Doe, A Deer, A Female Deer....

Matthew and Aaron went back into Pure Water Hollow and up to the ridge tops again this Lord's Day morning. The woods are a wonderful place to get close to God, and I trust that they felt God's presence!

It was a bit warmer this morning, in the upper 30s, and a steady drizzle was heavy in the air. God's morning light of dawn had time to awaken this day before any deer were taken. I was out opening up the chicken coop around 7:10 am. The rooster had been crowing for some time now, and the chickens are always anxious to get out into their lot as soon as they see light.

As I was feeding the greedy hens a shot pierced through the still, wet morning. I quickly turned to get back to the house because I had left the radio there and I wanted to find out what had happened. Before I reached the house, another gun shot rang out through the air from up in our hollow. When I got back into the house the clock read 7:20am and I had news over the radio that Matthew had shot two doe!

Matthew had gotten to the same oak tree where he was yesterday when he shot the buck. This morning he had time to sit down beneath a maple about 20 feet further on. With his back to the large tree, this silver maple offered him some protection from the cold rain.

As he sat and waited he saw a herd of 8 or 10 deer going by. He watched as the first two passed by. They were not very big and he was hoping for a bigger one. He decided to shoot the third one, which was bigger than the first two, and he was afraid that they may pick up his scent at any time. It fell immediately, and the rest of the herd bolted. But then Matt saw one of the large ones stop about 150 feet away. He decided to take it, and it fell in the spot where it was standing also!

Matthew and Aaron had taken his two 4-wheelers up to the turn around spot this morning before daylight, so all that was left to do was to load the two carcasses and bring them down to the house. It turned out that the smaller one was actually a button buck, but the other one was a large doe. It was more difficult to hoist that big doe up onto the swing set than it was the buck from yesterday. I'm guessing it weighed maybe 150 pounds? The button buck was smaller than the buck yesterday and Matt didn't have much trouble getting that one up.

Matthew proceeded with the job of gutting the animals and then Christina came out to help us skin them. Between the three of us, along with Aaron, we had the hides off and wrapped up in the freezer in no time! (We would love to try to tan them someday) We decided to let the carcasses hang as the temperature continued to be cool enough and we wanted to have enough time to get ready for church.

I was proud of Matthew that he was not going to allow the morning activities of the hunt, and the success of bagging two more deer, to interfere with going to God's House. (Too many people use deer hunting as an excuse for missing church.) We decided that we had much to thank Him for this morning, and what better place than church!

I'm glad we made it, also, because I was called upon to preach and the Lord blessed me with a good message! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Now for some pictures:

Here they are on Matthew's Suzuki 4-wheeler: (Matt had just bought this 4-wheeler 2 weeks ago and it has come in pretty handy!)




Here the two deer are, hanging up to be worked on:

Matthew wanted to hang them up by their hind legs today and see if the gutting would go easier. Yesterday he hung the buck up by the front legs. It worked fine both ways, but he decided that he like them hung up by the hind legs the best.




Here is that mountain girl, Christina, helping with the skinning:





Matthew with the two gutted and skinned carcasses:






Well, now we need to get outside and cut up this meat that the Lord has blessed us with! It has continued to drizzle throughout the morning and afternoon and has not really stopped yet. I guess we will just have to get wet. (By the way, Aaron is back up in the hollow hoping to get a deer for himself. He was not successful this morning, and so far he has not reported anything this afternoon.)

Again, we will thank God for the blessings of this bountiful harvest of venison! It will make the grocery budget stretch quite a bit farther! I also want to thank my son Matthew. I am very proud of him and his success deer hunting this season. Only the second day, and he has already bagged 3!

Music To Our Ears: Matthew's First Deer of the Season

Matthew told the story of this mornings' buck after it was all gutted, skinned, and sitting in the refrigerator. It is surprising how quickly he got it; he didn't even have time to sit down up on the ridge!

He had driven his truck up to the clearing and walked the rest of the way up the road to the turn around and on up the path to the east ridge. Aaron was taking the west ridge. It was still very dark as they were walking up the mountain side, but the first hints of dawn were beginning to show up. He kept his steps in the tire tracks from the path the 4-wheeler had made on previous days. This kept the crunching sound of the dried leaves down to a minimum.

