January weather in December

Baby, it's cold outside! 

It was 35F at 6:00 AM, and the temp has dropped to 30F at 9:30 AM. It's windy as hell outside which means I'm going to burn a lot of firewood today. Burning more wood isn't a complaint. That's why me and the cousin split a lot each year - just in case. 

Living rural as I do, I watch and track our microclimate. Our recent temperatures are much colder than our usual Decembers. In fact, the temps are more in line with January. I know this is fact because I track the weather on my desk calendar, and carry that info forward each year. It's especially valuable as gardening season approaches. Yes, it's time to think about the 2025 garden and what it will look like for a single me.

Things outside are at a standstill here at the manor. Weather this cold means me and Deuce are limiting our time outdoors. Yes, he has a thick coat, but his paws can get very cold. He's just weeks short of nine years old and the last thing I want is for the cold to seep into his joints. I'll give him an aspirin if necessary, but why purposefully cause him a problem? I've noticed he likes sleeping on the soft bed more than on the floor beside my desk these days. 

Ron has been gone for eight months now, and some days I wonder why and how it is I can get up each morning and look forward to the day. How is it I'm suddenly wanting to map out and plan future activities? The days are shorter and give us less sunshine, and cold weather should have me hibernating but I'm not. I'm staying home, but I'm active inside (as much as possible) and ideas that will prevent me from becoming one with my recliner fill my head. 

I think this is a good thing. Living in the past isn't healthy. That doesn't mean I'll forget the past - oh, no. I hope I never forget the thirty years I spent with Ron at my side. But I've been taking baby steps forward lately. 

I think this is a good thing.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rural living, country lifestyle, homestead, weather watcher, single living, widows, organization, planning, map for the future, a writer's life

Cook once, eat fifteen times

Yesterday I finally did something I've wanted to do for two years - I made and processed Beef Stew.  Fifteen pints, to be exact. That's fifteen evenings the daily dilemma of what to fix myself for supper is solved. 

Cooking for one is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. It's a lot of aggravation to prepare an entire meal when I know I'll be eating the same thing, or elements of the same things, for the next three days. I've already discovered that's a recipe for wasting food. 

When I lived alone over thirty years ago, my mother and grandmother pretty much kept me fed. Back before the cellphone days, I'd come home from work and find notes in my mailbox instructing me to go to one of their houses and what was on the menu. With my grandmother next door and my mother only a mile away, it was good to have options. Ah, the good old days! 

This Beef Stew recipe is from the Ball Book, as are many of the foods I home process. When I'm ready to enjoy a jar, I'll make a bit of thickening from flour when I heat it up. Adding flour to a jar before canning is a no-no due to concerns about reaching proper heat levels inside the jar during processing. We do want to be safe. 

In the overall scheme of things, this is a small accomplishment but I feel good about it. Every little thing is a step toward what will be my normal life without Ron. Typing that sentence felt odd, but it's a truthful sentiment. Who knew Beef Stew could make a life feel like it was moving forward again? 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, Beef Stew, home canning, country lifestyle, rural living, Ball Book of Canning, life after death, a writer's life, KC Kendricks, m/m romance, grandmothers

Keeping a country girl warm

Rural living is not for the lazy. I know this because I live it. It would be much easier to watch television and play on the Internet all day than it is to go outside in fifty degree weather and split firewood for three or four hours. I'll take splitting firewood any day of the week over watching the vast wasteland.

There are a lot of trees here on the manor. Most of them are maple but there's a good smattering of oak, wild cherry, and poplar tossed in. I don't harvest healthy trees for firewood unless they've gotten tall enough to be a threat to the house or develop some other issue that will be a problem in the near future. In October of 2023, I had a professional come and take down a leaning maple. It was wood from that maple my cousin and I split and stacked yesterday. And we still have some to go, but he wants to haul that to his place and work at his leisure. 

The old adage is that firewood warms you three times. Once when you cut down the tree, twice when you split the wood, and thrice when you burn the firewood. My grandfather used to repeat that every year and it's true. Working firewood can make you sweat even in cold weather. 

I actually enjoy wood cutting season. I like working outside far more than cleaning house (I keep my house tidy enough, thank you). I like the aesthetics of a neatly stacked rank of firewood although I'll be tarping the ranks for the winter in the next few days. I already have enough firewood stacked just inside the basement door to last through January. Once what I have inside is burned, I'll only bring over enough for two or three weeks at a time so I don't have any wood inside over the warmer months. 

