Catching Up

The fall colors have seemed to have peaked.  Some strong winds and rains have brought down many of the leaves and are bringing the first stages of winter drabness to the countryside.  That changing of the seasons is just one of the things that makes living in our part of the country so enjoyable.  The new header picture is one I took along the East Fork of White River in Martin County.  This stretch of stream is one of the best in the Midwest.  It courses through woodlands and fields, river bottoms and rugged bluffs.  It passes landmarks with names like Devil's Elbow, Heathen Bend, Norman Rock, The Old Man's Nose, McBride's Bluff and the Pinnacle.  The shot above was taken at Clark's Ferry.  Great country!!

I helped some friends get in the last of a late hay crop and also helped in getting in some corn. The ear corn was hauled to the stationary sheller that was set up and run through.  Even with the severe drought in our area, this corn made about 90 bushels to the acre or so.

We've been enjoying turnips from the garden and some lettuce and spinach.  The cooler weather has also caused us to keep the soup pot going.  We've picked up a quarter of beef from the processor and stowed it in the freezer.  The beef was part of one that we had purchased from a local raiser.  To this, the boys and I plan to add a deer or two when the season opens.  This is just a great time of year!

A friend just moved in a new kitchen stove into their house.  Actually, his wife had located the stove and bought it a week or so ago.  They moved it this week with the help of a brother and his sons.  It is a Pioneer Princess that is only about three years old.  The Pioneer Maid that it replaced had an oven that was just about baked out, so to speak, and the lady of the house had been on the lookout for a replacement.  As you can see, this one is a dandy.  Not only is this the family's cookstove, it is the source of heat for the winter.

The new Princess

Patti and I made a trip last week to celebrate her birthday.  While exiting one of our favorite eating places, we noticed that trees along the streets in downtown Bloomington are now sporting some hand knitted winter garb.  Life must be good when we can have sweaters for our trees!

A tree sweater in Bloomington, IN

 One of the things I had on my list to do this year was to make a bike ride to a state park we like to visit.  I made the trip a week ago and rode over to Red Hills State Park in Illinois.  Below is a shot of one portion of the ride along U.S. 50.  I enjoyed the fifty mile ride, although I think it cured me of wanting to make a bike trek across the United States!

U.S. 50 in Illinois

A Busy Weekend

Yesterday, I made a bit of a bike ride.  I've been trying to do more of that, as the temperatures allow!  On this ride, I went nearly 28 miles, including this crossing of the new Interstate 69 construction a few miles west of our place.

I-69 heads north to Indianapolis (eventually)

I took a break in just about the only shade i could find, at this closed market stand.

 It has been a busy day today.  I ran some errands this morning and watered the tomatoes for a while.  A farmer friend called and said he could get up to our hayfield over in Martin County and bush hog it for me.  I've not mowed it for a couple of seasons, but can't stand to see it grow up after having put so much effort into keeping it open.  I met him over there and 'supervised' while he used his big bat-wing mower on the field.  The small persimmon and sassafras trees that were sprouted there are mowed back and it looks great now!  I have another neighbor that may want hay off of it next year.

Back here, a neighbor called this afternoon and asked for a ride to the neighborhood 'grocery store' to get some sugar for a batch of plum wine he was working on.  I obliged, picked him up and ran over to the store.  As we were leaving, we made a little jag over to a relative of his and got some more plums.  We got a lot of plums!  They weren't real big, but they are at the peak of ripeness.  The relatives who own the tree are tired of putting them up and happily let us do some picking.  We picked 15-20 pounds of the fruit and headed on back.  I kept enough for a small batch of wine, he kept the rest.  Now, I'm getting ready to put the fruit to soak once I wash them and remove the pits.  More on that a bit later.

 I also tweaked a couple of lamps I've been putting together.  As you can see from the photos, I have adapted a regular lamp base to a lid that fits on an ordinary fruit jar.  That gives a nice, full quart of burning capacity.  It's easy to replace if it gets broken, too.  One small problem was the wick. The ones that came with the burners were too short to reach the bottom of a quart jar, having been designed for a regular lamp.  These burners also use the narrower wick and I couldn't find them to buy by the inch (or foot).  So, I simply used an ordinary stapler and stapled two of them together.  That will make sure that every bit of fuel is available to be burned.

The burner screws into a special lid that fits a regular fruit jar.

I stapled two wicks together to give them plenty of length.

Ready for the storm.