Winter Week of Feb 15 - 21, 2015

We are still covered with snow and ice and we are not moving except in Matthew's 4-wheel drive truck.  I thought I would share the Lexington weather guy's report about last week.  He summed it up pretty well:

Good Saturday afternoon, everyone. The past 7 days in the bluegrass state have been nothing short of amazing and historic. Let’s review:

- We started the week with the biggest snowstorm in nearly 2 decades.

- That was followed up by a 2″-5″ snowstorm that helped give us one of the deepest snow packs on record.

- Every single day featured single digit temps or colder.

- History making cold moved in for Thursday and Friday with records absolutely smashed.

- Friday morning gave us some of the coldest temperatures ever recorded in the state of Kentucky.

- Last night and today… another winter storm slammed the region with sleet, freezing rain and snow.

This is a week that is now legendary and one that will be the standard bearer for years to come.

Maple Sugar Time Again

I don't  know what kind of winter preceding the sap flow is the best for making sweet maple syrup, but I have my own idea.  I like the winters when we have a period or two of very cold temperatures early on, because I can imagine the trees truly going dormant during those periods.  I then imagine the trees trying especially hard to burst back into life later in the winter by producing very sweet sap.

The weather this winter has been such, although I really don't know if it matters.  We had a couple periods in November, from November 13th through the 15th and again 18th through the 22nd, when the highs did not reach much above freezing and the lows got down near the single digits.  We also had a very cold time earlier this month from January 7th through the 11th when the lows were near zero during 4 of those 5 nights.

Anyway, we decided to tap a few of our maple trees again on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Matthew and Simon did the work drilling the holes and inserting the spiles into the trees, but the whole family hiked up to the "sugar bush" to watch.  We only put in 6 taps, but the sap flow was on!  Those 6 taps produced 4 gallons in just a few hours and we started the boiling yesterday.  I'm sure there will be more to come because we are currently in a weather cycle when the days are in the 40s and 50s and the lows are dropping into the 20s at night.

We don't do this every year.  Looking back at my old posts, I see that we've made maple sugar/syrup in just 4 of the previous 7 years: 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2013.  I enjoy doing this, but it is a bit time intensive and some years, things just don't work out for us to do the syrup.  Last year was so extremely cold and snowy and we were busy settling into our move to Pure Water Pastures.  In 2009 we were preoccupied with the home butching of our first hogs and in 2012 the winter was one of the warmest on record and never felt like sugaring weather.  We are just now running out of the syrup we made in 2013, so this seems to be a good year to get back in it!

That's Pretty Cool!

How about a summer weather post? It seems that this has been an unusual summer, so I decided to record a few of my thoughts. So far we have had a fairly mild summer with a lot of rain. We saw our thermometers reach 90 only a few times in all of June and the first half of July, although we have had some very humid days to go along with all the storms. The heavy rains have been the most notable weather events this summer. I wish I had kept track of all the days in which we have had a down-pour! According to the National Weather Service, our area had 6.45 inches of rain in June compared to a 4.26 inch June average for rain. They say we are already at the July average of 4.28 inches of rain and we are just half way through the month!

The good news about all the rain is the fact that we have not had to water our garden. The bad news is the fact that the garden has gotten pounded very hard during several hard rains, winds, and even hail one day when a small tornado touched down not too far away from us! It was 92 degrees today and the weather man thinks this will be a very hot and humid week with temps in the 90s everyday, and the "heat index" into the 100s. The chances for rain are low until the end of the week.

Every summer I hold off getting the air conditioners out for as long as possible. We figure if the house is too cool, no one will want to be outside working and playing and enjoying the summer. We are blessed with a lot of shade around our house, and the hills keep the sun from shining directly on us for very long, so we tend to stay fairly comfortable. Only one night have I been uncomfortable sleeping, and that was a few weeks ago at the end of June. The day time teperature had been 90 degrees beginning in the early morning, followed by a 20 minute hard rain shower in the afternoon which brought in some oppressive humidity when the sun blared the temperature back up to 90! That night we slept with no covers but I awoke sweating around 1:30 in the morning. When I looked at the thermometer outside it was showing 80 degrees! I don't even know what the temperature was in the house, but that night it wouldn't have even helped much to sleep outside. That was the first time I thought we should get out the old faithful window air conditioner. But the next day was not too hot and I actually didn't think about it again. Until today....

Today was actually not very uncomfortable, but I was in town and heard folks talking about the terrible heat and how bad it was going to get this week. If I had not run several errands today, I would not have realized the dire danger we were facing! It began this morning. We watched Matthew, Christina, and Simon do a martial arts demonstration at a local day care and the workers there mentioned how hot it was going to get. At Walmart I overheard a couple men talking about the heat. After Walmart I stopped to pick up some cattle feed and the fellow at the feed store told me that things were going to get unbearable because of the heat. Next stop was for the Impala panel that was damaged last month when we hit a deer and the guy at the junk yard asked us if it was hot enough for us. We also needed some things from Auto Zone and one of the workers there had a good attitude about the heat. He said it was going to be hot, but that he would rather have the sunny days instead of the rain no matter how hot it got!

