Finished

The front porch is finished. I wanted to show you the finished product. I’m not sure the picture does a good job of showing it or not.

I rolled the blinds down some so you all could see them too. When we do school out here, we roll them down some to eliminate the glare. They also help keep it cooler in the summer. We now have cleaned and mopped the floor and returned all the furniture to the porch. It is so nice. Thanks, Hubby.

Yesterday was spent down at Jessica’s watching the boys while she went for her ultra sound. She saw the heart beat so all is well in Mama’s world. She is 8 weeks and her due date is Nov. 9th. Very close to Grace’s birthday. Today will be catch up at school and getting the house cleaned for tomorrow’s bible study. It is my turn for dessert and I am planning on making cinnamon rolls. We are going over to the Horn’s tomorrow evening to eat and visit with them. I am making enough cinnamon rolls to take over there as well.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 31, 2011 6

Our Big Surprise

Remember a while back I said we were working on a big surprise. Well, here they are. We have baby chicks!!!!! Aren’t they sooo cute? The girls and I are so excited. Hubby is a little more reserved but we know he’ll come around. Our friends, the Horns, gave us the red ones. The others came from Tractor Supply. We got them Saturday. They spent the weekend inside as it was extremely cold here. We moved them out to their coop yesterday. We pulled a quilt down over the roost and put a light inside so they stayed nice and warm. I will be posting more pictures all along to let you all know of their progress.

It is a little warmer here today. At least no snow or ice. Hopefully, we will be able to hang clothes outside to dry. Today is supposed to be our warmest day of the week. Colder with rain for the remainder. Oh well, this is the last week of March. In April, things start warming up more. We will be doing school as usual today, with breaks to go check on the chicks. The girls have already been out once this morning. They want them to be used to them and not be afraid.

I made a new recipe yesterday for pumpkin muffins. They turned out pretty good. The recipe I used is:

Original Recipe Yield 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups, or line the cups with paper muffin liners.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice; set aside. Combine the brown sugar, white sugar, oil, applesauce, pumpkin, buttermilk, and beaten eggs and mix until well blended. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the raisins and pecans, if desired.
Divide the batter evenly in the prepared muffin pan. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the muffin pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes before removing the muffins from the pan.

Footnotes

Cook’s Tip
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, add 1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice to 1/3 cup milk; let stand for 5 minutes before using in the recipe.

I got this recipe from www.allrecipes.com It is definitely worth making again (in my opinion). Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 29, 2011 3

Out Like a Lion

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.

March 28, 2011 5

More Progress

Yesterday we finished all the outside trim. He still has to put metal over the big board at the bottom and paint but other than that the outside is done. We worked some on the inside trim but did not get it all finished. He had gotten the redwood from a jobsite several years ago and decided it would make for nice trim. I think it looks really good.

Temperature has been a little chilly for the past several days. Hopefully it will warm back up soon. I like warmer temperatures better-days without having to keep a fire. I hope you all enjoy your Saturday and God bless.

March 26, 2011 5

Project

This is the big project we have been working on all week. The first year we lived here we enclosed the front porch with glass. Hubby had gotten these glass doors free from a job site years before. This porch stayed wet all the time. So he took the glass doors out of their frames and framed them up on the porch. We love this this area. All winter it is used for coffee drinking, book reading. In the summer, it is a favorite spot to sit and look at the stars, the lightning bugs, summer storms. It is a well used porch. However, this winter we discovered a problem. The wood underneath the porch had rotted so badly the windows were falling down. Not good. So Hubby decided we had to fix this before it became a disaster.

First step was to remove the glass. In this picture, he has already replaced some of the rotten wood but you can still see some of it. We had to jack the porch up and put new wood under it. We also had to replace some of the wood flooring.

This was our attempt to keep the cats out. LOL As you can guess, it did not work but it did keep the rain out which was our real objective. We had a lot of rain Wednesday evening. Lots of wind, thunder and lightning but the porch, Praise the Lord, stayed dry.

