Wednesday, November 28 - Christmas lights and mowing

Holy smokes, I haven't writtein in SO long. Today, Barry and I put up the outside lights for Christmas decorations. Most of our Christmas stuff is still in Maine, so we're going easy this year. It got down below freezing this morning, but this afternoon with full sunshine, it's near 60. Seems SO weird -- putting up Christmas decorations, then mowing the lawn -- yes, we need to do that again! The fellow on the radio the other day said, "IF we have snow this winter".

A couple of years ago I had bought a kerosene heater but never took it out of the box. Even though electric prices are 1/3 of Maine's, we're supplementing the electric heat (we found out we do NOT have a heat pump -- we have an electric furnace) with kerosene and wood. Even at $3.39 a gallon, all we need is an hour of kerosene a day to keep the house nice and toasty warm. We haven't had much sun over the past week so today was wonderful -- the cat seems to find all the warm spots. And if he can't find one, he crawls under the comforter on MY bed, right up next to the pillow!

We spent Thanksgiving in Paducah with Rick and Laura, and Laura's family. Barry made a sweet potato pie, Laura made pumpkin soup, Nancy did a corn casserole, and Buel did turkey and beef tenderloin with cognac sauce. To top it all off, Nancy made a Bavarian chocolate cake! Barry went online and bought a treadmill the day after...looks like we can use it. Nice time, lots of good food -- Paducah's almost a second home now, having spent more time there since July than we have in Maine! I'm absolutely not sure when we will return to Maine -- we thought we'd have to come back up in December, but that doesn't have to happen now - some of you know why... ;) -- it has to do with $600 (that's a hint).

OK, time to get back to work. I'd like to promise it won't be this long again before I write, but ...

Thursday, November 15 - The "S" word

No, not THAT one -- get your mind out of the gutter!

We actually had cold enough temperatures for SNOW today. Just a few flurries, not lasting long enough for me to even get a picture of it, but it surely was SNOW.

I thought we left that stuff behind in Maine along with the snowblower!

It's not expected to amount to anything, though there may be some accumulation in West Virginia. But it IS cold by KY standards -- 36, going down to 26 overnight, then back up to 58 by Saturday. We still have loads of leaves on the trees, though we can actually see the topography of several of the neighboring knobs, now that some of the trees are bare.

You may have heard of the tornado that hit in Lauren County last night -- that was only about 50 miles away -- we were in Renfro Valley last Friday, and that's only a few miles north of Pittsburg, where the EF-1 tornado hit. Quite a surprise, and VERY unusual for any tornadic activity in KY this time of year. Spring may be different, though Casey County hasn't had a direct hit since 1971 (except for April 2007).

OK, dinner is on, and the fireplace needs tending. Later.

Monday, November 12 - Going Grocery Shopping

Hey, nothing to write home about, huh? Well this was a treat.

Casey County has a large Amish/Mennonite community. It's new, begun about 1975 when Amish and Mennonites from Pennsylvania were looking for inexpensive farmland. They found it in the Green River Valley. Aside -- the Green River IS green. The water flows over all kinds of limestone deposits, and west of here, it forms the "Cave Region" of Kentucky as it flows underground for dozens of miles through Mammoth Cave and dozens of others. Anyway, it's green because the limestone promotes algae growth -- you put lime on your lawn to green it up -- same idea.

Back to the main story.

The IGA store in Liberty has great prices on, and quality of, meat, so we headed there first. Looking for the "Reduced for quick sale" we picked up loads of hamburg and pork and a couple of roasts. We need to do this at least once a month on a Monday morning -- the regular prices are comparable to Wal-Mart and Krogers (lots like Shaw's back home in Maine), but the quality of the meat is SO much better.

The pork we bought is destined to become home-made sausage. We bought a meat grinder for the Kitchen Aid mixer, and we're anxious to try it out. One of the roasts we cut up for stew beef or possibly hamburging -- we'll decide later.

Anyway, leaving Liberty, we drove south on US-127 to the Amish-Mennonite area of the county. We turned east on KY-501 in the settlement of "Phil" -- the settlement of "Teddy" is just down the road apiece. Not too far from Chicken Bristle! Gotta love the place names here.

