Living the Simple Life

Cute Children and pets pictures

My Mom sends me some cute e-mails.  I love these one and had to share with you all.

Who is walking who?

I look like you or is it you look like me?

Ah, can I keep him?  (the dog is asking):

Um mom, why am I wearing clothes and his is not??

Look Mom at what I learned :

Just one little bite that's all:

Are you sure they taste like chicken??

Are you sure they are in here???

That's all for now, Blessings,Mj

3 July 2009.

Germs and The Days Plans

 Today and everyday!

Good Friday afternoon Friends and Family~

I pray this day finds you all well and healthy. We are doing well today but some of us are not so healthy. This has been a *germy* week around our house. There is a nasty cold going around and it all of the kids have it.

DD (18) picked it up from the camp she is working at. She said that there were A LOT of sick staff there last week. Some so sick that they couldn't get out of bed. She just managed to to get the sore throat and cold symptoms from it. She was able to keep going the rest of week with it and did a good job of not complaining.

The other 2 kids have had a harder time with it. Dd (15) has been really tired and just wore out from it. DS (10) had a really bad night of it last night with his asthma. All head colds always end up in his chest and it just brings on the asthma.I took him to the Dr. this morning and they gave him some antibiotics for it. Prayerfully he will be better soon as well as DD (15).

Hubby is off today. A good thing and a bad thing at the same time. It means less money for next weeks paycheck, but more time with his family. I'll take the time with us over the hours lost. GOD will take care of our needs and always does.

Hubby is also out visiting with some shut ins from our church. He took them some butter and milk. The lady he is visiting is about 80 years old and always had a cow when she was able to get out and about. He thought she might like some *old fashioned* milk and butter. Nothing is better than that in my opinion. 

I've had to change my plans for the 4th. We were to go to the beach tomorrow (a 4th tradition.) With 2 sick kids, we will have to forgo the beach for the weekend. We are blessed though in the fact that we can go when they are feeling better, seeing we live about an hour away. We'll just stay home and take care of some *undone business* around the house (there is ALWAYS UNDONE BUSINESS AROUND HERE.)

Here is what the rest of the day holds for me:

 ~Cook and debone chicken for Sundays dinner
~ Make a dessert for tomorrows dinner
~Make butter
~ Cut grass and weed eat
~ Make a Homemade pizza for dinner tonight
~ Then there are the *usual* days activities to deal with

Have a blessed day in THE LORD! Stay safe this July 4th weekend! Pray for our country and for our President's salvation!

7-2-09 Up-date

Kristi was board earlier today and decided to play wii.  She played monopoly with Hope!  Hope is our soon to be 10 year old golden medical alert service dog.  We train the dog to all kinds of stuff some funny and silly but this is too much!

Titus is doing great in his service dog training.  We took him out for the first time to go shopping and he was wonderful.  If we stopped and looked or spoke to someone he would lay down with out being told to.  I thought it was odd, so I kept testing him.  I would walk and stop not look at him he would just lay down .  That is amazing for a six month old puppy to do on his first outing in stores.  I wonder if Kristi is going to teach Titus to play monopoly??

We start training them as soon as they are born.  Also having good parents helps too.  It took me two years to find his parents, to find the lines I was looking for.  Now we need one more female golden.  We might get one from Alex's breeder.

Blessings, Mj

Thursday

June 2, 2009

Kristi and Mya's new adventure in pictures

Okay, Janet is in trouble she let Kristi and Mya run free on the mountain.  Worse yet with a camera .  Here are some pictures of the adventure.

1. Is Kristi finding out there are more than one of her:

2. Mya discover pine cones, do pine nuts come from pine cones??:

3. Is Kristi playing cars (she is the car)

4. Maybe I will be a better car sitting down??

5. Better yet I will play speed bump!! Did I send Kristi with her insuance card???

6. Mya discovers a cow and gives it a kiss !!

7. Milk comes from here ???? I know the poor thing , will she ever get over the shock???

8. Then they made friends with the locals:

JANET!!!!, we do not let the girls play speed bump in the middle of the Road!!! /.    We need to let the girls out of the house once in a while.  Poor Mya was so lost as to where milk comes from!! And did not know what a pine cone was!!!   Poor Kristi she thought there was more than one of her!!  Look at the locals nails on that local, see how long they are?? They could hurt the girls!!

