Cancer update

Hubby had a stomach tube placed last week and the feedings were going great but on Monday he complained in the afternoon of stomach pain and his leg being swollen so I took him to the ER.  They admitted him and did lots of tests.  He had a blood clot in his leg and one near his kidney.  His stomach tube was OK although he was dehydrated because of the diarrhea (from the tube feedings).  He had two units of blood transfusion on Wednesday and they kept him because of his low white count until today.  He is now getting his chemo and after it is done he gets to go home YAY.   I'm rather tired.  Don't know why :)

I went home yesterday early and called my friend and she and her husband delivered some more wood to get us through some of the chilly nights.  I don't want DH to get too cold.  Bless our friends.  They have really come through for us...

Last night I heard something strange outside.  The cats make noise but this sounded different.  I went out with my flashlight.  I bring the chicken feeder up on the porch at night and here was a furry butt sticking up out of the middle.  I told Mr. furry butt to get out of the feeder and here it was a raccoon. I guess he thought the jig was up cause he got down and jumped off the porch.  I put the feeder in the house.  No more free food for him...I don't need a raccoon around.  I thought we had a possum.  We had some tracks in the chicken yard and the feeder was dragged under the chicken coop so that's why I started putting the feeder on the porch.  That worked for a while but Mr. furry butt is just a bit too smart for me LOL.  And the cats didn't even do anything when he was there...nice...I have the worst guard cats in the world ;)

Well that's all for now,

Denise

Chickens we have 'em...

Not as many as we used to but here are pics of the four we have left...

Here's One Black Feather (otherwise known as Esther), Martha, Mac (mean a__ chicken) and Katie Do.

Here's Martha again.  That's baler twine we use to put over the run so the hawks overhead don't get any crazy ideas.

And here they are again having their afternoon snack.  Actually they line up in a row whenever I come out of the house.  The laundry basket is not filled with food LOL.  

Garden pics #1

Chinese cabbage plant left over from last year.  This was about two months ago.  

Celerac

Blueberries two months ago

and one month ago.  Sorry for the blurry pic.

 Grapes two months ago.
 

Grapes one month ago.  Can you see the tiny things ?

Tomatoes one month ago.

Boysenberries two months ago

See how the berries formed after only one month.

Little buttercup...

My Weigela (sorry don't know how to spell it)

Chives

Basil and parsley

And my sour cherry bushes are just filled with cherries this year.  They are so heavy they will have to be tied up.  Chicken in the background...

Gardening update

Hubby finally got the garden rototilled and then I planted my potatoes.  Then I planted some peas in between the potatoes (they are supposed to be good companion plantings together).  We have cabbage, celeriac and tomato seedlings almost ready to go in.  Have to wait another couple of weeks to be past the last frost date here.

The chickens are really putting out the eggs.  This is their third year.  Hoping they live and lay for a while since we don't plan on getting any chicks for a year at least.

The blueberries and cherry trees have lots of buds.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we will have lots of cherries this year as last year there were lots but they all dropped off...:(  Not too worried about the blueberries, they are soooooo prolific every year.

Long time no see

Yep I'm back again.  I've been busy just doing day to day things.  I've been selling things on Ebay and getting rid of other things just to get ready for the cabin adventure.  I've been sewing a lot and knitting a lot too.  Here are some pics:

Some socks for me.

Thought I better start making some socks as ours are getting rather hard to mend anymore what with all the holes :)  Next on the needles are some socks for hubby.  I also have on the needles a sweater for hubby and another one for myself.  Yes I multitask LOL.

Don't know if you can see this but I wanted to show you how to piece batting on something you are quilting.  You line up the pieces and sew them together.   

It's an excellent way to use up scrap batting for small wallhangings or table toppers.

This is the batting all sewed up and ready for my table topper.