Our first destination was Burkholder Seeds. Unfortunately, it wasn't open, but we'll go back -- calling first to be sure.

Then we drove up Chestnut Level Rd and South Fork Ridge Road past the Galilean Children's Home and Christian Academy. Sandy Tucker and her husband had hosted thousands of children from all over the world, whose mothers were in prison, or otherwise unable to care for the children. Sandy was a legend around here until she died last fall. They also operate the Bread of Life Cafe -- which is where we get our whole-wheat bread ($1.75 for a huge loaf). If we had turned on the cell phone and gotten ANY reception, we would have noticed the time was an hour earlier -- the nearest cell towers to southern Casey County are in the Central Time Zone!

Anyway, our next stop was Nolt's Bulk Foods -- what a gold mine this place is! We'll NEVER get cheese anywhere else again! Butter Havarti, $3.50 a pound (Kroger has it for $7); onion cheese, also $3.50 a pound, along with probably 15-18 other varieties ranging from Swiss and mozarella to cheddars. Barry also bought a bag of Empire apples -- good for pies, we understand! And I splurged and got a nutmeg grater. Life is good! They had cooking items, heavy aluminum cooking sheets, steel teapots, other utensils, spices in bulk, just wonderful stuff, and at reasonable prices to boot! The place is two miles off a side road off a side road off the main road. Yet we had a hard time getting through the place because of all the people shopping there!

We then backtracked to Lavern's, where we bought two squashes, a Waltham butternut, and a blue hubbard. Not much else of interest there, but the squash prices were VERY reasonable. If we had a root cellar here, we might have bought another 20 pounds -- I LOVE squash!

We did pass two horse-drawn buggies. I don't know if the drivers were Amish or Mennonite -- the men did NOT have beards, which is the rule for Old Order Amish -- but are our Amish Old or New Order? It's quite a treat though, seeing the buggies holding up the Fords and Chevies on the road!

We were looking for "Mike's Smoke House", a place I had come across back in October when I was out photographing gravestones with Rochelle and Linda, but we didn't find it. We MUST at some point though -- smoked sausages and other meats, locally produced! Sounds great.

There are other Amish-Mennonite stores we need to find. Need a buggy repaired? Harnesses for your horse? Kerosene lamps? QUILTS and QUILTING SUPPLIES (are you reading, Shirley?) Running low on sorghum, or want to learn how to make your own cheese? It's all here!

We got home, and decided to process the squash, so we took the meat cleaver, some newspapers, and went out on the back deck. It was 67 degrees, and we were wearing T-shirts while hacking and slashing at the squash. Today it feels like a nice early September day in Maine. Of course, the other day, we were 5 degrees COLDER than Waterville, and temps here commonly will vary 40 degrees from 7AM to 5PM. Later this afternoon, we'll probably take some time out to just sit and vegetate on the front porch, watching the Butchertown rush-hour traffic (approx. 5 vehicles per hour).

OK, gotta go, the squash should be done -- at least the first bowl -- two more to go!

Sunday, November 11 - Loretta Lynn and Firewood

Friday, Nov 9, Loretta Lynn -- We drove down to Renfro Valley, Kentucky's "Official" Country Music site. There's a whole entertainment complex there -- restaurant, motel, tourist shops, RV park, etc. People come from all over the country.

Loretta Lynn had with her her son Ernest, daughters Peggy and Paula (I can't tell who is whom though), and grand-daughter, Kayla Lynn. All had a set of songs, and Peggy and Paula opened the show.

Then came what we were all waiting for. The "New Barn" at Renfro Valley seats maybe 1,000 or so people, and you could tell this wasn't a rock concert -- 99% of the audience was made up of us "older" folks. Loretta came out on stage, and the show really began. She asked people to call out songs for her to sing, saying "We're here for you-all." The photos aren't that great, but they're real, not from a website.
Several times, there were false starts -- the band was playing a key too high, Loretta wasn't sure what song they were beginning to play -- and once or twice, her voice failed. But she is still an elegant performer, in a "country" sort of way. In the photo below, that's Loretta's son, Ernest, to her left.The performance was very good, even though Loretta had a few glitches -- she's 75 now (her birth certificate says she was born in 1932 though most sources say it was 1935. That means she married her husband, "Doo" Lynn when she was nearly 16, not 13 as the legend has it. Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the performance, and I'm really not a fan of "country." Then, like "groupies" (yes, Alison, we were like Michael fans), dozens of people crowded around the back door of the stage near Loretta's bus (picture below). We were all hoping she'd come out, but she didn't. However, her grand-daughter, Kayla, did, and Barry got Kayla to autograph the autographed Loretta Lynn cookbook we bought earlier. It has lots of great recipes, and biographical info on Loretta's life, so it's an interesting book to read.
If you haven't yet seen "Coal Miner's Daughter", rent it. It's a great story, well-written and acted, winner of many awards including several Oscars, and one gets a real feeling for the hardships Loretta lived through growing up in eastern Kentucky, then building up her music career.

