Checking In

I'm still not sure if I will come back to a regular posting schedule, but since I updated the Haphazard Homestead On The Road blog, I thought I would make a quick post here as well. We have been very busy this summer.

We are doing life learning (a type of homeschooling) now and technically began that on July 1. We have made new friends, had camping trips, enjoyed field trips with other home schoolers, had picnics with other life learning families, visited museums and other points of interest, went to the Missouri State Fair, and have done many other things both at home and away. All of those things have been both fun and educational.

Kat at a family art event at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art earlier this summer.

Shane continues to work most of each week in Joplin, MO, with occasional Fridays worked here in Kansas City. None of us really likes having him gone, but it is better than being laid off. Our garden has been very atypical this year, mostly because the weather has been atypical.

Rowan turned 10 in July 4.  We celebrated with a camping trip and a visit to museums in St. Joseph, MO.

Here it is late August and we're just now getting cucumbers, our peppers haven't matured enough to set on fruit yet, and we're picking lots and lots of green beans. I canned 20 pounds last week, have another 25 pounds picked and ready to can, and I expect another 10-15 pounds before we are done.

In terms of those goals I set at the beginning of the year, I've reached my reading goal and increased it from 18 books to 24 by the end of the year! I have read a few of the stacked up magazines, but unfortunately have done very little toward the other goals, including all those crafts I was going to make.

We have two more camping trips planned for our season, on next weekend for Labor Day, and one in October. I hope to write about those on the other blog as they happen. That, in a nutshell, is what's been going on here the last couple of months. I just want to say if you're still checking in here, thank you. I appreciate your support although I haven't been a very good blogger lately. I'll see you again...perhaps.

Ready to Roll

It's Memorial Day weekend here in the US. Though not the original reason for the holiday, it's usually considered the unofficial beginning of summer. For us, that means camping season is finally here!

There are new tires on the RV, and it's clean and ready. Our clothing, personal items and food have all been packed, so we're ready to roll as soon as Shane gets home from work.

Unless things have changed in the past few months, the park where we will be staying has no wi-fi service, so it will be likely be Monday evening or later before you hear from me again. Considering how few my posts have been lately, that's probably comes as no surprise.

Anyway...I hope all of you have a safe and fun weekend, wherever you are!

Front-Lounge Retirement

Last summer, we bought a 1999 5th wheel camper.  It is in excellent shape for a camper of that age, so we don't have any desire to upgrade to anything newer in the foreseeable future.  Still, it can be fun to look at newer models, which is something we had a chance to do at an RV show over the weekend.

Big or small, after looking at a couple of dozen RVs, they all began to look the same.  None really seemed to offer anything we didn't already have, except for updated color schemes.

That was, until we saw this one:

What's special about this is that the living room is over the hitch in the front of the camper.  Most 5th wheels have a bedroom and bathroom over the hitch.  The effect is amazing.  From the moment you walk in, this space feels more like a small apartment than a camper.  From the show's entire selection, this was THE ONE that impressed us.

If our future goes as planned, we'll be spending a lot more time in an RV during our retirement years and when that time comes, we think would like to upgrade to one with this type of layout.  It's definitely a space we could call home -- or at least home away from home.

Changing Seasons

The 2012 camping season is over for us.  You can read a couple of new posts about our last camping weekend of the year at Haphazard Homestead on the Road.

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With camping season over, summer is "officially" over for us, too.  As we move into fall and look ahead toward holidays and cooler weather, I've decided to take on two challenges for October.

The first is that I'm going to join in with Erica at Northwest Edible Life in an October No-Spend Month.  I think Erica is attempting an across-the-board reduction, but I've decided that I want to limit my challenge to grocery and restaurant spending.  Those of you who were readers of my old blog know that I can get a little carried away with numbers, but I promise not to do that this time.  My goal is to spend as little as possible at the grocery store and for us to not go out to eat at all in October.  I'll post my updates on Fridays and keep them simple. 