And here's the top of the table topper.  I have since finished this.  Need to get a pic of the finished topper for you.  To make this topper you need 5" squares and 2 1/2" squares.  Place the smaller squares on opposite sides and sew from corner to corner (you can mark them on the back but I just winged it).  Cut off the excess triangles.  (Don't throw these triangles away.  I have an idea I'll share in a later post)  I squared them up to measure 5" and then tried out the placement on the table to see how they looked the best and then sew them together.  I used a 5" border. I used two packages of precuts for this and had plenty left over to make another one plus.  The squares I used weren't even from the same designer but I think they look great together.

On the home front, our chickens have started laying again.  Boy did we ever miss our home grown eggs.  We were getting them from an Amish farm but their eggs just didn't even compare to ours.  They keep their chickens penned up and ours have access to fresh grass - big taste difference!  We've been juicing and drinking our green juice every chance we get.  I give the pulp to the chickens.  They do not like carrots and their run is looking a little orange ;) but they do like the greens.  I even had some chard and parsley growing in the garden so pulled some chard leaves for the chickens and juiced some of them for us too.  I picked a little bit of the parsley (left some to grow) and dried it.  mmmm parsley potatoes mmmm.

I started some seeds and the plants are up and just waiting to get bigger and the weather to cooperate so I can plant them.  The weather today is pretty yucky.  It's turning colder and it's raining.  Last week we were over two inches above normal for the year.  Hope it keeps up and we have no drought this year.  I have to wait for a sunny day to hang my clothes out on the line so I did them yesterday since it was so beautiful out but the week before I had almost two weeks worth of laundry.  No fun doing that much laundry.  Took me all day.  

Cabin News-  We burned a lot of brush and small twigs.  We pulled up some rotten tree stumps but need to take our saw with us next time so we can cut some of them out.  The wet weather does help with this kind of job.  It would have been so much harder if the ground would have been really dry.

I guess that catches you up on my life, how's yours been?

I'm BACCCCCKKKK!

Surprise, surprise, surprise!  I've been one busy little person what with canning, the holidays, work and being sick for the past 2 1/2 weeks with this cold crap.  Yes I said crap and I'm still feeling a little bit like that LOL.

We got our yearly 1/2 beef and 1/2 a pig this year to go with it so I was trying to clean out our freezer as much as possible (read empty completely).  Surprisingly with all that meat I got it fit into our upright freezer and stashed the bacon in our little freezer.  Boy it was close!  Don't think we will do that again.  At least we could space it out so I don't have such a problem stowing it away.  So we have a lot of meat, a lot.  It should last us a little over a year.  The only problem is they cut the roasts a little too big for us so when I made a beef roast the other day we had to keep eating it and eating it and eating it.  It was huge!  I just put in some salt and pepper and some bay leaves and cooked in the slow cooker. Hubby made homemade noodles to go with it.  Yum.  Then I made some barbequed beef sandwiches today and still I had some left over so I guess I'll be using the rest in a soup of some sort.

So since I cleaned out my freezer I had all these tomatoes, peppers, berries and beef bones (which really take up room in the freezer).  I canned berry jelly since I had boysenberries, blueberries and raspberries; pepper relish; tomato soup and beef broth.  And I had gotten 10 pounds of pig fat to make lard.  I did all that in one week...boy was I tired and so we come to the fact that I got run down and got sick.  Was it worth it?  You betcha cause now we have a whole lot of food stored up.

