MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Yesterday morning we awoke to this.  Ice was everywhere.  We think the fog froze as we had lots of fog.  It was slippery here but once we got on the road it was fine.  We awoke this morning to sleet.  YUCK!  Thankfully, the temps warmed up enough to melt the sleet before Hubby left for work.  The rest of the day so far has lots of rain and fog but no sleet.   The girls and I had planned on going to Sam’s today but we have postponed that trip until later in the week,  for just in case.    I do not want to take a chance on running into  slick roads.

We have  been doing school today and, of course,  a little house cleaning as well.  Supper tonight will be beef roast with potatoes and carrots and homemade rolls (which I better get busy making).  I will leave you all with one more picture.  This was taken yesterday about 5:00 p.m. while we were on our way to church.  Still a little icy with a little fog. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday morning, we had a beautiful start to our morning.  I love sunrises and sunsets. 

After church, we came home to eat lunch.  We had hamburgers on homemade buns and fries.  We ate as quickly as possible and left for town to watch the Christmas Parade.  The parade is a big deal here in Floyd.  Lots and lots of people come to watch and participate.  Here are just a few pictures Grace took.

There are lots of old cars.

Marching bands.

Floats and

wagons pulled by horses.  We had a great time!   The girls are already anticipating next year’s parade.  We have rain here today with fog.  Not a good day for doing anything outside.  Hubby is working on the bed but he has to do it inside his shop.  He doesn’t have a lot of room in there so he doesn’t like to work inside.  He is getting very close to being finished however he still does not have his brakes fixed on the van.  He has taken the wheel off several times and did different things to it but it is still sticking.  He wanted to replace the wheel cyclinder today but it is just too wet to work on it.  Hopefully, this will fix it. 

Today, I made a spice tea mix.  I got the recipe from Nadine at http://nadinesnook.blogspot.com/  She also posted a recipe for chai tea mix that I want to make.  These will  make excellent gifts.   Well, our lunch break is almost over.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I just love sunflowers.  I think they are so cheerful and fun.  These come up underneath the feeder and I think they add so much to the area.  The cats have played there so much though that a lot of them are drooping down to the ground.  They still look pretty though.

I have been kinda busy for the past few days.  As you all know, we went down to Jessica’s on Friday.  We had a great visit and enjoyed play time with the boys.  Then we went to pick the apples.  She didn’t have very many but we got what was on the tree.  I haven’t worked them up yet so no picture of pink applesauce.  On Saturday, we went to pick apples at Faye’s sisters house.  We ended up with about 4 bushel.  When we got home I started working on them.  I have told Faye all about our steam juicer and sauce maker.  She has been wanting to buy them for herself.  Sunday evening at church Gene (her husband) said he was going to buy them for her.  We met them yesterday morning in town at the Farmers Supply.  He bought the steam juicer, the sauce maker and a steam canner for her.  She was so excited.  We then went home with them and showed them how to operater their new equipment.  She had a 5 gal. bucket of apples to work up.  From that she got 2 qts of juice and 5 qts of applesauce.  It was a really fun day.  I really want one of those steam canners.  It takes my water bath canner about 1 hr. to start to boil.  The steam canner is ready in about 10-15 min.  Amazing.  We definitely would be saving on the amount of gas we use.    Hopefully, we will be able to get one soon.  Much faster and more economical.

I worked up some more of our apples yesterday evening after we came back from Faye’s house.  We will be working on them more today.  So far, we have 8 qts of applesauce and 4 qts of apple juice.   Grace has been taking some more pictures.  This is a picture of the sunset God gave us yesterday.

I forgot to tell you ladies about the nice weekend we had.  Remember Thursday evening I said temperatures were cooling off.  Well, Friday and Saturday morning the temperature when we got up was 58 degrees.  Can you believe that?  Then Sunday and Monday morning it was 61 degrees.  The highs for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were only in the mid 70′s.  Wonderful!!  Thank you Lord!!  Yesterday, it started warming back up and today I think it will be back to normal but it certainly was wonderful to enjoy a few fall-like days in summer.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

We had a wonderful surprise yesterday.  We went to the N.C. Zoo.  On Wednesday about lunch time, Jess called and said David had tickets for us all to go to the zoo but we had to go on Thursday as this was the only day he could get off.  We were sooooo excited.  We got up about 5:30 yesterday morning and got home around 8:30 last night.  It was an absolutely great day.  We all had so much fun.  Thanks Dave for thinking of us.  Grace took lots of pictures. 

Of course, by the end of the day we were all getting a little tired.

Well, maybe not the one who rode in the stroller all day.

We hope to go back again as there was much we didn’t get to see. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

We have a saying here, “if March comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion” or vice versa.  I think this would qualify as going out like a lion.

Yesterday morning we awoke to ice.  We did have church but several people were absent due to the icy roads.  This morning we awoke to  snow.

It is very pretty, though, I must admit I prefer sunshine and warm.

The snow is still coming down and our temperature is 29 degrees.  I guess this means hanging clothes inside today.  Hubby is almost finished with the inside trim on the porch but I don’t think he will get to work on it today, hopefully tomorrow.  

