Lots going on this spring around our house!
We're winding up our school year. Only three weeks left after this week! Woo Hoo! We're all excited for summer break! This has been one of our best school years yet. I'm really looking forward to next year though and trying some new things with the kids. Beth is going to be getting into reading classics more next year, and she's very excited about that. We're also going to be doing an Astronomy unit study as a family. It will last about a year and we will learn a lot about God's creation in the sky...sun, moon and stars!
I'm preparing to make a wedding cake for my best friend's daughter, Heather. She's getting married June 5th and I get the privilege of making her a cherry blossom wedding cake. It has been almost 14 years since I've made a wedding cake, so I'm quite nervous. I made several of Heather's birthday cakes throughout her life, so it will be fun to make a cake for such an exciting milestone!
We're getting chickens! We're in the process of fixing up the chicken coop (I'll have to post pictures later) and they are supposed to ship the chicks out on my birthday, May 19th. We're getting 15 chicks -- 5 Welsummers, 5 Delawares and 5 Blue Andalusians. It will take several months, but I'm looking forward to our first eggs!
Bread baking is still a constant in our house. I've been grinding my own wheat and baking my own bread for three years now. It has been such a positive addition to our family's menu. I make sandwich rolls and blueberry muffins every week. Additionally, I make a loaf of bread here and there and other types of muffins. Sandwich roll and blueberry muffins are a staple in our house though. :)
Beth and I are winding up our first semester in the Bible Institute we're attending. We started in January and are really enjoying it. In total, it includes 6 semesters of Old Testament, New Testament and Theology. At the end of the three years, we will receive a diploma and will have 18 college credits that will transfer to our local university. If Beth decides to go there, she will have most, if not all, of her Bible classes that she needs. I'm learning so much and have truly enjoyed this new adventure!
We're planning a trip to Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky this summer. My brother, Darrell, will be turning 50, and we will be there to help celebrate! We'll also be able to visit my other brother Robert, and his family, my aunt Alberta, and hopefully some friends. Then we'll go to Kentucky for a family reunion. I'm looking forward to seeing cousins I haven't seen in years!
Ben is playing soccer this spring. He is having lots of fun and learning a lot. So far they've won both of their games.
The garden is producing already! We've eaten fresh spinach, asparagus and strawberries. There is nothing like grilled asparagus! We eat it like french fries. It's sooo good!
Cinco de Mayo is today! To celebrate, in our non-Mexican home, we will be eating chicken enchiladas tonight with guacamole, chips and salsa. Yum!
Well, that's some of what's going on around here. I'm hoping to be a bit more faithful to my blog now. :)
Showing posts with label Yard and Garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yard and Garden. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Salsa 2008
This is what we've been doing the last two Saturdays...Salsa, baby! Saturday before last we canned 36 pints and last Saturday we canned 40 pints! We did something new this year and added black beans and white corn to some of it. We really like it!
Here's one of the pots of salsa. Total time from peeling tomatoes to putting them in the canner was about 3 hours.
Here's my trusty canner. We've had this for at least 14 or 15 years. My Mom and Dad bought it for us for Christmas one year. We've canned just about every summer we've been married (17 years). During the time we lived in Georgia we didn't can as much. We didn't have a good spot for a garden. Neal tried really hard though!
Here's some of our jars. These weren't actually canned yet. We went ahead and put all the salsa in jars with regular lids on them until it was their turn for the boiling water!
This year we also canned 14 qts of green beans. We had so many leftover from last year, that we didn't feel the need to can 70 qts like we usually do. We did eat a lot of steamed green beans though! Yummy!
Here's one of the pots of salsa. Total time from peeling tomatoes to putting them in the canner was about 3 hours.
Here's my trusty canner. We've had this for at least 14 or 15 years. My Mom and Dad bought it for us for Christmas one year. We've canned just about every summer we've been married (17 years). During the time we lived in Georgia we didn't can as much. We didn't have a good spot for a garden. Neal tried really hard though!
Here's some of our jars. These weren't actually canned yet. We went ahead and put all the salsa in jars with regular lids on them until it was their turn for the boiling water!
This year we also canned 14 qts of green beans. We had so many leftover from last year, that we didn't feel the need to can 70 qts like we usually do. We did eat a lot of steamed green beans though! Yummy!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Today in our Yard
After reading about the Farmer's Market at 2nd Cup of Coffee, I thought I'd take some pictures of our garden and yard. We are very blessed to have enough property to have a garden, and some pretty flower beds. My Mom lives in our terrace apartment and enjoys planting the flowers and taking care of them. I only took pictures of the flowers in our back yard today. All the flower pictures were taken from my back deck (some I zoomed in on). We have at least five more flowerbeds in addition to what I took pictures of! Mom is incredible!
This is a picture of our corn. We planted a sweet, white corn this year. It is very yummy!