I wasn't in the holiday mood this year so I didn't even put up our tree.  I did decorate our fireplace mantle and put up the wreath on the front door but that is as festive as I got this year.  But it did save me from having to put all that stuff away too.  It didn't lessen in any way our Christmas though.  We still had our presents to open on Christmas day and we got some Christmas cards too.  Not as many as I sent out but I think it's because it is getting so expensive to mail them.  Postage is going up again in a couple of weeks so I hear.  Hubby got me just what I wanted this year too!  I got an immersion blender (so much easier to do soups with) and a spice grinder which will be nice to grind all those spices and herbs I'm going to be growing this year (maybe LOL).  Hubby was shocked I got him so much but why not, he's worth it.  I got him an old fashioned straight razor shaving kit with everything included except for a sharpening stone which I'll get him later.  He tried it the first time and cut himself all to heck...Geez-Louise.  He said I need your help I cut myself.  I went running and had to put cotton balls and band-aids on each side of his face.  Since he's on blood thinners he bleeds a lot when he gets cut.  He did eventually stop bleeding.  I think a styptic pen is on order for him.  Now he says he scared of it...and hasn't tried to use it again yet.  I think he was holding it wrong and trying to go too fast.  I think he needs to practice.   Cause if I have to put cotton balls and band-aids on him again I'll bust out laughing, he looked really funny.  He even laughed about it.  Looked like a poor man's Santa or  maybe a really weird looking chipmunk :)  I also got him a weather thingy.  It's a tube that is supposed to tell you the weather a couple of days ahead of time.  Don't know if it works yet.  He left it in the package so we can take it to the cabin.  I got him a CD of info on solar power from Mother Earth News and a puzzle.  He said he owed me something else and has decided to get me another gun...not really what I was looking for really LOL.  It will be a revolver cause I really don't like the way the pistol handles that I already have.  I think it will give me more control but we'll see.

The chickens have stopped laying...completely.  No eggs since November.  We have been getting eggs when we go up to the cabin but it's not the same and they don't taste as good as ours were.  I'm still hoping that they will start laying a few when it warms up.  We got a ton of seed catalogs last week.  I love looking through them although I don't think I need any more seeds right now.  Since the world didn't end, I guess I can spend more money on plants and seeds ;)

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Denise

Cabin pics

Well the cabin is finished, here are some updated pics of it for you to see.

 It has four windows and two doors.  I didn't take any pics of the inside since I already took some last time and the inside really didn't change yet.  We are getting it moved to the site soon and then the real work begins!  We need flooring, electrical work, walls, ceiling....you get the picture ;)

On a sadder note, we lost another chicken, Shirley.  She was egg bound.  I went out and petted her for a while and told her it was OK for her to go.  I could tell she was in pain.  She died a little while later after I went in to make supper and we buried her with the other chickens, Lucy and Lettie and our beloved cat, Molly.  We are now down to 5 chickens and only getting 1 egg every 3-4 days.   Since the Golden Comets are made to lay large numbers of eggs in such a short period of time, they seem to age very quickly.  We'll keep the five we have until they die naturally but the next batch will only be with us for two years and then we will take them to a butcher to process.   It's not easy being a homesteader/farmer...

Some news...

Some good and some not good.

First the bad news.  We lost a chicken last Wednesday.  She hadn't been feeling good and wasn't eating or drinking much and had taken to sleeping all day in the coop.  We were concerned as she seemed to be going downhill fast.  Since she seemed to be cold, we brought her out in the sunshine for some warmth and talked and petted her.  Lucy passed just a few minutes after we had gone inside.  We buried her beside Molly underneath the butterfly bush.  She was the most tame and my hubby's favorite.  She was three years old and actually we weren't as upset as we thought we would be about her death.  She had a good life.  We'll miss her but this is farming...

RIP Lucy 

Now for some good news...cause life goes on.

We made the final payment for our little cabin.  Emanuel was putting on the roof this week and wanted to get the windows and doors in too that day.  Looks like he might be finished next week.  We'll need to go look at it and call the guy to move it.  We finished cutting up the limbs and stacked the wood last week and got the pad for the cabin all leveled out.  Next up, saving money for the well...and then the stove and then......well you get the idea ;)

Assorted pics from June and July

Here are some of the girls, furred and feathered.  Yes Penny thinks she's a chicken now.  She cries to go out with the girls.  Maybe they have meetings? LOL.  That bush on the right is a cherry.  Had lots of blossoms and even had some cherries but they all fell off. :(  The building in the back is the chicken feeding center.  The girls use it in the winter to get out of the cold too but just the feathered girls, Penny stays inside if it's too cold ;)

Here is Roxy and Penny looking to get in.  

