Sewers/sewists looking for fabric? Here you go

I thought you might be interested in a sale that is going on at CraftConn.com.  They are retiring and closing their store.  Almost everything has been discounted 25%.  I have always been pleased with the cloth I have gotten from them.  Hate to see anyone closing though but at least it's because they are retiring.  They have a full selection of cloth, sewing notions, etc.

http://www.craftconn.com/

PS:  I'm not being paid to tell you this, just wanted to pass on a bargain.

Crafty things going on...

Isn't this a wonderful quilt top.  No I didn't make it.  I got it on Ebay.  The seller did an excellent job.  I had to have it for the appliqued black kitties.  Most of it was paper pieced.  At least I think so because those little squares  inside the baskets I can't imagine trying to actually sew those without paper piecing them.  It will make a nice wall hanging I think.  I have it all ready to start quilting.  See the pins?

And just to show that I haven't been neglecting my knitting, here are some little projects I finished last week.  Two hats and one cowl.  When I went to the yarn tasting at the local yarn store, they gave us a couple of small skeins of yarn along with patterns to complete the cowl.  I got the other two skeins to do the hats and had enough to do two hats.  It was Cascade wool yarn and it was soooo soft.  Very nice to knit with.  All the yarn in the pic was double knitting weight.

Broccoli Soup from Scratch

If you have never tried making broccoli soup from scratch, you really should.  It is easy and tastes sooo much better than from a can.

This is how I made it.  I'm not an expert by any means.

First you need to decide whether you want any onions in your soup.  If you do, just cook up a diced onion with some butter or oil until translucent.  But if you don't like onion in your broccoli, just leave it out.  Take a bunch of broccoli (the package I got had two bunches so I made broccoli salad too ;), wash it and cut up the heads.  I even peel and cut up the stem.  DH loves broccoli stems!  Now you need to cook the broccoli.  Put it in a fairly big pot and just cover with either water or chicken broth.  I use my homemade broth whenever I do a soup because it adds so much flavor to the soup or stew.  Cook the broccoli until it is easily pierced with the tip of a knife.  Take the broccoli and put it in a blender with a little bit of the broth and pulse until you get it pretty well chopped up.  Put the blender broccoli back into your pot.  You now have soup!  But if you want cream of broccoli do the following:

In a small pot make a roux.  Now if you have never made a roux it's pretty easy.  All it is is butter and flour that you cook to get the flour taste out and it browns a little bit but don't go away from the stove otherwise you'll burn it really quickly.  If you do burn it, chuck it out.  It will make your soup taste really bad.  Add a little bit of milk to it stirring it all the time to get rid of any lumps. Lumps are bad especially on your hips but I digress LOL.  Keep adding milk until you have added about a cup to cup and a half total to the roux.  Let it bubble away for a couple of minutes, stirring it.  Now add it to the broccoli pot and stir.

Now one of the hardest things you need to do...taste it.  Add some salt and pepper.  I added celery salt and it really tasted good.  I also added white pepper which is a little hotter than black at least I think so but this is YOUR soup.  You're going to eat it so add whatever spices you want.  Bowl it up and enjoy.  Nice to have soup on a cold day.

UPDATE:  I almost forgot...old age is creeping up on me...You can add cheese to this soup as well.  I added about 1 cup of white cheddar cheese to it.  It was yummy.



http://culinarybliss.blogspot.com/2012/10/healthier-blondies-and-simple-lives.html

Pics

I took some pictures when we went to the land the other day.This is the nearest electric pole.  As you can see they sprayed underneath it and it ran down hill and almost killed that little tree.  This won't happen again as we are going to weed eat around it so no more of those awful chemicals.

Just a pic of the trees.

Here is where we had to cut down some limbs.  This is where we are going to place our cabin.

DH starting up the new chain saw.  Yes I helped too!  I was chief limb picker upper although the bigger pieces I rolled with my foot downhill to be able to stack them.

He's still cutting...

And more cutting...

And even more cutting.  Once he got started he found more dead ones to trim out. 

This is kind of dark but can you see the pile I started?

We covered it up with smaller limbs to hide.  Don't want anyone stealing all that good hardwood.  We'll be needing it for fuel come next winter.

We'll be trimming up the smaller limbs to use for kindling.

And here is the after shot.  Can you see the stumps?

Here is a butterfly I caught on the last of the lavender blooms.

The Yes on 37 Scorecard

Pictures

These are pictures I took at our new place in September.  No we haven't moved there yet...:(

I don't know if you can see the fruits hanging on this tree.  I thought they might be wild plums or maybe persimmons.

another look at the tree.

These are some of the fruits that had fallen.  They don't look exactly like persimmons since they are rounder and were the size of a small plum.  Any ideas?

These are some of the plants that are growing across the street, or weeds LOL. 

These looked like elderberries but I couldn't get close enough to them to see.  

Here is a closer view.  Hubby thought they were elderberries but I don't know...

Close up of the weed growing closer to the road. It is kinda pretty don't you think?  Loved the red.  

These are two pics of a hawk.  He wouldn't hold still ;)  

He was circling and circling.  Guess when we do move we'll have to watch the chickens very closely.  I also saw a coyote one day and hubby saw a fox.  There were also some wild turkeys and hubby even saw a doe and fawn.  

Give me a moment...

I'll be writing something up momentarily....