MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

The ducks and the geese were in the yard together this morning.  Look how much they have grown.  The mama duck has 5 babies that have survived.  One goose is missing.  We are hoping it is not mama or papa.  From what I can understand they mate for life.  If something has happened to one of them it would mean no more babies, which would be very sad.

Our VBS has been a lot of fun so far.  2 more nights to go.  Thursday night is family night.  We went with Hubby yesterday.  He had a little repair job at this house on Claytor Lake.  We worked on school while he did the job.  Then we went down to the lake for a picnic.  It was a nice day.  I, of course, forgot the camera so no beautiful lake pictures.

Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Temperature is in the lower 70′s as of now.  The sun is shining and we have a slight breeze.  Very nice.  We are hoping for nice temperatures this weekend as Dave, Jess, and the boys are coming up.  We hope to go into town on Saturday night and watch the fireworks. 

I have clothes ready for the line so I better get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday was our second annual horseshoe pitching picnic.  I thought I would share a few pictures with you all.  We had a great time with lots of good food (of course), good fellowship and good music.   I think that hammock is calling my name!

A few of the people sitting around enjoying themselves.

What do you think he might be looking at?

Deer, right across the river from where we were. 

The creek.

The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day. 

Our VBS starts tonight.  The girls will be playing the music all 5 nights.  Julie is in charge of the games tomorrow night.  When did my babies become workers instead of just participants?  Well, it does this mama’s heart good to see them serving the Lord. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Here’s a picture of the little kitten the girls have decided to give lots of love to.  He is the runt of the liter.  His mother is one of the wild cats that stay here but he is anything but wild.  He is definitely a people kitty.  He loves being where we are and will come running when they call his name.  His mother’s name is Mexico so they decided to call him Oklahoma-Okie for short.  We have been feeding him special food hoping he will catch up to his brothers and sisters. 

I have a whole chicken in the crock pot for supper.  I tried a new recipe that I found online.  This is the first time I’ve tried it so I’ll have to let you know if we like it but it smells delicious.  I think I have mentioned before I want to try out new crock pot recipes more this summer.  Hopefully, it will mean easier for me and less heat in the kitchen.  Along with the chicken we will be having stir fry veggies-fresh from our garden.  Squash, zucchini, green onions and peas.  YUM!!  The recipe is as follows. 

• 4 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 large roasting chicken
• 1 cup chopped onion 

1.  In a small bowl, combine the spices.
2.  Remove any giblets from chicken and clean chicken.
3.  Rub spice mixture onto the chicken.
4.  When ready to cook, put chopped onion in bottom of crock pot.
5.  Add chicken. No liquid is needed, the chicken will make it’s own juices.
6.  Cook on low 4-8 hours.

Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Temperature is about 72 degrees right now.  We have a strong breeze and the sun is shining.  We got a little rain last night which our plants really appreciated.  I have clothes to hang on the line.  My girls are doing school on the front porch.  My Hubby is at work and our supper is cooking in the crockpot.  God is SO good.  I am indeed a truly blessed woman. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

This cat’s name is Panther but somehow Grace started calling him Pan-Pan and now everyone  calls him that.  He is a very loving and playful cat.  Here he is thinking about “attacking” another cat that is walking by.

We seem to be on the mend here.  Grace (I think) is almost over it and Julie is feeling better than she was.   Hopefully we will soon be completely better.   Jess had planned on coming up this week with the boys and spending a few days with us while David is gone on a business trip.   This won’t be happening now.  Oh well, we hope to go down on Easter Sunday to spend the day with them.   Yesterday was a beautiful day here.  We had sunshine and warm temperatures after the fog lifted.  Today is slightly overcast but the temperature is warm.  I have clothes on the line outside to dry.  Our birds are singing beautifully.  I think it will be a nice day. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our grapevine. You can see another smaller “brash” pile in the second garden.   We are hoping to have lots and lots of grapes this year.  Now that we have our steamer juicer, we are looking forward to making lots of grape juice .   We certainly did enjoy the apple juice we made last year.  I want to experiment with other types of fruit to make juice.

Today is another beautiful day here in Floyd.  Very windy though, as usual.  Temperature is already in the 50′s.  Forecast is for rain over the weekend.  I was hoping for sunshine and warm temperatures but I know we did rain too.   The ladies will be coming in a little bit.  We are planning on doing some more outside work after our study is finished.  The girls work on school while the ladies and I are doing our bible study.    We are working on a surprise outside which I will show you all when we get it finished. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Tired of buying this out of the store?  Well, today Jess and I came across a recipe to make our own.  We found it in our Mennonite cookbook.   I needed to make sausage balls for our thanksgiving meal and of course my store bought bisquick mix was out of date.   I will  be making this mix today but I felt confident enough in Mrs. Shank’s recipe to post it without trying it first.  I very seldom do that but every recipe I have tried from this cookbook has been excellent.  I feel confident this one will be also.   The recipe is:

8 cups all purpose flour, 1/3 cup baking powder, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp salt, 1 1/2 cups dry milk powder.  Mix together thoroughly.  2 cups vegetable shortening.  Cut in until mixture is fine uniform crumbs.  Store in airtight container in cool dry place.  Yield  13 cups mix which makes 45-50 biscuits.  To make biscuits, blend together 3 1/2 cups mix and 2/3 cup water.  Stir just until liquid is mixed into the dough.  Form into a ball and knead slightly.  Pat or roll out to 1/2″ thickness.  Cut with biscuit cutter.  Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 min.  Makes 12 large biscuits.

