Cumberland County Covered Bridge in Illinois

We were headed to Effingham, Illinois the other day when I spied this covered bridge.  We crossed the Embarass and there was a place to park and walk on over to see the bridge...

I only had my 70-300 mm lense with me, so could not get the whole thing in one shot from close up.

It has no weight limit, and even though it is only one lane, it can withstand the weight of semis.

The trusses and beams were made of laminated 2 x ?s.

And there were uses of other modern things:

Of course it was the middle of a hot, muggy day that we were there.  I am hoping we can go back in more favorable conditions.  It is a beautiful bridge and these shots just do not do it justice.

Starting school

Our little munchkin started preschool today....she was scheduled to start on Tuesday but had a nasty cold and had to go to the doctor.  She was so sick that day that she didn't even mind not going.  By yesterday, she was feeling better and was upset because she couldn't go.  Remember she has been wanting to go to school forever...over a year at least, and maybe two.

This morn I got a call about 8:30...and I heard this 'MAMAW!'  She was so excited I could hardly understand a word she was saying.  They had left early to get there because they did not know how the traffic would be that time of morning, so it gave them time to chat with me a few minutes.

Sarah says shes been so wound up since she got home that she cannot get much out of her except that her teacher likes hugs....she had asked Sarah if her teacher would like them before she ever went in the school.  She did not mind Sarah leaving her at all.  Just happy as a clam.  I just hope she always enjoys school and looks forward to going.
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We got a little shower of rain, but not enough to help anything.  This is the driest August we have had in years.  But things don't look bad...grass is still green, cornfields and beans are fine.  The creeks are getting low, but then they always do.
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Roger's computer finally came today...I have spent the entire afternoon making recovery disks and putting on antivirus of my choice, etc.  While doing that I did some baking....just of box mixes.  I couldn't have kept my head together enough to bake from scratch.  

No excuses...

I have no excuse for not blogging these past few days.  The kids were here Friday through Sunday, but other than that I have not been doing much at all.  I guess I should be thankful it is laziness and not something drastically wrong.  I don't know why, but when I get interrupted in blogging, it is sometimes so hard to pick back up and start.  However, if I go ahead and schedule a post or two and keep it going when I am otherwise occupied, I do so much better.
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As you can see from the photo above, I have been doing something...but what?  Stay tuned...hopefully within the next month or two I will have something to show you.  I cannot get to it right now since I still am working with my last two little quilt tops.  Or rather making the backing for them.  One is made, and started the other one earlier today.  I hope to finish it sometime before this day is over and then get them pin-basted before the weekend is out.
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I saw this post of Judy's a few days ago....it had a picture of potatoes that they had just dug.  My thoughts went immediately to home.  We always 'ridged' the dirt up around the potatoes as they grew...then when young taters formed, the bigger they grew the bigger the crack would grow in the dirt that covered them.

We always looked forward to the day that mom thought there would be some big enough to 'gravel' out as she called it.  We would look for the biggest crack and carefully rake/dig the dirt away to get to the potatoes.  We would choose a few of the biggest that were forming...always choosing some an inch or two in diameter. I think we would get maybe a couple or three per hill if we were lucky.  We never just dug up the whole plant....we left the smaller ones to grow.

We would do a few hills of potatoes this way...enough to get a mess of potatoes.  And at each plant, we always pushed the dirt back over the remaining potatoes that were developing.  And it never seemed to really harm the plant to the best of my recall.

For those of you who have never done this, the skin on young potatoes is paper thin...we would run water over them and then just scrap the skin away with a knife.  Then if they were just over an inch in diameter, mom left them whole, but if they were getting up close to two inches or so...she would cut them in half...and put them on the stove in a pot of water to cook that way a little while.

Then she would take them out and fry them....leaving them whole or halved.  Talk about good food!  Oh, my mouth is watering now just thinking about it.