More Snow Pictures

I thought I would show you all a few more snow pictures. This picture is of our road.

Icicles hanging from the front porch. I love the blue of the sky!

Floyd is full of old barns.

Papa Goose standing guard. Mama Goose is already nesting! Hopefully, we will soon have lots of goslings swimming around. We are not sure of Mama Duck is nesting or not. I guess time will tell.

I am trying a new recipe for hamburger buns. I got the recipe from here. http://penniesandpancakes.blogspot.ca/ I’ll let you all know how they turn out. I am making them using all whole wheat flour. I’m not sure how that will go over with everyone. I usually do half whole wheat and half all purpose but I am hoping to move us over to more all whole wheat. We are having hamburgers (on the homemade buns), french fries and cole slaw for supper.

I also wanted to tell you all how much we like the new yogurt recipe I have been making. I have the recipe here vanilla yogurt. I am making another batch today for us and will be making one tomorrow to take down to Jessica when we go. This yogurt is kinda sweet and flavored. It is delicious served with fresh fruit. We like that much better than plain yogurt. I think I will substitute strawberry flavoring for the vanilla next time and see how that turns out.

Well, time for lunch. Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 26, 2013 1

Snow

We are experiencing typical March weather. One minute snow the next minute sun.

Very pretty to look at, however it is already almost all gone. I did want to tell you all that yesterday I made chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles. At first, I was very hesitant as I have never made noodles before. These were very easy to make and everyone (to my surprise) loved them. I will definitely be making them again. I got the recipe from a new to me blog-penniesandpancakes.blogspot. I have made several of her recipes this week and have been impressed with all of them. Definitely keepers!

Well, I better get busy. We are trying a new recipe out tonight. It must be my week for new recipes. Do any of you get the magazine Kraft Food & Family? It comes out every 3 months. My spring copy came in the mail yesterday. My darling daughter, Jess, gets herself and me a subscription. Thanks Jess! I really love the magazine. It is full of easy, good recipes. Tonights new recipe comes from this magazine. It is called spaghetti with shrimp and broccoli. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.

Update on how it turned out-DELICIOUS! Another keeper.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 13, 2013 5

Friday

Hello everyone! Today we have beautiful sunshine with temperatures in the low 30’s. We are going to the Horn’s after school. I am making a simple vanilla cake with caramel icing. I got the recipe from Mrs. Faye at http://theblessedhearth.blogspot.com/ I think it looks really good and can’t wait to try it.

We have a doctor’s appointment on Monday at 9:45 to go over the results of the blood work. I would appreciate your prayers concerning this.

Well, that’s it. Just a quick little post. I have cake to bake. Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 8, 2013 4

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

HOMEMADE LIQUID LAUNDRY SOAP

1 Bar of Ivory Soap, Fels Naptha, or homemade laundry bar soap-grated= I use 2 cups grated homemade laundry bar soap
4 cups of Water
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
3 Gallons Warm Water

1. In a saucepan, bring the 4 cups of water to a boil. Add the grated bar soap and stir until the soap is melted.

2. Fill a large pail or container with the 3 gallons of warm water. Add the washing soda and the borax. Stir until mixed.

3. Add the melted soapy mixture from your saucepan to the pail and stir.

4. Transfer to smaller containers, or cover your mixing container or pail with a lid, and let set for 24 hours, giving it a few stirs during that time.

4. Use 1/2 cup to 1 cup per load.

I have found that 1/2 cup does most normal loads but for heavily soiled laundry I use 3/4 to 1 cup.

I got this recipe from http://www.themakeyourownzone.com/2010/10/homemade-laundry-soap-what-you-need-to-know-plus-2-recipes.html

February 16, 2013 1

Trying New Things

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful, blessed Sunday. We are home today-no church-due to the snow we got on Thursday.

I have been wanting to try making our own body wash ever since I came across this recipe for it. So today is the day. I am making homemade liquid face wash. I divided the recipe by 4 as I just wanted to make 1 qt to try. I used 2/3 of a bar of aveeno clear complexion cleansing bar, 1 and 1/2 tsp glycerin and a qt of water. I’ll let you all know how we like it. I estimate the cost of this qt. to be about $2.00. I bought the aveeno soap at our local pharmacy and probably paid more for it than I would have at Wal-Mart. We have a big thing of shower gel right now that we are using but when this runs out I plan on making the gallon recipe using ivory soap. I think you could use any soap of your choosing. I like ivory and it is not expensive.

