Home and the Open Road

A drawing: from beginning to end

2012-01-27T09:37:00.006-05:00

I really like to see the proccess of how a drawing gets to its end point. Even if I'm the one drawing it. I find the proccess is more fun to see after it's over...not so much while it's going on since there is a lot of frustration when I can't get something right. I am just not skilled enough to know how to fix a problem even if I can see what the problem is...and I can't always see the problem, I just know it's not right. So, here's the latest drawing I did, as I went along. I hope you enjoy the proccess too.

First, I got the basic shapes and shading areas put down on paper.

Then I started doing very loose shading.

After the loose shading, I started on my dad first with more detailed shading lines.

Here, I've smoothed out the initial shade lines and put in more detail. I then started on my mom's shading and detail. At this point, everything had gone smoothly. I was instantly happy with how my dad turned out. I could definitely recognize him. But I messed up on the inital sketch in of my mom and something wasn't right and I knew it, I just couldn't tell what. I continued on with it though, hoping I could figure it out and fix it as I worked.

In this pic, I could see one of my problems, her right eye was drooping and it doesn't do that in real life...also, one eye was bigger than the other. I did multiple eye surgeries on her...trying to fix it... Still no hair or clothes worked on yet.

Close up of my dad's face. Yep, that's him all right!

They have hair and clothes, finally. But my mom was in the middle of one of her eye surgeries. Originally they were wearing flowers but I took them out when I filled in the clothes. Hair is tough for me but I felt I did ok...once again, messed up my mom's hair more than my dad's.

I thought I was finished here. But still had a couple eye surgeries left to do and some minor shading issues.

My parents with their present. See, no droopy eye problems in real life. ;o)

I started it in May as a mother's/father's day gift but didn't finish until about an hour before my flight to go see them in September, still not completely happy with how my mom turned out but happy enough that I could give it to them without it bothering me too much. So it took me a few months. Some of that time spent taking a break from it because I was so frustrated.

fog, fog everywhere

2012-01-25T10:26:00.003-05:00

Fog has settled in here...it's been visiting a lot lately. It usually burns off with the sun but there have been a few days where it's stuck around all day. And sometimes after it burns off, it returns in the evening. I love the way fog changes things...makes fimiliar settings seem new and unexplored. I am glad it's not usually foggy here though. On Monday, the fog was thick and especially beautiful. I walked the dogs and saw some cool things but then ran into the comfort of my warm house. I forgot about the fog until I remembered it was trash night. When I walked up the driveway with the trash can, I was amazed by the tones of the light through the fog. I ran in and grabbed my camera. These are all unedited (except the first one, I changed that to b&w)...but the colors in the others are just as I saw them. The world is full of wonders.

Green smoothies and my weekend

2012-01-23T09:51:00.005-05:00

This weekend seemed busier than it was, I'm sure. Adam had his birthday party on Saturday. So I spent Friday evening vacuuming and doing general clean up. Mostly, I didn't do much since I was distracted by watching America's Funniest Home Videos.

Adam came home from the PO box with a package for me from a friend in France. A Christmas card (we don't check the PO box very often) and a bag of organic, French spices. There was a recipe on the box to use them in but since I don't read French, I don't know what it is yet. She said she'd translate it for me. So a nice surprise to start the weekend. :o)

The world was still wet on Saturday morning. I love the look of wet wood.

To start off my weekend right, I had a green smoothie for breakfast. It's a great way to get your greens in. Plus it was so good! This one was lots of kale (my first kale smoothie in my new blender...worked much better than my last blender), peaches, grapes, strawberries, mango, pineapple and orange juice. It made two large glasses full. I drank every last drop.

I first started drinking these when I was doing the raw diet. I can't reccomend these enough. They pack vitamins, minerals, fiber and yummy goodness.

After I finished cleaning, I went for a bike ride. Get this, it's in the middle of January and I was wearing shorts and a short sleeved jersey! It was around 68 degrees!! I am loving the warm winter. But I had to pass the garden on my way out the driveway and found all these water bubbles. I really liked the looks of them.

Action shot.

Back in the subdivision at the end of the ride, the sun was shining down a side road. I had to turn around to get a shot of it...I couldn't go by without one.

To prepare for guests, the dogs had to be loacked out. They weren't too happy about it. I wasn't thrilled with it either since the ground was still wet, but the deck was fairly dry and it was plenty warm out so they were fine. But they still tried to convince me they would be happier inside.

Even my nephews came out. I didn't get any pictures of them on the phone camera (I used it to take all the pics on this post, except the top one) so I don't have access to them right now. I watched Samuel a while and also played Mario Kart with Isaac. That's his favorite part of coming to our house. He LOVES Mario Kart and we are the only people he knows who has it.

After they left, the dogs got to come back in and hang out while the rest of Adam and his friends and I played games. We had pizza and cake.

We played a game called Iron Dragon. It was fun but long. I think we played for 4 hours. Adam was on the verge of winning. He deilvered a commodity to me so I payed him just enough to make him win so we could quit. See him without his glasses?

Bear was creating trouble. He kept laying under the table and people would accidentally graze him and he'd let out a growl. He finally settled in behind me, out of the way.

The dogs said it was a long, tiring day.

Dreary day

2012-01-20T22:34:00.004-05:00

It's been a dreary day all day. And it's going to look like this all weekend. But it is supposed to be in the upper 60's tomorrow. On Monday, the rain is supposed to go away and the temps will drop again. Isn't that backward?

Doggie doings

2012-01-18T00:30:00.003-05:00

Last night it was stormy but I looked at the weather map and thought we had enough time to get a short walk in. I looked at the map again and it looked clear so we kept going. We got to the point where we make a turn and start heading back home...about 35 minutes from home at that point. It started sprinkling. I had the dogs running. It started coming down harder, and harder, until it was pouring. The dogs were troopers and kept moving until a lightning bolt lit up the world, closely followed by a loud crash. That's when a melt down started. They no longer wanted to move, they didn't know what to do. I hated to do it but had to call Adam to come get us. He was still sleeping (since he works 3rd shift). He came and got us though. The car pulled up and I opened the back door. Everyone piled into the back seat, including me. All 5 of us stuffed into the back seat is not a comfortable ride. Aside from Bear standing on my achilles tendon, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. They all got a good toweling down when we got home. They all love getting toweled down.

On a different note, Bear has a vet appointment today. He's been super nippy the last couple of weeks. He bit Adam when he tried to make him go outside. He was sleeping under my legs and I reached down to pet him. You have to be careful not to pet him suddenly because he nips when you surprise him. So you have to annouce what you're doing and touch lightly before petting. I reached down and petted him. He raised his head and looked at me and a couple strokes later, he was chaomping down on my hand (he's good at not breaking skin). I'm still bruised. Adam's grandma was over and she was petting him when he nipped her. Thankfully, he barely got her. He isn't as comfortable biting people he doesn't know. He's more grouchy in general. His nickname is Mister Mister. Adam started calling him Mister Monster. It fits him. Adam is concerned that all these fatty tumors he's getting aren't just fatty tumors after all and they're causing him pain or discomfort, causing him to act that way. It's true, he doesn't take pain well and gets very grouchy when he's sick or in pain. So maybe it's true. We needed a refill for Jasmine and Jack's arthritis medicine anyway so Adam will be picking up a bottle while he's there.

I know I posted this pic on Facebook but it's just so cute that I had to post it here too.

Proof that the sun came out this weekend.

Jack is spoiled. He loves fluffy dog beds and I have held out for so long, not allowing one in the living room since there's not a lot of space for something so large. But every time we would open the office door, he'd run right to the bed. So I gave in and brought it into the living room so he could enjoy it more often. He is always on it. Almost never even gets on the love seat anymore. It's funny how much he loves it. Every now and then, we'll find Tucker or Jasmine on it but it's mostly him who enjoys it.

This is Bear. Looks so cute and sweet...and he usually is, but there's a firecracker behind that cute facade. He hates to be outside when we're home. This is what he does to be let in. He cries softly and stands there until you can't stand it anymore. He knows what he's doing.

Here's Tucker with the dog barn that Adam, his friend and I built this past summer. I wasn't happy about the paint job but I'm ok with it now. I woud never choose to paint anything that way but that's ok. It's one less thing I have to do.

misty woods

2012-01-14T21:25:00.004-05:00

It's been warm and rainy here lately and I've woken up more than once to fog surrounding us. This morning (last Saturday) I had time to actually walk through the woods behind our house in the fog. It's amazing how weather can change the mood of a place. I really enjoyed my walk.

It looks like YOU'LL like it

2012-01-11T23:36:00.005-05:00

I am home from work today sick and tomorrow is Adam's surgery, then Monday is a day off work to observe Martin Luther King day. Woohoo! I love long weekends...unfortunately I am not feeling great to enjoy it to the fullest but oh well. I am not terribly sick, just some sinus congestion and runny nose but it was impossible to sleep last night. I finally fell asleep sometime after 4:30 after Adam got me some Benadryl to knock me out. Then I woke up at 9 unable to fall back asleep. I was so uncomfortable propped up but it was the only way my head felt like it wouldn't explode. I hope a nap is in my future today. I do know we will be eating out tonight to celebrate Adam's b-day so I have to be up for that.

Well, today I have more food to share with you. Adam came home from a robotics meeting (he's an honorary member of the high school robotics team) and I was just pulling my dinner out of the toaster oven. I call it pepper nachos. I don't like tortilla chips so I used chunks of red bell pepper in their place. It also has cilantro, tomatoes, corn, black beans, cheese and avacados. I asked Adam what he thought. He looked and smelled it. He said, "Looks like YOU'LL like it. What's for dinner for me?" We've talked about how our kids won't be food picky. we're certain of this...yet we're both picky and in completely different ways so I don't think there's any hope. I already end up cooking two meals most nights...but there is an occassional meal we can agree on, like those stuffed mushrooms.

Pepper nachos

Homemade bean and grain burgers. Adam will actually eat these too, surprisingly. I put yellow mustard, yogurt cheese (the drained yogurt I make) and lacto-fermented ketchup on the bun and sprinkled that with flax meal and added lettuce, tomato and pickles. Yum!!

This was lunch a couple times this week. A baked sweet potato with butter and pepper and a bunch of frozen veggies with a TBSP or so of garden herb cream cheese. I forgot how good that cream cheese, I hadn't bought it in years.

And since I had time at home to make something different than my usual 2 scrambled eggs, I made stuffed french toast. The filling is yogurt cheese (for those probiotics) mixed with cooked down blueberries. And the rest of the blueberries put on top. Then I sprinkled the whole thing with flax meal. It needs more blueberries next time but it was good. Also, I forgot the cinnamon which I really like.

Saturday's bicycle ride

2012-01-10T21:46:00.005-05:00

AFter working all week on getting enough sleep...and extra even, I am starting to feel more human again. I am getting some of my energy back. Finally, after a couple months of not being able to go for a ride, I got to go on one on Saturday. The weather was so nice! It was in the mid 60's! It rained on me in the beginning but I kept biking and it eventually stopped. I didn't really know where I was going...just exploring really. I made my way to one of the local bike trails. It's got nice scenery and no vehicles, of course.

I though they had extended the bike trail but I rode to the wrong end to ride the new extension and they had it closed off in the middle so I couldn't get through to check it out. I wasn't ready to head back home so I went to explore some more.

At the end of the gravel road were a couple horses and a community garden. That's a place where you "own" a plot and you can plant veggies. I spent way too much time there because I was amazed by it.

They even had a chicken coop but the sign said they were on vacation.

After my visit at the garden, I decided it was time to head home. Adam's cousin was in town so we were meeting for dinner and I wanted to be able to walk the dogs before that so they could enjoy the nice weather too.

Great ride! Now I need to keep on track with my sleep so I can have energy for riding.

Stuffed portabello caps and other food

2012-01-09T21:30:00.008-05:00

Often my lunches are weird. I grab whatever is in the fridge and figure out something to do with them when lunch time comes around. And in my never ending quest to eat better, I am trying to find a suitable replacement for mayo. So one day I had 1/2 butternut squash and I decided to see if it went ok in a sandwich as the mayo. I put a good amount on both slices with rotisserie chicken, tomatoes and fresh cilantro in between. It was so good!! If only butternut squash could keep in the fridge. I can't cook one every time I want a sandwich.

I tried a new recipe last night...well, I saw a recipe and it inspired this one but isn't the same at all. Adam told me it was really good. And it was! I would do one thing differently though, next time. I will bake the unstuffed mushrooms for a bit first because they didn't cook down enough.

It's just big portabello mushroom caps, rotisserie chicken, diced, 1 diced tomato, 1/2 red bell pepper and a minced clove of garlic. I sauteed it all until the tomatoes were soft. I cleaned the mushrooms and took out the stem. I put in a very thin layer of cottage cheese then topped it with the veggie/meat mixture. Then topped that with grated parmesan. I baked it at 400 degrees for 12 minutes. After I pulled it out, I added fresh basil and parsley.

Ohh...and the side is spicy carrot fries. So good! I just brushed olive oil over them and sprinkled with chili powder and threw those in the oven before I started working on the mushroom stuff so they baked a while. I pushed them all together and added the mushrooms to the same cookie sheet so they came out together. I also made some yellow rice for Adam and they would have finished at the same time but I forgot to turn the rice cooker on. Whoops. So we waited on the rice to cook before we ate. Give me carrots any day...he can have his nasty rice. ;o)

Unleashed fun

2012-01-09T12:08:00.007-05:00

Shhhh...don't tell Adam that I took Tucker out without a leash again. He hates it when I do that. But Tucker listens to me and wouldn't wonder off so I do. Sometimes I can't wak the dogs and Tucker really needs to get at least a little bit of energy out so I take him to the front yard to play fetch. He won't play in the back yard for some reason and the hall isn't long enough.

Here's a pic I got of him while playing fetch in the spring.

And one of Bear last year during our snow storm (one year ago to the day).

I just love watching him and Bear jump. They do some really cool acrobatics. It brings a smile to my face every time.

Dinner and a sneak peek

2012-01-05T19:14:00.004-05:00

On Tuesday, we had wild mushroom ravioli and I made alfredo sauce to go on them. Homemade alfredo sauce is so easy and yummy! Once you have it, you will never settle for canned alfredo sauce again . I havent bought any since first making this several years ago. I actually made 1 1/2 batches so I would have enough leftover for the next meal, a soup that calls for canned alfredo sauce.

Here's the recipe in case you're wanting to give it a try:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup cream
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (doesn't taste nearly as good when made with Kraft parmesan)
salt and pepper to taste (and I usually use dried parsley as well)

Melt the butter in a sauce pan, add the cream and cheese. Stir occassionally while the cheese melts. Add spices and salt and stir. Turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes to thicken.

See, super simple.

The soup I made is one we've had a few times and I love it...Adam likes it too but not as much as I do. Adsam got his broccolli on the side while I mixed mine in my soup...and cornbread on the side.

Hot bean soup

1 garlic clove, minced
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cans (16 oz. each) white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups cooked fresh cauliflower florets
1 jar (17 oz.) alfredo sauce
2 cups chicken stock
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
2 Tbsp chopped basil
grated pamesan cheese

In a saucepan, lightly saute garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil. Remove from heat. Coarsley puree beans and cauliflower in a food proccessor or blender. Add puree, alfredo sauce and chicken stock to garlic. Cook over low heat, stirring occassionally until heated through. Add fresh parsley and basil before serving. Serve with parmesan cheese.

I tried a different cornbread recipe. Adam complains about me using wheat flour in the cornbread and this one doesn't use any flour or sugar at all. Adam said he couldn't taste the corn...but that is the majority of what's in there. I could definitely taste it. I liked it. So now I know 2 cornbread recipes by heart.

2 cups cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda, baking powder and salt
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients together. Make well. Add beaten egg and 1/4 oil. Add enough buttermilk to make cake batter consistency. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.

In my bakes goods, I replace the oil with homemade apple sauce. You can't taste the apple. It cuts out fat and also make things fluffier. Weird, I know. But we decided we didn't like it in brownies because we likely them thick and fudgy and applesauce makes it cakelike, more airy.

