Yesterday morning we awoke to this.  Ice was everywhere.  We think the fog froze as we had lots of fog.  It was slippery here but once we got on the road it was fine.  We awoke this morning to sleet.  YUCK!  Thankfully, the temps warmed up enough to melt the sleet before Hubby left for work.  The rest of the day so far has lots of rain and fog but no sleet.   The girls and I had planned on going to Sam’s today but we have postponed that trip until later in the week,  for just in case.    I do not want to take a chance on running into  slick roads.

We have  been doing school today and, of course,  a little house cleaning as well.  Supper tonight will be beef roast with potatoes and carrots and homemade rolls (which I better get busy making).  I will leave you all with one more picture.  This was taken yesterday about 5:00 p.m. while we were on our way to church.  Still a little icy with a little fog. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday morning, we had a beautiful start to our morning.  I love sunrises and sunsets. 

After church, we came home to eat lunch.  We had hamburgers on homemade buns and fries.  We ate as quickly as possible and left for town to watch the Christmas Parade.  The parade is a big deal here in Floyd.  Lots and lots of people come to watch and participate.  Here are just a few pictures Grace took.

There are lots of old cars.

Marching bands.

Floats and

wagons pulled by horses.  We had a great time!   The girls are already anticipating next year’s parade.  We have rain here today with fog.  Not a good day for doing anything outside.  Hubby is working on the bed but he has to do it inside his shop.  He doesn’t have a lot of room in there so he doesn’t like to work inside.  He is getting very close to being finished however he still does not have his brakes fixed on the van.  He has taken the wheel off several times and did different things to it but it is still sticking.  He wanted to replace the wheel cyclinder today but it is just too wet to work on it.  Hopefully, this will fix it. 

Today, I made a spice tea mix.  I got the recipe from Nadine at http://nadinesnook.blogspot.com/  She also posted a recipe for chai tea mix that I want to make.  These will  make excellent gifts.   Well, our lunch break is almost over.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would share this picture with you all.  This is  the view from our front yard.  Our God certainly loves color! 

Not much going on here today.  Just the normal stuff-school, laundry, lunch.  We have had rain and fog this morning.  The rain has stopped and the fog seems to be lifting.  Hopefully, we will soon see lots of sunshine.  Everything is a soggy mess right now.

 I think I’ll go have a cup of pumpkin spice coffee with my Hubby.  I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

Some pictures of the area we went to Sunday for our picnic.  The rocks formations are very pretty. 

They have lots of picnic tables set up all around the picnic area.  We hope to go back soon when everything is not so wet.

Being wet, however, did not stop adventures.  Daniel had a wonderful time playing.  Today is wet still.  We had lots of rain pass through last night and it is still extremely overcast with fog.  A little chilly  this morning, mid 40′s.  I think the rain makes it feel much chillier.  We are working on school today.  We are almost finished with history and science.   YEAH!  Well, I better get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

We have a very small snowball bush that was given to us last year by a friend from church.  I was not sure it would survive the winter but it did and now has one beautiful bloom on it.  It also has several new starts coming up from the root.  Next year we are hoping for lots of bloom.

Yesterday the girls and I went to big town.  We needed chicken feed and a few other things.  We went to Books-A-Million, which is a big treat for us.  We used to have one in Christiansburg but they moved to Blacksburg.  The girls had some money they had been saving.  They each bought a new book with their money.  I found this documentary in the bargain DVD basket.   I am thinking of using it some for next year’s history course.

We have had several days of fog and rain.  Today, though, the sun is peeking through the fog.  Hopefully the weekend will be nice.  Dave, Jess, and the boys are supposed to come up for the weekend.  Our church is having a clay shoot tomorrow.  Dave is going with Hubby to shoot and the rest of us are going to a big yard and craft sale here in Floyd.  We hope to picnic Sunday and celebrate Hubby’s birthday.

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.

Yes, I know, I have another bird picture but I couldn’t help myself.  He and the Mrs. come every morning to our catawba tree.  They swoop down get a bite of something and go back up to their limb.  It is always entertaining to watch.  Sorry about the flash glare that is present in his eye.  I did not know how to correct that.  Anyway, the picture shows how brilliant his color his.

We had some major storms come through here last night.    Jess called to tell us we had a tornado warning for our area.  Thank the Lord, that didn’t happen.  We did have lots of lightning and some rain.  This morning is calm but the fog is very thick.  Grace tells me she likes fog so today will be her kind of day.  We are supposed to go do our annual spring cleaning at church today.  I’m not sure if we will still be doing it or not.  We could clean inside but I don’t think we will be doing any outside cleaning. 

Yesterday we went to pick up Grace’s new glasses.  We did a little shopping in Sam’s and then came on home.  I didn’t want to overdue as Grace is still not back to 100 percent.  Hopefully today she will be feeling much better.  I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

Today started out with ice and lots of fog.  Finally the fog has lifted and the ice is all gone.  We are enjoying some much needed sunshine. 

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.

Look how much the baby geese have grown.  

Learning how to follow in a line.

They have grown so much.  I guess I didn’t realize how fast they would grow.  They wonder all around in the fields and even sometimes in the yard.  Very cute.

We also have other new babies.  The girls found these yesterday in one of our outbuildings.  I’m not sure who their momma is but they are very cute.

Fog came in this morning.  If you look very closely you can see the geese on the pond.  Now you can’t even see the pond.  Very foggy.   Very dreary but good for the plants I put in the garden yesterday.  Yesterday was a very busy day.  When I was young, my mom would use the term “wash day”.  I understand this term better now.  On a wringer washer, doing lots of laundry  literally is a full day of work.  I filled up all my clotheslines twice. LOTS of laundry.   Included in this full day, I also put all the vegetable plants we had purchased in the garden.  Hopefully we are done with frost.   Last night was Team Kids at church.  Next Wednesday is party night as this will be the last week until fall.  Tomorrow we will finish up our Esther study by Beth Moore.  This has been a very good study.  I highly recommend it.  Our Ladies Friday Study will be doing I Corinthians by John MacArthur next.  After that, I want to do Beth Moore’s study on Revelation.   Is anyone familiar with it?  I have looked at it at Lifeway but I would like to get feedback from someone who has done it.  Our Corinthians study is 12 weeks so I have a while to decide.  Better get busy.  Take care and God bless.