Gonna Get There Someday

Asking for a few prayers, its been along week

Good Evening, it’s been another long week here and I for one am glad to see the week draw to a close and the holiday to be upon us. We have spent the last few days getting the hay baled, it is done but we only had the two of us my husband and I to do it all. Usually our son in law helps us but his father passed away on Monday night very suddenly and most unexpectedly. He was on 57 years old had a heart attack as he was sitting down to dinner. My daughter and son in law have been busy helping his mother get through the arrangements and all so my husband and I have been taking care of little Noah and trying to support all of them, while trying to beat the rain and get the hay done. They say god never gives us more than we can handle at one time, I guess that is  true but I hope our family has time to catch our breath collectively after this past week before the next thing comes along.

Preparedness, when properly pursued, is a way of life, not a sudden, spectacular program. -- Spencer W. Kimball, 1976

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

Thinking about the Fall Garden

I know, Summer just started, and I'm talking about Fall already! 

But, in order to have a Fall garden, some things should be done now- planning, ordering seed, planting seeds to transplant into the garden when it is time, adding compost or any other needed soil builders, etc.   

In my area, July 1 was the suggested date for planting tomato, pepper, and eggplant seed.  I'm a few days behind schedule, mainly because I'm trying to keep up with harvesting the tomatoes that are ripening like crazy right now!   

Most of the Fall planting for my area comes a little later, since July and  August are always HOT.   The bulk of  planting comes from September to November.  But, if I don't at least make a plan now and make sure I have seeds ready, I may miss my planting date when it arrives. 

Many of the same vegetables that grow in the Spring garden can be replanted for Fall, they like the cool weather and will do well if they have time to mature before a frost gets them.  You can probably get a list of what grows well in your area in the Fall either online, from a local nursery, or from your County Extension Agent. 

Here's a little chart to show when the first predicted Fall frost date is:

Zone 3 - Sept 1st - 30th
Zone 4 - Sept 1st - 30th
Zone 5 - Sept 30th - Oct 30th
Zone 6 - Sept 30th - Oct 30th
Zone 7 - Oct 15th - Nov 15th
Zone 8 - Oct 30th - Nov 30th
Zone 9 - Nov 30th - Dec 30th
Zone 10 - Nov 30th - Dec 30th
Zone 11 - Frost Free

If you aren't sure what zone you live in, here's a map that will show you.

With that information you can see how long it takes a particular crop to mature and then count backwards to get an estimated planting date.  Of course, it all depends on the weather, and it is good to give your plants at least a week or two of a head-start if your area often has early frosts.  I live in Zone 8, and sometimes we don't even have a frost until close to Thanksgiving.  Fall is a great time for growing here. 

Please share what you grow in your Fall garden and any tips you have.  Those of you who live in colder climates, please share your wisdom, as this Texas gardener has never had to garden where it really gets cold !

Hope you have a great holiday weekend, and maybe next week, spend some time planning (and perhaps planting) for the Fall garden!

Blessings,

Catherine

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

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

This Just Made Me Think

Log trucks and cinnamon rolls

We woke up to a cool day today! So far our high has been about 60 so while I had the opportunity I fired up the wood stove and baked! I made a batch of almond biscotti, bread, rolls and about 4 dozen gi-normous cinnamon rolls. I hope this holds us over for a bit.

Today is also a noisy day. We are select timbering two of our hills and so the logging equipment is out there making a ruckus. Hopefully after this, there will be enough light coming through so that the younger trees can grow big. Right now it is just too crowded out there.

I got outside for a minute and took some pictures today, but it looks like I am out of space here so I will have to go back and delete some old ones before I can put them up. Maybe later if I am not to lazy. I took a picture of the garden but I cropped out my tomatoes. I am so ashamed, I did not pinch off the suckers on my tomatoes like I should have and it seems that everyone notices... how embarassing.

Then yesterday I announced to Mark that I had not been able to go shopping for a month, we were on our last half roll of toilet paper, and I only had three pairs of underwear and they were coming apart. So, he came home early, loaded me and the little girls up and we went to Walmart. I was so excited, We got the enormous 24 pack of scott toilet paper. It is sitting in the outhouse right now. I was reading the packaging on it though, and it has a "Scott tissue community" advertised on it with a little picture of a steaming coffee cup, as if there are actually people who pour themselves a nice hot cup and want to chat about strength vs. softness. Give me a break! (But wait, what am I doing here....:)

I also was so excited about purchasing new chonies that had "do not ride up" on the packaging that I failed to notice that they come up to my armpits. I guess that is one way to get rid of panty lines, to have never ending panties. But alas I digress.

Mark is going to try to sell his tractor at an auction this weeked. I hope it goes well, if it doesn't look like it will bring enough, we will just buy it back ourselves. But it is just too light to pull the brush hog up into the hills and he REALLY wants to find something with a front loader on it. We shall see. The first step is to see what we can get out of the current one.

Well, I'm going to see about deleting some old photos. Have a great day!

~Marie

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!

Thursday, 02 July 09

Good morning!  I hope anyone stopping by is doing well.

The strawberry farm is just opening this week. I've heard the berries are on the small side and not very sweet yet so I'm going to wait to pick until late next week. I've got 4-5 flats to pick - 2-3 for me and 2 for my mother. I'm told they are going for $1.30/lb this year which is still cheaper than getting a quart for $1.50 at the store. Anyway, I've still a bit of jam left but will make 1 batch to restock then dehydrate the rest. Gosh but I LOVE the dehydrated ones in my oatmeal or cream of wheat! Yummy! They are good in muffins too. I usually keep a gallon jar of dehydrated Strawberries which lasts close to 5 months if I'm careful. I'm considering on upping it to two gallons of them this year. Something is telling me to up my storage items this year.

