Spotlight on SimonBoy

We love all four of our children, but today I wanted to spotlight our youngest. We have called him our "SimonBoy" for quite a while, and he is 100% boy!

I’m not going to say much in this post. Instead. I’m just going to pull together several photos of Simon in action from the past 6 months or so, to put a spotlight on the type of "boy" he is in 2007.

He can climb like a monkey:



And swings through the trees with ease. He has a great "Tarzan" call:



And can become one with the forest:




If he doesn’t have a natural shelter he can make pretty cool forts out of milk crates:



Or he may just play in the heaps of mulch:



Sometimes, Simon is an arctic explorer:




When it is time to work, Simon can be a great worker:














Simon also loves our animals, whether they be dogs, cats, pigs, or goats:










Most importantly, Simon gave his heart and life to Jesus and was born again last year! Yes, he was very young, but he understood that he was a sinner and needed to be saved. It was not our idea, but he made it clear that he needed to pray and we let him pray the sinner’s prayer all by himself.

Here are some pictures of his baptism that his brother Matthew and I were priviledged to conduct for him a couple of weeks after he was saved:






Simon is wonderful in so many ways and we are very thankful that God has given him to us! He is all boy and can get into some messes, but he learns from his mistakes. He keeps everyone on their toes but he makes life more enjoyable here at Pure Water Hollow.

We love you Simon!

Happy Birthday!

Let me end with a picture down on our river of me and my SimonBoy. We make a great father/son team:




1 comment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sheryl on April 20, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Dad, you forgot to mention what a handsome young man he is!

sheryl

Our River Runneth Over

Two and a half inches of rain does not sound like much, but when it comes down during a 36 hour time frame, it piles up in a hurry! It rained at Pure Water Hollow beginning Friday night, all day Saturday and Saturday night, and had accumulated 2.5 inches in the official Pure Water Hollow Homestead rain gauge. Sunday was misty and wet, but not much accumulating water in the gauge. Monday was nicer with temperatures in the 60s but very windy, Tuesday was sunny and 70 degrees, and I think today is beautiful also. (Wish I could be out in it and know what the weather is like personally!)

The river in front of our house periodically runs over its banks during widespread rain events like this. It peaked Monday sometime after this was taken by Matthew from our lower overlook:




Matthew took several on Monday and Erica and Matthew both went up and took more pictures Tuesday, after the level had already gone down several feet. You can’t really tell any difference, but I thought I would post several of their pictures, as they show some slightly different angles and views:






It was not as big of a flood as we have had in the past, but it has been the first good one since I’ve been blogging and using Erica’s digital camera. One February, several years ago, the river got up 20 to 30 feet higher than it was this week. At that time all three roads to Pure Water Hollow were blocked by backwater and the only way we could have gotten out would have been over the mountains. With this flooding there were no roads blocked near us and only a few in other places of the county.

What did make this flood event unusual was the island of garbage and debris that go caught up at a new bridge they are building across the river a half mile away from our home. There is always too much garbage that comes down the river during high water times, but usually it goes right on its merry way on up to the Ohio and beyond.

One thing I am ashamed about eastern Kentucky is the garbage that some people dump indiscriminately into our beautiful hollows and streams. Times like this the problem really gets noticed. Here are some pictures of it. A picture like this one was on the front page of the home-town newspaper today:






They had to move all of their equipment out of the way of the water:






This support column is usually on land quite a ways from the river:




Here is the flat part of our river bank before you go down the steep part to the actual river:




The water had already gone down about 5 feet when these were taken. I hated to see what it did to our poor peach trees down there. We will have to get down and try to straighten them out as soon as the mud clears up some:




And up in the hollow, we have that pond that I have been talking about repairing. We almost lost the dam altogether this time, but it still held. This rain event highlighted the dire condition it is in, however, as more of it did wash away:




I had a meeting at our church Monday evening, but the roads were behind backwater over there. There was another way around, but I thought I would share a picture of the road going off into the abyss:




It is incredible to see God act through the forces of nature, and it is sad to see how mankind, through sin, has polluted this beautiful world that God has created. Floods make the river near Pure Water Hollow look dirty and ugly, but I am looking forward to seeing another river, one day, that will never be dirty or ugly. A truly Pure Water river:

"And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." The Revelation 22:1-2

The Kentucky Coffee Tree

We have recently planted some Kentucky coffee trees in Pure Water Hollow and I hope that some of them make it. JubileeFarm5 asked about what the Kentucky coffee tree is and I’ve found that they are not a very common tree.

