FindingHome

Rainy Monday

It has been gloomy and dreary all day long.........and tomorrow is supposed to be the same or worse.  Yuck!  I really need sunshine to have any ambition at all, so as you can imagine, I haven't gotten much done today.  I have a "few" indoor projects I could be doing, maybe tomorrow some of them will inspire me, I sure hope so.

We actually didn't buy anything at the auction Saturday except 4 roller pigeons.  There was lots of critters there for sale, but nothing that really interested us, so we left about 1/2 way through the sale. 

Got home that evening and found out a lady wanted pies made for Sunday........so I spent Saturday night baking.  Remember I just said I was glad the pressure of baking every Friday was over for the summer??  Well, I had an order for 3 pies on Friday afternoon, and then made 6 more on Saturday night.

We had a pot-luck dinner at church yesterday.  A friend and neighbor gave me some eggplant and a recipe last week, so I tried it out.  It turned out good.  As always there was lots of good food there.

We have an interim pastor right now, he has been there about 6 weeks.  I can see the Lord working through him and it is exciting!  He is such a caring man and really stresses prayer.  Almost every Sunday there have been people going forward for baptism ( our church is Baptist) and to join the church.  You would not think people would make those kinds of decisions without a full time pastor.  There is just a different attitude, very exciting indeed!

Hubby has been working, until the rain, on getting the garden worked up.  It will be quite a bit bigger next year.  We also need to have a spot ready for some blackberry plants.  Some friends asked if we wanted some starts next spring.....of course I said yes!  They will have to be someplace safe from goat escapes.  Not sure there is any such place???

I know there are mixed feelings about Oprah, but I saw advertised today that her show tomorrow, Tuesday, might be interesting.  It is Where does our food come from, or something close to that.   They showed some free range chickens.  Don't know what it will include, but I thought it might be of interest to watch and see how they present the topic.  It may make us small producers look bad or it may bring us some great advertisement............

The weather man said there are frost warnings for the north-west part of Kansas tonight.........yikes, I know it is coming soon enough but I am not ready! 

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

zipper trouble

I have a little advice about wringing laundry with a wringer...never put thick Levis in the wringer.  It didn't break the wringer...it snapped the zipper off of the jeans.  I did think in advance and choose a pair of jeans that had a whole in them.  I didn't think it was safe to wring them, but wanted to "know" if it was safe or not.  I wouldn't recommend it.

My youngest daughter Madison (5) helped me plunge the laundry.  She didn't have to, but refused to allow me the quiet time I kinda wanted by insisting on helping.  I let her help, and she did so well.  We plunged a whole hamper of clothes.  I chose the clothes  that I knew weren't very dirty to make it easy and quick.  Last night I soaked my napkins/dish rags in bleach water.  I use these napkins for everything and anything because we don't buy paper and I want them clean.

Today Patty is having a birthday party for two of her kids.  We are going over there for dinner tonight.  This is a busy birthday month for our group. 

I am so excited to have my whole family together for Thanksgiving.  It is really getting close. I am so excited to have both my brothers and their families and my mom and dad here.  My brother Joe hasn't even seen Texas yet, so I am double happy he is finally able to get down here. 

Well, it is starting to rain and I have clothes on the line.

Blessings, Brenda

grocery shopping

It was shopping day.  I went to Wal-mart to do my big grocery shopping.  I had to stock up on the staples.  I bought a lot of things.  I do have to buy some things at Sams Club on Sunday after church.  I spent only $336 on food.  I figure I need to spend another $140 at Sams and I spend about $20 a week on perishables like milk, fresh veggies or fruit.  This makes my grand total for a month worth food $556.00.  This is for a family of 16 people.  We do make our own bread, pancakes, waffles, rolls, goodies, etc. from scratch.  We don't buy any (none that I can think of and if any not many) premade foods.  I buy my meat in bulk at Sams Club by the case.  We stock up on as much as we need for at least a month so when it is time to buy some things not all things need to be filled.  It helps if this month I over buy the flour and next month I can over buy the rice and beans.  It works out well if you keep it up.

Now I am going to start some winter type sewing projects.  My girls need dresses and I need some skirts.  I usually have been fortunate enough to find skirts I like that are modest and buy enough of the style to get by for a while.  I have skirts.  I want comfortable work skirts that I can get dirty, are durable, yet gives me free movement.  I have a couple now, but a girl can only wear the same work skirts over and over again (I am washing them) without feeling rag-a-muffin-y.  I will try to copy my comfy work skirt and see if I can make one.

