We’ve had sleet, snow showers and light snow here in Bellville in the past few weeks.
Early snow on my deck in Bellville, Ohio.
Now, we’re getting ready for up to 6 inches of the white stuff today (Sunday) and tomorrow with high wind. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm advisory.
It seems early in the season for that type of warning, but I remember as a child living on the west side of Cleveland, Fairview Park, it would snow at Thanksgiving and it wouldn’t melt until early March. The ground was covered with snow all winter.
Among my collection of devices is a NOAA weather radio to alert me to any weather changes. The kitchen has become a “home base” for my equipment: NOAA radio, police scanner, PC, printer and everything that goes with these devices.
With the darkening sky and a few random snow flurries around yesterday, I decided to bake some bread. I used the pumpkin bread recipe from GRIT’s Guide to Homemade Bread. I still have a few pumpkins from the garden so I cooked up the pumpkin puree and started the bread rising yesterday. It rises for 12 to 18 hours so I mixed the dough in the afternoon and let it set and rise overnight.
It came out of the oven a few minutes ago and the house is filled with the warming aroma of freshly baked bread and the usual pumpkin spices; cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Yesterday, it appeared that everyone was getting ready for the snow fall this weekend. We do our errands on Saturday mornings and it looked like everyone else was doing the same thing. There were a lot of people everywhere we went in Bellville. One of our stops every Saturday includes Elzy Milling and Trade to stock up on bird seed and sweet feed for Samson and Delilah, my mini donkeys. A friend’s family owns Elzy, and they have done a tremendous job taking the old RFD store and having the Amish refurbish it. They are making it a show place in Bellville.
Here is Elzy before and after the Amish refurbished the old building.
They were just recognized by the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce, receiving the Small Business of the Year Award along with seven other small businesses in Richland County, including Bellville Flowers and Gifts.
Elzy received the award for manufacturing and industrial. To the delight of my friends, they received a beautiful clock and proclamations from John Kasic, governor of Ohio, and also proclamations from several Ohio senators. My friend, Marge, is holding one of the plaques.
Elzy is more than an RFD … they are adding all kinds of great things like locally made candles and gifts. They’ve also added Stormy Cromer hats, and a lot of other neat items. But, they still have all the farm products any of us could want for our farms and homesteads.
Most of us living on my road have animals of some type. One neighbor had two Belgians. Unfortunately, something happened to one of them, leaving the other with no companion until suddenly a miniature horse appeared in the pasture! We’ve nicknamed the two of them Mutt and Jeff!
They are becoming good buddies and the little guy will actually stand under the Belgian!
Samson and Delilah are accepting that the weather is changing and they will be confined to their stalls. They’re fine as long as I visit them frequently and give them treats. They will call me with their braying if I go outside but don’t go to the barn. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs in reverse!
They bray, I go to the barn … who’s being trained here?