It was difficult to see through the dim light of the morning, but Matt thought he was coming up on the big oak tree that he had planned on sitting beneath. It was about 6:35 am by this time. He thought he heard something walking, so he froze and scanned his surroundings. He was looking on down the trail, beyond the tree, when a form materialized before his eyes in the foreground of the picture! It was a buck, only about 20 feet away from him! He had walked right up on it, and didn't even see it at first! It dropped where it was standing on the first shot fired from our 30-30! He then shot it a second time to put it out for good.

Matthew came down to the house and got his 4-wheeler. He drove it up to the ridge to make the task of moving the deer carcass much easier. After loading it on the back of the vehicle, he brought it down to the house and we strung it up to our multi-purpose swing set in the side yard. Matt then proceeded to gut and skin the carcass and cut it up into pieces to store in the freezer.

It was a 4-point buck and probably weighed around 100 pounds. After we were finished taking the meat off that we wanted and deboning the roasts, we were happy to have about 35 pounds of prime venison meat!

Aaron came down and went back up in the hollow a couple of times throughout the morning, but he did not get a deer. He did see some, as well as turkey and squirrel, but he didn't get a shot off at the deer. Maybe tomorrow?

Here are the pictures I took, which may have been the first kill of the modern gun season of all the hunters out today!

On the back of the four-wheeler:



Hanging up on the children's swing set:



The gutting:



All skinned and ready to cut up for the freezer:





We feel blessed to be able to harvest this meat supply that God has provided us here at Pure Water Hollow!

The Hills Are Alive...With the Sound of Gun Fire

Today was the opening day of modern gun season, and you can tell it from the ring of gunfire coming from the surrounding hills. Matthew joined in with the ringing chorus and was right on tune!

It was a cool 34 degrees when he and his friend Aaron moved stealthily up our mountain at 6:00 am (in his 4 wheel drive truck). The sun was just beginning to illuminate the surroundings and promised to warm things up, but Matthew did not have much time to get cold. He came over the radio at 6:40am with the report of getting a buck!

He said it was just a 4-point, but that's fine. He's not in it for the trophy; just the meat. And it should be good eating!

When he brings it down I'll try to get a couple of pictures and post them on another post later. I'm not sure if Aaron is going to stay up there for a while and continue to try for one for himself or not. This morning's stanza is still unfolding and there is over a whole week to go in the symphony. Perhaps I will get to sing along before it's over, as well!

Poultry Pics

Here is our Buff Orpington/Black Giant rooster, Buck:





And this is Queen One Feather:



One of the pretty Buff Orpington hens:


This is a Buff Orpington/Light Brahma crossed hen:

Here are some of the rest of the flock:

Erica is watching some of the newer chicks:

Timothy drives his truck all around the chickens.

That's our mama duck.  Look what she has under her wings!

 

And here are our White Chineese geese:

So there you have a glipse some of our current poultry.

My Triumphant Return to the Blog World

Back in September of 2006 I began two blogs. One was hosted here and titled "Our Life Here" and was mainly about our personal finances and getting out of debt. It only lasted a few months. The other was a blog on Homesteadblogger called "Pure Water Hollow Homestead" and was about our homestead in the hills of Kentucky and our journey toward a simpler lifestyle. I wrote on that blog consistently through 2009 but have not blogged much anywhere during this year of 2010.

I have decided to merge the two blogs and move my posts from HSB over here and retitle my blog "Our Life at Pure Water Hollow Homestead". I've decided that most of what I've written in the past has some merit, especially for my own family history and memories. (So I'm keeping the boring posts about money.)

My task now, is to fix and move over 200 posts from there to here. It will take some time, so my triumphant return to blogging may be just copy and paste for a while. But I will be having fun!

Where's The Septic Tank? (Plus an Update)

Was I a WWI soldier digging a trench to protect my company from enemy artillery? Or perhaps I was a pirate of old, trying to follow a faded and worn treasure map, digging for the hopelessly lost buried treasure?

Or maybe I was just a foolish homesteader who had lost a septic tank that was in desperate need of pumping out!

We had the tank pumped out once before, and I dug holes all over the yard that time, too. The septic guy said that they recommend pumping every 5 years. We have lived in our present home for 17 years now, and this was just the 2nd time we have needed it pumped out. It has probably been 8 or 9 years since we last had it done, but we were pretty sure where to dig. We were wrong!

