MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

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 have so many pictures to share.  Here are a few more from our day at the Festival.

Here the horses are grinding the cane into juice for making molasses.

The man in charge of making the molasses was very nice.  He took the girls through the entire process step by step.  He even let them have a turn skimming off the foam. 

Spinning wool. 

An old baby cradle. 

Today we have been busy with school.  I did a batch of apples in the steam juicer.  Washed several loads of laundry.  I have a roast in crockpot for supper.  We will be having potato gravy,  green beans and homemade rolls with it.   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.

I love old books, especially old school books.  I thought I would share a few of them.   I thought I might share how our school days “normally” go.  I usually wake the girls around 7:00 A.M.  They get dressed, make their beds and come downstairs by 7:30.  Sometimes they fix their own breakfast and sometimes I do.  It mostly depends on what they are having and how our time is running.   I begin cleaning up the kitchen and they start piano practice.  They practice 30 min. each.  While one is practicing the other one is helping me and then vice versa.  We shake the rugs and sweep the floors every morning.  We have certain days that we do other things, clean bathroom, dust.  I have a chart made with the days of the week on it and the designated chores for that day.  We try to have all the house chores finished before we start school.  It is so difficult for me to concentrate on school if these things are not already done.  Laundry gets worked in  every day.  We are normally finished with all this around 9:15.  They then get a 15 min. break to do whatever they want.  We try to start school by 9:30.  We say our pledges, pray and then begin.  Bible is always first.  Then they take turns chosing what subject they want to do.  Our subjects are bible, spelling, history, science, math and language.  Most days we are half way through by lunch time.  We break an hour for lunch.  Free time for everyone (except Mom).  We then finish up somewhere between 1:00 and whenever.  Yesterday was a long day for us.  It was about 3:30 when we finished.  Julie’s math was very long.  Today is an easier day.  It is now lunch time and all we lack is math.  I’m glad as we need to work up an 1/2 bushel of apples.  I already have them in the steam juicer and I want to make applesauce from them.  Well, our lunch break is almost over.   I hope I didn’t bore you all too much.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

We are getting snow here this morning, hoping it stays snow and not ice or sleet.  Predictions are for 3-5 inches.  I don’t think it will accumulate that much though but we will have to wait and see.  This picture is from our bedroom window upstairs.  If you look to the right of the picture, you can see the pond with the snow that has laid on the ice.  The good news is that it has warmed up!  Temperature of  15 this morning when we got up and hardly any wind.  YEAH!

Last night our youth did their Christmas play at church.  We were scheduled to do it Sunday but since we have had to cancel two Sundays in a row, the youth leader thought we should do it last night, just in case.  It went very well.  The kids did great.  I should have taken my camera and got some pictures  but, of course, I forgot.  We did school yesterday, caught up on some laundry, wrapped some gifts, all the ordinary things.  There is a lot to be said for just doing ordinary things.  It brings a sense of peace, I think. 

We experience some smoke problems the night before, so we let the fire go out yesterday.  Hubby checked the pipes when he came home.  All was well.  Not sure what caused it.  Maybe just the direction the wind was blowing.  This summer, we put a topper on the chimney pipe.  It is supposed to turn with the wind to keep the wind from blowing the smoke back down the chimney.  We had such a problem with that last winter.  Anyway, all looked well yesterday so hopefully it will not happen again.

Well, we have things to do.  I pray your day will be full of joy.  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.

Here are a few pictures of the wood pile we have been working on.   During the past winter, Marvin decided to have some logging done here on the farm.  They wanted to clear out a new pasture land.  After the logging crew was finished, they piled up all the unwanted wood.  The pile is smaller now than it was at first as several truck loads have already been removed.

This picture shows better how tall the pile is.

This is the pile of locust wood that has been moved to the side.  Billy is using this as fence posts for the new pasture land.

Hubby sharpening his chain saw.  This has to be done frequently.  I wanted to show you all the wood we have cut so far but I didn’t get the picture yesterday and it is raining here this morning.   I’ll save that for another post.  Last nights low was only in the lower 40′s so hopefully we are done with chilly nights.  I have several vegetable plants I want to put out in the garden.  I’ve just been waiting for the danger of frost to pass.  I’m not very good at remembering to cover them up at night so I usually just wait.  School today as usual.  We are getting close to being finished with language.  It is always exciting to finish a book.  I was hoping to do some laundry today, however if I do, I will have to dry them inside.  I might just wait until tomorrow, not sure yet.  The pile is pretty big today, it will be even bigger tomorrow.  I better get started on my day.  Take care and God bless.

This boy has definitely grown.  I’m not sure based on the past year if he’ll ever grown up but he has certainly grown.  He is a very playful pup and has brought lots of love into our house.  (Lots of other things too-but we won’t go into that.)  Things have been busy around here for the last couple of days.  Saturday I went grocery shopping while Hubby worked on clearing out some stuff from his wood working building.  Sunday was church.  Then early Monday morning we decided to make a trip to Grundy to see George’s Mom and Dad.  We didn’t get back home until a little after 10:00 that night.  Long day.  Yesterday was piano and I attempted to move that mountain of laundry that had built up.  We had to dry everything inside.  It was very overcast, chilly and windy.  Today promises to be better.  The sun is shining already.  Hopefully we can use the clothesline today.  We have 5 baby geese on the pond.  Big excitement.  I hope to get a picture of them today so you all can see them.  Our rhubarb is ready.  I think I will make some strawberry-rhubarb jam.  It’s one of our favorites.  Well, I think my crew is hungry.  I better get some breakfast going.  Take care and God bless.