Turn, turn, turn

As the weather turns cooler and the leaves fall from their trees, it seems a time for 'drawing' in. A settling down for that long winters nap if you will.

I love the fall. The way the leaves look on the ground, the cool nights and mild days. Makes me want to get outside sometimes and play like I did as a child.

Way back when, fall was a time for the last minute things to prepare for winter. The final harvest was gathered in, put up, set aside and preps were made for the sleep of winter. I guess we are doing that here.
We've been catching sales and buying extra, I'm still reaping the last of the garden harvest with bell peppers and banana peppers. The gourds are hanging and the sweet potatoes are almost ready to be dug.
I've put up pears recently, and still have more to do. It's a tiring, long process with the peeling and the cutting and the coring, but I LOVE to look at the end result. It's a good feeling looking at the larder and seeing mostly home canned products instead of store purchased ones.

I've dried some hot peppers this year, and they hang on the peg in the dinning room. They look very nice as well as knowing, should I need a hot pepper..I've got it! (not that I use that many of them and I've probably got enough for the next 4 years or better, but even so, I like the way they look!)

I think the final harvest of bell peppers and bananas I get, I'm going to dry. In the oven. Dried foods do take up less space for sure. I've dried blueberries and figs and chilli peppers before, so it's time to give something else a try.
I remember a time, sitting on my grandmothers (we called her mamaw) porch and literally stringing beans. We'd take each green bean and run a needle and thread through it till there were long ropes of green beans. She'd hang each rope on a nail on the back porch so the sun shone on them each day till they were dried and shriveled. Some people call them 'leather britches'...to me, they were just sun dried beans.

So tell me...how does your larder look? When the trees go bare, the larder should be full! Want to learn more about 'larders and 'thrawls'..take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larder

I guess most people don't think about the larder and harvest season anymore. The stores are too easy to get to now-a-days. If you run out of something, you simply run down to the local market and get it, but back in the day, that was not the case. You had to prepare for every season you had and the summer and fall seasons were a big time to prepare to keep you in food for winter and spring, till the next garden could be planted and produce started coming in.

Ahhh, the seasons, they do turn as does the times. Convience is the 'larder' of today. It's a shame too. I truly think people were closer when we lived closer to the earth. We had a dependence on the earth and each other that you can't find on a grocery shelf today.

Till next time..

It's been a while

But I sure have been busy!!

Let me catch you up.

First of all, I had several 'gigs' in the past month, a Bar Mitzvah and an annual fall party to do. In between all those, I just happened to have a vile evil demon that had to be exorcised...otherwise known as a 'gallbladder'. IT was happily exorcised on Sept 29th. WHEW!

After a few days recovering from that I started immediately on my latest project. The new baby quilt for the upcoming grandaughter Kaylee Ciannon (pronounced Shannon). She's due to arrive in this world on Nov 21. Sooo on Saturday October the 4th I began cutting out and sewing the top together. (I know, late start and all that), but finished getting the top together that night, 7pm.

The next day, the daughter and I laid it out, sandwiched the backing and the batting together with it and basted it all together. On Monday I got it on the frame. Here it is.

............READY TO START THE QUILTING!!

Now, I did not work on this every day, nor for many hours in each day. When I did work on it, I worked about 2 hours or more, but fit the quilting time in between all the other things I had to do around here..such as..PEARS!

It's still pear season here and I had a 5 gallon bucket full of them that had to be canned up. So that's just what I did several days: Here is some of the finished project!

...Now, remember, in between all this I'm still recouping from surgery, doing two gigs and quilting (along with all those other mundane daily chores!) OH yeah..and I had another 'ride along' with the local law inforcement too! Wanna know the top speed we hit..well, let's just say we took the car to it's highest..130. I don't think I EVER want to go any faster in my life! (OOOHHMYYWORD!)

All quilts have a history and this one, even though it's new is no different. So, here's the history. Since my son and daughter in law have decided to give their first born daughter an Irish name I decided that a "Irish Chain' pattern was the ticket for this quilt. So, the center is the Irish Chain. Most Irish Chain patterns however, only use two colors but they are doing the baby's room in a theme of a 'celestial fantasy' if you will. Stars, moons, dragons and the like as well as the babies room being purple. So I decided on three different colors for the Irish Chain. The star material, the purple and the black. Since they live in upstate NY where there are many Amish families and I was already using some of the classic Amish quilt colors, (purple and black) I decided that the outer edges would be similar to the patterns you see on the Amish quilts. Thus the final result you see here. A Celestial Amish Irish Chain! What a mouthful!

Anyway, without further ado, let me show you the finished product of the quilt above. I finished quilting it, took it off the frame, snipped all the 'tails' of thread, bound it and washed it last night.
It's ready to roll and to keep little Kaylee warm when she arrives. (and since she will be living in upstate NY..I'm SURE she'll need it!)