I decided to post about the location of our septic tank here on the blog, because I have high hopes that these records will be preserved for my posterity, and therefore also preserved for myself in 8 or 9 years from now if we need to dig up the tank once again!

The magic spot to dig in the future is:

32 feet from the house measured from the bathroom window. 28 feet from the culvert going under our driveway. And 6 1/2 feet from the ash leaf maple we call the "play tree".

Hopefully this will be of future benefit and I will not have to spend all day on a Saturday searching for it! (At least I got a decent workout in because of it, and I have been trying to loose weight.)

Since I am here on the blog, I guess it would be nice to fill in a few gaps that I have neglected over the past month. First off, it is hard to believe that March is just about over already! Spring has been springing with the bright yellow forsythia blooming in front of the house, the daffodills and other "Easter" flowers, as well as the peach trees and cherry bushes beginning to bloom. (We are thankful for the forsythia that we got from Little House Big Garden last year: it is a welcome splash of beauty!)

I pruned the grape vines and peach trees early in the month, and Lisa and I attended an apple tree grafting workshop at the extension office. We grafted 5 trees of different varieties and put them in a pot with some of the garden soil. We will be curious to see how they do. We have pruned some of the old apple trees we have a bit, but I did not get the time to do what really needed to be done on them.

Speaking of the garden, I got it tilled once, but then it rained before we could get anything put out. So, our garden is getting a late start once again this year! The old tiller started up nicely, but we need some new tires.

Other homestead news should be about our livestock. Currently we only have chickens and pigs. The chickens have provided us with some meat as Lisa and Matthew butchered a cockeral earlier this month as well as plenty of eggs from the hens. We are getting between 15 and 20 every day! I sold one rooster for $5 and we have several more waiting to be butchered. We will probably part with some of our hens as well. We don’t really need 29 of them, even though I like them all!

As far as the pigs are concerned, we are expecting piglets any day now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Scarlett has hers today. Crimson may be a few days later? It is so hard to tell for sure. This will be their first litters, so we don’t really know what to expect. I hope they will be good mammas. Right now they are housed in the barn, but we hope to move them back up to the old pig lot before too long. We need to completely re-do the fence up there and one of the sties need some rehab. A few years with 800 pound hogs took it’s toll!

Erica is planning on working at Camp again this summer and is still wating to hear from the colleges she is interested in. Matthew got his driver’s license and has been driving everywhere. We got a ’91 F-150 extended cab that he really wants to drive, but it is still waiting on a gas tank, so he has had to drive my car, or the Pontiac, or the GMC truck. I guess we have too many vehichles, even though we now have 4 drivers in the family. The insurance has gone crazy! It’s not really fair that all 16 year olds get discriminated against just because a majority of them are show-off, dangerous drivers with no responsibility for their actions. Matthew is exceptionally safe and an excellent driver! If GEICO could spend a week or two with him, I’d bet they would be willing to give us a better premium. Oh well…

Christina and Simon started taking piano lessons this month and have really enjoyed it. It has been nice having Erica take them so Lisa does not have to go out. Last week Matthew took them. Having additional drivers in the family can be a benefit (even if the insurance is crazy).

Timothy also had his 2nd birthday in March. We took pictures that I will try to post someday. He is doing great: talking more and more and also learning how to work already. While I was digging all those holes Saturday, I gave him a small shovel and he was moving dirt right along side us! (Matthew was at a Fire School all day, so he couldn’t help. Simon did some digging when he wasn’t babysitting Timothy. Christina helped dig quite a bit before she had to go to the Reformation 2010 meeting with Erica) I wish I got a picture of Timothy with the shovel. Time is getting away from us too quickly, and I’m afraid he is growing up without as many pictures as some of the older children!

Judging from that last paragraph, I am beginning to ramble, so I think I should cut this post off now. I can’t wait to see the blessings God has in store for us as the Spring continues!

Until next time,

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3 comments
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Anonymous on March 29, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Eric,

This post is so very timely for us….we have had some issues with our septic tank and the Health Dept. coming to our home…Marc will have to call and tell you all about it. Marc will be working to find our septic tank today pray that it will not be to far down to locate.

I am glad you are doing well..we had such a good visit with you a couple weeks ago. We are looking forward to seeing you in May:)

We are also looking forward to the spring and summer ..God is so very Good!