My quilt is coming along nicely. I finished all the 9 X 9 in. squares yesterday. Now to put them all together. I am thinking of a border but am undecided as of yet. A border would probably mean I would have to purchase material and I am wanting to make it all from scrap material I already have on hand. I hope to work some more on it today.

We were still cold this morning-16 degrees-but the wind is not blowing too much so it is not so bad. Well, that’s about all that’s going on here. Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 27, 2013 7

What We Still Look Like

Hello everyone! I thought I would show you all what it STILL looks like here in Floyd.

Ice still covers everything. I was hoping to show you all how beautiful it is when the sun shines on it but none of these pictures do it justice.

We are still snuggled in and enjoying the slow pace of days with nothing major to do. We will be starting back school next week.

I have to tell you all about all the fun we had last evening. We opened the chickens gate to see if they would come out and explore a little. Well, they came out just fine. The problem was, they didn’t want to go back in. I think they didn’t want to walk on the ice. When it started getting dark, instead of being on the roost, they were scattered everywhere-under buildings, in the wood shed. We had to gather them all up and put them in their house. Needless to say, we were SO COLD! Silly chickens, they will not have an open gate this evening.

Our actual temperature here this morning is 15 degrees. I’m not sure what the wind chill is but I am certain it is in the single digits. COLD!! I am working on another afgan. I made Jessica and Chuck one each for Christmas but forgot to take a picture of them. Jessica’s is purple and white-Chuck’s is green and yellow.

I hope you all have a great day. Stay warm and God bless.

December 28, 2012 3

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. We certainly did. Saturday was a full day. All my kids and my grandkids here at our home. God is SO good. We enjoyed a good meal. We had ham, rolls, potatoes, green beans, corn and so many desserts I don’t think I could name them all. It was such a fun day.

We will be having our candlelight service this evening. We all look so forward to it. I think it is a beautiful service. I wish I could get pictures of it but my camera doesn’t take very good night time pictures.

I pray each and every one of you have a wonderful Christmas. God bless.

December 24, 2012 1

Fall Colors

Here are a few of the pictures we took Saturday at Grayson Highlands. The colors of fall are looking pretty good here.

We have had rain for several days so lots of the leaves have just fallen off.

Hopefully, not all though. I love the colors of fall.

We started school yesterday. So far, everything is good. Mostly just review right now. We had some rather chilly weather yesterday so I built our first fire. It was nice to feel the warmth and smell the wood smoke again. Today we made a huge pot of chili beans for supper. We plan on canning some of it-if there’s enough left. It sure does smell good.

Well, lunch break is almost over. Enjoy your day and God bless.

October 2, 2012 4

Tuesday

Hi everyone! Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd. Actually it has been a beautiful week so far. Our nighttime temperatures have been in the mid 40’s and daytime highs are low 70’s. Perfect temps in my opinion.

Sunday we took the girls to Tweetsie Railroad for a day out. We had actually planned on going with Dave, Jess and kids but the kids had some type of virus going on. Daniel and Sam had it earlier in the week and we thought maybe Katie had escaped getting it. However, Saturday afternoon Katie came down with it so they did not get to go with us. Hubby actually decided to go with us at the last minute. He is not much for amusement parks but I think he didn’t want us going alone. We had a really fun day but kept missing Jess and crew. Sam so loves trains.

Today we are working with apples, SURPRISE! We also had 4 more l00 lb sacks of apples gave to us Friday evening. We will have plenty of apples this winter. I am juicing most of the ones gave to us Friday. We are making applesauce and applebutter too. Our steam juicer and our sauce maker sure do make this work go faster. I am very glad we have them.

Seems like we have been so busy here. I haven’t had time to make a post or read anyone else’s posts. I will try to catch up some today. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 11, 2012 8

Thursday

I thought I would share with you all this picture of a beautiful hawk we saw the other day on one of our rides in the bumpy truck. I know the picture is a little blurred but you can still see how pretty he is.

Yesterday, the girls and I made 13 pts of pizza sauce. The Horn’s came over for a visit. We had 15 bean soup, sourdough biscuits and molasses cookies for dessert. It was a fun visit. We had planned on picking apples but when we got up to the tree, we discovered a huge hornets nest on one of the limbs. We decided to wait to pick apples.

Today we are making salsa. I hope to make either ketchup or spaghetti sauce tomorrow. We will pick tomatoes this evening and see how many we get. I mentioned we had sourdough biscuits with our soup yesterday evening. Well, I think I have finally found a biscuit recipe that we like. I am not very good at making biscuits but these turned out really well. I made them again this morning and they were really good with sausage gravy. (But then almost everything is good with sausage gravy).

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

August 16, 2012 3