VBS

Here are a few pictures of the decorations for bible school. Our theme this year was Harvesting God’s Word. We had lots of good lessons, fun crafts and games, and of course good food. We averaged around 17 kids each night. I wanted to get some pictures of the kids, but Hubby put it all on video and I don’t know how to load that on the blog. Our pastor was there every night. He has such a heart for kids. I think he had as much fun as they did.

Progress is slow but moving on the new room. A minor setback occurred when we decided to put the door in a different place. This required undoing almost all we had done. Hubby had to remove the floor and do all the plumbing drains different. This will be much better though than the original plan.

The girls and I have been busy today putting up gooseberries in the freezer. We had 6 bags. This is the first time I have froze gooseberries. I hope they will be good. I also gathered some squash and zucchini to put in the freezer. We will be enjoying the first of our broccoli this evening with supper. I think home grown broccoli is so much better than store bought but then I think everything is better home grown. If I finish these other veggies in time, I think I will put up some rhubarb. I have gotten a little behind with my harvesting due to bible school and the new room. Oh well, all in God’s time. It has been a very pleasant morning for me. I so much enjoy putting up our own veggies that we raise in our garden. It always gives me a feeling of peace and contentment.

We are planning to go to the fireworks this evening in town. We had hoped the Horn’s would get to meet us there but Quentin had to work. Jess and Dave are going to enjoy fireworks down at their town. They will be coming up next weekend. Sam’s first trip to the mountains. I can hardly wait to see them all. I guess I better get busy if I expect to get anything done. Happy 4th of July. Take care and God bless.

July 3, 2010 1

Memorial Weekend

I have no picture to post today. I just wanted to let everyone know I was still around. David is working on my computer this week so hopefully I will be back in action soon. Things have been very busy here this past week. We were blessed with a beef. Billy had butchered him for someone and they did not want the meat. He was an old bull-about 10 years old and weighed about 1800 pounds. My friend Vicki and I have been working all last week to process it. We are cutting some of the meat in chunks and canning it. We are making hamburger out of the rest. We are about half done (I think). George and Quentin-Vicki’s hubbie-will be helping us tomorrow. I will let you all know the total of cans and hamburger we get when we finish. We went to visit Jess yesterday. She is scheduled to have her labor induced June 7th. Little Samuel will soon be here. We took the cradle down and it is all set up and ready. Just needs a little one in it. Continue to pray for them. We took the long way home today and stopped at a little picnic area. It was very pretty with lots of overlooks. We then stopped at this little store in Meadows of Dan and they were having a craft show. Lots of cool stuff to look at, lots of new ideas for me to work on. Of course, we took the camera case down to Jessica’s however the camera was not in the case. So I have no pictures to show you. Oh well, that’s pretty typical of me. Enjoy your Sunday and God bless.

May 30, 2010 0

Wood

An almost empty wood pile. Remember how this looked last fall. I would show you the picture but all my old pictures are still sleeping on my computer, which is “resting” for a while. Anyway, last fall this shed had 7 rows deep of wood and 2 rows on each side. All gone. We used almost all of the wood last winter. Saturday, we all worked on the wood pile. George and I used the splitter and the girls stacked it up.

This is what the pile looked like. We have about 1/3 of it split and stacked in the building-three rows deep. We want to have more wood this winter than we had last winter. Just in case, it is another hard winter. It is better to be prepared. I want to take a moment to complement my girls. They worked very hard Saturday and did an excellent job stacking the wood. Thank you, Julie and Grace.

Another picture I know Jess will love. The girls found this lunar moth on the building the other day. Very pretty. They enjoy finding pictures for me to use. Rather chilly here today. Upper 40’s for the temperature. Lots of rain. We had a really hard rain last night while we were at church. We do our Sunday night study in the basement. Water started coming in through the basement door. We had to stop our study and get busy-quick. The outside drain could not handle all the water. Thanks to mops, a shop vac, and a sump pump we finally got it all dried out. I’m just glad it happened while we were there. It would not have been fun to discover all that water on Wednesday night. Imagine what damage it could have done. God is good. Of course, after all that hard work, the food tasted extra good. Time for piano lessons. Take care and God bless.