Looking forward to seeing how God blesses you in the coming monthes:)

Renee
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Purewater on March 29, 2010 at 2:05 pm
We also had a great time with you all at Winter Jam! That was another happening during March that I neglected to write about! Seeing Third Day and the Newsboys and the other groups was great, but the company was what really made it special!

Septic tanks can be problematic, but I would still much rather have one than being on a city sewer system! They are really maintenance free until they get filled up, and then it is not so pretty.

I'll be interested in hearing about your septic dilemma sometime soon! I hope it all works out ok and Marc will find your tank easier than we did!
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jrejhkids on March 30, 2010 at 8:56 am
We have had a time finding exactly where ours is as well. We ended up making a little planter around the opening, except without the flowers. We have a board that covers it and we can store our garden hoses on top of it.

Insurance is crazy. We only have two drivers at home now. My son got his license before he went to Berea, so we don't have to pay for him. We have another child who will be driving next year.

Enjoyed reading your blog. Have a great day.

~Cheryl

2010 Sap Flow: Beware of Indoor Boiling

For the past week the maple sap flow has been on at Pure Water Hollow, and I have been boiling it down for the past 2 days, almost non-stop! We again only used 10 taps in 8 trees, just like we did two years ago. I’ve lost track of the number of gallons of sap we have harvested, but we believe it has been about 60. It has yeilded a gallon of syrup so far, with about 10 gallons of sap still on the range waiting to be finished off! If we are correct in how much sap we have had, we are hitting pretty much on that 50:1 ratio. We discovered before that our sap to syrup ratio here in Kentucky is greater than the 40:1 ratio that New England gets, but sometimes it is a bit better than 50:1. The sap flow pretty much stopped by Thursday because it stayed cold (we got more snow on Wednesday and Thursday).

The cold temps allowed me to do a trick with the sap that I have read that the Indians used to do. I was able to remove a good deal of the water content by taking the ice out of the buckets instead of just boiling it all! The unfrozen part would have a greater concentration of sugar. This helped quite a bit.

I was re-reading my maple syrup posts from the 08 season, which was the first time we attempted maple syrup. After boiling down 50 or so gallons this time around, I feel I should clear up what appeared to be a bit of misinformation. I found this statement from an old post:

"I had read in many places not to boil the sap in doors. At least one source said that all the steam would coat everything in the house with a sticky residue. After letting many gallons of sap boil on our kitchen range, I would now say the sticky residue part is a myth. After thinking about it, it doesn’t make sense that the steam would be sticky since the only thing that is boiling away in the steam is the water content. The tree sap is 98% water and only 2% sugar. About 2/3 of the water needs to be taken out. The remaining solution would be 66-67% sugar and would now be syrup. The only thing that is evaporated into the air is all that water."

Well, that year I didn’t have much trouble in the kitchen at the beginning, but after everything was said and done, Erica and Lisa did complain a bit about a sticky residue that was all over the cabinets and appliances that they had to clean up!

This year I have been doing all the boiling up at the extra house on our property that we use as a school house and storage building. Our kitchen at the house has high, 9 foot ceilings, but this kitchen has a low, 7 foot ceiling. For some reason, the condensation from the steam has been incredible this year! I was using 2 giant 21 quart canning pots, one large stock pot, and two smaller pans on all four burners on the range as well as a hot plate on the counter.

That many gallons of sap boiling all at the same time produced some amazing atmospheric changes in the room! I have had to wear a cap because of the multitude of dripping, yellowish sap droplets from the ceiling! It has been like being in the woods after a great cloud burst with water dripping sporadically all over the place from all the leaves. The walls and cabinets have been covered and discolored by the moisture as well! There are streaks of yellow running down the walls from the moisture. It has really been a mess, and when things dry, everything is sticky and icky. My shooes make a suction/sticky sound when walking across the floor! I would definitely warn folks now to never boil this much sap down in their home!

After the pots got to a roaring boil and before I opened the windows and door, a dense cloud of moisture hung in the top 4 feet of the room! It looked just like I would imagine being in a house fire would look like. The bottom three feet along the floor was clear, but above you could not hardly see your hand in front of your face! One reason for this, I guess, was that we don’t usually heat this building much above freezing, so the air was cool. With the windows and doors open, it stayed pretty cold in there, and I felt like I was in an old fashioned sugar shack that I’ve seen pictures of. The outside of the school house looked pretty cool, too, when I went out to check on the chickens once. When the wind blew the right way, great billows of steam could be seen coming out of the side window! But even with the windows and door open, it did not help the residue droplets that formed everywhere.

