Logging At Heartwood

We are on our fifth week of logging over by Minong where the the wind took down acres of trees last month. Loggers from all around are working here to harvest and salvage the downed timber.

Two of us families from church are living over here during the week right near the job. Our family is living in a rented cabin across the highway from Pear Lake. The other family parks their motor home in a state park near to the logging truck route he runs.
It is a lot of work to maintain two dwellings/lives.  Neither of us has a way to do laundry during the week on the job so we’re hauling our laundry home on the weekends for washing.  We haul food, clothing, and everybody’s projects back and forth from home to work and back again. It takes commitment and the willing help of the children to keep it happening week after week. And even then we all get tired of  the weekly rounds.
But we are not complaining. We’re having an adventure as well.  How else would we get to live by the lake? The landlords here have offered us the use of the paddle boats and the rowboat if we wish. Besides, Frances has staked out wild berries to pick. (Maybe berry picking doesn’t seem like much to you, but it means that we live in the woods proper as opposed to living in a village with trees but no privacy.) Wild berries make the best Mennonite cheesecake delight there is.

The biggest advantage of living next to the job is that Elv isn’t wasting precious family time driving an hour to work and home everyday. And fuel. But I get tired of talking about pinching and counting pennies so we’ll leave that subject alone.
Big news here is that the children have decided that this is as good a time as any to start school this year.  The two of them have spent the morning studying. 
Will it be worth it? Isn’t that always the question in life whether or not we pursue a living in conventional settings? Perhaps we measure success differently than the more mercenary.  We believe that if when it is over we have had quality family time, a collection of worthwhile memories and have made a living to boot, it will have been a success. (I sure hope to have a new computer, too, by that time.)
Berry Delightful Mennonite Cheesecake

• Wild Berries 4 cups
  
• Water 2 cup
  
• Sugar 1 cup
  
• Cook clear jel (I don’t know, enough to make it thick)
  
• oatmeal 4  cups or so
  
• brown sugar 1 cup
  
• butter 1 stick butter
  
• cream cheese (neufchatel makes a drier more stable product) 1 or 2 packs, depending on how much you like.
  
• powdered sugar couple TBLS
  
• whipped topping at least one  8 oz tub, more if you use 2 packs of cream cheese.

Mix brown sugar with the oatmeal ( blended or not as you wish) and pour melted butter over it and mix to make a crust. Press into a 9 by 13 pan and set aside.
Beat cream cheese with a little bit of powered sugar to make it smooth and beat in the whipped topping until it is a thick, almost not spreadable consistency.  Spread over the crust in a 3/4 inch layer with a table knife.  I dollop it on with a big spoon first and then spread.
But before making the crust or the cream cheese layer, boil the berries with water and sugar and thicken with clear jel and cool.  (You can add a packet of a complimentary flavor of Jell-O if you want more sweetness, flavor and a Danish consistency.
Please don’t ask me for more specific measures.  I usually just put it together and these amounts are a guess anyway.