Hello everyone. I hope you are all having a good week so far. Last Friday, Grace and I went with the Horns on a picnic and a small hike at Bisset Park. The trail goes along with the river. It is a really nice, peaceful trail.

While we were in town, we went to Rural King. I got these beautiful mini mums to put in our planter. I think they look really nice and just the right size.

We have been working on more garden produce.

Aren’t these so colorful! These peppers are for the freezer.

We also did some pickled sweet peppers and some pickled hot peppers but I forgot to get a picture of them.

We have been working on cleaning up the raised beds. They are in horrible condition and need lots of attention. We hope to get them cleaned up and put some fall crops in them. We’ll see how it goes.

This bed is completely finished and ready to go now. So one down 4 more to go!

I received this sweet picture from Daniel the other day. I love it!

Grace and I went to our local thrift store yesterday and Grace found these adorable monster shoes. She absolutely loves them.

I found this. I love Beth Moore studies and so was very happy to find this devotion book. I am looking forward to starting on it.

The moon has been so beautiful here. This picture, in no way, does it justice but it is the best my phone would do.

Well I guess that’s all for today. Enjoy your day and God bless.

Grace and I took the three oldest kiddos to the Mill Mountain Zoo yesterday. We had so much fun.

First we get in our “new” car.

Then nap time.

we’re here!

We saw lots of animals and played at the playground.

After the zoo, we had a picnic lunch and then went to the star. At night this star is lit up and you can see it from a long way off. We had a very blessed day.

God bless.

I hope you are having a good weekend. Dave and I are working on a huge project. We are replacing all the copper pipes in his house with pex pipe. We got about half of it finished yesterday. Hopefully the rest will be finished today.

I wanted to share with you all my newest bible and bible study. I really like them both.

My friend Bev came up for a visit. She does beautiful stained glass work. She made this angel for me

And this one for Grace. I think they are so beautiful.

Jess and the kids came over to visit with Bev.

Bev took these great pictures.

Me and Grace.

Yes, that’s me sitting in John Luke’s car seat. We were having a hard time getting the seat beat to lock in place. Fun stuff!

Grace and I stopped at Michael’s the other day and she got these cute birds. It’s getting time to start fall decorating. Grace loves fall decorating.

I guess I better get busy if we are going to finish running that pipe. I hope you have a great Sunday and God bless.

Good morning everyone. Look at these beautiful tomatoes. They were given to us by our dear friends, Richard and Brenda. They also brought us a sack of corn. I may can the corn or put it in the freezer, just depends on how our time goes today. John Luke has his speech therapy appointment this afternoon in Roanoke so we’ll just see how our time goes.

I dried some tomatoes this week in the dehydrator.

And some peppers.

I love this. It is very good to add to just about anything.

Sam and Katie came and spent a few hours with us on Saturday. They helped Grace and I pull up all the corn stalks in the garden.

Daniel, Sam and Katie spent some time with Grace yesterday while Jess, John Luke and I met Dave in Cburg. We are having trouble with my phone and he is working with Sprint trying to get it to work properly. The kids love to come spend time with Grace at the farm. They made dirt pudding. That’s what is in the glasses.

So I want to take a moment to share something Sam said the other day. The kids and Jess were discussing Julie and the accident. Jess was talking and said something about we may never know what happened. Sam said “maybe we don’t need to know, Mommy. Maybe it was just between Julie and God”. I so love that boy. Just because I don’t mention Julie’s going to heaven very often on this blog doesn’t mean we all don’t struggle with it every day however out of the mouth of babes comes wisdom to help. God is good.

Now on to other things. I made my first batch of pumpkin bread for the season. It was very good and tastes of fall which will be here very soon.

Speaking of fall, look at this cute fall painting Madison did for us. We love it. Grace and I are trying really hard to wait until September before we put out our fall decorations.

Dave had to make a business trip last week. He was gone for several days which was very hard on this little girl. I love this picture. Total love and devotion on both faces.

Next, Grace saw this huge bear the other day. She was in our yard and looked over at the field. The bear was between the first two corn rows. She got several pictures of it.

We decided no more walking on the tractor road until the corn is cut!

That’s about all for now. God bless.

Good morning everyone. I hope you are all having a great day. I wanted to share with you all some of what we have been doing this week. Just look at all those beautiful tomatoes and peppers.

Look how huge this one is. I raised Amish Paste tomatoes this year for my sauce tomatoes. I LOVED them! I definitely want raise them again next year.

With next year’s garden in mind, I am already saving seed. I have seed for October beans, amish paste tomatoes, Mr. Stripey tomatoes, banana peppers and a sweet Italian pepper that I don’t know the exact name of. I purchased it several years ago at a farmers market and saved the seed.

I made peach juice from the peach peeling and we made 7 pts of jelly from it.

I also canned some yellow squash. Only 4 jars as I don’t know if we will like it or not. We will see. We don’t like mushy food however I read a recipe online using canned squash to make a squash casserole. I think we will give that a try.

Our spaghetti sauce simmering. By using the amish paste tomatoes it did cut down the simmering time and it is the thickest sauce I have ever made.

My canning for the day! I am so happy with this. We have enough salsa, spaghetti sauce and crushed tomatoes to get us through the winter. Thank you, Lord!

Now, just a few pretty pictures from our sunrise the other morning.

I am so blessed to live here.

It is a beautiful morning here in Floyd. I am getting an early start this morning as we have lots we want to accomplish today. Here are a few things we have been doing.

We canned peaches yesterday. We had 12 qts of peaches and 7 pts of peach jam. We are so happy to have these. I haven’t canned peaches in several years.

Corn is pulled and put up in the freezer.

Just look at this beautiful ear of corn.

My view as I shucked the corn. God is so good to allow us to live in this beautiful place.

I pulled out one of our old crocks to make some sauerkraut. These crocks belonged to my mom. I love using them.

We also canned some black beans. I bought the dried beans from Walmart.

A neighbor gave us a box of October beans. Grace had so much fun shelling them out. She worked on them while I made salsa. We had 10 qts of beans and I’m not sure how much salsa. We will be making more salsa today though.

Also big news! Grace and I got a “new” to us car. It is a 2005 Ford Five Hundred. It was a one owner with low mileage. Locally owned. We really like it so far.

So the other day we were going down what we call the back side of the gap and this beautiful creature flew right in front of us and landed in a tree. Thankfully, Grace hardly ever goes anywhere without her camera so she was able to get some awesome pictures of him. He looks like he is posing for her.

Speaking of posing, Grace took this picture of one of our cats. I love it.

I guess that’s all for today. God bless.