After 7 inches of rain, it finally quit

The rain caused flooding of the creeks and rivers. But, so far, I haven’t heard of local damage. I woke up this morning to no rain, but gentle snow, instead. Just a few floating flakes, but it sure opened my eyes, even though it is past time for us to be seeing snow, which sticks until spring.

With all the rain, we were mostly working inside, except for necessary chores. I can tell you the wood fire in the living room sure felt good, reducing the humidity inside, plus adding a nice amount of heat for me to work on the unheated back porch. Fortunately, there’s a wall and door between the enclosed heated and unheated back porch sections. All day yesterday, I worked on organizing the dry foods and spices Will had carried up from the basement so he could find a place to put all the extra canning I’ve been doing lately.

Some of the boxes are outdated, but the contents are in sealed plastic bags, inside the boxes. So the contents should be fine. Just to make sure, I’ll bake a cake from one of the oldest boxes to see if the baking powder has gone weak. Sometimes it does after a couple of years. Other times it doesn’t. We’ll see. No matter what, we’ll be having cake for dessert at supper time.

Yesterday, I also cut open a very big Hopi Pale Grey squash, so I can save seeds for a friend. We were happy when we saw how nice and thick the meat was. Gee, we’ll have squash for supper plus tomorrow, I can bake 3 or more pies out of the other half. I told you it was a big squash! It probably weighed 30 pounds!

You know how it is with house cleaning? You start out to fix a mess and end up making a huge mess. Okay, it started with those shelves on the unheated back porch, filling and organizing them. Some of the food came from the kitchen cabinets. So, I started cleaning and organizing them. And down the rat hole I went! Now the kitchen is a huge mess and I’m finding things I didn’t know I had. It was that bad. But slowly, I’m seeing a little kitchen counter again and some of the drawers and cabinets are wiped clean and organized.

Yesterday, while I was doing all that, Will went down to the basement to cap off the propane line to the propane fridge that, after 23 years, had gone dead. As we now have a low-energy-use regular electric fridge, we’re going to take the old one to the dump. And Will is going to build rustic shelves where the fridge used to sit, for our often-used home-canned foods. That will eliminate running down to the basement for every other meal.

Okay, that sounds easy, right? Ha ha! Turns out, the line was behind a full shelf, and he had to work, leaning over the top of the propane water heater. Turned off the propane outside, put a ladder up and started working, promptly kinking the gas line. Oh oh! Okay, he cut the line and after an hour or so of difficult work, got the line securely capped and tested for leaks. It was about supper time, and I went to turn on the top burner to warm up some chili. No dice. No propane! I told Will and he went down to check. He’d accidentally capped the wrong line! Okay, turn off the propane at the tank, fix the cut line, cap the right one. Turn on the propane, test for leaks, light the water heater, carry the ladder and tools back up the stairs. Yep, it was a rough day. He must have made 30 trips up and down the stairs, often with tools or the ladder. No wonder he slept in this morning. It’s a wonder that he can walk!

Today, the rain has stopped but it’s supposed to be only 40 degrees F for a high. But the standing water has soaked in and soon we’ll be working outside again. But, for now, I’m hitting the kitchen mess again. I know there’s an end in sight. Somewhere… — Jackie