I’m going to quote a bit from a Kentucky government website about the Kentucky coffee tree, but the whole article is rather interesting, explaining the debate over the years about which tree to make the official state tree for Kentucky. If you have time you may enjoy the entire article at http://www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/kytree.htm.

"The only tree that has a commonly accepted name which includes a state name, the Kentucky Coffee Tree is the one of the only two remaining species of Gymnocladus in existence. (The other is in China.) Gymnocladus means "naked branches," which the Coffee Tree has six months out of the year.


The Coffee Tree is a legume, a flowering plant that produces compound leaves and pods containing seeds that are edible. (Although Coffee Tree beans are poisonous to humans unless roasted thoroughly.) The plant produces green-white unisexual flowers that attract insects to provide cross pollination. The seed pods are 6 to 10 inches long and usually appear in late summer and sometimes last throughout the winter. The beans are packed in a green gooey substance in the pods, and are also protected by a hard, dark green-brown shell. The seed pods are only produced by female plants.

The Kentucky Coffee Tree is a medium to large tree, usually reaching a height of 75 to 100 feet and a diameter of 2 1/2 feet. The largest Coffee Tree on record is located in Morgan County, Kentucky**, at a height of 78 feet tall and over 17 1/2 feet in diameter. The trunk of the Coffee Tree is short and divides into two to four secondary branches which are almost parallel to each other. The bark is dark gray and has rough projecting fissures. Young growth is stout often coated with a crusty film and fine hairs. The Kentucky Coffee Tree usually lives to be about 100 years old.

Found mostly in the midwest, the Kentucky Coffee Tree prefers deep, rich bottomland alluvial soils. The largest specimens can be found mostly in moist hollows on limestone soil, but the plant is tolerant of various soil types."

And here is the official bill when it became our state tree in 1976:

(S.B. 150)

AN ACT relating to designation of the Kentucky coffeetree as the official tree of the Commonwealth.
WHEREAS, in the entire world of arboriculture only the Kentucky coffeetree bears the proud word Kentucky in its name; and
WHEREAS, the bean of the Kentucky coffeetree once was used as a substitute for coffee by the intrepid pioneers who carved the Commonwealth from the wildernes; and
WHEREAS, John Filson in his "History of Kentucky" did refer to the unique beauty and usefulness of the Kentucky coffeetree; and
WHEREAS, in 1783 General George Rogers Clark did send seeds of the Kentucky coffeetree to Thomas Jefferson and which seeds produces trees still gracing the grounds of Monticello; and
WHEREAS, the Kentucky coffeetree often is referred to as "Kentucky Mahogany" for the beauty of its wood;
WHEREAS, the Kentucky coffeetree, although once growing in multitudinous plenty, now is an endangered species;
NOW, THERE,

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Section1. A NEW SECTION OF KRS CHAPTER 2 IS CREATED TO READ AS FOLLOWS: That the Kentucky coffeetree is named and designated as the Kentucky state tree.

Approved March 8, 1976
(This was changed in 1994 back to the Tulip Poplar or Tulip Tree)

From what I’ve heard from others, the coffee it makes is a rather poor substitute for true coffee lovers. Since I don’t drink coffee, perhaps I will enjoy the coffee-like drink we will be able to make from the seeds!

We are always happy to add potentially useful trees and plants to our homestead, and I think that the Kentucky coffee tree qualifies.

It is surely a unique tree because I’ve read that no animals eat or disperse the seeds. Some think that it may have been a favorite food for the mastodon before it became extinct, but since they died out, the Kentucky coffee tree has had a difficult time surviving.

I feel like we are giving a helping hand to a struggling tree species! Perhaps it will return the favor in a few years and give us an interesting beverage to try!

2 comments
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rhen on April 13, 2007 at 8:49 am
That is so cool! I have several heirloom vegetables that are almost extinct. It feels good to plant, grow and continue something that isn't common.

All for His glory,

~Rhen

Purewater adds a hearty Amen!
Yes, all for His Glory
Edited by Purewater on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 10:26 AM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Melanie on April 27, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Thanks for sharing about the Kentucky Coffee tree. I was curious if it actually had any beans that were edible. That is so neat that the pioneer type, ambitious ones of the past tried it out. I wonder if it would grow in Ohio. Probably would being we are only a state north. Very nice article, thanks for sharing it!

