Beautiful Corn

The girls and I have been busy working up corn. At first, we didn’t think it would do very well because of all the rain we had but it seems to have not hurt it any. We put up 104 ears in the freezer. That should do us nicely through the winter.

I wanted to share the view with you all from my back porch. It was a beautiful morning here in Floyd. Our temperature this morning was 48 degrees. Amazing! Grace and I wore jeans to the garden this morning to pull the corn.

This is a picture of some flowers we planted at the edge of the garden. They sure do add color to the space and look very cheerful.

I have shown you all this flower before. We researched it and found some people call them “naked ladies”. Well, this year, we found out more about them. They are also called “resurrection lily”. I like that name so much better. In early spring, they will come out as foliage, then they die back and in late July or early August these beautiful flowers come up. Amazing how God works! All the years we have lived here, the green foliage has come up and I just thought it didn’t have bloom on it. I never made the connection between the foliage and the flower. Remember last week when I helped Hubby texture a ceiling, the lady who owned the house gave me all this information. She had them growing in her yard as well.

Well, that’s about it. Time for us to eat lunch. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

August 15, 2013 6

Chuck’s Bed

I thought I would show you all Hubby’s latest project. He has been working on making a bed for Chuck. It is almost finished. The headboard and footboard used to be our dining table benches. When we first made our dining table we made benches to go with it. Years later I decided I was tired of the benches and wanted chairs. So he made me chairs. (He’s so good about things like that!) Anyway the benches moved up to the building for a while and now they are being remade into a bed. I like that.

We have been busy with our garden here. Canning is in full swing. I love it!!! Lots of good food being saved for winter time. Our cucumbers are just about gone. I thought about planting some more seeds but I don’t think they would have time to do anything. We have been blessed with lots of cucumbers this year so we have made several batches of pickles. I put the recipe for the Christmas pickles over into my recipe file under canning if any of you are interested. We had our first taste of fresh corn this past week. YUM! I love fresh garden corn. When I was younger and it was time to put up the corn, my mom would always cook corn on the cob for breakfast. She said it put us in the right frame of mind.

We had our annual Sunday School Breakfast this morning. We usually have it at SmartView Park here on the Blue Ridge Parkway. For some reason (that I will never understand) the Parkway has decided not to open many of the picnic areas this year. So we couldn’t have our breakfast there. The road is still washed out going down to the river so we had our breakfast at the Coon Hunters Club. Yes, ladies, coon hunting IS a sport here. We have never participated in it but many people do. Anyway, we had tons of good food!! It was a really nice way to start off the service.

Tomorrow, I will be helping Hubby texture a ceiling. After that we have some tomatoes to can. I think we will make spaghetti sauce with them. In the meantime, I have a new book from the library, a cup of tea and a green swing that is calling my name. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

August 4, 2013 5

Christmas Pickles

I have made these pickles for about 30 years. They are definitely a favorite at our house. These are made from the large overgrown cucumbers. We intentionally let these get large for the purposes of making these pickles. The fat, yellow ones are the best but the large green ones will work as well.

7 lb cucumbers (after cutting), 1 cup lime, 1 cup vinegar, 1 sm. bottle red food coloring, 1 tbsp. alum, 2 cups vinegar, 2 cups water, 8 cinnamon sticks, 10 cups sugar, 2 packages cinnamon red hot candy or 8-10 drops cinnamon extract.

Peel cucumbers. Cut in half long ways. Using a spoon remove seeds. Slice into thick slices. Soak in one cup lime and enough water to cover cucumbers for 24 hours. Remove from lime water and wash well. Soak in ice water 3 hrs or overnight in the fridge. Drain. Mix one cup vinegar, food coloring and alum in enough water to cover cucumbers. Simmer 2 hrs. Drain. Put back into ice water. In another kettle bring to boil 2 cups vinegar, 2 cups water, sugar, cinnamon sticks and cinnamon red hots. After boiling, pour over drained cucumbers. Let stand 24 hrs. Drain reserving juice. Pack cucumbers into jars. Bring juice to boil. Pour hot juice over cucumbers. Process in a water bath canner 5 min. for pts, 10 min. for qts. Makes approx. 14 pts.

These taste like spiced apple rings. Very delicious!

July 31, 2013 5

VBS

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good week so far. Last week was pretty busy for us. Seems like VBS is always a busy time. Our theme this year was “Hip Hopping for Jesus”. The kids all seemed to have a great time.

Julie dressed for the part. All the workers dressed in 50’s style. I somehow didn’t get a picture of Grace.

We enjoyed our moon last week and finally (after years of trying) managed to get a good moon picture. Our place was so bright at night, we had a cat bird that sang all night. I guess he didn’t know if it was night or day.

We have also been enjoying some of our fresh produce from the garden. So far we have had salad greens, green onions, beets, radishes, carrots, yellow squash and a few cucumbers. We love it!!

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

July 1, 2013 4

Yard Sale Find

I wanted to share with you all my lastest yard sale find. I love these old books.

Grace had a mishap with her glasses and we had to go get them repaired yesterday. A startled chicken flew up from the roost and hit her glasses. It messed up her nose piece. On the way to Wal-Mart I noticed a yard sale sign. Well you know, it is so hard to pass up yard sales. I am so glad I stopped. I got these books for 10 cents a piece.

I just love the pictures and the stories in these old readers. I have several of them. Look, they even have a dictionary in the back.

I know my girls are way past these books but I still love them.