OK, back to reality now.

Friday and Saturday, Nov 9-10, Wood.
We bought some great firewood for $25 a truckload -- works out to about $100 a cord. The first load was delivered Friday before we went to Renfro Valley, and the second came Saturday morning. We actually had a good time stacking it -- probably wouldn't though, if we had 8-10 cord to stack!

Most of the wood around here is hardwood -- oak, maple, hickory, VERY few evergreens -- so the price is even more remarkable. The fellow who sold it to us basically does it for fun and exercise, not huge profits. We WILL get all our wood from him in the future.
We'll use it to supplement the electric heat until we can do something more permanent -- gas logs, airtight stove, whatever works. Anyway, we got it stacked just fine, and have already had our first fire. The smell of a wood fire is warming in and of itself. Bruce and Shirley, a little stove like yours would be perfect!Nov 10, sitting outside.
Saturday, after the firewood was stacked, the temperature got up to the low 60's, and the sun was SO warm, Barry just had to enjoy the outdoors while he could. Temps get down below freezing quite often now overnight, but by late week, it'll get up to 68 and down to 45, so it'll feel more like a Maine September.By the way, can you see what Barry's reading? Yup, it's our personally autographed by two members of the Lynn family cook book! You can bet he's going to come up with some great food from THAT!

Saturday, November 3 - Haying and Hurricane Noel

As we sit here in nearly 60 degree sunshine, we understand our friends and family in Maine are feeling the effects of Hurricane Noel. We're sure wishing and praying that all will go well wit y'all up in the Pine Tree State -- stay indoors, stay dry, stay warm.

We HAVE had 3-4 mornings with frost here, but the guy on the radio yesterday said, "IF we get snow..." which makes me believe that we won't see much of the white stuff. It really looked like it has snowed just a dusting this morning tough. Temps got down to 27 -- about the lowest we've seen here yet.


Here, the front pasture has been hayed and is getting ready to be baled. We're not sure when, but will be taking pictures of it when it happens. Barry went out and weed-whacked around the driveway, but the front "yard" will look like a golf course by the time haying is done.

STAND BY -- They're baling now -- be right back with pictures...Shirley and Bruce -- Barry says, "Can you believe this, it's November 3rd?"


We're still trying to figure out where the garden should go in the spring, and where to plant the peach trees. Being on the west side of the Knob, we don't get much sunshine here until 10AM (9 EST), and the temps are the coldest about 7:30 AM. We'll get it figured out though.

One more mowing maybe, and we'll use the grass clippings and leaves on the eroded parts of the banking, to try to prevent future erosion.

OH, I baked my first Bourbon Pumpkin Pie -- a recipe from the folks at Maker's Mark. We'll see how it comes out after dinner tonight!! If y'all want it, I can send the recipe to y'all.

It's a learning curve here -- and we're discovering that we have more questions than answers.

Wednesday, October 31 - Halloween, Haying and First Frost

The neighbor across the road needed hay; we needed the front field cut. Solution? He cut the pasture, and will come back and bale the hay. Now we'll be able to see better where to plant a garden in the Spring . Neighbor helping neighbor, I guess. Shirley, please tell Bruce that haying is still continuing here, at the end of October! With the drought, farmers will take anything they can get. Hay is selling for $200 a ton in some parts of Kentucky right now.

