Peaches

We have been working on peaches for a few days. I think I mentioned that we saved the peelings and put them into the steam juicer. Well, the above picture shows the 2 qts of juice we got from the peelings. We had 2 gal. of peelings and got 2 1/2 qts of juice. This will yield over a gal of peach juice. YUM! I definitely will do that again with our next batch of peaches.

I picked about 1 gal. of blackberries this morning. Pretty good for the first picking. I am trying something new for us. I am making blackberry syrup to use with pancakes, french toast, etc. Have any of you ever made this? It sounds good and sometimes I just want something different. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I have the blackberries on in the steam juicer now. Julie and I went up to the cellar this morning and organized it. I think “little green men” come along over the winter and just scatter all my canned goods. Anyway, all is in order now and ready for the new cans to fill it up. Grace worked inside doing household chores while Julie and I worked on the cellar. Hubby worked on mowing the yard. It has been a long time since he mowed. It is just so hot and dry. He thought it was starting to look a little wild.

Well, time to check on the blackberries. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 23, 2011 6

Bee Sting

My Grace was stung Tuesday with a bee. This is what it looks like today. It actually is getting better. The swelling has gone down. It must be our time for stings. Hubby came home yesterday and he had gotten stung with a hornet. It looked pretty rough this morning. We have been putting alcohol on both his and Grace’s. Does anyone know anything else to put on bee stings?

Not a long post right now. We are still working with peaches. We took a lunch break and I thought I would show you all Grace’s sting. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 22, 2011 8

Our First Egg

Very exciting news here today. We got our first egg! I guess maybe we need to get out more, if just getting an egg gets us this excited. But we think it is beautiful.

Well, we finally got the pink apples worked up today. This is what they looked like when we cut them up.

They are so pretty. Remember last year, we purchased the steam juicer and the Roma sauce maker. They have been so helpful already this year. We just quartered the apples, no peeling necessary. Put them in the steam juicer and let them cook.

This is what the juice looks like. Such a beautiful color. We got 5 pts of juice. The juice is concentrated. For every pint you get a quart of juice.

Then after the apples cooked in the steam juicer we ran them through the sauce maker. We got 6 pts of applesauce. Thanks so much, Donna, for sharing these with us. We are working on peaches now. They are canning as I type. We saved the peelings from the peaches. We are going to put them in the steam juicer and make juice from them. I like the fact that there is hardly any waste.

Remember how I said last weekend was unusually cool here. Well, I can hardly remember that now. It has been HOT all week. I know not as hot as many of you but still hot. Temperatures have been in the 90’s outside and about that hot inside our house. I am so thankful to a blogger friend who gave me the idea of using a propane unit to do our canning on. We put it on the front porch and it makes such a difference keeping the house a little cooler. Most of the heat is out there not in the kitchen.

Well, we better get busy doing some cleanup. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 21, 2011 7

Easy Pie Recipe

I thought I would share with you all this super easy pie recipe. I don’t know the name of it but years ago when I worked, one of the ladies I worked with used to make this a lot. It uses simple ingredients and takes very little time.

I used 1 store bought graham cracker pie crust. For the filling use, 1 container cool whip, 1 pkg cream cheese-both at room temperature. Add 1 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Mix with your mixer until well blended. Pour filling into pie crust. Then for the topping I used fresh strawberries and a little strawberry glaze. Set in fridge for a little while to chill, then enjoy. You can make this with blueberries, peaches, almost any type of fruit. If you do not want to use the store bought glaze you can always just add sugar to the fresh fruit and let it make its own glaze. Its all up to your taste.

Well, Julie ended up with strep throat. She started running a fever yesterday. I called the doctor’s office and he called us in a prescription. Needless to say, we will not be going to church today. Just staying home and recuperating.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday and God bless.

April 10, 2011 3

Spring Time

Our forsynthia bush is in full bloom. I love the bright yellow color, so cheerful. Today is beautiful here in Floyd. Temperature is mid 50’s, the sun is shining and the wind is not too aggressive. Very nice. I have one load of clothes on the line and another on the way. We are busy with school and have plans for outside time this afternoon.

Yesterday was a nice day too. Church was very nice and our evening study went very well with lots of discussion. Our menu last night was beef roast with potatoes and carrots, green beans, macaroni salad, cookies and peaches. Very good. We did hamburgers on the grill for lunch yesterday, with grilled onions and asparagus. I love cooking on the grill. I think it makes everything taste so good.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

April 4, 2011 3

An Unplanned Visit

Yesterday was a fun day. At the spur of the moment, we decided to travel down to Grundy and visit Hubby’s parents. We took food for lunch. We took canned beef, green beans, corn, and peaches. We also dug some potatoes, gathered some tomatoes, cabbage and grapes. This was a special treat for them as they are no longer able to raise a garden. While we were there, she gave me some more empy canning jars. This way hopefully we won’t have to buy any to finish up the canning.

