Country Living really varies, season to season…Right now we are in the Fall Season, or as I like to call it, the “working season”. Okay, that is kind of misleading. When you live in the country, it is always “working season”. I don’t work as much as the rest of the family on the hill, they tend to get bored if they are sitting too long. (Unless of course they are in a tree stand, then they will sit for hours on end!)
With that being said, colder weather is upon us and that means that we needed to turn on the heat. For those of us that live in the country, that means we needed to haul wood!
Here is a before and after photo of the front porch…
Now once again, I must share with you that I am very blessed. My dad and brother in law, along with a couple other men have been cutting and hauling wood all year. All that I have to do when I need more wood is load up the kids and head up the hill to the wood spliter and fill the back of my suburban with what we need. Sometimes, when it is really cold and I put off going to the wood pile, ‘wood elves’ bring me wood! That is always nice. We got the porch full and had some extra to go into the fire ring in the house as well!
It is always nice to feel the sense of accomplishment after working so hard. Now that the wood was all ready to go, it was time to clean out the wood stove. I usually make sure that I have all the ashes out etc. at the end of the winter, but I slacked a bit in my duties and had a pan full of ashes. I opened the wood stove and found this…
Yes, it was a tad gruesome. I am not even sure how long it had been in there. I don’t remember hearing any noise coming from the stove, but its body was hard. It seemed it had been there for quite some time. It was sad, and I will take precautions that it doesn’t happen next year.
Since I do not want to leave you with that image in your head, here are a few photos from Thanksgiving with the family:
Starting top right:
*My adorable nephew headed out with me to run some food to friends…Daddy wanted to make sure he was ‘safe’ while riding with me! I ensured him we were VERY safe!
*Me and my Dad.
*Bear warming up to my BIL’s dad…He wasn’t sure about the mustache! LOL
*Ellen and Harmony
*Me, Ellen, Dad and Bear headed to the spring and to deliver food.
*Mom, Bear and myself
We are fortunate enough to have a fresh spring just down the road from the house, so we fill up water jugs for drinking water from there for free. It has been there as long as we have lived here, so 20 years at least. There is a hose there to make the collection of the water easier for folks.
Dad and I had to both be on our game, otherwise he would have one of us would have gotten very wet! I will say that it is wise to NOT tell jokes or get to laughing while doing this, we were both shaking at one point, whilst trying to control our laughter…
Oh, and the joke was this:
“Knock, knock.”
(you say) Who’s there?
“Yodle lay hee”
(you say)….
HA HA HA HA HA…You know you are cracking up right now! It still makes me chuckle every time I hear it.
This one will not get old anytime soon. (Big thanks to my buddy Dan from NYC for that little piece of joy).
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the water is DELICIOUS!
When we got back from our mini outing (the folks were very grateful for the food, and I scored my sister a BARN! There will be a blog on that story soon!), this was what greeted my eyes. The funny thing….no one in my family could see what I thought was so peculiar about this photo. Do you see it?
If you said a pistol on the table next to a sippy cup you are RIGHT!
One last photo to show you one of the reason why fall is so great in the country. This was taken off my parents back porch.
Oh, and yes, that is an outhouse; and NO, it is not functioning (at this time)!