An Unusual Visitor

Hello ladies! I just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers. The visit at the doctor today went well. The doctor is treating him for a kidney infection which she thinks is definitely part of his problem. She also wants him to come back in 3 weeks for more blood work. There is a possibility he is a diabetic. Thank you all again for your prayers.

I also wanted to show you these pictures of a visitor we had at the pond the other day. Our pond has been seeing LOTS of activity. The morning this guy came in we had about 60 geese and several ducks there. They are lots of fun to watch.

I have no idea what type of goose this is, maybe he is a domestic breed. I don’t know but he sure did stick out from the rest. We also had a visit from these quys.

There were 2 males and one female. The males were so aggressive. They fought most of the day. I’m not sure which one ended up being the victor but today when the ducks came back there was only one male and one female. I guess one of the males finally gave up.

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

March 11, 2013 5

Tuesday

Hello ladies! I thought I would make a post and give everyone an update on how things are going. We have been busy, isn’t everyone these days? I have been helping Hubby yesterday and today. The sheetrock is being delivered today and he will start hanging tomorrow. The insulators came last week. They sprayed this insulation in that looks and acts very similar to Great Stuff. It was pretty amazing. Anyway, I think he is going to get someone else to help him hang the ceilings. (Someone maybe a little stronger and taller than me). I don’t mind. We have plenty to do here.

Tomorrow morning, we will start picking blackberries. I think there will be plenty for canning, juicing and making jelly. Speaking of making jelly, I still am having no luck getting my jelly to set up. I just don’t understand what could be going on. The other day, the girls and I made 15 pints of peach jelly. None of it set up. Very disappointing and very expensive. I went to our local health food store and purchased the pomona pectin that my blogger friend Cheryl uses and redid it. It finally set up some but it is a soft set definitely not as firm as jelly usually is. So I used the magical powers of google to see if I could find out what was going on. Now I am not a novice at making jelly and jams. I’ve been doing it for years. Anyway one person said they had to switch kettles that they were using and then theirs did just fine. Do you all think it could be the kettle I am using? I tried to remember how long I have been using the kettle and it could coincide with the jelly problem. My old kettle finally gave out and I did switch to a different one. The kettle I am using now is a teflon kettle. The next time I do jelly I am going to try a stainless steel kettle and see if that makes a difference. What type of kettle do you all use?

The girls and I picked a mess of green beans for supper this evening. We also dug our first hill of potatoes. We will be having pork tenderloin, green beans, potatoes, onions and peppers and cucumbers for supper. Everything fresh from our garden (except the pork tenderloin). I can hardly wait. I could just feast on the veggies but Hubby always wants meat.

Our pullets are starting to lay pretty good. Yesterday we got 6 pullet eggs. Our old layers though have slacked off for some reason. Probably the heat. We have been hot for the last several days. Low 90’s. We did get a storm yesterday evening and it brought a pretty good rain with it. Lots of thunder and lightning too.

Well, I guess I better get busy starting supper. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 17, 2012 6

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

Saturday

Hello ladies, I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far. We worked today on putting a fence around the gardens.

The “ladies” were very glad. They had not been free all week as we had not had time to get the fences up. We knew the minute they were turned loose they would head straight to the gardens. To express their dislike of not being turned loose they cut back on their laying. We usually get 11 or 12 eggs every day. This week we got 7 or 8. I told them I expected full quota next week. No excuses.

We found this drift netting at the barn, rolled it out and cut it in two pieces. The posts are cut from old wood we got from the job site. Not bad-zero expense. I am hoping the plastic bags that you see will keep the birds away. So far it seems to be working. I replaced the 14 plants they had eaten and so far all is well. It took us 4 hrs to put this fence up. Hubby helped or it would have taken much longer.

The rose bush at the green swing is in full bloom. I think it is lovely this year.

Another picture of the rose bush.

I realized it had been a very long time since I put a picture of Jasper on here.

He is our farm dog in training. Shadow has been teaching him all the tricks. (Most times, Shadow just tolerates him). Well, that’s about it for today. Supper was hotdogs and beans. Simple because Mom was tired. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day Weekend and God bless.

May 26, 2012 4

Snow

Hello ladies! Just a quick post to let you all know we are getting snow. It has been snowing here all morning. Nothing has laid on but it sure is pretty to look at. Temperature is 32 degrees with lots of wind. Feels like winter not spring.

Well, I am off to help Hubby. He is already on the job site waiting for me. School is almost finished. The girls will do history after lunch. Enjoy your day and God bless.

