MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

This picture of our grapevine was taken on April 12.  This is what it looked like last week.

It seems to be growing every day and full of baby grapes!

This makes me very happy.  I hope to make some jelly this year and lots and lots of grape juice!  We so enjoy having our own juice to drink.

Our weekend was a busy one.  I didn’t get to tell all about it on yesterdays post.  It was late and I was tired.  Anyway, on Friday, our church had a mother/daughter banquet.  It was lots of fun with about 25 ladies attending.  Then on Saturday, we had to go to Jessica’s to start working on some things her ins. agency said needed to be done.   After we got there, Hubby realized we would need the scaffold, so we came back home Saturday evening.  We went back down on Sunday and finished it up.  Jess, the kids, myself, Julie and Grace went to the Farmers Market on Sunday.  We had a great time just walking around looking at everything.  Okay, so I have to tell you, we rode Jessica’s van to the market.  7 of us.  We took the double stroller and the small stroller, plus, of course, all the other stuff you need for small kids.  Needless to say, her van was packed.  Then when we get there, the first thing Jess sees-2 HUGE hanging baskets, that would look just perfect on her front porch.  Now if you would like to have seen something funny, you should have been there in the parking lot watching us try to get all that stuff back in the van.  It really was hilarious!!  We finally did it though and didn’t even damage her new hanging baskets.  I guess we are just talented. 

Our lunch break is over and so I must get back to school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I took this picture this morning as Hubby and I were sharing our morning coffee on the front porch.  You all remember our glassed in front porch we worked so hard to redo not too long ago.  It definitely gets lots of use.  We have our morning coffee on it, the girls and I do school out there, we love it.

The Horn’s came over for a visit today.  I had to show Vicki our new chicks.  They are doing very well.  We were a little concerned the other morning when we got up our temperature was 17 degrees.  That was the actual temperature not the wind chill.  I went to check on them but they were all nice and warm under the heat lamp.   So I am hoping this means they are hardy little ladies. 

Yesterday was beautiful here.  Sunshine and temperatures in the upper 50′s.  Today we are getting some rain.  It is still warm though- upper 40′s.  I tried a new recipe for supper last night.  It is called Crockpot Teriyaki Pork.        I got the recipe from http://homesteadinghomemaker.blogspot.com/    It was very good.  I will definitely be making it again.  Sorry about the print being different.   I’m not sure what is going on. 

Lunch is over and time for school to start.  Enjoy your day and God bless. 

I am a keeper of old things.    This canister set belonged to my mom.   It is the only set I can remember her owning.  I love them.  When I open the lid to get flour, sugar, or whatever I am getting, it gives me much pleasure  to know she used it before me.  I have my mom’s cast iron skillet, my grandmother’s bread bowl and many more things that have been handed down.  They don’t have to have belonged in the family.  I just like old things.  I am always on the lookout at thrift stores or yard sales for things with character (older). 

Today has been windy and fairly chilly here in Floyd.  Without the wind, it would have been kinda nice.  We have sunshine and that is always good.  We did school as usual.  I did two loads of laundry.  One is drying on the front porch.  I don’t like to hang clothes on the line when we have a fire.  It always makes the clothes smell like smoke.  The other load I will put on the drying rack tonight and it will be dry in the morning.  I really enjoy using it. 

Time for me to get busy cooking supper.  We are trying a new recipe tonight.  I’ll let you all know if it is a keeper.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I love dirt roads.  Yes, for those of you who live or have lived on a dirt road, you are probably thinking that I’m a little bit crazy.  Well, yes, I am that but I do think dirt roads have a yesterday feel to them.  Forget about the fact that your vehicle is always dirty, either with dust or with mud.  They just have a slower type atmosphere about them, which I love.

Yesterday, we went to play with the boys while Jess went to the doctor.  She and Katie are both doing well.  Time is ticking down for them, just a few more weeks to go.  Well, I’m going to tell you all, those boys sure know how to pull on MawMaw’s heart strings.   I made the comment that it was getting time to go and Sam immediately wants MawMaw, following me everywhere, wanting me to hold him.  Daniel doesn’t want us to leave either.  We finally get out the door and I am almost to the car when Daniel opens the back door and says “MawMaw, I wish you could just stay forever and ever.”  I tell you, I sure love those boys.   They will be coming up this weekend.  Saturday, our pastor is having a men’s shoot at his house.  David and Hubby will be going to that.  

I will leave you all with a sunrise picture Grace took the other morning.  She was standing on our front porch when she took it.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Today, I made hot pepper jelly.  This is a favorite of ours.  We serve it with cream cheese and Ritz crackers.  When I take it to church on Sunday night, it goes super fast.  I did not have enough hot peppers to make it but the pastor’s wife gave me enough.  I have been so blessed this year.  Even though our garden did not do as well as I would have liked, others have given us so much.  Anyway, the recipe I use is on the sure-jell  recipe instruction pamphlet.  I guess the only different thing I do is that I put the pepper mixture into the blender and pulse  instead of trying to chop them up finely.  I’m lazy that way.  I always put the hot pepper jelly in half pint jars.  I did not have enough empty ones so I bought a dozen yesterday at Wal-Mart.  I think they are soooo cute, don’t you?  The lids came with them. 