Blueberries are begining to look better - It was so dry here I feared they wouldn't amount to anything. I've a couple bags in the freezer yet so am begining to feel the need for those too. It's too soon for the blackberries but hopefully will have a good crop of them too. They are good for jam and syrup - mmmmm.  For a special treat I enjoy taking a bit of syrup and mixing a bit of soda water. Very refreshing.

Now the strawberries are about the only one of the above mentioned I have to pay for. The wild ones aren't plentiful here unless you have a ton of acrage to roam around on.  The rest I have spots along back roads that I can go pick to my hearts content. One gentleman lets me pick blackberries down his mile long driveway in return for a couple jars of jelly.  His berries are always huge and very sweet and he doesn't do a thing to them.  Sometimes a friend of mine has a bunch of extra plums that I cook down into jam or sauce. mmmmmmm to that too.  The best ones are the ones that get a tad bigger than my thumb (trust me, I have chunky fingers so that's pretty good size lol). Nice and sweet. The bummer is the pits but can't have everything.

Well, I'd better go do some chores here at work. There's some cabinets that really need to be cleaned unless we get a patient then it'll have to wait.

Have a great day all!

Michele

Family, Friends and Food for the Fourth (nd an update too)

Well I just got notification that my side of the family is having a big BBQ at my brother's house on the evening of the Fourth.  I am thrilled since hubby's family is all busy and doing their own thing.  His mother and father will be at their church's 3 day meeting, his oldest sister is in Washington and unable to come home but will be home in a few weeks for Grandma's 90th bday, and his youngest sister and her hubby and daughter are in California at Disney!

Of course I asked what I could bring and my SIL told me maybe a salad or a dessert.  So I plan on taking both. LOL  Not sure what kind of salad to take, and I have a simple dessert recipe I will make (it is red white and blue).  Hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill sound so good right now.  And I know several of the other dishes will be potato salad and baked beans, etc.  One gal there doesn't cook, so she usually brings the pop, or ice and sometimes a large tub of icecream depending on what we are all having. 

We aren't shooting off any fireworks there though.  One of the twins is scared of fireworks, 2 of the other kids are with their dad for the weekend and won't be there either.  So it is the one if the twin who likes fireworks, and Noah, who is only 3 but loved them last year, so I unless he decides to change his mind, LOL, I think he will be ok with them again this year.  After the BBQ, several of us will drive back to town and watch the citywide fireworks display at the lake.  We won't buy much this year....maybe some snappers, some smoke bombs, and some other smaller items for Noah.   I just can't see spending alot of money on big bangs this year when we have so many things we could spend the money instead.

Matthew got called today for a small electrical job.  The guy wants an electrical hookup for a camper put in behid his barn by this weekend.  So Matthew is running a little late tonight getting that done.  He was hoping it was a 10 minute job, but knows things happen and it might take longer.  Oh well, we need the money to take care of part 2 of fixing my car's air conditioning.  (Part one was putting in a new fan, which he did last night.  Part 2 is???  LOL  I have no idea.  I know the fan works now but no cold air.  Maybe it needs freon?? Who knows.  That is hubby's job)

I have discussed having a yard/garage sale and then canceled it thinking I would just have an auction (a HS friend has an auction business and is going to hold a consignment auction), but now I am thinking I should just open up a Ebay shop, and possibly put some stuff on Etsy as well.I think in the long run I will end up getting more money for the items.  I will just advertise that I go to the post office once or twice a week, etc. so I don't have to go every single day.  That would be crazy. On days I have many packages, I will ask a girlfriend to watch Noah, or drop him off for an hour at grandma's shop.

Speaking of grandma's shop.....she has offered me one of her large display windows to put items in if wanted.  I told her I would speak to Matthew, pray about it and get back to her.  I know I won't make alot of money from it, because her shop is kind of out of the way, and not many people walk around there either.  However, the customers that come into her shop for Speech (She is a Speech Pathologist) might see something and buy it, or order one in a different color, tell their friends, etc.  I was thinking of putting some vintage items in the window, and making up some aprons and shaggy blankets to display and sell there.  I am getting excited about the opportunity to make some money to help with household items and Christmas, etc.  When I get the shops up and running, I will post the addresses here for all of you!!!

Matthew (who is the king of putting things off, starting projects and then not finishing them, etc.) has turned a new leaf.  I am not sure what happened, but I am not about to ask and screw this up.  LOL  Projects like Noah's bedroom upstairs that have sat for over 3 years without being finished are now being worked on!  He comes home from work and instead of colasping in his chair with the laptop, he asks if there is anything I need him to do!  Mostly it is small stuff like, take out the trash, take this box upstairs, etc.  But recently he has fixed part of the air conditioning on the car, fixed the leaky roof, replaces a filter on the furnace/air conditioner, and my favorite, bought and hung a ceiling fan in Noah's new bedroom!!!  The later was all his idea and he was so pleased to be able to buy the fan with his extra money coming in from electrical jobs.  :)  Makes me smile to see this part of Matthew blossoming. 

Noah has been talking up a storm!!!  I can't believe in the last couple of months since his birthday screening in April, how much he has developed.  He is definately not the same little boy.  He is doing better every day.  Last night I told Matthew that he had been talking up a storm all day long and learning new words every day.  Later on Matthew said, how do you turn HIM off??  LOL  We both had a great laugh over that one.  The little boy that wouldn't talk earlier except for mom, dad, cookie, candy, etc. little words, is now talking 4 word sentences, answering questions with words instead of sign language, and asking for items instead of pointing and grunting.  God is so good to us.  I love this little guy.  And yes, there are times you want to turn him off still.  LOL  But most of the time, I love hearing him talk (now not only in English but a little Spanish and Chinese due to a few tv shows he watches)

Well, that's all for now.  I should go.