Well, all this talk about heat led me to look up the weather forecast and I found out there was a heat advisory on for our area. It also said this: "PRECAUTIONS ARE URGED FOR THOSE ENGAGED IN OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES THIS WEEK... PARTICULARLY DURING THE HOTTEST PARTS OF THE DAY. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS... STAY OUT OF THE SUN AND... IF POSSIBLE... STAY IN AN AIR- CONDITIONED ROOM." Well, I guess they talked me into it, because after carrying a couple of 100 pound bags of feed to the barn and feeding the bulls and Gracie, I got the window air conditioners out of storage, and brought them home. I brought two for upstairs, one for the boys room and one for the girls room. These were newer ones I bought last year to use in the Lawrence county house. I also brought home the old faithful Fedders unit for our living room.  That air conditioner is beginning to take on the aura of a legend!

Now for my air conditioner commercial. I bought this Fedders window air conditioner back in 1989 in Richmond Kentucky at a Rose's store that has since gone out of business. That summer we purchased and moved into a very hot 12x67 mobile home. I guess we used this Fedders air conditioner pretty heavily for 3 summers in that trailer, and it did a great job. We took it with us when we moved to Eastern Kentucky, even though we had central air in the mobile home we rented during '92.  But I'm pretty sure we have used it sometime during every summer since 1993 when we moved here to Pure Water Hollow! It is still doing a great job cooling right now as well, even though it is 24 years old! Maybe I'm strange, but well made products from previous decades still make me smile and reminisce about the "good old days" when American manufacturers and workers still took pride in things they produced!

It will be nice being able to have a cooler house on the very hot days, but we will be sure to not let the air-conditioners spoil us.  There is still too much work to do and fun to have outside!

Cooling Off River Style

We've already had some days here in the 90s and the last week of May ended with a string of days in the upper 80s.  On these hot summer days, we are usually very thankful to have a cool respite across the road in front of our homestead.  This year, Simon has especially been looking forward to making time for some refreshing moments in the river.  He went wading by himself last week, but has more fun when he can round up some companions to go with him.  So far, Timothy has been the only taker.  Matthew and Christina have not yet felt the need to "go swimming".

Here are some scenes from a couple of days ago.  The river was up a bit, so there wasn't as much shoreline as there is sometimes.  But there was plenty of room for some old fashioned fun!

Notice that Gusta is ready for a rescue if need be.  She seemed to be concerned that the children were in the river!

Simon had fun feeling the current rush against him.

Timothy was not as quick to get wet as Simon was,
and stayed close to shore at first.

Augusta decided that Splash wars can be great entertainment! 

(But I still think she was ready to save them.)

Let's try some swimming lessons out in the current!

Hello, Gusta.  I can get out by myself, thank you!

I almost drowned and I got sand in my shoe!

Should I throw this rock?

Am I in trouble?

I'll save you, Simon!

With the swimming fun done and everyone sufficiently cooled off, it was time to climb back up the slippery river bank.  I'm sure there will be plenty more lazy, hot days this summer, and the river will be waiting for the children's next visit!

Augusta had no trouble getting up the bank, of course, so she waited up top

to see if she needed to help Timothy.

It was a steep climb, but Timothy had almost as easy time as Gusta!

Two happy (and cooled off) brothers, above the river.

What a grand picture of summer!

Strolling Through Our Woods

After church on Mother's Day we took a nice walk around our property.  It was a rather cool afternoon, with a threat of rain and temperatures in just the upper 50s.  We had a very enjoyable little hike, even though we had to wear jackets!

 

These pretty flowers are spiderwort from Mackey Bend, Lisa's homeplace growing up.  Lisa has two big bunches here in the wild garden.  She has several other plants and flowers from her home that reminds her of her mother, but these were the one's blooming when we took the walk.

These gladolia's are from the Mary Castle homestead across the river.  Before she passed away, the new bridge came through and took away all her garden space where they were planted.  She was happy that we were able to re-locate them , along with some of her other plants and flowers, before the bull dozers came through.

  

 

Lisa calls these dewberries.  They are a type of black berry that runs right along the ground.  The berries are among the first to ripen, and are super sweet.  They are better than blackberries or even raspberries!

We have three different varieties of wood sorrel.  I think those above are called violet wood sorrel, due to the purple markings.  The flower also has a violet tint to it.  It is a tasty sour treat on a hike through the woods and helps to quench thirst.

This is yellow wood sorrel.  It does not have the purple markings but tastes the same as the violet sorrel.  There is common wood sorrel that we didn't find on this hike.  We also have several good patches of sheep sorrel around, but we didn't go to them on this walk either.  All the sorrel are high in Vitamin C, good to nibble on, and are good as a tea or to use in salads.  They also contain oxalic acid which is ok, but can be bad for folks suffering from gout, rheumatism, or kidney stones if they consume too much of it at one time. Historically, wood sorrel was used to treat scurvy, fevers, urinary infections, mouth sores, nausea and sore throats.

The above plant is one that Lisa wants to look up.  She thinks it might be Angelica or New Jersey Tea.  We haven't identified it yet.  Looking for and finding plants that she does not know is one of Lisa's favorite things to do!

 I just thought this was a pretty picture looking out across the ravine.

We are very thankful that we have a nice wooded area that we can roam around and explore whenever we feel like it!  Nature is a wonderful place to spend some time!