A Glimpse of Fall

Just a little glimpse that fall is on the way. Dried corn stalks are definitely a sign. Yesterday, the girls and I went to play with the boys while Jess went to have another ultra sound. This time Katie was in the birth position instead of breech. Praise the Lord! I want to thank you all for praying for her and ask that you continue to pray. She has about 9 weeks to go.

Today, we will finish up the pears. I think I will make juice from what is left. I may end up canning some more. I’ll wait and see. Tomorrow we plan on spending the day with the Horns. We are going to Paint Bank. I will hopefully get lots of pictures to show you. We are so looking forward to this. It has been several years since we have been there and the Horns have never been. I hope they enjoy it as much as we do. Our hens have picked up some on their laying. Yesterday, we got 5 eggs. We haven’t gave them any scraps (except just a few little treats).

This lone tree sits in the field behind our house. If you look closely, you can see the leaves are starting to change. It has been so dry here, I’m not sure if we will have very much color. I hope so, though. I so enjoy the colors of fall.

I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

September 2, 2011 5

Pears

We have been blessed to have quite a few pears given to us. Do any of you all have any pear recipes you would like to share? I usually just can them like apples but I am always looking for new things to try. One thing I want to do is make juice this year. Anyway, the girls and I will be working up pears tomorrow. Today, I helped Hubby. We textured the ceilings on the job he has been working on. They looked really nice.

I have a question for you ladies who have chickens. Last week we were getting 8-10 eggs a day. Yesterday and today, we got one each day. What do you think is going on? We did have a couple of days that we didn’t feed them the layer crumbles. We had all kinds of scraps from the corn. Do you think that would affect their laying? I’m just not sure what would have happened.

Well, I’m tired and it is my turn for the shower. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

August 30, 2011 7

Grapes

Beautiful grapes! Last night a friend of ours called and said they had some grapes that we could have if we wanted them. They had already used all they wanted so we loaded up and went over to pick. We picked about 3 bushels. The girls and I have been busy all day, processing them. We are using the steam juicer. I think we will end up with about 20 qts, maybe more. What a blessing. God is so good!

Guess what? We have a broody hen! Well, where I come from we call them setting hens but here most folks call them broody. Anyway, she is only 4 months old. I don’t think I have ever known one to set that young. We have kept Mr. Rooster separate from the hens so her eggs would not hatch but she doesn’t seem to know that. The girls and I wanted to put her back in the coup with Mr. Rooster so we could let her set but Hubby said no. No more chickens-(this year). Anyway, we moved her out into her own little coup for a few days. The other hens were glad as she was hogging the only nest they will use. They have two other nests but for some reason they all prefer to use just this one.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 27, 2011 4

He Needs A Name

Well, we have decided to give Mr. Rooster a chance. If he is a good boy, I guess we’ll keep him. We all think he sounds so cute when he crows. We have decided his crow adds a little something to our day. Wow, we really DO need to get out more. Anyway, we’ll see how it works out.

Yesterday, we worked with blackberries. We made some blackberry juice. Then took the berries we had cooked down to make the juice and put them in the Roma sauce maker. The sauce maker takes out all the seeds. We then make blackberry freezer jam. We had some blackberry puree left over and I wondered what I would do with it. Then I thought HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY ICE CREAM! It was so good. I tried to take a picture to share with you all but I couldn’t get it to turn out right. I got the recipe online at Cooks.com but altered it some to better suit us. Anyway, here is the recipe I used:

2 cups blackberry puree, 2 cups sugar, 3 eggs beaten, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 6 cups milk, 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk. I mixed all the ingredients together and put it into the ice cream maker. I plan on making peach ice cream this weekend when Dave, Jess and the boys come up.

I went to work with Hubby this morning and helped him until lunchtime. Then came home and the girls and I started working on the peaches. We made some peach freezer jam and then canned some of the peaches. We saved the peelings again and got 2 more qts of peach juice. We also had a peach cobbler for supper. I love peaches.