April 23, 2012 8

Thursday

Hello Ladies, it has been another busy week for us. Monday we went with Hubby to the job site. This is a picture of one of the rooms he is working on. He has gutted all the upstairs and Monday we put the new subflooring down in 2 of the rooms.

He put these on the rafters upstairs to give them extra support. This is a very old house (over 100 years old). He will be running new electrical throughout the house, hanging sheetrock, lots of updates. We are VERY thankful to the Lord for this job. It is the biggest job he has had in several years.

We took our school books and when the girls had finished with school they wanted to go exploring.

Then on Tuesday, Grace had an eye doctor appointment in Salem. This usually takes all day. It takes about an hour to get there from our home. Wednesday, we did school in the morning and then went to help Hubby again. Today, we went back to Salem to pick up Grace’s eye glasses prescription and then made a trip to Rocky Mount Wal-Mart to get the prescription filled. Tomorrow we are going down to Jessica’s. A week spent on the road.

It has been warm here this week. A beautiful week for being outside. We slept last night with our bedroom window open a little. I love falling asleep listening to the frogs. We are getting rain now. The rain and the warm temperatures will get everything blooming and greening up. So exciting! I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

March 15, 2012 5

Busy

Hello ladies. I had intention of having pictures to go along with this post but somehow managed to completely forget to take any. Sorry. Anyway, yesterday the girls and I attempted something new for us. We rendered fat into lard. What I thought would be fairly easy, of course, WAS NOT. Things are usually more difficult the first time you try to do it so we are hoping-if- we try it again it will go smoother. First off, we tried to do it on the propane burner we use for canning. We couldn’t turn it down low enough without it going out. Then we put it into the crockpots. That went better. We have 3 crockpots. We filled them up and let them simmer for about 5 hours. Then we strained the fat through a colendar and a cheesecloth. We then had enough to fill 2 crockpots with fat and start the process again. We finished last night about 8:00 P.M. Long day. I’m not really positive we did it right though. I was probably about 14 the last time we butchered a hog and my Mom was in charge of rendering the fat. I think I should have paid more attention.

Then today we went to Jessica’s and attempted to make soap. Key work, attempted. We have made soap before with lard purchased from the store but not rendered lard. For some reason, we could not get the soap to trace. We finally just poured it into the molds and said a prayer. We’ll see how it turns out. We made regular lye soap and a laundry soap bar. Even if it doesn’t turn out, we sure had a lot of fun doing it. I’ll keep you all posted on the outcome.

Well, it’s been a long two days and I am tired. I hope you all have a great evening. God bless.

March 6, 2012 3

Finished

Hello ladies. We are finished with our part of the redo. Here we are getting ready to texture the ceiling.

Hubby does the rolling.

I do the stomping.

The finished ceiling. There are 11 recessed lights in her kitchen now. When we started it was pretty dark in her kitchen now it is very bright.

Here we are just starting to put down the floor. Now I must say, this floor just about did us in. It took us 2 days on our knees to get it down but it was definitely worth it.

It looks beautiful! David’s sister will be coming tomorrow to paint the walls. Jess chose buttercream for the walls. After the walls are painted, the next step will be to finish taking the doors off the cabinets and stripping off the laminate. The cabinet doors will have to be sanded. Then the cabinets themselves will be ready for paint. Jess has chose black for the cabinet paint. I will continue to show you all pictures as the process comes along. I think it will all look really great.

Well, that’s about it for today. I have lots of catching up to do with everyone. Enjoy your day and God bless.

February 19, 2012 5

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

Update on Facelift

Hello ladies. Just a quick update on our progress so far. Here is a picture of the ceiling just as we were beginning to tear it all down.

After tearing down all the ceiling this is what it looked like. We now have 10 recessed lights in the ceiling but I didn’t get any pictures of that. We came home late this evening to feed up all the animals. We’ll be leaving early in the morning to go back and work some more. Tomorrow we hope to get the lights finished and start hanging the sheet rock. We also will be tearing up the old floor and putting down a new laminate flooring. We will have to do some leveling of the floor first though.

Her new stove was delivered today. She is so happy with it. Her old stove was just a stove top with the oven built into the wall, probably an early 70’s model. If you look in the background you will see the old oven. This will be coming out and Hubby will be building her a pantry to take it’s place. They also plan on painting the cabinets.

Well, that’s all for tonight. I hope to get caught up on everyone’s blogs tonight but I’m not sure. I’m pretty tired. Please be in prayer for David. He had surgery on his knee back in January and it still hurts him quite a lot. It definitely is not healing as fast as we all thought it would.

Enjoy your evening and God bless.

February 8, 2012 5