We had our first frost the night of Oct 28-29, and another Oct 29-30. Temps got down to 27 by Monday morning, and to 31 by Tuesday morning. The pic is from Tuesday morning, about 8:30 am -- the sun doesn't even begin to penetrate the Knobs until about 8:00 and we don't get much direct sun until about 9:30 am, being about an hour later than it would be in Maine.

The tomato plant on the back deck got nipped but not killed, but they are NOT ripening, so Barry did the sensible thing, picked one, and we had fried green tomatoes for dinner last night. We can expect another 2 weeks of above-freezing temps, so maybe the tomatoes will make it after all. If not, another round of FGT will be in store.

If you notice that all the pics seem to be taken from the same place, it's intentional. I'd love to get together a PowerPoint presentation with the "View from the Front Porch" throughout the seasons of the year.

It's Hallo'we'en, and we didn't get a single Trick-Or-Treat-er. So we ate the candy. Well, not all of it, just a few pieces (along with a GREAT meat loaf made with, of all things, SALSA!! Of course, we really didn't expect anyone, having a 1/4 mile driveway up a hill in the back country knobs, but we bought some candy nonetheless.

OK, back to watching UK basketball, and uploading the pics and info from the Butchertown and Rousey cemeteries we've been photographing for "Find A Grave" -- a great web site for genealogists, if you haven't checked it out from my prior blog.

Tomorrow, maybe we'll go down the hill and get some of the hay to put around the pond as erosion control.

Sunday, October 28, 2007 - Mountain climbing

Quick update, maybe with a few pictures.

On Thursday, we drove up to Lexington to Keeneland, our favorite race track in the whole world. They only race for a few weeks in April and October, and we've never been here for the October meet. We took loads of pictures on the cell phone -- but now we can't figure out how to get them off there! We called AT&T (the evil phone company) and Wal-Mart (through whom we bought the phone) and neither was any help. We'll probably have to buy some software and a USB cable just to get pictures off the phone when all we wanted was a stupid simple phone that makes and receives calls without all the bells and whistles no one can seem to get along without nowadays. I mean, do you really need to access spreadsheets on the internet on your PHONE for goodness sake? And who cares about having 300,000 ringtones. Wouldn't ONE do fine? Enough ranting. When we get the pix, I'll post some.

Barry wanted to go for a walk today, and I figured sure, why not. What I didn't anticipate was mountain climbing! Well, maybe not exactly that, but the knob out behind the house (pic is the house, as seen from the base of the back-yard knob) is about 200-250 feet higher than we are here, so it seemed like a good idea to go up there exploring. So off we went. I'd say it was about a 40 degree climb most of the way, following a small flock of wild turkeys (maybe WE were the real turkeys??) and boy, was I tuckered out by the time we got to the top -- but we DID! At an altitude of about 1350 feet, with the valley below us about 950 feet, we can see quite far up the valley. The thorn bushes attacked Barry repeatedly but he fought them off valiantly, suffering only a few minor injuries. Can't say the thorn bushes made out as well, though.

In any event, the fall foliage, the warm sun, and the bright blue sky made for a perfect hike through the backwoods of south-central Kentucky. The pic on the left was taken just below the summit -- to the north, it's almost a sheer drop-off of about 200 feet -- and knowing how I feel about heights, it's amazing I didnt' get sick just imagining falling off this knob! In any direction but north or west, one could travel for miles in the woods around here. Good news? Hunting season doesn't begin until mid-November.





We're expecting our first frost here tonight. Temps will be up in the 70 degree range by mid-week, and no frost in sight after tonight, but tonight we need to cover the tomato and hibiscus out on the back porch. The lemon trees, begonias, and Millicent Melissa Grungetta Fred the Second, are all indoors now, and the Orchid Cactus (don't ask me the Latin name, though I'd recognize it if I saw it) is proudly hanging in Barry's bedroom. We've given new meaning to the phrase "Garden Tub."

We actually had a fire in the fireplace last night. It was chilly, but with the fire, a temperature of 62 seemed nice and toasty warm. Just the smell of wood smoke makes a room feel 10-15 degrees warmer. We don't have much wood, haven't bought any, either, but we still have time. And the warmth of a wood fire simply can NOT be beaten!

OK, now to get back to Casey County cemetery records -- if you're interested, they're at Find A Grave, and I'm also uploading Oakland area records as I get the time.