Saturday, we did go with the Horn’s to Paint Bank.  However, I forgot the camera.   For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, this probably does not come as a surprise.  What might surprise you though, is that Vicki forgot their camera too.  We did take a few pictures with the phone but I am not sure how to get them off.  Well, anyway, we went to the fish hatchery, to the general store, ate lunch at the Swinging Bridge Restaurant (which was way over priced in our opinion), saw the buffalo, and walked around some at the campground.    It was such a fun day.

Yesterday, we went to Sam’s.  It rained off and on all day and then in the evening the heavy rains came.  We have probably gotten over 5 inches.  Our power was off for about 5 hours.  We lit some candles and went out to the glassed in front porch.  Hubby played guitar for us and we told the girls stories of when we were young.  It was fun.   We are still getting heavy rain in spurts.  We really needed rain-just not the whole years worth in one day. 

I also wanted to share this soup recipe with you all.  Our local supermarket sells a 15 bean soup mixture.   They have it with the dried beans. The brand they carry is  http://www.hurstbeans.com/.  I follow the instructions on the back of the bag (kinda).  Well, I did cook the beans like it said.  I added kielbasa sausage to it and a can of my homemade salsa.  I used a qt of our fresh canned tomatoes.  I then added some potatoes, corn, peas, and spinach to it.  It is a really good hearty soup and fairly inexpensive.    It is really good without adding the veggies.  Either way you like it.  I have made it with hamburger, ground turkey, whatever I have on hand.  It is also good without any meat but Hubby is a meat eater.   We serve it with hot cornbread. YUM!  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I do not use the ham powder base that comes inside the bag of beans.  Just my personal preference.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

This is an old barn that is at our pastor’s house.  I love old things, even old barns.  Yesterday we worked with the corn.  We got it all shucked.  We put some up in the freezer on the cob and some we are cutting off the cob. We will be finishing working it up today and then we will start on the peaches.

Our temperature this morning was 50 degrees.  Amazing!  All indications are that we will have an early fall.  Yesterday, we noticed the geese were forming groups.  Several groups flew over with about 40 geese in a group.  They were flying in the “V” formation.  So pretty!  This is another picture from our pastor’s house.  I hope I don’t bore you all too much with these but the girls took lots of pretty pictures at his house that I want to share with you all.

This is the view from his front porch.  Lovely!  Well, our little break is over so I guess I should get busy.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Very exciting news here today.  We got our first egg!  I guess maybe we need to get out more, if just getting an egg gets us this excited.  But we think it is beautiful.

Well, we finally got the pink apples worked up today.  This is what they looked like when we cut them up.

They are so pretty.  Remember last year, we purchased the steam juicer and the Roma sauce maker.  They have been so helpful already this year.  We just quartered the apples, no peeling necessary.  Put them in the steam juicer and let them cook.

This is what the juice looks like.  Such a beautiful color.  We got 5 pts of juice.  The juice is concentrated.  For every pint you get a quart of juice. 

Then after the apples cooked in the steam juicer we ran them through the sauce maker.  We got 6 pts of applesauce.  Thanks so much, Donna, for sharing these with us.    We are working on peaches now.  They are canning as I type.  We saved the peelings from the peaches.  We are going to put them in the steam juicer and make juice from them.  I like the fact that there is hardly any waste. 

Remember how I said last weekend was unusually cool here.  Well, I can hardly remember that now.  It has been HOT all week.  I know not as hot as many of you but still hot.    Temperatures have been in the 90′s outside and about that hot inside our house.    I am so thankful to a blogger friend who gave me the idea of using a propane unit to do our canning on.  We put it on the front porch and it makes such a difference keeping the house a little cooler.  Most of the heat is out there not in the kitchen.  

Well, we better get busy doing some cleanup.  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.

Yesterday, while in town, we visited our local greenhouse.  We bought some cabbage plants and this tomato.  See the bloom at the top.  Hopefully, we will get tomatoes early from it.  I put it in a bucket (dry wall ) and as of now it is on the front porch.  I plan on moving it out on the front deck, then moving it back in a night.  For  today it will probably stay on the porch-too windy outside.  I tried to leave it out some yesterday but the wind kept blowing it over. 

The other day when my brother in law came, he brought us over some morel mushrooms.  It was a very nice treat.  These grow in the wild and are only available in early spring.  Some people call them  dry land fish.    Anyway, after eating the ones he brought us we decided to go looking for some here.  Hubby thinks it is still a little too early for here but we had a lot of fun looking.  It was so nice to get out in the woods and walk around. 

Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

The front porch is finished.  I wanted to show you the finished product.  I’m not sure the picture does a good job of showing it or not.

I rolled the blinds down some so you all could see them too.  When we do school out here, we roll them down some to eliminate the glare.  They also help keep it cooler in the summer.  We now have cleaned and mopped the floor and returned all the furniture to the porch.  It is so nice.  Thanks, Hubby.

Yesterday was spent down at Jessica’s watching the boys while she went for her ultra sound.  She saw the heart beat so all is well in Mama’s world.  She is 8 weeks and her due date is Nov. 9th.  Very close to Grace’s birthday.  Today will be catch up at school and getting the house cleaned for tomorrow’s bible study.  It is my turn for dessert and I am planning on making cinnamon rolls.  We are going over to the Horn’s tomorrow evening to eat and visit with them.  I am making enough cinnamon rolls to take over there as well. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.