Dried Beans

When I was growing up, dried beans or as some call them leather britches, was a staple in our home. Every year, we spent many hours stringing them up on strings and carrying them to the attic to hang on nails. I can still remember going up to the attic and seeing rows and rows of green beans drying. I SO wish I had a picture of that to share with you all. However, I searched the internet and found this one at wildwoodforestlogcabin.com.

Yesterday, though, I thought I would try something different. We dehydrated them in our dehydrator following the directions in the book. They were finished in about 10 hrs-not weeks. However, I do think we might do it the old way sometime, just so the girls can have that experience. I hope these taste as good as the ones we used to do. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 28, 2013 6

Around the House

Today, I thought I would show you all a few pictures from around the house. These are the cosmos flowers we planted at the lower garden. I am amazed at how tall they have grown!

These are marigolds. Vicki gave me the seed. Ain’t they pretty! I love the different colors in them. I have already been collected seeds from both flowers to plant next year.

I wanted you all to see these carrots we pulled the other day from one of the raised beds. I have never had success raising carrots before but I think maybe the raised beds helped.

Here’s a picture of the lower garden. See how tall the cosmos flowers are. Underneath them are tons of marigolds. I definitely know not to plant them together next year.

This is the upper garden and the raised beds. I really didn’t know if I would like using raised beds or not, but I think they are pretty good for certain types of veggies.

Last week we re-purposed this gate. It was a gate we used at another house probably 12 years ago. We took it apart as some of the boards were no good. We built another frame and used the gate boards to make another gate for the chicken lot. Remember how we used the old crib springs for the gate.

Well, we have never really been happy with this gate. For one thing, it is not wide enough for the wheel barrow to fit through and for another thing it keeps falling out of the hook that is supposed to hold it up. So we built another one. Much better and way more convenient. The new gate is really close to the feed building. You see all the corn shucks piled up. We cut those out of the garden yesterday and plan on giving them a little at a time to the chickies for a treat.

We are canning pintos today. We canned 12 qts yesterday and will be finishing up a 10 lb bag today. I smell them cooking so I better check on them. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 27, 2013 4

homemade chapstick

http://theelliotthomestead.com/2010/11/chapstick-baby/

August 22, 2013 0

Science Explorers

Saturday we went to http://www.sciworks.org It was a lot of fun. We have visited several science centers this summer and for me this was the best. So much hands on activities for everyone. I did remember to take my camera, however, I didn’t think about batteries. Therefore no pictures of all the fun stuff inside. You can tell though how excited Daniel was to be there by the picture I did get.

Yesterday we went to the http://www.greensboroscience.org.

We have been there once this summer but not since they put in the aquarium. It was awesome!

So much to see and do!

The highlight of the visit was touching a stingray!

You can’t really see him but Sam is in there too and Katie even got in on the action. First time for us to “pet” one. Another first for me yesterday was touching a snake. Not sure if I want to touch another one or not but it was not near as bad as I imagined.

We are canning rhubarb today so I better get off and get busy. I hope you have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 20, 2013 5

Beautiful Corn

The girls and I have been busy working up corn. At first, we didn’t think it would do very well because of all the rain we had but it seems to have not hurt it any. We put up 104 ears in the freezer. That should do us nicely through the winter.

I wanted to share the view with you all from my back porch. It was a beautiful morning here in Floyd. Our temperature this morning was 48 degrees. Amazing! Grace and I wore jeans to the garden this morning to pull the corn.

This is a picture of some flowers we planted at the edge of the garden. They sure do add color to the space and look very cheerful.

I have shown you all this flower before. We researched it and found some people call them “naked ladies”. Well, this year, we found out more about them. They are also called “resurrection lily”. I like that name so much better. In early spring, they will come out as foliage, then they die back and in late July or early August these beautiful flowers come up. Amazing how God works! All the years we have lived here, the green foliage has come up and I just thought it didn’t have bloom on it. I never made the connection between the foliage and the flower. Remember last week when I helped Hubby texture a ceiling, the lady who owned the house gave me all this information. She had them growing in her yard as well.