Another thing I finally got around to making is my lacto-fermented ketchup. I haven't had any for a couple months and just haven't gotten around to making more. I finally did and got to enjoy some on my eggs this morning. :o)

Makes 1 quart

3 cups canned tomato paste, preferably organic (comes out to be about 4-5 cans)
1/4 cup whey (the liquid drained off of yogurt)
1 Tbsp sea salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/8-1/4 cup fish sauce (found in Asian markets)

Mix all ingredients until well blended. place in a quart-sized jar. The top of the ketchup should be at least one inch below the top of the jar. Leave at room temperature for about 2 days before transferring to fridge.

So, now that dinner is over, here's your sneak peek into our next major project. I am kind of dreading it. I think I would be more ok with it if the last major one was finished (the kitchen). I believe it's next month that this one is supposed to happen. Pretty details.

I heart my doggies

2012-01-05T12:17:00.003-05:00

My little pack may be ful of misfits people didn't want for one reason or another but they are very much wanted and loved at my house...even though some of them have behavioral problems I can't fix.

Tucker is always good for a laugh with his goofy ways and clumsy antics. And he loves me more than anything/anyone in the world (including Adam)...so that always lifts my spirits.

Jasmine is a sweetheart. She is the most like me of all my dogs. She loves to be outside and not the center of attention.

Jack is the sun worshipper. He loves laying in the sunlight...well, laying anywhere really. His other love is to sniff EVERYTHING on our daily walks.

Bear is our grumpy old man. He's only 10 but he's starting to show his age. He doesn't want to be outside during the day while we're at work anymore. He'd much rather be warm and in bed. (He's getting in a nice, big yawn here.)

Some days I wonder why in the world I have 4 dogs. They are a handful. I don't feel like I am good enough for them. They need someone who can give them the training they need to oversome their fears and aggressions. They need someone who will walk them 7 days a week, no matter what. They need someone who will sit down and play with them more. But then again, most of all, they need someone who loves tham and is committed to them...and that is definitely me. Sometimes having 4 dogs can be stressful but I wouln't trade in any of them.

warmer weather

2012-01-03T23:36:00.010-05:00

As much as I love snow, I don't enjoy being cold. I can handle it if I'm active but sitting on my couch in the cold doesn't appeal to me. At times like these, I dream of the warmer weather of Miami where I spent a whole summer at the beach as a kid...and collected lots of shells and coral. I am making a couple shadowboxes to put them in.

passing of time

2012-01-03T08:51:00.002-05:00

Happy new year!

Each year seems to pass a little faster than the one before. As a kid, time passed so slowly...now I wish it would feel that way again. Some things about growing up are sad, this is one of those things. I need to learn to slow down...to not have to fill every moment with something productive.

This year, I have no goals for my weight like I usually do, but am intead concentrating on becoming healthier. I have been having serious problem with my digestive system again. It seems I have been having troubles for years now, off and on. I don't like doctors and I don't like hearing bad news so I have been putting this off since I got back from vacation in October. I suspect I have some type of gluten intolerance/allergy. Maria thinks I might have IBS. I enjoy learning to eat healthier but I want it to be my choice, not forced upon me by some syndrome or illness. Ugh! So, my goal is to actually go to the doctor to get this figured out once and for all so I can feel better.

Also, I need to concentrate on getting to sleep. I stay up entirely too late (part of not being able to slow down and relax). I am so tired that I have no energy or desire to get out on my bike. I do want to...just not enough to make it happen. I don't like feeling sluggish the way I have been. I am starting by giving myself an 11 o'clock bedtime. Still too late but far better than what I've been doing.

Again, I am setting a goal to read the entire triple combination.

And I also have a goal to finish at least 3 of the projects I've started over the years that just sit there, partially completed.

Just four goals...shouldn't be too hard, but I have an idea it will take some work.

The last of the decorations.

2011-12-29T23:53:00.004-05:00

These are the last of the decorations for the party. If I made any other decorations, I have already forgotten.

This fireplace was actualy not made by me, but by the lady I made the raw cookies for. It's made out of a tv box and the mantel is actual wood. It even had flickering lights inside the "fire". The bricks are painted on.

Here's another decoration I didn't work on. We were lucky enough to find these Whoville wall sets in the storage shed at the church. There were 5 of them, plus 2 signs. Someone spent a lot of time putting plaster texture on them and painting them. The signs were actually carved.

We had over 50 boxes that had to be wrapped. 25 of them were part of the centerpieces on the tables, the bottom part so they had no bows. One lady wrapped all 25 of the no bow boxes. Adam and I wrapped the rest of them and put bows on all the rest. It was pretty cramped in the house by the time the party came along.

And the last decoration here is one I almost forgot about. I made two of these, one for each side of the stage. I just took pieces of paper and cut out in a sprial. Some spirals were small, while others were big. I stapled them together and added a bow I made. Super simple...porbably the easiest thing I made. I almost forgot to put them up.

So, that's it...I will post some pics from the play though since that was fun also.

Christmas baking

2011-12-27T23:17:00.005-05:00

Just like every other Christmas, I waited until the last minute to get everything done so it was busy and hectic. Every year I say I have learned my lesson. I hope you were better than me and finished everything early so you could feel the joy of the season. It's always great to have family gathered close...and if I can't have mine close by at least I can have Adam's family.

I am still not eating sugar but I am happy to make sugary goodness for others. I made three different things. Toffee, mint brownies and a cookie bar type thing that I can't remember what it was called but it was the hands down favorite. I couldn't get a good picture of it for the life of me though. Here's the toffee.

I made about 15 plates and was able to deliver about 12 of them. I still have the other 3 in my car. I just ran out of time and now I think they'll be too stale so I guess I will just pitch them. I made the tags.

There is one family at church who eats raw food only and I wanted to do something special for them since the mom made a fireplace for the Christmas play at the party (still have more to post from that party). So I made these raw cookies which are supposed to be like macaroons but really aren't. They weren't sweet at all so I made a sauce from pureed strawberries and strained yogurt. I was able to have some of these since there was no sugar.

Aside from the sweets, I also did some bread baking. Besides the raw dessert I made for that family, I also gave them a portion of my sourdough starter. Since I pulled it out and fed it, I decided to make some of our favorite sourdough bread. I'll have to post the recipe some time. I made four loaves (yesterday morning). One is almost gone and another is at my in-law's. I imagine the other two will disappear before I have to freeze them.

And the other bread I made is my all time favorite. It's a soaked bread. I've posted this recipe before. No matter what, I can't get it to rise nice and big but it is always silky smooth and so yummy! I made some rolls with the same recipe for some bean/grain burgers a friend made for us.

Paper ornaments

2011-12-21T20:40:00.004-05:00

I made two kinds of paper ornaments and somehow I managed to make 40 of the more complicated ones and only about 15 of the less complicated ones.

For the easy one, all I had to do was take 5 strips of paper, 1 of the center color and two of the other colors. I left the outer 2 strips full length, cut a couple of inches off the next color strips and about 4 inches off the center strip. Then simply stapled the ends together with a string for hanging snugged in there. I made two sizes, long and short. Most of them were short though.

The next kind was the ones I prefered which is probably why I made so many more of them. Adam had the bright idea of making a template and it really did move it along much faster. They look more complicated than they are, really.

These are more Whovillesque, don't you think? I used all the colors from the book in this one.

Here's the template. It's made using a square of cardstock. Mine were 8". Then you cut squares out of the center leaving two sides still attached on a slant...that is the main stem for your ornament. (I am sure these nistructions aren't great, sorry.) You take the first two triangles and wrap them around to meet on one side and tape together. Then the next size up, you fold in the opposite direction and tape together. Then repeat again, alternating sides they get folded to...but the outer two layers I was able to use the stapler on.

Here's a pic of a single one...maybe it will help fill in any gaps my instructions left out.

I stapled a string onto one end for hanging.

Like I said, the gym as big and my decorations just didn't seem like enough. All of these were hung on strings at ceiling level.

pipe cleaner decorations

2011-12-19T23:32:00.002-05:00

I really should be in bed so this will be a quick one. Here's a couple more decorations I made. This time they're for the tree.

This was simple. I just curled several packages of pipe cleaner to stick through out the tree.

This one, not as simple but I liked the idea of them better than the curled ones. Unfortunately neither of them had the impact I was hoping for. The sticks are pipe cleaner and the pom poms are ones I made. The pom poms were heavy so the pipe cleaners bent over...the group was fun to hold and watch as they danced around, like wheat blowing in the wind...or probably more like a breeze. But regardless, they were fun to watch. I made the pom poms by wrapping yarn around a broom handle over and over again until there was a significant amount wound up. I tried to contain it to about an inch wide on the handle. Then I slid it off the handle and placing it on the table where an already cut piece of yarn was already laying. I tied up the center of the bunch real tight and tied it around the pipe cleaner as well. Then I cut the loops of yarn all the way around. Then you have to trim the "furs" until you have a fairly even length all the way around. And you have a pom pom. Not complicated but a bit time consuming. I only made 10. I had plans of putting them all at the top of the tree but ended up spreading them throughout the tree and wish I had left them all together. Oh well.

Here's a not good pic of these two elements on the tree.

painted vases (for the party)

2011-12-18T00:40:00.002-05:00

Here's a super easy project I did for the Grinch party. I got these two vases at a thrift store half off so they were less than a dollar for both of them. I bought a small tube of acrylic paint in the color I wanted.

I poured some into the bottom of the vases and swished them around until the insides were completely covered. Then I let them dry for a few days before I put the fillers in it.

Here's what they looked like finished. It has the sheen from the glass but the color I wanted. I liked this one.

I made two and filled them with the same things. They were used on the food tables. Don't you just love this budget friendly dish?! "A crumb too small for even a mouse." Pretty funny. :o) That was someone else' idea. The name card holders were made by the same woman who had that idea and beaded by the girls in the play while they waited for their rehearsal.

And here's another this I put together for the food tables. It's just a small 2 foot tree that I bent over and added a large ornament to. I added a spray that had pom poms in red, white and lime green but that was after this pic was taken.

Two types of party garland (for Whoville)

2011-12-13T23:10:00.007-05:00

Ok, so the Whoville party is over so I can start showing the decorations I made. This was the largest thing I made but not the most time consuming. This was actually pretty easy. It only took me a couple of movies worth of time to make.

I used lime green, dark green and red streamer which are the main colors I used in all the decorations. This is 200 feet of garland.

I placed the three streamer rolls on the floor and the table stopped them from rolling away so I could just pull on them and not have to deal with the rolls at all, except for what was in my hands. I layered them so each green was peeking out of either side of the red (which I had underneath the greens).

I turned the tension to the highest it would go then sewed. It's as simple as that. But you shouldn't pull it through the back or you will stretch the threads and not get as much gathering. Cool, huh?!

This is what it comes out looking like.

So for the second type of garland, I did something completely different. This was actually the first thing I started working on since I knew it would be VERY time consuming. I wanted to make sure it got done.

I used lime green, dark green and light blue for this one. I cut strips of all the colors into 24 inch strips. Then I cut them all in half, width wise. I tied them onto the string. I tied a bunch of red on, then began filling in the other colors one at a time. It worked well for me that way. When I ran out of empty line, I had to move the line further down the hall and start again.

I made 3 different segments since my house isn't long enough to accommadate 100 feet of it. The dogs were constantly get under foot...trying to get my attention. This one took me almost two weeks and I had to stay up until 1 every night to get it done in that time. It was easy but took so much time. I will never make 100' again. But I can see making it for a party someday in shorter lengths. I really like how it looked.

Here is a glimpse of what they look like hung together. I'll show pics of the whole gym later after I show more individual projects I worked on for this party.

cake guts & bracelets

2011-12-08T00:00:00.002-05:00

Here's the guts from the rainbow cake. It turned out pretty neat. The kids were excited by the rainbow.

Here's the bracelets I made for the girls. They are super simple. Thank you to Debbie for teaching me about crimp beads and how to use them when I was visiting. They are really useful.

And while I had stuff out, I threw these two together as well, for myself. The others are too small for me...but my Faith in God leader wanted one and they fit her so she got one.

Most of these ideas, I got from Pinterest...the cake and two of the bracelets. I am no good at coming up with original ideas but I can copy pretty well! ;o)

"Peppermint" rainbow cake

2011-12-06T20:24:00.003-05:00

I am home with Adam while he's on bed rest. I had plenty of other things I could be doing, like all the housework I had neglected during the last month while working on the Grinch party we just had. I did work some on that but I took most of today for fun stuff...crafting and baking.

The largest and most time consuming project I did was making a rainbow cake I had seen online a little while back. I kept it in the back of y mind as something I wanted to make someday when I had a reason to. My chance to try it out came this week. We are having our Faith in God activity tomorrow (Wed.) and I was asked to bring dessert. Since I had extra time on my hand I don't normally have, I figured I might as well. I also made little bracelets for the girls.

For the rainbow cake, I made up the batter from a box mix. I divided it into 6 bowls and used regular food coloring to make an assortment of colors.

All you have to do is plop the first color directly into the center of the pan, take the next color and plop it directly in the middle of the first color and so on until you finish all the colors. Each color you put in simply spreads the proceeding colors out. They don't mix. It comes out looking like rings of colors.

It might be a mess, but I liked the looks of this mess.

Baked:

I thought long and hard about how to decorate the cake. I was at Kroger when it came to me. Since it was for a Christmas activity, I would make it look like a peppermint.

I cut out a circle to use as a guide. I stuck toothpicks in the cake to suspend the paper. When I was done with the paper, I removed the toothpicks and smoothed out the frosting in that area. I used a knife to "scoop up some sugar I had dyed red and placed it on the cake where I wanted.

I finished the stripes on top and moved to the more difficult side stripes. Even with the cake stand tilted all the way down, it just wasn't at a good angle to throw sugar at but I eventually got it.

I didn't want to level the cake before I flipped it onto the board so I had a gap all the way around the bottom. That means I needed a border at the bottom.

I went through two other tips before I decided on this one.

So here it is. It was fun but not something I can do very often.

Photo editing

2011-11-23T11:36:00.005-05:00

I love pictures. I loveto take them but I also love to browse pictures...mine and others'. One thing I have been having fun with lately is editing photos to see what I can come up with. My camera skills aren't the greatest so editing makes me happier with my pictures. I don't do it very often but when I do, I really enjoy myself. Recently, someone showed me an editing program and I am in love. It's simple and can really make a difference in the end product. It's pixlr.com/o-matic/ It's free!

Here's a pic I took back in 2001-2002 with a simple point and shoot camera that my parents gave me for Christmas one year. It was color but back when I had photshop, I changed it to sepia. I was really happy with that simple change, and still like it better than the original.

But then, I put it through some proccessing in my fancy new editing program and made just two changes. It came out looking like this. I am super happy with this image. I am trying to figure out where I can hang this in the house now.

I like how it looks kind of like a watercolor and a picture at the same time. It has a modern art touch to it but not blaringly so. I love the colors. Editing is amazing and a lot of fun.

Counters

2011-11-13T08:21:00.004-05:00

I have had trouble updating my blog lately...partly because of how busy I've been but also because it seems to me that the things I do really have no meaning. I mean, the things I do need to be done but really are the kinds of things that know no difference in the scheme of things.

Anyway, while I was in Utah, Adam was hard at work with the counter tops. He didn't get as much as he was hoping finished but It is nice to have a stationary counter top...and all the counter top in the kitchen. The living room side is still undone. But the part he got done is so nice!

He matched the front boards very well with the cabinets.

He filled in the nail holes with stainable filler after I got home and sanded it down which took more of the stain than he thought. He re-stained on the boards (in the pic above). It stained unevenly so we're going to have to sand the boards down and restain in one coat. Too bad but you learn as you go sometimes.

Isn't it pretty?

My mini triathalon

2011-11-03T12:11:00.002-04:00

I have been bad. I have not been exercising like I should. I haven't been eating as well as I should. So to jump start it, I decided to do a personal, mini, triathalon.

