Grapes

The girls and I are starting on our grapes today. We picked 1/2 bushel this morning. We plan on making mostly jelly from these. Tomorrow we will start making juice. Yesterday I went to our friend Mrs. Faye. I helped her with her grapes. She wanted to make jelly and juice. Last year, they purchased a steam canner and a steam juicer like ours but they were not too confident with using them. So I went over to help them a little. It was a fun day. We had green beans, corn, cucumbers, cole slaw and cornbread for lunch. YUM!

Not much else going on here. Just mostly canning. We plan on picking more tomatoes this evening. We have been blessed with lots of beautiful tomatoes. Our temperatures have been cooler at night here. You can feel fall in the air. The dogwood trees are starting to turn colors. Apples will soon be ready. I love fall. As I am sitting here typing this post, the sweet smell of grapes fills my home. God is so good to us.

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

August 28, 2012 2

New Canner and Homemade Deodorant

This is my new canner. I stopped at a yard sale a few weeks ago and the lady had this canner for sale. One of the handles was missing so she sold it to me for $5.00. Yesterday, I stopped at Farmers Supply here in Floyd to see if they could order new handles. I had no idea if they could or not as the canner appears to be old. Well, they could and they only cost me $8.00. I then went to the extension office and had them calibrate the guage. It was off 1 and 1/2 pounds so I thought I probably should get a new guage too. This cost $l8.00. Amazing. These parts will be in by Friday. So for roughly $30.00 I got a new canner. This one is much taller than my other ones. It will hold 1/2 gallon jars which I plan to use for our juice that we can.

Then we went on over to Vicki’s and had a great visit. We ate lunch together and then Vicki and I made homemade deodorant.

We used tea tree oil in the solid deodorant and lavender in the powder. I really like it. It smells so fresh and clean. I am impressed. I definitely will be making it again.

Today the girls and I are making spaghetti sauce. This will be our last batch of spaghetti sauce. I think the rest of the tomatoes will just be used to make tomato juice. Our tomatoes are doing very well this year. I think this isthe best ours have done in a long time.

I better go stir the spaghetti sauce as I do not have Mrs. Sally’s good kettle any longer. I took it back to her Sunday. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 21, 2012 3

Piebald Deer

Piebald deer, a genetic variation that occurs in less than 1 percent of the whitetail population, have white bodies with brown spots, short legs and an arching spine.

We saw one of these last night on our way home from church. It was very exciting. I have never seen one before. The one we saw had a little more brown on it in the front and it was a buck. It was down close to the road so we got a really good look at it. Amazing! I am not sure what the girls and I will be working on today. I want to check the tomatoes and see if any more are ready and see how close the grapes are to being ready. If no garden harvest is ready, I guess we’ll just do normal housework. I hope you all have a great day. God bless.

I got the picture at http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/nov/27/piebald-deer-a-rare-find-in-area-woods/

August 20, 2012 2

Divide and Conquer

Yesterday we divided up to get more done. This is not something we usually do. We normally all work together on projects, However, Hubby wanted to start boxing in the remainder of the back porch and we had lots of tomatoes to work up. So Julie helped me with the tomatoes and Grace helped Hubby with the porch.

The girls worked with me today on more tomatoes and Hubby worked alone. We had to run into little town first to get a few supplies that he needed .The walls are now up and there is a window where they are standing at. He still has to put a door on and the siding but it is almost finished. T.

I better get busy working on my Sunday School lesson. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

August 18, 2012 3

Jelly Update

Okay ladies, yesterday we made blackberry jelly. I used the stainless steel kettle and the pomona pectin. It turned out perfect!!! We were very happy. Maybe it was the kettle all along. Wouldn’t that be something? I never thought the type of kettle used could make a difference but I do know yesterday’s jelly turned out perfect. I will definitely be using this kettle every time. I was very impressed with the pomona pectin. If you haven’t ever tried it, I suggest you give it a try. You use about 1/2 the sugar that you would use with sure jell or certo, which saves money. I will be using it from now on.

First thing this morning, we had some errands to run in little town. We paid a few bills and then went to the library for a while. When we came back we starting making bread and butter pickles. These are Hubby’s favorite. We ended up with 10 pts which is probably all we’ll need. We do not eat a lot of pickles. I am thinking if the cucumbers keep producing, we will try making sweet pickle relish. I do make a lot of egg salad and I thought it would be nice to have homemade relish to put in it. Have any of you ever made it?

Supper tonight is chicken, potatoes and squash all fixed on the grill. I love cooking on the grill. Less clean up and less heat in the house. Hubby is mowing while supper is getting ready and the girls are taking a short break upstairs. Well, time to check on the grill. I hope you all have a wonderful evening and God bless.

July 19, 2012 4

Blueberries and Squash

The girls and I picked a gallon of these beautiful blueberries yesterday. It was a nice day for picking. It rained on us before we got to the blueberry place but stopped before we got there. The bushes were wet but the temperature was not bad and the bugs even left us alone.

