Elk

Last week we escaped to Cherokee and Bryson City for a few days.  We had one day set aside for shopping and driving through the Blue Ridge Parkway. As we exited the parkway, the traffic was backed up like Highway 50 in Garner in the evenings. As we turn to head away from the traffic to head back toward our cabin, I see a flashing road sign in the opposite direction. "Elk Viewing...please get in right lane. Lane closed ahead."  We were puzzled, but have also never seen elk, so we turned around and got back in line.

 We were about 35 miles from Gatlinburg.

Sure enough, the right lane was closed off with cones where vehicles could pull of and view the elk in the field.

We pulled over and got out to head toward the area of the "viewing lane" where the herd was located.

When we got about half the distance toward the end, a park ranger came up and advised us not to get any closer unless we got on the road side of the cars. The bull above was staying closer to the road (there was a younger bull near the edge of the woods in the opposite direction) and the ranger said they are easily agitated and have been known to charge. He said it would be best for Bobby to stay behind or on the far side of the parked cars so he could dodge behind them for cover if the bull began to move. We decided to stay put.

The viewpoint from where we were standing.

And with my zoom lens. The building in the background was actually a historical farm museum where you could walk around and see the types of buildings and such. The apple orchard was actually fenced in to keep the elk out.

And on the way back, we ran into a smaller herd of 4-5, but the bull in this group was amazing. He was awfully close to the cars, close enough I was hoping no one was stupid enough to blow their horn.

Old dog; new trick

Sunday morning I was talking to a friend, and we wound up on the subject of eggs. She shuddered and said she was short on time so didn't do the float test, and sure enough, had a bad egg. It made me stop short.  Float test?  I had never heard of such a thing. You take a "fresh" egg and put it in a bowl of water. If it stays flat on the bottom, it is fresh. If it doesn't, it's not good. So I tested 24+ that I've collected in the last week but not refrigerated yet, and it works!!!

Totally submerged egg.

Egg slightly rising on one end...

Egg halfway floating (one end kept peeping out of the water).

So none of my eggs totally floated (which I know is a sign of baby chick developing inside because that means the air pocket is full OR the egg is totally rotten), but I never knew about the partial floating.  Below are how the eggs turned out that were floating a little bit:

 The eggs that were lifted slightly on one end but not out of the water are above. I'll use these eggs (though I did toss a few of them).  You'll notice in the top left, the egg has a spot. If left under heat for another day, it would become more pronounced. It's simply where the yolk was fertilized before it entered the shell.

The egg that was peeping out of the water actually had blood specks in it, so I tossed it. Technically those are safe to eat; the hen stressed out a vein during the egg formation. Many cooks simply remove the blood spots, but sometimes you'll see multiple ones and it's too much to stomach.

I am super excited to have a way to check my eggs before I use them or give them away!

So if you ever have fresh eggs that you want to test their freshness, now you know how.

Finished project

In addition to my fall last week, I also lost some of my hearing in one of my ears. It kept filling with fluid. After talking with the doctor and trying a few things, I finally went in for an appointment. I saw the nurse practitioner instead of my doctor, and had my ear flushed for the first time ever. There was some wax buildup, but there was no sign of infection, for which I am very thankful. But since my hearing didn't return (everything sounded like I was under water in that hear), she gave me a steroid pack to take for 6 days. Which means I have slept very little, even though I was exhausted, the last week.

Since we had to move almost everything out of the 3 bedrooms while we replaced the flooring in the room and the hallway, my sewing room, (which was a nightmare) had to be emptied. I determined that I was going to sort and clean as I put things in and was NOT going to have such a cluttered mess. As part of my cleaning and re-organizing, I moved the old tv/bookcase (the one my parents got when I was in elementary school and I gutted a few years ago when it started showing signs of dying) into the room and decided to put an ironing pad on time. After researching a few possibilities, I came across a Leah Day (a well known quilter) you tube video on how to make a pressing board.

The next day I had to go to Raleigh for a few things, and JoAnns was having a sale, so of course I had to stop and get the batting and canvas fabric to try it. On the way home I stopped at Home Depot to get the plywood (my leftovers from the chicken house wasn't thick enough) and though I had to wait a while, they did cut it to the exact size I needed. So that night/next morning when Bobby's trying to sleep, between the hours of 1am and 2am, I put everything on the kitchen table and went to work. I'm sure he appreciated the hammering of the staples that the nail gun didn't get all the way into the board. My corners aren't as neat as the video, but overall I was pleased with how it turned out and look forward to using it. And since the bookcase underneath the cabinet was the not the ideal size for many books, it works way better at storing my project containers.

