Category Archives: Grandchildren

Catching Up

canning, garlic, Grandchildren, Rain, Reflections, Sewing, The Farm, Tomato Sauce, Weather

There were so many things in August that I wanted to write about but didn’t – this is my catch-up post.

Weather

The rainy streak that we had in July continued into August as our gardens continued to flounder. We were blessed that we didn’t get any of the severe weather, tornadoes, high winds, and hail, that other parts of our state experienced. We also did not have any power outages. We didn’t have our super-hot “dog days” of summer that we normally have in August, but we are having them now. Yesterday was hot and today, September 4th, we have reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit with a “feels like” temperature of 103 Fahrenheit. This weather is supposed to stick around for another day or two but today will be the hottest. A good day to spend indoors with the air conditioning on and writing to you all.

Back to School Shopping

It’s been about a decade since I’ve done back to school shopping (my youngest daughter graduated in 2014) but when Tina mentioned that they had received school supply lists from Jackson’s and Addie’s teaches I thought maybe I could help out by buying what they needed for school.

It was like stepping back in time when I walked into the same store where I bought school supplies the last few years my girls were in school, and saw all the notebooks, folders and others school supplies steeply discounted for their big back-to-school sale. I was flooded with fond memories.

The lists for a kindergartener and a first grader varied greatly from that of the high schoolers that I last shopped for. I bought crayons instead of highlighters and red and black pens, and safety scissors and glue sticks replaced the multitude of three ring binders with dividers and spiral notebooks. Hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes, items I would think should be supplied by the school, are now a priority.

Jackson and Addie started back to school on Monday and I saw a picture of them walking into school with the new backpacks I bought attached to their backs. That made me smile.

I also made them each a new pair of pants. I had planned to make the t- shirts to match but time got away from me, and I have not got around to making the shirts.

Books

Oure local library had a used book sale in August. When we walked in they handed me a plastic grocery bag and said that it was $2.00 for whatever fit in the bag. I ended up with two bags full, about 20 books for $4.00. That should keep me in reading material through the winter. My husband found a partial set of Audubon Nature Encyclopedias. They were printed in 1964 and were a first printing. It was the first 5 books in the set (A through IN) they have some lovely photos and illustrations and will make for some interesting reading. He paid $1.00 for the set of 5. Now that’s my kind of shopping! 🙂

I wonder if I should start doing some book reviews or at least some recommended reading posts. Several of the bloggers I follow do book reviews but is that something you would be interested in hearing from me?

Like Winning the Lottery

One afternoon as I was getting up from my recliner I happened to see something sparkle on the floor in front of my husband’s recliner. I didn’t think much of it at the time other than to remind myself that I really needed to do some vacuuming. A short time later I happened to glance down and notice that the diamond was missing from my wedding ring. At first I started to panic. Then I remembered the sparkle that I had seen on the floor. How it ended up there I’ll never know but indeed it was my diamond. (Angels perhaps?)

I just can’t imagine, of all the places it could have ended up, what the odds of it ending up there and me noticing it are, but it has to be at least equal to winning a million or more in the lottery. Though the monetary value of the stone is nowhere near that of a million-dollar winning ticket, I don’t think I would have been happier if I had won the lottery.

After two weeks at the jewelers my ring is back on my finger and as good as new. 🙂

Canning

In early August I mentioned to my husband that peach season would be coming up soon and I wanted to get another half bushel to can this year. Not wanting to miss out my husband called the orchard where we got our peaches last year and found out that they had quarts and pecks but would have large amounts later that week. Early the next week I knew I would have time to can peaches so on that Tuesday my husband went to the orchard and picked up a box. As it turned out they needed a few days to ripen so I ended up waiting until Friday. I canned 21 pints of peaches and made 7 1/2 pints of peach jam. They taste like summer in a jar – oh so good!!!

In addition to the bread and butter pickles I made last month we had enough cucumbers for me to make 5 more quarts of garlic dill spears. Since I still have pickles left over from last year we will have more than enough to get us through the year.

I finished up last week canning 14 quarts of tomato sauce. I also have 5 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer waiting to be made into sauce. Since I still have some juice left over from last year we decided to share our abundance of tomatoes with our neighbor who was also doing some canning. God is good!

Garlic

The garlic that was harvested and hung in the barn in mid-July was finally ready to be cleaned.

It took me about 4 hours over the course of two days to clip and clean the approximately 330 bulbs this year.

Twist and Turns

I mentioned in my previous post that life had taken some twists and turns and I know some of you might be concerned over such an ambiguous statement. I apologize and assure you that we are well. We have, however, started exploring our options for building a house at the farm. We are mostly in the research stage – gathering the information that we need to make decisions. I do think this is going to be a long process and pray that it will be a good experience.

