to nurse them, which meant a long day for me as their caretaker.)  I think they both really missed Mike and I while we were away from them for two weeks. Their being happy to have us home was part of the reason they were fairly content Monday with Alissa being gone.  Tuesday, I spent half a day at the Antique Mall in Verona working on rearranging the booth and taking inventory.  I anticipate needing another two, full afternoons to complete the inventory in that store.  Sales have been really slow the last of December and first of January, but they were slow last year at this time as well.  Alissa goes in to class later on Tuesday evenings than she did last semester which is good and bad.  I had enough time to get supper made before she left which made it a little easier on me but it means she gets home later.  After supper and baths, I took the girls downstairs to play where they could interact with Mike as well as he watched a ball game on television.  Wednesday morning I packed another load of things to carry with us back to Laurel Fork and I caught up on the paperwork that had been sitting in Staunton waiting on me over Christmas.  Gabino was late getting to the house to watch the girls because he was helping Mike. Alissa had to leave to teach her classes at Blue Ridge Community College, so I watched the girls for a while until they got back.  The girls played well and I was able to get the downstairs swept and mopped.  Rory likes to chase me around as I sweep and mop, so it’s always a circus, but the floors were at least a little cleaner.  With all of us in and out so much, keeping the floors up is almost impossible and with a baby who likes to put everything in her mouth, it provides a real challenge.  I think we finally got out the door around two on Wednesday.  That last few minutes when we are trying to get everything packed up and remember to take everything we need is always the worst time of the week for us as far as our attitudes are concerned.  It seems Mike and I inevitably snap and fuss at each other the whole time.  Trying to stay organized and keep up with two different places that are almost three hours apart in distance can be a real challenge.  It never fails though, once we get in that truck and head down the road we are able to get over whatever we have been fussing about, release the stress and usually get a laugh out of our stupidity.  Maybe someday we will finally learn to just roll with the stress and stop biting each other’s heads off as the days in Staunton come to a head and we prepare to travel south.  The traffic on Interstate 81 was as nasty as usual on a late Wednesday afternoon and we had not been on the road more than a few minutes when I realized I was absolutely starving.  I am so busy when we are in Staunton, that I don’t stop to eat breakfast or lunch and typically just eat the evening meal. I had not had a bite to eat all day and had only had two meals in the last 72 hours.  We stopped to eat when we got to Lexington. I inhaled my food! We got to the house after dark.  We were hauling a very long cattle trailer.  Mike had some supplies in it for the barn and he wanted to park it as close as he could to the house rather than leave it down along the road.  We have a narrow bridge that goes over a lively stream right as you turn into our driveway and getting the truck and trailer in is not an easy task.  I stood in the dark and watched the trailer as Mike pulled in the driveway.  We had to start over a couple of times and I was a nervous wreck thinking that the tires would slide off the edge of the narrow bridge, but we made it over, and up the drive so that we didn’t have to carry everything so far.  We unloaded the truck and settled in for the night.  Every night I call my grandmother to check on her and to talk to her.  Getting through to her can be a real challenge because she doesn’t always hear the phone.  We have a system where if she has not heard from me by a certain time, then she calls me.  This works well when I am in Staunton with good cell phone service, but it can be a challenge when I am in Laurel Fork.  