Wednesday on the Homestead






Good Morning!

How are things going for you this morning?  I hope all is well. 

I woke up to a very cool feeling house. I had a couple windows open and shut them and then went and started a little fire. Yep, it's June 19th and I'm still needing to make fires to heat up the house now and then. I know the real summer will come eventually and there will be a nice break in the fire making. Which is good as we are close to being out of wood.

This last week was good and busy. I had a couple trips to town, went on a hike with my oldest son, chatted with my oldest daughter to see how her 2 weeks of duty had gone (she's Army Reserves) and had a visit with my youngest son, a doctors appointment and other bits. 

Hubby has been working on our barn doing some repairs. We don't have animals anymore but the barn needs to be maintained and mice and moles were having a great time in there.  He's repaired the foundation in areas and is putting down a new wood floor. The process has required 16 foot boards for the floor. I've gone to do a few early morning Home Depot runs with him. He likes to get there when they open up because he can get in and out quickly and we can get on with our day. But 16 feet is a lot to bring home! We have a full size (12 passenger) 1 ton van that use to be the family car. He's taken the seats out and uses it for whatever our needs might be. This time it has been for bringing home long and heavy lumber. He can fit 12 feet of the boards inside the van but the other 4 feet sticks out the end..

 
Believe me, it's a long and slow drive home through all the curvy roads. He pulls over often to let faster moving traffic go by. 

I finally purchased my grandson's return flight ticket. My oldest grandson, who is 12, will be flying here at the end of this week to spend a month with Grandma and Grandpa. We are really looking forward to his visit. It's been a long time since we've seen him in person.  I postponed the return flight ticket for a lot of reasons and I had some specific questions I needed to ask my daughter but she was away on her 2 week duty. I finally got in touch with her and got my questions answered and was able to make the reservation. 

I'm lining up things to do with him while he is here. It will be a pretty easy going visit and there are uncles and his aunt and cousins to reconnect with and walks and hikes with grandma, time spent around the homestead with grandpa (he's looking forward to teaching him how to drive the tractor).  Over the weekend after the 4th we'll be having a small(ish) family get together and there will be more family here. I think it will be a lot of fun! :)

The best news I have to share this week is that I had my 9 month follow up appointment for my eyes.  I'm thankful to report that my eyes have not drifted or moved any since my surgery. Thank you Lord! He said everything looked great and I didn't need any more follow up appointments. So grateful to be moving on from this. 


Goals
Yesterday was my housekeeping day. My goals to clean, vacuum, mop, pick up clutter, etc.. were all accomplished with the exception of my hallway. 

My entry from my backdoor into the hallway always tracks in a lot of dust. I need to shake the rugs, sweep & mop the floor. 

Other then that this is what my list looks like:

~make a couple of phone calls
~make soap
~take a nice long walk

I haven't had to cook dinner in the last couple of nights. I sent Hubby to work with meals from my freezer stash and I had big salads and a half sandwich each night for dinner. But now, I need to cook something today. My plan right now is to make a pan of hamburger enchiladas. 




For the Love of Books!
I'm now about 2/3rds of the way through David Copperfield. I'm hoping to get it done this week but we will see. Since my grandson will be here I may not have as much reading time as I typically do.


Projects
My hope and plan is get some soap made today. We are getting low on it and I need to restock. Plus I like having extra bars around. Several of my kids will be here in a couple weeks and they always look forward to taking home some homemade soap.


Fitness and Health
I had another fantastic hike with my oldest son over the weekend! It was a beautiful day and a beautiful hiking area. It was close to where we had hiked previously, just in a different direction.  We hiked about 6 miles according to my GPS hiking app. I've loved this app so much. I'll even use it to take walks to see how far I've walked. I highly recommend it if you like to hike (and walk, but I know there are apps specifically meant for walking). The app is GAIA GPS.  You can find it HERE. Or you can search for it in the Google Play Store.

We got an earlier start to our day, but still had trouble finding a place to park. We ended up parking about 1/4 of a mile away, which was ok.. just added to the hike! :) This trail was part of another section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

We were hiking to a group of rock formations called Pinnacles. They were pointed rock that jutted up out of the ground. The trail had a little more elevation than the last hike we took. In all I think we had about 1200 feet of elevation. It was a bit challenging at times for me, but I did pretty good and it made me feel that my strength is improving. I like to challenge myself to the next level when it comes to hiking. Considering the area I live in there are only so many 5 or more mile hikes on flat ground. Lots of simpler 1 mile hikes that have little to no elevation gain, but if you want to have a longer hike, you have to take on the elevation. So it was a good push for me.



The area was simply gorgeous! Beautiful trails, a creek with a bridge for crossing. As my son and I crossed the creek we had to stop and just take it in. The sound of the rushing water, birds, the peace, the filtered sunshine coming in through the trees.. For that split second I didn't think there could be anything better in life! :)


 At one point we came out of the woods somewhat and there was a hillside of rock with the trail cut out of it. It's challenging to walk over lots of rock... well at least for me it is :D My son seems to do much better. But the view out over the Gorge was breathtaking!


 Finally, about 3 miles in we found the pinnacles. 

 
At that point we sat down on a couple big boulders and drank water, ate a granola bar and then headed back for another 3 miles. It was a great day and reminded me again that I have found a love for hiking!




View from my Deck
I waited until the last minute to take the picture hoping the clouds would part (as the weather forecast says they will), but the clouds are still there. This has been the story of the last several days, clouds in the morning and sunshine in the afternoon with temps in the upper 60's & low 70's. 



Today's weather: High: 67 Low: 50



That's all for this week my friends,
Crystal

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