fading away

 

I had to drive through the country, (no expressways here) and saw this barn along my route.  I actually had taken a photo of this barn a few years ago but it was in so much better shape than it is now.  So many barns in this area have either collapsed, or are about to, or are in the beginning stages of eventually collapsing.  It is so sad to see these old barns not being taken care of mostly because they are not in use anymore.

There are hardly any small farms left in our area other than the Amish farms and it seems like the old barns like this one are just slowly fading away.

elephant rock

 

I went to a quilt retreat last weekend and the route I took went past the Elephant Rock.  Living in the Driftless Area you will see a lot of rock formations that still remain after the glaciers came through.

The Driftless area is also called Ocooch Mountains where it's very hilly and rugged, this is the part where I live in, up on a ridge.

late winter storm

We had a late winter snowstorm; what we call a sugar snow, but we didn't go gather any sap that ran, we are done. 

Last Wednesday we ventured out in the storm to visit with our Amish Friends.  I think we were the only ones on the road, and we got to the area where the snow really drifts over the road. It wasn't too bad when we drove through it but at one point before I pulled out my phone to take a photo it was starting to clear up.

Now we are onto the cleaning up and onto planting the gardens.

dried grapes

Walking through the yard the other day and passing the grape vines, I stopped to look at the grapes that were still on the vines all dried up and half eaten by the birds  I was thinking about how nice it will be to see grapes growing on these vines again.

This time of year I get antsy for the grass to turn green again and the trees to get new buds growing. Sugaring for us is coming to a close, we probably will boil one more time and call it good, another syrup season done and in the books.  We have kept a record of every syrup season and this season by far has yielded the least amount of syrup bottled, but we are happy with what we did get and should have enough for us until next sugaring season comes. 

country road and old barn

Years back I used to do a meme called Barn Charm and I so miss participating in that, so I'll just do my own.

I went to the post office to mail a letter.  The post office I go to is very small, so small that it's only open from 8:30-12:30 M-F and 8:30-9:45 on Saturdays.  But on my way home I took a different way.  This road was very narrow, and I could see buggy tracks, a clear sign that Amish live on this road.  I want to go back and take photos when the trees are leafed out and everything is green again.

This was not an Amish barn, but it definitely had charm to me.  There are so many barns around here very much like this one.

Despite the brown, I still see the beauty in it.

sky shots

The other day coming in from closing up the chicken coop the sky looked like a storm was coming.  Nope, no rain, just wind, very high winds. 

This morning the sky was absolutely beautiful here on the ridge.

Things are still looking brown here, but I am seeing just a bit of green here and there.  We were praying for the rains to hit but only got 1/10th of an inch in the rain gauge.

I am so loving the time change and it staying light longer in the evenings, it seems like I have much more energy.

siesta time

Suuvi here was taking a siesta in the shade, though the temps were not even that high to require a siesta...LOL!  But she's a good helper here on our farm.

My view from our walk the other day.  Everything is still so brown here on the ridge.

Our temps today are supposed to be in the high 60's and tomorrow almost 80°...WHAT??? This spring has just been the craziest spring season especially for sugaring.  Rumor is that there is snow in the forecast...hmmmm...Hopefully if that is true it will be our sugar snow.  You can listen all about sugar snow HERE from the Little House books.

and so it begins

The syrup season has officially started and so far, the syrup is looking and tasting delicious.  Not sure how much syrup we'll be getting as the weather is not your typical weather for sap to be running.  It's getting too warm, and the temps are just not ideal for sap to be running.  Hopefully we'll get a sugar snow, or even rain for a reset.  Because we didn't have really any snow to speak of the frost went pretty deep.  Most everyone around the area is saying the same thing, they are not getting the amount of sap they normally get.  

But every year is always different, and we never know what it will bring, so we always try to keep some over from the previous year just in case of seasons like this.  Though it's not over yet we shall see what we get.                                                                                                                                                         

suncatcher

 

Well, we had some snow mixed with rain weather last week and my sun-catcher had not seen any sun since I hung it up.  This is a diamond dots project that I had made. I had purchased it at the last quilt retreat and really enjoyed making it.  I have never done this, and I enjoyed this small project, but I don't think I will pick it up full-time, maybe another small one I would do, too much I have on my plate already but smaller ones like this didn’t take time at all. 

the southern belle

I had meant to share these photos of a trip we took September of 2023 to see family down in Texas.  This was the neatest place to have dinner.  I wish I had taken a photo of the delicious plate of food and tea we both had.  We arrived here just as it was opening up for business.

Reading about this train while we waited for our food to arrive was very interesting.

If you are ever down in Heavener Oklahoma, you definitely have to stop and get a bite to eat at the Southern Belle Restaurant.