Often, calls do not even come through and when they do, there is only one spot in the house where I can talk and I have to stand very still so that I don’t lose the call.  I never fail to get in touch with grandma one way or the other though.  It is an important part of her routine and she depends on my calls and panics if she thinks she can’t get in touch with me.  It is a way for me to know that she is ok before she heads for bed.  In the event I can’t get in touch with her, I can call someone local who can go by and check on her.  It is also a way for me to see how her day has gone.  Some days go really well for her but a lot of days she gets confused about things.  She likes to go to McDonalds on Tuesday and Saturday mornings with my cousin who sits with her.  Many days now she gets confused and will be up well before dawn and ready to go to McDonalds on days that they are not schedule to go.  My cousin, Lou, is so good to try to make my grandma feel comfortable and she will often go ahead and take her even on those days.  Being a pastor’s wife for fifty years, church has always been a major focus for my grandmother, and she worries about getting ready for church in time and will often get up at 3 or 4 am and get ready on Sunday mornings.  She told me this week that she called her pastor’s wife and asked her if they forgot her because she had been ready for so long and they never arrived to pick her up.  It was not a Sunday and my grandmother was just confused about the day.  My calls to her each evening give me an opportunity to hear from my grandmother about her day and to witness her frame of mind.  Some days I can tell that the anxiety is greater.  I know that as she struggles to remember things, she is aware that she is struggling, and this only makes it worse.  We want her to be able to be comfortable and keep her routine as long as possible.  It is so important to her to be able to remain at home, but it makes it a challenge for us to make sure that her needs are met.  This is why I make frequent trips to check on her and keep her affairs in order as well as call her each night.  My brother checks in on her multiple times a week and my cousin is there with her during the day except on “church days” when her pastor and his wife are checking in on her and taking her to church with them.  We are working on possible funding from the Veteran’s Administration to provide her with an additional care giver for some afternoon and evening hours as well.  Grandma gets upset and agitated if memory issues are mentioned and on one hand often tells people that “Tammy thinks I have dementia but I don’t”.  She will turn around and tell them that she is unable to handle her business affairs anymore and that “Tammy handles all my business.  It’s nice to have your own bookkeeper.”  I don’t often write here in my journal of all the difficulties we face in caring for an elderly family member.  Because there are a number of people who feel a personal connection with my grandparents who were mentors, surrogate parents, and adoptive grandparents to so many people over the years, there are those who feel they must try to step in and take over when they don’t really understand the full picture.   It’s hard for those who only see a part of the picture to understand all the dynamics, and our family has suffered from interference of those who evidently thought they were helping but in fact were making certain situations more difficult for us.  Sometimes, I feel very strongly the pull of being in the middle with trying so hard to take care of the grandchildren who are three hours to the north of us and trying to take care of my grandmother who is almost six hours south of us.  Both generations are a blessing and I am tremendously thankful to be able to give of myself in both situations.   I also get tired.  I’m only human.  I also often miss my mother, in a very selfish way, even after all these years. (I was seven when she passed away.) My mother was an only child and my brother and I her only children.  That leaves us to look after my grandmother and while I am thankful for that opportunity, I often wonder what it would be like of my mother were here to guide me and show me the way. 

