MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Good morning, ladies!  We had a great visit yesterday with David, Jess, and the kids.   It was a nice warm day and as you can see, most of it was spent outside.  If you look on the ground you can see where Daniel’s boots are.  I guess they got in the way of swinging.  

Sam and Katie.  Sam had so much fun sitting with Katie and taking pictures.  Every time the we would take a picture, he would just bust out laughing.  So of course, we took MANY pictures.  I thought this one was the best. 

David helped Hubby fix the brakes on the car yesterday.  It was a full day’s job but we think they are finally fixed.  Thank’s again Dave for helping.  Jess and I worked inside on making her some applebutter.  She ended up with 5 qts.  We had spaghetti with homemade sauce, rolls and cinnamon rolls for dessert.  Daniel told me spaghetti was his favorite.  I made a new recipe for cinnamon rolls and I really liked this recipe.  Much better than the one I had been using.  I got the recipe here.  http://homejoys.blogspot.com/2011/02/sweet-dough.html  I also posted the recipe under sweet dough in my recipe file.  I did divide the recipe in half and got 18 cinnamon rolls.    I will  definitely be making them again.  We are planning on starting a  remodel at Jessica’s on Monday.  Her kitchen is getting a facelift.  I hope to remember to take the camera and I’ll show pictures of the process. 

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

Saturday, before Grace’s party, we went up on the hill to cut wood.  Grace decided (just for fun) she wanted to chop this log with the ax.  She chopped for a pretty long time.  This is how much she chopped.

Pretty good, considering it was splitting maul and not an ax.  Then Hubby had difficulties with his chain saw and we had to load up and come back home for him to work on it.

Now you can’t see him but in the left corner at the tail gate is Shadow.  This is what he is waiting on.

He is too old and too heavy to jump up into the truck bed.  Hubby has to lift him up now but we would never dream of leaving him behind.  If the girls are riding in the truck bed, he thinks he has to be there too.   He checks out the area where we are cutting and then comes back and stays where we are.  If the girls go for a walk, he goes with them.  He has always taken his job very seriously.

Everyone loaded and ready to go.  Hubby did get his chain saw working again.  He went back up and finished getting the load of wood while the girls and I stayed down and got everything ready for the party.  It was a really fun day. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

We had such fun day yesterday.  We went with the Horn’s to Natural Bridge.  I have lots of pictures to show you all.  We’ll start today with the bridge itself.  Isn’t it beautiful?

This picture shows how big the bridge actually is. 

I love this picture of Grace.  I wanted one of Julie too but she was ahead of us with the Horns. 

I wanted to tell you all the amazing blessing we had on Friday.  We went with Hubby to check on a job and were coming home from C-burg.  We had some rain and then the sun came out.  When this happens, we are always on the lookout for rainbows.  Well, we found not one but two.  The girls and I had never seen a double rainbow.  These both were complete arches reaching from one end of the sky to the other.  They were so huge.  Sometimes it seemed as if we were driving right into them.  We got to see them for at least 15 min.  It was so amazing.  We were so excited.  I wish I had my camera with us to take pictures but it probably would not have done any good.  Vicki was at home with her camera but she couldn’t get a picture of it.  She said it was too  big to get it all.   Isn’t God good to show us something like that. 

I’ll show you all more pictures of our trip next time I post.    I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

We have been blessed to have quite a few pears given to us.  Do any of you all have any pear recipes you would like to share?  I usually just can them like apples but I am always looking for new things to try.  One thing I want to do is make juice this year.  Anyway, the girls and I will be working up pears tomorrow.  Today, I helped Hubby.   We textured the ceilings on the job he has been working on.  They looked really nice. 

I have a question for you ladies who have chickens.  Last week we were getting 8-10 eggs a day.  Yesterday and today, we got one each day.  What do you think is going on?  We did have a couple of days that we didn’t feed them the layer crumbles.  We had all kinds of scraps from the corn.  Do you think that would affect their laying?  I’m just not sure what would have happened. 

Well, I’m tired and it is my turn for the shower.  Enjoy your evening and God bless.

I thought I would share a few pictures with you all of the picnic and baptism we had Sunday.  This is the pond where we do our baptizing.   Beautiful!  This pond is located on Route 8 here in Floyd close to the Bread Basket. 

This is a young man from our church.  He and his dad were baptized Sunday.  We somehow missed getting the dad’s picture.  I have been busy all last week and yesterday helping Hubby with a job.  He has been remodeling a bathroom.  Today, I picked blackberries, some more green beans and tomatoes while the girls worked on inside house chores.  We will be busy working on those today.  We also have some peaches to can but they may have to wait until tomorrow.

Here are a few random pictures I took this morning.  The blackberries are looking pretty good this year.

A tomato ripening on the vine. 

A view of the back side of the house.  Temperature here has cooled down a little.  Not as humid as last week.   Or maybe it just feels that way because I’m not underneath that house running pipe for plumbing. (lol)  Well, I better get busy.  I hear blackberries calling our names.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

The hummingbirds are really enjoying the feeders.  We have this feeder at the old building and another one at the green swing.  I think hummers are so much fun to watch. 