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Today we are getting back into the swing of school.  We had too many errands  yesterday to start.  We also visited some with the Horn’s yesterday.  For Christmas, the Horn girls had received a kit from Wal-Mart to make a little girl apron and a little doll apron.  I took some interfacing over and Vicki and I traced out the pattern.  So I now have a little doll apron pattern to make.  I want to make a mother, daughter, and doll apron to match. 

Temperatures here are much nicer than they have been however yesterday morning was pretty cold.  Temperature yesterday was 14 when we got up but it did warm up nicely with lots of sunshine.  Cloudy today though, of course, because I am home and could hang our clothes on the line today.  Oh well, thats how it goes.  Hubby worked on getting some more wood yesterday while the girls and I ran errands. 

Tonights menu is something I really don’t have a name for.  I brown hamburger meat, add onions, cabbage, and potatoes.  The options are limitless as to what you can add.   I sometimes add fresh peppers, zucchini, squash, mushrooms.  I like fresh baked cornbread with it.   I got some  cushaw from the freezer this morning.  I think I will make a pie for dessert. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Well, the snow did come yesterday-about 4″.  So no family coming today.  Hopefully, Dave, Jess and the boys will get to come about the middle of the week.  I’m not sure when Chuck will come.  The girls are excited today.  There is enough snow to make snow cream, which is a favorite around here.  There probably will be some sledding today too.  The winds are supposed to start later today so we’ll just have to see how everything goes.  The cows don’t seem to mind the snow at all.

I took these pictures from our dining room window.  Later today, we will be going down to the barn to get milk.  I will try to take more pictures then.

Hubby completely surprised me yesterday morning.  We very seldom get each other gifts at Christmas but this year he got me this wonderful mixer.  He even braved Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve to get it for me.  Complete surprise!  I got up yesterday morning, went to turn the coffee pot on and there it was.  I squealed out loud and he just smiled that beautiful smile of his that always says “I love you”.  He said with all the cooking and baking I do, he thought it would come in handy.  Well, it certainly will.  I made a batch of banana nut muffins in it this morning.  I used a different recipe than I normally use and I think I like it much better.  The recipe is:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used whole wheat), 2/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup applesauce, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 2/3 cup mashed bananas, 1/3 cup chopped walnuts.  Combine all ingredients.   Pour into muffin tin.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 min.  I used my large muffin tin and got 6 muffins.  Very good.

No church today because of the snow.  I sure am glad we got to go Friday night to the candlelight service.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Daniel’s little kitten, Gilbert, taking a much needed rest under the Christmas tree.  He certainly is a cute kitten.  Very fuzzy.  Sam’s eyes light up every time he sees Gilbert.  He would love to sink his chubby little hands into all that fur.

We had a fun day yesterday.  We went over to our friends, the Horns.  Vicki fixed us lunch, then while the kids played, we make some gingersnap cookies.  They were very good.  We also tried our hand at making some breakfast bars or as we call them energy bars.  They did not turn out near as well as I had hoped.  Not too bad just not as I envisoned them being.  We all had a lot of fun though.  God is so good to provide us with friends like the Horns.  We feel very blessed that they are in our lives.

We had so much rain here the first of the week.  I have no idea how much but I know it was a lot.  Everything was soaking wet.  Water was standing in so many places in our yard.  After the rain, temperatures took a drop.  It dropped about 20 degrees from yesterday morning till this morning.  The sun is shining though so hopefully things will warm up some.  I would like to hang my sheets on the line.

The girls and I have lots to get done today so we better get busy.  God bless.

We did not get to have our breakfast picnic yesterday morning at the park.   Weather was too bad.  VERY foggy here.   Most people would not have been able to find the park .  Everything is wet, wet, wet.   We did move it to the church, however, so we still had breakfast.  Just not outside like originally planned.  Lots of good food though.  The pastors sermon was on the Lord’s Prayer.  It was a very good message.

I have been told this strange looking flower is called a Naked Lady.  The name suits it.  There are no leaves on it what so ever.  Just a tall stem and then the flower.  They have filled out more since I took this picture however I could not get a new picture.  It is too foggy and dreary today.  The girls and I will be busy making more salsa.  I did not like the recipe in the Ball canning book as much as I like my old recipe.  It was given to me by a Mennonite friend, Judy.  So today we are making her recipe.  Much better.  Temperatures have been cooler here.  Low’s in the upper 50′s, high’s in the low to mid 60′s.  Wet, foggy.  Nice days for doing work inside or just curling up with a good book.  I think I’ll try to work both of these activities in today.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought everyone might enjoy a little sunrise.  God decided to sent us this beautiful sunrise yesterday morning and I certainly was glad.  Whenever I see a beautiful sunrise or sunset, it always reminds me  of the majesty and power of God.  I think we all need a little reminding sometimes.  Nothing much going on here.  School as normal.  Things are getting back to our normal routine.  It was very cold here this morning.  Lots of wind.  The actual temperature was about 14 but the wind chill was much colder.  Hopefully, weather permitting, Jess and Dave will come up this weekend.  I need me some MawMaw time.  She will be going for her ultra-sound soon to find out if the baby is a boy or girl!  I’ll let everyone know when we know.  The girls are wanting me to play a game with them before school starts.  I better go.  Playtime awaits.  God Bless.