Tag: Front Porch

Little Okie

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Here’s a picture of the little kitten the girls have decided to give lots of love to.  He is the runt of the liter.  His mother is one of the wild cats that stay here but he is anything but wild.  He is definitely a people kitty.  He loves being where we are and will come running when they call his name.  His mother’s name is Mexico so they decided to call him Oklahoma-Okie for short.  We have been feeding him special food hoping he will catch up to his brothers and sisters. 

I have a whole chicken in the crock pot for supper.  I tried a new recipe that I found online.  This is the first time I’ve tried it so I’ll have to let you know if we like it but it smells delicious.  I think I have mentioned before I want to try out new crock pot recipes more this summer.  Hopefully, it will mean easier for me and less heat in the kitchen.  Along with the chicken we will be having stir fry veggies-fresh from our garden.  Squash, zucchini, green onions and peas.  YUM!!  The recipe is as follows. 

Directions:

 

  1.  In a small bowl, combine the spices.
  2.  Remove any giblets from chicken and clean chicken.
  3.  Rub spice mixture onto the chicken.
  4.  When ready to cook, put chopped onion in bottom of crock pot.
  5.  Add chicken. No liquid is needed, the chicken will make it’s own juices.
  6.  Cook on low 4-8 hours.

Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Temperature is about 72 degrees right now.  We have a strong breeze and the sun is shining.  We got a little rain last night which our plants really appreciated.  I have clothes to hang on the line.  My girls are doing school on the front porch.  My Hubby is at work and our supper is cooking in the crockpot.  God is SO good.  I am indeed a truly blessed woman. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

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Tomato Plant

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Yesterday, while in town, we visited our local greenhouse.  We bought some cabbage plants and this tomato.  See the bloom at the top.  Hopefully, we will get tomatoes early from it.  I put it in a bucket (dry wall ) and as of now it is on the front porch.  I plan on moving it out on the front deck, then moving it back in a night.  For  today it will probably stay on the porch-too windy outside.  I tried to leave it out some yesterday but the wind kept blowing it over. 

The other day when my brother in law came, he brought us over some morel mushrooms.  It was a very nice treat.  These grow in the wild and are only available in early spring.  Some people call them  dry land fish.    Anyway, after eating the ones he brought us we decided to go looking for some here.  Hubby thinks it is still a little too early for here but we had a lot of fun looking.  It was so nice to get out in the woods and walk around. 

Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

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Finished

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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.

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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.

6

Project

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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.

5

COLD!!!

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I took this picture this morning looking out from our enclosed front porch.  Yes, it really is as cold as it looks.  Actual temperature this morning was zero with wind chills about -15.  Maybe its warmer up north.   We certainly were thankful for the added warmth of the gas logs.   We went yesterday to get the tires on the car.  When we returned our water was frozen.  This never happens during day time hours.  We hooked up the heat light and PRAISE THE LORD it started running again around 8:30 P.M.  Needless to say, we left it on slightly last night. 

We have to take the car back today.  Something isn’t quite right with the right tire.  The car has a bad vibration in it.  I must say I do not look forward to going out in this cold weather but it has to be done.  

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I know I’ve already posted a picture of the village but I thought it looked so good with the frost on the window behind it.  Enjoy your day, stay warm and God bless.

4

Will I or Will I Not?

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I know many of you are thinking “what is this picture of”.  Did she make a mistake?  No, this is the view from my front porch this morning as I comtemplated my walk.  It was raining, the wind was blowing, everything was muddy and as you can see, it was foggy.  Today was the first test of my determination to walk every day.  It would have been so easy to just say YUCK!  I’m not going today.  I’ll do something else (which I knew I would not).  I did finally put on my raincoat, gloves, hiking boots-which of course was another excuse not to go because I do not like to wear all this.  I then stepped out in the yuck and began my walk.  Guess what?  It was exhilarating!!!!!!!!  I really did enjoy it.  Yes, I did get wet, my pants and my face and that was not too pleasant but it wasn’t too bad either.  I really want to walk as long as weather will permit so I know I just have to stick to it.   Pray that I will continue to be strong.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

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Beautiful Morning

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What a wonderful way to start a Sunday morning!  Sitting on my front porch, drinking a cup of coffee with my favorite man in the whole wide world, and looking at this special presentation from the Lord.  Beautiful!  We had a really good weekend.  We watched the movie “Fireproof” Saturday evening with some friends from church.  Then our Sunday School lesson was on marriage.  This was not planned to be that way-just our Lord at work.  I said we had an unplanned marriage retreat weekend.  We started the day with the beautiful sunrise and then on the way to church last evening the Lord gave a beautiful sunset to look at all the way to church.  (of course, I did not have the camera with me then)  How good is the Lord we serve?

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Here is a picture of my first attempt to make english muffins.  They turned out pretty good-a little dense I thought but good.  I used a recipe I found on line to make the dough in my bread machine.  Next time I think I will try making them by hand to see if they are different.  I am trying really hard to make as much of our food at home as possible.  This really lowers the grocery bill and of course is healthier for us and usually tastes much better.  Well enjoy your day and God bless.

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Juicer/Steamer

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Here is a picture of my juicer/steamer in action.  Yesterday it was raining very hard.  It would have been difficult for me to go outside to do the juice.  Hubby set up the propane burner on our enclosed front porch.  It worked extremely well.  So much better than out in the shed.  We just opened up the windows for ventilation.  We got another 2 gal. of juice yesterday and 3 qts of applesauce and 4 qts of applebutter.  The mountain of apples is getting smaller now.  Soon we will be starting on the pears. 

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I thought you all might enjoy another fall shot.  I snapped this as we were going down the road toward Floyd.  I thought maybe it would be blurred but it turned out nice, I think.  Today we will be working on more apples and school.  It is very foggy here today.  A dreary day.  A day for lighting candles.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

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Flowers

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I thought we might all enjoy some flowers.  There are not many left as fall is quickly approaching. 

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I thought sure these marigolds were not going to come up this year.  They were really late coming up but I think  just in time for the fall show.  They look very pretty beside my front porch.

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All the flowers in this bed had already bloomed and gone to seed when SURPRISE these late bloomers just popped out beautifully.  They give such a splash of color to the yard. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

2

More Snow

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More snow!  We already have about 3 more inches and as you can see it is still coming down.  It is supposed to snow all day today and tomorrow.  Wow!  I think it is going to be a snuggle in weekend.  I hope to work on Grace’s quilt this weekend, maybe make a few aprons, have fun with my girls, make a pot of coffee to share with my hubby.  Our front porch is enclosed with glass.  We love to sit out there, drink coffee and watch it snow.  All the beauty without the cold.  I have a beef roast on the wood stove cooking.  I haven’t decided what to put with this yet, probably potatoes and carrots.  Yesterday’s menu was meatloaft, mashed potatoes, green beans, mac & cheese, and biscuits.  School today as usual, maybe make some snow cream later.  Enjoy your day and God Bless.

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