MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Hello everyone!  Sorry that I haven’t posted as much as usual.  Things just seem busy here right now.  Anyway, yesterday evening the Lord gave us this beautiful rainbow.  If you look close you can see it was a double rainbow but the one on the left is fading.  This picture was taken at the top of our driveway. 

Yesterday, we went to help Hubby on the job site.  It is coming along nicely.  After school, the girls were entertained by this guy.  He and a few of his buddies were very busy in the walnut tree.

We did get some much needed rain yesterday evening.  The garden is all in, however, the birds have already discovered it and destroyed about 1/3 of the tomato plants.  They love the tender young leaves so all that is left is the stem.  Has anyone else experienced this problem?  Any solutions?

Hubby has been working all week on my car.  He has replaced the rotors on the front and today we picked up rotors for the back.  I am so thankful he knows how to do all this.  His knowledge saves us lots of money.  Well, I will leave you ladies with a picture of the purple flowers that are blooming everywhere here.  I don’t know the name of them but we think they are beautiful.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Some of you all might remember this picture from last year.  Last year’s post was titled “Snowball bloom” because it only had one bloom on it.  This year it looks like this.

It has lots and lots of bloom on it. 

Today is foggy here.  Very damp.  I was hoping to hang clothes outside on the line to dry but I don’t think that is going to happen.  It is fairly warm though-55 degrees.  We are working on school this morning.  Then I have an appointment to get two tires put on the car and get an inspection sticker.  I guess that will fill up my afternoon.  By the time I get back it will be time for supper.  We are having homemade soup this evening with grilled cheese sandwiches.  I used the remainder of the  pork that I cooked Saturday for the soup.  the girls and I are having chocolate gravy for lunch.  It is one of their favorites. 

Well, it is time for me to go check math problems.  I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

We’ve been busy getting the little chicks new home ready for them.  They are growing so fast.  They have outgrown their little coup and are in need of a bigger home.  We decided this building would work great for them.    It was a metal shed we built several years ago to store the lawn mower in.  It needed planks on the inside to keep it warm in the winter.  The girls and I put them up Friday evening.  Then this morning, we all went out and got started fixing the front.  It now has a nice door and a window and is fully enclosed.  All we lack now is making some nests for them and putting up the fence and building the gate.  Okay, so that sounds like we lack quite a bit but we are one step closer now than we were yesterday.  You can see one of the old hens in front of the house.  They were so curious as to why we were blocking off the shed as it is one of their favorite places to take a dust bath. 

Today was cool here.  Temperatures were in the high 40′s-lower 50′s.  We wore light jackets all day while we were working.  We came in and ate supper.  I knew today would be a long day outside working so this morning I put some pork in the crockpot and some pinto beans in another crockpot.  All I had to do when we came in was fry some potatoes and make cornbread.  I then decided to build a fire as it was about 60 degrees in the house.  We are nice and warm now.  There is just something very comforting about a wood fire.  So relaxing.

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

Hello ladies!  Just a quick post to let you all know we are getting snow.  It has been snowing here all morning.  Nothing has laid on but it sure is pretty to look at.   Temperature is 32 degrees with lots of wind.  Feels like winter not spring. 

Well, I am off to help Hubby.  He is already on the job site waiting for me.  School is almost finished.  The girls will do history after lunch.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I wanted to share with you all this picture of Miss Katie.  She is all dressed up on her way to her cousin’s birthday party.  Ain’t she cute?

The girls and I will be going with Hubby today so this will be a very short post.  I have lots and lots to get done in a short amount of time when we go with him.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I heard about this jelly for the first time last year however I did not get to try making it.  Our dandelions are popping up everywhere so yesterday the girls and I gathered some blossoms.  We picked all the green off however I forgot to get a picture of that.  We then poured boiling water over the petals and let it steep overnight.

It isn’t very attractive at this stage.  I must admit this was a time consuming jelly.  It took a while to get the green off the bloom.  The end result though is beautiful in the jar.

This picture doesn’t really show how pretty it is.  Every thing I have read about this jelly says it tastes like honey.  We tasted it when it was hot and it DID taste like honey.  Amazing!  You can read more about dandelion jelly here http://theblessedhearth.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-jelly-recipe.html  She also has a recipe for apple blossom jelly that I am thinking about trying. 

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

Yesterday evening the girls and I planted 6 fruit trees.  Grace dug every hole.  She was very excited about getting fruit trees.  As you can see, she has  good helpers- the cats and the chickens.

And, of course, our ever faithful Shadow.

We planted an asian pear, bartlett pear, plum tree, golden delicious apple tree, golden transparent apple tree, and a nectarine tree.  We hope to get 2 cherry trees in April.  While we were working on the trees, Hubby was busy trimming the blackberries.

It was a nice, productive evening.   After we finished planting, we went to get the clothes off the line and a huge flock of geese flew directly over our heads to land in the field.  Of course, we had already put the camera up so I couldn’t get a picture.  It would have made a beautiful picture though. 

Today will be school as usual.  Hopefully, with more outside work afterward.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Hello Ladies, it has been another busy week for us.  Monday we went with Hubby to the job site.  This is a picture of one of the rooms he is working on.  He has gutted all the upstairs and  Monday we put the new subflooring down in 2 of the rooms. 

He put these on the rafters upstairs to give them extra support.  This is a very old house (over 100 years old).  He will be running new electrical throughout the house, hanging sheetrock, lots of updates.  We are VERY thankful to the Lord for this job.  It is the biggest job he has had in several years. 

We took our school books and when the girls had finished with school they wanted to go exploring.  

Then on Tuesday, Grace had an eye doctor appointment in Salem.  This usually takes all day.  It takes about an hour to get there from our home.  Wednesday, we did school in the morning and then went to help Hubby again.  Today, we went back to Salem to pick up Grace’s eye glasses prescription and then made a trip to Rocky Mount Wal-Mart to get the prescription filled.  Tomorrow we are going down to Jessica’s.  A week spent on the road. 

It has been warm here this week.  A beautiful week for being outside.  We slept last night with our bedroom window open a little.  I love falling asleep listening to the frogs.  We are getting rain now.  The rain and the warm temperatures will get everything blooming and greening up.  So exciting!  I hope you all have a great evening 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. 

Hello ladies.  I had intention of having pictures to go along with this post but somehow managed to completely forget to take any.  Sorry.  Anyway, yesterday the girls and I attempted something new for us.  We rendered fat into lard.  What I thought would be fairly easy, of course, WAS NOT.  Things are usually more difficult the first time you try to do it so we are hoping-if- we try it again it will go smoother.  First off, we tried to do it on the propane burner we use for canning.  We couldn’t turn it down low enough without it going out.  Then we put it into the crockpots.  That went better.  We have 3 crockpots.  We filled them up and let them simmer for about 5 hours.  Then we strained the fat through a colendar and a cheesecloth.  We then had enough to fill 2 crockpots with fat and start the process again.  We finished last night about 8:00 P.M.  Long day.  I’m not really positive we did it right though.  I was probably about 14 the last time we butchered a hog and my Mom was in charge of rendering the fat.  I think I should have paid more attention. 

Then today we went to Jessica’s and attempted to make soap.  Key work, attempted.  We have made soap before with lard purchased from the store but not rendered lard.  For some reason, we could not get the soap to trace.  We finally just poured it into the molds and said a prayer.  We’ll see how it turns out.  We made regular lye soap and a laundry soap bar.  Even if it doesn’t turn out, we sure had a lot of fun doing it.  I’ll keep you all posted on the outcome.

Well, it’s been a long two days and I am tired.  I hope you all have a great evening.  God bless.