Hopefully next week everything will be back in its place and I can take pictures of the sewing room. I don't think I took a before picture, but I'm quite pleased with how things are turning out now. I'm still appalled at how much stuff I have in there, and my goal for the next two years is to downsize things in there considerably.

I'm still just amazed that I actually have a project that was conceived, started, AND completed in 24 hrs!

Gross alert

It's been a week and a half. While I am healing, there's still some discomfort and general ugliness.

 

Day one: hurts like crazy but doesn't look too bad

Week One: The bruising has come out halfway down my leg, 

but I can now bend my knee without pain.

 

11 Days Out: Bruising is slowly fading, but after standing on concrete 3 hrs yesterday and then walking 1.5 miles at the corn maze last night, I'm feeling the pain today. At least the toe bruise on this leg is gone. Right foot is going to take much longer. My wrist healed and cleared within 3 days. 

I was really hoping this would be cleared up before the elections on Tuesday. But if I survived moving furniture the few days after this happened for the new floors (still working on putting things back!), I should be able to survive getting in and out of my car over and over followed by 30 minutes to an hour of standing and walking between each trip for 16 hrs straight.

I'm still thankful this fall was nowhere near as bad as the one 9 years, and there were no broken bones. Just a broken cell phone case.

last 2 weeks

If I have slowed down enough to take pictures, they're on my cell phone, which for some reason is now saying I do not have access to my blog. So until there is time to upload photos, I'll just have to posts a few quick reminders...

I officially ended my garden today. Yes. On October 4th. We've always had okra and some tomatoes grow until the end of Oct or the first frost, but never peas or green beans. I honestly think if I had kept watering it we'd have more, but I was ready to be done by the middle of September. The garden gate is now open, and tomorrow the chickens can have at it.

We had three Quilts of Valor presentations last week. While we were preparing to leave for the first one, I tripped and fell in the garage. Didn't land on the ramp like I did 10 years ago, but I still fell on the cement. My cell phone case did its job and was utterly destroyed, but my phone survived (and is now scratched from a week of no protection). As long as I don't kneel or bump my knees or one toe on either foot, I'm okay. But it still looks atrocious. My husband saved the day by taking the quilts and folders on to the group who carried on without me and did a fabulous job.

And we replaced the 20 year old carpet on one end of the house with a type of tile/laminate insert. So everything except the really big pieces of furniture (beds and dressers) had to be moved out. I had so much stuff piled in the dining room and living room the workers barely had space to move the big furniture to.  So I've sorted quite a bit, and still have a bit more to do. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with some of the things or pieces, but I am thankful for how my sewing room is finally come back together. At the moment it is not so cluttered as before, even though everything is not back in it yet, and moving some things around has helped it feel a little more calming. And I'm amazed at how much bigger the rooms look now.

Dogs ran a coyote across the yard once this week, and today Bobby said they chased it back into the woods. There's been a few nights they've had howling contests with them...ugh! I need to repair their fence line soon. Freckles is starting to figure out she can venture further out of the yard. I don't think Little Dog will ever leave the yard (I had to remove his collar), but Freckles is a totally different matter.

It was a wonderful feeling to leave a building tonight and feel a cool breeze. The last two days have had temps of mid-90s and 100.  I'll be outside a fair amount tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to fall weather.

We have a very full schedule now through next Thursday. So it might be another week or two before I can load photos of all that is happening.