I rode my bike for 30 minutes, averaging 13 MPH. (I finally got to use my road bike again as it's had a problem I was unable to fix myself.)

Leg 2 was a run with the dogs. We went 3.75 miles in 1:10 which comes out to about 3.1 MPH average. I hate running so it doesn't happen without the dogs...which they enjoy so I think it works out well.

Leg 3 was the swim. I spent 50 minutes in the pool, half of which was spent clinging to the side, catching my breath. Dive practice was going on so I watched that between laps. I was on my last lap when I kicked (hard) the floating lane barriers. It hurt so much I had to use the rope to pull myself in. It's a small bruise but it's bright purple already. I definitely need goggles next time...my eyes are still sore.

I have come to a conclusion...I will not be entering in a triathalon anytime soon! It was torture, but fun at times too.

Yard crashers

2011-10-29T22:56:00.002-04:00

While I was on vacation, Adam did a tow for friends of ours, didn't charge them and lent them my car so he could get to work before he had a chance to work on his car. He is a horticulturist at a local college. They just had a plant sale that the students had planted. As a thank you, they brought enough plants for a 20 square foot area and planted them for us...the brought fertilizer, amendment and mulch. We got our very own mini yard crashers. The area they worked on has never looked so good...and the pansies and cabbage will continue to grow all winter providing us with color. So cool! I like that kind of thank you. I tried to help but she kept telling me to just let them do the work. They brought yellow pansies, red pansies, ornamental cabbage and snapdragons.

They brought all four of their kids and they made fast work of it.

They even watered everything and swept up.

We have great friends. And we are still planning on doing an overnight backpacking trip next month. Hopefully it's not too cold.

A wonderful trip home (pic overload)

2011-10-20T20:17:00.014-04:00

It took me so long to get back into a normal schedule aagain after I got home. The first week I was not feeling very well at all and didn't do much besides work and come home to veg on the couch until far too late. But eventually, it all worked itself out and I'm feeling better now.

It was so fun getting to go back home and visit family. Thanks so much, everyone, for taking time out of your busy schedules to spend time with me.

The flight in was productive, working on a secret project that I hope to actually finish within the next year. I had a layover in Denver and that's my favorite flight pattern ever because once they fly over Springville, they bank left and the whole valley comes into view. Then they fly straight down Utah Valley and Salt Lake valley. I love the view! My first glimpse of home.

You all know who you are so I will skip captions unless I need/want to explain something.

Mom and Dad took me on a drive through the canyon to see the fall colors. I showed them a scenic pull out they never knew existed.

Mom remembered how to knit so she could show me how to do it. Thanks, Mom! :o)

The Mendozas took me bowling and thn to eat dinner in the very chilly canyon. I had a great time.

Then I got to spend the night at the little Andes' house where I saw my first Itai smile and got to hear him talk...but not to me.

Poor Avi was limping around on his bad leg. He wanted to just run though.

I went for a walk while the boys were getting their baths. I saw horses and some gardens. These onions caught my eye.

Between the 1st and 2nd sessions of general conference, Debbie took me to see the Draper Temple since I had never seen it. It's so pretty but the view is even better.

The gate was locked but Itai wanted to go in so he tried unlocking the gates. He actually got a key to fit the lock.

I spent a couple days at Heather's. We went for walks, played and watched Mickey Mouse.

This is a pic taken while spinning Aileah.

I was disappointed that this pic is not very crisp. I think it's a very cute pic of Princess Izzy.

I drew a pic of Mom and Dad for Mother's Day/Father's Day. It was only 4 months late...I am getting better. So sad.

Mom and Sheri took me to a quilt exhibit at BYU. We were thinking they would be exhibit quality but they were meant to look like folk art. Kind of odd to have on display but it was fun to see anyway. See how wonky some of them were?

This one was my favorite.

Jared and the boys came down to visit one evening for a few hours and I tried to get a spinning picture of Itai.

Avi was getting spun as well and it was funny because he would really just let himself go limp and enjoy the ride. He couldn't get enough of it.

The Manns took me ice skating for Aileah's first time. She startedout with a walker, then graduated to skating with both hands being held, and made it to one handed skating. Her two favorite things were spinning with me and falling on purpose. What a cutie! Thanks for the good time. :o)

On my next to last morning, I woke up early and went for a walk, hoping to catch a nice sunrise but it was a very mild sunrise. Still, the fresh, crisp morning air was nice. I found this really old truck with bones on the back...I think someone was a hunter. These were all old, cracked and sun bleached.

The house that Heather and I both like on Main street had it's autumn decorations out.

The last night, we pulled out the ping pong table and pool table. Mom and I played ping pong and Sheri and I played pool.

I had a great time. Thanks again, everyone. I miss you all and can't wait to see you again.

packed week

2011-09-22T23:35:00.004-04:00

So, I think Adam is trying to kill me this week. We were working on the kitchen but that's on hold until I leave. Now, we're working on the guest room. He's trying to get it finished by Saturday. What that entails (some steps already finished) is cleaning out all the tools, sheets of wood and drywall, finding new homes for all the boxes. We have been using it as a general storage room as well as construction storage for all the stuff that we've needed for various projects. That's what we have done (good thing Jon came so over half of that was already finished). What's left is to finish mudding/sanding the inside of the closet. Painting the room and closet. Getting up trim around the closet opening and get doors installed. Remounting the curtains. Moving in furniture (we're still tring to locate a free bed. Adam gave away the mattress Jon slept on last month).

Why are we doing all this you wonder? Adam has a coworker/friend from Utah that got a job with the company down here. He has 5 children and a wife but it will only be him coming down right now. He's looking for a house and when he finds a house, he'll be moving out. He is thinking 1-2 months. Houses are cheap right now so it may not even take that long. He is supposed to arrive the day I leave. Adam will have company and he's happy about that. He doesn't like to be alone a lot.

We allowed the tenants to paint the bedrooms. They chose a bright blue for the back bedroom. For this bedroom, they chose this bright sunshiney yellow...it's subdued in the pictures for some reason. So, here's the intermediate mess...mostly already tamed.

Our personal things that haven't found homes outside of their boxes yet. Yes, I realize we've been here two years already...

Adam put in this clothes pole in the laundry room at my request. I used it all the time before we got the clothesline but this is the first time I've used the pole since then. It's just been such a rainy week I haven't been able to hang anything outside. See my washboard? Adam got me that from an antique store for my birthday last year. :o) The sad irons in front of it are from Barry. They were his grandma's.

Ok, enough fun, back to work. We are doing wood counters on the living room side of the peninsula. We tested four types of wood with 6 different stains (only 4 shown here) and those are my paint choices for the guest room...they are actually not grey like the pic is showing. They're more brown/gray. I can't believe how many colors of stain there are. Sometimes there really is such a thing as too many choices!

I settled on 5 different colors. Adam bought the samples and I painted blocks on the walls. I have to wait until they're dry to see the true color and also to see it in day light. But right now, I am leaning toward the lightest one. I really like that one.

Adam cleaned up between this project and the kitchen project. This is so much cleaner, you have no idea!! This is what life is like when you do your own house maintenance on this scale. There's always something .

So, one more night left to finish the reast of the guest room and then carry all the furniture up. I've hardly gotten 5 hours of sleep each night this week...I figure I'll sleep when I'm on vacation. That is what is keeping me going.

Let the renovation begin (well...continue really)

2011-09-18T23:48:00.005-04:00

Kitchen work is under way. Adam had to hoist the sink into the air while working on the counter top bases in preparation for putting in the marble tiles. He was going to mortar the wood for the tile backer but after taping up all the paper, he decided he would do that when I was gone so he could do it all at once so the paper had to come back down. The plan is for him to have the counters finished when I get back from vacation. He's hoping the back splash as well but that's a lot of work so we'll see about the back splash.

This is the "bar". It's just a raised wall in the middle of the peninsula. It is purely to keep the mess of normal dishes buildup from being completely on display from the doorway. I can still see over it wile doing dishes but it blocks just enough of the counter/sink that I don't have to feel self conscious every time there are dishes.

The sink raised in the air while Adam screws the bar into place.

Hard working man.

So, some more of what's gone on this week is, of course, some food. My favorites were raw brownies and guacamole.

I've posted a recipe for these brownies made of just walnuts, dates, coconut oil and cocoa before. I just love them and I can eat them because they're sugar free and white flour free. This time, for the first time, I added some of my drained yogurt cheese to the top as frosting. So good!!

And then for lunch today, I had guacamole made with avocado, chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, sea salt and cilantro with zuchinni rounds to dip in it. I love simple meals like that.

I got the dogs outside for a group shot. I don't like this one as much as past ones I've gotten but I still like getting more shots of all of them...especially when they're listening to me.

We actually spent quite a bit of time outside before heading over to babysit Samuel, enjoying the wonderful fall weather. I feel so alive when fall comes around! While we were out, snapping pics, we got this one of me and Jack that I really like. There aren't very many pics of us with the dogs. I realize the composition is horrible and my head is chopped off...but I really like it anyway. That's my Jackie boy.

And lastly... I have been wearing a jelly type barcelet (you know those Live Strong bracelet type things) for behavior modification. If I complain or criticize, I have to change the wrist it's on, bringing attention to my conscience thought of what I've just done. The theory is that if you recognize you're doing it, you will be less likely to do it. My record so far was going 5 days without changing wrists. The goal is 21 days. But I didn't really like that jelly bracelet. I was putting laundry away. I took some towels to the bathroom and looked at my jewelry box. I rifled through it looking for something easy to latch/unlatch for the more constant than should be changing of the wrists. I found something that I really like. But while looking through the box, I came across my 3 pairs of earrings that I've saved even though my ears haven't been pierced in a decade (I got rid of all the rest). Suddenly, I was filled with the desire to put earrings in. So I grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and my sharpest studs. After about 10 minutes, I had pierced ears again. I was wondering how long it would take for Adam to notice and one of the first things he said to me was, "Why are you all girlified?" He said he liked it. The funny thing was he actually seemed excited that he could buy me earrings. He's only seen me wearing earrings once, on our wedding day, that last time I pierced my ears. I don't know how long it will last (mood or infection will eventually end it, I'm sure since just 3 hours without wearing them closes them back up) but I am girlified for the moment.

40 miles

2011-09-14T14:29:00.007-04:00

Ok, I interrupted myself with that last post. I still only have my camera phone for my rides so I decided to play around with some of the photos a bit on the computer after snagging them off my phone.

Last November, or possibly as late as December, I cant recall, I collected as many rose hips as I could find. The fall was short last year and froze the vast majority of rose hips before they could ripen. I milled them in a food mill and took the pulp and added an equal amount of honey and mixed. It came out to about 2 sandwiches worth. I read about this method of preserving fruit (rosehips specifically) and wanted to see if it would actually work. I just love learning about old ways of preserving, especially when no heat and sugar is involved...though I do regular canning too and enjoy tha food as well. I put it in a cabinet and left it to see how it would be in 6 months. I forgot about it until Saturday when I was thinking about what I could eat on my bike ride. No white or brown sugar so this was the only "jelly" I could think of to put on my pb&j sandwich. I dug it out of the back of the cabinet and gave it a sniff. Seemed alright. I gave it a taste. Tasted alright. I figured I'd know if it was bad if I got sick. I didn't get sick and it tasted fine so I was call that experiment a success. I hope to collect a lot more this year...maybe I can get a whole jar's worth this time. This may be the first thing that came out right on my first try.

So, after collecting enough food for a ride, I took off. I thought it would be a cooler day since it had been but summer has returned. I had no idea where I was going...it was a day for exploring. I changed my mind about where to head to and wandered around until I ended up on these dirt roads I discovered last year. Not a single car passed me the whole time and I even got to see a deer dart off into the woods.

About an hour into my ride, I stopped at a small, wooded park to eat an apple and rest. The trees were bizarre with hollow trunks, bent in weird positions and leaning precariously.

I ended up getting kind of lost and when I saw a Subway, I stopped and sat inside, ate another apple and drank as much ice water as I could manage...then napped intermittenly for about 30 minutes. I found a way home and took off down that road.

About 30 minutes from home, I saw this old, abandoned house. I had seen it years before but forgotten about it. Each time we'd pass it, I always wanted to stop to explore the house but there's nowhere to pull over so I didn't. But on the bike, you can stop anywhere you want. :o)

The front door is in the middle of the house with a window on either side. On each side of the door was a cool painted pattern. I am thinking that it may have been used as a general store or a restaurant at some point and these are the remnants of their hanging signs.

I didn't dare go in since the porches were completely dissenegrating. But I found a couple of windows that weren't boarded up and I peeked in. Look at the floor in this kitchen. I just love the way they painted the wood.

This is one side of what was once a bedroom.

And here's the other side. That was all I got to see of the inside. If only I were 12 feet tall so I could see in the upstairs windows.

This is definitely the cleanest abandoned house I have ever come across. The floors are in such good shape, the paint isn't peeling off the walls either. It's in exceptional shape for something its age.

Once I was only about 10 minutes from home, I went to make my final turn and there was an accident on that road and it was completely blocked off to all traffic, including cyclists. I rode just past the cops and went through a grassy field past the accident and got on the road. Another plus for biking. It was a fun ride but I was so glad to get home.

cauliflower "rice"

2011-09-13T22:44:00.002-04:00

I heard about this alternative to white rice. You take some cauliflower and chop it up into rice sized pieces in the food processor. You could heat it up but I just ate it raw.

We had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner so I could try the new rice out. I really couldn't tell a difference. Cauliflower is pretty bland so it really isn't too different. A winner.

My week

2011-09-12T09:43:00.007-04:00

There are times when I don't feel like I've accomplished anything and yet, still feel busy. This past week was one of those weeks.

I made some banana blueberry bread for my friend's birthday and for someone else with some more blueberries I foraged.

I created this really yummy dish for breakfast. I have this slicer that looks like a vegetable peeler but has sharp blades sticking down into the slit (if that makes any sense). As you pull down the veggie, it actually turns it into angel hair size strips. I did that to a cucumber, added some quartered cherry tomatoes and added 2 eggs fried over medium and mixed it all up so it could be coated by the slightly liquidy egg yolks. Yum!! The only down side was that it was cold.

Adam began working on th counter. He plans on having the countertops completely finished and backsplash put up by the time I get home from Utah in October. He's getting ready to work on the sink counter area. The sink is cast iron and weighs almost more than two men can lift. He already has the faucet and garbage disposal hooked up to it and doesn't want to ruin anything so the easiest thing to do is to hoist the sink up into the air and let it hang there while he works. He's got a winch chained to the scaffolding. So, for a little while, I have to deal with that in my kitchen. Not until I leave, I hope! I've really let the kitchen get messy since that thing went up. It's just hard to work around and even getting a load of dishes done is very inconvienent.

Tucker is always doing something to make us laugh. He loves to cuddle while he sleeps and he will actually pick up a toy and put it where he wants to lay so he can sleep with/on it.

Saturday is laundry day for me so on Friday, I spray all of Adam's nasty clothes with shout and hang them on the deck to dry. I know the label says to not let it dry but it seems to work better if I let it dry before washing. And when I go to actually hang a load on the line on Saturday, the dogs all peek their heads out of the deck slats to watch me. Bear was down below watching me. It's really cute when they all get close together and do that.

And finally, some of my most favorite recent bargains. Last weekend, I went on a futile pants search. I spent over 5 hours the weekend before looking for a pair of pants and didn't find any. Then last weekend, I spent over 3 hours. Still nothing. I was ready to cry and so frustrated!! So when I came across this queen sized quilt (the colorful one) for only $10, brand new, in the package, I had to buy it. It's made with older looking fabrics and seems to be pretty good quality. The smaller quilt I got from a thrift store for only $6. It's homemade, looks completely handsewn, a little worn on the edges and stained lightly here and there. It's a twin sized quilt. I really love both of them.