Melanie @ Jubileefarm

Glad To Plant Trees

After six straight nights with temperatures down in the 20s here, the weather seems to finally have broken. Yesterday we got back up to 60 degrees and the weatherman is not predicting anymore freezing temperatures.

The blueberry plants that we had ordered came last week when we had freeze warnings every night, so we put off planting them of course. I’m glad they did not arrive the week before or we would have planted them and then probably lost them to the freezing! I think we did loose our plum, cherry, and peach crops. They were in bloom but now look like something stomped on them. I’m not sure if the apple trees were hurt too badly yet, and maybe the other trees will rebound, too.

After I got home yesterday we had fun planting some new trees and bushes. We planted the six blueberry plants and the cherry tree we had started from seed. I also got some trees to plant from the soil conservation office for free!

We planted 3 pecan trees in a good open sunny spot that should work well, and we planted six Kentucky Coffee trees in some not so good places. We have high hopes for pecans but we will just have to wait and see if the coffee trees will work in partial shade. We have always wanted pecans in Pure Water Hollow but have never gone to the trouble to get any trees. It is sad thinking that we have been here for 13 years and it takes a pecan tree about 12 years to begin bearing nuts. We could have pecans right now! I suppose later is better than never, however.

I also got some free chestnut trees to plant and some dogwoods. We thought we would plant the dogwoods next to the road along the river where the power lines go over. The power company always cuts the bigger trees down, and these should make a pretty screen from the traffic on the road after they grow. I don’t know where we will put the chestnut trees, since we don’t have any open places. I guess we will plant them in the forest and see if any of them will be able to survive.

I also have 7 more pecan trees and 4 more Ky. Coffee trees that we would like to find a home on our propertyfor!

We have much to do in the planting arena here. If only we had more time and energy…


2 comments
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sheryl on April 11, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Whatever you do, don`t plant the chestnut trees in the yard or where you have to mow. My grandparent had about five in the yard and they were nothing but a pain. They finally cut them down. They are not bad until the nuts fall to the ground and they are in prickly pods, the best way I know to explain it. If you are barefoot and step on one, oh my gosh it is really painful. They are hard to take your lawn mower over too. Now others may have different experiences with them. But I hated them. But of course, I was around ten and was always stepping on them.

I am so glad that the weather is getting warmer. My peas made it, I think. Some of my other plants, not so sure on them.

Reply by Purewater:

We know all about those prickly hulls you are talking about because we have three large chestnut trees in our front/side yard and they can definitely get in the way!

I wouldn't want to cut them down, though. We had hopes of making chestnut flour out of them, but we could not get the nuts dried out without them getting buggy. We did eat several fresh and our pigs absolutely loved them!

I picked up these new trees mainly because they were free, and we want to plant trees that can be used as a food source. We're hoping to get them established up in the hollow away from the house, but if not, we have plenty of chestnuts to do us from these three mature trees.
Edited by Purewater on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 4:09 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Melanie on April 12, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Our peach, and pear trees were just starting to bloom when we ended up with the nasty cold return of winter as well. I am not sure like you said about the apple trees.

What are KY coffee trees?

Proud Of the Pure Water Hollow Chicken Flock

I am proud of the Pure Water Hollow hens! They have been doing so well lately, even when I mess up.

Somehow it totally slipped my mind Monday evening to shut up the coop and close their lot. This is dangerous since we have nocturnal predators lurking in the shadows who at times enjoy snatching helpless chickens away from their roost during the night. They drag the defenseless egg-laying ones off to an evil lair of torture and bloodshed and only leave behind a trail of feathers as evidence…

Anyway, enough of the dramatics.

Fortunately nothing came into the coop Monday evening, but that leads us to the next potentially negative consequence of leaving the lot open. When I went to feed them yesterday morning, they were already spread out over the yard, which meant they would free-range the entire day!

We only let them out in the evenings for a few reasons, generally. For one we don’t enjoy the accumulated messes that they can leave all over the yard when they are out all day every day. It also seems that they can get into more mischief when they have all day to themselves, whether it be in the strawberry bed or picking at styrofoam insulation waiting to be used!

