Time to play catch up again. It's been busy here. I think the lambs have all been born and the pasture is holding up ok. The garden is doing well in spite of the weeds. All is well.
I have a larger garden than last year. I'm trying potatoes this year. I've never done well with spuds but I'm trying again. I've redskins, yukon gold, kennebec and russetts. So far , so good but they're being hit by what I think is a virus. I expect to lose about a third. It should leave me more than enough.
The russets are courtesy of my friend Doug. He took the eyes out of the potatoes they were eating and started them in flats. He ended up with 4 or 5 hundred so he gave me a flat.
I've planted 27 tomato plants so far and my cousin just gave me some more. I'm trying to mulch them all but I can't seem to keep up.
The rabbits ate half of my swiss chard. I have several good recipes for rabbit.
I'm trying to get started on my winter garden. To explain, some plants, like cabbage , do better growing at the end of the year. I tried this last year and it worked pretty well. I figure parsnips, cabbage, turnips, brussel sprouts and other cole crops. If I can keep the potatoes and cabbage stored ok, we'll eat colcannon until spring.
We put up hay last Saturday. The weather was iffy but it went well. I pay my friend Brad to cut, rake, bale and pick up the hay. He has better equipment than I do for working with the alfalfa in the field. All we do is store it in the barn. That nearly kills us. There were 5 of us working and thanks to having a bale elevator, we were finished in 5 hours. Toward the end, I thought I was going to die. Right at the end, I was afraid I wouldn't die. I wrote checks to pay my cousins for their work and I had to rest in between checks. I now have enough hay to get through the winter and a new appreciation for my little cousin Sabrina who worked both older boys into the ground. I'll have to find her a nice farm boy.
Last week, I found myself doing traffic control for siren maintenance down in Beaver Valley, PA. I was impressed by the quality of Pennsylvania drivers. None of them tried to run me over or cussed at me. It was a welcome change from Ohio. I wonder if this is local politeness or because it's illegal to use a cell phone while driving in PA. I do know that the quality dropped considerably when we crossed into West Virginia.
That was Thursday and Friday, we put up hay on Saturday, I slept Sunday ( no choice) and a regular workday on Monday. Tuesday, it was back down to Beaver Valley to remove an old siren. It's now Wednesday and I'm writing this on a bus with a bunch of even older people headed down to West Virginia for a day of riding trains. I get a whole 3 day vacation.
Our ride down to W.Virginia was uneventful. I slept a good part of it, partly because we got up so early and partly because I've made the same trip several times recently for sirens. There were some beautiful views but mostly I read or wrote this blog while awake. We ended up at the Canaan Lodge, a state run resort on a considerably sized state park. The rooms are excellent, the food was good and there are many activities for those who can stay awake. We had a good night.
Today, we're off for a pair of train rides. I'm writing at the station now. I'll let you know how this works out.
We had our first ride. Standard diesel-electric locomotives and some 1940s style cars. We traveled along part of the Cheat River. Most of the trip was down in cuts so you looked up at trees. At one point, we went through a tunnel with very little clearance on either side. We stopped at a falls that was maybe 20 ft. high but pretty. I got a lot of sleep. They did feed us a box lunch which is exactly as you imagine on a trip like this. Now, we're back on the bus headed for our next ride. With luck, Stacey won't find anymore rocks to carry out.
Our next train is the Durbin Rocket and I'm writing this from the caboose cupola. It's a Climax coal fired steamer from about 1892 based on the maker plate. I suspect that it's an old mining locomotive. It's raining and the first car is open. I just overheard that the engine is from 1910. The view on this trip is much better We can actually see for a ways. Supposedly, there are bear around but we haven't seen any. The trip became more interesting as we returned and were hit with a thunderstorm. The open car cleared out fast, the second car became very crowded and I found a seat in the cupola of the caboose. Everyone agreed this was the most interesting of the train rides.
We were collected up and taken back to the site of the first train for dinner (good) and a show at the American Mountain Theater. I'm not a great fan of country music but it was ok. The head entertainer looked and sounded like Randy Quaid.
We're off to breakfast and then the Seneca Caverns. I'll try adding some random pictures.
