MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

We have snow here in Floyd.  The girls are very happy.   It was not a lot of snow but hopefully enough for snow cream later today. 

I worked on aprons most of the day yesterday.  I made 4 little aprons and 2 adult size.  I made the adult one a little different and was able to get one child size and one adult size from one pillowcase.  

I made the back much shorter.  It just comes over the shoulder and that gave me enough extra material for the small waist apron. 

This one has a child one to match.  I didn’t take a picture of it because I didn’t get it completely finished yesterday.  I ran out of the white binding.

I was prowling around in the trunk where we store extra material the other day and found this veggie tales material.  There was not a lot of it but enough to make these two little aprons.  I think they are very cute.    Anyway, that was my day yesterday.  I wanted to make a few different styles of aprons to kinda get an idea for what sells the best. 

I cooked a deer roast on the wood stove yesterday for supper.  We had baked potatoes,  home canned green beans, fresh homemade rolls and home canned applesauce for supper.  It was very good.  I think today I will shred the deer roast and have deer bbq and fries.  I already have buns baking as I type this.  I made a buttermilk chocolate cake the other day so that will be our dessert.  It all sounds pretty easy.  There was not church today because of the snow so I think today is a take it easy kind of day.  I will leave you all with one more snow picture. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

I just love sunflowers.  I think they are so cheerful and fun.  These come up underneath the feeder and I think they add so much to the area.  The cats have played there so much though that a lot of them are drooping down to the ground.  They still look pretty though.

I have been kinda busy for the past few days.  As you all know, we went down to Jessica’s on Friday.  We had a great visit and enjoyed play time with the boys.  Then we went to pick the apples.  She didn’t have very many but we got what was on the tree.  I haven’t worked them up yet so no picture of pink applesauce.  On Saturday, we went to pick apples at Faye’s sisters house.  We ended up with about 4 bushel.  When we got home I started working on them.  I have told Faye all about our steam juicer and sauce maker.  She has been wanting to buy them for herself.  Sunday evening at church Gene (her husband) said he was going to buy them for her.  We met them yesterday morning in town at the Farmers Supply.  He bought the steam juicer, the sauce maker and a steam canner for her.  She was so excited.  We then went home with them and showed them how to operater their new equipment.  She had a 5 gal. bucket of apples to work up.  From that she got 2 qts of juice and 5 qts of applesauce.  It was a really fun day.  I really want one of those steam canners.  It takes my water bath canner about 1 hr. to start to boil.  The steam canner is ready in about 10-15 min.  Amazing.  We definitely would be saving on the amount of gas we use.    Hopefully, we will be able to get one soon.  Much faster and more economical.

I worked up some more of our apples yesterday evening after we came back from Faye’s house.  We will be working on them more today.  So far, we have 8 qts of applesauce and 4 qts of apple juice.   Grace has been taking some more pictures.  This is a picture of the sunset God gave us yesterday.

I forgot to tell you ladies about the nice weekend we had.  Remember Thursday evening I said temperatures were cooling off.  Well, Friday and Saturday morning the temperature when we got up was 58 degrees.  Can you believe that?  Then Sunday and Monday morning it was 61 degrees.  The highs for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were only in the mid 70′s.  Wonderful!!  Thank you Lord!!  Yesterday, it started warming back up and today I think it will be back to normal but it certainly was wonderful to enjoy a few fall-like days in summer.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would share a picture of my rolls.  Always before I have put them on a cookie sheet to bake.  When I do this, I get 13-15 rolls.  Over the weekend, I tried something different and put them into 3 round cake pans.  I get 21-24 rolls using these pans and I think they look and taste better.  Yesterdays supper was fried chicken, home canned corn, and gravy.  With of course, these rolls. 

We worked on the apples some more yesterday.  I canned this juice instead of freezing it.  Freezing it is much easier but, Praise the Lord, my freezers are getting full.  I have to save some space my the deer my Hubby will be getting.  Notice my positive thinking!  Anyway, we got 5 qts of juice and 2 qts of applesauce.  Hopefully, we will be doing more today. 

I am trying out a new recipe for apple muffins for breakfast.  Thanks Cheryl for sharing.  They have just came out of the oven.  I think I will go enjoy them.  Take care and God bless.

Here is a picture of my juicer/steamer in action.  Yesterday it was raining very hard.  It would have been difficult for me to go outside to do the juice.  Hubby set up the propane burner on our enclosed front porch.  It worked extremely well.  So much better than out in the shed.  We just opened up the windows for ventilation.  We got another 2 gal. of juice yesterday and 3 qts of applesauce and 4 qts of applebutter.  The mountain of apples is getting smaller now.  Soon we will be starting on the pears. 

I thought you all might enjoy another fall shot.  I snapped this as we were going down the road toward Floyd.  I thought maybe it would be blurred but it turned out nice, I think.  Today we will be working on more apples and school.  It is very foggy here today.  A dreary day.  A day for lighting candles.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Today we made something new!  I love doing new things.  We made apple cider.  After much research on the internet, we decided that what we were making is correctly called cider.   Cider is homemade apple juice that hasn’t been filtered.  Isn’t it such a pretty color.  We used the steamer/juicer to make it.  We got 3 qts of cider and 2 qts of applesauce from a little under a half bushel of apples.  We plan to do more tomorrow. 