May 17, 2010 5

Butterfly

I took these pictures the other day when we were cutting wood. This butterfly is especially for Jess.

This is the view from where we were cutting the wood.

A picture of a fire pink. There were lots of these blooming in the wooded area.

There is a little trial you can walk that circles around. This is the beginning of the wooded part of the trial.

About 1 second after I took this picture, a squirrel came running down this trial straight toward me. I was not fast enough with the camera to get a picture. I am experiencing technical difficulties with my computer. My technical support team (Dave) says it is my hard drive. For now, I am using Hubby’s computer. For all the people whose blog I read and comment on, there may be a season of silence. I have them on my computer in my favorites list and I do not know how to transfer them. Dave will fix all this in due time. I hope to learn how to post pictures on this computer. Pray for me as you all know I am not very technical. This is my fourth attempt to post this. The pictures were already loaded from my old computer yesterday before it said goodbye. Well, enough of all that. Tonight’s menu at church will be hot dogs with homemade chili, slaw, chips, salad and some kind of dessert (unknown as of yet). Lunch today was beef roast in the crock pot, potatoes cooked in butter, home canned green beans, and watermelon for dessert. I guess I better get started on my study for tonight. Take care and God bless.

May 16, 2010 1

Dandelions

I think life is much about choices. How we look at things determine how we react to them. For example we can choose to see this as just ugly weeds we wish did not grow in our yard or

we can view them as bright, beautiful, yellow flowers. Years ago, when my daughters were little, they taught me to love dandelions. Dandelions are usually the first flowers little hands gather and deliver with much love to their mamas. How special that makes them. Perhaps that is why God created them. Anyway my girls and I love them.

This is a flower almost everyone loves. My lilac bush is starting to bloom! I can hardly wait. The bush is outside our laundry room window and it smells wonderful when in bloom.

The girls and I worked very hard last week getting the garden ready to burn off. Somehow the pile seemed so much bigger last week. Anyway we worked every day after school except one. It rained that day. It is now ready to burn. Hopefully if it is not too windy Hubby will do it this evening. Then it will be ready for him to till. He has to do some work on our tiller first but anyway we are gettting closer. I hope to have it tilled and ready to start planting by the end of the month. I love it! David is gone on a business trip, so Jess and Daniel are coming up to stay with us. I am looking forward to a great visit. Everyone take care and may God bless your day.

April 12, 2010 3

Thursday’s Fun

Here are some pictures of the fun we had last Thursday on Jess and Daniel’s visit. In the first picture, we are outside playing, the next picture is coltsfoot (one of our earliest wildflowers to bloom). We took a ride around the farm in “MawMaw’s bumpy truck”. On the tractor road, we spotted these kildeer walking on the road. Jess took the picture from the truck. I think they might have a nest somewhere close as they did not want to leave thier area. The last picture is Daniel, thinking. I am not exactly sure but it looks like he is trying to figure out how to get the sawdust in his wheelbarrow. We had lots of fun!

Tonight’s menu is pork tenderloin on the grill, french fries and corn on the cob-frozen from our garden last year. I gathered some rhubarb today and plan to make rhubarb dumplings for dessert.

Rosemary Marinade Recipe

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp minced garlic

2-4 tsp dried rosemary-crushed

Combine all ingredients. Pour over beef, chicken, or pork. (I use this on all types of meat). School is finished for today. Time to enjoy the sun. We got our bikes out today, pumped up the tires,and oiled the chains. We rode for a little while. Long enough for me to discover how out of shape I am. It will take a while before I can keep up with the girls. I hope to work some on the garden this evening. We have some clean up to do before Hubby can plow. I hope you all enjoy your evening. Take care and God bless.

April 6, 2010 1

Pickled Eggs

Here is how I make our pickled eggs. First I boil the eggs.

After they have cooled, peel them.