Today we made this zucchini pineapple recipe. We used yellow squash instead of zucchini. It actually tastes like pineapple. You would never know it had squash in it. I got the recipe from here. http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/zucchinipineapple.htm A blogger friend of mine had made it the other day. She posted about it here. http://holcombhappenings.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/a-day-of-canning/ I think it will be really good.

Now, question time. I found out from the internet this squash is called a patty pan squash. Do any of you ladies have a recipe for it? Our pastor gave them to us and I really would like to try them. Online it says it pairs good with tomatoes but I thought I would ask you all.

Our weather change here has been amazing. We had rain yesterday which we so much needed. We laughed and said the plants in our garden were doing a happy dance for God. The temperatures have cooled off so much. We are right now at 73 degrees!!! Thank you Lord.

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

July 12, 2012 5

Eggs

We got our first egg from the chicks we bought this spring!! Isn’t it cute? I thought I would show you the difference in sizes. The one on left is the pullet egg, the middle one is our regular size and the one on the right is our extra large. We have a few white hens that were gave to us last year. They are the ones who lay the extra large white ones. Anyway, I guess it doesn’t take a lot to get us excited.

Here’s a picture of Chuck and Hubby working on the car Sunday. They replaced several things. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if that fixed it or not. The girls and I have been busy this morning doing laundry and some house cleaning. Our Pastor brought us a 5 gal. bucket of peaches Sunday night. We are going to work those up after lunch.

Not much else going on that I can think of. I hope you all have a great 4th of July and God bless.

July 3, 2012 4

Around the Pond

The other day we all decided to take a walk around the pond. It has been absolutely beautiful here in Floyd this week. Our morning temperatures have been mid 40’s. Amazing!! Wonderful sleeping weather. The days have only gotten into the mid 70’s. I love it. For my part, the Good Lord could just let it be this way all summer and I would be happy.

The girls had lots of fun. They came in the house and got their wading shoes and spent lots of time wading in the pond. Jasper even joined them for a while. He doesn’t care much for water. I suppose after his accident the first winter, he thinks water isn’t much fun.

Lots of cool bugs were flying around the pond.

I have no idea what they are but if you look closely you can see the tiny blue bugs that were hovering around the blade of grass.

We have so many of these birds. I couldn’t tell for sure from the picture if they were barn swallows or tree swallows. Both birds are abundant here. They will fly down to the pond and touch the water. It is amazing to watch. Sometimes as many as 50 or more just skipping above the water. I’m not sure if they are getting a drink or catching bugs but it is one of our favorite evening passtimes to watch them.

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

June 27, 2012 4

Saturday

Hello ladies!! I know it has been a while since I made a post but I have been having technical difficulties with my blog. My thanks to Dave for getting me back up and running. I’m still having trouble with my pictures so no picture today.(Picture Added – Dave) Well, we have been busy here this week. Monday, I helped Hubby at the farmhouse. He started on the plumbing this week. Under the bathroom, the crawl space is about 18 inches. As you can imagine, not my favorite place to work but someone has to do it. Then on Tuesday, the girls and I went down to Jessica’s. They all have been sick, even little Miss Katie. Hopefully, though, they are finally on the mend. Wednesday, I helped Hubby again. Difficulties with the plumbing caused us to decide to finish it up Monday. (Didn’t hurt my feelings any). I’m sorry, I guess I am complaining a little but of all the jobs I help him with, plumbing is my least favorite. Thursday and Friday, the girls and I stayed home and worked on things here.

Well, that’s about all for our week. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

June 23, 2012 3

Wednesday

Hello everyone! Yesterday the girls and I made another trip down the Parkway to get cherries. This time we were getting the culls. They sell them for $10.00 for a 5 gal. bucket. We brought them home and used the steam juicer to make juice. We got enough to make 2 gal of juice. We had some this morning and it was VERY good. We had not had any homemade juice in about 3 months. I’m hoping this year to can more juice than we did last year. After having the real thing, store bought tastes very bland.

This is one of the most popular spots along our section of the Parkway. It is called Mabry Mill. Lots and lots of people visit this spot. They have demonstrations of how things were made during the time this mill was in operation. Yesterday, we noticed as we drove by they were demonstrating basket weaving.

On our way home yesterday, we decided to take a different route than the Parkway. This house was David’s Grandmother’s home. We thought Dave might enjoy seeing a picture of it.

And this is our home. The rock lillies are blooming so pretty this year. I almost forgot to tell you all, we made some homemade cherry ice cream yesterday that was so good. I got the recipe from here: http://homejoys.blogspot.com/2012/06/homemade-strawberry-ice-cream.html I just used cherries instead of strawberries. I want to try it with honey sometime but did not have enough honey yesterday so I used sugar instead. It was very good. I think the best fresh fruit ice cream I have ever made. It is definitely a keeper.

Today we will be doing school and working on the garden. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

June 13, 2012 4