MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Today, we have been busy with school.  We did a batch of apples in the steam juicer.  We got 1 gal and 1 qt. of juice.  We then run the apples through the Roma sauce maker and got enough applesauce to make 3 qts of applebutter.  YUM!  I also made a batch of homemade laundry soap. 

Colors here are at their peak this week.  I hope to get more pictures to share.  We have been having rain but it looks like it will clear up this evening.  Hubby has been busy making a king size bed for Jess and Dave.  I will show you all pictures when he gets it finished.  I think it looks beautiful.  Here he is working on one of the posts for the headboard.  I think I actually managed to get this picture without him knowing it.  He was deep in concentration.

Tonights supper will be baked pork chops with potatoes and carrots, pumpkin pie for dessert.  I guess I better get busy, I think everyone is getting hungry.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would show you all a quilt the girls made for Katie.  They did everything including heming it on the machine.  I thought they did a really good job.  I just finished crocheting an afgan for her but we forgot to take a picture of it.  I’ll try to get one next time we go down.

Today has been rainy and overcast here.  The air has become chillier as the day progressed.  Not much else going on here.  We did school and then Hubby and I went in to town to get some chicken feed.  They have been doing really well with their laying.  I had sold enough eggs to pay for the feed except for $2.00.   I thought that was pretty good. 

Supper tonight is deer tenderloin, gravy, corn, biscuits and plum jelly.  YUM!    Here are a few fall shots we took the other day.

This one is the field behind our house.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

We have been working on peaches for a few days.  I think I mentioned that we saved the peelings and put them into the steam juicer.  Well, the above picture shows the 2 qts of juice we got from the peelings.  We had 2 gal. of peelings and got 2 1/2 qts of juice.  This will yield over a gal of peach juice.  YUM!  I definitely will do that again with our next batch of peaches. 

I picked about 1 gal. of blackberries this morning.  Pretty good for the first picking.  I am trying something new for us.  I am making blackberry syrup to use with pancakes, french toast, etc.  Have any of you ever made this?  It sounds good and sometimes I just want something different.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.  I have the blackberries on in the steam juicer now.  Julie and I went up to the cellar this morning and organized it.  I think “little green men” come along over the winter and just scatter all my canned goods.  Anyway, all is in order now and ready for the new cans to fill it up.  Grace worked inside doing household chores while Julie and I worked on the cellar.  Hubby worked on mowing the yard.  It has been a long time since he mowed.  It is just so hot and dry.  He thought it was starting to look a little wild. 

Well, time to check on the blackberries.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Look at what Grace found!!  We are all very excited to get this first one.  Remember the big tomato plant we bought early in the spring and put in a bucket.  Well, the tomatoes are starting to get ripe on it.  All our other plants are, of course, way behind this one.  Tonight we will divide this one four ways so we can all have a little nibble.  So much fun, sharing the first of the harvest.

This morning the girls and I went out early and started working on the hen house.  It needed to be cleaned out and we wanted to get their nests ready as we are hoping soon to get eggs-maybe by the end of next month.  We just barely got finished before it started to sprinkle rain.  I think though it has already stopped.  What we need is a good steady rain but I know many blogger friends who are in severe drought conditions.

Our chicken yesterday evening was delicious.  I will definitely be making it again.  I was thinking that the spice mixture would be good on pork or beef as well.  I took the chicken off the bone and put the bones and skin back in the pot with the broth that had cooked out of the chicken.  I then added water -enough to fill up the crock pot.  Then I turned it on low and this morning I will be freezing delicious homemade chicken broth for soups and such.  YUM! 

I better get busy.  I want to make some hamburger buns for supper this evening.  We will be having pork bbq, fries, corn on the cob and cantelope for dessert.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

This is Baby Emily, David’s neice.  She is a very hardy eater and seemed very content in Daddy’s arms.

Daniel and his cousin Zack riding bikes.  Zack is Emily’s older brother.

And baby Sam held prisoner in his walker.    We all had a lot of fun with lots of good fun.  Jess had ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and banana pudding.  YUM!

