Senior Pictures

Today we went to have my son's tuxedo photos taken at school for his Senior year and we went out to do his senior pictures, the casual ones.  We had such a great time taking photos of him doing what he loves most, playing guitar.  School starts Friday here and I have to say I have that same feeling inside as I did when they all started kindergarten.  My middle son will be a senior and my baby, my daughter will be a freshman.  It's exciting and scary and sad all at the same time.  I hope they both have a great year!  My oldest is out of school and working, so I survived all of that I know I will survive two more growing up as well.

After school starts Friday, I will have a new routine and will be very happy to get things organized.  This last school year and summer has left me running around in chaos.  I have so many projects I want to dive into and I'm looking forward to having a lot of time to myself to get them completed.  I think the next few months will be fun and productive.

I am very excited that my chickens are laying eggs now.  We have over a dozen so far, well mostly chicken eggs a couple of duck eggs too!  I am so proud of my little chickens, growing up so fast and laying so quickly.  Now I will have to find some new recipes for eggs.  I know there must be a million of them I don't know of yet.  I'm open to any recipes anyone has that isn't an omelet or a fritatta, I know those already! :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Time Flies

Time flies, seasons change and life goes on no matter how much we want to stop and smell the roses.  I haven't updated my blog in several months.  Mostly because I have been keeping busy with so many irons in the fire that I just didn't make the time.  After the loss of my chickens, we got rid of some dogs.  I got new baby chicks and just started getting eggs this week again, it's been really exciting watching my baby chicks grow up to beautiful hens.  We also started getting goats.  We got two goats in May, a 3 month old dwarf Nigerian billy and a pygmy that is whethered.  They are the sweetest things.  We then got a female dwarf in June and then two pygmy females as well.  We have 5 goats and all are happy and enjoying their new home. The two pygmy females were thought to have been bred, he wasn't sure when we bought them.  But, I'm sure now!  I am expecting them both to kid in the next few weeks.  Without a true breeding date, it's hard to know the true due date, but I'm seeing signs like the udders filling.  I'm excited to have babies soon.  We also have 2 gorgeous turkeys and 13 new ducks.  Our two mallards are giving us eggs and the ten Indian Runner ducks are just starting to grow up and run around.  We have one lone Muscovy male that seems to hang out with one or the other but no one really takes him in fully.  He doesn't give up, so I'm convinced he is going to make friends with all the ducks.

Our garden was a mess this year and the lack of rain and the extreme heat just fought us all season so we didn't get much out of it.  I was frustrated to a point then I just gave up hope and decided to worry about it next year.  We did get quite a few tomatoes though, they do seem to like that dry heat more than any other vegetable.

The best addition since my last update was my new camera.  My son got me a wonderful new Nikon camera for mothers day and I have taken so many beautiful photos with it.  I just love being able to take pictures again.  I will fill my blog up with photos now!  I have also done quite a few DIY projects in recent months.  One being a painted swivel chair that turned out amazing and we added beadboard wallpaper on the bottom portion of the walls in the living room and painted it barn red.  I will be finishing up the upper walls soon, making them look like weathered wood.  I've still kept up my addiction with Pinterest and found some great recipes and DIY projects I have tried out.  I love that site!

We just had a nice trip to Florida to visit my parents and enjoyed ourselves even though we had some minor gaffes like car trouble and a trip and fall for myself.  Not to mention it was all done in 3 days haha.  But, still nice to get away and do something fun.

School starts this Friday and life will be back to normal again soon for me, having them all out of the house will allow me to get a schedule and my life organized again.  Today we are getting senior pictures done for my son.  I'm very excited, I will be taking most of them just having the cap and gown and tuxedo shots done at the school.  My son's senior year, and my daughters freshman year.  Time certainly flies!

Sad...