One exemptions right off the bat:  We will be paying the meat processor for pork already butchered and waiting for us to pick up as soon as the cured cuts are ready. 

If you'd like to join in, please do.  It's my understanding that this challenge is less about austerity and more about being mindful of and deliberate in your spending habits, whatever they may be.

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The second challenge I'm going to join is "All Done by December 1" at Happy Simple Living.  According to the Happy Simple Living blog, "The idea is to do some advance planning about the aspects of Christmas that are most important to you and your family, followed by some easy tasks and organization. The goal? To have every do-ahead task done by December 1, leaving you three glorious weeks to have the best celebration ever."

If you'd like to join in, click over and sign up for the e-mail updates.

Rain Puts Damper on Getaway Weekend

We had a very soggy, damp, cold, not-according-to-plan weekend, in which I only took one measly food picture.  Yet I still managed to get two new posts out it at Haphazard Homestead on the Road.

Wet Weekend

We are back from our weekend camping trip now.  We didn't have internet access as I had expected, so my plans to post while we were gone were all for naught.  Still, we had a great time.  You can read about our trip in two new posts at Haphazard Homestead On The Road.

Summer's Winding Down

• Shane and I enjoyed a weekend getaway in the camper. I'll write more about that later this week.
   
• Kat has a quick back-to-school night on Tuesday, then classes begin on Thursday. Yes, already.
   
• When we checked out teacher assignments, we learned that Kat's new teacher is named New Teacher. Hmm...seems a little late in the game to not know who's filling that position.
   
• Looking forward to dinner out on Thursday with my good friend C. We've been friends since 5th grade. She invited all of us, but I may decide to ditch the family and make it a Ladies' Night Out. Used to be that would have meant heading straight for the bar, dancing and drinking until the wee hours, then somehow each of us making it to work the next day. Now a wild night means dinner, one cocktail (if any), a little conversation, and making back home and asleep by 10:00 -- and probably feeling it the next day all the same.
   
• How dare you insinuate that we're getting old!
  
  



• Our garden is down to just tomatoes and a couple of watermelons at the moment. We let the pinto beans dry on the vine and shelled those out last week. We completely missed our window of opportunity on picking corn; it got too tough and chewy to eat, but we are letting it dry on the stalk and will try making some cornmeal with it. Our few cucumbers were so bitter from the heat that we gave up and ripped them out. The green beans and zucchini that we planted along with the corn (Three Sisters planting) didn't produce a thing.
   
• We're not done gardening yet, though. It's time for a fall planting!

I'm Just a Blip on the Radar

Just a quick fly-by to say I might be scarce this week. Kat has been under the weather since Saturday night, I have tomatoes and other good things coming in from the garden that need to be worked up, I need to go vote, and I need to get ready for another weekend camping trip.

We're trying something different this time out.  Instead of camping in a state park or Corps of Engineers campground like we usually do, we're staying in an independently owned RV resort.  It used to be a private club but has recently been opened to the public and boasts a few more amenities that the state parks.  It's called Lake Paradise; I'll let you know if it's all it's cracked up to be.

We sold our travel trailer over the weekend, which was a relief.  This late in the summer, I was beginning to worry that we'd have to overwinter it (and make payments on it) until next season.  And just so I don't confuse you further, we sold the newer, but smaller, trailer that we bought last summer.  The older, but bigger, 5th wheel camper we bought a couple of months ago is still safely tucked in our side yard between trips.  It's doing a great job doubling as a a sunshade for many of our garden beds.

I just love happy accidents like that.

More Heat, More Camping, More Floral Trunks

Despite the excessive heat warning we're currently under, we decided to go camping again over the weekend.  This time we went to the NW side of Truman Lake, just south of Clinton, MO.  It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get there from our home.

Level, pull-through campsite.  An RVer's dream.

