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.

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.

Friday evening we went to our Pastor’s house.  As I mentioned earlier, he gave us some peaches.  He has a small orchard at his house.  All his trees were so full of fruit.  It was beautiful.

These are only a few of the trees.  Grace took lots of pictures.  I will try to post more of them tomorrow.

This is a view from his yard.  Very pretty.  We also ate supper at his house.  Almost everything we had was home grown.  I love to eat this way.  We had hamburgers on the grill, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes from the garden, fresh homemade applesauce, and fresh peaches.  Delicious!

The girls and I did not get to can our beets yesterday.  As it was raining most of the day, we decided to run a few errands in town instead.  Jess had given me some coupons she had for canning jars and lids.  We decided to go to Wal-Mart and get these.  They are a little cheaper there than there are at our local supermarket.  We will be canning the beets today. 

The sun is shining here nicely today.  Temperatures have cooled down some, thanks to the rain yesterday.  Outside temperature is about 80 degrees.  This is one of those weeks when things begin to start building up.  Much to do.  Beans are ready to pick, berries are ready, beets are ready and I think we might have enough tomatoes ripe to make a batch of salsa.  I love to can and put away food for my family however when I start getting behind, it is easy for me to allow that to become a stressor in my life.  I do not want this to happen.  God has given us this bounty and I thank Him for it.  When I was growing up,  the garden and canning controlled our summers.  I do not want that for my girls.  I want the garden and all it involves to be enjoyable and fun for my girls.  I want to keep a balance.  This is hard, as old habits are sometimes difficult to break.  Pray that I will do this well-that my girls will have a love for gardening and canning and not see it as just hard work. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday we had 12 more quarts of spaghetti sauce.  I think this will be all the spaghetti sauce we make unless we have lots more tomatoes.  I want to make salsa and maybe try our hand at ketchup.  We also usually just can tomatoes and tomato sauce for use in soup and chili.  Temperatures here have been hot and humid.  Low to mid 90′s. 

Jess talked to her mother-in-law yesterday and she said the name of this apple is Scarlett Apple.  She thinks she ordered the tree from Stark Bros.  I typed it in on Google and found all kinds of information about it.  Very interesting.

Today is bible study day so I better get busy.  We have decided to do it at Barbara’s house.  It is so hot here and Barbara has air conditioning.    Enjoy your day and God bless.

If I were making a list of things that make me happy, this would definitely be one of them.  I feel so blessed when I go out in my garden and gather delicious food for my family to enjoy.  I know it sounds kinda way out there but it is true.  This evening’s supper will incorporate all these healthy veggies.  I’m just not sure how yet.  Maybe grilled chicken, grilled squash-I’m not sure but I know it will be good.  Today has been busy.  I’ve been trying to get some of the outside work done before it gets too hot.  After seeing the big snake yesterday evening, Hubby immediately started weed-eating.  I started mowing the yard.  We got about half finished before it got to late.  I finished mowing the yard early this morning.  I have been washing clothes and getting them on the line to dry.  They are probably already dry.  It is hot here but we have a really great breeze so it’s not so bad (especially in the shade).  I am going to work some more in the garden after lunch.  I need to tie the tomatoes, get rid of some nasty potatoes bugs.  It also needs to be weeded but I think I’ll save that for this evening.  The girls have been busy inside doing housework.  The ladies come tomorrow for bible study. 

This is a picture of what we call the canning building.  The bottom is our cellar and on top we store all our empty cans, our canners and all our canning supplies.  When the girls were little, they started calling it the canning building and the name has just stuck. 

Well, I think it’s time to get some lunch going.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Here are just a few shots of our garden.  We hope to soon enjoy squash as you can see the bloom on it.  This one tomato plant will be an early one.  The others are not near as big.  Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Hubby and I finished getting the garden out.  We planted a few more tomatoes and beans and corn.

Later in the evening we got a good rain.  I guess God knew our seeds needed a drink.  The girls and I are working on cleaning the house today and washing clothes.  My house is a little behind as we have been doing up the beef.  Our total is 80 quarts of canned beef and 88 bags of hamburger.  Pretty good I think.  Tomorrow is bible study day.  We are studying I Corinthians. Little Samuel will be here in 4 more days.  Unless he decides to come before then.  We all can hardly wait to see him and hold him.  God is good!  Also hopefully David will have my computer back in operation soon.  I really miss it.  It’s sometimes hard for me and Hubby to coordinate on one computer.  His free time is usually my free time too.  Well, my time is up.  The wringer is calling my name.  Take care and God bless.

