MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Yesterday was a fun day.  At the spur of the moment, we decided to travel down to Grundy and visit Hubby’s parents.  We took food for lunch.  We took canned beef, green beans, corn, and peaches.  We also dug some potatoes, gathered some tomatoes, cabbage and grapes.  This was a special treat for them as they are no longer able to raise a garden.  While we were there, she gave me some more empy canning jars.  This way hopefully we won’t have to buy any to finish up the canning.

She does have, though, growing on her hill a huge cushaw vine.  This is one of the hidden treasures it contains.  I really like cushaw, probably more than pumpkin.  I think it makes a better pie than pumpkin.  We really had a good visit.  We  took the scenic route home.  I’ll post some of those pictures hopefully tomorrow.

Today will be spent catching up and enjoying the day.  We will be starting school next Monday, so this is kinda our vacation week.  Take care and God bless.

This is a picture of our church.  It is a very small church that is out in the country.  My kind of church.  Today the pastor’s message was about what makes up a church.  It was a very good message. 

This is the view from the backside.  Isn’t that grapevine pretty?  You can’t really see it but there is a nice garden behind the grape vine and over to the right is a nice small orchard with apples, pears, and plums.  A very nice setting.

We came home from church and for lunch we had homemade bbq using the  rolls Grace and I made yesterday for the buns.  We also had fresh corn from the garden and I made a macaroni salad.  For dessert we had the applesauce muffins we made yesterday.  Tonight’s menu at church will be pigs in a blanket, chicken casserole, green beans, potatoes, with pie and a cake for dessert.  Tonight will be our last lesson on I Corinthians.  We will start II Corinthians on Sept. 19. 

Today has been another nice day here in Floyd.  Temperature right now is 82 degrees with a slight breeze.  Very enjoyable.  Time for me to go enjoy some of that nice weather.  God bless.

Our blackberries are doing much better than I thought they would.  Today makes 3 gal. I’ve picked. YUM!

Yesterday we finished the pears.  Later, we went up to the garden and SURPRISE!  Lots of beans were ready.  We canned 15 quarts and had enough for dinner and lunch today.  

Tomorrow we will be going down to Jessica’s.  Sam has a doctors appointment so the girls and I will be playing with Daniel.  Jess is going to make supper for us before we come back home.  Last night’s menu was fried chicken, green beans, and rice.  We had cantalope and watermelon for dessert.  It certainly has been hot here for the last few days.  Hotter than usual I think.  Oh well, fall will be here soon and everyone knows what follows fall.  I think we better enjoy these hot, summer days.  Cold winter days will be here before we know it.

I think the girls and I will make pizza sauce to can today from the tomatoes we picked yesterday.  The recipe I use is:

1/2 cup oil, 4 med. onions chopped, 4 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup dried parsley, 1 gal. tomato juice, 2-12 oz cans tomato paste, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tsp. oregano, salt, and basil, 2 bay leaves, 3/4 tsp. black pepper.  mix all ingredients, simmer about 2 hours.  Process pints 30 min on 10 lb pressure.  Yields about 12 pts.  I will be adding banana peppers and some hot peppers to mine today as I have quite a few of these in the garden.

I guess I better get busy with these projects.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Last nights supper consisted of what we call mountain food.  Kraut and weiners, pinto beans, fried potatoes, and rolls.  Now for those of you who know true mountain food, the rolls should not have been on the menu.  The bread of choice of all mountain food is cornbread.  I already had the rolls though and decided not to take the time to make cornbread.  For dessert we had something new.  New for us anyway.  Pear Pie.  It was very good.  I got the recipe from a blogger friend of mine-Thanks Cheryl.  I made it just like you would make an apple pie.  I put a crumb topping on it and served it with whipped creme.  It was very good.

Today will be busy as usual for us.  We still have some pears to work up, then start on the apples.  We need to pick tomatoes, green beans and blackberries.   All that seems a little too ambitious but we’ll see.   I think today will be very HOT.  Temperature is already 70 and it is only 8:30. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

This is a picture of our Grundy home.  The original house was built by my grandparents.  It (like most old homes) had rooms added on.  I was 12 years old when I first moved into this home and 40 when I left.  Leaving was hard.  Life changes though and we must be able to change with it.  I have so many happy memories of this place but I also have many happy memories of where I am now.  

The girls and I have been busy.  We had 23 qts. of green beans.  We finished them today.  We also put  more squash in the freezer.  We are going down to Jessica’s this evening.  Tomorrow us girls will be going blueberry picking while Dad and PawPaw watch the two boys.  After that we plan on going to Lifeway and then out to eat.  We will be coming back home tomorrow evening. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

The girls and I finished the apples yesterday.  You can check out our logs at the right to see our total.  I really like cooking the apples in the microwave.  So much easier.  It makes the applesauce thicker too.  When I cook them on the stove, I have to add a little water to keep them from sticking, so it makes the applesauce a little thinner.   Today we will be canning a bushel of green beans.   Also working on cleaning the house  as tomorrow is bible study day. 

Beautiful weather here in Floyd this week.  When we got up this morning about 6:00, the temperature was 59 degrees.  This makes it so much more comfortable for sleeping.  I would guess yesterdays high was in the low 80′s.  Very nice.  Days like we have been having remind me why I like living in Floyd and especially here on the farm.  God was very good to bring us to this place.  Thank you Lord.

The birds are singing such beautiful praises this morning.  I think I’ll join them in their worship.  Breakfast outside sounds wonderful.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought it would be nice to look back and remember how things were just a few short months ago.  This picture was taken this morning.  Then I looked back and found another picture of the same scene.