Here are some of the blueberries and potatoes fresh from the garden.  You know how I was complaining of too many blueberries, well I should have kept my mouth shut because then we went into a severe drought and all the unripe blueberries wilted and died on the bushes.  

I canned some pickled beets.

This was the sky one afternoon.  So pretty I had to take a picture of it.

We had lots of grapes.  These are concords.  Hubby had fresh grapes for a couple of days.  What he didn't eat we gave to the chickens.  No I'm not too crazy about grapes.  I did make three quarts of grape juice though and it turned out pretty good.

Little update

GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain.  I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really.  The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all.  DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house.  We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms.  And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well.  We also have to do all the closet floors.  Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden.  We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us.  With the drought, there was one nice thing.  Not very many bugs.  But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.

I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden.  I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce.  I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.

KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day.  DH saw them and decided to buy them.  We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock.  Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks.  After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again.  My fingers were sore until the next day.  But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves.  I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL.  I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours.  That softened them up.  I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam.  Has anyone done this before?  I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.

I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that.  When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years.  At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.

I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden.  I'm thinking of canning most of those up.  I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast.  I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too.  I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.

CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine.  We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave.  Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things.  We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up.  This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.

CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately.  Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called.  Crazy girl!  And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them.  I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :)  Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.

QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it.  I just have to bind it and it will be done.  I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding.  I knitted up a little pair of footies for me.  I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair.  I even had a little bit left over.  The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks.  I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.

READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.  It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War.  If you haven't read it, it's about slavery.  Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think.  I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one.  I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there.  Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read.  Like I don't have other things that have to get done...

NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well.  The two places we called it was going to be over $6000.  Crazy.  Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum.  We have a couple more places to call.  Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable.  We have decided to get a little cabin.  We looked at a few and really liked them.  DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it.  I could say I told him so but I won't ;)  He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO.  We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around.  And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture.  This cabin is just the shell.  If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows.  Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale.  Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented.  You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores.  Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed.  Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it.  Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money.  Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging.  So DH and I decided that we will try to douse.  We're not going to dig however.  That can be dangerous.  Wish us luck!  I'll let you know what we find if  anything.

Well I think I caught you up on everything for now.  I hope to get some pics up soon.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

What I did on my summer vacation...

We took some time off from work and went on a little mini vacation (just overnight) to Pulaski, TN.  It was nice.  We couldn't stay away too long from home because of the chickens and overnight was a good little getaway for us.  We went to our land so DH could shoot some rounds and then went to the Bluebird Cafe for some lunch.  We then went looking for the motel we had looked up on the internet.  It was on the other side of Pulaski.  It wasn't much just a bed and bath.  Although they did have a microwave and fridge.  The beds were hard as rocks but we were so tired (why is it that driving around makes you tired?) that we didn't mind.  They had Dish on the TV so we got to watch some things we don't get to normally.  Then we went looking for a restaurant and found a wonderful one!  It is called the Rusty Spur and the food was fresh and tasted wonderful.        I had the chicken salad and hubby had to get a complete dinner.  The salad was HUGE!  It had fresh mushrooms, black olives, cheese, onions, carrots along with mixed greens (not all iceberg lettuce like most places) and a big piece of grilled chicken.  We also had fried mushroom appetizer.  Those mushrooms were really big.  I think you could have made a meal out of them as well but we were hungry so we ate the whole thing :)  

We got a paper while we were out to look at our new town's happenings.  When we were out at our land we went exploring.  We found a gun store not too far and a lot of Amish with signs up selling produce and such.  We also stopped and looked a these little cabins and garages in Ethridge.  They were very reasonable and the guy was not pushy.  I hate pushy salesmen.  He even told us to look the buildings over and then check out other businesses that sell the same type of buildings.  He said his were really well  built and after looking them over we agree.