Well, that’s about it. Time for us to eat lunch. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

August 15, 2013 6

Apple Pie Enchiladas

I got this recipe from facebook

1 (21 ounce) can apple pie filling
6 (8 inch) flour tortillas
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Spoon about one heaping quarter cup of pie filling evenly down the center of each tortilla. Sprinkle with cinnamon (I have my cinnamon in a shaker bottle, so I just sprinkle some on each as I am rolling them) roll up, tucking in edges; and place seam side down in prepared dish.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar and water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes, remove from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Pour sauce over enchiladas and let stand 45 minutes ..
Don’t rush the 45 minute resting time for the sauce on the enchiladas before baking, this step helps to magically transforms the flour tortillas into a faux pasty dough

Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, or until golden

August 15, 2013 0

Monday

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good day. We have been busy here-wait, don’t I always say that? Well, its true but sometimes I think you all probably get tired of hearing it. Today we gathered the last of the early corn. It had gotten too hard to just eat so I cut it off the cob and put it into a crock to pickle. I love pickled corn! Also, we worked up a bushel of apples. We got them as cull apples and they were only $6.00. Not too bad and they really were pretty. Just a few spots and bruises, not many at all. We got 9 qts of applesauce and 4 half gal. of apple juice from them. On top of all of that, I have been dealing with some type of head cold or allergies or something. All I know is that I feel yucky , my nose is congested and my throat is sore. I do not, repeat-DO NOT- like being sick. I would not have been able to accomplish any of this today, if not for the help of my girls. They are such helpers. Thanks girls!

Well, the last canner is done. Time to start cooking supper. Enjoy your day and God bless.

UPDATE: My wonderful Hubby is bringing home subway for supper!! If I felt like it, I would do a happy dance.

August 12, 2013 4

Chuck’s Bed

I thought I would show you all Hubby’s latest project. He has been working on making a bed for Chuck. It is almost finished. The headboard and footboard used to be our dining table benches. When we first made our dining table we made benches to go with it. Years later I decided I was tired of the benches and wanted chairs. So he made me chairs. (He’s so good about things like that!) Anyway the benches moved up to the building for a while and now they are being remade into a bed. I like that.

We have been busy with our garden here. Canning is in full swing. I love it!!! Lots of good food being saved for winter time. Our cucumbers are just about gone. I thought about planting some more seeds but I don’t think they would have time to do anything. We have been blessed with lots of cucumbers this year so we have made several batches of pickles. I put the recipe for the Christmas pickles over into my recipe file under canning if any of you are interested. We had our first taste of fresh corn this past week. YUM! I love fresh garden corn. When I was younger and it was time to put up the corn, my mom would always cook corn on the cob for breakfast. She said it put us in the right frame of mind.

We had our annual Sunday School Breakfast this morning. We usually have it at SmartView Park here on the Blue Ridge Parkway. For some reason (that I will never understand) the Parkway has decided not to open many of the picnic areas this year. So we couldn’t have our breakfast there. The road is still washed out going down to the river so we had our breakfast at the Coon Hunters Club. Yes, ladies, coon hunting IS a sport here. We have never participated in it but many people do. Anyway, we had tons of good food!! It was a really nice way to start off the service.

Tomorrow, I will be helping Hubby texture a ceiling. After that we have some tomatoes to can. I think we will make spaghetti sauce with them. In the meantime, I have a new book from the library, a cup of tea and a green swing that is calling my name. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

August 4, 2013 5

Pizza Crust

I got this recipe from Vicki. It is a great pizza crust, easy to make.

2 1/4 tsp. yeast, 1 cup water, 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 tsp. olive oil, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt

Combine yeast and warm water. Stir until dissolved. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Let rest 5 min. Roll out to size and shape you need. This recipe is the perfect amount of crust for one reg. size cookie sheet. Add pizza sauce and whatever toppings you choose. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 min or until golden brown.

August 4, 2013 0