Yes, burning firewood is hard work, but it serves multiple purposes. It keeps dead trees from causing damage to my house, working firewood is good exercise, and burning firewood reduces my electric bill.  

I don't think there is any better heat than wood heat. Wood heat is a "hot" heat. No cool air swirls around the way it does with a furnace or heat pump. Wood heat is a constant heat without the continual cycles of cooling and warming you get with a heat pump. And if there is a storm and the power goes out?  Well, I won't freeze and neither will my water lines because the woodstove is impervious to power outages. 

I was born country, so using firewood to heat my house is not a foreign concept. It's all part of the self-reliance that is bred into "country folk." It's hard work, but people out here don't run from that. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, country lifestyle, rural living, hard work, power outages, water lines, winter weather, maple, oak, a writer's life, heat pumps

An amazing job well done

The well drillers left a huge mess in my backyard. Even with the John Deere 1023, I wasn't sure I could get the area cleared of that nasty clay slop that went everywhere. Enter my cousin Dave, whom I can never repay for all he's done for me. 

My cousin brought his Kubota tractor up and we got to work taking bucket-full after bucket-full of the muck down the old tractor path and depositing it on a pile. Any dreams I had of restoring the old tractor path to the condition it was in when our grandfather used it are gone. But thank the good Lord I had a enough land to get that clay muck out of sight. 

We spent several hours a day for five days getting the backyard ready for grass seed. The first three days was all tractor work and not too strenuous. The last two days required raking, picking up stones, and shoveling. My shoulders and back still ache. 

It is regrettable we can't go back and make different decisions. I wish I'd never started this project. I'm not any better off than before I spent all that money. Live and learn. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, well drilling, rural living, John Deere 1023, Kubota, family, grass seed, hard work, mistakes

Twelve days straight

It rained for twelve days straight. I'm feeling very low on vitamin D. BUT... Today started out overcast which has now given way to sunshine! 

Sunshine means one thing, and one thing only, on the manor - time to get outside, see what needs to be done, and get moving on it. 

There is a strip along the edge of the driveway, close to where I park, that anyone and everyone who comes to my house lacks the ability to STAY THE HELL OFF OF!!!! Seriously. How hard can it be? I manage to keep my tires on the stones, but I know how to operate a motor vehicle. But I digress.

I repaired the mudhole by adding some topsoil in preparation of reseeding. Then I added a thin add of gravel to redefine the edge. Suffice it to say, I won't be ordering anything from Amazon for quite a while because those drivers are the absolute worst. 

With that done, I turned my attention to the old tractor path. The entire top broke out of a maple a few days ago and there is some okay firewood in that. I cut the leafy bits off and took those to the burn pile and set aside the bits that are suitable to cut, split, and age for the 2025-26 season. After being trapped inside for twelve days, I was more than happy to be outside and moving around. 

I may be done for the day, but I'm far from done. There is still the mess the well drillers left behind, but a few more days of sunshine will make that easier to scoop up and drop in the corner of my property where it won't impact anything or anyone except the deer. In time the clay will disappear, claimed by the weeds, leaves, and greenbriers. 

Sunshine is rejuvenating. It imparts renewed energy not just to the land, but to me as well. I've been grouchy these past days even though in our modern world we still find things to do in the rain. I had lunch with friends, did some writing, did a bit of promotional work, and gathered up Ron's Civil War books for his youngest brother. It's not that I want to dispose of those books, but he asked for them since he shared Ron's interest in the Civil War. 

Tomorrow's weather should be much like today's. I'd like to get outside early and see what is ready to be done. Or what I'm ready to tackle on my own. There is that to consider.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rural living, country lifestyle, sunshine, John Deere 1023, woodland, energy reserves, Civil War books, rain, a writer's life, romance fiction

It's not an empty garden, it's a blank canvas

The 2024 gardening season is over, at least for me. The garden is cleared of all but a few annual flowers and the strawberry patch. 

Now I get to design a new canvas for 2025. I'm looking forward to a space that may not be a typical summer garden but will please me. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

 

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, rural living, country lifestyle

What a mess, and I'll be the one to clean it up

The well drillers are finally here and they're making a huge mess for me to clean up. It can't be helped, though. I just pray I have good, clear, clean water when they're done. 

