Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is pouring like an avalanche, coming down the mountain

*Post from Charlotte, childhood song by the Butthole Surfers for this week's title*



Day 55 (Monday, October 24^th)

We did some more of the usual, moving some logs and then tree trimming.  This time we trimmed some elderberry and locust trees in the hilly area near the retreat.

More progress

Hi-ya

Just the start of our pile

We also had to go around and store the hoses so they didn't freeze during the winter

Had to cover the tarps for the expected rain (LOL and then she was like "what's so funny about that?! Had to cover--OH HAHAHAHA" so yeah. cover the logs. because weather in general (don't want firewood rotting))

After working Karol did some carving and I dug into all the jewelry making stuff Marcia said I could use.  I've been wanting to make jewelry for a while so I found a good PDF with some basic information and got started.

So much jewelry stuff! 

Nathan's tools he let Karol borrow, and a spoon template

Karol's second spoon (The Spearoon - finally complete! -k)

We had leftover meatballs with some pasta for dinner and watched The Revenant.  I heard it was mediocre, I thought it was slightly better than mediocre. KEEP THAT HORSE JUICE AWAY FROM MY BEAR SUIT (-k)

Day 56 (Tuesday, October 25^th)

Did some more trimming and while Richard and Marcia took Scout to the vet (poor girl had a seizure), we did laundry for the first time in a month.  It was also time to bottle our kefir.

Nice shot of the loft where we sleep

French toast with the last of our homemade for breakfast (OUR HOMEMADE IS BEST)

Cleared all of this section

Laundry

We made these bottles with blueberry juice and honey, so amazingly delicious

Deke-ster

The notorious Karol photo after feeding one of the doggies (I went looking for Deke's food bowl and found not only the bowl, but a mirror! Obviously I can't resist.)

Nathan then showed Karol how to make some carving tools.  I watched for a while but then got antsy to make more jewelry so I went back inside to do that.  I went a little crazy.

Grinding down the file

Nathan's forge (I'm gonna make one like it some time soon -k)

More grinding now that the metal was shaped

Polishing such that you can see the color when you go to temper it. I tempered it myself! -k

Sharpening

Needs a handle and a final sharpening but here is Karol's first carving tool, that he was shown how to make (Nathan did all of the actual pounding on the anvil shit -k)

I was in a zone - hadn't been in that kind of a creative bubble in a while, just kept going and going

We had fried rice for dinner and watched Avengers (I think I made more jewelry).

Day 57 (Wednesday, October 26^th)

Had to share Karol's morning photo - looks like lava, stunning

Had some whipped cream with strawberries and a kiwi for breakfast 

We had to take some leftover meat to the powerlines (far away so animals don't come close to the houses) so we hopped in the Kubota and went for a drive.  We passed the fields of milkweed on the way, they were busted, looking a lot like dandelions.

Milkweed

Near the meat drop-off (lmao there's no like box or anything though, you just kinda dump it and run away)

We decided to drive around the mountain but got blocked, Karol tried to move it, no luck

We then did some more trimming.  The locust trees cut Karol pretty bad on the neck. (They had their vengeance I guess... -k)

This area was full of weeds and small (elderberry) trees

Oucheees

He didn't want to get sticky band-aid crap on his neck (actually I didn't want the hairs ripped out but that too), so that is a string wrapped around some gauze covering the cuts (I make my own bandages! -k)

Some crab apples we harvested, a wee bit sour but tasty

After trimming we cut down some of the herbs.  There was mint, oregano, lavender, sage, and lemon balm.  We didn't have enough hay but we used what we could to cover it for winter.  We also hung some oregano and sage in the drying room.

Hunchback Charlotte trimming Oregano

The drying room

Richard asked if we could grab half a bag of milkweed pods.  He said the fluff makes great pillow filling (but he actually was only after the seeds, I think, to plant them elsewhere because they attract wonderful migratory butterflies -k).

Bag o' milkweed

Too nice not to share

We had some strew (lmfao (it was beef chunks)) meat simmering in chicken broth with a couple cloves of garlic (arguable whether they made any difference, probably needed more) all day.  At first we only used the broth we made from the chicken, but it cooked down too much so we had to add a carton and a half of organic chicken broth from the store.  We finished up by making some rice and sauteed veggies for another build your own soup dinner.

This turned out AMAZINGLY, I think our best soup ever

Close up

Day 58 (Thursday, October 27^th)

Crappy weather day, we did some more trimming and had leftover soup for lunch.  We also started gathering some of our stuff together since we had to leave in a few days.

Extra big-ass trees

Super tall locust tree Karol cut down (not even the biggest -k)

I look befuddled

Clear The Area

Okay the story behind this next picture is embarrassing and ridiculous but I'm sharing mostly because I know our sisters will appreciate it and also hopefully it makes people laugh.  It reminded Karol of the countless phone "conversations" his sister has had.  I was jokingly like "We should order Papa John's".  Obviously we can't because we're on a mountain far away from any town, but Karol said I should and handed me the phone and I had a fake conversation with a Papa's John's employee.  I ordered the following: 2 cheese pizzas, 2 pepperoni pizzas, 1 hawaiian pizza, 1 order of garlic knots, 1 order of cheesy bread, and a brookie (brownie/cookie combo).  I changed my mind a lot.  And I think I even was a little crazy and got soda.  I warned the guy to be careful on the road.  He said he had a Rav 4 and I said he'd be fine.  The total was almost $90.  I told Karol since we're on an isolated mountain we'd just kill him when he got here so we didn't have to pay the $90.  I didn't do all this with a straight face, I was cracking up the whole time, but I just kept going for a few minutes.  And no, I have no clue what the hell I was saying when I was making the face below.