Put them into a large glass container. I use a wide mouth half gallon canning jar. Using a wide mouth jar makes it easier to get the eggs out. We grow beets in our garden. In the fall we harvest them and make pickled beets. I use the pickled beet juice to pour over the boiled eggs. If you don’t have your own pickled beets you can buy them from the store. If using store brought you will need to add pickling spice to the juice. About 1 tsp. per can.

As soon as you pour the juice over them, they turn this beautiful color. Put them in the fridge and they will be ready to eat in about a week. As I said yesterday, Hubby loves them. I think they are just okay so I consider making them an act of love. Last night’s supper menu was pork roast baked in a cast iron dutch oven, mashed potatoes, home canned corn, homemade rolls, and blackberry dumplings made from blackberries we canned last fall. Delicious! Today is sunshine, beautiful sunshine. Warmer temperatures are on the way. Jess is coming up tomorrow with Daniel. She has some shirts she needs altered. We also hope to go the the local greenhouse and check out the flowers. Lots of fun! The girls don’t know it yet but we are taking an Easter break. Half school today and then no school until Monday. They will be very happy. Well, now it’s time for a language test so I better get busy being Teacher. Take care and God bless.

March 31, 2010 1

Family

My girls. Ain’t they beautiful! The recital was Sunday and went very well. Call me impartial, but I think my girls were the BEST. It was great fun. Dave, Jess, and Daniel came up. Jess is responsible for “dolling” them up every year. She does a great job. They looked so grown up. It is hard for me to believe how fast they are becoming young ladies. I love you, girls (all 3). Can you believe this is the same girls that just the day before were fishing and catching lizards?

We also got a nice picture of Jess, David, and Daniel. It was such a nice weekend. We enjoyed chicken on the grill Saturday evening which we ate outside at the picnic table. We had planned to do a campfire but it was too windy. Hopefully next time. Our time together extended on to Monday. We went down with Jess on Sunday evening so I could go with her for her ultra sound on Monday. It was amazing! I actually got to see little Samuel blink his eyes. I could not believe it. Ulta sounds have really come a long way. It is cold here today, very windy. Snow flurries . Typical March weather. We saw lots of trees and flowers blooming this weekend though. Signs of encouragement for those of us who are soooooo ready for spring. Well, I better work on school. We’re learning about prepositions this week. What fun!!! Take care and God bless.

March 23, 2010 2

New Life

The field above our house has come to life. Several new calves have been born. They run and jump through the new grass. They have so much fun and are such a joy to watch. Today we worked outside most of the day, picking up in the yard, getting the garden ready. David, Jess, and Daniel came this afternoon. We had hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Ate them outside at the picnic table. The sun was shining brightly. A beautiful day.

The girls enjoyed some fishing time. It was one of those days that I just thank the Lord I live where I do. Clothes blowing dry in the wind. The birds are singing so beautiful. Frogs peeping. It makes me want to do all my work outside. I even open my window just a little bit at night so the frogs can sing me to sleep. Wonderful time of the year in Floyd. It’s been a really hard winter but spring in sweet. Just like life. Sometimes life is hard but the Lord is good and brings us through to spring. Well, I must go. My baby boy is here. Take care and God bless.

March 20, 2010 1

Old Books

I simply LOVE old school books. Here are a few that I have collected over the years. I learned to read with Dick and Jane and taught my girls with the same books. They have such wonderful pictures. The last picture is of two old books from my Dad’s childhood. Inside the cover, there are the names of many of my aunts and uncles. I suppose they just passed the books down. Gotta love that. We still do that here in this household. Just pass them on. These books have a very important place in my schoolroom/dining room, along with an old Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox. The lunchbox is metal and still has the thermos in it. It belonged to Jess. Such happy memories.

As you can tell, it was a much loved lunch box. Lots of rain here last night. Today has been overcast. Temperature in the mid 40’s. Not too bad. Supper tonight will be pork tenderloin on the grill, fresh pineapple, home fries, home canned green beans and homemade biscuits. For dessert we have some cinnamon rolls left over from the other day. This will be served with cold mint tea. Are you all hungry yet? I am so I guess I better go get that grill going. Take care and God bless.

March 13, 2010 4