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

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

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

Friday

Hello everyone! Well, as we knew would happen, our wonderful, cooler weather is gone. Today, as I type this, we are at 94 degrees. HOT! Oh well, this makes us appreciate cooler weather more. Days like today I really wish we had air conditioning!

My car has been giving me trouble lately. Hubby is not exactly sure what is going on with it. Chuck is coming Sunday to help Hubby (hopefully) fix it. They are trying several things to see if that works but Hubby says it could be the fuel pump. We hope not but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Our VBS is over. This is kinda good and kinda sad. It is a lot of fun but also a lot of work. We leave home around 6:00 P.M. and don’t get back until around 10:00. It takes us 30 min to drive to church and 30 min. back home so a lot of our time is spent on the road.

Well, I think my crew is getting hungry so I guess I best get started cooking. Supper tonight is fried chicken, corn, gravy, homemade biscuits and some homemade blackberry jam to go with the biscuits. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

June 29, 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

Garden

I thought I would share with you all a picture of the lower garden. It is doing pretty good. The upper garden is having a little more of a difficult time. We are having trouble keeping the calves out of it. They seem to find new ways to get out every day and seem to enjoy the corn in the upper garden very much. Shadow is getting too old to chase them and Jasper is just learning. He is on the accelerated learning program right now as I want him to learn quickly. He actually is getting much better. He “sometimes” listens and obeys commands. Sometimes he is just so happy that the calves are running from him, he doesn’t care where they are running. Oh well, that’s life on a farm.

I helped Hubby today at the farmhouse job. We thought we would start on running the pipes for the plumbing. However, the walls in the bathroom were in terrible shape, so we started tearing out the sheetrock in there. We will be running the pipes up and over the ceiling as there is not enough crawl space underneath. These older homes were built right down on the ground. The bathroom has a rock type flooring on it and the owners are wanting to keep it. This suits me just fine as I was not looking forward to trying to crawl under that floor. The girls worked on history and science while I was helping Hubby. We had brought our portable grill with us and did a picnic for lunch. We had hot dogs, potato chips and oreo’s. The lunch of champions. It was fun. We set up under a huge walnut tree and were entertained by a very friendly squirrel while we ate. I brought the girls home after lunch. They did the house chores while I went back to help Hubby. It was a full day.

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

June 15, 2012 4

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

Wild Roses

Wild roses are blooming everywhere here. We took this picture over at the job site.

Also, blackberries are in bloom. If the amount of bloom is any indication of how many berries we will have, there should be an abundance of them this year. I helped Hubby again today at the job site. We pulled wire all day for the electrical. I think I have always taken for granted the amount of wire that is run in a house to make everything work. I will be helping him again tomorrow. Hopefully, tomorrow will finish up most of the electrical.

I wanted you all to check out the size of this toad frog. He was huge!! He had wondered up in the back yard. The girls carried him back down to the pond. We thought he would be much happier there.

Another picture of the goslings. I hope you all don’t get tired of seeing them. It seems every time they come up into the yard they have gotten bigger. Well, that’s about all for today. I put a beef roast in the crock pot before we left this morning. Green beans and biscuits sound good to have with it for supper. I try to keep supper easy when I work with Hubby. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

May 24, 2012 5

Rainbow

Hello everyone! Sorry that I haven’t posted as much as usual. Things just seem busy here right now. Anyway, yesterday evening the Lord gave us this beautiful rainbow. If you look close you can see it was a double rainbow but the one on the left is fading. This picture was taken at the top of our driveway.

Yesterday, we went to help Hubby on the job site. It is coming along nicely. After school, the girls were entertained by this guy. He and a few of his buddies were very busy in the walnut tree.

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We did get some much needed rain yesterday evening. The garden is all in, however, the birds have already discovered it and destroyed about 1/3 of the tomato plants. They love the tender young leaves so all that is left is the stem. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any solutions?

Hubby has been working all week on my car. He has replaced the rotors on the front and today we picked up rotors for the back. I am so thankful he knows how to do all this. His knowledge saves us lots of money. Well, I will leave you ladies with a picture of the purple flowers that are blooming everywhere here. I don’t know the name of them but we think they are beautiful.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

May 22, 2012 8

Birthday, Recital, and Bramwell Trip

We certainly have had a lot of fun things going on here. Thursday we went down to Jessica’s. We got 2 more gallon of fresh strawberries. We put 1 gal. into the freezer and just enjoyed the other gallon. Friday was Hubby’s birthday and the girls piano recital. We celebrated Hubby’s birthday with burgers and cake. Then got ready for the recital. Saturday, the ladies from our church made a trip to Bramwell WV. It is a town where the extremely rich coal barons lived. Very fancy and extravagant houses. The above picture shows the town from one of the houses.

Our group-such fine looking ladies!

Most of the houses had amazing lawns-huge. The kind you know had to have several gardeners just to keep them looking nice.

Several houses had cooper sinks in the kitchen. When the wealthy were living there, they all had servants to do the work.

I think every house had stained glass windows. This one was in a bathroom.

A cozy little nook in one of the houses.

One of the houses-notice the brick road.

Another house. Altogether we toured 9 houses. It took over 3 hrs to walk through them all. On the third floor of one of the houses, there was a ballroom. We did not get to see it though.

Every house had tables set with old dishes, Mrs. Faye. You would have loved them.

The old furniture in these houses was amazing. The wood floors, cabinets, everything. I have so many pictures it was hard to choose which ones to show you first. We had a great day!

I hope each and every one of you had a great Mother’s Day. God bless.

May 14, 2012 6