Friday, October 19 - Tornado warning update

Hour by hour details of our first tornado warning --

4PM - Tornado watch and severe thunderstorm warning for most of western and central Kentucky, including the next-door county. Moved everything that could blow around out of the way. Plants all went into the shed because they need to be sprayed before bringing them indoors. Wicker chairs went into the master bedrom for the duration.

5PM-9PM - Clouds racing by from SSW to NNE along the eastern side of the front. Reports of tornadic activity in western Kentucky and Missouri. Breezy but nothing unusual. Went to bed early.

10PM - Got up, looked to our northwest for an amazing light show. Lightning about every 3-5 seconds, but no thunder heard. The action was over near Elizabethtown moving up toward Louisville. Report of a tornado on the ground at Owensboro, about an hour NW of here. Light clouds here with stars still out. Went back to bed, looked like it wasn't going to happen here.

12AM - After a lull, the light show started up again, this time much closer to us. Some gusty wind but nothing major. Went back to bed.

2AM - Tornado warning for northern Kentucky, watch for the rest of us, this time Casey County is right in the middle of the red box on the Weather Channel. Watch up until 5AM. Went to bed with the weather alert radio right on my nightstand and the sound of huge raindrops on the roof. I don't know if the radio even works because we've never gotten an alert on it, and in the middle of a tornado is one heck of a time to find out I have it set wrong.

9AM - This is the latest the cat and I've slept since summer 2006. Bright blue sky, white puffy clouds, brilliant color everywhere, still a bit breezy, and little evidence of bad weather overnight. The plants are fine, the trees are fine, the cat's freaked out with the wind and the fact that we were up much of the night bothering his 20 hour-a-day nap!

I guess we were lucky this time, but for two guys from Maine, this was a nerve-wracking experience. If a tornado hits at night, one can't see it coming. These particular storms were giving people maybe 10 minutes warning they were moving so fast. We haven't yet heard of damage reports in Kentucky, except for the Ohio River bridge in Owensboro, which was inspected and pronounced safe for travel, after the tornado overnight.

Thursday, October 18 - Tornado warning and Loretta Lynn

Doesn't make much sense combining these two, but that's our day today. There's a tornado warning for all of Kentucky west of us, but expected to be posted to the east overnight. We went around the house outside, putting all the plants, furniture, etc., in the shed because even if we don't get a tornado, we're expecting very high straight-line winds and hail. The hibiscus and summer cactus are beautiful, still, and we don't want to get those damaged.

Barry's on the phone right now, getting tickets for a Loretta Lynn concert in Renfro Valley. Barry's first LP record was of her music, so it's a pleasure to be able to see her in concert only an hour away from home.

OK, back to tornado preparedness. How do we move a mattress into the pantry?

OH, and Happy 127th Birthday, Carroll Brackett SANBORN!

Tuesday, October 16 - Just hanging around

OK, so I haven't written in awhile. Apologies to those of you who read my blog on a regular basis -- THANKS SHIRLEY!! Can you believe, Carroll Brackett SANBORN not Carroll Benjamin SANBORN? The things we learn...

Anyway, I've been working with three gals on photographing cemetery stones here in Casey County. There are over 300 cemeteries we've identified, and our goal is to photograph each and every stone in each and every cemetery. I spent last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings working with Brenda, Linda and Rochelle, going into parts of the county that I'd never imagined I'd ever see. One place was a field off a cow path off a dirt road off a gravel road -- my poor little truck barely made it through, but we found a little cemetery in the woods, mostly fieldstones, but one stone with an inscription. We preserved it forever!

Now I'm spending days and evenings working on a website called Find A Grave, entering the inscriptions on the stones, and uploading the pictures. I've also expanded (since I have SO much free time) to do the cemeteries in Rome, Smithfield, Sidney, Belgrade and Oakland, so those will be preserved. All of Barry's relative's stones have been entered into the Elm Vale Cemetery in Waterford (have yet to do West Cumberland, Minot, Falmouth, etc), and I have done a few of my own family as well. It's a long-range project, perfect for those long, cold winter nights (when the temps here will actually get into the 20s at night).