Sorry but I had to write and show the pictures , they are so cute.  I will show more latter.

Blessings Mj

The Harvest Is In!

Good Thursday Morning Fellow Homesteaders! What a beautiful day it is today. Not too humid but still pretty hot. We will be in the lower 90's again today. Such is the season here in southeastern NC.

The harvest here at Piney Woods Homestead is in. The corn is all picked and put up. We ended up with about 200 ears. I left it all on the cob because the ears were so small. It is a far cry from the 500 we were expecting. It is on the other hand the most corn that has come out of our garden in at least 5 years. I am most thankful indeed. 

I am praying that the guy down the road from us will have a good supply of corn up for sale soon. I got about 3 bushels from him last year and it was really good corn. I will be thankful for whatever comes my way. A little or a lot.

The beans are also gone now. I ended up with about 10-12 gallon sized freezer bags. That is also the most our beans have produced in years. Again, I say," Thank you LORD!" for meeting our needs.

The tomatoes we planted have just started getting ripe enough to pick. I chose Romas this year because I wanted to learn to make my own spagetti sauce with them. Well, they seem to be getting black spot on them just as they are ripened. We have managed to pick a few, but not many. What we are getting will be used just to eat with dinners.Again, we have learned A LOT from this garden.

The taters are great! I picked some over a month ago and they are still on my cabinet with none rotting or sprouting. I am seeing how long they will last in my house without having to can them. Once I get a good idea of how long they wil last, we will dig the rest of them up and store them in our *tater box*.

Here is what didn't do so well at all;

Peanuts (A few plants came up, not enough though.)
Popcorn (a bust)
Cucumbers (enough to snack on as needed)

Our field corn that we wanted to use for chicken feed turned into squirrel feed! The little buggers dug up the kernels and ate them as the stalks were first coming up. We thought it was the birds at first. I found out it was the squirrels when I went down there after hearing crows in that area.( I thought they were the problem.) When I got there, I saw the little buggers feasting on the small stalks (seeds.) THAT little experience has also taught us a lot. Live and learn has become the motto for this Homestead. Experience really is the best teacher.

All in all I can say that this is the best garden that we have had in years. It has also taught us A LOT in the way of farming for a small family. Oh well, its now time to start thinking about the Fall garden.

Thank you LORD for meeting our needs and thank you LORD for all that YOU have taught us this summer season!

Blessings,

Ground Cherry Fruit

Good morning everyone,

I am slowly recovering.  I am still not sure what I have.  I am using coloidal Silver now and it seems to be helping.  I am up and around but on "limited duty" so to speak.  I went to two sewing classes this week.  I have learned so much!  So what if I had to rip out my side seams several times.  I had to get the tension set on my new machine and I had to sew straight!!  I have never had a problem sewing straight lines before..........hmmmmmm.  I learned plenty of things.  I am sure the things I learned are so easy for people who already sew.  However, they are very exciting to me.  I am learning to cut out a pattern, read a pattern and cut out a garment,  I am learning how to make a skirt!  This one is an A line skirt that includes a waist band, zipper and interfacing.  I bought enough material to make a matching shirt. Yesterday, I even learned how to change the foot on my new machine.  Everything is so much easier when you have someone to show you and let you just "do it".

Today, I must do housework, laundry and make bread. After two days if sewing classes and looking for a new washing machine...........I have things to do. Hubby is off work tomorrow for the holiday .  Our family plans to spend the 4th at the lake watching the fireworks display as we always do.

Here are the promised pictures of the ground cherries.  They are quite tasty!  They have a mild tropical flavor. 

May the Lord bless and keep you each and every one!

The new Transformers Movie.

Lilli and I went to see the new Transformers movie yesterday.  It was really really good and we both enjoyed it.  When it was over, she said, "Optimus Prime is my favorite Transformer".  I had to agree, that he is my favorite too.

It was very cool watching them transform on the big screen.  I know that makes me a dork, but I really did enjoy it ;)  Of course, I used to watch the cartoon when I was younger, so to see it on the big screen...well, it was cool.

From a mom's perspective...be warned that there is a lot (LOT) of bad language and more sexual references than in the first Transformers movie.