I also got to go for a couple bike rides...one of them was to get the last of the veggies that I posted in the last pic and the other was a 40 mile ride on Saturday. I'll post about that next.

shriveled

2011-09-08T23:31:00.002-04:00

My poor garden did not do so well. We just planted too late and all the plants have shriveled. The carrots still seem to be doing fine. I picked the smallest one to see how it was doing. It was a pathetic little thing but still growing. I think they still have a couple months to grow. See the little orange stick below, connected to the green, lacey leaves? Yeah, that's my carrot. It tasted really good! Also, the greeb nean plants are mostly still hanging in there. All the squash cines have shriveled and disappeared so I took the two butternut squash and 1 acorn squash that hadn't yet rotted. There are 4 tiny watermelon. I took them because their vines had compltely dried out as well. I'm going to give them a try. I have nothing to lose. We got three little sugar snap peas...YUM! We'll definitely have to plant those next year. And the pile of greens is actually a weed called lamb's quarter's. I let them grow in the garden once I identified them. They're edible and a good replacement for spinach. We never even got a single tomato. Aside from the carrots and some of the green beans, everything else is done...shriveled. A sad end to my first garden but I will prevail and plant again. I am planning what/when to plant my fall garden now. I hope to have it in the ground before I go out to visit.

The black thing is a camra lens cover for size reference.

sugar, broth and grains

2011-09-07T13:35:00.002-04:00

I haven't updated much lately. I've felt busier. Last week was really busy but also, I am actually trying to get to bed on time so I hadn't been on my home computer all last week. Adam is starting to build some support bases for the kitchen counter that he'll be putting in soon. We're using our marble tile that has been placed on it. Adam isn't sold on the idea, but it's what we have (free). I don't mind the look at all. I think it matches the cabinets nicely.

I started organizing some of my cabinets. I put all my various grains in jars and made labels for the lids. I have to find a shelf for this cabinet so I can safely stack them two high. I still have all my beans to load back in there, once I put them in jars as well. Well, some types of beans, I will have to store in the pantry in some other, bigger conatiners because we use more of them, we keep a lot of them around.

Another thing I've been up to, is making chicken stock. I've been making my own for a few years now. It's super simple and I know what's in it. I collect bones in a baggie in the freezer until I have enough for a batch. Once I do, I thaw them out. Once they're thawed, I throw them into my crockpot. My crockpot is fairly large and will hold about 2 birds worth of bones. I cut up a binch of celery and carrots and throw them in. Add a bay leaf and some parsley usually. I didn't add those this time because I forgot. Also, about 2 tbsp of vinegar to help leech all the calcium from the bones into the broth. This past week, I've made three batches, which comes out to about 2.5 gallons? of broth. I seperate them into approximate meal sized portions and freeze them.

Broth is really healthy and nutirious for you. The gelatin from the bones and ligaments is super good for you so I try to use broth regularly. I'll make gravy with it, instead of that bullion stuff. I add some to spaghetti sauce (on the rare occassion we have some), I add it to dishes that call to be thinned down with milk, in place of the milk. I cook grains and beans in it. Off the top of my head, that's all I can think of.

I added something new this time though. I found these chicken feet at the Asian market. Chicken feet have an overabundance of gelatin in them. I cut the ends of the toes off so their claws wouldn't fall off into the broth. These actually came skinned so I didnt have to deal with that part. Seems rather time consuming so I was glad for that. Adam saw these feet in the freezer and asked "What are those doing in the freezer?!" I had to laugh. Then, when he saw me plunk them onto the cutting board, he told me, "I wish I worked for NCR so I didn't have to be home in the evenings to watch you do some of these things." I had to laugh again. They were a little fun to play with. I fed the feet to the dogs once they were done in the broth...after I extracted all the little bones out, that is. They LOVED them! Really good for their joints too.

So, onto the sugar front. I gave up sugar and white flour 9 days ago. I was quite cranky there for a few days. I am still not quite over the sugar cravings but it's not eating at me the way it was. We had friends over on Monday for a bbq and they brought sides. There were two kinds of cookies and cheesecake. I made fried apples for everyone else but then made a dish of apples and onions for me (and to share) since there is no sugar in apples and onions but plenty in fried apples. My apples and onions disappeared so quickly! I was lucky to get any. I had plenty to eat but while we were playing games, everyone was snacking on the cookies and I resisted. Adam kept some for himself and Ann took the rest home with her when she left. There are still some in his drawer which I am no longer allowed to open for anything (my own rule) because that's where he's keeping the desserts. But, even with the occassional craving, I feel pretty good. My energy is finally coming back. Most of my energy (since I only got about 5 hours of sleep a night) was coming from the sugar I was shoveling into myself and now that I can't rely on that, I am having to make better sleeping habits so I can feel rested and get my energy back. I was really revved up for a bike ride yesterday for the first time since I gave up sugar but it was raining so I didn't get a chance. I won't get a chance today either, or tomorrow since I have too much going on but just knowing that that energy is there, makes me really happy.

I get to go home!

2011-09-02T10:35:00.002-04:00

While I only lived in Utah for a little over 1/3 of my life, I consider it home. The scenery is beautiful, the weather is much more enjoyable then here...but I do love snow so people who don't wouldn't agree with me on that point. In Sept/Oct, I get to go home to visit family and see my mountains. In anticipation of getting to go, I went through some of the pictures I took when I was living out there a few years ago and uploaded some up here. They are mostly from the area around where I lived, but also from the areas between my house and my parents'. Why anyone would ever want to move away, I will never know! I know I didn't want to leave.

Croydon

Utah Lake from Vineyard

On the road to Wolf Creek Pass.

Midway...taken less than an hour before my bad bike crash.

Out past Oakley...though I can't quite remember what this place was called.

Small waterfall in Provo Canyon. Upper Provo Falls, I think is the name.

This is just a small sampling of why I think Utah is so beautiful. There's so much to see there!

Laugh untiul I cry

2011-09-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

There are a couple of videos on youtube that make me laugh so hard, I literally cry. They just kill me every time. So if you want to laugh today, click on a link below. The first one is 8 minutes long, the second is only a couple minutes long. It sure brightened my day yesterday in my sour, sugar deprived mood. And has even continued on into today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh0NLQJfAYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw&feature=youtu.be
Enjoy!

special pesto

2011-08-31T09:38:00.002-04:00

I had bought some basil for something and had no use for the rest at the moment, so I cut the leaves off the stem and lacto fermented them. When I was ready to use them, I made a pesto sauce with them. Tasted like regular pesto sauce.

I served it on wheat pasta with spicy sausage. Adam ate it and had no clue that anything was different about this pesto. :o) He did, however, notice that the pasta was wheat. He doesn't like wheat pasta and I don't like white pasta...I don't like pasta in general but if I have to have pasta, I'd rather it be wheat...I just enjoy the taste/texture better. Other wise, I'd just rather not have pasta at all with a few rare exceptions. I love ravioli and stuffed manicotti and one of my favorite foods, herbed chicken linguine, is pasta heavy dish that I don't mind the pasta being in...but for the most part, I could definitely do without pasta. Adam, on the other hand, love any dish with pasta and would eat it every day if I served it. In fact, some days, he just wants some so he'll skip what I made and make ramen or spaghetti instead.

I am currently on a proccessed sugar free and severely restricted white flour diet. I will end that when I get to Utah for a visit because I must get my yearly fix of mint brownies. :o) I can't say I'm addicted to white flour but sugar...I definitely am. I am going through withdrawls and am cranky and so tired. I want cookies, cake, brownies, a spoonful of sugar...anything. But I am determined to make it until Sept 25. I can do this...it's not even a whole month from now. I can do it...I've done it before.

Venision quiche

2011-08-26T09:09:00.003-04:00

Katie mentioned she had gotten some venison from a friend and I told her I would be interested in trading for it. I would give her a bag of pecans that I picked (still shelled) and a jar of sauerkraut I made for a pound of venison. Weeks went by before the trade was actually made because she kept forgetting to bring it when she was in town. When she actually delivered the bag to me, I was surprised to find 4 lbs of venison. She said they just weren't that interested in eating it so she gave me all that her friend had given her. I felt like I was cheating her but she said she was happy with the trade.

There was one month in Taste of Home magazine that had some vension recipes in it so I got it out and found venison quiche. Seemed like an easy way to introduce Adam to venison with enough other flavors with it. He didn't complain about it at all and even ate it two days in a row. :o)

Spinach vension quiche

1 unbaked pie crust

1/2 pound ground venison

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms

1/2 cup chopped onion (which I didn't use, of course)

1/2 chopped green pepper (used red since that's what I have in my freezer)

1 package (10 ounces) frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (used about 2/3 of the package)

1 package (4 ounces) feta cheese (used cottage cheese instead since we both like it better)

6 eggs

3/4 milk

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Line unpricked pastry shell with double thickness foil. Bake at 450 for 8 minutes, remove foil and bake 5 minutes longer.

Menawhile, in a large skillet, cook the venison, mushrooms, onion and pepper for 5-6 minutes until the meat is no longer pink. Drain. Spoon into crust, top with spinach and then cheese. In a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, pepper and salt. Pour over cheese.

Cover edges loosely with foil. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes until knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes, slice.

I had enough venison and spinach leftover for another meal I have in mind but for now, it's in the freezer until I'm ready to make it.

Seeing the good

2011-08-23T09:29:00.004-04:00

I am alive! Lots of good things happened to me yesterday but by far, the best thing that happened is that I am still alive.

This past weekend, I was not feeling well. My sinuses had been giving me problems for 1 1/2 weeks. I think it's from breathing in all the dust in the warehouse since I've been working out there everyday. On Saturday, it wiped me out and I slept most of the weekend asleep or near sleep.

Since I had gotten a lot of rest, I was feeling ok yesterday and really wanted to go on a long bike ride. Usually, I feel like I HAVE to go for a ride, not that I want to...at least until I get out and get warmed up. About 15 minutes into my ride, I stopped to take a picture. The camera went wonky. The screen was all blurry and filled with weird colors. Not good. I still had hope that what was stored on the card was ok and just the screen was bad. (No, the camera is toast.)

I remembered about half way into my ride that I had my phone with me and could use that camera if I needed to. It's not the best but it will do in a pinch. I did use it when I got to a cool old log cabin.

The cabin is a two story structure with hand hewn, square logs, fitted together so well at the dovetail joints that I would assume a professional made it, not an inexperienced frontiersman. It also leads me to believe that this is the original land where it has always stood. They usually don't go back together quite as well as they originally stood once being rebuilt after a move.

Behind the house was a well with a wooden cover with leather hinges. How cool is that? It's been cemented over under the wood for safety, I assume. Behind the well is a two seater outhouse. The weird thing about this one was the scratch marks all over the outside. I'm thinking perhaps a racoon wants in!

There was a single wagon axel, rotting.

This place was magical. It was kept immaculately though there was no house that someone lived in and no sign as to what it was which leads me to believe that someone privately owns it and maintains it. I really appreciate that! There was even a garden...not the fanciest garden (flower, not veggie) but to have it in that setting was really neat.

There was a cute little birdhouse on an outbuilding that caught my eye.

I also really liked this bell. Look at the bull head in its design. Pretty clever. That's the barn.

So all those pics were taken with my phone. There's no zoom or flash but it did a decent job so I'm glad to have at least something for my bike rides.

I was about 10 minutes from home. I was riding on a stretch of road that is generally more busy than the rural roads I usually get to ride on. I could see a car behind me about 25 car lengths but no one between us and a big enough gap that I would be able to make the left turn that I usually have to stop on the shoulder and wait about 5 minutes for the cars to go by before it's safe for me to cross.

With that space open to me, I moved out into the middle of my lane to show my intentions to the guy coming up behind me. I slowly made my way over to just beside the center line and just as I was making my left turn, I hear breaks squealing, a car skidding and a horn honking. I couldn't look back because I knew I would freak out and crash if I saw what was going on. So I pedaled as fast as I could. Turns out the guy decided he was planning on going around me in the other lane (even though I was on the line and it would have been safer for him to go on the other side, especially since the car coming the other direction was coming up on us as well). As I made the turn, he had to slam on his brakes because he was in the proccess of going around me. I do have a rear view mirror and I use it but I was looking ahead at the car coming toward me, not behind. I figured I had given that driver warning of what I was doing by my actions...appearntely, he didn't understand. He yelled at me as he was going by. I pedaled as hard as I could out of there, afraid he would turn around and track me down on this empty road to scream at me some more...perhaps that was just my adrenaline spike talking. He never materialized.

Back at home, I turned on my computer to check if my pictures came out or if what the screen on the camera displayed what I would see on the card. Nothing happened. My computer isn't working. Adam thinks the mother board went bad. It worked the night before and we didn't have a storm. Not sure what happened.

But none of these things bothered me...well, the camera thing did until it was put into perspective for me. I came close to becoming a bug on someone's windshield. Even as he was yelling at me, I didn't care...it didn't take it personally, like I usually would. I am alive! All the rest doesn't matter. And the whole ride was great (except that little bit). The adrenaline quickly dissapated and I was able to enjoy the last 8 minutes of my ride knowing I wasn't being stapped to a board and loaded into an ambulance, or worse at that very moment.

Adventures in composting

2011-08-21T13:52:00.002-04:00

If you recall, we have added a LOT of food to our compost bin. Over 500 jars of old food. It's breaking down. Each time I add more stuff (my kitchen scraps usually) to the pile, the whole ground moves in waves as if it's alive. Kind of creepy. I had thrown in some corn cobs yesterday and again today, I threw one last one in.

This one was taken at around noon. The fresh cob is nice and bright.

This one was taken about 30 minutes later. Now, the whole cob is covered in some kind of larvae.

You need all those insects since they help to break stuff down quicker. All that life means it's very healthy. :o) I'm just glad it's back beyond the dog's yard because I don't want all the flies in my house.

Chasing the wilder life

2011-08-19T10:26:00.003-04:00

The Wilder Life is a book by Wendy McClure. It was suggested to me and I found it at the library on CD and listened to it on my commute.

She is a woman who is obsessed with Little House on the Prairie...Laura Ingalls Wilder to be more specific. As a child, she dreamed of Laura coming to her time and she could show her around and reassure her about all those things that would be strange and scary to a farm girl who didn't see anything like an escalator, or going fast in a car. To be honest, I've never read all the Little House books. I do really enjoy them and learn things from them...but I just haven't gotten around to reading them all yet. These books are largely based on her life but are fiction none the less. Her obsession is what attracted me to this book. I sometimes feel alone in my bizarre obsession to learn to live the way people used to. Like for her, it is consuming sometimes. This was someone I felt a connection to for that reason alone and I didn't even know her yet.

As she grows older, she forgets about the books and Laura until her mom, who has been diagnosed with cancer is having a yard sale so they can move to their dream house in Arizona or New Mexico. In amongst the other things, she finds her old copy of "Little House in the Big Woods". She begins reading the books again and her obsession is rekindled. This time around, she learns that there are actual home sites around the Midwest where the original houses were and were rebuilt according to the descriptions that Laura gives. But it's in the middle of the winter so she can't visit them. While waiting to go visit the home sites, she gets a copy of the Little House cookbook and makes some of the foods from it. (By the way, that's a great cookbook filled with history. It's not written by Laura.) She tracks down an old butter churn so she can experience making butter and finds it tastes just the same as store bought butter. She tracks down an antique hand cranked coffee grinder to grind wheat to make the bread they make in "The Long Winter". She's not as impressed. Her favorite food experiment from the book was apples and onions. I have to agree there! It sounds strange but you cannot even imagine how wonderful they are together!! She really had my attention in this experimental phase. I was really into the book. But then the next phase started.

She started visiting the home sites in February when the snow was still on the ground. She had an expectation about them. Those expectations were never quite met. As you can imagine, it would be hard to have a prairie homesteading experience when surrounded by hundreds of other people. This part of the book was depressing for me. I often wonder if it is possible to recreate that kind of life today...and all her experiences seemed to shout, "NO, IT"S NOT POSSIBLE!"

I was confused by the point of the book...she's obsessed with Laura...but what's the point? Where is this book leading? I was really wondering that when it got to the depressing part. Did I really have to finish it? Was the end result worth it? It made me think about my point, my reason for my obsession. To be honest, I have no idea how to put it into words. It makes me happy to learn these skills, to know I could feed my family at least something if I ever had to for any reason. But that's the best I can articulate it, and that doesn't do it justice. If I couldn't do any better, how could I expect her to? I continued listening to the book to the end.