Don’t be surprised if someday in the future you see a house in the background of this photo.

Thanks for visiting!

The Good Stuff

Family, Fishing, Grandchildren, Pond, Reflections

We were blessed to spend a few hours with Tina and Ken and Jackson and Addie on Saturday. The morning was cloudy with even a few light rain showers moving through but by the time they got to the farm around 2:00 p.m. the rain was finished, and we had as much sunshine as clouds. We even had a nice breeze to help keep the mosquitoes at bay for a while.

We started out by picking blueberries.

I’m not sure how many we picked but they did leave with a little over a quart of berries. I did see Addie eating them by the handful while we were picking so we likely picked much more than it appeared. As they were leaving I noticed Addie trying to open the container that the berries were in so I’m not sure if any actually made it home with them. LOL!

Then Tina and I took the kids in the pond. They are both trying very hard to learn to swim. They kept their floatation devices on and practiced kicking their feet and paddling with their hands. They are both seeming to catch on.

Meanwhile my husband and Ken went fishing. They were reeling in fish one after another. This large blue gill is a mystery fish. How it got in our pond is a mystery as we never put blue gills in there. The rest of the fish they caught were perch (we had stocked the pond with perch in 2013).

When they were finished fishing Ken took Jackson and Addie for a boat ride. (Those are some happy faces.)

The three-hour visit passed much too quickly, but we are so thankful for these precious moments with them.

2021 Our Homemade Christmas

Christmas, Grandchildren, homemade, Reflections

Hello and Welcome!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did!

Before we move into the new year let’s take a look back at what kept me busy throughout the month of December.

You may remember this post back in October back in when my daughter, Lindell, saw me wearing one of the shirts, a hoodie, that I had made and decided I should make one for her. I told her “Christmas is coming”. Then when I asked my other daughters, they all decided they would like one. Each of the girls told me what color they would like, except Tina, who said “anything but pink”. Before I went fabric shopping, I decided to give them the option of having me make them a cardigan instead of the hoodie. Kara was the only one who took me up on this offer.

I also asked Tina what I should make for Jackson and Addie and she gave me some ideas.

It was toward the end of October, when I had my materials list ready, that I grabbed my sister and dragged her to the fabric store. LOL! Just kidding. If you know my sister, you’ll know she was more than happy to go to the fabric store with me. It’s one of our favorite places to spend time together.

I will say that I took some creative liberties with choosing fabrics for the girls. I didn’t want to make shirts that were just one solid color; I wanted to design one-of-a-kind garments that I thought would suit their individual style(s).

Hanna’s color choice was black, so I selected the snakeskin fabric then trimmed it in solid black.

Lindell asked for this army green, so I selected this tied dye green and white for trim.

I chose this blue print for Tina and the solid blue trim is actually sprinkled with glitter.

This shimmery stretch corduroy for Kara’s cardigan was so beautiful that I decided to use it for the entire garment.

Making these garments for the girls went pretty smoothly since I had previously made the hoodie pattern three times for myself, and I had made the cardigan pattern once before.

Then it was time to learn something new. The patterns that I selected for Jackson and Addie were both new to me and both posed some new challenges. While all of the garments were made with TLP (Tender Love and Prayer) there was probably more prayer that went into these.

For Addie, who loves to dress up, I made this dress with color blocked sleeves and a double layer skirt.

For Jackson I made this dragon hoodie.

I was so excited when Christmas finally arrived, and I could give the girls their gifts. Kara and Lindell had both told me that they were excited about getting them.

Christmas was a wonderful day – the house was filled with life, laughter and love (and food). After brunch (breakfast food for lunch) we opened gifts.

Below are a few pictures of everyone modeling my handiwork.

Beautiful Addie!

I was thrilled to see that Addie’s dress was a perfect fit. Actually, I was amazed as I watched each recipient open their gift and slip it on, that they all seemed to fit just right – answered prayers.

Jackson showing off his dragon wings.

After seeing Jackson’s dragon hoodie my daughters asked when I was going to make them each one. HaHa!

The sister picture. (Ranger photo bombed this one. LOL!)

Each time I get together with all four daughters I try to get a sister picture with the four of them together. It doesn’t happen very often nowadays. The last time we were all together was over a year ago.

Here’s a challenge for readers who don’t know our family personally: can you put the girls in order of age from left to right?

I also try to get a picture of me with the girls. This time around we were able to get Aunt Donna, my mom’s sister, in the picture and my granddaughter Addie. Four generations.

My husband doesn’t mind me saying that he is not a very good photographer. He needs to work on focusing and staging because while I wanted this picture to highlight their new Christmas clothes, I can’t help looking at those feet. LOL.

In the meantime, at least I can edit/crop the pictures to change the focus – the beauty in digital photography. No more crazy feet.