This was a very relaxing and quiet weekend for us.  Because of the heat (I assume), campers were few and far between.  In our loop, there were only six campers and one family with tents.  There were another half-dozen or so campers in the other loop.  Overall, the campground has 111 sites, so we obviously felt like we had plenty of elbow room.

No other campers to be seen.

There's another camper back there, if you know where to look.

Most weekends that we camp, we plan some kind of activity away from the campground, but not this time.  We made a quick trip into town to a Dollar General to pick up a couple of things we forgot to bring with us. 

Kat and a dinosaur named Fried Chicken.

The local radio station had played a frequent ad for an ice cream social in a tiny little burg (pop. 500, more or less) just five miles from camp, so we went to that, too.  I'm pretty sure we were the youngest family there, and no doubt the only "foreigners".  It was worth it, though.  $5 each bought us a BIG bowl of homemade vanilla, chocolate, and/or strawberry ice cream, a homemade baked dessert (pies, cakes and brownies galore), and a choice of tea, coffee or water.  And it was for a good cause...'cause we wanted ice cream.  Seriously, though, it was a fund raiser for the Deepwater Labor Day & Harvest Picnic.

Other than those two outings, we stayed at camp.  We're still under a burn ban here, so no campfire, but we sat around outside in the evening looking at the stars and enjoying a few drinks.  During the day, we ate, read our books, played cards, ate some more, and of course, swam in the lake.  Shane and Kat also rode their bikes early in the morning and late in the evening.  I still haven't bought a bike to join them.

Here are Kat and Shane standing in the lake near the beach boundaries /markers.  I read that the lake is down a little more than a foot from normal, but I know from experience that the water should be about shoulder deep on Shane at the markers. And look!  There is grass growing on the beach. The surface temperature is a warm 86 right now, but that's still refreshing when the air temperature is over 100.  (Actually, that's about the perfect temperature for me anytime.)

Lake level is LOW.

Grass on the beach.

We stayed 'til dusk.

I can't omit the token shot of the floral trunks.

Water should be up to about mid-frame.

For now, it's back to the daily grind.  Our next outing is in 19 days.  But who's counting?

Rambling Random

I'm taking a break from posting about tomato condiments to insert a few random thoughts. 

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I cut my own hair a couple of nights ago.  I was sitting in bed reading and my hair was driving me nuts, so I got up and took the scissors to it.  Nothing drastic, mind you, I just trimmed it a little and cut some light, wispy bangs.  I think Mark will disagree, but I needed bangs.  I wear my hair pulled back almost all the time in the summer and without bangs, it's just too severe and schoolmarmish.  Not to mention, my what a big forehead I have!

The rest of my hair was already layered a bit, and long, so I bent at the waist, brushed it all forward and put it in a ponytail at my forehead.  Then whacked about an inch and a half off the end of the pony tail.  That got rid of split ends and evened things up, but didn't really change the style or shorten the overall length, which is fine with me. 

For the bangs, I pulled all of my hair back in a headband, used a comb to pull forward just a small amount of hair at the hairline, and cut the bangs very long, then just gradually trimmed them up.  They still need some time to not want to part in the middle on their own.

This was an exercise in self-confidence; I simply made up my mind that I can cut my own hair.  While this isn't the best haircut in the world, it's as good as most of the salon cuts I've had.  It was also quicker and cheaper than paying someone else to do it.

Of course, it helps that my hair is naturally poofy curly and very forgiving of mistakes.  It also helps that I'm not especially vain.

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Here at the Haphazard Homestead, communication is key.  We keep each other in the loop.  And by this, I mean we tell each other the most mundane of plans. 

"I'm going downstairs to flip the laundry."

"I'll be outside watering the garden if you need me."
"I'm taking a shower now."  (Important info, since we only have one bathroom and someone's sure to need in before a shower is done.)

"I'll be in the garage trying to find that doohickey that I need to fix that thingamajig." (Which also implies, "If I'm not back within an hour, send the rescue team.")