Personally I like this morning’s picture better but to each his own.  Yesterday was busy for us.  The girls and I went to pick apples.  A friend from church offered us his early apples from his tree.  We were very thankful to get them.  After we came home, we started processing them.  Yesterday we got 11 quarts of applesauce made and still have more to work with today.  Sally, our pastors wife, told us she puts her apples in the microwave to cook them.  This was much easier as we didn’t have to worry about them burning.  Then she puts hers through her food strainer and puts them in the freezer.  I had never put applesauce in the freezer, only apples.  We tried that yesterday.  It was a lot faster and didn’t heat up the house. 

 Beautiful weather here in Floyd this week.  Much cooler temperatures with a wonderful breeze.    We have had several little rains which we really needed.  I picked green beans Monday and dug some young potatoes.  They were delicious.  I think I’ll be able to pick some more beans by tomorrow.  YUM!   I love fresh produce. 

 Did you all notice my canning and freezing logs Dave put on my blog?  Thanks Dave.  I really like being able to look at it and see what I’ve got done and what I still need.  I better get working on those apples.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would post a few pictures of things that are growing in our garden. 

Green beans starting to set on the vine.  I will soon be able to pick some of these and enjoy them.

Our hot peppers.  They will taste so good in our homemade salsa.

Sweet banana peppers.  YUM!  Hubby and I have had to start watering our garden.  It is so dry here.  Forecast is calling for a chance of rain over the weekend.  We really need it.  Seems like no matter how much you water, it never does the garden as much good as rain from God does.  I think I forgot to tell everyone what a nice weekend we had here-very cool temperatures.  Two mornings when we got up the temperature was 43 degrees- then up to the lower 50′s, upper 50′s and today mid 60′s.  Daytime temperatures over the weekend were great-low to mid 70′s.  Starting Monday though its been back up to HOT-not near as hot as some places but hot for us.  96 degrees yesterday when Hubby came through Christiansburg.  Upper 80′s here on the farm. 

Last nights supper was grilled chicken, green beans, pasta salad and rolls.  I fixed everything on the grill so as not to heat the house up any more than it already was.  We ate outside at the picnic table.  It was really nice.  A little breeze was blowing which helped a lot .  Yesterday I got a recipe from my friend Vicki-applesauce pie.  I made it and thought it was really good.  I wanted to share it with you all.

2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 1 tsp.ground nutmeg, 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup applesauce, 1 tsp vanilla.  Combine sugar, flour, and nutmeg.(You can use cinnamon instead or a little of both).  Beat eggs, add eggs to dry ingredients.    Gently combine butter applesauce and vanilla until mixed.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake at 350 for 45 min or until golden brown.   (I would recommend if your applesauce is sweet to cut down some on the sugar, I didn’t but Hubby thought it was a little too sweet.  I thought it was just fine.)

Enjoy your day and God bless.

My first post on the Mac without assistance.  I believe I can do this!  I thought I would share a picture of my clematis.  I think it is very pretty this year.  Very exciting day today.  We will finish language for the year.  Yeah!  I will be spending most of my day washing clothes.  The wringer will get a work out today.  We have had rain all week.  I put off during the laundry hoping for sun today.  We’ll see.  Right now it doesn’t look too promising.   The wringer is kinda fun to use though and I am getting faster at it.  It requires more attention than the automatic machine.  Last nights supper was baked chicken, green beans, stuffing, sweet potatoes and home made rolls.  Watermelon for dessert.  I am experimenting with using less salt in our food as I have been having some high blood pressure issues.  I marinaded the chicken in a Mrs. Dash marinade(no salt).  It was really good.  I have a cookbook that tells how to make different types of seasonings.  The other night I made a taco seasoning to use on our chicken tacos. (Chicken was on sale this week at our local grocery)  I did not put any salt in the seasoning and honestly could not tell it was not there.  Here is the recipe I used:  2 tsp minced onion, 1 tsp chili powder, 1/2  tsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp crushed dried red pepper, 1/2 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/4 tsp dried oregano.   If you want to use salt, the recipe calls for l tsp.  As I said, I used no salt and could not miss it.  I got this recipe from my (and Jessica’s) all time favorite cookbook.  ”Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets” by Esther H. Shank.  This is a marvelous cookbook.  If I had to choose only one cookbook to use, it most definitely would be this one.   Well, my friend the wringer, is calling to me.  Take care and God bless.

I took these pictures the other day when we were cutting wood.   This butterfly is especially for Jess.

This is the view from where we were cutting the wood.

A picture of a fire pink.  There were lots of these blooming in the wooded area.

There is a little trial you can walk that circles around.  This is the beginning of the wooded part of the trial.

About 1 second after I took this picture, a squirrel came running down this trial straight toward me.  I was not fast enough with the camera to get a picture.  I am experiencing technical difficulties with my computer.  My technical support team (Dave) says it is my hard drive.  For now, I am using Hubby’s computer.  For all the people whose blog I read and comment on,  there may be a season of silence.  I have them on my computer in my favorites list and I do not know how to transfer them.  Dave will fix all this in due time.  I hope to learn how to post pictures on this computer.  Pray for me as you all know I am not very technical.  This is my fourth attempt to post this.  The pictures were already loaded from my old computer yesterday before it said goodbye.  Well, enough of all that.  Tonight’s menu at church will be hot dogs with homemade chili, slaw, chips, salad and some kind of dessert (unknown as of yet).  Lunch today was beef roast in the crock pot, potatoes cooked in butter, home canned green beans, and watermelon for dessert.  I guess I better get started on my study for tonight.  Take care and God bless.