I cannot find the words to describe how I feel today.  Sad is all I can muster.  Two of our dogs got into our chicken pen and killed several of our adult, egg laying hens. I feel so many emotions over this and not one of them good.  I want to get rid of these dogs, they are the sweetest pets a person can have, but they are killers and I cannot look at them the same way ever again. All of our other dogs were traumatized from the situation and the entire household is just quiet and depressed.  I have 3 hens left and one rooster and the hens have some minor injuries that I am treating.  I pray that they make it through this, right now they are inside and in my bathtub where I can watch them and keep them warm.  I feel so guilty, as a chicken mom, that this happened.  We really tried to create their pen as safe as possible, but obviously we did not do a good job.  I look at my new baby 2 1/2 week old chicks and I do not want anything to ever happen to them.  I don't want them to live in such a scary, dangerous world with other animals finding them to hurt them or kill them.  I want to keep them in the house and never let them outdoors.  I know that isn't feasible, but right now I just feel like locking them away somewhere safe.  We didn't have many hens, and just started getting our eggs from them, and now we will not have anymore eggs until the new babies grow up.  There just aren't words to describe how my heart aches today, thinking of my chickens and missing them so much already.  I am at a loss, all I can do is put my feelings into one word, Sad.  My prayers and faith in God will help me to understand and learn from this experience in time, but right now I just feel horrible!

The List Grows, yet there doesn't seem to be enough time...

Each day around here, the list grows longer yet, there is not enough time in a day to get it all completed.  Is it because I'm getting older or the tasks require more work?  The garden needs to be weeded, the day I have the time to work in the garden, it rains!  The roses need to be planted, the day I set aside for that something else comes up.  It is one thing after another and what I am praying for is more time.

The weekend was really unused because everyone had something going on, and when I had free time it was pouring down rain.  Yesterday, it was absolutely gorgeous, but most of the day was spent at church, so that time was quality time.  We got home and I was sitting outside deciding how to create a new pen for the chicks and the ducks when it is time, and I had wanted to do this and that but I was exhausted from all the running around I have been doing lately.  I threw my hands in the air I told my husband to finish up what he was doing and I directed the kids to get dressed we were going out to dinner and to a meat sale in another town.  We left quickly and got on the road.  The little restaurant was all country cooking and was fabulous.  We all enjoyed it and that is a rarity, when everyone likes the place.  We went to the meat sale at this little grocery store I didn't know existed in Blue Ridge.  They had can foods 2 for $1.00 and I was able to stock up on my "prepping" shelves with can foods as well as the amazing meat sale they were having.  It is unheard of lately to get steak at $3.98 a pound, so I was doing a little dance.  I got ground beef for $2.28 a pound and I haven't bought any ground beef lately for under $2.98 a pound.  I left the store with my great finds, my belly full of wonderful food and a relaxed, content smile on my face for the ride home.  We haven't had a nice family outing like that in a long time.  We all came home and the family seemed at peace.  There was no bickering or arguing and the night was very pleasant.

Now today, I am back to the daily outlook of look at this list and where has the time gone.  I have so much to do and I need to find a way to get it all done soon!  I hope that I will find enough time in the day every day this week.  Then, maybe, I might feel like I have gotten something accomplished!

Have a Miraculous Monday everyone!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...or is it thoughts go wilder?

I have been absent from my blog for a couple of days.  My apologies, but I have been deeply diverted into other activities and my mind was focused on getting things done.  I am almost finished with my chair, I'm working on the seat cushion and then I will have it completed.  I am very proud of how it is turning out.  I still haven't touched my shelf that I was unhappy with, but I have been looking at colors and trying to decide what I want to do with it.  I found old windows and lumber on craigslist for free and we went and picked that up yesterday.  My son was grumpy loading the wood, mumbling about it being crap wood and not worth using, however, I was very happy; each piece sending my mind into a whirlwind of what can I do with THIS!  I really just wanted the windows, but the wood was a nice bonus.  I am going to make one of those greenhouses out of old windows when I get enough of them together.  Have you seen them on Pinterest? They are amazing and I get so fascinated with peoples creativity, and wonder "why didn't I think of that?"

I have a very busy day ahead of me today, there is so many things to get done and it seems there isn't ever enough time in the day!  I wish there were 2 or 3 of me sometimes so that everything gets completed on the lists.  Having this little farm we are building seems to increase my things to do list by miles.  Most days I don't mind it, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed and think WHY are we doing this again? haha I have been trying to get that finished, completed look out of my mind and just accept the reality that nothing ever really is completed on a farm.  The baby chicks are growing like weeds and flying out of their wading pool all over my bathroom.  Today is their 2 week birthday and the next 4 weeks are going to be a wild ride if this is how they are at two weeks.  I still think they are cute and adorable but they are very messy little critters.  My last chicks weren't flying all over, I am not sure why these are doing it. Maybe because my last batch I had in the bathroom, were small in number and this is a big crowd so chicky see, chicky do!  I need to get the hay out of the big chicken pen and take it to the garden to get tilled into the soil.  I do the deep litter method and I love it, I'm all about multi-tasking and this system works great for me with the chickens.  I need to get up into the garden to do some weeding with the winter vegetables we planted and I still haven't planted anything in my new log beds we built.  I will get there, it's not like anything is going anywhere!  It's so hard when one person does most of the work, I definitely need to check into cloning!

