A Beautiful Sunset

For the last few days, we have been enjoying beautiful sunsets. We thought this one was exceptionally pretty. My thanks to Grace for taking the picture. It looked like a highway and it stretched almost all the way across the sky. God certainly is awesome.

We have been doing the usual around here. Cleaning, canning etc. Tuesday evening we visited with the Horn’s. Vicki made her delicious potato soup. Madison made a tomato pie, with fresh tomatoes and herbs she had raised and dried herself. It was delicious. It tasted amazingly like pizza. We all loved it.

Today, I am meeting Mrs. Sally in “little town”. She has a stock pot she is going to let me borrow for making spaghetti sauce. I think the brand name is Calphalon. She says it is wonderful and that her sauce never sticks. I am excited about giving it a try and grateful to her for letting us use it. Mrs. Faye from our church will also meet us there in town. I picked up an outdoor canner for her yesterday and she wants to get started using it as soon as possible.

Well, I thinks that’s it for now. I have lots to get done so I better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 9, 2012 4

Eggs

Just look at all our little pullet eggs. Ain’t they cute? Notice the ameraucana one. We were so happy to see it in the nest. We have been busy here for the the last few days. Thursday afternoon we went over the our pastors house to pick peaches. I, of course, forgot my camera so no pictures of his beautiful trees. They are all full of fruit. Friday and today was spent working up the peaches we got. We ended up with 15 qts canned, 3 qts frozen, and 10 1/2 gals of peach juice. YEAH! Such a blessing.

We have been HOT here. Not as hot as some of you all but hot for us. Upper 90’s for the actual temperature. I’m not sure what it is with the humidity, feels like, at least, 110 degrees (to me).

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

July 7, 2012 7

Update on Job Site

Hello everyone! I know it has been several days since I made a post. First off, my blog was down for a few days. Thanks to David, I am now back up and running. Second, we have been pretty busy here. I thought I would share a few pictures of how the progress is coming on Hubby’s job.

We tore up the flooring in the livingroom. It was in pretty bad shape.

The floor joists were sitting down on the ground. Of course, there is only one way to fix that.

This was our progress as of Monday evening. Tuesday the girls and I had to go to C-burg so I didn’t get to help (too bad, right!) Hubby did finish moving the dirt out of this section. Next we will tear up the other side of the floor and do the same thing again. It is hard work but exciting. The house is really starting to take shape. Today, I helped him hang sheetrock on another job. Thank the Good Lord, work seems to be picking up some for us. We are SO thankful!

The girls working on school work. Homeschool is so much fun. We can take it with us wherever we go.

I thought I would show you all what damage termites can do.

We will be replacing these pieces of wood with blocks. Tuesday when we went to C-burg we stopped by the Horn’s for a visit. They had a great surprise.

Baby Ducks!!! Their mama duck had just hatched 16 baby ducks. It was very exciting. We had a nice visit and Vicki helped me (actually she did all the work) list some school books on Ebay to sell. Thanks again, Vicki.

Today has been wet and chilly here in Floyd. When we came home from hanging the sheetrock, I built a fire to take the chill out of the house. Wet weather seems to make the house feel colder. Well, I think that about catching up all we have been doing. I hope you all have a good evening and God bless.

April 18, 2012 8

Orange Cleaner

I wanted to share with you all something new I am trying. It is homemade orange cleaner. I got the idea from http://isabellaanddorinda.blogspot.com/2012/01/homemadecitrus-cleaner.html Mine has been made for less than a week now but it already smells so good. I will let you all know how it turns out.

Today we finished with school and had plans for doing some outside work. However, before we could get outside, it started to rain. This, of course, required a mad dash to the clothes line. Thankfully, we got the clothes-which had already dried-off before they got wet. I think our outside work will have to be put off for another day. We are planning to expand our chicken lot and purchase more layers this spring so we have much to do to get everything ready. Maybe it will dry off enough later to work on it some.

I also wanted to share another bird picture. Grace took this picture yesterday. Mr. Woodpecker has been a regular visitor to our feeder for the past few days. Isn’t he beautiful?

Enjoy your day and God bless.