Seriously what the hell am I doing?!

During that fiasco I think Karol was carving? Or maybe after, before we started cooking actual dinner.  We had a steak, potatoes, bacon, sweet potato, and carrots.

Karol's "stake-knife" (I left it for them as a gift :] it's formally known as the Vamp Steak Knife)

Our steak for dinner

Bacon and potatoes 

A new spoon (The Lacrossepoon!)

Day 59 (Friday, October 28^th)

We trimmed some more locust in the morning and had some pasta for lunch.

Up close: the deadly locust thorns (lol that's like a Dateline quote (oh that's actually what she was going for))

Our huge pile of trimmed trees

Beauty

Richard and Marcia graciously took us to dinner at the Highland Inn in Monterey, Virginia.  It was SPECTACULAR.

Stairs at the Highland Inn

Bathroom picture for Valerie

The food was so so so so so good.  I had a yummy salad to start with. It contained: walnuts and blue cheese and pears and bacon, and they brought out a basket of bread to share.  Karol had a ribeye with parsnips, carrots, and sweet potatoes.  I had a maple bourbon glazed pork chop topped with apple slaw, and parsnip puree and roasted brussel sprouts and corn on the side.  We ended with pecan pie for dessert.  One of the best meals I ever ate, thank you again R & M!  We got home late-ish and played some Yahtzee before calling it a night.

Day 60 (Saturday, October 29^th)

We wake up to:

This on the left

This on the right
(This is almost like seeing a sunrise from Plato's cave - you know the sun rose from the receding shadow on the mountains and the spots of like from the window -k)

We went to the Station 2 for breakfast to get some of this blog post started.  They do a yummy breakfast and we were glad to have it one more time.  We then basically cleaned and packed after we got back, for the rest of the afternoon until dinner, which was fresh baked bread with mozzarella and olive oil.  Mmm mmm good.  Oh and elderberry wine (spoiler alert: I got drunk).  We watched Clash of the Titans and I simultaneously worked on my cross stitch that was to be a parting gift for Richard and Marcia's hospitality.

On the way to Station 2 

Karol has a few of these bundles so he can carve while in VA (representative bundles, they're the woods we cut down - hickory, locust, and elderberry =k)

SKY

Final meal

Seriously. How does it do that? (Fuckin magnets)

We had some mugwort tea before bed (and took two dried bundles to have more!)

Day 61 (Sunday, October 30th)

We finished the last of the car loading and said our goodbyes to Richard and Marcia.  We were headed to Charlottesville first so Karol could go to a tattoo shop there and see about getting the next part of his travel tattoo complete.  The artist there charged a ridiculous $150 an hour, so we are looking elsewhere (yeah what the fuck holy shit that's too much. That's including any time spent drawing which he admitted could take the better part of an hour =k).

Virginia is for Lovers, allegedly

Before the tattoo shop we ate at Marco and Luca's, a chinese restaurant with a small menu that I Yelped and saw was cheap and highly reviewed.  We had dumplings, a pork bun, chicken curry with white rice, sesame noodles, and sweet and spicy noodles.  The noodle dishes were cold which we knew beforehand, Karol didn't like that so much but I thought they were good.  The dumplings were excellent as was the chicken curry.  The pork bun also was very good, but I thought it needed more meat.  I must say, I really really liked Charlottesville.  No not because it has my name in it.  It felt like a relatively big city with lots to do, but not too overcrowded.  We got some ice cream after Marco and Luca's and walked around, during which we made a list of cool shops we passed by.  Used book stores, wineries, a tobacco shop, lots of cool stuff.  We will definitely be going back during our free time while we are here in Virginia.

Our yummy luncheon

Charlottesville had some very interesting silhouettes scattered about (what is this, a mother riding her child? Humping? Some kind of ritual? I wasn't quite sure what they were trying to tell us here...)

After a quick trip to Trader Joe's (Trader's Joe as my mom says :] (that's how the conjugation would work out in polish) =k) for some snacks, we landed (in our space ship) at our new home for the next month.  Our hostess, Virginia, sat with us outside and we just chatted for a while (slight deja vu for me =k).  I felt immediately at ease and it was really nice sitting in the yard.  After that, Karol and I explored the property a little bit.

I found a hammock, and there are four adorable puppers here

Karol found another hammock up on a wooden platform

Tall trees (Straight trees)

Our quarters (Aten-HUT)

There were actually five other people staying the night with us, some thru hikers from the Appalachian Trail.  I was so excited to meet a group that was doing a long term hike like that, it's something that Karol and I are considering doing at some point - but it would probably be the Pacific Crest Trail out west if we did.  Anyway they were all really nice and excited to be hiking.  We had dessert with them after having eaten homemade chicken pot pie and biscuits with Virginia.  It was almost midnight when we went to bed.  We had some tea and just talked to them in the kitchen for a few hours.  What a lovely first night here.

The morning after when we took them all back to the trail, and our hostess, Virginia