OH MY GOSH, THE BERRIES! Some people have  green thumbs, well mine is blackberry colored these days.  We have been picking berries for about two weeks now and I tell you, there seems to be no end in sight. We have picked probably 12 to 14 five gallon buckets full. My daughter, a friend, and myself have so many gallon bags in the our freezers, and not to mention what we're eating each week. As my friends says, "there are berries for days and days out here!"

   God has blessed us this year with the fruit. My son and I are even making a couple of dollars on the side. We are selling a gallon of berries for $5 each.  Each day we go out and pick a gallon or two. Nothing goes to waste because if we don't sell it, it goes into the freezer or they are cooked. Yesterday I made a cobler with some. My daughter and I are also making dumplings and preserves. My husband likes to eat them mashed with sugar and pet milk.

  So here is my question to you all. How do you use blackberries? Does anyone have a recipe for the berries that they might share with me. Someone told me to make a cake and add them in it. That I might try this weekend.  But if anyone has a recipe for something different, please share it with me. I was even thinking of making some tarts or a pie, but I don't have a recipe for pie. Is it the same as with apples, do you add a bit of flour to absorb some of the liquid. HELP PLEASE, LOL! 

    I'm sooooo ready for Spring, come on Spring!   I'm STILL decluttering my home, the thrift shops will make lots of money off me, lol. Took some time off from cleaning to spend a wonderful day with my daughter Kristy  on Saturday for her 26th birthday. We started the day at home with me cooking her favorite breakfast of grits, eggs and bacon, not very healthy, but hey it was a special day. Then we headed out and  hit the only two garage sales in town and  some of our favorite stores. These stores included Old Navy, hers and Sam's, mine. You'll know I'm crazy for me some Sam's! We also stopped by a favorite of both of ours, the Goodwill shop. It's a great big store in a near by town and it's very well stocked and neat. I love it because it carries a large selection of plus size clothing, which is me, plus size. I found the cutest pink and brown sweat suit with a jacket and pants that do not have elastic on the bottom,  for $5. I was too excited to find out that by losing the weight I've recently lost, I've gone down several sizes in pants, shirts, and dresses, YAY ME!!!!!!!!

     My daughter and I also had lunch at her fav resturant,  Olive Garden. I'm OK with it but since I can't have too much pasta and/or carbs, there really isn't too much there for me, but I pulled through like a trooper, lol.  We finished our day by coming home to have some strawberry cheese cake that I had made the night before, again her fav. So the day was so great, I love spending time with her, which is a rarity these days since she started working full time.

    Anyway, I wore the sweat suit yesterday to Walmart and as my son Zach and I were "self" checking ourselves out, (I hate those things, but do it anyway), Zach starts to laugh and tells me to look behind me. A lady wearing the exact  same sweat suit as mine. My cousin who works at Walmart and was standing there talking with me, starts to laugh at my son laughing. I  then  had to  laughed when my cousin asked me if I wanted to hide. NO, why should I hide, she apparently has the same good taste in clothing as I do. And I proudly let out, "But I bet she didn't pay only $5 for hers!" LOL LOL

   Well it's still cold here, as everywhere else I'm so sure. Us folks down here just aren't use to this cold air. Most years we are already tilling the ground and starting our seeds for our gardens. Most of the time I'm already buying flowers for the front of the house. Our nuseries are stocked with color already and that puts me in the mood.  BUT since it's so cold outside, I have no urge whatsoever to be out there digging in the dirt.  Yesterday Zach made a kite for a science project. It came out too cute. But when it came time to try it out, mom was too cold to stay out there a watch it fly for very long. It did fly tho, so he gets an A, lol.  Today's work is for him to get on the internet and find out  how and why it stays up in the air.

   I do hope everyone is having a good week and keeping warm. I'm going to try and stay warm with a big pot of  hot chicken, sausage, okra gumbo. I do feel for all of you who are dealing with the snow. I'm telling you one thing for certain, I would be of no use to anyone if I had to deal with snow of any depth. LOL Keep warm ladies!

   Whew, I had a busy week.  Monday was my youngest son's birthday, he turned the big "sweet sixteen".  We had his party last Saturday evening. He wanted boiled crabs with all the fixins. So I found a man not too far from me that was still catching and selling them by the dozens. I got 10 dozen for $48. Not bad at all for fresh crabs, they ususally go for $12 per dozen most times.