Rick and Laura came up this past weekend, and we took them to Constitution Square (where Kentucky's state government was born) and more importantly, Burke's Bakery -- the source of the best dinner rolls, cookies, and spice bars in the entire UNIVERSE! Laura's mom cooked some of the rolls that we brought to Paducah awhile back, the way Barry had suggested -- a bit of butter and garlic salt in the frying pan -- and said they were the best ever! Of course! Barry is THE master cook in my humble opinion.

Laura took a nice nap, while we watched the University of Kentucky football team BEAT number-1-ranked-Louisiana State University in THREE overtimes! This is mind-boggling for sports fans. GO BIG BLUE! Just a nice, relaxing weekend -- Rick couldn't get in touch with any of his friends on his cell phone -- we're in a totally dead zone here -- so he was actually able to enjoy the game without interruption.

They both, we hope, had a nice, relaxing weekend before heading home to Paducah.

We STILL haven't closed on the house yet, but everyone we talk with says it's imminent. We'll see.

Feeding the fish in the pond is getting different -- the cooler weather means that the catfish stay near the bottom and aren't very active. We just bought 40# of fish food, but we will be using it since we will be feeding the little critters throughout most of the winter (which is only about 6 weeks here, from what we're told). It's crazy how the bluegills line up near the shore whenever they know that Barry is on his way. Like pigs at a trough, they wait for him to feed them. At this rate, they're becoming as much pets as the fish in the aquarium in the living room -- can't see eating them, but the cats are different. They swim by and all I can see is a nice catfish filet, deep-fried, with garlic and butter and cajun spices...of course I won't mind catching them but Barry will have to do the other yuckky stuff of processing them for eating!

Overnight temps last night were in the low 60s and it got up into the mid to high 70s today when the sun was out. It was a partly cloudy day with maybe four brief showers, not amounting to a tinker's dam. The drought here is at the extreme level, and though there is a state-wide burning ban, we see people burning in their back yards all the time. I guess in some cases, obeying the law isn't a big thing in this part of Kentucky. All-in-all, it's still like a Maine mid-August here. We have the windows open at night, no A/C or heat on, but it's absolutely perfect weather (lack of rain excepted).

The leaves are turning, barely -- not much like Maine this time of year, more like late August or early September -- but it IS getting more colorful. Seeing the reds and oranges come out, and having the temps in the 70s is really wierding me out though! It's supposed to be COLD when the leaves turn, and it isn't. It's still like summer. WHEN will I EVER miss going back to school?

Flying things -- we haven't seen many lately but today was a gold mine. Three or four yellow-shafted flickers, and TWO, yes TWO pileated woodpeckers. Robins, obviously fattened up from their summer in Maine, and the usual sparrows. We've also seen indigo buntings, bluebirds, and a couple of others we have yet to identify. The butterflies, I think, have either died off, or migrated south. Not too many of them left, but as I wrote earlier, they're as large as birds in Maine, and most of the birds are as small as butterflies.

The tomatoes are still growing -- another month maybe if we're lucky, and we'll have more fresh tomatoes. The hibiscus blossoms nearly every day with blooms that are much larger than they were in Maine. Our Swiss chard, carrots and spinach were stunted by the 100 degree heat though, and haven't recovered. We need to get some shelving to bring the plants in when the weather does get cold -- into Danville tomorrow to see what we can find. We have nine ceiling to floor windows that should be great for plants -- IF we can keep the CAT out of the plant pots. We think that paper plates and screening around the base of the plants should do the trick. The master bath (the "garden" tub if you will) will really be a garden tub. Barry trimmed some green astro-turf for the bottom and the sides, and we will be planting plants there under the skylight for the winter. "Millicent Matilda Grungetta Fred the Second", (the sheffleria -- sp?) will have the matron's place of honor at the bottom of the tub, since she's about five feet tall and won't fit anywhere else; the sea grape and lemon trees from Florida may go in front of the other windows since they need more light, but we'll see. Anyway, no one will be taking a relaxing bath in the "garden" tub this winter unless he wishes to bathe with plants!

OK, I really need to write more in the blog, so I will try to do a better job. Even if it's mundane stuff, it's more like a diary anyway, than an historical piece of work. Enough drivel for now. Hopefully tomorrow or Thursday we'll nave some news about the closing. We're sitting here waiting...waiting...waiting...