Eventually, she had visited all the main home sites and read as many books about Laura as she could get ahold of. One of the neat things in the book was all the info I was getting on Laura...the true stuff, not the embellished or rose colored view from her books or the all together false stories from the show. I liked that. She had decided that she had seen enough, that she didn't need to continue. And so her obsession ended. Her friend asked her if maybe she was searching for something. She decided that she must have been searching for herself, to be able to be herself again after the death of her mom. And she had found that ability again.

Turns out we really didn't have as much in common as I thought. We had a similar interest but for completely different reasons and I couldn't understand her reasoning and her depressed nature in the second half of the book really brought me down. Had I been reading this book, I probably wouldn't have have made it through the whole book but since I was listening to it on my commute, I didn't feel like it was any work to continue with it. So, in a nutshell, I have very mixed feelings about this book. I won't be listening to it again...but it did make me think. Knowing I can't recreate that lifestyle (not to the full extent, not that I didn't really already know that), I will still continue with what I am trying to do because it makes me happy. Happy was something that seemed to be missing from the second half of the book from my perspective. That's sad.

Someday

2011-08-17T22:25:00.003-04:00

When I go thrifting, I have to visit three places...the furniture, the what-nots and the baby clothes. Yes, I realize I don't need them. But really, I don't care. I like looking at their cuteness. Occasionally, I will find something heirloom like and can't say no. They are generally vintage and speak to me in some way that makes me have to buy them. It's no surprise that I like older looking clothes, right? Everything else I like it older as well. I have a couple other pieces but they aren't with these so I didn't feel like going to find them.

Girl's clothes. The green one is a velvet like fabric with a cut I really like. The lacy one is a baby blessing/christening dress, yellowed with age, There's a white one with smocking and lots of embroidered flowers. The other white one has smocking on the collar and sleeves. I want a wardrobe like this for myself.

The boy's clothes. The lower white outfit came with the girl's baby blessing dress. I thought they were one piece until after I got them home. The upper white one is for a 2 year old...reminds me of Victorian type clothes. The blue onsie is a vintage one with embroidered dogs and the vest is for a 2 year old....but it looks so much like an Amish vest that I had to buy it.

Aren't they all so cute??

Bike ride to the garden

2011-08-15T23:18:00.005-04:00

I am trying to fit everything into my schedule. It's tough. If I drive to the garden, it's a 40 or so minute round trip. If I bike there, it's a 1 hour 45 minute or so round trip. That doesn't count the time spent weeding or watering. I do drive there sometimes but sometimes, I just have to hop on my bike...to save on gas money as well as to fit in some much needed exercise time. So I do spend an extra hour commuting when I take my bike but it's time well spent to me.

When I take my bike, I put my rear panniers on to carry some clothes to protect me from the thick misquitos, a pair of shoes and sometimes a container if I think I may have some produce to bring home.

The ride to the garden is mostly more rural roads...at least compared to the roads around my house. The closer I get to the garden, the less traffic there is, except for one road I have to take for a few minutes. Then it's back to rural roads.

We had our first picking of green beans and got enough for a very hearty amount for each of us. There are a few more beans on the vine now...but they're still growing. We finally have pea blossoms and the bush beans look like they might produce something soon.

And of course the squash are trying to produce something as well.

On the ride back, I take a different route. This route has 4-5 fig trees lining the road at one point. Each time I ride past them, I stop and grab a handful to snack on for the next couple of days.

Here's the green beans after I got home and washed them. There's some kind of caterpillar eating holes in them so I have to do research to find out how to get rid of them.

Dinner that night was homegrown green beans, foraged figs, homemade sauerkraut, homemade wheat bread with honey and butter and a small bowl of lentil slaw (which is sprouted lentils, shaved carrots & diced tomatoes, with a apple cider vinigarette).

Staycation (continued)

2011-08-13T00:25:00.006-04:00

The same day we went to Foxfire museum, we also went to Dillard House. Adam had been talking about taking me for years. He had come up here as a teenager. It was only 4 miles from the museum so it seemed like a good time to go.

I absolutely loved being back near the mountains and getting to see them. Mountains are my favorite things. I really miss living by them. These are tiny compared to my Western mountains but they'll do just fine.

There's a petting zoo there. They don't charge anything. There were a couple different kinds of cows, a donkey, chickens, a lamb but mostly goats. The goats could hop the fence and often did. They are so cute!!! This particular goat reminded me of Jack. Jack lays on the stairs just like that gray goat hanging out. I instantly loved him...and that cute little guy beneath him too.

The real reason for coming here was for a horseback ride. We chose the hour long river ride. It took us through their pasture where they retired to every evening after their work was done and through a river, actually walking through the river. At one point, we were in up to my ankles...which is pretty deep considering that was at the horse's stomach. This horse was docile and wasn't trying to break any land records like the other horse I rode. Also, because he wasn't running, it was actually fairly comfortable to ride him. All around, a much funner and better experience than last time.

I had a regular looking horse but Adam's horse was part draft horse, my second favorite horse, so I was really into him. The thing about him though was that he was the slowest horse...which was fitting since Adam moves very slowly. My horse wanted to pass him and kept trying but he was obedient and stayed in line.

It was very enjoyable. We even bought the picture of us riding back to the stables after the ride.

It worked!

2011-08-10T22:30:00.004-04:00

Remember that vinegar I was attempting to make with the apples I foraged a few weeks back? This is my second attempt at making apple cider vinegar. I failed miserably last time. It smelled like stinky shoes after a rain storm...but 100% worse. It never formed a mother either.

Here's the mother!

I'll be honest, I don't understand enough about it to know exactly how a mother forms or what it is exactly...but I do know that you can't have vinegar without the mother. And now I have one. :o) I was going to store it in an old vinegar bottle but I want to be able to access the mother if I want to make another kind of vinegar so I need to find a wider mouth jar now.

Here's the recipe.

Gather apple cores, trimmings and peels (bruised or overripe fruit ok, except throw out any pieces with mold on it)

You'll need:

To make sugar water:
1/4 cup Rapadura sugar (or honey)
1 quart filtered warm water

Preparation:

Prepare the sugar water for the amount of fruit scraps that you have with the ratio of 1 quart water to 1/4 sugar. Make sure all sugar is completely dissolved. Fill jars with coarsely chopped up fruit scraps about half full, then pour in the sugar water solution. For pineapple vinegar, add the additional spices and stir in. Cover with a towel or cheesecloth and let ferment at room temperature. Stir once/day if you can.

You will notice the liquid darken after about a week. At that point, strain out the fruit scraps and discard or compost them. Ferment the vinegar for 2 to 3 weeks longer, stirring it periodically.

Simple enough right?

It's growing!

2011-08-10T10:12:00.002-04:00

We finally have veggies growing! It's very exciting for me. Adam discovered the green beans. I hadn't noticed any even though I weeded them on Saturday. He only picked 4 of them and brought them home.

We ate one each right away. Yummy! Aren't they beautiful! ;o)

Aside from the green beans, we also have:

a few spaghetti squash

a few butternut squash

several watermelon

and lots of bush bean blooms, carrots, an acorn squash and the tomatoes got their first bloom. The peas are growing but I don't think they'll give us anything this year.

I doubt it willbe a bumper crop year but since I wasn't going to have a garden this year and we got it planted so late, I am grateful for anything I get from it, and for the experience.

sourdough blueberry pancakes

2011-08-08T21:56:00.004-04:00

I love sourdough pancakes and had some blueberries leftover I needed to use so I decided a large batch of sourdough blueberry pancakes was in order.

I pulled my starter out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature over night. Once it was bubbly again, I fed it enough to double the pancake recipe and a little etra.

Before you add anything other than flour and water, you need to reserve some to keep as your starter for the next stuff you'll be making. While it's still bubbly, I put the reserved starter back into the fridge.

Sourdough Pancakes

1 cup sourdough starter

2 cups water

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used a mix of white and wheat)

2 eggs

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

1 Mix together sourdough starter, water and flour.

2 Cover bowl and allow to stand at room temperature overnight.

3 Whisk in eggs, sugar, oil, milk and baking soda.

4 Let batter stand 10 minutes.

5 Make pancakes.

Good thing I had mixed it in a huge bowl because as soon as I added the baking soda, it exploded with bubbles. It was almost spilling over...it doubled in size. As Adam put it, "The batter was very happy." ;o) I didn't have any room to mix in the blueberries so I had to make some pancakes before I had room to do that. I just dumped them in....didn't have nearly enough for a double batch.

I got about 45 pancakes by doubling it. Most went into the freezer for easy weekday breakfasts.

My brother's visit & pecan pie

2011-08-08T01:28:00.006-04:00

My youngest brother is starting law school! He was moving cross country and stopped by here to stay for a night and have some dinner. He had a stressul trip with car problems but he's almost to his destination...then he can relax, knowing me made it. But school will keep him plenty buyy so not too much relaxing...not thaat he's done that much lately since he's been taking crazy amounts of credit hours at school and working full time. We visited, ate dinner, played a board game, ate dessert and visited some more until too late. We were both exhausted...both that night and in the morning. It was a good visit...pretty short though.

Chocolate chip pecan pie is his favorite so I made sure to make one for his visit.

He brought a box of goodies from my mom. It had my grandma's dishes in it. I've always loved these metal, enamel coated plates and bowls.

This is an afghan my other grandma crocheted for me as a baby and a dress I wore as a baby...it's hard to believe I was ever that small!

These granny squares are from my aunt. She gave them to my mom in the 80's and she never did anything with them so she passed them on to me.

And I didn't actually ask about this dish rag but I am assuming that the same grandma that made the afghan also made this. I love it!

Back to the pecan pie, The only items I had to buy was the eggs...and I always buy eggs anyway. I used some of the pecans I foraged in October. I really do need to use them up...some still taste fresh but others, not so much.

I streamlined my cracking process of cracking by sorting by size. That way, I only had to do a minimal amount of adjusting the nut cracker. It took a lot less time to crack them that way...but picking the meat out of the shells is always time consuming. (I got this really great nut cracker at a thrift store for $2 just a day after I learned what one looked like. I wouldn't have realized what it was and passed it up just a day before.)

This pie is a family favorite. Every Thanksgiving, we used to each get our own pie...that meant my mom baked at least 8 pies...but there were usually a couple other pies as well, like pumpkin and apple. I haven't had a pie to myself in years and it's too rich for me these days to eat a whole one. I ate one that night and kept a smaller piece for myself but packed the rest of it up and sent it with him.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie

3 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup Karo Light or Dark Corn Syrup
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups pecans
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350F.

In medium bowl with fork beat eggs slightly. Add sugar, Karo, margarine and vanilla; stir until blended. Stir in pecans. Pour into pie crust.
Bake 60-70 minutes or until the middle is no longer jiggly.

Corn relish

2011-08-05T08:45:00.003-04:00

Here's another fermented thing I like. This one didn't last too long so I need to make another jar.

Corn Relish

3 cups fresh corn kernels

1 small tomato, peeled, seeded and diced

1 small onion, finely diced

1/2 red pepper, seeded and diced

2 Tbsp cilantro leaves, chopped

1/4-1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1/2 Tbsp sea salt

4 Tbsp whey

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients. Pound lightly with a wooden pounder or meat hammer to release juices. place in a quart sized Mason jar and press down with a pounder until juices cover the top of the relish. The top of the vegetables should be at least one inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and leave at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.

This goes particularly good with eggs...my favorite way to eat it. I usually eat it on my morning eggs.

Spring rolls

2011-08-04T20:33:00.002-04:00

Adam texted me last night saying he would be cooking dinner. He chose spring rolls. We both really like them and they are a great summer food. We use ground pork for the meat. That's the only part that gets cooked. You slice up veggies, we used asparagus, cucumber, bell pepper and carrot. You just roll them up in softened rice paper sheets. The sauce is a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, cilantro and peppers. Tasty!

Healthy too.

The new sidewalk

2011-08-04T08:28:00.004-04:00

Adam's been working on cleaning up the garage and one thing that's been betting in his way was 6 bags of concrete that he bought when we were putting up the fence and clothesline that we ended up not using for that project. So he decided we needed to put in as much sidewalk as we had material for, which didn't reach to the gate. We knew it wouldn't but it did go further than we expected.

This sidewalk is in the drainage path so we are fixing the slope while working. The groud on either side will be lowered to match it in the fall or winter when I get a chance to move the monkey grass (the plants on both sides of it). We used to have holly bushes here but Adam had to take them out to fix the flooding problem we kept having. The bay window was rotting and the windows, window frames and the siding all had to be replaced. It hasn't been painted to match yet...partially because we don't have paint to do that but mostly because we just aren't too concerned about it until we go to paint the whole house and that's not in the plans just yet. We're using this cement mold. I like the looks but Adam likes it for water drainage since it's sitting where it is.

Adam mixed the water into the cement. That was quite the workout! I did it for one bag to give Adam a break and my abs still are sore when I move just right. (The yellow hand truck behind/beside Adam is one of his recent projects. He painted it yellow...he loves yellow. It looks nice and he only spent 25 cents on the paint.)

You fill in the mold and push the cement into the corners of the "stones" and lift it off right away.

There is a dye you can buy to mix into the cement but it was almost as expensive as the cement so we didn't bother. Adam had an idea though. He sifted some of the dirt we had just moved and we sprinkled it over the top. We really liked it. You can see it in the pic below. Most of the cement had already gotten sprinkled but the two closest to me have not. Shortly after we went inside, it started pouring rain and it moved the dirt around into the nooks and crannies. Oh well, we tried.

We got 9 blocks done, 3 more than the instructions said we'd get. We'll have to continue it another time when we have the cement.

fresh from the press

2011-08-03T10:15:00.003-04:00

On the way home from work yesterday, I stopped by my newest blueberry patch find. It appears that very few people know about its exsistence since it still had a bunch of ripe berries on. The other blueberry patch is huge (over 100 bushes)but everyone knows about it and it's hard to get anything near ripe. This newer one is only about10 bushes but definitely worth my time over the other one. The birds hang out there all day and get the pick of all the berries which means I don't get the big juicy ones but they are still yummy. There are plenty still left and I'll be visiting it intermittenly to get more. This time around, I am dehydrating them for winter use. I got about a pound.

But the real subject of this post is cheese...homemade cheese. I made my first batch Monday. I have to wait a couple of weeks to taste it and I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

One gallon of milk makes about one pound of hard cheese but you can use the whey and make ricotta cheese with that so it will yeild more cheese after I finish with that. I'll save the recipe for after I know it worked but here's a brief summary. I heated up the milk with buttermilk and let that sit overnight. In the morning, I added some rennet and heated again. I*t took about 1:30 to move onto the next step.

I cut the curds.

You have to heat it all up again and stir with your hand for 15 minutes. This sets the curds and it really starts to seperate from the whey.

You drain the whey from the curds. I saved it since I'll be making ricotta with it. You salt the curds and wrap it up in cheese cloth.

This is an old book press and isn't the ideal press for making cheese but I made it work just this once. It belongs to Barry and weighs about 40 lbs. This pic was taken before I actually turned the handle to press it. Once pressed, it was not open very much at all.

It sits in the press for about 12 hours. I unwrapped it, rubbed salt on it and wrapped it in clean cloth.

For the next week or two, I'll have to change the cloth as it gets wet, then it's ready to use. The flavor develops over that time...right now it tastes even more mild than string cheese, but it is definitely a hard cheese.

Foxfire Museum

2011-08-01T23:20:00.008-04:00

Years ago, I discovered this series of books called Foxfire. They were started in the early 70's by some high school students as a sociology project. They interviewed some older appalachian people who lived a primitive lifestyle. They teach the old ways of doing things, but also, they just talk about things, wherever their minds wander. The reading is slow for me since they try to type exactly as things sound...which is with a thick southern accent. Kind of like reading the dialouge in Mark Twain's books. I have the first three and refer to them every now and then.