Mom planted flowers at the edge of the garden, too! I told her yesterday that when I look out at the garden it makes me smile. They look much more vibrant in person. (if you click on the picture you can see the flowers better)
This is a look at the whole garden. On the left is grown up asparagus. We ate off of the asparagus for 7 or 8 weeks this year. There are lots of "rules" on growing asparagus. The older the patch the longer you can eat off of it. It was so good!
These are some of the veggies we've picked. Right now I have our card table set up in the kitchen to hold the vegetables. My counter was being overrun by zucchini and squash earlier in the summer and I came up with this idea. It may not look too good, but it frees up my counter! Here we have a small spaghetti squash in the back left corner, and we have zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and cucumber.
This is the flower bed that runs right next to Mom's patio. I'm looking down on it from my deck here.
This is a little flower bed next to Mom's shed. She used to keep water in her bird bath, but her cat would jump up on it and knock it over. We were afraid he'd get hurt, so she planted flowers in it!
This doesn't show up very well, but Mom planted flowers along the edge of the woods. Depending on the time of year, this is a very vibrant flowerbed. All of the rocks you see in the edging in her flowerbeds were collected from our property.
I don't think I'll be canning as much this year. We had lots of canned green beans and salsa left over from last year. However, I have canned 14 quarts of green beans so far, and for the first time I've frozen corn. We usually don't have enough to freeze, but we did this year. I cut off enough to freeze two quarts. We will can some salsa, but not as much as usual. We enjoy canning the salsa...it's usually an all day project.
Well, that's a tour of most of our yard. I hope you enjoyed it!
This is a picture of our corn. We planted a sweet, white corn this year. It is very yummy!
Mom planted flowers at the edge of the garden, too! I told her yesterday that when I look out at the garden it makes me smile. They look much more vibrant in person. (if you click on the picture you can see the flowers better)
This is a look at the whole garden. On the left is grown up asparagus. We ate off of the asparagus for 7 or 8 weeks this year. There are lots of "rules" on growing asparagus. The older the patch the longer you can eat off of it. It was so good!
These are some of the veggies we've picked. Right now I have our card table set up in the kitchen to hold the vegetables. My counter was being overrun by zucchini and squash earlier in the summer and I came up with this idea. It may not look too good, but it frees up my counter! Here we have a small spaghetti squash in the back left corner, and we have zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and cucumber.
This is the flower bed that runs right next to Mom's patio. I'm looking down on it from my deck here.
This is a little flower bed next to Mom's shed. She used to keep water in her bird bath, but her cat would jump up on it and knock it over. We were afraid he'd get hurt, so she planted flowers in it!
This doesn't show up very well, but Mom planted flowers along the edge of the woods. Depending on the time of year, this is a very vibrant flowerbed. All of the rocks you see in the edging in her flowerbeds were collected from our property.
I don't think I'll be canning as much this year. We had lots of canned green beans and salsa left over from last year. However, I have canned 14 quarts of green beans so far, and for the first time I've frozen corn. We usually don't have enough to freeze, but we did this year. I cut off enough to freeze two quarts. We will can some salsa, but not as much as usual. We enjoy canning the salsa...it's usually an all day project.
Well, that's a tour of most of our yard. I hope you enjoyed it!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Taters & Maters
Neal planted sweet potatoes for me again this year. I say he planted them for "me" because it's true. He hates sweet potatoes! That's one of his "love gifts" to me. Not only is it a true love gift by planting them, he also eats them when I make them. He does admit though that our home grown sweet potatoes taste better than any store bought we've ever had.
My favorite way to make them is bake them, but with some of these 'taters, they're just way too big to bake.
To give you a better perspective on how big they are, look at them next to the tomatoes. These babies are huge! And we have a ton of them! There are some that are normal size, and I'll use them for baking.
I took "one" of these potatoes Saturday and washed, peeled (let me tell you, that was a job!), and thinly sliced it. Then I put the slices on two cookies sheets, salted them, and baked them until they were crisp. Sweet potato chips! Yummy!!!
Neal's favorite way for me to make them is to mash them like regular potatoes. I think he plays a game of pretend when he's eating them and imagines that they are white! LOL
My favorite way to make them is bake them, but with some of these 'taters, they're just way too big to bake.
To give you a better perspective on how big they are, look at them next to the tomatoes. These babies are huge! And we have a ton of them! There are some that are normal size, and I'll use them for baking.
I took "one" of these potatoes Saturday and washed, peeled (let me tell you, that was a job!), and thinly sliced it. Then I put the slices on two cookies sheets, salted them, and baked them until they were crisp. Sweet potato chips! Yummy!!!
Neal's favorite way for me to make them is to mash them like regular potatoes. I think he plays a game of pretend when he's eating them and imagines that they are white! LOL
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Spring is in the air...
One of the newest veggie tale characters:
Onion Man
Larry Boy's Latest Rival
Time to get the spinach and sugar snap peas in the ground!
That's Beth working the hoe!
We even put our company to work in the garden!
Shoes too nice? Wear plastic bags! (use #367 for Walmart bags)
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