January 12, 2018

I’m truly thankful that the folks who built our farmhouse put it on a bank ABOVE the creek rather than sitting down next to the water like so many of the old farmhouses I see in this area.  These hills are full of springs and streams and many of the old homes, including ours, get their water through the use of a gravity feed system directly from the springs.  I believe easy access to water is why so many of the homes were built on lower ground, coupled with the fact of easy access from the roads which at one time in the not too distant past were little more than one lane, gravel paths.  Our home is definitely “in the holler” and a huge ravine sits to the side of the house that can become quite a stream when the conditions are right.  In the front of the house two, spring fed streams come together to form Roades Creek.  Our home sits on a knoll up above the creek where we can hear the sounds of the water and the frogs in the summer when the windows are open.  This morning, that stream is rushing full force as all the water meets and swirls after a night of heavy rains.  Had all this moisture met the cold from last week, we would be digging out from under a snow storm but with the temps in the 50’s this week, we are getting rain instead.  I brought a pile of papers with me to organize and file and today will be a good day to work indoors.  Of course, the rain always reminds me of my Josh who would never miss an opportunity to walk in the rain.  His presence is always near but rainy days bring back precious memories of my special child. 

January 13, 2018

Yesterday it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained.  We had well over an inch of rain as we went into the evening and it continued raining well into the night.  We could hear the creek rushing even with the windows closed and the competing noise from inside the house.  The temperature began to drop as night fell and the winds continued to gust as they had been doing all day.  Several times the power flickered and I wondered if we would end up using the generator that I insisted we have.  We did not lose power and sometime in the night, the rain ended.  In the upper 50’s yesterday, the temperatures have fallen into the twenties overnight, the wind is gusting up to 40+ miles an hour with wind chills below zero, and we are under a winter weather advisory as all that moisture is now frozen into ice on the roads.  Yesterday was the first day that I felt a twinge of seasonal depression that I struggle with each winter.  I kept busy and tried not to give into the winter doldrums.  I was able to get a lot accomplished around the house and Mike worked inside the barn.  It’s nice that he is able to have a dry place to work and he seems to enjoy the process.  We have been somewhat relaxed about the whole process but are starting now to feel the urgency of getting things done.  The winter will go by quickly and we really want to be able to move the animals by summer.  I’m really trying to use up some of the preserved food that we have had around for a while.  We have had so much excess in the last few years that the freezers are full of fruit, some of which is four years old.  The quality of frozen food is so greatly diminished even within just six months.  The only thing that kept any of this fruit even edible is the fact that a lot of it was vacuum sealed.  I do run across some that wasn’t vacuum sealed and if it’s too old, I just have to throw it out because it is beyond edible.  I came across a bag of blueberries while digging for fruit and made a cobbler with them in my iron skillet.  It was so good and our grass finished burgers tasted especially good last night as well.  We also had corn that I had cut off the cob and frozen back in the summer. 

January 14, 2018

We twist and weave our way along the back roads between our place and Christiansburg where we catch the interstate.  The first thirty minutes of the trip I look intently out the window, taking in the details, recognizing what is fast becoming familiar, as well as adding new details to memory.  Since I was but a child, I have had a habit of staring at houses with curiosity.  It’s not the houses themselves that intrigue me, although I do love the architecture; it’s the stories that are told within the walls.  Even as a very young child, I would look at the lights shining from the windows at night from various homes we passed, and wonder about the people inside.  So many of the houses we pass in the economically depressed areas of Southwest Virginia are abandoned.  Others look like they should be abandoned, but are in fact, inhabited by folks obviously just trying hard to hang on.  In my own way, I attempt a form of necromancy.  Of course, I don’t actually attempt to “contact the dead”, but in my head, I try to experience the spirit of the people who once lived in these mountain homes.  The abandoned buildings are clues that help me to conjure up a bit of the past.   I’ve read books about the area and scrounged for information online.  I’ve read some historic documents about the people who settled this place, and I see remnants of their spirit in those descendants who remain. In researching Carroll, Floyd, and some of the surrounding Southwest Virginia counties, I have found the fortitude, determination, individualism, independent spirit, and devotion to family that defines so many of the individuals that once lived in the area reminds me of my own Northwest Georgia Mountain heritage.

January 15, 2018

We have rolled around to another Monday.  I have been up since 5 am.  In Staunton, the house is heated only with wood by an outdoor boiler and with the temperature at only six degrees this morning and a house full of adults who use a lot of hot water (also heated only with wood), the first one up must tend to the fire.  I was hoping to sneak buy and not have to go out in the cold to tend to the furnace, but when I got in the shower and the water was cold, I knew I was out of luck.  I raked the coals to bring life to the dying embers and found a few small pieces of wood that would burn quickly, laying them in a pattern that would encourage them to burn quickly.  I looked for some small logs I thought would burn well and placed them over the smaller pieces of wood, shut the door to the furnace and made my way inside the house where I waited about a half an hour before heading back out to make sure the furnace was burning properly.  There was a nice fire burning and while I was out, I added more wood and then settled down with a cup of hot coffee and my computer to wait for the rest of the house to stir.  Alissa will soon be headed off to work at Blue Ridge Community College and the Little Girls will be awake and ready for adventure.    Today will be a short day of only nine hours of babysitting as Alissa’s classes at James Madison University have been cancelled tonight in honor of Martin Luther King Day.  It is Gabino’s birthday, so we will all be here to celebrate with him, which will be nice.  As we start a new week, even with the cold and the short winter days, I can’t help but recognize my blessings.