Yesterday we went to get the inspection sticker on my car and found out the tie rods ends were bad.  We had to make a run to C-burg to get new ones.   Hubby and his brother put them on yesterday evening.  We went back in this morning and got the inspection sticker.  Hubby still does not have his window fixed on the van.  This has given him much trouble.  He of course is trying to fix the old one instead of buying a new one.  For some reason, the wire is not winding up on the spool correctly. 

We are getting rain today.  Temperatures are warm though so it will be very good for everything.  The girls and I checked our seeds out yesterday underneath our greenhouse.  We have a few tomatoes coming up, cucumbers and broccoli.  Very exciting.   Well, our lunch break is over.  Time for school to start.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

As you all know, I love old things.  My mother-in-law gave me this old lamp while we were down helping her move.  It needed a new shade and a little cleaning.  Grace cleaned it for me and we are on the lookout for a shade that will do it honor.   I have it on top of my treadle sewing machine for now. 

We are getting some much needed rain here today.  I understand we are about 4 in. below normal on our water level.  It seems very cozy, the rain on the tin roof, a warm fire.   I think I need to light some candles to make it even cozier.

We are working on school today.  Also cleaning house.  The ladies will be coming tomorrow for bible study.  Tomorrow will be our last lesson in this study, “Women who believed God”.  It has been a good study.  Tonight’s menu is sloppy joes, french fries, green beans and a peach pie with homemade whipped creme for dessert.  YUM!

I hope you all have wonderful day and God bless.

P.S.  In answer to the question about what sassafras tea tastes like, it resembles a root beer or birch beer taste.  You can drink it hot or cold.  We prefer hot but it is good cold.

Our cheerful Christmas dishes.  These were bought for us several years ago.  We get them out every December to use.  I love cheerful, happy dishes.  After December, we get out our snowman dishes.  We use them through winter. 

Temperatures were too cold for any outside pictures today.  After the snow, our Floyd county wind moved in.  Gusts of 50-60 mph put the wind chills down at zero.  I don’t think our actual temperature will get to 20 degrees today.  Very cold!  We didn’t have church yesterday, the roads were too slick.  We spent the day snuggled in doing fun stuff and keeping warm.   I watched a movie on INSP channel-The Perfect Gift.  It was kinda like the “Joshua” books.  It was a pretty good movie to watch. 

I know I have showed pictures of rolls before but I don’t think I’ve ever shown loaf bread before.  I use the same recipe as for the rolls.  Actually, I use this recipe for lots of different breads.  I tried a new hamburger bun recipe yesterday.  We did not like it as much as our old recipe.  I am cooking a beef roast on the woodstove today.  I think I will add some potatoes and carrots in the pot.  Then maybe open a can of homegrown green beans.  Nice hot fresh baked bread.  YUM!  I also have a peach pie in the oven.  I hope I made everyone hungry.  I sure made myself hungry.

Well, school is calling.  Take care and God bless.

One of the girls favorite eat out food is crazy bread from Little Ceasars, so today I decided to try my hand at making it.  They actually turned out really well.  They tasted very similar to crazy bread.  I used my butter rich roll recipe for the dough, then when they were baked I brushed melted butter over them, sprinkled on garlic salt and parmesan cheese, and YUM!  I think this will definitely be a keeper.

I thought you all might want to see our progress so far.  The electrical is done, insulation finished and the drywall is hung.  Hubby will start putting the mud on next week.  Thankfully, he has some work for next week. This means the room will go slower but we need the work.  I am glad to have it this close to finished.  He estimates it will be finished and everything moved in by the end of the month. 

This has been my major project all day.  We decided to do a recipe exchange among the ladies at church.  We ended up with about 40 recipes. We thought it would be nice to have them in their original form so most of them are handwritten.  I arranged them into categories today.  I have only a few that I need to find out who donated them.  I hope to find this out tomorrow, then I will put them all together into books.  This has been a really fun project. 

Cooler temperatures have arrived here once again.  We had a fire yesterday and last night however we didn’t need one today.  Temperature is about 58 degrees here now with lots of sunshine, quite a brisk wind though.  If you are outside, a lightweight jacket feels pretty good.  I think I will enjoy some of that sunshine while we still have  it.  Enjoy your evening 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.