Well maybe one more look. LOL!

Thanks for visiting.

As 2021 comes to an end, we wish you a Happy New Year and a blessed year ahead. May God’s light guide your way in 2022.

Catching Up

Autumn, Grandchildren, homemade, Making Soap, Planting Garlic, Reflections, Sewing, Sisters, Tallow, The Farm

Hello and welcome!

Once again I’ve fallen behind in blogging. In this post I am sharing some of my activities from the week of November 1st – 7th. I plan to get another post, highlighting November 8th – 14th, up early next week. If all goes as planned I will be caught up. 🙂

Monday Nov 1 – I rendered beef suet into tallow. Suet is raw hard fat found around the loins and kidneys of the cow. For the last few years we have been buying our beef from a local farmer. we purchase a quarter of a cow at a time. Once the cow goes to the butcher or processor I have to call them and give them instructions for cutting and wrapping the meat. At this time I ask to have the suet included in our order. Most people who buy their meat this way to not want the suet so I always have to ask.

Rendering is the process of cleaning the suet. To do this I cut the suet into small pieces. It’s easiest to cut when cold or partially frozen. I then put it in my crock pot on high until it is completely melted.

Tuesday, Nov 2 – The suet was still in the melting process Monday when I was ready to go to bed so I just unplugged the crock pot and would finish it on Tuesday. After reheating it I strained the hot fat through 2 or 3 layers of paper towel. When the hot fat (tallow) cools it solidifies and becomes white. (picture above)

Tallow can be used for cooking. (The original McDonald’s french fries were cooked in tallow), candle making and is commonly used for soap making. If you read the ingredients on your store bought bar of soap you won’t see tallow as an ingredient but it is there. It is listed as sodium tallowate which is the result of combining sodium hydroxide (lye) with tallow.

Any solid that are left after rendering the suet are called cracklings. While some people eat these I never have. I decided to feed them to the chickens but my husband said next time don’t bother. When I asked if the chickens did not like them he told me that the chickens would have loved them but instead they were forced to stand by, dining only on bread crusts, as Ranger gobbled up the cracklings.

weighing the tallow

Wednesday, Nov 3 – I made soap. I wanted to use some of the tallow that I just rendered. The recipe I made was an oil combination of 40% coconut oil, 40% tallow and 20% olive oil. This is the first time I used this particular combination so I’ll try to remember to report how it turns out. It will be about 6 weeks before it is ready. I also added aloe to this batch.

Thursday Nov 4 – I did my dad’s grocery shopping. He orders his groceries online then I picked them up from the store. I then went to the dollar store and picked up a few things that he prefers to get from there. I delivered the groceries to dad and helped him with a few chores.

Friday Nov 5 – I took the boys out for their morning walk at the farm.

It was a beautiful fall morning. When we went out, around 10:00 A.M., the sun had melted the heavy frost that had blanket the area in the early morning hours. Our feet/shoes got wet as we tromped though the grass.

The breeze, if any, was gentle.

I observed moments when a single, random, tree would suddenly drop a shower of leaves.

It was and interesting phenomenon as the trees seemed to be taking turns.

Many leaves were still holding on. Fall is not over yet. 🙂

Saturday November 6 – My sister visited.

I still have one sister who lives near-by and we have been trying to block off some time, at least once a month, to spend together.

Last month when I visited her house I returned two bags of books that she had given me earlier this year. They had been passed onto her by our other sister and most she had not read yet. As I packed the books to return to her I stuck slips of paper into some, labeling them “must read” or “good read” so she will know where to start when she digs into this stack of books.

We also looked at different sewing patterns and she showed me some fabrics that she had purchased but wasn’t sure what she would make with them. “Take what you want” she said. There was one flowered print that caught my eye. We agreed that it was beautiful and needed to be made into something but neither of us could decide what. Even though I didn’t have a plan for it I decided to take that piece of fabric.

That fabric nagged at me for a couple of weeks. Because it was a large print I kept thinking that it needed to be turned into a large item of clothing. I searched for patterns for full length skirts and found a few simple ones but I don’t wear skirts very often and I don’t really know anyone who does.

Seemingly out of the blue I remembered the bathrobe pattern that I had. This fabric would make a lovely bathrobe. I bought a contrasting fabric for the trim and decided to make a bathrobe for my sister.

As I was making the robe I would try it on for size and in doing so discovered that as beautiful as this print is it looks horrible on me. Thankfully when my sister put it on it looked gorgeous – elegant, like I had imagined. ” I don’t know if I love it so much that I won’t want to wear it” she said, “or if I love it so much that I will wear it all the time”.

“Wear it all the time!” I told her. That would be the ultimate compliment.

