Saturday, May 30, 2009

As promised...

We've been adding lots of new content to the website, including a new video and a new slideshow. More to come, this weekend and in the future.

We've been doing a lot of pea picking this week. Put up almost ten pounds in the last harvest from the garden and will probably have that much again when we pick tomorrow or Monday.

It's almost time for making strawberry preserves too. I've frozen pounds and pounds of the beautiful red berries and after this next picking, will begin canning preserves. That alone will save a ton at the grocery store, as much as we both like plain, simple peanut butter and jelly (or preserve) sandwiches.

Kevin's been hard at work on the summer kitchen and me, when I'm not writing articles, I'm working on what I hope will be my next screenplay. So we've both been at things slowly but steady and in the end, it will get all done.

So enjoy the new articles and keep watching for more in the future. We're back!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

We've Gone High-Speed



Finally, after years of waiting, Wild Blue came
last Tuesday and installed an Internet Satellite system for us. It's amazing, it's remarkable,it's almost like I'm in love all over again. No more dial-up and no waiting forever for a page to load. I mean, now I don't have time to get up and
go get a cup of coffee while waiting for my favorite writing board to show up on the screen.

And downloads and updates - don't have to wait until night time to let the computer do its thing without being interrupted. Bottom line, we are happy campers.

That said, we're updating Backwoods Living. Already it has a clean, shinier, fresher look and over the next couple of days we'll be adding more content. So if you haven't been there in a while,
now is the time to go check it out.

Around the homestead, the growing and harvesting season is in full swing. Peas, asparagus and strawberries are keeping me busy at the moment getting them in the freezer for later use. Not to mention what we eat fresh. The garden is fully
planted with tomatoes, eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, onions and garlic. The fruit trees have small apples, plums and plumcots and it shouldn't be too long before we start filling jars with plum and plumcot jelly. The blackberry vines are full of flowers and we're expecting another bumper crop of berries again this year.

The rain this year has been steady and often, so much so that putting the garden in was delayed, but with any luck the pattern is changing a bit.

Kevin still has several tons of logs, salvaged from the February ice storm, sitting at the mill waiting for slicing into boards. The summer kitchen, where I hope to do all my canning this summer is almost complete.

And the grandson, well Zayden is now almost 2 1/2 and growing like a weed. He's typically two and doing a great job of keeping us on our toes. He's a joy to be around (most of the time) and now that he's becoming more vocal, a whole lot
more interesting. :)

So we've been busy. Watch the website for even more in-depth articles about everything we've been up to.