Secondly, if they get tired of our yard, they can roam a pretty far distance away out to the highway or over to the neighbors yard or across the hill. None of these places are as safe as staying close to home. (The only negative of them being out all day was that two of them did not come back to the coop last night and we could not find them anywhere. I hope they are OK and will show up today.)

Another reason to leave them penned up most of the day is to help them be near the nest boxes when they want to lay their eggs. When they wander far away, they may lay their eggs anywhere and then we would not have the benefit from them. I think they could easily get in the habit of laying eggs somewhere other than the coop, and that would be bad!

Well, they were out all day but they still came back to the coop, for the most part, to lay their eggs. I was afraid we would only have a few eggs in the nest boxes, but by the end of the day they had given us 13 eggs in the coop! We had gotten 14 yesterday and 15 the day before, so it seems that we did not loose many eggs by letting them free range all day.

I am also proud of them for laying so many eggs in general, lately, even though we have been having some nasty weather. We had 6 straight nights below freezing and the days have been mostly cloudy and only in the 40s. After a while of yucky weather it usually seems that the chickens get bummed out and stop laying so well. They are doing good with it so far and now the weather should turn a bit nicer, even though it is raining today.

Speaking of numbers of eggs, we saw our weekly egg record get broken again last week! The first week of April they laid 91 eggs, breaking the record they set the previous week of 85 eggs. Actually, 4 of the last 6 weeks have been record breaking weeks for our egg production! You go, girls! It is possible that the 91 record will fall this week, if we can keep up the average of these first three days of 14.

Maybe I’m getting into this more than I should, but I have been enjoying our chickens. By the way, we are finding people who want to buy our eggs, even though we haven’t really started trying, yet. I think we have made over 12 dollars this month selling eggs so far, but I don’t have the calendar in front of me for the exact number. I know we have already covered the cost of their feed and we still have more eggs than we can eat. We are going to order some egg cartons so we can offer them to some of the local stores around here. It would be nice if we could find an easy way like that to sell quantities of our eggs.

That’s about all I wanted to say at this time about our chickens. If they could read, they would know how proud I am of them!


3 comments
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MrsBurns on April 11, 2007 at 11:15 am
What is the going rate for a dozen eggs? Mine are still about 4 months from laying at all (being just a month old) so I am looking forward to experiencing what you have going!

MrsBurns

Reply from Purewater:

Well, we are not very good in the marketing and sales department. So far we have just let people sort of name their own price. Most people want to give us at least $1.00 for a dozen but some have given between $2.00 and $3.00. One lady who is used to buying the expensive, organic, vegetarian fed chicken eggs told us that ours were much better tasting so she wants to pay closer to what she was giving at the store. I think she gave us $10.00 for 4 dozen.
Edited by Purewater on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 12:25 PM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Unlikely Homesteader on April 11, 2007 at 1:36 pm
We're really enjoying our chickens too. We are letting them free range during the day and we've got such a kick out of watching them all herd themselves into the coop at night. We just go out there and shut the door and lock it.

We're having a great spring rain right now and they all went back into the coop, but they're sitting close to the door…watching to see when the rain stops. Too cute. I bet there will be lots of yummy worms for them then!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
guest on April 24, 2007 at 9:25 am
Reading your account of the chicken adventures reminds me of my mother ordering baby chicks by mail (this was in the late 1940's). They came to the post office at River in a box with air holes cut into the sides of the box. When we got the box home and opened it up a flood of yellow feather scrambled out of the box and spread over our kitchen floor. We sometimes kept them in a crate near the Heatalator until it was warm enough outside to introduce them to our existing flock. Judy Meek Harwood

***Purewater writes:

Thanks for visiting the blog, Judy! I am glad you are enjoying it.

I would imagine that many, many chickens have grazed the land at Pure Water Hollow down through the years. A few people around here still raise chickens, but I'm sure it is not as many as it was in the 1940s!

Most people today have no desire to bother with chickens, unless they want to fight them, but we are really enjoying caring for ours. We are finding them to be a great benefit to our homestead.
Edited by Purewater on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 10:35 AM

A Photo Tour of Pure Water Hollow (from Little House)

Last week we had the folks from Little House and The Big Garden visit us here at Pure Water Hollow. We all had a great time, even though they brought cold weather from up north with them!

Pa took pictures and posted A Photo Tour of Pure Water Hollow on thier blog so I just had to link to it here. He sure did make our Pure Water Hollow Homestead look like a neat place! It was fun for us to read his commentary and see his collection of pictures.