Today, Hubby and I decided to put an outside faucet on the side of the new room.  When we built the new room we had to take the old outside faucet off.  Well, plumbing never seems to go as you think it will.  We run the pipe and got everything connected, turned the water back on and amazingly, no leaks.  Then we go outside, turn the faucet on and amazingly, no leaks.  Well, of course, we are patting ourselves on the back now thinking wow, that was easy.  Hubby turns the outside faucet off and guess what-it won’t turn off.  It was a brand new faucet so we’re not sure what was wrong with it.  Of course, we have no cut off valve in our collection of plumbing supplies so we have to shut the water off again, drive 30 minutes to the local hardware, get a cut off valve and a new outside faucet.   When we get home, he put the cut off valve on so we could turn the water back on.  He had to go look at a job possibility so the other faucet will have to wait.  He will have to take  the one that doesn’t work back out of the wall so he can put the other one in.  Hopefully this one will work. 

Well, that’s  our day.  Temperatures here today have been wonderful.  Low 80′s.  It is now almost 6:00 p.m. and the temperature is 75 degrees with a great breeze.  Thank you, Lord.  Tomorrow we will be going down to Jessica’s.  She has a doctors appointment.  We will be watching the boys and then going over to David’s mom’s to pick some apples.  Remember last year, she gave us those pink apples.  Well, they are ready to pick.  They make such pretty applesauce. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our VBS went very well last night.  Our theme is “Christ Under the Big Top”.  I think they did a great job with decorating.

Here we are getting ready to play our first game of the week.  The game was called “dress the clown.”  Our pastor and his wife volunteered to be the clowns. 

Don’t they look great?  We are so blessed to have a pastor who loves kids.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Monday evening Julie and I were outside letting the chicks run free for a while and this is what we saw.  God is so good to show us glimpses of His glory. 

Sorry I did not make a post yesterday.  As you know we went down to Jessica’s on Monday for her ultrasound appointment.  Well, this baby did not cooperate.  He or she decided no one was going to look that day.  All kinds of movement but legs crossed.  They told her they would do one more a little later on.  I guess this is a shy one or stubborn-not sure which.

Yesterday the girls and I went with Hubby to help him work.  He is doing the sheetrock on a remodeling job.  He can do it all by himself except hang ceilings.  That is just too hard to do alone.    The house is in a beautiful location.  If we go back with him another day, I’ll try to remember to take the camera so you all can see some pictures of it. 

Today we’ll work on catching up here at home.  How can a house get so dirty when no one is home?    This morning was very chilly here-42 degrees when we got up this morning.  Yesterday was really nice.  Hubby’s van tells the outside temperature and it was 70 degrees when we left the job site yesterday around 3:00. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Here are a few of the turtle pictures we took while at Pandapas Pond the other day.

They were pretty skittish so we had to sneak upon them to get the pictures.

Grace did a great job! 

A beaver lodge on the pond.  Several geese were resting on top of it. 

We have several things planned to work on today.  Rain is in the forecast though so we may not get any of it done.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  I am going to use the remainder of the pork tenderloin this evening to make bbq sandwiches for supper.  I have enough rolls left from last night to use for buns.  I think I will do homesfries and coleslaw with it.  I like to cook enough meat to make several meals from it.  This makes it a little easier I think.  We have dentist appointments tomorrow in Roanoke, then we are going to Sam’s Club to pick up a few things.  After that, we are going to pick out Grace’s frames for her new glasses.  The Horns are supposed to come by tomorrow evening  to visit.   YEAH!  It has been a while since we have got to visit. 

I better get busy.  Hubby and I are working on a big outside project.  I’ll try to show pictures next time I make a post.  Anyway, he is wanting to get started so that hopefully we can get some of it done before it starts raining.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Very few things say home more than fresh baked bread.  Clothes hanging on the line run a close second in my book.  I just pulled this bread from the oven and thought it looked soooooo good.  It smells delicious too.  I tried a different recipe today and am hoping it will be good.  I needed a good sandwich bread recipe.  Here is the recipe I used:

1-1/3 plus 1tbsp. water, 2 tbsp. butter, 4-1/4 cups flour, 3 tbsp. sugar, 2 tbsp. dry milk, 1-1/2 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. yeast.   I put these ingredients into my bread machine on dough cycle and let it do its job.  When the cycle was finished, I took the bread out of the machine, shaped it into a loaf and put it into my loaf pan.   If you do not have an extra long loaf pan, you will need to make 2 loafs.  Bake at 350 degrees until done.  It takes about 30 min. in my oven.

I also have been working on apron patterns and I think I have decided which one to do the matching aprons in.  I just have to adjust the pattern a little to compensate for what I don’t know how to do.  I will show pictures soon.  By the way, thanks Dave, for fixing my problem on the computer.

Warmer temperatures here today-35 degrees.  Hardly any wind.  A really nice day.  I have to go raid my material stash.  I will need a piece large enough to do all 3 aprons.  I’m not sure I have anything.  Hopefully, I will, as I would like to get started on them today.

Enjoy your day and God bless.