I still think what I wrote a couple of years ago sounds correct, in that most of what is evaporated is just H2O, and shouldn’t cause a problem. But I guess I now proved that somehow water content from maple tree sap is indeed tainted with stickiness and can in fact cause all sorts of problems!

It really hasn’t been a great problem for us, since we do not live in this building, but we will have quite a mess to clean up when everything is finished! Someday, I still hope to have a real sugar shack and use wood-burning stoves to boil the sap!

Next week, the sap may start flowing again, and we may get to produce more sugar. If we do, I suppose I will just open the windows and keep my hat on in our sugar shack/ school house/ storage building!

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7 comments
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Debbie on February 26, 2010 at 11:02 am
This makes sense because if you fry meat on the stove the same thing happens. You get sticky grease everywhere.

Sounds like fun… Do you save all your syrup or sell it?
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Purewater on February 26, 2010 at 1:55 pm
A comment from Debbie asked about selling the syrup.

We have not tried selling any syrup, but we did give several jars as gifts, with great reviews. I probably could find some folks who would buy all that we make, but since we are doing such a small amount I don't really want to do that. We have enough trees that we could probably run 3 to 4 times as many taps as we are now, but that would also be 3 to 4 times more work! Maybe we will work up to doing more in future years, but for now, this is all I can handle!

We are planning on changing most of this year's syrup into powdered sugar. The syrup we made in 08 has lasted us until now (we still have some jars). We will likely make better use of the product as sugar. I think natural maple sugar should be healthier for us compared to commercial sugar!
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Lyn on February 26, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Hi, we live in TN, and we just ordered equipment to tap our maple trees. Do you think it will be to late to get any syrup this year? We have been wanting to try this for a long time. We finally decided to go for it. Do you tap just sugar maples or all maples? Hope the rest of the season goes well for you.
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Purewater on February 27, 2010 at 12:03 am
Lyn,

I really don't know how the maple sap will be in TN. Many people around here thought we were too far south in KY for maple syrup making, but they were wrong! You will just have to give it a try.

The sap from trees in our area has less sugar content than those in New England, but I believe the syrup that results is as good and sweet as theirs is. It just takes me boiling a bit more sap than they do up north. A friend of mine vacations up in Maine frequently, and she said our syrup was as good as anything she ever gets in New England! I think the further south you go, the less sugar content you will have.

As far as timing, I would guess it may be getting too late for you this year. But if it stays cold long enough, you may still have a chance. Ours flow when we have a string of days in the 40s and nights in the 20s. I think sunshine helps a lot, too. I've read that you will get bitter sap after the trees start budding out, which should begin pretty soon. I think I will have another week or so of sugaring weather here in KY, but as we get on into the middle of March I'm counting on more spring-like weather!

We try to only tap the sugar maples on our property. The books say that all maple varieties can be tapped, but they have different sugar levels. Some day I will experiment with the other maples and see what the difference is. I think they should make good syrup, but we may need more sap to get the same results? When the leaves are on is the only way we can differentiate the sugar maple from the other maples. Two years ago we marked the trees with paint so we could find them in the winter with no leaves.

Good luck with your sugaring endeavor! I'll try to check out your blog to see if you write anything about it. If it doesn't work this year, start being on the watch next year begining in January. I made some good syrup this year in January, but it was not a very heavy sap flow.

God bless,

-Eric
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www.homesteaderbellesblog.blogspot.com on February 27, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Hi Eric,

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving a comment.

I am sorry to hear about all the sticky! It is still worth it though in my opinion.

It really cold here again, so the sap isn't really running right now. I can not wait until the sap flows! Sap collecting and syrup making is so much fun!

I hope you and your family are enjoying the sap season.

Just thought I would drop by, read your post, and wish your sap season well.

Belle @ http://www.homesteaderbellesblog.blogspot.com/
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Schatzi on March 2, 2010 at 6:48 pm
What a great post…I remember way back when my grandparents made maple syrup…for some reason I remember them doing all their boiling outside in a big pot under an open fire…this was a wonderful time for us kids to watch that..and taste the finished product LOL.

