Friday, September 17, 2010

When we first came out here it was barely Summer, now Fall is definitely in the air. Mornings are chilly enough to warrant a small fire in the wood stove. We have harvested apples from some of our trees, and I made a large pot of applesauce last week. Most of the apple trees on our property are in bad need of pruning, a job we will do this Winter when they are dormant. We may attempt to harvest the rest of the  apples anyhow and take them to a business that has a cider press. We would like to attempt to make some hard cider.

We bought 50 lbs of potatoes from a local stand on the way to Presque Isle earlier in the week and enjoyed a few of them baked last night topped off with local fresh churned butter. At the same stand we bought some Maine produced pepper jack cheese, and more apples. I canned 13 quarts of apple pie filling this week.We made a pie with the one jar that didn't seal today and it was delicious.

Kevin completed the hearth wall that he built and tiled. It looks beautiful. Kevin has really become well skilled in home repairs. Last night Jay accidentally broke his window forcing it shut. Kevin measured the windows this morning and with a brief look at our rehab book figured out how to fix it. He also repaired the two storm windows that were broken.

Tomorrow, as a family we are going to the agricultural museum , it is open for tours and there is a roast pork supper in the evening. We have been told by several people that the museum is a worthy destination if we got a chance to tour it.

I finally got set up on Skype and talked to Sarah, Ben and the grandchildren on it. I didn't have a camera on the computer but it was cute seeing them. I purchased a web cam and hooked it up so next time we will all see each other. 

Plans for the oncoming week include painting our bedroom and the staircase. I bought Glowz paint for the stairs. I figured it would be cool to see the stairs glow in the dark. Adam wants to paint the attic door that opens into his room with the paint too. Kind of a ghost buster effect. I also need to reorganize the bathroom, whenever the boys get towels, they mess up the stack and clean towels end up on the floor. I am going to solve the problem by emptying the drawers and putting the clean towels in them. I guess the things from the drawers can go into bins in the closet. I have plenty of bins.

Thomas and Rose will be out next weekend and it is also our anniversary. We haven't seen Thomas for about two years so we are very excited to have him here and to get a chance to finally meet Rose.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Kevin made an apple picker today with a coat hanger, garden rake and a pole. He picked enough apples for me to make a couple quarts of apple sauce. I haven't tried it yet, but the guys had some and said it was really good.   It's like the apple pies I used to make but without a crust. I also made two loaves of zucchini bread from an over sized zucchini that a neighbor gave me.  We have been eating a lot of local produce, next year hopefully we will have our own produce.


Tonight we are making Irish chips and beer battered haddock. Kevin is doing the chips with local potatoes, we will have some cucumbers from a local farm with dinner, as well as my applesauce.

Wednesday, September 8th

I haven't written lately, because besides all the usual day to day activities, we have been having a lot of problems with Jason acting out. Jason is thirty six, but has autism. He can go for quite awhile without any incidents, but when he acts out, it makes life very difficult for everyone except maybe him. He started out last Thursday just making bad comments to everyone. He kept tattling on Adam, then started on Kevin and even the dogs. The more we attempted to ignore his behavior the worse it became. He threatened to hurt himself, so I wouldn't let him go to his bedroom because he had his fishing knife up there. He had to be restrained, not easy as he is about 6'1 and 300 lbs. He punched Kevin in the eye, and hit Adam as well. I talked him into getting into the car, and drove him to the hospital. After three hours, he calmed down and agreed to go home with prescriptions, take his medication and behave. Once home, he pretty much kept up the behaviors, although he no longer physically assaulted anyone. His behavior every day since has been pretty disruptive if only verbally. Not an easy way to live. I have an appointment tomorrow to get him signed up for Maine-care, our only hope for having any services to handle his behavioral needs. There are day programs that he can take part in, so hopefully the appointment goes well.

We have finished wallpapering the living room. It came out pretty good, we chose a off white wallpaper with little pine trees. One wall has a green checked pattern, it will also have the tiled wall for the hearth once we get the wood stove set up. I hung some pictures and put out a few knickknacks so it looks pretty nice.

We called the Amish and asked them to make Kevin's workshop before they do my barn. I won't even be using the barn until next Spring anyhow, so it made sense. He can put his tools, the tractor, and some of his books in his shop, as well as his ham radio equipment freeing up a bunch of space in the house. I will put my craft stuff in the front room, and we will both have some room to do our own thing.

Today, we stripped the wallpaper from the bedroom wall. It was pretty easy since most of it was falling down anyhow. I unpacked four boxes and we put all of our clothes away. We will probably just prime the walls and then paint them with some of the blue paint we already had. I found the light fixture in the closet, also the hardware, so we don't have the bare bulb showing anymore.

The moose came back the night I had Jason at the hospital, the female and her calf walked straight through the yard along side the tractor, then moved to the edge of the woods before crossing the highway. Kevin said the cow stopped in the middle of the road for about 30 seconds before she continued to the state garage where the road salt is stored.

We had a Labor Day barbecue with some of our neighbors. Everyone brought something to share and we provided the meat. I also made my first batch of baked beans. It was a nice gathering and now we know a few more people here in town.