Seriously, we hardly breathe without announcing our intentions to each other.  I don't remember doing this in my childhood home.  There were eight of us during the full house days.  It was every man for himself, and the bathroom was first come, first serve.

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Screw the current heat advisory -- we have A/C in our camper and we know how to use it.  Besides, we're due for some rain, and it rains almost every time we go camping.  Heading to camp this weekend can only be to our advantage.

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Speaking of swimming (yes, I was speaking of it, indirectly), this picture of Shane from our last camping trip stirred up a bit of conversation on my real-life Facebook page.  Why is it that these are perfectly fine as swim trunks, but that he'd never be caught dead in a floral if they were street shorts?  I tried to interest him in wearing kilt the other day, but he wouldn't hear of it.  I thought it would go well with his red hair.

Vacation Days 5 and 6 - More Fun in the Sun

Our last episode ended with a little rain.  That storm intensified a little to the east of us and dropped what is believed to be a small tornado in Cuba, just a little while after we left there.  But all that happened in the campground was some heavier rain for the rest of the evening and the loss of wi-fi in the campground.  Wi-fi in Missouri State Parks is a new amenity.  It's so new, in fact, that the maintenance guys didn't know what to do to get it back online, so we were without for the rest of our stay.  So what?  We were camping, after all.  It's not like we needed to be on the computer.

We woke up Sunday morning to bright sunny skies, so as soon as we could, we headed to the river.  We stayed a couple of hours, came "home" for lunch, and went back to the river for a few more hours.  By then, the skies were overcast again, but we didn't let that stop us a second day.  The temps dropped a little, but there weren't even any sprinkles until we were done playing and back at the camper.

Snorkling for sunfish.

Hey, she netted one!

Being a turtle.

Pretending to boogie board.  (It's touching bottom).

Since it was Sunday night, most folks had moved out.  There were just three other RVs in the whole park and a couple of tents.  None of them were near us, though, so it was almost like having the entire park to ourselves.  It was very peaceful.

Today was almost a repeat of last Wednesday.  We spent most of our day driving.  This time we did take the great advice of the Osage Bluff Quilter and ate at Steve's Family Restaurant in Lohman, MO.  It's about 5 or 6 miles off the main highway and worth the detour.  They don't have a website for me to link, but I can tell you they specialize in homemade fried chicken, catfish and ham, with sides like real mashed potatoes, country style green beans, pan gravy and local ice cream.  Served all-you-can-eat and family-style, of course.  It was absolutely the best food we had during our trip.

I was glad we ate there, but sorry that our change in camping plans also changed our plans to actually meet Patti and her husband.  I'm sure we'll catch up with them sooner or later, though.  Maybe we can use a return trip to Steve's Restaurant as an excuse to catch up with them...or use a visit with them as our excuse to go back to Steve's.  Sounds like a plan either way.

We pulled up in front of our house around 5:00 this evening, putting a wrap on this year's vacation.  But camping season isn't over yet.  I'm sure there will be a few more weekend trips in store before it is.

Vacation Day 4 - Wet

Today was cave day.   We went on a tour of Onondaga Cave, one of the show caves here in the park.  I was in this cave before, back in 1980 or 1981 on an impromptu camping trip with my sister and her family.  I can't remember much about it, but I did remember it's one of few caves that have "lily pad formation".  When we entered the cave this morning, it was a hot and humid 106° outside and a cool and clammy 57° under ground.  We came prepared, with jeans and jackets and were glad we did.

Later, we drove back in to Cuba to what might be the world's smallest Wal-Mart store.  Seriously.  It was about the size of a Dollar General, Alco, Pamida or whatever little department store you might have in your area.  It had just five checkout lines.  But they had what we needed, which was a small bottle of propane for our tabletop gas grill, a blow-up float ring for Kat, a pair of water shoes that won't rub blisters for me, and a pound of butter.  On a Saturday afternoon, we were in and out in 20 minutes.