What's a girl to do about Christmas? ? ? Each year we tone down the worldly Christmas and celebrate the real Christmas more and more.  I love the Christmas celebrations and decorations.  I have to decide what to do about gifts.  We do a gift exchange with my sisters family and Patty's family.  We do a gift exchange among our kids.  Then usually we buy our kids a couple of presents.  I can't believe it is already time to really get serious about Christmas plans.

I have to hang out a couple of loads of laundry before I turn in for the night.

Blessings,

Brenda

great deals

We have some exciting things happening around here.  First of all my two sixteen year olds Jordan and Amber got their drivers licenses yesterday.  For some people this is scary, but I am so excited.  Now 6 of the kids are drivers.

Next my second oldest son Josh, just turned 18!!! I can't even believe that he is 18.  I am so proud of him.  He is the one that does the teaching at the nursing home.  What a handsome man he turned into.

Some of the kids are doing funny mouths because they are singing Happy Birthday while the picture was being taken.

Here some of the kids are eating outside for the party.  We made tacos and rice.  There are an awful lot of girls.

Here some kitties find a warm place to sleep in my husband's boots.  There are two kittens in each boot, the bottom one is hard to see in the picture.

Do you know what this is???Yes, it is a wringer.  I am so, so happy.  I went to an antique store with my sister and found this wringer.  You know I tried the mop bucket and it didn't work well.  I can't even believe I found a working wringer.  It has the patent date on it of 1888.  I am so excited.  I can't wait to get plunging and wringing.

I also found this wonderful perculator.  The coffee was fabulous.  The stove top is dirty because we were in the middle of making tacos when I obsessed and had to take a picture of the coffee pot on the stove.  I had a great shopping trip in my sister's town.  I even found another oil lamp for only $3.  Oh, I only paid $21.25 for the wringer. 

Well, have a great day.  Today is my big grocery shopping day.  I better get the lists ready. 

Blessings,

Brenda

I shoulda, but I didn't

do anything with the last of the tomatoes today.  We picked them and pulled the vines a few days ago.  Hubby has mowed the garden and is working on the tiller to get it all worked up for the winter.  Anyway, the tomatoes were top on the list for today, but I seemed to find enough other things to do all day.  I really wanted some more canned and now that I have them, I can't seem to make myself get to them. Why is that?  They are not real nice, most very small and some have bad spots, so I think I will make juice out of what I can salvage now.  It will NEED to be done tomorrow as we will be gone all day Saturday.

We will be going to an exotic sale Saturday, it is held near here 3 times a year.  We always enjoy it, you just never know what might be there.  We do not plan to buy much.........famous last words, I know.  The only thing we are really looking for is a couple of doves.  We got a really neat big cage this spring and have not gotten anything to put in it.  Usually things sell really cheap at the fall sale as folks are thinning out before winter, so it is a good time to buy if there is something we need. We don't have anything to take to sell this time either.  We are going to take the last puppy we saved from Sophie's litter and see if we can give her away.  We intended to keep her, but just do not need one more dog to feed.  She would make someone a good farm dog and we want her to go to a good home!

I spent the afternoon redoing the fence in one of the goat pens.  I only started out to take out a gate and replace it with a cattle panel.  Well, all of it was in need of some fixin up, so ended up changing out the walk in gate and redoing all of the T-posts.  I also started to enlarge their pen on the other side, got a couple of panels up, but decided to wait to move the rest of the fence............this old lady was getting tired!

We got the last freezer cleaned out this week.  Well, it wasn't defrosted like it should have been, so I should say straightened out.  It was sad to throw out all that needed thrown out, but it had to be done.  Some things weren't marked or dated and some were just old.  There is a bunch of misc. meat that I will thaw out and give the dogs along. We are doing a much better job now, always marking and dating before putting anything in the freezer.  I am much more aware of the importance of keeping up with that job recently.  One of the freezers is empty for the winter and all cleaned out, so we have it turned off now.  Hubby stocked up on ground beef yesterday before he went to Farmers Market. 

Market was very quiet yesterday, it is winding down for the year.  I am glad the one I have here is over, I enjoy baking, but the pressure every Friday gets tiring. 

Yesterday was  our Grandson's 15th birthday, Happy Birthday Bodhi.

