You can see the tree to the left that fell and crushed the old meter box. You can also see the old iron bridge that went across the creek to the outhouse.

My Colorado family has checked in and they are expecting snow today! I think they said it will be the earliest measurable snowfall in twenty years. I must say…I certainly don’t miss that! I miss my kids and my Colorado peeps…and I miss the beauty of the Rockies…but I do NOT miss snow and cold…not one bit. Still, snow will come to West Virginia one of these days and getting ready for it is what a proper country gal does.

I wanted to make another batch of jam yesterday, but we decided we had better go to the farm to mow and finish building the enclosure for the gas meter. I found out why there is a cover for it. The holler up behind the house works like nature’s air conditioner as the cool air sweeps down through the woods past the house. That’s great in the summer, but in the wintertime, that same air flow brings frigid temps with it. There is a good deal of moisture in natural gas and the water condenses and lays in the gas lines. If it gathers at the meter and the temperature takes a nosedive, the line can freeze and shuts off the gas to the house. Then, there’s no heat and the water lines are the next to go. 

We’ve been really lucky the last few years to have fairly mild winters, but you never know when one will be harsh. The little shed surrounding the gas meter protects it from that downdraft through the holler and helps to keep the gas running. We finished rebuilding it yesterday and got it in place and if I do say so, we did a pretty good job. We decided not to mow out there. The grass hadn’t grown nearly as much there as it did here at the Ponderosa, so we didn’t even unload the mower.

Oh, we did have one little bit of excitement on the way over to the farm. I’m the one who hooked up the little utility trailer and loaded the riding mower and lawn mower while Mr. FixIt was busy doing something else. I checked everything, just like I do when I hook up the camper. I did notice the latch that locks the hitch in place was a little hard to put down, but I finally got it. Well, we stopped at the Piggly Wiggly for some lunch supplies and when we went over a bump, the trailer came unhooked! Thank God we were going very slow or that could have been a problem. The safety chains did their job and nothing was damaged. We got it hooked back up and didn’t have any more trouble.

Dehydrated mushrooms. I was surprised how easily these dried.

I emptied the dehydrator and put the mushrooms in a jar before we left for the farm. These will be really nice to throw into soup, stew, and spaghetti sauce over the winter. Our dining room table is getting filled with jars of goodies. Mr. FixIt thought we should carry them downstairs, but I told him I want to take a picture of the bounty before we do that. I love looking at all the jars of healthy foods put away for the coming winter.

It’s time to bake sourdough again and I think I’m going to try to cut the recipe in half and only make one loaf this time. I actually had to throw some away last time because it got moldy. I should have stored the extra loaf in the fridge, but there wasn’t enough room and I just got so busy canning, I forgot about it. I really hated to throw that bread away! If we had a pig or some chickens, that would have gone out to them. I still haven’t fixed up a compost bin yet. So much to do…so little time to do it.

So, Labor Day is gone and we are heading into fall. I’m not minding it a bit this year. We don’t have a thing on our schedule till Saturday so we’ll see what we can get into here at the Ponderosa. I’m on the prowl for some half-runner beans to can!

❤️

“Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 CEV