I posted an entry over at Between the Keys with more details. 

https://kckendricks.blogspot.com/2024/09/watching-men-work.html

Perfect weather!

Suffice it to say that August got away from me. I accomplished very little. Looking back through my day calendar to see what I did do was depressing. Yes, Tropical Depression Debby was a hindrance, but I can't blame it all on the rain. I think my ass grew into my recliner, which I do not like. It can't be allowed to become a habit. 

In my defense, August was stinkin' hot. Hazy, hot, and humid hot. Not the sort of weather anyone not accustomed to it needs to be doing yard work in. I busied myself with several canning projects. Broth, three different soups, and a lot of applesauce made it onto the pantry shelves. I'm not finished yet. I still want to process some beef stew, pork stew, and jardiniere (pickled veggies). 

But today was for something different. Today was my kind of weather with sunshine, almost no breeze, and the mercury in the mid-seventies. I got busy and cleaned up several months worth of downed sticks and had a little 'campfire'. 

I don't know what we did before we got the John Deere 1023. Having a compact tractor makes life a lot easier. I filled six buckets full of debris and burned it one bucket at a time. I took my time and took breaks sitting on the tractor to watch the fire, too. I kept it small and it worked out great! 

It feels good to get that much done. At least now when someone comes to visit, the lane and approaches are tidy. I call that a good day's work.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rural living, country lifestyle, John Deere 1023, campfire, burning brush, yard work, a writer's life, outside chores, good weather, autumn

Why do I feel guilty?

Guilt is a strange thing. It sneaks into your life with the little things, things like rearranging the furniture.

The Lord of the Manor needed a wheelchair. Chemotherapy saved his life back in 2006, but it left his bones weak and his spine slowly collapsing on itself. It was the hand he was dealt and we made accommodations as his condition deteriorated. 

Sharing a home with a housemate is never easy. He wants the sofa on the east wall. You want the sofa on the north wall. You want a 37" TV and he wants a 50" TV. You win some, you lose some, and the price of a big screen makes the decision for you. 

Since Ron's passing, I've been in a nesting mode. When we got together, he moved into my house. We spent thirty years together and we made a lot of compromises. Now I seem to be reclaiming my spaces and reflecting this new, single woman in my choices. It's nothing over the top, but it's "me" without having to allow for another's taste. 

So why do I feel guilty? For over a decade, the furniture was arranged against the walls so he could maneuver through the house. We didn't have any rugs down so he wouldn't get stuck on the edges. Now I have large area rugs down and the dog loves it. He was afraid of the hard floors because his paws would slide, but Ron's needs came first, as they should have and they did.

Now the furniture has been arranged to my liking. It defines the spaces in the great room and I like it. I like it a lot. And I feel guilty because I like it so much. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, guilt, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, loss of spouse, home decor, area rugs, defining spaces, Labrador Retriever, widowhood 

Here and gone - Tropical Depression Debby

Hurricane Debby was a tropical storm by the time it reached us. The radar map looked scary, but while the sprawling storm brought a lot of rain, at my location there was very little wind. For that I am grateful.

The weather broadcasts I watched frightened me. This was the first major round of dangerous weather since Ron passed back in March. My head knew that even if he were still with us, damage control would fall on me. Knowing that didn't ease my mind any. I prepared for the worst and got the generator ready.

The rains came, slow and steady. Over Wednesday night and all day Thursday, I waited for the sump pump to begin to cycle. It didn't. I knew the ground was dry and the slow, soaking rain was just what we needed to replenish the earth. It was daybreak on Friday before the sump pump cycled, and then it was only for a couple of hours. The power grid coughed up one tiny flicker but stayed on. Deuce, Loki, and I made it through. I'm grateful for the lack of strong winds because there is very little clean-up to do in the woods. 

I weathered the storm in more ways than one. I missed having Ron to talk to and to counsel me, that is to say remind me, to check the basement and use the binoculars to keep an eye on the lane. My friends had more faith than I - only one called to check on me. I'll remember her in my prayers, for sure. 

It's now Saturday and the sky is blue and the sun is shining. It's a steamy August day, and it's easy to forget my worries during the week just past. 

That's what we need to do. Forget and forge ahead. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, Hurricane Debby, dangerous weather, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, survival, generator, fear, worry, forge ahead, rain gauge