Awe-tumn!

Well Howdy folks~

I do hope you’ve had a fantastic summer.

We have recently built our first fire and received our first real rain since June.

They should be opening the forests, if they haven’t already, 

so we can go get firewood.

That’s something we usually like to do in spring, and we do have some 

but not enough to make it through the winter.

You are probably wondering what we’ve been up to these past few months

- or even if you aren’t wondering, I’m still gonna tell 'cause I'm ornery that way.

The garden did reasonably well this year in the way of green beans and tomatoes so canning those to help carry us through winter was a priority.

In addition to canning, the dehydrators have been busily humming along

with apricots, plums, strawberries, blackberries, and apples.

We’ve processed one bear so far (wouldn’t mind another.)

In addition to the meat, we rendered 1 gallon of incredibly delicious lard 

and for the first time bone broth.

Mr LB surprised me with this amazing cauldron.

I had been wanting one for some time. He’s such a sweetie!

We were able to process all of the bones in one go 

and ended up with several gallons (in quart and pint jars) of broth.

Aside from our jobs, that’s what has consumed most of our time.

About the plans and projects I alluded to in my last post,

well they are still in progress.

Believe it or not, I have been trying to work on them, 

but as often happens life gets in the way.

I’ve been blogging for ten years now and over that span, 

there have been many changes -

Both in myself and in the land of blogs.

Is it just me or did they used to be more personable?

Once I was about a month into the break,

(probably while chopping tomatoes- great thinks get thunk while chopping)

I realized I was no longer thinking of my life in the form of blog posts.
It was a refreshing realization.

We went out of town for a wedding and a visit to friends this past weekend, and

I think it was the first time I took pictures in two months.

Somewhere between boiling bear bones and slicing apples,

I decided to just take it easy in the way of blogging.

I will post occasionally but not on a regular basis.

As I do finalize some of the things I’m working on

(though turtle pace it may be)

I will be sharing them with you

It always makes me wonder when a blog just stops 

or doesn’t post for several months, if everything is okay at the other end.  

(Am I the only one who wonders such things?)

So I just wanted to let you know

that even if I don’t post regularly, I’m here.

Here working, here living, and here moving through the seasons.
I'm here.

As always, I love to hear from you 

so feel free to drop me a line and harass me a bit.