Diggin' a ditch

Here's the masterpiece. We'd had trouble with this area before, and Jon had filled more dirt into this north west facing corner, and it had stopped leaking. Until the storm.

What would be the basement on any other house is the main living space in our house. So the builder thought he'd make it more comfortable (so Jon says) and build it out of wood rather than cement block. Sounds kinda strange to me, but that's how it is.

The corner you see in the picture is like this: the wall straight ahead is wood. The wall on the left is a bedroom added on later and made from cement block as you can see in the pictures below. I think the problem might be where the two materials meet. And the storm dumped such an amount of rain that the gutters overflowed and the rain ran right into the corner. So Jon spent a

couple of days digging out, and then fixing it up somehow--Kristine says it involved some mud 'snowmen' and mud angels (and I think it was a good thing I wasn't there)--and he's already filled it back up. I thought that maybe, since he'd had it all dug out, that he'd put in a back door there. It would be very handy there coming out of the laundry room. (As if we need another half-finished project around here. Isn't that what life's about?!)

This is the closet in that bedroom after he'd torn out the sheetrock and insulation.

We're putting a wood floor in this room--it's half way done at the moment--so I guess it was a good thing this happened now and not after we'd finished the floor.
















This has nothing to do with the leaking back bedroom. It just happened to be on the camera with the other pictures. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

I love Chinese food. But I can't afford to eat it as often as I like, and I hate the crazy recipes and deep frying required to make it myself. So I'm always on the lookout for faux Chinese recipes--ones that don't take any odd ingredients and don't require me to do much more than stirfry.

I came across a recipe for lemon chicken that involved some lemon flavor jello. And it was quick and easy and I had most of the ingredients(except the lemon jello). So I substituted lime jello. It turned out this lovely shade of green, and it was delicious. Kristine protested loudly at the unusual color until I told her she could go without any supper, and then she ate with gusto and asked for more. And Jon gave it an enthusiastic 2 thumbs up. Maybe I'll keep the substitution.

Hail Damage

Almost a month gone by and no word from me. Don't you wonder why?



Well...just look at my plums! They were just coming ripe--and it would have been the first 'real' harvest off this tree.

The hail was golf ball size, and it went on and on. 25 minutes of being pounded with frozen golf balls will do a lot of damage to a poor plum tree. I was in shock for a while over this.



A week later I did manage to pick enough fruit off this tree to make one wonderful plum tort. The best. Too bad there wasn't enough to make a bunch and freeze them for Christmas. Sigh.














How about my tomatoes? They weren't even coming ripe yet--well a few on the outsides, but they were still mostly green. Just beaten to a pulp. What a mess. The chickens got a lot of the worst ones, but we left some damaged ones on the vine to see if they might just ripen up. No such luck. They rotted there. This disaster caused me more distress than the plums--it was a week before I could go out there without crying over it. Whew! Who knew I was so attached to my tomatoes?



We did get about 10 gallons for making tomato sauce--I was very excitted--and then I burned it. Bummer. There are a few more I can still salvage, but nothing like the 50 quarts I was hoping for.

My peppers were looking great this year. And then the hail came. Peppers with golf-ball size holes in them were all that were left. They rotted on the plant. Chickens loved them.

Our beans were done, and our fall peas had just been planted. We should be getting those pretty soon. The carrots are fine and the beets. The ducks got the broccoli earlier this spring, so no loss there (heehee).











And the squash. The winter squash were the least affected, but the vines just look horrible. The summer squash was, natually, completely lost. Good thing I already had my fill of it. How much zucchini bread can one eat? More than you think, originally, but then even that much is too much. Good thing everyone around here likes it.



These squash are just beginning to ripen now. The variety in the picture is called a 'striped cushaw' and is our absolute favorite. It has pink seeds and a pale yellow, very sweet flesh. They are huge--so 4 plants will keep us going all winter long. I bake them whole, and then scoop out the flesh and freeze it in 4 cup servings. That's enough for a meal and enough left over for pumpkin muffins or, maybe a pie.



There was some damage done to the house. Not as much as we'd thought (or hoped?), but enough that Jon's been digging trenches around it and tearing out sheetrock, and generally adding to the mess. Maybe I'll explain more later.



As it is, I guess I'd better be focusing on God's Benefits: No one was hurt. We didn't loose any animals or trees. The tornado that touched down a mile or so south of us, didn't bother us at all. We have insurance for the house. There are grocery stores we can utilize. I don't have to do all that work canning and freezing(even though I love it). We've been needing to tear out the sheetrock anyway--now the insurance will pay for it.



And that's why you haven't heard from me for so long. A lame excuse, I know; but sometimes I gotta retreat from my busy social life and do some self-care. Rest assured, I've had my chocolate and coffee and am ready to jump back in.