A Little Decorating

As our morning low was 37 degrees, the girls and I decided it was time for a little fall decoration. Now at this time in my life I am not a lot on seasonal decorating. I have no idea why. I love to look at other people decorating and I think it makes the home look so good. I guess I’ve just gotten lazy about it.

On our enclosed front porch, we have two tables. They are now ready for fall.

Inside we did the mantle. That’s it-that is the extent of our fall decorating. Not too much. Easy to take down but enough to make it look a little different.

Hubby is working on the other two chairs today. Hopefully, they will soon be finished and we can get it all painted. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

September 17, 2013 5

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

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

Tuesday

Hello everyone! I hope all is well with you all. We have been busy with canning and other misc. things. Seems to me time surely does go by quickly. Yesterday we canned pickles. We did 8 pts of bread and butter pickles. These are Hubby’s favorite. Then we did 12 pts of dill pickles. Today we are canning green beans.

I wanted to let you all know I made the refrigerator pickled beets last week and they are really good. I also made the Dutch oven bread. It was very good as well. We thought the bottom crust was a little tough. I think I may reduce the temperature in my oven next time and see if that makes a difference.

Jess had a spell with veritgo last week. It sure was rough on her. The girls and I went down Thursday and Friday to help out with the kids. They sure are a lot of fun. Daniel’s first day of school was yesterday. He was SO excited! He called me when he got home and told me all about it. Now, how sweet is that!!

We were pretty warm here last week but seem to have cooled down some this week. At least yesterday was cooler. Hopefully, today will be as well. Well, I guess those beans won’t can themselves. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 23, 2013 4

Yard Sale Find

I wanted to share with you all my lastest yard sale find. I love these old books.

Grace had a mishap with her glasses and we had to go get them repaired yesterday. A startled chicken flew up from the roost and hit her glasses. It messed up her nose piece. On the way to Wal-Mart I noticed a yard sale sign. Well you know, it is so hard to pass up yard sales. I am so glad I stopped. I got these books for 10 cents a piece.

I just love the pictures and the stories in these old readers. I have several of them. Look, they even have a dictionary in the back.

I know my girls are way past these books but I still love them.

A picture just for fun. This little lady seems to be an escape artist. She manages to get out of the fence almost every evening. We looked out the window the other day and she was sitting here on the bench just resting. All our animals seem to love this bench.

Well, I better go. Our VBS starts tonight. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

June 23, 2013 5

Wednesday

I thought I would show you all another picture of the roses in the tree. I took this one this morning looking down from the girl’s bedroom window. They have really looked beautiful this year.

We are still working on school as we took about a month break before and during vacation. We only lack 10 more days if we do double lessons every day. Then I think we will take off the summer. We are looking forward to it.

After school we plan on making strawberry rhubarb jam. I posted the recipe here https://merryheartcrafts.com/category/recipes/canning-recipes/ I have made this jam for many, many years. The recipe I normally use is a little different than this one but I want to give this one a try.

Today I am looking forward to hanging clothes on the line, doing school, making jam and hanging out with my girls. I have such a blessed life. Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 19, 2013 5

Wednesday

Hello everyone! This week seems to be speeding by. We had a great Easter weekend! We went down to Jessica’s on Sunday. The weather there was beautiful. When we left Floyd that morning, it was cold, rainy and super foggy. We still had snow in the shady places. It really felt good to have sunshine and warmer temps for the day.

We have started warming up some this week though. Temperatures have been in the 50’s with sun. Nice for doing outside work. The girls and I worked some on cleaning out the chicken house yesterday after school. Today we (Hubby included) worked on getting wood.

I wanted to share with you all a recipe for homemade window cleaner. Jess gave me the recipe. It really does work. We worked on cleaning Hubby’s van this morning. It is his work vehicle so it gets really dirty. I made a batch of the window cleaner and it worked really well cleaning the van windows. If it will clean them, it must be pretty good stuff.

I think it’s time for me to rest. Getting wood is hard work. Enjoy your day and God bless.

April 3, 2013 1

Winter Isn’t Finished Yet

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice week. Ours seemed to go by quickly which is not unusual for us. No church today due to bad weather. This picture shows what it looked like about 20 minutes ago. Now it has changed from sleet to snow and is really peppering down. Thursday morning our temperature was 13 with a wind chill of 6 degrees. Wow, that feels more like January than March. I am hoping though that when April comes in it will feel like spring. I am definitely ready for spring temps. The girls were supposed to play their Easter specials today. I suppose they will have to wait until the Sunday after Easter now to play them as we always spend Easter down at Dave and Jessica’s. It is SO much warmer at her house than it is here.

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

March 24, 2013 3

Finished

I am finished with the quilt. This will be for Alexius (oldest granddaughter on her birthday). Next I am starting on Sam’s. His birthday is next. Last week seemed to go by quickly. We got our haircuts and enjoyed a nice afternoon with Faye and Gene. The girls and I went to Sam’s one day to get stocked up on a few things. Hubby cut wood while we were gone. Imagine that, choosing to cut wood over going shopping! On another day, we did some more electrical for our friend that is moving. And before we knew it the weekend was here.

So now, school is finished, outside chores are done, the girls have taken a walk on the tractor road and supper is in the oven. Wow, how good is that! Tonight we are having something new. I bought some marinated turkey breasts at Sam’s last week. We are baking one of them for supper. It smells awesome.

I wanted to share this picture with you all. You remember a while back when I made the comment that our pond was overflowing. Well, we finally figured out why. A duck has somehow got sucked into the drain pipe. Not pleasant, I know, but strange things do happen. Marvin told me he read somewhere that if he fell in, he had 20 min. before hypothermia set in. I told him I’d be watching and if he fell in I would let him know when his time was running out but to make sure he got the duck out while he was in the water. (lol) Anyway, they are trying to get the drain unstopped. So far, no success.

Well, I think that is about all that is going on around here. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

February 11, 2013 6

Monday

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was very nice. Not much going on. We didn’t have church yesterday as there was no power at church. Lots of people here in Floyd have been without power since the storm. I spoke to a lady at our local supermarket this morning and she is still without power. I certainly pray everyone gets power restored before tonight. We are supposed to get really cold-single digits with wind chills at zero or below. So many people have electric heat. It would be hard for them to stay warm without electricity.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day cutting out quilt pieces. I have been inspired by my blogging friends, Blessings and Cheryl. I am doing a simple block quilt. The block pieces are 5″ X 5″. Then hopefully I will sew them all together (using the sewing machine). We’ll see how it goes. I have made quilts before but always using panels not something I have to cut out and sew together. I thought this would be the simplest to do. If I calculated correctly it will take 216 5″ X 5″ blocks to make a twin size quilt. Okay, so maybe I am already overwhelmed. I think it will be a fun project though-something different for me.

Well, that’s about it for us. School is finished for the day, the outside chores are done and the girls are going for a walk on the tractor road. Two dogs and several cats are walking with them. The geese are swimming happily on the pond, the sun is shining. I am SO blessed. Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 21, 2013 5