Connie
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HerbsandHoney on March 22, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Yes it can be a sticky mess We didn't get trees tapped before the first run this year Will try for a small fall run. Hope you get lots of syrup.

Blessings,

Herbs & Honey

Winter History / Annual Snowfalls for Eastern Kentucky / Past Winters At Pure Water Hollow

Meteorologist Jim Caldwell gave this graphic concerning snowfall in our area from 1981 to present. I thought it was fairly interesting, especially since I have not been blogging about total snowfall each year here on homesteadblogger. Our current winter season has just about moved into the number 2 spot, now, and with more snow predicted, Jim thinks we could flirt with the number one spot before Spring gets here for good!



I started this blog during the fall of 2006, and I looked back at some of my posts from that winter when I was lamenting the lack of snow that year. According to Jim Eastern Ky had 12 inches of snow that year, but I’m not sure if we even had that much.

We moved to Pure Water Hollow spring of 1993 right after a 24 inch March snow! So I guess of that 36 inches during 92-93 winter we got 2 feet all at once at the end of the season! Our first official winter here was the 93-94 winter, with the 2nd place snowfall amount that will be beaten this current season!

The most memorable part of that 94 winter for us was the extremely cold temperatures. The historical data for record low temperatures show 1994 as a doozy. 4 days in January of 94 hold the record cold for each individual day. January 15th was 7 below zero, Jan 16th was 6 below zero, Jan 19th was 26 below zero, and Jan 20th was 19 below zero! I’m sure many other days was zero and below, but they didn’t break any records. There we were in a 1930s era coal camp house, with blown glass windows that were very loose in their frames (cutains would actually move by the wind with the windows closed), inadequate insulation, inadequate heat, frozen water pipes for weeks, and a 2 year old and a 4 month old baby to care for! Those were some challenging days!

I found this interesting note from the Kentucky Climate Center website. My homestead was not the only one affected in Kentucky that winter:

"As 1930 is to heat waves, 1994 is now to frigid spells. In January, a blizzard coated the landscape with about an inch of ice and topped it with 6-26 inches of snow. Mason County had the heaviest snow accumulation. All state, interstate, and federal highways were closed for two days. Behind the blizzard came the intrusion of arctic air. This one brought frigid weather to all of Kentucky. The morning of 19 January 1994 saw -31°F at Grayson, -32°F at Somerset, -33°F at Cynthiana, a record breaking -35°F at Gray Hawk, and a record smashing -37°F at Shelbyville. One hopes that this record will last a long time."

This historical data was also posted there which I found facinating. I love to imagine myself back in Daniel Boone’s time, but I’m sure I would not have lasted long. Especially considering this kind of winter:

"Cold spells may have been more memorable than hot ones to early settlers who were less well prepared than modern Kentuckians. Historians record the winter of 1779-1780 as the coldest known to that date. Although records of temperatures aren’t available for that winter, the severity is indicated at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, where snow continued on the ground from mid November to mid February. For ten days in December 1796, history records that the Ohio River was frozen over to a thickness of nine inches."

I wonder what things looked like here, where Pure Water Hollow Homestead would one day be located? I guess only the animals knew, because I doubt if the Indians would have come over here in weather like that if they didn’t have to!

Anyway, I guess I have rambled on enough. I’ve always thought that Winter is a pretty interesting time here in eastern Kentucky, but I suppose this post will probably be a bore to many who read it.

I wonder what the reamainder of this current winter will turn out to be? Could we really be in line to get another 14 inches of snow and beat the 1995/96 record? If we do, I will probably record something about it right here!

3rd Snowiest on Record So Far

I thought this was interesting. According to the weather man in Hazard, this winter has been one for the history books! He said their data only goes back to the early 80s, but according to their records, this current winter comes in third for snowfall in Eastern Kentucky, with a good chance of moving to number 2 after the next system hits this Sunday!

These numbers are especially interesting to me considering we moved to Pure Water Hollow Spring of 93, just in time to get in on the two snowiest winters they have on record!

Here are the numbers Jim Caldwell gives:

Our 4th Winter Storm of the Season: Life Goes On

Here at Pure Water Hollow we are experiencing our 4th good snow of this winter! I haven’t written anything since November, so I thought I would update a little bit about the winter of 09/10.

