MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Hubby worked some more today on splitting wood.  He wanted to know why I took this picture of him splitting a toothpick, why didn’t I get him splitting a real piece of wood. 

Julie splitting her first piece of wood. 

Grace getting ready to split her first piece.  All girls need to know how to split wood.  After practicing splitting, we got busy and hauled all that Hubby had split into the wood building and stacked it up.  He almost has all the wood split that we have cut so we will soon have to cut more.  Oh the joys of heating with wood!  Seriously, it is a lot of work but it is definitely good heat and all it costs us is our work.  Not a bad trade in my opinion. 

We worked on school today, did some house cleaning.  The ladies will be coming tomorrow for bible study.  Supper tonight is baked spaghetti with lots of mozzarella cheese and home made garlic breadsticks.  We also have some cushaw pie left with whipped cream. 

Enjoy your evening 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?

Our Christmas cactus is blooming so beautiful this year.  It adds so much color to the room.  This plant was a gift years ago from one of the bible study ladies.  It is an easy plant to keep alive.

Today is ladies bible study.  We will be watching the movie “The book of Ruth”.  This will be the first time we have watched a movie on bible study day.  We thought that since we had just finished our study on Ruth it would be good to watch the movie as a little break before we start our new study next week.  I will also be busy making rolls for our thanksgiving meal at church.  I have never frozen the dough before so I hope it works out well.  I think I might make some cinnamon rolls to take also. 

We have sunshine here today.  A little cool but not too bad.  I think I will be able to hang our clothes outside to dry.   Enjoy your day and God bless.

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.

This little guy was playing hide and seek yesterday while we were at the park.  Hubby kept trying to get his picture and he would run away.  It was kinda fun trying to catch him in a good pose.  Finally, he just gave up and took the shot.  I think it turned out good.  This question is for Jess-Do you think this could be the one?  (It’s a long standing family joke) 

The sun is beginning to shine today so maybe we are done with the rainy, dreary days for a while.  I really want to hang my clothes outside today.  I have them in the machine in hopes of getting them out before the sun decides to hide behind the clouds.  Today we will be doing school, as usual, cleaning the house for bible study tomorrow, and hopefully finishes another sack of apples.  So I guess I’d better get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Here is another picture from our outing yesterday.  Such beautiful colors.  Today has been busy working on the new room.  We have the vinyl flooring down.  Now I should pause to say “where I come from”  we call this linoleum.  Here they call it vinyl flooring.  Anyway, it is down on the floor.  All the trim is cut, painted and on except for the window trim.  It is really starting to look like a room.  I will try to post a picture of it soon so you all can see our progress. 

We did not have ladies bible study today.  Two of the ladies were unable to come so we just decided to call it off.  Probably for the best, my house is a little cluttered right now.  Hopefully, soon it will all be finished and we can get everything back in order.  Today has been a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Nice temperatures, cool but not too much,  lots of sunshine.  We did have a fire all day which has felt really nice.  I cooked my first kettle of pinto beans on the wood stove today so I guess fall is officially here.  There is no better pinto beans than those cooked on a wood stove-in my opinion. 

Well, still more to get done.  Enjoy your evening and God bless.

Today will be a busy day.  We will be doing our bible study, then cleaning the church and of course, school.   This is our last week of cleaning until next August.  After we clean, we will  be going to a friend’s house to gather pears.  She has generously offered us all the pears we want.  Thank you, Becky.

Yesterday, we did school and then we had to go to C-burg to pick up a few things.  Our printer was out of ink, Hubby needed some banjo strings and some shells for the Saturday shoot.   Temperatures are still a little cool here but very beautiful.  Low 50′s, lots of wind and lots of sunshine.  I like that. 

Better get busy.  I am doing a applesauce pie for dessert today for the ladies.  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.

These pictures were taken just as the sun was coming up.  Isn’t it a beautiful color?  We certainly get some beautiful sunrises and sunsets here on the farm.  Today is ladies bible study day.  We will be beginning the study on Ruth by Kelly Minter.  It promises already to be a great study.  So many things she has pointed out just in the first week that I had never thought of.  I love studies like that.  They make me think and help me apply bible lessons to everyday life. 

This evening we will be going to the Pastor’s house to start our applebutter making.  I am looking forward to it.  I have never made applebutter outside before.  I think, though, it will be a lot of work.  This evening we will be eating sloppy joes, chips and cookies.  Tomorrow will be pot luck.  We need to be at his house by 8:00 a.m.  We will need to leave here by 6:45 to get there on time.   I hopefully will get lots of pictures to share.

I better get busy.  It’s almost time for the ladies to get here.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Daniel’s birthday cake.  He was very excited about his cake.  He loves “Cars” and especially “TowMater”.  (Hope I spelled that correct)

Daniel blowing out the big #3 candle.  My, but they sure grow up fast.

Friends playing at the party.  All in all I think he had a really fun day.

David, Jess and the boys are coming up tomorrow for a visit.  Our church will be  sponsoring  a clay shoot tomorrow.  David will be spending the day with Hubby at the shoot.  Julie and Grace are going to be with them.  Jess, myself and the boys will find something else to do-too much loud noise for little ears.  Sunday they plan on going to church with us.  This will be Sam’s first visit to our church.  MawMaw can’t wait to show him off.  After church we will be going to the Mennonite church for their annual hymm sing.  It is always such a blessing to go there.  Beautiful hymns!

Sunday night we will be starting our new bible study.  We will be doing John MacArthur’s study on II Corinthians.  Enjoy your evening and God bless.