MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Wineberries are starting to get ripe here in our area.  They grow wild however we are hoping to get a start of them this fall. 

I think they look a lot like red raspberries (maybe they are but folks here call them wineberries).  They have a tart taste.

Grace and I picking berries.

Julie picking.  We all wore our rubber boots in case we came across any unwanted critters.  Next time we will wear long pants as well.  We took some down to Sam when we went and he dearly loved them.  Daniel would not even try them.  As I have mentioned before, he is not a fruit eater.  Hubby is gone today with his brother down to Grundy.   His Mom has a couple of apple trees that need to be cut.  She was afraid they were going to fall on the power line.  

I plan on working on a few aprons today and maybe going back to pick a few wineberries.  I did make the pickles the other day but I didn’t add the squash.  I had enough cucmbers to do one batch so I just made them using all cucumbers.  I got 8 pts though instead of 6 as the recipe said.  They seem very similar to bread and butter pickles.  I think they will be very good.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

While the kids were up this weekend, we had a campfire Friday night.  We love doing campfires, smores, wieners-sometimes potatoes.  Sometimes we just sit and watch the fire.  So relaxing.  Grace took this picture for me and I thought you all might like a little campfire too.

Hubby and I have been busy today working on building a shelving unit for the new room.  All my stuff is just piled up on the floor in there.  Such a mess.  Hopefully, by tomorrow, it will look much neater.

I gathered quite a few cucumbers this morning and I am planning on making some pickles this afternoon.  I have to check my pantry and see if I have all the ingredients.  I got a new recipe from a friend of mine that I want to try out.  The recipe is:

Crispy Pickle Slices-   4 qts cuc. sliced, 1/3 cup salt, 6 med onions sliced, 4 cups sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. turmeric, 2 tsp. celery salt, 2 tsp. mustard seed, 4 cups vinegar.  Sprinkle sliced cuc. with salt.  Stir with hands until salt is dissolved.  Cover with crushed ice.  Let stand 3 hr.  Drain.  Add onion.  Mix remaining ingredients with vinegar.  Pour over drained cuc. & onions.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and gently cook for 5 min.  Makes 6 pts.

So now that you all have heard the recipe, I have a question.  Have any of you ever mixed squash and cucumbers together to make pickles?  I was thinking of doing that and just wondered if anyone else had tried it. 

Well, I better get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Just a few pictures today to show the progress of our upper garden.  It is finally starting to look like a garden.

We have been enjoying lettuce and onions for a while now.

The peas are starting to bloom.  I really love fresh garden peas.

These are the plants we started under the greenhouse.  We decided since we were not having much success transplanting them, we would just leave them where they were.  They seem to be doing great.

Cucumbers blooming.  I love fresh garden cucumbers.

Squash blooming.  I love fresh garden squash. 

A closer look at the cabbage.  I love fresh garden cabbage.   Can you tell  I just love ALL fresh garden food!!!!!

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Remember the rose bush up by the fence that had not bloomed yet.  Well, this is it.  It is full of tiny white bloom.  Very pretty.

I thought I would share with you all how my plants look.  This is what the cucumbers looked like before we transplanted them.

This is what they look like now and this is one of the better looking ones.  Oh well, live and learn.  I am going today to a local greenhouse and hopefully get some cucumber plants.  Yesterday, after school, the girls and I worked on weeded some of our flower beds.  We planted some cosmos seed, some columbine and some seeds that just said “cut flowers”.  It is a little late getting the seeds in the ground but I think they will still have time to make flowers.

Temperature here is beautiful.  70 with sunshine and a good steady wind.  I have clothes ready for the line and another load to wash.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Check out the size of this frog.  He is huge!  He was soaking up the sun yesterday afternoon in front of our car when we were leaving for piano practice.  We, of course, could not resist taking a picture of him.

Yesterday was a nice day.  Temperatures were in the lower 70′s with sunshine.  My plants looks (maybe) just a little better but I do not think they will make it.  The tomatoes look strong but the cucumbers look the worst.  The squash may be okay-not sure yet.  Lesson well learned.  I suppose it was too hot when I transplanted them.  Maybe if we had waited until the sun went down to transplant them, it would have made a difference.  Not sure.

We had a nice visit with the Horn’s yesterday.  We ate pizza and a strawberry crisp she had made from her fresh strawberries.  It was delicious.  We walked around her yard looking at all her flowers that were up.  Her chicks and ducks.  Everything.  I love doing that.  Just walking around with her looking and talking.  I am so thankful she is my friend.

We hope to finish science this weekend.  We are on our last definitions.  Today looks to be nice.  The sun is shining.  The garden is still too wet to work in but we have plenty of other things to do.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our plants are growing.  YEAH!  Today makes 2 weeks since we planted the seeds.  I think they are doing really well.

The tomatoes and peppers seem to be the slower growing.   The cucumbers and squash are the fastest.  The broccoli and okra are growing pretty fast too. 

Today is overcast and windy.  The temperature is 60 degrees though so that is very nice.  I have clothes on the line outside.  We worked on school yesterday and then went into the library and piano practice.   I found a book at the library.  It is written by Ree Drummond.  She has a blog www.thepioneerwoman.com If you have never been to her blog I am sure you would enjoy it.  She has some excellent recipes and many interesting stories.  The book I got at the library is about her and her husbands courtship and marriage.  I think it will be very good.

Time for school.  I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

This is Baby Emily, David’s neice.  She is a very hardy eater and seemed very content in Daddy’s arms.

Daniel and his cousin Zack riding bikes.  Zack is Emily’s older brother.

And baby Sam held prisoner in his walker.    We all had a lot of fun with lots of good fun.  Jess had ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and banana pudding.  YUM!

Yesterday we went to get the inspection sticker on my car and found out the tie rods ends were bad.  We had to make a run to C-burg to get new ones.   Hubby and his brother put them on yesterday evening.  We went back in this morning and got the inspection sticker.  Hubby still does not have his window fixed on the van.  This has given him much trouble.  He of course is trying to fix the old one instead of buying a new one.  For some reason, the wire is not winding up on the spool correctly. 

We are getting rain today.  Temperatures are warm though so it will be very good for everything.  The girls and I checked our seeds out yesterday underneath our greenhouse.  We have a few tomatoes coming up, cucumbers and broccoli.  Very exciting.   Well, our lunch break is over.  Time for school to start.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Fall must be quickly approaching Floyd.  The geese are back.  Lots of geese.  We counted at least 40 this morning on our pond.  They are very interesting to watch however they are quite loud.  I haven’t posted anything in a day or so as we have been really busy.  We went back to Jess on Monday and worked more on her bathroom.  It is started to look more like a bathroom now.    We were planning on going back tomorrow but they all have a cold so I think we will just stay here.  We went on a picnic today with good friends of ours at a little park here on the parkway.  We took the puppy so all the kids had a great time playing together(especially the puppy)

I wanted to show you this strange cucumber(yes it is a cucumber)  I raised it on the back porch in a large pot.  The plant did fairly well but this one is pretty strange.  I put some tomatoes and cucumbers in pots this year.  They did okay but required me to remember to water and I am not really good at this.  All in all though it was a good experiment.  Night has fallen here on the farm.  Katydids and crickets are making a joyful noise unto the Lord.  I think I will go out on my swing and enjoy.