The room is coming along nicely.  Hubby put another coat of mud on today.  It has rained here most of the day.  We really needed rain.  The sun started peeping through the clouds in late afternoon.  Alll in all it has been a nice day.  Temperatures around mid 50′s.  I spent the first part of the day running errands.  Not my favorite chore, but it has to be done. 

Time to cook supper.  Enjoy your evening and God bless.

I started first with fresh picked apples.  I sliced them, and put them into the microwave for about 10 min. or until tender.

Next, I put the apples through my Roma sauce maker.  A food mill will work too.  Then I put the applesauce into a pan and put them in the oven.  Sorry I forgot to get a picture of this step.  You can put them on the stove to cook or cook them overnight in a crockpot.  I use the oven method, but am thinking of trying the crockpot.  Here is my recipe that I use.  I got it from the Mennonite cookbook.

Apple Butter

1 gal. applesauce, 6 3/4 cup brown sugar (this can be adjusted to taste), 1 cup apple cider or vinegar, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves.  Mix ingredients together.   If using oven, put into an oven safe pot, bake at 350 degrees for 3 hrs.  stirring frequently.  I stir mine about every 30 min.  If using top of stove, cook on low for 1 1/2 hrs.  stirring much more frequently as the stove top method is more likely to stick to the kettle.  If using the crockpot method, put in the crockpot and cook overnight.  Stirring only occasionally. 

The result.  Beautiful applebutter.  I like this recipe much better than any other I have tried.  I have used a recipe that called for cinnamon red hots.  It makes the applebutter a red color.  We prefer the dark brown color.   This recipe is very friendly.  You can purchase store bought applesauce, use the crockpot method and it requires very little effort to have delicious applebutter.  You also can freeze this instead of canning it. 

Temperature here this morning is rather chilly.  Mid 40′s with clouds and rain.  No fog yet.  I guess I’ll be drying clothes inside today.  Take care and God bless.

We learned a valuable lesson yesterday.  First I’ll start on Friday evening.  As you all know we met at the pastor’s house to begin peeling apples for our apple butter.  We peeled 6 bushel.  We decided to put them in salt water overnight so they would not turn brown.

On Saturday morning about 8:00, we built the fire and loaded some of the apples into the kettle.  As the apples cooked down, we would add more to the kettle.

All day we took turns stirring the apples in the kettle.  Fun but hard work.  We had a wonderful day of fellowship with a great meal.  However, we did not get any applebutter.  Before we added the sugar, (Thank you, Lord) we decided to taste the applesauce.  YUCK!!!!!It tasted terrible.  We reviewed all we had done and came to the conclusion our mistake was soaking the apples in the salt water overnight.  The salt reacted with the cooper kettle and the apples were very bitter and metallic tasting.  We ended up throwing them away.  No applebutter, however, we did all have a GREAT time.  It was a lot of fun.  I would do it all again even with the same results.  We are talking about trying again maybe in Oct.  We’ll see. 

Today is a rainy day here in Floyd. No complaints though.   We really need the rain.  Kinda chilly.  Mid 50′s.  We are not having bible study tonight so I think today is a snuggle in and relax evening.  I hope your Sunday will be just as enjoyable.  God bless.

We were very blessed to have these peaches given to us.  They are called Saturn peaches or donut peaches.  These are very small and I was not really sure how to best use them.

As you can see, we had quite a few.  We decided to make something like an applesauce from them.  We used the food strainer.   We made a pie from our peach sauce yesterday to see how it would taste.  It actually was very good.   Hubby was home yesterday and he helped.  Thanks, Babe. 

Temperatures here are hot.  We are getting a small shower here  this morning.  Much needed.  However the sun is already back so it probably will get hot fast.  We are headed into town for piano practice.  I also need a few spices for the beets.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

We have lived here on the farm for 7 years.  This is the first snake we have ever seen.  There have been a few water snakes at the pond but never one close to the house.  Now I know this is a black snake and many people think they are good to have around.  I am not one of those people.  The only good snake I have ever seen is a dead one.  This snake was at the door to the canning building when Grace went to put the applesauce up.  She came running down and Dad went to the rescue.  Thanks Babe!  I think this is probably the biggest snake I have ever seen.  Now Shadow (our old dog) was resting in the shade when all this took place.  I guess he knew Hubby could handle it. 

The girls and I had fun at town today.  No great deals to write about though.  I saw a few dresses at Goodwill but nothing really caught our eyes.  The girls used their chore money to purchase a new game for the Nintendo DS.   They are really good about saving up their money to purchase things they want.  We think it is better for them to work for things like that, then they appreciate them more.  It teaches them how to manage their money, set goals and attain them.  Good life lessons. 

Enjoy your evening and God bless.