A couple of months ago, I discovered that they have a museum in North Georgia. So we took our day long staycation on Friday and drove up to see it.

You end up driving on a narrow gravel road up the mountainside to get to it. It was a really pretty ride.

The enterance fee is only $6/person. This is the first cabin you go to. It's a gift shop and where you pay. From here, you start the hike.

We didn't realize there would be hiking. We had a very large breakfast at Cracker Barrel since we knew we'd be skipping lunch. The hike to the first two cabins was not sitting well with either one of our stomachs but it got less steep after that, plus we took our time in each cabin so we eventually digested it.

There are 20 cabins scattered throughout the museum. Some are locked since they house archives from the books and other artifacts. They were all extremally old cabins that were taken apart and brough back to Foxfire and rebuilt. The only exception is the church building. They hadn't been able to find a community willing to donate their old church so that one is a new building, designed after one in Tennessee.

The first cabin you come to is the oldest one, originally built in 1820. It has a front door and a back door. The loft would have been accessed by a ladder. The furnishings in this cabin is what you would find in any ordinary cabin of the time.

A pie safe/jelly cupboard and other food storage, cooking tools, spinning wheel.

A loom. Adam mentioned that the loom was much larger than the bed. It really was big!

A bench to sit on. Can I have one of these beauties?? And notice the straw bed beside it? That was actually the trundle bed that slides in under the main bed. This was one half of the house, split in half by the doorways. At the door is the loom, the bench and then the bed...and the ladder would have been beside the bed.

On the other side of the room was the "kitchen". The jelly cupboard area, the fireplace where all the cooking was done and the table.

The back porch was large enough to sit on and held the stuff for washing up.

Most cabins were like this one...no windows. The first thing you notice when you walk in is how dark it is. It was about noon when we first got here...the sun was shining without a cloud in the sky. Both doors were open but inside the house, it was like you were in a cave almost. I could only see most of the things in the house when the camers lit it up with the flash. How depressing it must have been to be a woman as they mostly had to stay in the home and take care of the food and other care her family needed. I am sure she spent as much time outside as possible, shucking peas on the porch, cooking over a fire in the yard, tending her garden, picking berries...whatever she could find to do outside. But in the winter when they were all stuck inside, having to be careful of how many candles they went through so they'd have enough to last until they could make more.

One of the buildings was a wagon shed. It had an old conestoga wagon, the kind the pioneers used to move across the plains, and another buckboard type wagon that was built in the 1980's.

The blacksmith's cabin was open so you can lean in, but not so you can walk in. The smell of the shop is really strong. It's still used to make replicas and full cool tools.

This is a good pic of the type of setting it is in. On a mountainside with lots of trees and greenery. Doesn't it just make you want to live there?

This cabin was locked but it had actual windows...but it wasn't lit by any artifical lights so it was impossible to see anything inside. It had a few sets of stilts leaning against the porch so I tried my hand at it. The pictures I've seen makes it looks easy...I mean, kids can do it, so I should be able to too, right??

I tried and tried with no success. Two steps was my record.

The church was the highest building on the hike. After that it was all downhill. The church is an exact replica of an old one. It has a working bell in the tower (adam tried it out timidly...but the kids who came up later rang it boldly). We had just steppinside the church when Adam got a call for a tow. He spent about 10 minutes on the phone getting the info he needed. I looked around, took some pictures, then sat down on a bench. As I sat there, sweat was rolling down my back. It was hot and muggy inside, much like outside. There were 6 windows in this building and it was still dimly lit. It made me wonder what they thought about sweat rolling down their backs back then... They knew nothing different in the summer. It had always been that way. Like the videos of people in Africa letting flies crawl all over their skin, they've given up fighting it because it is just a part of life. I don't write well what I am thinking...but this and the cabins with no light were really what struck me the most here at the museum.

There were two coffins on display in the church: an infant's and an adults. A little creepy, but certainly much more a part of daily life back then than nowadays.

The church has 6 windows (8 if you count the stained glass windows in front) and more well lit than most of the other buildings and yet, this is how dark it was. Can you imagine?

Some high school students got this from the first woman they interviewed for their project. She donated it and they moved it to the museum and rebuilt it and even made the motor work again....but it's nowhere near water so it never runs.

One of the cabins has the village weaver camped out in it. She spends all day weaving towels and hot pads and spinning yarn to sell in the shop. She talks while she does it too. She made it look easy and it has now been put on my list of things to someday learn.

Hot pads and kitchen towels that she weaved.

She demonstrated how to make yarn. She started with raw wool, carded it, rolled it, spun it into yarn.

There were a few more cabins to look at then we were back at the beginning. I have even more respect for these people than I did before. Makes me want to read the books again.

A visit cut short

2011-07-30T01:11:00.007-04:00

Adam told me he was going to be out for a while on a tow so I took the opportunity to go visit a couple people I had been meaning to visit. One is a neighbor that wasn't doing too well the last time I saw her and the other was Grandma Sutton. I took them some banana chocolate chip bread. The one neighbor wasn't home so I left the bread with her husband and Grandma Sutton wasn't feeling very well and wasn't really feeling up to visiting so I didn't stay long. Since I had more time than I anticipated after my visits, I decided to take some pictures before I went and did some grocery shopping.

Her garden is producing all kinds of yummy looking stuff.

And her lowers are amazing!

Her house is on the back side of the stables and in front of her garden is the pasture the arena they use for the horses. This is the view from her porch.

Walking around the other side of the stables, there is the original office building. It looks like it hasn't been used in years but the flowers were gorgeous there...I think it must be Grandma Sutton's doing.

I had never been inside the stables before. The stable probably has about 30-40 stalls but it is dying and only has about 5 horses being boarded there now. This beauty was scared by me.

At one point, this stables was bustling with activity. I remember when I first moved down here, we always had people riding their horses through the neighborhood since the stables is right outside the entrance. The ribbons, silver plates and flowers were from the 80's, as far as I could read, but even some of them were faded into white.

Grandma Sutton sent me away with 4 more cucumbers. Another neighbor gave me some cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes and peaches from her garden on Sunday. We truly are blessed with sharing friends.

To celebrate my day in the "country", I made a country dinner. Country fried pork, mashed potatoes, country gravy and some of our fresh produce. Good dinner...and one of Adam's favorites.

My special bbq sauce

2011-07-28T10:05:00.002-04:00

When we were living in Idaho, we went to a rib shack. On the table, they had 7 different bbq sauces to use. We tried them all and there was one that blew my socks off. It was called Carolina sauce. I could taste the vinegar and it went perfectly with the meat. It was then that I realized that I do love vinegar. I have looked and have not seen any Carolina sauces sold in the stores here so I found a recipe on food.com and gave it a whirl.

It's not perfect. The one at the rib place had a more vinegarry flavor than this one but it is still definitely my preferred bbq sauce. I think if I cut back on the sugar some, the vinegar flavor will come out stronger. I will try that next time.

One of my favorite dinners is chicken and steamed veggies topped with the Carolina sauce.

Big Daddy's Carolina Style BBQ Sauce

1 cup prepared yellow mustard
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 -2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon liquid smoke (hickory flavoring)

Directions:

1 Mix all except soy, butter and smoke. Simmer 30 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 more minutes. Vinegar taste may be very strong until completely cooled. Refrigerating overnight is best and allows flavors to blend.

2 Add a few drops of Louisiana Hot Sauce at the end if additional heat is desired.

On etime I was in a rush and so boiled the sauce instead of simmering...don't do that. I turns into caramel and isn't so good.

Like magic

2011-07-27T12:57:00.008-04:00

What if I told you you could take all the excess veggies from your garden and preserve it all without ever having to turn on the stove and heating your house? Sounds too good to be true? Well, it doesn't have to be...although you might need a root cellar with how much space it would all take up, or a second fridge.

What is this magical proccess that would allow you to not have to can any veggies? I have talked about it before and I will talk about it again. It's been such an amazing discovery for me, for my digestive tract, that I need to keep telling others.

I first started doing this as just another experiment in a long list of "old world" ways of doing things that I wanted to try.

It's called lacto-fermenting. The easiest way to describe it is that you are inoculating food with probiotics which also preserves the food...magically. The Greek word for this was alchemy. "Like the fermentation of dairy products, preservation of vegetables and fruit by the proccess of lactofermentation has numerous advantages beyond those of simple preservation. The proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibitotic and anticarcinogenic substances. Their main by-product, lactic acid, not only keeps fruits and vegetables and fruit in a state of perfect preservation but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine." (from the book "Nourishing Tradition")

There are limitations to this proccess though. Fruit can only be kept this way for about 2 months because the sugars in the fruit eventually will turn alcoholic. Some have claimed that their veggies are still just as edible after one year so it's a longer term storage for veggies but not fruit. If you recall, my favorite lactofermented food so far is mango chutney. Delicious!! It didn't last two months because I ate it all so no worries there.

Unlike canning, you can do either large or small batches. You can do a single pint jar or a large crock full with 20 jars worth of sauerkraut all at once (without heating your house up, remember).

It's a very simple proccess. In a nutshell, you chop up your veggies, put into container (usually a jar), add spices, mix whey with filtered water and salt, pour water mixture over veggies (making sure the water is higer than the level of the beggies and seal the jar. Leave it on the counter for 2-4 days before putting into cold storage. Cold storage is either the fridge or a root cellar. I don't have a root cellar so I am pretty limited on how many jars of fermented foods I can have going on at once. I have half the bottom shelf reserved for them and part of another shelf. Once I have my root cellar though, I can make as much of whatever I want.

The two most important parts are the whey and salt. I make my own whey. I empty a container of plain yogurt into some cheese cloth and hang that to drain the liquid out. The leftover solids is now very close to cream cheese and the liquid (which is quite yellow) is the whey. The salt is used to keep putrification at bay until enough lactic acid is produced to keep the bacteria away by itself. You should use sea salt or some other salt that hasn't been iodided. (And when it's called for, you should use filtered water because the chlorine in water straight from the tap can kill the good bacteria.)

Bubbling food is nothing to be concerned about during this process. It stops bubbling when the fermentation levels off. Sauerkraut can be eaten after the first few days but imrpoves over time, becomes more mellow flavored. Some say the optimum time is 6 months. I gave a jar of sauerkraut to my SIL recently and while we were visiting, it was sitting on the table. After a few minutes, bubbles started escaping out under the lid and my SIL looked at me like I was trying to poison her. lol...it's ok. It's all part of the process.

When I buy ginger, I am buying it for just one recipe so inevitably, the rest of the ginger ends up going bad in the fridge. But with this method, that doesn't happen anymore. I just cut it up, put it in a jar with the water solution and I use that when a recipe calls for fresh ginger. Little costs like that can add up so this can save you a bit of money as well.

If you are interested in learning more about it there are a couple books I would reccomend: "Nourishing Traditions" and "The Wild Fermentation".

In the months I've been making these, I haven't shared a single recipe with you. So here's my favorite, Mango chutney.

3 cups firm mango, peeled and cubed
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 red pepper, seeded and cut into a julienne
1 small onion, chopped
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and chopped (optional)
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, cut into pieces (I didn't use that so I can't say how it tastes with that)
1/8 cupe sugar or honey
1/2 cup lime juice
2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 cup whey
1/2 cup filtered water

Mix mango with ginger, peppers, onion, mint and cilantro and place in a quart sized, wide mouth mason jar. (I followed this recipe and ended up with the three jars instead of just one.) Press down lightly with a wooden poubder or a meat hammer. Mix remaining ingredients and pour into jar, adding more water if necessary to cover the fruit. (I ended up having to make up a lot more water mixture to accomodate the three jars instead of one.) The chutney should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and leave at room temperature for 2 days before transferring to fridge. This should be eaten within 2 months.

It's really simple, really. Give it a shot and see how your body responds to it. I didn't know what I was getting into when I started but I am glad I stumbled upon it!

corned beef

2011-07-26T00:05:00.002-04:00

I made a slab of corned beef last week. I had two different recipes and wasn't sure whch to use but the instructions seemed more clear in the one from Nourishing Traditions (my favorite cook book). I did, however, deviate from it on a couple of steps.

I just loved the colors of the spice mix I made for it. The purple things are juniper berries that I foraged last October. I used all I had left so I need to go get more.

This recipe calls for whey. The whey is the liquid left over from draining yogurt. It keeps in the fridge for a few months (the whey, not the meat).

1 2-pound beef brisket, frozen 14 days and thawed

1/2 cup whey

1 cup filtered water

2 Tbsp sea salt

1 Tbsp mustard seeds

4-5 bay leaves, crumbled

1 Tbsp juniper berries, crushed

1 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix seasonings and rub into both sides of brisket. Place in a bowl that just contains it. Mix whey with water and pour over brisket. Cover and marinate at room temperature for 2 days, turning frequently. Transfer to refrigerator.

Now, here's how I veered from the recipe. I marinated it in the fridge for 10-11 days. Then, instead of eating it raw like this suggests, I cooked it according to the other recipe I looked at. I am just not brave enough to leave meat at room temperature for 2 days...veggies and fruit, yes, but I'm just not there with meat. ..and eating raw meat...just isn't going to happen.

When Adam found out what I was doing and how long it was taking, he asked me, "Is it worth all that work?" Really, just because it takes 10 days to marinade doesn't mean it takes much work, it really doesn't. You mess with it for 2-3 minutes a day and that's it. It is good but not earth shattering good. I will make it again though. It's very good in sandwiches.

Pioneer day photo shoot (or getting my geek on)

2011-07-24T23:28:00.013-04:00

Yes, I am a geek, just the sci fi type. My inner geek is all about pioneers! I cobbled a pioneer costume together to wear to dinner yesterday. We had dinner at my in laws wth 2 missionaries, 2 neighbors and a family friend. I brought my camera with me and asked Lanette to take a pic or two of me in my costume. It was quite bright out when we started cooking but by the time dinner was over and things were cleaned up, it had gotten a bit dimmer, especially under the porch eave which is where the majority of the picture were taken. This actually ended up working really well because anything that was moving was a bit blurry which is more realistic for photos from the pioneers' day.

Well, instead of just a couple pics, it turned into a photo shoot using their antiques as props. So many of the antiques belonged to Barry's father or grandfather and have all been taken care of very well through the years and most are all still useable though some see more use than others.

My cosume is not perfect by any means. The shirt is all wrong, not even long sleeved but it was what I had on hand. There's another high collared shrt underneath it with a hand crocheted trim but the bonnet ties are ni the way so you can't really see it. I need some kind of brooch for it, I think. The bonnet and apron are both pretty old and handmade. The skirt and petticoat, which you can't see, are both from Lannette (given to me at different times). She doesn't know where she got them but they are both homemade as well. I am also wearing black tights and my pioneer shoes. It did end up getting pretty steamy inside my costume but it was FUN so I wasn't worried about it too much. I did need a tall glass of ice water when we were done though. I don't think too many pioneers had access to ice so I was definitely a lucky pioneer.

We set up one area, then cleaned up and moved onto the next so there wasn't a whole lot of clean up at the end. She took a few pictures in color then switched to black and white which I really like.

Here I am setting up the washer before we got started.

This is actually my stove. It came from our first house. It was sitting in the backyard. We didn't have anywhere for it, not even a covered porch so we gave it to Barry. It has held a place of honor on his covered porch since then...but he's ready to give it up now. I just have to make a place for it and it will be coming back home with me!! The lantern was his grandfater's, the sad iron and kettle were his grandma's. I believe the cast iron pot was her's as well.

LaWanda came over with some home grown cherry tomatoes and peaches for me so I added them to the pot. lol

This wheelbarrow is one that Barry says he and his older sister used to sit in and get toted around the yard. He says it hasn't changed much since then...it was always old.

I was trying to look haggard...not sure it looks haggard but it makes me laugh!

Their side driveway has some gravel (no cement) so we chose that for pics depicting someone walking to town to seel their chicken eggs.

Ok, I also did my hair but the bonnet was on in the rest of the pics so I had to get at least one pic without it on. You can't see much of my hair in this pic but I was also trying really hard to get the look that you see on the pioneer's faces in old pictures.