I won’t say anything more about our visit at this time. I’ll just let you go on over to the post from Little House and enjoy!

1 comment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kitty on April 11, 2007 at 9:57 am
Loved the tour, thanks it was sooooo nice. The view was beautiful.

Kitty
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo Tour of PureWater Hollow Homestead
April 10, 2007 in Pa by LittleHouse

At the end of last week we were blessed to get to spend some time with my brother and his family at PureWater Hollow Homestead. We had a great time, and the girls sure had fun with their cousins. Instead of writing on and on about the trip, I’ve decided to show it to you with a picture tour. This will be the most pictures I’ve ever put on a post, but if you are already familiar with the PureWater blog, this should be a treat.

We started out by visiting the chickens. It was neat just watching them graze. Here is "Big Daddy", the dominant rooster:





The children got to gather the eggs…




Feed the chickens…




And even pet some of them.




Then we headed up to the barn to see the pigs and goats…




Eric mixed up "corn milkshakes" for the pigs, which we thought looked pretty gross…




The pigs didn’t think it was gross. They loved it! Meet "Nellie", "Porky", "Sally" and "Rufus"…




The weather was pretty cold during the whole trip. The pigs seemed to like the warmth of the straw better than the cold mud outside…




When the pigs finished eating and came inside, we walked "Little Joe" back to his lot to join the other goats…




"Mamma Belle", "Big Jim", "Little Lulu" and "Tiny Tim" were there to greet him (and us)…




We were surprised how small "Tiny Tim" was…




…so we just had to scoop him up and let the children pet him!




After visiting with the animals for a while, we headed out on one of our hikes through the beautiful woods of PureWater…




We walked to the honey bee hive, but they weren’t very active due to the cold. Every once in a while a single bee would crawl out and go right back in to inform the others that it was still too cold outside.





We got to see many wonderful trees, plants, flowers and rock formations…




Our tour guide was happy to point things out along the way…




One of the trails they led us on took us to their majestic overlook…




It is called the overlook because you can see for miles. You can see even farther with binoculars. Now that’s what I call an overlook!




Because of the cold, we didn’t get to hike as much as I would have liked, but we did get a pretty good sampling of the trails.




I could tell that my brother and family spends a lot of time walking the trails because the dogs and cats came along like it was a regular occurrence…






They weren’t the only animals we saw along the way. I guess this chicken decided that she had wandered too far from the coop since she went zooming past us on the lane!




The 2nd day we were there was warmer during the daytime, but got pretty cold at dusk and even snowed about a half inch!




We didn’t care at that point. We were warm inside enjoying one another’s company. After supper, the girls were surprised by a belated birthday cake. What a sweet aunt they have!




We had a wonderful visit! I want to thank our gracious hosts. Even though we were there for two whole days, it seemed like only a few hours. We will have to go again soon.

Our kitten Macy would not agree with that statement however. When we returned home, she begged me not to take the girls away from her for that long ever again!




Thanks for staying with me on this lengthy post.

Blessings!

Pa


4 comments
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti on April 10, 2007 at 11:55 am
The pictures are great! What a fun time you all had!

I think pigs are so funny; someday maybe we'll have some.

Have a great week,

Patti
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trixi on April 10, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Oh, my, if I had that view I would never leave that rock.LOL It is beautiful there. It looks like you had a great time.

Blessings,

Trixi

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purewater on April 10, 2007 at 10:38 pm

We sure did enjoy you guys coming over! I just wish it hadn't been so cold. Hard to believe we were in the 80s Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then you all come from up north and bring all that cold air with you! We've had freezing temperatures Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and again last night!

Thankfully there is no more freezing nights forcasted for the next 10 days so maybe spring will be here to stay this time.

We are afraid that the damage to our fruit trees will be irreparable, though. Our paw-paw trees, plum trees, and cherry tree were all in beautiful bloom when you were here, but today all the blooms are wilted and dead. Our peach trees had already peaked in their blooming before you arrived, but now we think they have all been destroyed, too! We're not sure about our apple trees…

Anyway, we are glad you got to come and had a good time! My children are still laughing about some of the jokes and funny times they had with Mary and Laura! Just last night at the dinner table they were all reliving the fun they had together upstairs and at Shoneys!

We need to get together more often!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous on April 12, 2007 at 6:29 am
It was fun following you and yur family on this trip!

sweet_melody51