October 31, 2022

October was a month of drastic changes in our life!

In late September, Katie accepted a new job working for an engineering firm in Springfield. She had been working at the Catholic Center for 14 years, so this was a huge transition. While at the Catholic Center, she worked in the Office of Family Life, Office of Social Ministries, was part of the staff that founded our Catholic Charities agency, and most recently worked in the Office of Youth Ministry (including major events and our summer camp program) and Office of Worship. She will still work remotely for the Office of Worship on an “as needed” basis to assist the director with the big functions that happen throughout the year.

Her first day at the engineering firm was on the 17th. She will serve as the office manager of 2 different offices, plan events, plus assist the engineers and designers with their projects. It is a totally different environment, but she is looking forward to learning all she can.

As Katie was cleaning out her office at the Catholic Center, she brought home lots of farm tchotchkes that had decorated her office. When we built our house, we purposely put in a “dust shelf” on one end of the living room, that until now had been virtually empty. The statues, plaques, and other decorations found a home – and they fit our farmhouse-look perfectly!

October 15th is our average first freeze day, but we did not think it was going to happen. It was so warm to start October. Our garden was still producing greens, herbs, and tomatoes – yes, tomatoes in October! That all changed on the 18th when the temps plummeted down to 30 degrees. It was not really a hard freeze, and it was only that cold for an hour or so, but it was enough to end our growing season. We tore through the garden the night before (after Katie’s first day of her new job) and harvested most of the tomatoes. We also harvested the herbs that had not gone to flower, plus anything else we could see. We brought everything inside and started sorting. We put the green tomatoes on the trays of the dehydrator so they would have air flow as they continued to green. We were surprised at how many tomatoes kept turning. They were bagged and frozen to be made into ketchup or BBQ sauce later this winter. We are kind of relieved to end the garden season. This was one of the most difficult years of gardening we’ve had and we’re happy it’s over so we can focus on other things.

Like the garage – We have things that have been in boxes for the last six years – since we packed them up to declutter our last farm as we were getting it ready to sell it. In a previous blog, we showed you the super heavy-duty garage shelves we made to store all the boxes. That would not have been so bad, but over the past 3 years, 2 of our sons moved home between their years of college. When they left, they did not take all their “stuff!” We had “stuff” everywhere and it was not at all organized. So this month, we tried to remedy that. We’ve gone through about 1/4 of the garage and pulled out things that belong to our sons. One of the boys is still in college, so his things can stay – for now. But the other 2 have homes of their own. Every time they come to visit, they leave with a full car of their “stuff.” I’m sure, as we continue to go through boxes, we will find treasures that we want to keep, but there will be more than enough to get rid of. We’re going to have one gigantic garage sale this spring!

So many of you have asked about Damien, our Livestock Guardian Dog. He is doing great. He is learning new commands and showing more and more self-control. We still don’t give him unsupervised time around our chickens because very few dogs are good around birds. For a few nights, he barked for hours, but we did not see anything. When we let him out of his pen (he sleeps in doghouse in a 16’x40′ pen), he would run to the edge of the garden and bark. After the 3rd night, we figured out what he was barking at – an armadillo! It was living under one of our raised garden beds. We were able to catch the armadillo and relocate it to the other side of the hill. It came back! The next night, we gave it a new home much farther away, and we’ve not seen it since.

The month ended with another huge change and a special treat. We traveled to the Houston, TX area to celebrate as our niece got married and changed her last name!  It was such a blessing that most of John’s family, including many of the cousins, were there. And we wish the bride and groom all the best. As a special treat, we visited with some of our long-time friends from Florida who had moved to Houston. We had not seen them in almost 20 years, and it was as if we had never been apart!