a bullet list

• Thursday night will be my last class to teach for the 2019 elections. Then there will be 2 days of madness in October and 2 in November, then about a week in December to prepare for the new materials in January 2020 when we start the cycle again.
• While the American  media complained about the President skipping climate control meetings, they have almost totally ignored his speech at a special called meeting with 60+ countries dealing with the humanitarian crisis in China. In the last several years, over 1 million Muslim minorities have been imprisoned, tortured, and some even executed. This past year the "re-education camps" have started spreading to include Christians, Falan-Gang, and devout Buddhists. Our US Senate unanimously passed a bi-partisan bill denouncing the crimes. And our media is almost silent.
• A former colleague and dear brother has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He will be facing a very intense surgery, several months to heal, followed by six months of chemotherapy. I have cried and prayed on behalf of this dear family. Please remember the Bachmanns, as well as all they come in contact with. God is moving mountains, but I'd also love for Him to miraculously heal Ron.
• I'm trying to slowly regain control over our schedule and certain aspects of life. I know it means letting go of some things I dearly enjoy doing, but I think it has to be done. 
• Since the end of August we've had 10 biddies hatch. 3 of 4 remain from the first batch, 1 of 4 remain from the 2nd, the only one of batch 3 died within 2 days, and the 4th one born today got kicked around pecked quite badly tonight. Not sure if it will last or not and quite aggravated that its Mama did not get off the nest to defend it. She's still on eggs, as is another hen. I think at the end of October everything is coming off nests whether it wants to or not!!

Hopefully there will be updates and further explanations, with pictures, in the days to come.

Dorian

The last few days I've spent a little more time than normal on social media, and some of the things I've seen have really made me pause.

Hurricane Dorian flattened the Bahamas. Some weather stations listed it hitting the islands as a category five; others side a severe four. Either way, the winds hit the islands with a very intense force and stayed there for more than a day.  People died. The homes they lost were not their summer homes, but the only location they had containing everything they owned. Any emergency food or clothing they had was swept away in the waters that sent them scrambling to the attic, sometimes pushing out air vents or attempting to punch holes in the roof so they could actually climb on the roof of the house to escape the waters rushing into the attic.

A few days pass, and hurricane Dorian arrives on the East Coast, after what felt like an eternity of warnings. Even though the hurricane had weakened all the way to a category two, the way the media cancelled everything to do non-stop hurricane coverage seemed a bit over the top, but I suppose being over-informed is better than being under-informed.

But then I go on social media and see comments like "Oh, pray for my sister-in-law's family. They lost their beach house."

Would it be a difficult thing to have spent years saving up money for something opulent like a beach house (even if it's a trailer) only to see it washed or blown away? Yes. It would. But when you put that in comparison to the person who lost their home, not a vacation home, but the place they sleep every single night of the year, losing something that is a luxury item seems almost trivial. Is losing electricity difficult, especially in the south? Absolutely. But that is nothing to compare to the parents who watched the waters sweep their children away as they attempted to get out of a collapsing house and make it to a safe location. Or the families who have absolutely no food to eat at all because the waters washed it all away. I also know many people who live on the coast, and they are just now getting back into their homes from Hurricane Florence...Dorian was a very real concern. This was their daily life that was disrupted, not just their vacation spot.

I am thankful for all the cruise lines who are going in to serve the people of the Bahamas or who have donated millions of dollars to help rebuild the islands. But some of the posts I've seen that derisively say the cruise lines made their money off of the Bahamas so they owe it to the people are forgetting some very important details. One, they made their money off rich tourists. The Bahamas are just one of many locations that benefit from tourists wishing to visit the paradise the locals have made. Two, the chefs and stewards and the captain of that ship are neither slaves nor volunteers.  If the ships go to the Bahamas to feed and house the locals, who is going to pay the salaries of the people who run the kitchen, clean the rooms, and perform maintenance on the ship? Those workers have bills to pay and financial responsibilities the same way we do. I don't know of many people who could afford to send all their employees or the family members to a disaster area and still pay them their work salary if they are not actually performing the company business. It's simply not feasible.  Yes, cruise lines probably make a lot of money, but it also costs an incredible amount of money to keep the ship afloat, much less make it desirable. If you think about all the employees who work for the cruise line, add up the cost of fuel for a boat that size, how much of your cruise ticket is actually profit?  Probably not as much as you think. I'm sure the cruise lines could take a week or two and go to the Bahamas to assist people. Workers who want to volunteer their time could; the others - are they laid off for the week? Mandatory unpaid time? Forced vacation time which means the company has to pay for the time they are off? But what happens after 2-3 weeks? The cruise lines have a responsibility to their employees, and the islanders will still need a place to live and sleep, a place to eat, clothes to wear, etc. It's a great idea and many cruise lines have already stepped up to the plate, but the reality of implementing ideas are not always as simple or easy as people seem to think.

So if you really want to help, instead of ranting on social media, donate to an organization that is prepared to handle disaster relief aid. Here's a few to consider:

Samaritan's Purse

American Red Cross

NC Baptist Men- Disaster Relief Team