I am looking forward to tomorrow as Sam and Daniel will be coming up to spend the day with us. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

August 3, 2011 3

New Ladies

Meet one of our new ladies. We have been blessed to receive 5 new hens and 1 rooster for free. A family that lives across the Parkway from us purchased these chickens on Easter weekend. That makes them about 1 month younger than ours. They decided chickens were not for them. They gave them to us with the coup. We brought them to their new home today. Julie will have to work on petting them up but I don’t think it will take her long. We are going to increase the size of our fenced in area and then put them all together. We think our older ladies like having a rooster around. We received 6 eggs today and one of them was a double yoke. We do not really want the rooster though. We are thinking of giving him away.

It is HOT here. Temperature is 95 degrees. I’m not sure what the heat index is but it is definitely hot. Enjoy your day, stay cool and God bless.

July 30, 2011 5

First Ripe Tomato

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.

June 23, 2011 5

Our First Harvest

We are starting to enjoy the fruit of our labor. I know its a small amount but the first is always the best. We love it when the garden starts coming in.

Yesterday we went over to the Horn’s. Vicki put some of my old schoolbooks on ebay for me. I have never sold anything on ebay. They only allowed us to put 10 items. Hopefully, they will sell and then we will put more. We’ll see. Anyway, thanks again Vicki, for helping me. The girls had a great time playing as usual. Vicki showed me some pictures of projects she wants to do this summer. It was a really good visit. After that we had piano lessons. While the girls did their lessons, I did some grocery shopping. We were out of chick feed so I picked some up. They are starting on the layer crumbles now. Hopefully, soon, we will be gathering eggs. So exciting.

I better get busy. Clothes to hang on the line (as usual). Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 21, 2011 4

Daniel

Yesterday Dave, Jess and the boys came for a quick visit. They had purchased a butchered hog in Burnt Chimney, which is kinda close to here. They had one of the hams cured for a country ham. It has to hang for 3 months. They brought it by here to hang in one of our buildings. They also generously shared some of the pork with us. Thanks! We enjoyed fresh sausage this morning with our eggs and cooked pears. Sooooooo good!!!

Daniel is ready to go to work in this picture. He has his hat on and my shovel in his hand. This picture was my first attempt at learning how to crop pictures on my computer. I should have made it bigger but I’m just learning. We had some ice fall during the night, now we are getting snow. Hopefully, it will just be snow from now on. I really do not like ice. No church today. I think it will be a snuggle in day. Make some candy or cookies-maybe both.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

December 12, 2010 5

Our “New” Car

We have a new car. Well, new to us. It is a 1991 Ford Taurus and seems to be in excellent condition. It gets really good gas mileage. We took it down to Jessica’s yesterday and got about 27 mpg. This sounds great to us as “ol Red” only gets about 8 mpg. Please don’t get me wrong, we are very thankful for ol Red. It is just not exactly a family vehicle. The girls and I used ol Red as our vehicle to ride into town for piano and other things. We have had to use the van (Hubby’s work vehicle) for work and leisure. Not a lot of fun. We had to unload all the tools when we were going somewhere, then reload them back when we got home. Times have been hard. These are choices you make in order to make ends meet. But now by the grace of God we have another car. Paid for-no payments. Thank you, Lord. Tonight’s menu at church is Ham loaf, deviled eggs, corn, green beans, cole slaw and corn bread. I am bringing the green beans (home canned) and the corn bread. I use my grinder and grind corn to make the corn meal. It is baking in the oven now and smells soooooo good. I also cut up some fresh strawberries from yesterday. We are having pound cake with strawberries and ice cream for dessert. It all sound delicious! It has been very windy here today. I wanted to work on my bible study outside but it was just too windy. The girls say God is blow drying the earth when the wind blows like this. I guess that’s as good a description as any. Smells like my cornbread is done. I better get it out of the oven. Take care and God bless.

May 2, 2010 1

Having Fun

Daniel is having fun on his new swing set. I think it was the highlight of his weekend. We had a great visit. Lots of good food and sunshine. The temperature was extremely nice which made for an easy time hiding and hunting for eggs. Temperature here is nice too. Mid 70’s. I love it. Flowers are popping up everywhere. It is so exciting! I pray everyone had a nice Easter. Take care and God bless.

April 4, 2010 0