Temperatures are nice here today but the clouds are moving in.  I have clothes on the line, hoping they will dry.  Yesterday was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine.  I certainly am enjoying these warm temperatures.  I was looking on our calendar.  Last year on Dec. 5th we had our first snow and it snowed all winter.   It was a beautiful but hard winter.  I wonder what the Lord has in mind for this winter.

Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

One of the things I am taking tomorrow for our thanksgiving meal at church will be these rolls.  I froze them ahead of time and have been baking them all day today.  The one difference I have noticed is that the frozen dough did not rise as much as it would if it had not been frozen.  They taste the same though and I guess thats what counts.  I am also making cinnamon rolls to take.  Not sure what else yet.  After our meal, the youth of our church will go shopping.  Every year they get two  ”angels” from the angel tree.  A boy and a girl.  Each family in the church contributes $5.00.  Then the youth go shopping.  They boys buy for the boy and the girls buy for the girl.  It is a very nice tradition.  Our youth really look forward to going.   One year, they were shopping and picked out something they wanted to buy and they were a little short on the  money needed to buy it.  One of the boys said he had some extra from a job he had done that week.  He gave the extra so they could purchase the item.  I love that.   Children being raised to give generously and without expecting anything in return. 

Yesterday I had a WONDERFUL surprise.  Jessica and Sam came up for a visit.  I did not know they were coming.  They just walked in the door.  I was so happy.  Daniel and David were at home.  She stayed until after lunch.  The bible study ladies had not gotten to see Sam yet.  It was a great surprise.  Have I mentioned I love happy surprises?

Beautiful day here in Floyd.  Very nice temperatures with lots of sunshine.  A great day for being outside.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday I had a WONDERFUL surprise.  Jessica and Sam came up for a visit.  I did not know they were coming.  They just walked in the door.  I was so happy.  Daniel and David were at home.  She stayed until after lunch.  The bible study ladies had not gotten to see Sam yet.  It was a great surprise.  Have I mentioned I love happy surprises?

This is one of our new kitties.  You may remember there are 3 of them.  The other two were being shy.   This one the girls call Fuzzy Wuzzy.  I wonder why.  He is so chubby and fuzzy he waddles when he walks.  Very cute.

Today has been a beautiful day here in Floyd.  All week has been really, really nice.  The mornings have been pretty chilly-mid 20′s.  The days however have warmed up nicely with lots of sunshine-low 60′s.  Amazing!  We have hung our clothes outside on the line all week.  How good is that!  Almost mid November and this warm.  I like it.

Today was ladies bible study day.  We finished our study on Ruth.  Our next study will be on Women Who Believed God.  It looks like it will be a very good study.  I always love starting a new study.  I think it is so exciting.  I can hardly wait to see what the Lord will reveal to us.

Lots to do so take care and God bless.

For many years, I have thought about trying to make one of these.  However I have always been intimidated by the idea of rolling it up.  I’m not sure why as I make many other things that need to be rolled.  Anyway, today was the day I put my fears behind me and tackled it.  Guess what?  It was not near as difficult as I thought it would be.  With a little practice, I think it would even be easy. 

Today is an absolutely beautiful day here in Floyd.  Temperatures are in the mid 60′s. Lots of sunshine.  Just beautiful!  I can hardly wait to get my stuff finished and get out in this wonderful weather.   Yesterday I cooked a large pork roast in the crockpot.  We had pork roast, cheesy potatoes and pinto beans.   Tonights menu will be pork bbq with homemade buns, home fries and slaw.   I think there will be enough pork left over for burrittos tomorrow night.  I like to do this.  Cook a large amount of meat and then use it in several different ways for supper over the next few days.  This speeds up cooking time in the evening. 

I think I need to get busy.  My “green swing” is lonely and needs me to come keep it company.  God bless.

This pretty little stream runs through one of the fields below our house.  A few blue flowers are still holding on.  Yesterday was  a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Today however we may get some rain.  Pretty windy and overcast.  The pastors sermon yesterday was on David and Goliath and facing the giants in our own life.  It was an excellent sermon.   Last nights menu was mostly leftovers from the “critter chompin”.  We had a cornbeard casserole, potato cakes, green beans, baked beans, fresh homemade bread, chips and dip, and cake.  We always eat sooooo good!

Today, hopefully, we will get some more of our apples worked up, along with school.   I am doing laundry but it will have to be dried inside-so sad.  I really miss hanging clothes outside.  I think they smell so good.  Well, I better get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.