My older son is having a St. Patricks day party tonight along with his friends 25th birthday party in combination.  They should have a great time, I am going to make a few snacks for them including Rachel Ray's Hot Reuben dip.  I'm sharing her link and recipe in case you want to make it. It's quite tasty.  I couldn't find rye bread squares, believe it or not, at Walmart so I just got a couple loaves of french bread I'm going to slice them up nice and thin and put out.  I am going to make a spinach dip and some cream cheese tortilla rollups too, I'm going to color the cream cheeses and sour creams green for St. Paddy's Day affect.  I got a couple of cute green baskets at the Dollar Tree to put the bread and chips into and I got a couple of oval plastic tubs there as well to put something in, I'm not sure yet what I will put in them.  I think they will have a good time and if the weather holds and remains nice they can be outside with the big fire pit going so that I might get some sleep.  I am an early to bed girl, and when they get together in the winter inside the house, well sometimes I might go to bed but there is no guarantee I'm going to sleep!

Have a Fantabulous Friday Everyone!

Hot Reuben Dip

Ingredients

• 1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded or chopped, divided
• 1/2 pound corned beef, chopped
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
• 1/2 cup sauerkraut, drained
• 1 package of rye cocktail bread squares

Yields: 6-8 servings

Preparation

Preheat oven 350°F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix half of the Swiss cheese with all the ingredients except the bread squares.

Place the mixture into an ovenproof dish and sprinkle the top with remaining cheese. Heat in the oven until bubbly, about 20 minutes. Turn on the broiler and brown the top.

Serve the dip with the bread squares alongside.

Disappointed...

I worked on my shelves yesterday, and as I continued on I felt total disappointment.  I don't like the way the colors are coming together, and I have realized that the real trouble is in the base coat.  So, now I'm very unhappy that I have all this paint and I am not going to use it.  I am going to start over and try a different color pallet.  I knew it was a smart idea for me to start this project practicing on the shelves before taking it to the wall.  I'm happy that I didn't get impatient and jump right onto the walls, then my disappointment would be total meltdown.  I have loads of yellow paint now interior satin, I am not sure what I am going to do with it because I'm not a yellow sort of person.  I can maybe paint some old tires that were left in the woods by the previous owners and make a flower pot out of them, I'm thinking if I used the interior satin then polyurethane on them they might hold up to weather or I can donate the barely used cans to our church yard sale in May, to be sold if someone needs almost a gallon of yellow paint.  If you have any suggestions as to what I could use it with, I am very open to them, I hate to waste anything!

My son has a job interview today, all prayers are welcome!  He was laid off from his job in November and has been searching hard for a new job and finally a call came in yesterday.  I am so excited for him, I'm praying hard that he gets this, he needs it badly.  More because he gets very down when hes not working.  He likes to be busy, earning his keep and working hard.  He's been on unemployment and he's bored and just plain unhappy with nothing to do.  His interview is at 9:00 a.m. today and I am going to be eagerly waiting to hear how it went.

This weekend is the church lunch-in again and the theme is Mexican food.  I am so excited about this because it gives me a chance to make tamales.  I love making them but it is so time consuming that I don't do it very often, but since I am going to do it up big, I will have some to freeze for us and plenty for church.  Does anyone make tamales? I love trying different recipes for them. I'd love to know of others if you have them.  I saw one once for chocolate tamales, that might be something tasty to try!  My most often used recipe is:

Tamales

Required Time: 2 days

Ingredients (using 6 pounds of meat makes about 10 dozen tamales)

3 pounds beef roast

3 pounds pork roast

2 large onions

4 cloves garlic

1/3 cup chili powder 

pepper

cumin

8 cups masa harina

2 cups shortening or lard

Corn husks 2-3 packages

Day 1:

Cook meat in separate pots of seasoned water (or in a crockpot filled with seasoned water) with an onion, 2 garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon of chili powder, salt and pepper. Cook 4 hours minimum. Save the broth. Place the broth in the refrigerator over night and skim the fat off the top before using.