That night we had a real light show.  It rained, it thundered and it lightning'd.  (Is that a word? LOL).  They had extremely high winds and so we really didn't sleep too well.  The next morning we got up and went to the Bluebird Cafe again but this time for breakfast.  We had biscuits and gravy and hash browns.  It was good and filling too!  Then we went back towards Ethridge and stopped at several Amish places to get milk,  cabbages, beets and a few odds and ends.  We came home then.  The next day we still had off from work so we weeded the garden.  I picked blueberries (OK I have enough now you can stop producing LOL).  We cleaned up the chicken yard.  I did four loads of washing and hung them out and then did a load of dishes.  We decided we needed to go back to work to rest up ;)

And that's how I spent my summer vacation...That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

More pics

More pics - I'm on a roll now...

The girls getting some early morning sun.

This is our new land.  That's my DH out there on the new riding lawn mower.  My official job when he's mowing is picking up sticks and branches and watching him.  It's a tough job but I think I'm highly qualified for it LOL. Really if he got hurt my job is to take him to the ER.  The land has about three acres cleared and the rest is woods.  On the left side of the pic is the woods and then there is a big gully.  It might have been a stream at one point back in the past but not now.  When we first looked at the land you could walk down to the gully and back up but not now.  Those trees and underbrush are thick!  

Finally here is a pic of the dried beans I canned.  Very easy to do and wonderful that when you want to make something with the beans they are already done   so no soaking!  Gotta love that.  These are black beans.  They lighten up when you can them.  I've done kidney beans, black eyed beans, Anasazi beans and northern beans now.  I'm all beaned out!

Pics

Just thought you might like some random photos since I haven't posted any lately:

DH with Lucy.  I think they have something going on out there in the chicken coop she gets so much attention ;)

Penny wanting back in

One of these things is not like the others.  It was the size of a quarter.

My early lavender.  Don't know what kind it is but I brought it with me from PA and it's doing really well down here in AL.  It gets really big heads on it, it blooms in April and the bees love it. (yes most of these pics are from Feb-March)  So sad I'm so slow on posting pics really it is.

Been away from the blog for a while...

To update everyone on how much I've been doing...and how exciting my life is...

The chickens are laying again...a lot.  I have several dozen eggs in the fridge.  We eat eggs almost every day for breakfast and I even made some egg salad the other day for lunch.  I really don't want to eat them for supper too, really I don't.

We planted cabbages, peas, lettuce, basil, potatoes in the garden.  I guess too early cause guess what, we're getting a freeze tonight and tomorrow night...hmmm hope we don't lose the blueberries and grapes.  I wanted to cover them tonight but hubby said they should be OK since it's a light freeze so he can't blame me if they freeze and all the berries drop off.

Dad and mom called yesterday to let me know that they had to rush to the hospital cause mom was having chest pains at 1 a.m.  Turns out she has a hiatal hernia and not having a heart attack.

We close on some new property we are buying tomorrow.  5 acres of land in Tennessee!  No house on it but we are planning on building one or getting a trailer (I don't like trailers, been there, done that and don't want to do it again :)  Hubby was thinking we might just build a pole building and then do the inside like we want but he wants to have a garage door...what?  Anyway he says then it will be easier to move in the furniture and appliances.  Guess  you can't argue with that logic huh?

My brother is moving to New York.  Dad and mom finally got him on the phone, hadn't heard from him for over two weeks.  I had left a message a couple of days after he had called me drunk.  He's an alcoholic and fell off the wagon again.  Glad he's OK.  Wish he would get his act together.

Our geriatric cat is on his last legs I'm afraid.  He's dragging his back leg and peed on our bed the other day.      I couldn't yell at him or anything, he's so old.  If he gets any worse, we'll probably have to take him to be put to sleep.  As long as he's eating and drinking, we'll keep him and love on him as long as possible.  Had to give him a bath tonight though he stunk so bad (all the peeing I think).  He's good about going to the litter box usually though.  I have shut him out of the bedroom.  I had the devil of a time getting the top pillow top clean (we have an air bed) and the top zips off.  It is so bulky and barely fits in the washer.  I put it outside to dry.

Hubby has been sick  but won't go to the doctor until after we sign the papers for the land.  I'm calling the doc to make an appointment when he's outside tomorrow...sneaky huh?