We now have all the posts replaced and the 3 big panes of glass back in. We will be working on the last section today and then hopefully start replacing the trim. He wants to cover the front boards with metal. This will keep the weather from doing too much damage. He had to work alone yesterday as the girls and I had to go to Roanoke for a dentist appointment and other errands. Hopefully we will get most of it finished today. Rain is in the forecast for the weekend. We are still working on our surprise project. We just had to stop working on it to get this finished. Priorities, you know. I’ll try to have more pictures to show you all tomorrow.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 25, 2011 5

Turtles

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.

March 23, 2011 5

Pandapas Pond

Yesterday we decided to take the day off from school. Hubby had to run a few errands in Blacksburg. This little pond is close to B-burg so we thought it would be a nice to have a picnic and hike around the pond. We had a really fun day.

This is one of the side trails you can walk on. We stayed on the main trail that goes around the pond.

We saw lots of ducks and geese. Also turtles. I will show the turtle pictures and some more of the scenery tomorrow. Temperature is so nice here this morning. The birds are singing beautifully. I have bread rising and a pork tenderloin roast ready to put in the oven for supper. I think it is going to be a good day.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 22, 2011 7

More Farm Pictures

This is a far off picture of the graveyard that is on the farm. This picture was taken from the top of our driveway.

This is a closer shot. Right beside the graveyard is a hay barn.

I’m sure Jess will recognize this picture. On the left of this picture at the bottom of the hill is an old farmhouse. Dave and Jess lived there for several years before they moved to N.C.

Today will be school as usual, though we have not gotten our early start. We are running a little behind as Hubby and I did not wake up as early as usual. Saturday, we worked on cleaning up an area where we used to have the swimming pool. This was a major job which required almost 5 hrs. to finish. We had the back of the truck completely full of trash to haul to the dumpster. We had to cut the pool liner in pieces. It was too heavy to move in one solid piece. We kept the parts of the pool we thought we might could reuse. We were all muddy from head to toe, including the “bumpy truck”. But I am so glad to get this job done. Vicki and Quintin are giving us some strawberry plants and we plan on putting them in that space.

Yesterday’s menu at church was pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green beans, cole slaw, beef strogonoff, key lime pie and cookies. We started our new study on Galatians. I think it will be a very good study. I better get busy or school will be starting really late. Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 21, 2011 4

A Ride Around the Farm

Yesterday evening the girls convinced me we needed to take a ride around the farm. Grace took pictures for me. Thank you, Grace. First we start up the hill.

I almost forgot, first we must get Shadow in the truck bed with the girls. When he was a young pup, he would run beside the truck. Now he rides in the truck bed. He’s too old and too heavy to jump in the truck bed so we back up to this little incline, let the tail gate down and then he can jump in. He loves it. As soon as the girls climb in the back of the truck, he starts getting excited.

See how the fields are starting to get green!

A little stream in the field.

A view from the top of the hill. These are just a few pictures Grace took. I will show more later. We have sunshine today. We did get some rain last night but I think it has already passed us by. We plan on getting some more outside work done today. Maybe even working some more on our surprise. Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 19, 2011 6

Grapevine

Our grapevine. You can see another smaller “brash” pile in the second garden. We are hoping to have lots and lots of grapes this year. Now that we have our steamer juicer, we are looking forward to making lots of grape juice . We certainly did enjoy the apple juice we made last year. I want to experiment with other types of fruit to make juice.

Today is another beautiful day here in Floyd. Very windy though, as usual. Temperature is already in the 50’s. Forecast is for rain over the weekend. I was hoping for sunshine and warm temperatures but I know we did rain too. The ladies will be coming in a little bit. We are planning on doing some more outside work after our study is finished. The girls work on school while the ladies and I are doing our bible study. We are working on a surprise outside which I will show you all when we get it finished.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 18, 2011 7