After the meat is cooked and falling apart, remove from pot, set aside to cool, and use a blender or food processor to puree the onion and garlic with the broth. Season broth mixture to taste with chili powder and salt.

Shred meat finely and store covered in refrigerator, not with the broth!

Soak corn husks in water overnight.

Day 2:

Drain the corn husks well and pat dry.

Season shredded meat with chili powder, salt, and cumin to taste. As you season the meat, add a small amounts of broth to moisten meat, but don't let it get soupy or runny.

For every 2 cups of masa, add ½ cup of shortening or lard, 1 tsp. of salt, and chili powder to taste.  Add broth mixture a little at a time to masa and mix with your hands to get a smooth, spreadable consistency. If you run out of broth, you can use hot water. 6 pounds of meat should yield about 8 cups of broth.

Assemble the tamales: spread masa about 1/8 inch thick on corn husk with fingers, leaving about ½ inch border along the sides and 2 inch border along the top and bottom of husk. Use about 2 Tbsp. of shredded meat to fill the tamal (like a cigar). Fold sides until they just overlap, fold narrow end under, and place tamale folded side down.

To cook, steam fresh tamales for 15 minutes or until masa is no longer sticky and looks firm.

Eat fresh or store in freezer. 

I hope that if you make these your family loves them as much as mine does.  It is a long process but it's not that hard to do, the first day is mostly just cooking the meat, the next day is just putting them all together and steaming them.  I'm excited to make them for next weekend!  I'm off to start getting things done today, and go out to get new paint!  You all have a Terrific Tuesday!

Misfit Monday

Normally I am excited about Monday!  A day to get the house in order from the troops taking over all weekend and time for me to take that big sigh of relief that I have some time to do what I want to do.  But, today I'm not that excited about Monday.  I had a big mess in the kitchen that hadn't been cleaned up like I was told it would be, and I have a pounding headache.  That hasn't stopped me so far, but it may slow me down!  I watered all my seedlings and they are doing well. I am excited about my tomato seedlings, they are getting that next set of leaves on them now.  I cleaned up that mess in the kitchen my son didn't do, and I got things sorted and organized for today.  I found the best rustic shelf at a thrift store Saturday.  I got the paint I need to do a faux pine finish on my bead board wallpaper we put up, and I thought I will practice on this, if it turns out YAY and if not well I can just do it another color.  Its turning out pretty good so far.  I primed it, put on the base coat a colonial yellow and then started with a dark brown putting the wood grain on using a small artists brush and dry brush.  So far its looking good!  I'm almost finished with my yard sale chair I just have to finish around one arm and do the seat cushion.  I bought some jute to trim it all out with the fake leather fabric I think it will look really cute and rustic.  Once I get my shelf finished and my chair I am starting my walls to get all that wallpaper to match the other half of my room that has real bead board in pine.  I hope it all matches when I'm finished.  It seems there is never enough time in the day or week for that matter to get all the things done that I need to do around here, its a living project, always evolving!

I need to get up into the garden and hoe a bit and do some weeding, I noticed I had the weeds starting already the other day.  It's cloudy outside with showers threatening but I'm not sure if it is going to rain or not, you stand out there and say make up your mind please.  The chickens will be happy if it doesn't rain, they want up to run around and I was holding off this morning.  Speaking of running around, the baby chicks are scurrying all over everywhere.  I took them out of their cage and just let them loose in the kiddy swimming pool in my bathroom.  They seem to love that but they sometimes fly out and we have to capture them and put them back into the pool.  At least if they get out they chirp like crazy so I know what they need and can go right to their aid!  They sure are growing fast, one week old and have most of their wing feathers in really well and have gotten so tall with their legs growing long.  They are going to be very pretty ladies when they get all their feathers grown.

Normally I would have some sort of yummy tidbit to toss out, but I don't today.  I'm doing a standard pot roast for dinner tonight, nothing spectacular and well, to be honest I haven't thought past the meat at this point.  My headache seems to blur my thought process!  I will be a better blogger tomorrow!  Happy Monday everyone!