  We had several people over for the crab boil and I also served his cake and ice cream. What a meal, boiled crabs with cake and ice cream. LOL. All was good though. Monday was his official birthday so I took him out for lunch and let him skip school for the day. I also promised him a trip to a near by Academy Sports store, his favorite place to shop. He's all boy, loves the hunting and fishing of it all.  So we did that yesterday afternoon. 

   I have been working on decluttering my home. I have made several trips to the Goodwill with a car load each time. I have cleaned out things that I have not been into in years. My hope chest for one. I had things in there that I didn't even know I had at all. Serves me right. I have two closets left to get into and a few dressers and drawers. It feel so good to clean and get rid of things. I hardly threw anything away. I am a firm believer in reusing things, so off to the thrift stores my old stuff went.

   One of our local grocery stores is giving away trees promoting "Going Green".  Five trees per person, so my husband came home with some little pine trees. I may go back in the morning and see if I can get a few more. I think that is such a great idea. They have oak and pine trees. I would have prefered the oak, but he brought home the pines. I love trees, so much natural beauty.

   Well it's been really cold down her in the south lately. I know it doesn't beat what you ladies up north are getting, but down here us southerners can't handle anything below 50*, LOL.  But even tho it's really too cold for me, I promised my daughter that I would go garage sale-ing and to the farmers market with her in the morning. There is really nothing I need or want, but I love spending time with her. Since she started working full time I never see her anymore, and she lives only two houses down from me. She is always busy, so cold or no cold, I'm heading out with her in the morning. Wish me luck!

   Well I hope everyone has a great and warm weekend.

   Another year has come and gone, and I have to say, I'm kinda glad. I don't usually say that 'cuz with each passing year and/or day, I get a little older, but 2008 wasn't a banner year for me. The whole thing with mom's Alzheimers taking over her life poor heart and me having to put her in a home wasn't a good thing to say the least. Not too mention the hurricanes that hit us, the lost of several people in my life and last but not least, my husband wanting a divorce, well as I said, I'm glad it's over.  I do hope and pray 2009 brings a much better outcome. I do see good things ahead for me if God willing.

   The last couple of days were busy ones for me.  Not long ago my husband came home with two little pigs and on Tuesday we slaughtered one for a New Years gathering here at our home.  So I have been getting ready for that, cooking and baking, and  yesterday we had 27 people here for lots of good food and a good time. It didn't take as long to cook the little fellow as I thought it would. We put him on the rotisserie  around 6:30 yesterday morning and it was done by noon. Pretty good. We still had lots of fire so I ran to the store and bought four chickens to cook. I figured I wouldn't have to cook for a couple of days. Well to my surprise, most of it all went. There is no  chicken left, what didn't get eaten here was taken home by some family members. Not fair! LOL

   The guys are out fishing this morning so I will be working on school plans for the rest of the year. I do half in August and the other half now. This is just incase we get off schedule or Zach falls behind in something that we need to keep working with, which is the case in Math this time.  So with that said, let me get off of here. I have a batch of clothes to put out on the line and one to fold, then off to the lesson plans.

   I do hope everyone had a wonderful New Years and that everyone HAS a great new year filled with blessings and prosperity.

First let me show you what I did last week that I said my daughter said was, and I quote, "tacky" and "1960's ish".  I never thought I'd do it, but I really kinda like it now thats it done. I painted some large rocks that I had laying around the yard. I had brought them back from a vacation that we'd taken to Georgia a few summers ago. 

I also went ride by mom's house over the weekend and picked up the first of two birdbaths that she had in her backyard. I would have gotten both, but the car was loaded down with garage sale finds at the time.

Speaking of garage sale finds, there was a rummage sale at the local E School. If you are not familiar with that, it's an organization that helps tutor homeschooled children. I could never afford to send my child there though. A friend of mine sent her little girl there once a week and had to make a loan to be able to afford to do so. So Zack won't be attending, lol. But they were pretty much "giving away" work books on Saturday. Every book and workbook in the place was on sale for a quarter. Yes, 25 cents. Needless to say I walked out of there with a large amount of books and workbooks for the upcoming school year. Very pleased with that. Here are some of them.

The wasp are on the war path here. I have had to distroy several nests so far. Here is a picture of a wasp staring at me from inside a little bird house. He looked like he was daring me, and lets just say, he is no longer.

Here is one more view, a beautiful view. My birthday is this week and my sweet son Zachary had his sister take him to the store yesterday so he could buy this for me before he spent all of his money on himself. LOL How sweet is that. I wish he wouldn't have done that though, I hate that he spent all of his allowance and hard earned grass cutting money on me. You know how it is Moms. But aren't they gorgeous?