Today was another perfect fall day here, I wish I could order about 2-3 months more of them so I could get everything done outside I want to and need to get done!

I am tired and ready to head to bed.............Good night to all.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

amazing son

God has blessed me above measure on so many things.  I can't even list the blessings in my life, there are so many. One of the spectacular blessings that seems to go on like the energizer bunny is my oldest son Miles.  He has always been a blessings, but out here where there are so many things that need doing, he is able to shine.  One of the two water heaters in this house started leaking.  The closet it is in is so small there isn't really a way to work on it.  In fact, to get the water heater out we are going to have to take the door frame off.  I budgeted the water heater into this months budget.  I saw one at Home Depot for $330.  I budgeted $400 because I know that is the nature of the beast and everything costs more than you expect and everything on an old home breaks as you touch it.  Miles had been thinking about this water heater because we were going to replace it this week.  He came up with an alternate plan.  He would run both bathrooms off of the one larger water heater that is easier to reach and work on, plus the average house has one water heater to use on the whole house.  My house tends to be a house of after thoughts and things were hooked here and there to make up for someone after thought (before we bought).  He ran into town after his very long day of school and bought everything to do this.  Instead of costing $400 it only cost $25.  Now I can buy a stove with the difference.  I don't want to buy my dream stove right now, just something that the stove top and oven works (that seems like a dream stove right now). Once we remodel the kitchen I will buy the dream stove.  After many hours under the house (in the crawl space) he had the second bathroom up and running.  He is totally amazing to me.  This is my 20 year old who has never seen anyone do this, but can figure it out.  He is my carpenter, electrician, plumber, chef, bird raiser, neat freak, organizer, fashion lover, decorator, mechanic, architect, problem solver, listener, opinionated, honest, loyal, committed, Christian, and one of my very best friends.  God has surely blessed me.

I hope all of you have someone like him in your life. 

Blessings, Brenda

goat bbq

Today was just an ordinary Tuesday.  My older kids had classes and I just took the morning to do laundry, clean up the house, etc.  My friend Patty called to ask advice on killing a sick chicken.  She didn't really know what was wrong with it, but it was laying there complaining.  I told her what we do when we kill a chicken, but after telling her what to do, I asked if she wanted us to go over to show her how to do it.  Well, we went over, killed the chicken, visited her many animals, hung 2 shelves, and helped her write a letter that she needed to get out.

When I got home my husband wanted to butcher a goat.  He told me to call my sister and Patty and invite them and their families to eat it with us.  I didn't eat the goat, but I barbecued it for everyone.  My husband and the kids butchered the goat, then I seasoned it and barbecued it.  Most of the kids loved it.  A couple of the kids couldn't get over the visual of the dead goat hanging from the tree.  Out of the 25 kids here at least 20 of them loved it.  We don't have hardly any meat left.  Patty loved it, Carrie tried it, and I cooked it.  It was successful.  I wouldn't have a problem doing this again. 

It was a nice day with everyone visiting.  I love to have my sister over. 

Blessings, Brenda

showers a plenty

We have been blessed

with lots of produce this fall and we are thankful for it! 

Last month we were able to go into town and pick some grapes for free.  I made grape jam out of them and got 18 jelly jars.  I prefer jam to jelly and think it is easier to make anyway.  At the same time a friend called and offered peaches, I intended to go and pick some of them for jam, but about that time it started raining and raining and I didn't make it.   We had purchased 2 bushel of peaches also just a few days before she called and I needed to get them taken care of first.  I mostly made frozen pie fillings out of them, and saved some out to eat fresh, today I made some peach butter out of some of the ones left.  I should say am making peach butter as I type............that takes a long time!   Our neighbor has apple trees that he told us to just pick what we wanted, he wasn't going to use any of them.  We have picked some and I have made apple crisp and some things, but we need to go and see if there are more as I would like to make some applesauce.  Yesterday we went to some friends house that have a CSA to pick green beans.  They sent out an email the evening before stating that their fall beans were going strong and they needed help!   They were guessing there were about 1000 pounds of beans to be picked and they couldn't keep up...........whew, I think he was right.  We picked a little over 50 pounds and didn't make a dent in them.   So, yesterday afternoon and evening we snapped beans!!!  Today we canned enough for us for the winter needs.  We will take some to Farmers Market, give some to Mom, and eat some fresh.  As we do many times, this spring we sold too many from our garden and didn't end up canning enough for us.  We planted a couple of rows this fall thinking we would can more, but the geese ate them.  So, we were thrilled when we were able to get these.  Today we pulled up some of the tomato plants.  I was surprised at how many ripe ones there were or at least starting to turn.  So, I believe that I will be able to do one more batch of salsa yet too.   We dug the sweet potatoes a couple weeks ago and sold most of them, but I kept the small ones for us to eat.  So, with the chickens and other meat we have in the freezer we are pretty well set for winter.  The only thing we will be short on is potatoes............we eat a lot of potatoes!  Some friends plant a ton of them and sold at Farmers Market.  We called them the other day to see if we could buy some to store for the winter and they had sold them all.  We really need to plant more next year.  We are planning to enlarge the garden area so we can.