Another sign of spring.  The spirea bush is in full bloom.  It has beautiful, small white flowers on it.  I think Friday when the ladies come I will make a bouquet of spirea and forsythia blooms.  Very cheerful!  School today as usual.  It is getting so hard to do school as usual. We so want to be outside playing and doing outside chores.  The girls playing-me doing outside chores.  Well, we must persevere.  I know it will  be worth it.  Temperature is very nice here today.  About 80 degrees.  I have clothes drying on the line, blowing in the breeze.  I love hanging clothes outside.  They smell so wonderful.  Tonight’s menu will be homemade pizza.  Last summer, we made several jars of pizza sauce from our tomatoes.  We have almost used them all so I guess we will need to make more this summer than we did last summer.   I think it is important for my girls to know how to raise a garden, to harvest the produce and then how to preserve it for later use.  I think in todays fast paced America this is becoming a lost art.  I was blessed to acquire this knowledge from my mother and I want to pass it down. 

It tastes as good as it looks.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Here’s a picture of the beets I canned the other day.  I pulled 1/2 bushel of beets.  Pretty good for the first time I ever raised  beets here at the farm.  From that 1/2 bushel I canned 9 qts.  This will taste really good this winter with pinto beans and cornbread.  The other jars are pureed tomotoes.  The tomatoes were the yellow striped variety thus explaining the color in the jars.  I had forgotten how much work goes into canning beets.  Quite a lot but as you know most things worth having require  work.  Today was homecoming day at church.  We had a really good day.  Lots of people showed up, good music, good preaching, good eating.  The temperatures are still cool at night here with beautiful sunshine during the day.  Wonderful fall weather.  I think I will take my Daniel bible study and my bible and go out and enjoy some of this wonderful weather God has decided to bless us with.  Enjoy and God Bless.

I thought you might enjoy the view from our dirt road.  I know lots of you don’t have the luxury of dirt roads anymore.  There are quite a few still around in Floyd.  This one leads to our driveway, turn left at the big barn.  I was coming back from the milk barn and thought how pretty this is.  So I took a picture.  I am getting into this picture taking. (Hubby took the ones for this morning).  Notice the big maple tree, already starting to show some color.  I guess thats what temperatures in the low 40′s will do.  I canned 10 pints of spaghetti sauce today from some tomatoes we gathered last night. (Yes I said last night)  At church they were talking about how it was supposed to be colder than the night before, so we took a flashlight out to the garden and gathered tomatoes.  Hey, I’m not taking any chances.  I want these fresh tomatoes to last  as possible.   I made homemade pizza this evening for supper using the sauce I’d made.  The crust recipe was not as good as I would have liked.  I guess I’ll have to do some more searching.  The sauce, however was very good.  Everyone seemed to like it.  I’m glad.  It was a lot of work.  It sure did make the house smell good though.  It’s getting late.  God Bless.

Pumpkin growing in our garden

This year as a gift from God we have pumpkins.  Quite a lot of pumpkins.  We have decided to harvest them a little early as bugs have decided they like them too.    The pie was made completely from scratch as you probably can tell.  The crust is a very simple recipe that doesn’t require being rolled out.  I like things simple.  The filling recipe came from an old lady at a farmers market we visited years ago.   If anyone is interested in these recipes let me know and I will post them.  Today has been a good day.  The girls played piano at church today.  Grace played the special and Julie played the congregational.  Big step for Julie-playing while others sing with her.  They both did great.  When I hear them play like that I think all that money and time for lessons was REALLY worth it.   It’s almost time to leave for Sunday Night Bible Study at church.  We are using John MacArthur’s study on the book of Daniel.  It has been a very interesting study so far.  The pie is for church tonight.  After bible study we always eat(Its the Baptist way)  Tonight we will be having a feast.  Pinto beans, cornbread, onions, tomatoes, hot dogs, cole slaw, and pie.  Who could ask for more.  As I tell my oldest daughter, we really do study, the food is just extra.  Gotta go and God Bless.