February 24, 2012 7

Sunday

Hello ladies. Weather here has certainly decided to change. Just a few days ago, we didn’t even need a fire. Last night, temperatures dropped to 5 degrees with wind gusts of 60 mph. This put the wind chill to about -10 or lower. To top all that off the power went off about midnight and stayed off until around noon today. Thankfully, we do not need electricity for heat or we would have definitely been cold. However, when the electricity came back on, our water was frozen. We had left it running slightly last night so that it wouldn’t freeze but when the power went off the pump stopped working, therefore the water stopped running. We worked on thawing it out after lunch. We now have hot and cold water in the bathroom and laundry room but only cold water in the kitchen. Thank you, Lord! It seems no matter how hard we try, when the wind blows that fierce and the temperature drops that low, our water seems to always freeze. I am very grateful that it thawed as easy as it did. You all may remember a few years back, our water remained frozen in the bathroom for an entire month. YUCK!

Well, that’s enough of my woes. Last week, I heard a funny saying for when someone is complaining. “Do you want some cheese with that whine?” I think I’ve whined enough. Sorry ladies. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

February 12, 2012 5

Thursday

Hello everyone. It has been a busy week here in Floyd. David is gone to a conference in Vegas so Monday evening we went down to help Jess with the kids for a few days. We also had some electrical work Hubby and I needed to do for her. We finished most of it up on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, Hubby put a dimmer switch on her lights in the living room. We then left to come home.

David is having a great time in Vegas. He gave a speech the other night at the conference. He said he spoke to about 22,ooo people. Amazing. We are all very proud of him.

Today was school as usual. We had planned on going over to the Horn’s this evening but Vicki is sick. Please pray for her. She thinks she has a stomach virus. It has been very rough on her. I called today at lunch and Quentin said she wasn’t any better yet. She is never sick. Hubby has been working on cutting out the material for our chairs. I so appreciate all your advice on what color to paint them. I still haven’t completely decided yet but I have a while before he will be at that stage. I am thinking of going with the dark brown and putting chair cushions in them. That way I can change them whenever I want and today I happened to think “Wow, I could make a tablecloth for the table to match the cushions” Maybe I’ll go that route.

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

January 12, 2012 5

Mrs. Sally’s Home

Thursday evening we went to our pastor’s home for a visit. We ate supper with them and had a wonderful visit. Mrs. Sally, pastor’s wife, had lots of beautiful Christmas decorations up. This nativity scene was purchased in Israel. It is made of olive wood. Very pretty.

This carousel came from Germany. You can’t really see it but on top of the carousel are propellers. The heat from the candles cause the carousel to go around.

This is Miss Izzy. Pastor Tom tells her all the time she is the most beautiful cat God ever created. I think she believes him.

Julie and Sadie had a great time together.

Mrs. Sally is a great seamstress. I think I have mentioned before she is teaching my girls to sew. This quilt was so bright and colorful. I thought you all would enjoy seeing it too.

We have still been having vehicle troubles. Today, we took the girls over to church for play practice. Our youth christmas play is tomorrow. Hubby thought the alternator was going bad on the van. We were going over to C-burg to Auto Zone to have them check it. We started having more serious trouble with it, so Hubby thought we should just try to make it home. We didn’t make it. About 4 miles from home, the van decided that was just all it could do. It stopped right in the middle of the road. I’m here to tell you all God is good! Not more that 5 min. after the van quit a young man came by that we used to go to church with. He went up to his Grandpaws and got a pickup truck and a chain. He and Hubby hooked the van up to the truck and he pulled us all the way home. No charge! Anyway, it is the alternator. So I guess the van will have to be parked for a few days until Hubby can get it fixed.

Well, that’s been our day. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

December 10, 2011 8

Saturday

Hello, ladies. Seems like we have been busy here for the last few days. Friday, I worked all day (in my spare time) on aprons. I managed to get two finished. I took them down to the Bread Basket for selling. She had sold all my aprons except one. YEAH! This month is our month to clean the church and mow the churchyard. We went Friday evening to do this. Grace took this picture of the sky on our way over to the church. Hubby did the mowing and weed eating while the girls and I cleaned inside. Our homecoming is tomorrow morning and then our revival starts tomorrow evening. Here is a picture of the inside of our church.

Twice a year, our church sponsors a clay shoot at the Coonhunter Club here in Floyd. Today we had about 25 shooters. The girls and I stayed for a while and then we had to go to C-burg to buy ink. Monday we will be starting school and I needed a few supplies.

I guess I better get busy. We will be having a fellowship meal following services tomorrow. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 10, 2011 6

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

Peaches

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.

July 23, 2011 6