We saw an unbelievable sight on our way home.  Rain!  Unless it clears soon, the lightning will knock us out of our swim today and possibly the fireworks display tonight (which was scheduled to make up for not having them on the 4th).  But it's all alright, because it just wouldn't be camping if it didn't rain on us at least a little.  And guess what?  Shane doesn't work until Tuesday, so we've decided to stay until Monday instead of leaving tomorrow.  We can't leave without one more day playing in the river!

Vacation Day 3 - Silly Roadside Attractions

We had a really low-key day today.  We slept in, ate all of our meals at camp, took some bike rides (despite the temps being as high as they were yesterday) and basically did a whole lot of nothing.

We did venture out in the afternoon to check out a couple of small towns in the area.  Their websites promised more than they actually delivered, unfortunately.  We did take just a few pictures, though.

The highlight of the day was that it clouded over and almost rained.  It was the talk of the town everywhere we went.

Canoe art in Steelville, MO, "The Floating Capital of the World".
Promising dark clouds in the background.

More canoe art.

And yet another.  The painted canoes are all over town.

"World's Largest Rocking Chair",  at Fanning 66 Outpost,
just outside of Cuba, MO.

A Route 66 mural, also at Fanning 66 Outpost.
Cuba is known as the "Route 66 Mural City".

Doin' a little front porch sittin' at the outpost.

Vacation Day 2 - Missouri State Parks Are HAWT

First, let me just say this:

I don't know if you can see what it says inside that little purple box down there at the lower left, but today's high where we are was 109°F (43°C).  Maybe it wasn't quite that hot officially, but it was hot by anyone's standards, even mine, and I get cold easily.  So, along with about 50 or so other crazy folks, we decided it would be a great day to climb around on huge granite boulders at Elephant Rocks State Park.  I swear it must have been at least 120°-125° on the rocks that were in direct sunlight. Not to mention we endured enjoyed a hike of about a mile.

Picnic hideaway.

Shane and Kat with Sage along for the hike.

Sage putting her new hiking outfit to the test.

This was one hot slab of granite.

Glad this one was in the shade.

Shane, who somehow ended up carrying the doll.

I have no idea who these people are.

Really big rock.  There was a breeze up there, so we sat in the shade, where it was a brisk 90° or so.

After we saw the elephants, we decided it was time for lunch.  We found Baylee Jo's Barbecue, and found it tasty.  I had a Reuben sandwich with a twist -- the corned beef was also smoked.  Shane had a barbecued pork sandwich (better than the one from the night before), and Kat had another fish sandwich with fries (this time it was catfish).

Our next stop was Taum Sauk Mountain State Park, which is the highest point in Missouri.  From here, you can see the beautiful St. Francois Mountain range of the Missouri Ozarks for as far as 15 miles or so.  Some don't agree, but I'll take a tree-covered Ozark Mountain over a Rocky Mountain any ol' day.

Uh-oh.  Where's Sage?  She's still at Baylee Jo's.  Time for a quick rescue mission.

Then it was off to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park, the best part of our day.  Sage had to stay in the truck, but the rest of us spent a couple of late afternoon hours beating the heat in this natural water park.  Water depths ranged from barely there to 40 or more feet deep!  The water was very comfortable to me, ranging from slightly cool and refreshing to slightly warm and relaxing, and it wasn't always the deepest water that was coolest.  There was some natural "seating" among rapids that felt better than any hot tub or spa I've been in.  It's a great place to play, and if we lived in this area, we'd visit this park often.

Kat making her way to the water.

Nice shot of the back of my head.

That's me.  I think.

Yep, that's me.

Waving at, and waiting for, Shane.

Sorry there aren't more pictures of us in the water, but we gave up right away on the idea that we could keep the camera dry.

It was nearly 9:00 by the time we made it back to camp and we're all tuckered out, so supper was just whatever snacks were at hand.  Tomorrow, though, promises to be more low-key.