A quarantine has been placed on citrus trees in our parish because an insect responsible for spreading a plant-killing virus was found here.  The bugs, called Asian citrus psyllids, were collected in our area in June. Samples were sent to ag officials who confirmed the pest's presence. The paper is not saying exactly were in our parish. This insect carries a devastating citrus disease that can spread citrus-greening desease, also known as huanglongbing. The disease prevents citrus fruit from ripening and ultimately kills the tree.

Both Asian citrus psyllid and citrus greening desease are on the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's list of quarantined pests and diseases.  Since it's a flying insect, controlling its natural movement is really very difficult.

According to the LSU AgCenter Lafourche, our parish, is the state's second largest parish in citrus acreage including many growers who moved here from the New Orleans area after the 2005 hurricanes distroyed thier crops there. 

(Taken from our area newspaper this morning)

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OK well, this is not good! I have several citrus trees that produce heavily each year. I am going to have to do much more reserch on this and watch them closely. My bil just this past weekend cut down several citrus trees in his yard  that had been there for years and years, because they looked "sick". I bet that was what was wrong with them. Even worse, he only lives two houses down from me, yuck! And not to mention, now the price of citrus  will sky rocket............

Not too much going on here on the plantation so far. Well lets see........

A is for Alligator. This is what happens when all the other kids go to school. He has to find something to do with all his free afternoon time, LOL. Look at that face, he acts like it's nothing.

  It was set free after he played with it for a while, yes, he played with it, but sweetly, LOL.

B is blackberries.  Last year my cousin gave me two shoots from her bushes and one took. But from that one bush I managed to get some of the biggest juiciest berries. I have made several desserts in the last couple of weeks with them, the latest being dumplings yesterday.  I put that quarter in there to show just how big they are. I am taking several shoots from my plant to add more bushes.

C is for a clothes basket full of corn.  I noticed one of my clothes baskets were missing yesterday, but  didn't worry, so I  was very surprised when my dh stopped by in mid morning with this. He was on the road yesterday and knew he would be passing near a roadside stand of fresh produce. He purchased all of this for $15. Is that high where you'll are? It's a good price here.

After shucking and cutting, I ended up with a good bit. So this morning will be spent cooking this in my roaster. After supper I will put the rest in the freezer.

D is for dese flowers and dese chickens.  ( I know I know lol) My mom always called these or dese, four o'clocks because they bloom in the late afternoon. I like them because they grow back each year bigger and better and I have to do nothing for that to happen. LOL

Well have a great week, mine is going pretty good so far.

         OH my gosh, the weather outside is so nice today. My clothes are blowing on the line, there are wild flowers all over the yard, the kittens are playing on the patio, and the hens, well they're doing the same ole stuff they always do, all except for one that is.  I have all the windows open in the house this morning, except for moms, she is still sleeping. I love this time of year, spring is my favorite time of all. I wish I could live some place where it  was spring time all year round, I know, I'm dreamin.

         Well Zachary was given a new pet from one of the neighbors. They had it for over three years, not sure why they decided to give it up, but oh well, Zack has it now.  Meet Sal as in Salmanella  lol.

See that little black dot, that's breakfast, a dead fly from outside, yuck.  Kristy was running to walmart so I asked her to pick up some turtle food for it.  OK, lets see how long this one last. The last one Zack had, he had for almost two years, untill I put it on the back patio in the dead of summer and it boiled to death from the heat. Yes, I boiled the pet,  Fatal Attraction anyone, LOL.

Here are the girls having breakfast this morning. They are doing a wonderful job of providing us with almost a dozen eggs a day. I have more than I need and am able to give some away to friends and neighbors. Everyone tells me that I should sell them but I don't like doing that, I would rather just give them away.

I mentioned earlier that they were all out with the exception of one. Well last week my freezer went kaput and died on me. So for now it's in the back yard, which I really really hate, but for now, that is where it is.  Well I don't like waste so I took all the racks and the drawer out of it thinking that I may find something to do with them later. Well viola, a hen box for laying.  It fit perfectly on the somewhat small shelf and with some fresh hay, they started laying in it the next morning. Well  one little missy took a fancy to the new box and claimed it for herself. So now she is setting on some eggs. I'm really hoping they hatch this time around. This is like the 5th time and so far only one little chick was born, then the same day died. It was probably  hurt from  jumping off the shelf which is about 5 feet off of the ground. So anyway here she sets in her freezer box.