The first big storm hit eastern Kentucky back on December 18th and 19th when we got about 6 inches of snow and ice here at our home. During this storm we left Pure Water Hollow to visit my mother for the holidays. This was another one of those wet snows that took down trees and power lines! We were only without power for a day or so (which didn’t affect us much since we were out of town) but some of our neighbors were without power through Christmas Day! Other areas were hit even harder and there were reports of students being stranded at their school in Harlan when the snow hit so quickly and it was not possible to get out. Some of those students actually had to stay the night at school!

We got some snow on December 30th and 31st but the next big storm was on January 4th and 5th when we had 5 to 6 inches of snow. During this time was very cold, with tempertures staying below freezing for 2 consecutive weeks. We saw huge ice bergs floating in our river, so if the cold snap had lasted much longer, the river may have frozen over like it did back in 94. But the cold didn’t hold on, and the lows never got below zero like it did in 94.

During this storm, we almost got snowed in at Harlan, KY because that was where our brake line broke as we were on our way home from a fantastic vacation in the Carribean. The brake-line stranded us the night before the storm, just three hours from home! We got it fixed and drove home the next day while the snow was still accumulating! The following days saw us wind down from the trip and get things unpacked and back to normal.

We had a couple of mild, warmer weeks when the maple sap began to flow and I was able to make a couple of jars of maple syrup, but then we had a huge 6-8 inch dry snow on January 29th and 30th. I only measured 6 on the ground here, (with some 10inch drifts) but other areas of our county reported 8 inches on the ground. This was the weekend we decided to butcher one of our hogs, which was cold, but made for a pretty setting also. We did everything ourselves again in our side yard, with Matthew doing the main work. From this 360 pound pig we got several good roasts, made the tenderloin into about 62 delicious thick slices, and are curing about 50 pounds of ham. Lisa also rendered out about 30 pounds of lard which we hope to use some of to make soap. The big success this time has been the sausage, which we wanted to make a lot of if Lisa could get it tasting right. Using sage, pepper, and maple syrup she found the perfect blend! We ended up hand cranking out about 60 pounds of wonderfully delicious mild sausage for the freezer! We have already enjoyed several wonderful meals with the sausage and tenderloin! We have a couple more hogs to butcher that we may do this weekend that we hope to make into more market cuts and less sausage.

Over this past weekend of Feb. 5th – 7th a big snow had been predicted (with possible 6 – 8 inches of white for our area) but it all turned into just rain, which resulted in some minor flodding around here.

Now here we are on February 9th in the midst of our next true winter storm. So far we only have about an inch of snow/ice but the national weather service has issued a winter storm warning for us through tomorrow night with another 3 to 5 inches expected! If the temps cooperate this week, I may be able to boil down some more maple syrup. Yesterday was above freezing and today is expected to rise also as the precipitation changes to rain/freezing rain and then wind chills near zero for tonight, with another warmer day tomorrow. Will it make for a good sap flow? I love it when we can get things done in the middle of winter storms! It makes the storms so much more exciting and enjoyable! (Maybe I’m a bit strange?)

My thoughts and prayers go out to the folks in the DC area, though, who are really getting hammered. I’ve heard that they got about 3 feet of snow from that weekend system and are bracing for another 10 inches from this current system.

Here at Pure Water Hollow, God has been very good to us, and we have been enjoying our winter (more or less). God bless everyone!


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3 comments
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jrejhkids on February 9, 2010 at 8:55 am
We haven't butchered our own hogs yet. Maybe someday. We have butchered some goats and put in the freezer. It is work to do your own meat.

I enjoyed reading your entry. My son left Berea before that last big storm. He spent the week between short term and spring term with his aunt and uncle in Fort Mitchell, KY. He said when he got back that there were huge piles on snow in the parking lots.

We have been getting more snow than we usually do out here. We have had 13 1/2 inches, when we normally get 4-5 inches of snow. We have also had a lot of rain. Hopefully we get more in the mountains so that we have water to irrigate this year.

~Cheryl
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sassyfras on February 9, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Always glad to read your posts, we also have and are having snow. The good thing is around here the more snow we have in Feb. the better the mushroom hunting. I'm not sure as to why but it always happens. Hope you and your family stay well. sherry
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Schatzi on February 9, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Wow…what a crazy winter you are all having. We have had no snow this year…and it's a year for the Olympics here…just bizarre that's for sure.

Thankful you all are fine.

Blessings,

Connie