She does have, though, growing on her hill a huge cushaw vine. This is one of the hidden treasures it contains. I really like cushaw, probably more than pumpkin. I think it makes a better pie than pumpkin. We really had a good visit. We took the scenic route home. I’ll post some of those pictures hopefully tomorrow.

Today will be spent catching up and enjoying the day. We will be starting school next Monday, so this is kinda our vacation week. Take care and God bless.

August 31, 2010 2

Peaches

Today we have been busy with peaches. We had 11 qts of peaches. After peeling them, I decided to try out my new helper. I put the peelings into the steamer juicer and got 2 qts of juice. From that juice, I made 6 pts of jelly. I think they look really pretty in the jar. It was easy to do. I think it was a wise investment. Supper this evening was fried chicken, gravy, corn and biscuits. Of course, peach jelly for dessert.

A new visitor to our pond. He (or she) arrived the other day for a short visit. Hubby says he thinks it is an egret. Of course, he stood out with his white color. I think the geese were a little amazed. We have been having rain lately. It is raining now as I am doing this post. I had hoped to go to the garden and check on things but I don’t think that will be happening. Oh well, maybe I’ll just rest. Take care and God bless.

August 17, 2010 1

Orchard

Friday evening we went to our Pastor’s house. As I mentioned earlier, he gave us some peaches. He has a small orchard at his house. All his trees were so full of fruit. It was beautiful.

These are only a few of the trees. Grace took lots of pictures. I will try to post more of them tomorrow.

This is a view from his yard. Very pretty. We also ate supper at his house. Almost everything we had was home grown. I love to eat this way. We had hamburgers on the grill, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes from the garden, fresh homemade applesauce, and fresh peaches. Delicious!

The girls and I did not get to can our beets yesterday. As it was raining most of the day, we decided to run a few errands in town instead. Jess had given me some coupons she had for canning jars and lids. We decided to go to Wal-Mart and get these. They are a little cheaper there than there are at our local supermarket. We will be canning the beets today.

The sun is shining here nicely today. Temperatures have cooled down some, thanks to the rain yesterday. Outside temperature is about 80 degrees. This is one of those weeks when things begin to start building up. Much to do. Beans are ready to pick, berries are ready, beets are ready and I think we might have enough tomatoes ripe to make a batch of salsa. I love to can and put away food for my family however when I start getting behind, it is easy for me to allow that to become a stressor in my life. I do not want this to happen. God has given us this bounty and I thank Him for it. When I was growing up, the garden and canning controlled our summers. I do not want that for my girls. I want the garden and all it involves to be enjoyable and fun for my girls. I want to keep a balance. This is hard, as old habits are sometimes difficult to break. Pray that I will do this well-that my girls will have a love for gardening and canning and not see it as just hard work.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 28, 2010 1

Peaches

We were very blessed to have these peaches given to us. They are called Saturn peaches or donut peaches. These are very small and I was not really sure how to best use them.

As you can see, we had quite a few. We decided to make something like an applesauce from them. We used the food strainer. We made a pie from our peach sauce yesterday to see how it would taste. It actually was very good. Hubby was home yesterday and he helped. Thanks, Babe.

Temperatures here are hot. We are getting a small shower here this morning. Much needed. However the sun is already back so it probably will get hot fast. We are headed into town for piano practice. I also need a few spices for the beets. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 27, 2010 2

More Snow

Yes, we have more snow. It is snowing hard and we have gotten about 1 1/2″ already. All our shoveled out places are covered again. I think it is supposed to snow until about 8:00 tonight. I just pray it doesn’t snow too much. We plan on going to Jessica’s this weekend. The last picture shows how hard it is snowing, if you look really close, you can see the barn in the distance.

Changing the subject, here is a picture of a peach pie I made today. Instead of using a pie pan, I put it in one of my cast iron skillets. The peaches were home canned. I just thickened up the juice. The pie crust is really simple. 1/2 cup oil, 1/3 cup milk, 1/4 tsp. salt. Stir this together, then add 2 1/3 cup sifted all purpose flour. Mix together. This will make top and bottom crust. I used the entire dough for a bottom crust as this skillet is fairly large, then I put a crumb topping on the top. I think this need vanilla ice cream on the side. What do you all think? Well, enjoy your day and God bless.

March 2, 2010 1