I got one cross stitched picture done.  I need to take some pics of it.  It's a fruit label and I'm making quite a few others to go with it.  I think I will make a quilted hanging out of them.  I'm still working on several sweaters and a pair of socks as well.  I get bored with one project and go to another one.

Well that's all I can think of for now.  Hope you had a very nice Easter!

Denise

Making something new for dinner...

Last night I decided I was sooooo boooorrrred with everything we had been eating that I would make something different for dinner so here is what I made:

I sauted onions and peppers in a bit of coconut oil until soft, added one pound of ground beef and cooked it until done.  I added a little cumen, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Then I had these frozen wrappers I got at the grocery store.  They said that they were for empada? sorry I didnt write down the word but basically Mexican beef turnovers.  I had thawed them out and put a little bit of the beef mixture in each one and hubby folded them over and used a fork to press together the edges.  He also poked a hole in the top of them to keep them from exploding in the oven.  I put them in a baking dish and put a little olive oil over top of them and popped them into the oven.  Baked them at 350 for about half an hour. 

Of course after we had them in the oven hubby mentioned that I had forgotten the cheese...grrr.  Hate when I leave out an ingredient but anyway we just put that on top of the hot turnovers and they were wonderful.  I will definitely be making these again with other ingredients.  We ate all 10 without any leftovers.  They would be great for a take to work lunch that you can eat with your fingers.  I can see them with mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and Italian seasonings or even bacon, eggs and peppers for a breakfast.  And the wrappers only had a few ingredients: flour, eggs and water.  We might even try to make our own wrappers with whole wheat the next time.  Just have to use our dough roller to get it thin enough and use a small plate to get the size right. 

Hubby decided that he wanted to make bread yesterday so I let him LOL.  Actually he did the initial dough and let it rise and I punched it down and put it in the bread pan.  The recipe was for two loaves so I used the rest of the dough to make a pizza and some cinnamon rolls (very tiny ones ;)  My mind was not really in the cooking mood yesterday not only did I forget the cheese in the turnovers but I forgot that you have to bake the pizza crust for 10 or so minutes before you put on the toppings.  Needless to say by the time the crust was done the cheese was a little brown...Ok, Ok it was burnt but it tasted good.  And hubby finished it off so it must not have been so bad right? 

One thing about whole wheat it really fills you up.  I even made two more loaves of bread and have decided that the recipe is wrong.  It doesnt make two loaves of bread (unless you like very small loaves) so the next time I make this recipe it will all go in one loaf pan and maybe we'll be able to actually have slices you can use for sandwiches instead of for bruschetta.  The loaves taste good just kinda flat.  Told hubby we could slice them the other way and make hoagies out of them but we dont eat hoagies anymore because of the processed meats (I cant eat them and he shouldnt).  He said he would just have short sandwiches (funny guy) and if there are any leftovers I know some little feathered friends that live outside that loooove bread so it wont go to waste.  I also got to use my dough bowl again and this time the dough didnt stick.  Guess I finally got enough oil on the sucker.  I think I used a whole bottle of olive oil on it.  It just kept drinking it up.  If you dont have a dough bowl I highly recommend it.  It keeps the dough warm so it rises better. 

Hubby found out how much the girls love bread the other day.  He took out a couple of slices torn apart of course and they mobbed him LOL.  They do that to me anytime I go out with my little yellow bowl.  They love bread, greens and grapes.  They go crazy for grapes.  I dont give them many of them cause I dont want them to get sick and have the runs if you know what I mean. 

So yesterday was a baking day and we just took it easy the rest of the day.  Back to work today for hubby and I'm working too so I can take off some time on Tuesday.  We are looking for some small acreage with a house to start our farm.  We've picked out three to look at on Tuesday.  Hope we find something soon before the gas rises up any more. 

Wish us luck!

Talk to ya later,

Denise

A little wind with your walk...