Well, there ya go! Finished, washed and ready to be packed up and shipped to NY! Which, by the way, I will be going to NY to hopefully see Kaylee come into this world. My plane arrives on Nov 17..I'm cutting it close I know, but we're going to hope for the best!

Till next time..see ya..

down on the farm!

On Patrol!

A Day in the Life with Badge #407.

Tuesday has come and gone and again, I had my 'ride along' with the local law inforcement!

At 7 a.m Tony arrived in my driveway and blew the horn. He was ready to roll. I got in the car and of course, we were headed down to 'Bristol' once again to go fishin!

There were a few State Patrol boys playing in the sandbox as well, so we knew it may be harder to catch a bite, but as normal, it wasn't long before the line was snagged!

Here's our first catch of the day. The sun just up, the day had begun.
After pulling a few here and there on the 'Bristol' course, Tony said ..."Let's roll down to Talladega, Bristol is the small race track posted 35mph, Talladaga is the long track posted speed: 50mph, just east of Bristol". So away we went.
Now, you can pull speeders one at a time all day long, but if you're like Tony, he'll catch more fish on the same line then anyone I know! We were crusin on 'Talladega' when the radar hit on three cars, all following close to each other, the radar blinked in a bright red..reading 67 MPH. "WOW..three of them..now which one are you going to get?" Tony got all three!

He flipped the car around, got up behind the three cars, the back two pulled over to let him by as he cruised up behind car #1. When he motioned for car #1 to pull off, he kept his car in the road, brought it to a stop with sirens going and lights flashing, jumped out of the car and with a wave of his finger, pointed and motioned the next two vehicles over. They pulled in behind car #1. Tony backed the patrol car up till he was behind all three vehicles and pulled over to the side of the road behind the last vehicle.

Three fish, one line!
When I snapped the picture, I could only get 'two' of the cars in the photo, but trust me, there are three vehicles pulled over here. I watched as Tony went to each car individually, gathering the pertinent information..'license and registration please' and he came back to the patrol car and began the process. As we sat there writing up the tickets, one of the State Patrols drove by and came over the radio asking "407...Do you have a permit for that parade!?" Cops do have a sense of humor, never fear!

I had watched Tony for several days now and noticed that each time he walked past a car, he always put his hand, palm as flat as he could, on the back of each vehicle. I finally asked him "Tony, why do you touch the back of each vehicle you pull over?" The answer he gave me surprised me.
"I touch each vehicle so that my fingerprints are on it. Should something happen to me at this call, then there is evidence." Wow..I had no clue! He said they are trained to do that, and many do and just as many don't. (something new I learned today!)

We gave out many tickets this day, and our day was coming to a close when a call came in about a 'vehicle' fire in our area...Dispatch called again to add 'there are weapons and ammunition in the vehicle.' Tony whipped the car around and away we went, down backroads, curvy and straight gaining speed the whole way.
Oh yeah, here's another thing I learned today. When you're going 125mph..your ears WILL lay back and if you turn your head to the side, you can't focus on ANYTHING! OHMYGAWD! Oh yeah, you know those yellow signs that say 'curve ahead max safe speed 45'? Pfffft! Try them at 90! No..wait, don't try them at 90. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!...I will say Tony has been trained to drive how he drives and he's never wrecked his vehicle.


We arrive on the scene, and here is what we see.











Oh yeah..on FIRE!!!


Tony gets out of the car, assesses the situation, moves everyone back and waits for the firetrucks to arrive. When the first fire truck pulls up, Tony strips his protective vest and prepares for the 'fight ahead'.











Oh yeah, just so you know, Tony was a firefighter for 10 years before becoming a police officer. Fighting fires is something he started many years ago as a volunteer first when he was in his early 20's.


Pulling a hose is not new to Tony.
The first truck arrives and without pausing one moment, Tony begins 'pullin' the hose. Once in position he yelled for the water and the fight was on!


He fought with the fire for about 20 minutes while the firemen were getting their gear on.



With this being a vehicle fire, one always has to be concerned with gas and any other items of a combustionable nature. Once he got the major flames under control, he slipped up closer to the truck to give it some needed close up attention, and a blast of cold water!

















The fire now getting under control on the truck, some of the area grass had caught and was spreading. By this time the firefighters had their gear on and were ready to take over the fight. Firefighting is hot tiring work. There is a lot of pressure behind that hose. It can take a man down if he's not ready for it! With the firemen ready, Tony handed over the hose and let them go at their job. His fight was over.



When the paper work, the details and phone calls made and finshed up, our day was done.
WHEW! Never knew that cops do it all did ya? Well, not all of them do, but this one does.

Tony's philosophy "Police; City and/or County, Fire & Rescue, EMT all of us..we are all the same team and should work together on all of it, so I do my best. I'm a deputy, there should be nothing I'm not willing to give a hand in to help."

Ride along with me next time "ON PATROL"..

Wow..never would have thought you could visit the farm and see such things did ya?? LOL...well, the excitment never ends around here one way or another! Come back and visit soon...you never know what we'll get into ...down on the farm.