This washing machine (completely hand powered) runs so smooth (except for while getting it started) that I can't believe that it's nearly 100 years old. His father fixed it up like new in the 50's. He did an amazing job. I was really getting into the rythym of it all.

Then, I got to use the wringer...it still works too.

And my last chore was to churn the butter. I read that they often sang to keep a constant beat of the paddle. So I started singing. lol...but then I was told I had to stop because I was getting really weird faces in the pics.

Then, it was over. Did I mention we had a lot of fun!? We both laughed a lot. We laughed even more when we looked through the pics and saw all my weird faces. I kept most of them out of here but there are a few.

why I love my clothesline

2011-07-23T23:39:00.006-04:00

In my younger years, we had a clothesline some of the time. I can't say if I recalled complaining hen I had to help or not. Mom, did I? I do remember always liking the looks of it. In fact, I have a vivid memory of standing in the bathroom and the curtains blowing in the muggy breeze. The clothes on the line were in full view and they too were flapping back and forth. To me, it is peaceful, natural, attractive. I know there are some people that don't like clotheslines because either they don't like the feel of line dried clothes or they think it looks like white trash...I don't care about them. I love my line. I love to see the clothes displayed, to see them flapping in the breeze, to smell them after they've been airing out all day in the fresh air. Before we put up the line early this line, I was hanging them up inside and didn't get the same joy seeing them hanging in the laundry room with artificial light. How could you not find joy in this simple pleasure??!

foraging and the unwelcome harvest

2011-07-22T23:25:00.004-04:00

The sun is shining bright and the temps are rising...not unlike other parts of the country. But I remembered about all those juicy blackberries on the vine on my last bike ride. I had forgotten about them after I injured myself and hadn't been on a real ride in 3 weeks. Sadly, that season has passed but I gave it my best effort. I came across these two places on the way back from one of my foraging excursions. Someone's clothesline and really cool garden structure...and the other pic is of a large pond in someone's front yard, across the street from the other house.

I had seen this apple tree in a small, empty field. It is sandwiched between a new subdivision and an older one. Both are fenced and for whatever reason, this lone tree was secluded. I got really yummy apples from it last fall. This year they are falling off before they are ripe and they're not looking so hot. I was sad because I miss apples and was looking forward to these.

I collected the better looking ones for making vinegar. Crossing my fingers I can get it to work this time.

I also went in search of blueberries. Most are not ripe yet and when they are, the birds take off with them so I got a load of almost ripe ones. They are still really good.

This is my sad little picking of black berries. I was really looking forward to making black berry jam form them but there's not enough for one jar even.

In total, I got 2 lbs of apples, 1.5 ounces of blackberries and 1.5 lbs of blueberries.

My unwelcome harvest came from the blueberry picking...chigger bites.

So much better than last year. I had about 60-70 bites last year and only 20 this year which is making life much more bearable this go round. I can wear shoes and walk the dogs...it's not really hampering my daily life. They do get really swollen and itchy from time to time but it's not a constant. Thank goodness for small miracles. I am definitely counting my blessings on this one!

2nd try at vinegar

2011-07-22T10:24:00.002-04:00

I found some apples in a field. They had already fallen off the tree and had lots of deformity and holes pecked in them. Also, being this early, they aren't ripe. But I decided they would be good for trying my hand again at making vinegar. This time, they're staying in my kitchen instead of the garage so I can keep an eye on them and not forget about them...at least until the smell gets too strong.

peanut butter filled cookies

2011-07-21T09:46:00.003-04:00

Though Adam doesn't like chocolate cookies, I was craving some a few weeks back so I made some anyway. He wasn't excited about it but when he tasted it, he said they were good and has since requested them so I know this one is a keeper. :o)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar (plus more for rolling)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup creamy peanut butter, divided

1 teaspoon vanilla extract1 egg

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375º F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together sugars, butter and 1/4 cup of peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg, beating to combine. Stir in the flour mixture and stir to combine, blending well. Set aside.

4. In a medium bowl, mix together powdered sugar and remaining 3/4 cup of peanut butter until smooth.

5. Pull off a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough and flatten with your hands. Take about 1 teaspoon of peanut butter mixture and place it in the center of the chocolate dough. Wrap the chocolate dough around the peanut butter center, pressing to seal. Roll the cookie into a ball and roll the cookie in the sugar. Place cookies on the prepared baking sheet 2 inches apart. Using the bottom of a glass, flatten each cookie to about a 1/2 inch thickness.6. Bake in preheated oven for 7 to 9 minutes. Let stand on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack.

garden progress

2011-07-20T16:08:00.002-04:00

Last night, we went to the garden again to do another few rows of weeding. By the time we finish with the weeding, it will be time to start again. Lots of work. I have about 50 misquito bites on my arms from gardening and building the dog barn. I am getting sick of misquitos but I have to put up with it...there's no choice. Maybe I'll get smart enough to remember my long sleeved shirt next time.

We actually have blooms on some of the beans and the canteloupe plants. So exciting!

Here's the part we have to come back and weed.

This is the section we weeded last night.

This is the section we weeded last Thursday. I was happy to see that the weeds haven't completly taken over already.

It's like a real garden and I can't tell you how cool that is to me!!

forgotten park

2011-07-19T22:15:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I spent my lunch break at a forgotten park. It used to be beautifully maintained but in 2009, we had a lot of flooding and it was abandoned. The trails were covered in mud several inches thick and logs were strewn in various places. Trash had washed up all over as well. The trails are overgrown and the trash cans are past overflowing. It may not be as pristine as it used to be but I still enjoy taking a walk around the lake and eating while looking at the lake.

I thought it would be perfect to pick some blackberries to go with my lunch. Sadly, most are gone now. I only found three worth picking...although looking at this picture makes it look like I had more I could have picked.

This is on a jetty into the lake.

The patio where the table I eat at has what I call the secret garden. There are so many flowers (though they only seem to bloom one kind at a time. Today, it's the black-eyed susans, my favorite!

My lunch was homemade corned beef, with homemade sauerkraut on a homemade soaked bun....and three tiny foraged blackberries.

That's the picnic table below, overlooking the lake.

They have a guard driving by now and then and he knows my car. He used to come down and find me every time to see if anyone was up to mischief but he realized it was the same car over and over and no longer comes looking for me since I am not trouble.

building the dog barn

2011-07-18T00:06:00.004-04:00

We had a project at wok that they needed some sheets of wood for. But they only needed them for a week. They were never nailed down to anything and aside from some concrete splashes, they were brand new. My boss wanted to throw them away so I claimed them. What to do with the wood?

We planned on beginning our morning early, getting to work by 9 to build a dog barn...Adam calls it a dog condo but I think it looks like a barn. The alarm went off bright and early so I would have time to cook breakfast, feed us and the dogs, get dressed and hang the laundry on the line before we got going. It was pouring rain so I turned it off but never really got back to sleep. Eventually, I got out of bed and did what I could inside. I had finished sewing my curtain panels and started on my valances. Around 11, it stopped raining and sometimes after that, we all went out to work.

I had to hang my laundry first though so I did that. On the other side of the fence is a big crepe myrtle. It's finally started blooming. I love those blooms. There was a breeze blowing through and it was nice and cool. So great!

Adam called his friend to see if he wanted to come over and help. He showed up just as I was walking toward the garage door after leaving the laundry part of the yard. So we had some help. James and I put in the foundation blocks and got them fairly level while Adam built the side walls. Then we discussed how to proceed from there.

The frame is almost complete here but there are a couple of things missing at this point.

We got the roof on, then James left. We let the dogs out to investigate it. None of the dogs like power tool sounds (well, Tucker doesn't seem to care too much since he was laying in it while we were using an impact screwdriver at one point. Poor Jack was shaking like a leaf while Adam was using the saw in the driveway...that's when I put them inside. The dogs were curious and anxious to all claim it.

It was funny to see them all running around...like they just got a new toy or something. Jack and Tucker have given it their seal of approval. Ihaven't caught anyone else using it yet though.

It's not finished yet. We'll be putting something on the roof to protect it some from the weather and I'd like to paint it but we'll see if that happens. There's also one more board to put on in the front top. Aside from that, it's done.

The footprint is about the size of a loveseat so it fits two dogs. As long as they really use it, we plan on building a second one so there's enough room for all the dogs. And we also have plans to build some kind of den/cave thing for Bear since that's what he likes. He currently lays under a propped up square of cement. When Barry redid the deck, he put this random square of cement under the stairs, not sure why. Bear wasn't sure why either since that's always been his favorite place to lay. So, I picked it up and propped it up temporarily but Bear decided he liked that tight place. 2 years later, it's starting to crack and I don't want it falling apart and crushing him so we're trying to figure out what to do to make a safe substitute for him that won't fall over.

The little red hen and other ramblings

2011-07-16T09:38:00.004-04:00

We had this book growing up about a hen who made bread from scratch.

She went to the field and planted the wheat, she tended the wheat, she gathered it, she carried it to the mill and back and at each step she asked her "friends" if they would help her. No one ever did. No one helped her bake it either. But when it came time to eat it, they all magically appeared ready to eat. She didn't let them because they hadn't helped.

As a child, I was less interested in the moral of the story. I was more fascinated with everything she did and felt bad for her friends that they didn't get any bread. I thought the hen was a little mean even. But as I've experienced a little more of life and grown in knowledge, it reminds me of a quote by someone who I can't remember. I can't quote it exactly since I can't find it anywhere but I will paraphrase the best I can. "Our trials are our own and no one else can have the blessings we get from enduring our trials." We are blessed with trials to not only prepare us and refine us but to bless us also. Only through enduring can we receive those blessing our Heavenly Father wants to give us.

I was reminded of this little story because I was getting ready to make bread last night and I reached for the wheat flour, I realized I didn't have nearly enough. I was going to call Lanette and see if she had any I could have but then I remembered that I have a wheat grinder now. Barry and Lanette gave it to me. We also received a bunch of wheat (and other items) from a couple who were moving and didn't want to take their food storage with them. If anything, I am one of the friend's of the little red hen but in my case, I was blessed with the bread anyway, even though I didn't labor for it.

Financially things have been tough. In the last month, I've only spent $90 on food and I haven't felt deprived of anything...the milk seems to last longer, the meat stretches further, neighbors share their garden's produce...it all works out in the end. It's these kinds of things that have shown us that we are being looked after, that our Heavenly Father is mindful of us in our trials, as little as they may be compared to others' trials. How could I be unhappy with life when I have everything I need...and then some? No, I don't have everything I want, maybe someday I will, maybe I never will....but that's not something I have control over so I have given my worries (as best I can) over to the Lord and he takes care of me and comforts me. Life is good!

peas get to climb

2011-07-15T09:19:00.003-04:00

Saturday will be a "dog condo" building party (we'll be building some kind of shelter for the dogs to get in out of the rain when we leave them out and a storm pops up before we can get home...there will be at least two different structures) at our house so I told Adam I would be going over to the garden to weed last night instead. He told me he'd come with me. We stopped at Ace to buy some poles and twine to string up some lines for the peas to climb. I throught the green beans would need it to but they don't have any tendrils so we didn't put any up for them...seems weird to me.

While Adam and James were pounding the poles into the ground and tieing up the twine, I got busy with the "claw" a weeding implement. It is circular with twisted blades. You punch it in to the ground and twist it. It loosens the dirt and makes it much easier to pull the weeds out since the roots are already loosened.

At one point, Adam was walking around holding his hand funny. He hit his finger with the mallet while putting a pole in. A couple minutes later, he was back to work...but James was now doing the pounding while Adam was the one handing him the poles. When they were done pounding, James started tying off the twine and propping the peas up on the lowest tier. Adam took the claw from me and I got to work pulling the weeds while he clawed the dirt.

The misquitos were everywhere! I was down there with them and they were loving it! A picture of an elephant covering itself in dirt came to mind...from a nature show I watched once. They do that to keep the bugs at bay. So I took my gloves off and started rubbing dirt all over my arms. It worked pretty well too.

Adam only did a certain amount of rows since we were running out of time before the storm was moving in. He finished clawing and took some pictures before we completely lost our light.

The garden in the foreground is the smaller of the two. That one got completely weeded and it looks great! The garden I'm kneeling in is about twice the size of the front one and the furrows are run different directions from each other. You can see all the grass and weeds popping up between the furrows. We'll have to go back on Moday after work to finish up.

Because Adam was so calm and continued working, I had no idea that he had really hurt himself with the mallet. This is what he did. OUCH!! He kept his hand out of the dirt so it didn't get dirty. When we got home, he soaked it in peroxide and cleaned it up. It still hurts my stomach thinking about it. I hope he heals up fast, poor guy!

temporary curtains

2011-07-14T07:26:00.005-04:00

When we moved back in, Georgia, our neighbor's dog was there to greet us...every single time we passed by our dining room window, stepped outside, made a noise in the dining room or living rom, or any time she is bored. She barked all the time! I didn't have any curtains or blinds on those windows so I threw up some fabric. I love the colors in the fabric but I didn't look at it all unfolded before I bought it. When I got it home, I was very disappointed in how much it looked like an old lady's couch. Oh well, I bought it so I had to use it.

I didn't want it to look like I had just throw a sheet up so I put pleats in it, every 3 inches or so...I eyeballed it so I'm sure it's not perfect. At each pleat, I inserted a thumb tack. At the time I put them up, the curtains weren't tied in the center, since we needed to block Georgia from seeing us. But we have since put up the fence and she can't see anymore so I tied them in the center so we could get light through that window again.

Closer view of the tacks. I've been pretty happy with this setup. You can't really tell that its tacked into place unless you get really close and look. However, I always knew it was temporary which is why I didn't bother with a curtain rod or sewing them into actual curtains.

But now that Gerogia can't see us anymore and now that my sewing machine is fixed, I can finally sew curtains out of this fabric I bought at the thrift store a couple years ago for $10. I got enough to make 7 long curtains (and the leftover odds and ends). I've always loved lace curtains...and soon, I will have some. :o) What do you think of the fabric?

jar brain

2011-07-10T17:06:00.002-04:00

I just had to show this to you! You see that one jar with a whitish thing on top of the orangish stuff? That is what I have dubbed "jar brain". It's from the seal breaking and little beasties getting in and multiplying. I have no idea what organism makes this monstrosity but I know I don't want to eat it!

Well, let's take a close look at jar brain, shall we? It is so wrong!!! It's thick and fleshy...feels like a tongue, only much more slimy.

So, yesterday's count was 97 jars and 155 cans. Plus a bunch of empty ones that will get recycled. We're hoping that we can take the metal cans to the recycler for a little bit of money.

The cans are interesting as well. Some have burst open and there is nothing left in them. Some have gotten tiny pin prick holes in them over the years and the contents have dehydrated in the can....some come out black and moldy. The apple sauce dehydrated and came out in this little discs.

The mold on some of these was so bad that the cans were actually fused together.

This jar project has definitely been an interesting adventure!

Meeting Grandma Sutton

2011-07-07T19:55:00.004-04:00

We have this horse boarding barn just outside our subdivision. That's where I was able to gather pecans in October. e mentioned that his mom lived behind the stables but I had never been back there. I keep seeing her garden (a small corner of it) when I bike by so I finally pulled down the dirt driveway to get a good look at it. She was working in the garden and I felt like I was snooping so I was going to sneak back to my bike but I thought her garden was beautiful and I wanted to tell her so, so I walked over to her. I startled her and when she spoke, it sounded exactly like my own grandma's voice. I have never thought that anyone sounded like my grandma before so for a second, I was startled too.

I told her I loved her garden and she began telling me about it and telling me about how life used to be on the farm there. She has 4 of her children still living on the original farm, though that land has been split by a major highway that didn't used to be there.

She was very proud of the water fountain that her husband made for her not too long before he passed away, late last year. She pointed it out to me and told me I should look at it. It was nice.

Half of her garden is volunteer. She throws her kitchen scraps on the ground, buries them in the winter and veggies come up...and when she is thinning her flower garden, she has a separate place to put those trimmings and lots of stuff grows there as well.