Well Mom's friend is here for his daily visit and some lunch. He brings her something every single day and lovingly feeds it to her. Poor heart, he is 80 years old and fighting prostrate cancer, but comes each day to feed her and check in on her.  Well let me go see if they need anything......Have a good all.

       Easter was terriftic. I cooked a ham, rice dressing, peas, and some dinner rolls. I  also made my traditional Easter Bunny cake and we died eggs. My children are 15, 24, and 25 and I still fill their Easter baskets with candy. My youngest asked me when  was  I going to stop doing that,  he asked me "don't you think we're too old for this stuff?" Well untill somebody gives me a grandbaby so that I can fill that Easter basket, I have to fill theirs, LOL. My oldest son thinks it's wonderful that he can always come to moms house and find his basket filled with lots of goodies that he doesn't have time to buy for himself. Anyway, I love giving to them as if they were still small, and my eldest, Eric, plays along with it by juming up and down with delight just to make me happy. And the smile on their faces is all I need to make standing in line for all that candy worth while.

      After lunch the guys decided to go try to catch some crawfish in the swamp. (You havn't lived untill you have walked in the swamp in water up to your thighs  picking up a net with all these little "mud bugs" in it, oh and sometimes there may even be a snake in the mix to get your blood pumping or in my hubbys case, scare you to death, lol.)  They ended up with a five gallon bucket full and here in Louisiana, thats enough to fire up the burner and fill the pot with potatoes and onions. So thats what they ate for supper, lol.

       I was hoping to have my garden planted by now, but alas I don't think a garden will  be possible this year for me. I am way too busy with mom being here and have much too much on my plate at the moment. I did get my Mother Earth News magazine in today and noticed an article in it about container gardening. That is something that I could do on the front porch or patio with maybe some tomatoes. So I'm going to see about getting some buckets from the mill and see if I can pull it together. I would hate to see a spring go by without some type of  garden. I have had one every year for years. This may also be the first year that I don't go out and plant new flowers in the beds out front.

      Another reason I am not into the outside right now is because I have hurt my back  lifting up on mom. She is pretty much dead weight now, and even at only 130 pounds, it  still puts a strain on my 45 yo back. Thank God for my  daughter, who is now doing most of the work  now.  I am worried that she too will hurt herself, and then I'm not sure what we will do.

      Well I do hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday and is having a great week. The weather here is beautiful right now, but as we all know, that could change in the blink of an eye.................

         It's a beautiful day here  in Bayou Country. Speaking of bayous, my hubby and son went fishing yesterday, and did pretty good. We had enough to have a little fish fry last night for supper and invite a couple over to eat with us. Was all very good, the hubs fried the fish and fries outside, so less mess for me to clean up, always a plus, lol.

       Our income tax check was deposited into our checking account on Friday so off to town I went yesterday and this morning for some much needed things. The original plan was to paint the house, but  dh wants to wait untill we get that other government rebate check, (which had better come in for dh's sake lol). But I did want to get a new front door and storm door. I took measurments and off I went.  My home is really old, we're talking like 80 years plus (not really sure), and although it has been updated from time to time, it stills has off measurments to it. The floor slants in some places, the walls don't match up in the corners and the doors have measurments that apparently don't exist any more. The door measures 34 inches wide, well guess what, they only make 28", 30", 32" and 36".  Now Lowes did tell me that they could "special" order it, oh but that will cost an extra $100 plus, NO thank you, the door already cost $400+.  I was able  to order a storm door which wasn't too too bad, I paid $140 for it and it will still be off by I think a half inch. So it will have to  be rigged up some type of way. 

     Well if I can't get a new door, I'll fix up and paint the one I have. So I purchased some barn red satan finish paint and a roller and this morning after putting my chili in the crock pot and my peach cobler in the oven, I painted my front door red. I do have to order a piece of glass for one of the panels, but thats no biggy. So by the end of the week I should have a new (to me) front door, and it didn't cost me over $300. Yeah me!!!

     I also purchased a new lawn mower which still needs to be put together.  So now I don't have to wait until  my dh is home so he can't start the old one.  I can cut grass when I feel like it now, yeah me again.  And this morning I headed to the grocery store to stock up on can goods, meat, pasta and other pantry items, spent $175 there. Still have a few things to get, love stocking up while I have the money.

      Well let me head out to the kitchen and check on my chili, the timmer went off a few minutes ago for the cobbler, so now I have to cook the hot dogs and heat up the buns. I'm sure someone is going want potatoes, so I'll take care of that too. 

Have a wonderful day everyone.....