Looking through the fog ....

The front porch was a bit chilly this morning. Fall is definitely in the air. As the fog clears, the beautiful trees come into view and what a sight they are this time of year. Reds, oranges, yellows with a touch of green still visible. I love it. I don't remember fall being so pretty in the West. Fall in the west means lots of work really. You see, most people use wood to heat their homes in the mountains of Idaho and you have to be prepared. You spend a good month just cutting, splitting and stacking firewood, hoping to get it all in before the first snow. Electric heat isn't a good option when you may lose power at any time in a heavy snow.

Something we just don't have to worry about too much in our part of Kentucky. Since we've moved here, it's the ice storms that do more damage than snow. We haven't seen a 'good' snow since we got here, but I'm afraid this winter is going to be different. It's just a feeling, but I fear it none the less. I love snow, I really do. And I'm always wanting a good one. But once you drive around through the hills of Eastern Kentucky, you can see why a big snowfall would be so bad around here. Some of the roads in Kentucky are treacherous on a good day, throw some snow on them and watch out!

And the school buses? I can't imagine taking a bus down some of the roads they travel in the snow. I know that our road gets pretty darned slick in the winter and it's one of the last roads in the county so it isn't the first priority when it snows. There are others that need it first. Sometimes it's 4 or 5 in the afternoon when they reach Harris Ferry Road. In the West? Harris Ferry Road would be gravel. I saw a statistic last week on paved roads in Idaho - less than half the roads in all of Idaho are paved. Over half are gravel. Gravel works alot better in the snow.

School buses in the west also have automatic chains. They just drop down when the driver needs them and the chains rotate under the tires. So school is hardly ever cancelled. Here, school is cancelled alot during the winter and although some days you really wonder why, like I said - drive out some of the roads the buses travel and you would understand. Weather forecasting is an educated guess though, so I guess we'll all see in the spring what God has in store for us throughout the winter of 2013-2014.

With lots of luck and a million prayers, the Dave person and I will still be here in the Spring of 2014. At the farm I mean. This past summer was a tough one for the farm and for the magazine. The economy has about wiped us all out. I've thought many times over the years that if we could just get $1.00 from every reader of the magazine that we could actually take a breather and work more on the farm. So, I came up with this idea on IndieGoGo to try and do just that. Think about it, we print 12,000 copies of the magazine every month. The industry standard says that we have 2.4 readers per copy, so easily we have over 20,000 readers every month. If every one of them donated $1.00 to our IndieGoGo project, we would reach our goal!

We get so many letters from people who love the magazine. Sure, they'll all donate $1.00. After all, it takes a village sometimes and with the incredible communities we try to support, this should be a piece of cake. So, as hard as it is to ask for help, we launched it and thought we'd see what kind of support we get from those same communities. Although I've been somewhat disappointed with the response, I am thankful for each and every person that donated to the project. We've got 13 more days until it ends, so I'm really praying hard that we are pleased with the end results.

Here is the address of the IndieGoGo project, if you'd like to check it out. And even if you can't donate, please leave a comment if you have visited the farm in the past. We'd love to have you come back sometime.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-us-continue-our-journey

I hope the weather is beautiful in your area today and you have a blessed Friday. Thank you for taking the time to read my early morning ramblings......

~Pam

My front porch is your front porch, won't you sit awhile?