This week we moved the little pullets into another house that has an outdoor pen.  They had been in the brooder house the first 4 weeks.  They are so cute out running around, they really think they are grown up. We imagined little chickens running everywhere, but it went very smoothly.  We made a little alleyway with boards from one house to the other and just herded them along.

A friend of ours went on a little goat buying trip, so I went over and did chores for her 2 days.  The first day hubby went along and everything went smooth.  The second day he stayed home to snap those beans......and I got there to find that the cattle were out and a goat also.  Luckily the bull was out also, but in a different area and he didn't even see me coaxing the cows back in with range  cubes......  I really don't know what I would have done if he had been with them as I would not have tackled the job of getting him in by myself!  He was away from the road and safe so I just left him alone. 

We have been enjoying the most perfect fall days.........I am truly Thankful for those too.  Today the sky was so blue and the breeze had a little cool feel to it, with the sun shine, just perfect.  Thank you Lord for spoiling us.

The folks with the CSA gave me a couple of tomatoes to try. Nebraska Wedding and Georgia Peach.  They are heirlooms so I am saving the seeds.

I got some extra milk this evening at the local dairy and plan to try to make some cheese.  I have wanted to do this for a long time.  If I don't get to it, I can freeze the milk.  We go through spells of using a lot of milk and then times when we use very little.  We are not milk drinkers, so unles the grandkids are here, it is just what I use in cooking and baking.

There are so many things that need done outdoors these nice days, I sure hope we have some more of them.  Sheds to clean, painting to do, garden to finish up, windows to wash.........I am sure a few more things as well.   I did cut some flowers this week to root and keep over the winter.  I am afraid we will have an early frost and I wanted to be sure and get them in.  I still have some geraniums to bring in, but I can do that when they predict the frost, there are only a few of them.  I also have saved some seeds, I probably have enough Hollyhock seeds for everyone!  Here is a picture of them this summer, I sure enjoyed them.

Tomorrow is son Ryan and Edye's 10th wedding anniversary.  Happy day to you both.  How in the world can 10 years go by so fast?  They are the parents of Alexis, Nicholas and Madelyn that I talk about on here quite often.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

wringer hand?

I start out this morning a little handicapped.  My left hand is swollen, I assume from the wringing of the laundry.  The mop wringer did not work.  I bought one that I am going to return.  It takes out some of the water, but not even the amount I can squeeze out.  It was a waste of money in my opinion.  I looked online at Lehmans and the wringers are expensive.  I will see what else will work in the future, but for now I will wring until I develope debilitating carpel tunnel syndrome then use the washer...Am I crazy or what????

I haven't been quilting, but have everything to start a quilt.  I know three women who are pregnant that I can make baby quilts for.  A sad story happened yesterday.  We were invited to a baby shower on Sunday.  We had a pot luck after church so we couldn't go.  Yesterday my daughter who works with the young woman (unwed, living with the young man in sin), the girl we will call "Scarlet" came to work devastated because no one went to her baby shower.  She had given for herself and gave invitation on the Wednesday before.  Anyway....guilt ridden and sad I offered to give her a baby shower Saturday.  I called my sister and our friend Patty and of course they are thrilled to help out.  I know she isn't making the right choices in life, but to lead her to the LIGHT we have to look better than where she is.  To a Christian obviously we are in a better place, but to a wallowing unbeliever where we are seems impossible to obtain.  I will love her into a place of acceptance and love and she will see that we are the same as her we are just covered by the blood and walking toward a different goal.

I better get a plunging. . . Besides electricity...which we are trying to use sparingly...what else can I try to cut down on or do differently?  Any suggestions?

Blessings,

Brenda