A picture just for fun. This little lady seems to be an escape artist. She manages to get out of the fence almost every evening. We looked out the window the other day and she was sitting here on the bench just resting. All our animals seem to love this bench.

Well, I better go. Our VBS starts tonight. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

June 23, 2013 5

Wednesday

I thought I would show you all another picture of the roses in the tree. I took this one this morning looking down from the girl’s bedroom window. They have really looked beautiful this year.

We are still working on school as we took about a month break before and during vacation. We only lack 10 more days if we do double lessons every day. Then I think we will take off the summer. We are looking forward to it.

After school we plan on making strawberry rhubarb jam. I posted the recipe here https://merryheartcrafts.com/category/recipes/canning-recipes/ I have made this jam for many, many years. The recipe I normally use is a little different than this one but I want to give this one a try.

Today I am looking forward to hanging clothes on the line, doing school, making jam and hanging out with my girls. I have such a blessed life. Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 19, 2013 5

Thursday

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing great today. We are kinda warm here in Floyd-86 degrees but we do have a very pleasant wind so it doesn’t seem so bad. At least, not if you are in the shade!

We worked in the garden this morning. We started early but it still got pretty hot before we were done. This is a picture of the first raised bed. We have been enjoying the salad greens and green onions for a while now.

We had a great visit yesterday with my Uncle John and Aunt Elaine. They live in Mighigan and had never been to the farm before. Jess and her kids came up. Everyone went for a ride in the bumpy truck. It was so good to get to see them.

Our grapevine seems to be doing okay now. I was a little worried about it as it got frostbite by the last frost we had. We won’t have as many grapes as last year but it looks like there will be a few.

The roses are blooming and look very beautiful in the tree. We spent most of the evening sitting here yesterday enjoying the view and time spent with family. I wanted to tell you all about something beautiful I saw last night. I almost ALWAYS have to get up during the night to go to the bathroom. Well, last night when I got up I looked out our bedroom window and the sight I saw was totally amazing. The stars were shining so bright in the sky and underneath them the lightning bugs were everywhere! So many it looked like blinking Christmas lights. I stood there watching it all thinking how good our God is to allow me to see something like that!

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

June 13, 2013 5

Beach Trip

Hello everyone! I’m sure you can guess from the title of this post where we have been. We went with Dave and Jess to Jekyll Island GA for a week. We had so much fun. The girls had never been to the beach before and I have only been a few times. Some friends from our church recommended Jekyll Island and we loved it. It is not too crowded and has lots of fun things to do.

We took a trolley tour of some of the old houses. It was very interested. So many of the “rich and famous” lived in these homes.

We also rode a bicycle around the island.

This took most of one day but it was so much fun. We saw so many things we normally would not have seen.

We did a dolphin tour one day. Little Sam saw his first dolphin on his third bithday. Then the motion of the boat did him in. He had to take a short nap. We also celebrated my Julie’s 15th birthday while we were there. Amazing to me how fast they grow up.

On the island they call this driftwood beach. It is very pretty.

Saturday morning as we were leaving we made a last trip down to driftwood beach and guess what we saw-a dolphin! Amazing! It was just swimming around looking beautiful.

While we were there a tropical storm can through. It was AWESOME! We went down to the beach that evening before it came in and the waves were so pretty. The wind was whipping and the sound was like a roar. I LOVED it!!!! On Thursday, it rained something fierce so we went down to Jacksonville FL to the Museum of Science and History. It was a fun trip with lots of things to look at.

I guess I could go on and on about all the fun things we did but I don’t want to bore you all too much. It was a great week and we are very thankful to Dave and Jess for taking us along with them. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

June 10, 2013 5

Mostly Pictures

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I posted pictures of what it looks like here in yard. Today we worked on the gardens. Both gardens are planted. I am so happy. It has been a wet, cold spring here making it hard to get the gardens planted.

This one is just beans and corn.

Remember when I said Hubby was working on making a raised bed. Well, here it is and it is doing very well I think. We made another one today and planted herb seeds in it and another row of carrots. I think I like this raised bed gardening. Hoeing is so hard on my back.

Our rhubarb is doing nicely this year. I think it is time for some rhubarb dumplings, strawberry rhubarb jam, rhubarb pie,…….!!

This picture is looking at the back side of the house from the corner edge of the garden.

Irises.

A fern and hen and chicks. Thanks for the ferns, Jess! These hen and chicks belonged first to my grandmother, then to my mom and now to me. I love things like that. I found the metal thing up in the field above our home. I have no idea what it originally was but I think it makes a great container for them.

Our strawberries survived the winter and are blooming! Some already have small strawberries on them.

Lovage. It will get huge, over 6 ft. tall!

Clematis.

A nice place to relax. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

May 28, 2013 6

Picnic and a Surprise

Tuesday we went for a picnic with the Horn’s. We had a great time. It was our first picnic of the season with them.

The picnic spot was beautiful!

Fresh strawberries from North Carolina. It’s still too early here for them but these were delicious!

I came home today to find this lounge chair being made. I love it! Thanks Hubby. We have looked at this design for a while now and he said he thought today was a good day to build one. It is chilly here today and very windy. Our temperature is 50 degrees as I type. I think there is a freeze warning in effect for tonight. Wouldn’t you know it, we just got our plants in the ground this week. I certainly hope they are wrong. It has been a beautiful day though, just chilly. Beautiful sunshine and the air is so clean and clear. I do love days like this.

Have a great evening and God bless.

May 24, 2013 5