Hubby and I got a really big laugh the other day when it was so windy.  I went to leave the cats outside and the only one that really wanted to go out was Penny.  I opened the door (keeping a firm grip on it) and she started out.  The wind hit her and she crouched down belly walking with her ears laid back like that was going to help LOL.  Doesnt take much to amuse us ;)

If it's really windy and our old cat goes out not only does he lay his ears back but the wind almost knocks him down, poor old thing.  Not much to him but skin and bones.  He still eats and drinks but he's not gaining any weight.  And he cant hear as well so no matter how much you tell him something he just doesnt pay attention (I think all the parents with kids could relate to this LOL). 

It's really windy again today so I'll have to watch when I take the chickens their treat.  Dont want all of it to blow away.  Chickens dont seem to be bothered by the wind.  It just ruffles their feathers.  I cant believe it is up to 75 today.   Strange, strange weather.  Yesterday we had storm warnings out and there was a storm with some slight rotation with 70 mph winds.  Hope that didnt do anyone any damage. 

I'll try to take some pics here so you can see how our little plantlets are doing and I have gotten some projects done as well and want to show those to you too.

It happened...

We got a freeze last night down to 28.  I havent checked the blueberries but they might be OK.  DH said that they only had little buds on them. 

Big commotion out in the coop this morning and we're up to three eggs today!  Yay!  We have golden comet chickens and they are pretty noisy (proud) when they lay an egg.  We have three laying boxes out in the coop and of course they all want to lay in the same one at the same time it seems LOL.  I take them a treat every day in the afternoon.  Today they got some spinach and grapes.  They go bananas for grapes although there are a couple that just love the spinach.  There isnt much green out there so not much to nibble upon.  I went out with DH in the early evening.  He likes to see them before they go to bed and it relaxes him after putting in a long day at work.  Lucy wouldnt go up on his shoulder while I was out there.  I think she has a thing for DH ;) 

The cats are out except for Tikki who has decided that the only time to go out is in the early morning and after dark.  He has such delicate skin and is so worried about getting sunburned LOL. 

Hope your day is going great!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

I went, I saw and I conquered...

Well not really but I did go to therapy again today.  Boy oh boy did she hurt me but I can move my shoulder better tonight.  I have to go back on Wednesday and got new exercises to do tomorrow as well.  Yippee...yuck. 

Our chickens are giving us about two eggs every other day and look like they are out of molt now.  Our friendliest one, Lucy, also known as Lucy-Goosey, has a new trick.  Hubby likes to go out and pick her up and she must like it too because if you dont pay attention to her she pecks your leg.  Anyway she was being held by said Hubby when she flapped her wings and flew up and landed on his shoulder.  She is a character.  She also has gotten up onto his head before and pecked (very lightly) his hair.  She has pecked my leg before if I dont pay attention to her too but she likes Hubby better I think LOL. 

We had severe storms last night and there is still flooding in parts around our area.  I guess the almanac was right when they said we were going to have a wet winter.  I sure wish that some of the rain would hold off until summer though cause that is when we really need it.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

What strange weather...

Very very strange.  Yesterday we had severe thunderstorms and flooding and today we had snow and falling temps.  There is ice on the roads too. 

News on the home front:  Two chickens are now back to laying not just one like before.  We are up to two eggs every other day YAY!  Had to resort to some store bought eggs for a month there but back to really good eggs now.  Now if we could just get the mud out of their run.  Nothing like sinking an inch when I go to feed them.  It's like glue too.

Too Funny!

This is Penny.  Penny isnt supposed to be in with the chickens.  I went to let the cats in and she didnt come in so I called to her and I hear this little mournful meow coming from the chicken area...I dont know how she did it but she was inside the fence.  I think maybe she was chasing a sparrow and jumped over.  I made her wait until I got the camera LOL.  Of course the chicks thought I was bringing them something to eat.  Poor little Penny.  Those birds are bigger than she is ;)  Still makes me laugh looking at it.

No cats or chickens were harmed in the making of this pic.  My cats actually get along with the chickens.