Dinner

Tonight I am making salt potatoes and creamed mushroom beef tips.

Salt potatoes are bite-size "new" white or red potatoes scrubbed and boiled in their jackets. Salt is added to the water to the point of saturation, giving them their name, and unique flavor and texture. After cooking, salt potatoes are served with melted butter.
Salt potatoes are a regional dish of Upstate New York, typically served in the summer as the young potatoes are first harvested. They are a staple food of fairs and babecues.
The Syracuse, New York area has a long history of salt production. Salt springs located around Onondaga lake were used to create consumable salt that was distributed through out the north-east via the Erie Canal. The salinated water was laid out to dry on large trays, the salt residue was then scraped up, ground, and packaged. Salt potatoes were created in the nineteenth century by Irish immigrants who worked the springs. The first packaged salt potatoes were sold in the 1960s
It is a regional favorite throughout Central New York. Syracuse is also known as "Salt City" because of salt in the marshes around the area. The salt miners and settlers boiled their potatoes in salt water for flavor.

When we visit NY every summer, we get to have salt potatoes at least once while up there, one of my many aunts who are wonderful cooks will make them while we visit. I was feeling nostalgic while at the farmers market and had to pick a bag of these new potatoes and make a batch of salt potatoes for my family.

Loss of a Good Friend

1949-2007

Today we mourn the loss of a beloved friend. Jim was much loved and will be missed. Richard and he worked many days and nights together at Transmed. Richard thought of him as a very close friend, he taught him much.

HILLarity Festival

We went to the HILLarity Festival in the small town my parents live in. There was a car show, arts and crafts, music and lots of food.

This is Chester County's new Ambulance, this one is the one Richard will be driving.

Kyle really like this, it's a go cart with a truck "frame" made out of sheets of metal and riveted on. It has inspired him to make a custom go cart.

This was Chad's favorite car, of course it is the same model as most of ours and this one had nice paint and the inside was very clean.

Go-Carting in Pigeon Forge

you can see the staring line up, and the finsh lineup. Kyle passed both boys and came in first. Way to go Kyle.

Cumberland Waterfalls, KY

Today we drove into Kentucky to visit Cumberland waterfalls. It was a beautiful place. I was even able to get a shot of the rainbow.

The boys were trying to catch fish in the shallow water, Kyle was able to walk more than half way across because the water was so low.

Tennessee Canjo

Kyle playing the canjo

Appalacian Fall Homecoming

We went to the Appalachian Museum today for there fall Homecoming.
This man is turning wood on his lathe powered by his tractor.

These tractors belong to my dad's long time friend, Herb.

This lady is dying yarn

with Richard next to this tractor you can see how tall they have it jacked up

This next tractor is one like ours, see what it could look like.

On stage now is Grampa Jones' wife.

This is Herb playing with one of the young very talented musicians there today.

We bought Kyle a Canjo and he has learnt to play three songs already, he's really enjoying it.

Cabin in LaFollette TN

We stayed in this cabin on our visit to Norris TN. Mom and dad rode with us, so we were able to visit while driving. It was a nice ride, we took the short way, mostly highway, so we could get out there early.

Few leaves had turned, but it was still very nice.

My Aunt Sheila and Uncle Reg joined us at the cabin.

The cabin had four bedrooms, so there was plenty of room. The view was nice, not many houses to obstruct yet. We even got to see about 20 deer in one sitting.

Autumn Jubilee, Salisbury, NC

We went to the Autumn Jubilee at the Dan Nicholas Park. There were arts, food, crafts, demonstrations, music, more food. We watched the belly dancers, cloggers and a few of the bands.




This band was Too Much Sylvia, they were musically talented, entertaining, and funny. They wore beards when they played ZZTop, Big cowboy hats when they played country and dressed like women when they did some female songs. They brought out a man in the audience that they thought looked like Hank Williams and sang to him on stage.

Hofwyl Plantation

After a long day of site seeing we stopped at the
Hofwyl Plantation http://gastateparks.org/info/hofwyl/
It was a beautiful place,with huge trees. We took a guided tour of the house and grounds. The man giving the tour was a real character. He told us about the people that lived in the house, items in the house. He talked a lot about how things were back in the day.
We went into a room with a big wardrobe..he reached into the wardrobe and brought out a civil war black powder rifle, he handed it to Cory and told him to see how it feels. He placed it back in the closet and pulled out a civil war sword and handed it to Kyle, who stood there shaking his head 'no'. He finally convinced him to hold it. Once we got in the truck, Kyle said "That man must be crazy, can you believe he let me hold that sword, it must be worth a couple thousand dollars" which is why Kyle was scared to hold it.






These are the outbuildings, servants quarters, summer kitchen, barn and other buildings.
This is a 500 year old tree, you can see how big it is with all the guys standing in front of it, there were a ton of these huge old oaks on this plantation.