The weekend

Husband is working overtime, from here into the rest of the year. It has it's good and bad sides. Good, is we can use the money. Bad, the job is hurting him, and the boys don't get to see him as much. 

And the very bad? It forces me to be more sociable, nicer to people. That is a difficult task for me. -wry grin-  my people skills have been improving. And I have began to meet some nice people. At least to my face they are nice. The culture here is far different than I am use to, and it seems I have to be wary of intentions. We are learning that, slowly. But we have befriended one person that we seem to be able to trust. A gentleman biker, and not a client. 

He heard I have been canning on a campfire, so swung by and dropped this off for me.

A table top stove.

Awesome, right?

The copper connectors have broken off, but we have some things off of a motorcycle that will work to repair it. It is propane, and I can afford to get a small bottle. This means I can pressure can! I do need to get to the extension office and have my canner tested. I blew it up a few years ago, and it doesn't seem to be working correctly.

He is also my plum hookup. When he brought this by, he told me he is plum-full. And whatever was left was mine. After work Saturday, I swung by and gathered a good amount. Plum jelly here I come. He also showed me is crabapple trees, and told me come fall I can have all I was willing to deal with. My eyes lit up and I actually told him he was the bees knees. He laughed and said he thought I would enjoy that. 

He has been wonderful, here I am gushing. Ha! We swung by on Sunday to pick up a very old bale for our garden. While we were standing there talking, his huge bull, and I mean huge! Waylaid into a new bale, a hay explosion that shook the ground. Well, no, but it was a mess. We helped clean up, he feed some off to his goats, than offered the rest to us. We made two trips, one with new feed hay and one for the decaying mulch hay. Husband looked over his generator for him, to see why it wasn't working.

Covered in hay and picking minuscule thorns out of my palms, I stayed behind on the second trip to start dinner. Rain was threatening. As the hamburgers sizzled, and the green beans rolled in the water, the thunderstorm struck. I quickly shoved dry logs into the fire, hoping the blaze would prevent the rain from cooling off the flywheel too much to be of any cooking use, and covered everything with lids. Everyone ran into the house. 

It took me a moment before I made a decision. I was home, it was still light outside and the rain was drenching. I ran out in nothing but a tank top and boxer shorts and took the most luxurious shower I have had in almost a year. Soon Medium and Small were outside in their swim trunks taking advantage of the rain. Baths are nice, but there is nothing like a good cleansing shower. 

I feel wonderful this morning. 

Friday night was a bit odd. The boys and I were headed down the driveway, when I abruptly stopped. Someone had taken a lot of time to arrange Mimosa leaves (only mimosa that we have found so far) across my drive.

We weren't sure if we should cross it, and if we did, what would happen. We didn't end up in fairy land, and I hope whoever did it, did it to keep evil out, rather than to keep our evil in.

Weird.