In addition to giving her the robe, I showed her the projects I have planned to make as Christmas gifts. And we solved a few of the world’s problems over lunch. LOL!

Sunday Nov 7 – It was a perfect fall day for being outdoors and I started out by raking leaves.

The maple tree just off our deck had shed most of it’s leaves.

It took about an hour and eight trips with the wheelbarrow to remove the leaves from the front yard.

The maple that stands in front of our house was still holding many of her leaves.

As were many of the trees in the woods behind our home. The work is not finished yet.

After lunch I headed to the farm with my husband and the boys (dogs) to plant garlic. Normally we plant garlic around the middle of October. This year the ground has been too wet and muddy to plant, so we have been waiting for things to dry out a bit. We had decided earlier this year that growing garlic to sell is not in our future, so we were only going to grow enough for us and to be able to share some with family. We were able to get about 250 cloves planted, mulched and fenced (so the chickens couldn’t go digging them up). This is the smallest amount we have planted since we began growing garlic in 2013 and it was a breeze compared to years past. Now we can only pray that the weather stays warm enough for the garlic to get a start before the ground freezes. It will be spring before we know if this crop will survive.

When my husband told me that our son-in-law would be stopping by the farm to winterize his bee hive I decided to take along the gifts I made for Jackson and Addy. I had a hoped that the kids would be with him, but even if they weren’t he could take the gifts home for them – just in time for Addy’s (4th) birthday on Monday.

I hadn’t taken pictures of the super hero capes I made for the kids so my husband hung them from a plant hook and held them so I could get some photos.

Addy loves unicorns so one side of her cape was made from this unicorn fabric.

The capes are reversible so the other side of Addy’s was made with this brilliant yellow, orange and white tie-dye fabric.

I wasn’t sure what Jackson’s favorite thing is currently so I selected this superhero(ish) fabric for one side of his cape.

and this outer space type fabric for the other.

I wasn’t able to give the kids their gifts in person but I received a message from my son-in-law that the kids love the capes and that Addy was pretty insistent on wearing hers to bed. 🙂

If I made you a super hero cape what would you want on it?

Dog Days Of Summer

Bees, Blueberries, Deer, Dogs, Dragon Flies, garden, garlic, garlic scapes,, Grandchildren, Lavender, Nature, Off Grid Irrigation, Pond, Prayer Garrden, Reflections, Summer, The Farm, Tractor, Watering, Windmill,

According to almanac.com the dog days of summer run from July 3 through August 11 which is normally the hottest and most humid time of year in the northern hemisphere. Around here every day is a dog day. Just ask Ranger and Trooper. But, yes, the HEAT IS ON and it is accompanied by a dry spell so keeping the gardens watered has been the main focus for the past week or so. If you are curious about how we manage that on our off-grid farm you can check out our off-grid irrigation system here.

In the mean time I put together a collection of pictures that I’ve taken over about the past few weeks to share with you.

This is how Ranger cools off on these hot days. (Did you know beagles can swim?)

and Trooper enjoys laying on the beach after a swim in the pond.

The grandbabies love the water as much as the dogs do.

Dragonflies are yet another creature that appreciate the pond.

This one is drinking water from the sand. Check out the honey bee (on the left) that photo bombed this shot. She too was coming to the beach for a drink of water.

This beauty hung out with us on the beach, for a couple of hour yesterday evening, fluttering about and pausing now and then to rest or perhaps get a sip of water.

One last pond picture because we can never have too much cuteness. LOL.

Speaking of cuteness, here is a double dose – twins.

The lavender is gorgeous this year and the bees and butterflies are all over it.

We have transitioned from strawberry season to blueberry season. On the same day that my husband, and (daughter) Kara, picked the last of the strawberries, I took (daughter) Tina, and Jackson and Addy into the blueberry patch to pick the first ripe berries. While Kara took her 3/4 of a basket of strawberries home. Addy couldn’t wait, so she ate all of the blueberries we picked while they were still at the farm.

Start them off young – that’s my motto. They posed for a group photo then dad took Jackson and Addy, one at a time, for a ride on the tractor.

The garden is flourishing. I have harvested basil and calendula flowers twice so far.

We have green tomatoes, peppers starting to develop, blossoms on the eggplant,

blossoms on the green beans and the corn is knee high.

We cut garlic scapes (check out this post to learn more about scapes) about two weeks ago and will be digging garlic soon.

It seems that every summer our back field is dominated by different plants. This year it is full of clover and birdsfoot trefoil and I think it is just gorgeous. It’s also great bee food.

I’ll leave you with one last photo of this pair who stopped by our deck for a short visit last week. They were kind enough to stay so I could get a photo then they hurried on their way.

Thanks for visiting and remember – stay hydrated, breathe deep and stay well.

Are you having a heat wave?