Always Something Else to Do

The usual editor and composer of the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society’s newsletter is unable to continue producing our quarterly publication, so I am trying to shoulder some of the burden. I have never done this before; assimilating and coordinating the information needed for our members in an interesting way. Hopefully, with some encouragement and help from a few of my friends I can create something that I need not be ashamed of. Let me say this, composing a newsletter was never in my bucket list. For any of my new readers, my last post was about bucket lists and how I thought they came into being.

While I am mentioning the Historical Society, I’d like to remind all of my readers that as you clean out your homes or relative’s homes, any local souvenirs, postcards, memorabilia, written documents or photographs that are no longer wanted, may be just what your local society is looking for and may be what is needed to complete the story of the area. If you have old photographs, there is no need to give them up. They can be copied, placed in the archives and be preserved for others to see.

I’ve been cutting up meat for the freezer. I am getting some ready to can and even may even have enough left over to make some jerky. Everything that doesn’t go into steak, I call “chunk meat.” The orts may be too small or too tough for anything but to be canned or to be made into jerky. The steaks are in the freezer, but I will need to get some canning lids and some spices to make the jerky.

I know how my kids love to hear this, and I will certainly get brow beaten, but there was a jolly fat man on my roof yesterday making sure the chimney was cleaned out. The next few days call for rain and I definitely don’t want to be climbing on a metal roof when it’s raining. The dry roof and my rubber soled tennis shoes held well. There wasn’t one slip and the good news was, the chimney was basically clear, so I only needed to run the pole up and down a few times. Some people like to read my hospital stories. Stay tuned, this may turn out to be one.

I’d like to build a small coal box to store a load of coal. Up to now, I’ve routinely burned wood, but I know that adding coal will cause the fire in the furnace to last overnight. No middle of the night waking up and going to the basement to add wood to the fire. It sounds like a promise of Eden to me. For many years, my parents only had a coal furnace to keep our old brown Insulbrick house warm through the long cold winter nights.