She invited me to come back anytime I felt like it. I think she was a bit lonely, even though her kids live right there. I really enjoyed my time with her in her garden. I will have to go back and visit soon. I got her name before I left. She said her name was Stella but that everyone calls her Grandma Sutton. Seems fitting to me. She gave me a mega cucumber for helping her weed. That was from the volunteer part of her garden.

A very enjoyable visit indeed!

patriotic cake

2011-07-06T20:46:00.005-04:00

I was asked to bring a cake to a family dinner party this weekend. I quickly decided on making a patriotic cake. I was concentrating on trying to finish my cabinets this weekend so I cheated and went the boxed cake mix route and even bought the tubs of frosting too. It's so against how I like to cook but I felt it was necessary in order to get this cake done.

This cake looks way more complicated than it is. You just use a large star cake decorating tip and do swirls, starting in the center and working out. You put one here, here and there...wherever. Then you can fill in the gaps between them with little squirts of frosting. That part didn't turn out so well for me but I do like the roses.

I only did the top because the cake was too short and on a curved plate so it was nearly impossible to do the side.

But the real surprise was when you cut in to it. Hence my name, patriotic cake. It has been a few years since I've decorated a cake and it was a lot of fun! Turned out better than the last cake I made too.

Here's my past attempts at cake decorating:

This one was very small, it was for Isaac's first birthday.

This was actually the last one I did. The yellow and green were literally melting and I have no idea why...the other colors were fine. It was so ugly!

Ths was to celebrate Maria getting accepted into an art program for school.

Some turned out better than others but they were all fun to make. I do enjoy decorating cakes, no matter my lack of skill....I just don't like eating them so much.

bathroom cabinets

2011-07-05T22:37:00.006-04:00

Just a warning, there are lots pictures...

In October 2010, I just got back from my bike trip and my bike was broken so I decided to tackle a house project. I chose to redo my master bath cabinets. I got started and realized I didn't have a before picture. So with one door already undone, I took the before picture.

I chose a color as close to the tiles as I could get. The color is called "parmesan", a slight off white. I sanded the doors and bases. I didn't completely strip off the staid, just enough so the paint would have something to hold on to. Then I rolled on a wood primer. I think it took 3 layers before I was happy with the coverage.

I had to get a picture of everything just painted white because I waited months before getting the courage to apply the glaze. The guy at Home Depot told me I should practice before putting it on the actual doors. That most people weren't able to do a good job so if I practiced, I could get hired to do it for others. That's not my goal but it was my goal to not comlpetely ruin my nice paint job.

I finally took the plunge and glazed my first door (without practicing first). It's really easy. You paint a layer of glaze on. It doesn't have to be uniform but you do need to work it in the crevices. Then you take a rag and wipe it off. The longer you let it sit, the more it sticks to the door. Here's the first glazed door nextto a painted one for contrast.

After that pic, I went back and wiped off some more glaze because it looked too heavy on the glaze for my tastes. Handling the doors was making my hands sticky and I managed to get my finger prints all over the last door. No problem, just put a new layer of glaze down and wipe it down. All evidence will be gone.

Thursday night, Adam told me I could go get the hinges for the cabinets. That was all I needed. I was going to finish this project over the 3 day weekend if it killed me! Friday night, I finally got the bases glazed. And I went and got the hinges as well as the twine I needed for the handles.

I was hoping to find already made rope in the color and size I wanted but that didn't happen so I bought twine in the color I wanted. I cut off a small length of 6 pieces of twine and played around with it until I liked the rope. You remember that rope braid that took me three weeks to learn? Well, that's what I used to make the rope.

Saturday morning, I walked my dogs for 2 hours, then Adam asked me to help on a tow. Three hours later, I was at home again and decided to do my grocery shopping. When I got home, Adam had decided he wanted to go to the church 4th of July party. So we went and we enjoyed ourselves. I really wanted to call my dad but I had learned that morning that I needed to make dessert for the family dinner for Sunday so I baked a 2 layer cake and did the dishes and by then, it was already 11:30. Sigh. Not a scrap of work done. Sunday was spent at church and then we went over to the family dinner where I unveiled my cake (that'll be another post). We were there until late and I got to call and talk to my mom and dad. Monday morning, we woke up and got the dogs fed then made a couple sides for a bbq we were going to. We got our sides made then headed over to our garden for some weeding. Most things are poking up out of the ground now. It's so exciting! We then headed straight to the bbq where we chatted, ate and swam in their pool. It was lots of fun. It started to rain really hard so we had to go rescue the dogs who were trapped outside in it. So, Monday at about 4, I finally actually got to work on it!

I drilled my holes bigger for the handles on all 6 doors.

I made what I thought would be enough rope. Turned out to only be enough for 4. Looks like real rope, huh? I guess that's why they call it a rope braid. ;o)

I made the two knots so the handle would stay in place. Then I taped the edges and slipped them through the holes.

Once I got them through the holes, I pulled upward to tighten the knot on the front side. I then removed the tape and unraveled the rope. I tied the knots on the backside. I pulled each of the 6 strings individually, otherwise, there would be loose strings. Then, I took 3 in one hand and 3 in the other and pulled apart to tighten the knot as much as I could.

Then, I applied glue into the knot and on all sides of it and cut the extra length of twine. The glue dries clear so you son't notice it.

I did run out of rope so I had to make some more. But finally, all had their handles attached.

I ran upstairs and put the new hinges on the doors. I went to put the first door on the base and realized I had bought the wrong hinges!! Nooo!!!!!! I took them all off and ran to the store to get the right ones. I got there at 7:30, they closed at 8. I put the new hinges on...the right ones this time. I had to detach some of the doors and rearrange them so they would close right. Adam had to help me figure that one out.

I stood back and survey my work...Do you see it too?? There are two fake drawers on top that needed handles too!

All the while, it had been raining and the dogs were being clingy. Jasmine and Tucker were helping me out...then Bear joined too. I ran back down stairs and made some more rope. Ran back up, drilled the holes (with Adam's help because I kept catching nails and it wouldn't work for me). I attached the handles and was so tired that I didn't even sweep up the saw dust all over the room.

Close up of the handles.

Left cabinet

Right cabinet.

Woohoo! 8 months later, it's finally done!!! I finally finished a project!! It feels so good and the fact that I like how it turned out is an even greater feeling.

Now, what can I glaze next? ;o)

a couple rides

2011-07-02T10:58:00.007-04:00

Ok, so I'm getting behind again. Seems to be a recurring problem for me. I guess I'll see what I can do to catch up again.

Here's a couple of rides I went on in the last few weeks.

These cute guys are on my regular route. I love going by there. 3 miniature donkeys and a herd of 15 or so cows. I love the colors of them all. Neutral, my kind of colors.

On Memorial day, I went for a long ride. I think this one was 50 miles long. I ended up finding really heavy winter coveralls in the middle of nowhere so I balled it up and toted it home, along with a handy elastic thingy to help hold it down found somewhere else on the side of the road.

This flag (minus the pole) was getting whipped around the road as people drove over it. It, I'm sure, had been attached to someone's car but it blew off it's flag pole. I saved it when no cars were going by and found a stick to put it on. It actually stayed on my bike the whole ride. I liked having it there. :o) It's been displayed in our living room ever since.

I love clotheslines and this one really caught my eye! The owners were standing outside so I asked permission to photograph their line. They laughed at me, thought I was a little weird but told me that I could.

the night was aglow

2011-06-29T21:24:00.004-04:00

I was doing something in the house (can't remember what) and I looked up at the skylights. The sky lights are foggy so you can't see the trees through them but you can see bright colors...usually that means fireworks. But tonight was different. The light was so purple. I grabbed my camera and ran outside.

Wow, so beautiful! I don't usually get to see sunsets here. The trees are always in the way! I am so grateful when I do finally get to see one! Everything was glowing purple.

See, I told you so. The trim on the house is all white but it was glowing purple too. Bear was too afraid to actually come out.

I LOVE sunsets!

unfinished business

2011-06-27T23:31:00.005-04:00

I work hard and I enjoy all the things I do but I do miss the feeling of a job well done at the end of a project. I was feeling pretty down on myself about never finishing anything since my projects tend to take months to years to complete, or other things, like dishes and laundry will never be done.

I was at work one day and this idea hit me. It wouldn't leave me alone. So I had this idea that this project I had in mind could be something I could finish in one weekend...and that was something I was sorely needing right then. A few days later, I bought the foam board. I didn't know exactly how I was going to execute it but I just knew it was doable. I was wrong, however.

I wasn't going to blog about this until I was finished but Sheri suggested that I do so here is what I have so far. It measures approximately 39" x 23".

I had this picture open on my computer screen and was working on the dining table directly in front of the computer. This is one of my favorite pics. :o)

I drew the dogs freehand onto the foam board. I finished Bear, Jack and Tucker before I realized I didn't have enough room for Jack. I had to erase them and start all over again.

Once all the drawing was done, I started cutting with an xacto knife. I'm very good with an exacto knife on card stock but I've never cut foam board before...I'm not as good. Oh well...I say it gives it character.

Now, it' all cut out. I bent Tucker's leg (on the board) in the proccess. Oh well...more character?

I was actually feeling pretty good about my progress and I had to clean up to go to a bbq Adam was at. I was going to stop by Home Depot to get some wood trim and Hobby Lobby to get some burlap...both are for this project.

I bought the burlap but I didn't know the dimensions of the frame I needed to build yet so I didn't get the trim. So, another project not finished. It took me a few days to get over this failure. I will still finish it when I have the money to buy the trim. There are a few more steps I can work on before I need the trim anyway but haven't had the opportunity to work on that in the last 3 weeks.

So, after I go over not finishing it and was able to take pride in the bit that I did finish, I wanted to get some pictures with it. Tucker, my ever present buddy, wanted to be with me. As soon as I held the picture up, he distracted me by looking cute and offering his paw to shake. It wasn't the picture I was after but I like it better than whatever I would have gotten. :o)

When it's finished, it will go above the bay window. It has always bugged me a bit to have such a large space empty...not that the other walls are full of things...that's one of those other projects I'll get to someday, rehanging pictures. I hung the pictures once already in this house so it doesn't excite me to have to do it again.

So, true to the way I work, I distracted myself from my work at hand before I got around to cutting it out. I had this overwhelming urge to decorate my desk. I couldn't stop myself. I must have ADD. I have a growing collection of crocks. Some of them were tucked under my desk and others were hidden in the basement. I played around with arrangements and finally decided on this...

The box is a woodens hipping crate. The table toppers are from thrift stores. The large crock with the wooden lid was given to me by a friend back when I only had the butter churn. The churn and small drink crock on the desk are from thrift stores. The lidless crock was one of three I bought from craigslist.

Besides the small crock, on my desk is also a vase that really reminds me of arts and crafts and an oil lamp. They both came from thrift stores. The stuff in the vase are the seed heads from my fern garden.

Not my dream way to display them but it will do until I figure out something better. Besides, this isn't even all of it. I have another (larger) drink crock, a couple pitchers, a plate, a bowl, a vase and a few small crocks with no lids. I'd really love to be able to display them all together.

the magic bean stalk

2011-06-24T15:35:00.000-04:00

So I've never joined in a blog link up before but I am so entirely excited about this that I just wanted to share with as many people as I can. Rhonda at http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/ hosts one every week for whatever is on your mind that day.

On Saturday (6 days ago) we planted our garden. We don't really know much about gardening so it was kind of like "Well, here goes nothing!"

It rained all week and seems to have been a great day to have planted. We started everything from seeds. Today, these are our beans. They are monsters!

The peas and squash are starting to peek out as well. It's absolutely incredible to me that I get to have a garden. So what if it's 9 miles from home...I am blessed!

riding during wild blackberry season

2011-06-21T21:50:00.006-04:00

Before I left for my last bike ride, I called to see if I needed to bike by our garden to water it but James had already done it so I took a route I don't often take. It's out past Dacula and a nice country ride.

I wanted to make it to the barn before I turned around. The barn is in an empty field across from this old farmhouse that has its own barn. This is the barn that belongs to the house.

This is the porch of that house. Seems like the perfect country house to me.

This is the barn. It's covered in kudzu. Obviously, it's not used anymore. I love this shape of barn. When I get one, I want it to be like this.

All during this ride, I was seeing these blackberries on the side of the road. It's not in the thick of berry season yet but it has definitely started. I stopped and ate my fill. Yum!! I checked them first this time. Last year I ended up with ants latched on to the inside of my cheeks after eating the berries they had been crawling around on. I was safe this time.

All this berry goodness means I'll be biking by with a container next time so I can collect some for making jam and pie. :o)

There's going to be a lot this year!

compost and canning jars

2011-06-21T21:35:00.001-04:00

Adam's friend's mom has a room in her house called the fruit room. It's basically where the food storage has been kept over the years. It was abandoned for some reason and they started storing their food somewhere else in the basement. Adam has been helping James clean out the house after his father's death a month ago. Adam mentioned the room to me. He told me there were 200-400 jars of home canned food that is no longer any good. Ann wants to get rid of it and did I want the jars? Who would turn down that offer? Not me! The catch was that we had to empty out the jars before I could use them. Luckily, Adam built me that much bigger than planned on compost bin. It will make fine compost! The oldest jar we've found so far was from 1964!!!

We went one evening after work to collect the first round of jars. We got 244 jars and that was only about 1/3 of the total jars in that room! Unfortunately, a lot of them are old condiment jars that she reused, even with the original (not canning) lids. I won't be canning in those so they are no good to me.

We carried just over half the bins over to the compost pile and started working. Adam unscrewed the lids and bands. I pried the canning lids off and emptied. We worked at it for about 4 hours.

Look at how old and vintage these lids are!

These 3 are my favorites. I have a couple of the sliver ones. I am hoping they come off in one piece because I have a DIY project in mind for those.

We had a wedding reception to go to so we quit before finishing. We had about 40 jars left to open and empty. But this is what food from 200 jars gets you. Much less than we were expecting... Well, we still have 400 more to add to that. Oddly, nothing stunk. Some came out like molasses, others had already turned to dirt inside the jar. Almost every jar still smelled exactly like what it was. I wouldn't have expected that since most of the jars were from the 60's to 1970.

We sorted the jars to keepable and those to be recycled. The recycle ones went in one large bin while the keepable ones got a quick rinse off from the hose. I think I got to keep about 40 of them.

Poor Adam got a giant blister on the palm of his hand from opening the stuck on lids and bands and he was wearing thick leather gloves! I tried taking over but I was much too weak to get those open.

The garden

2011-06-20T21:54:00.007-04:00

Adam's friend, James, had seen that I had prepared part of the yard for a garden and that I wasn't able to plant anything because there was no good dirt there. His mom has a huge garden area that they haven't used in a few years because of declining health. He told his mom and she offered us the use of her yard. :o) That was Friday night, Saturday morning, we were at her house with seeds in hand. The part that we planted is maybe 1/3 of her total garden area.

We planted spaghetti sqaush, acorn squash, spinach, carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, canteloupe, watermelon, snap peas, green beans, kidney beans, bell peppers, butternut squash. We will be going back and planting a row of cucumbers as well...Adam was really sad that we didn't plant any. We used way more space than the little garden spot I had carved in my yard. I guess I'll have to expand my garden area for when I do get to plant...because it's just going to seem way too small now. We will be planting some lettuce at home in containers and we'll be planting different plants at her house for a fall crop after these plants have lived out their useful life.

Because the ground was so soft and fairly free of rocks, this hand cultivator worked really well to make furrows to plant in.

We set the seeds in the holes and poured a little fertilizer over the tops. That's Adam and James. James grew up gardening so he was really nice and helped us and gave us advice.

After you plant and pour on the fertilizer, you take the cultivator and run it right beside the furrow. It pushes the loose dirt back over the seeds. Super simple. I told Adam we needed one of these neat gadgets!

Here's what it looked like when we left. There are two seperate beds, technically. We ran out of room in the first one so we tilled more ground but left a space between them. It was so much fun and doing it with someone else (2 someone elses) was nice. It made being in the beating sun bearable.