Pioneer Woman at Heart

The chimney and wood stove has finally been cleaned.  This year the cost was $199.00. Last year it was $179.00 and the year before $159.00.  I see a $20 hike pattern here, but there are very few companies that do this in my area (and who are reliable).  Self sufficiency comes with it's own price, and there are no short cuts when it comes to responsibility.

Some days I don't look up an herbal/medicinal tea recipe.  I simply open my encyclopedia on herbs and pick a few I harvest, and brew the tea.   I think I picked this one up at a book sale years ago.  Not sure.  It contains a good amount of information on all herbs, but I noticed if I looked up "Stinging Nettle" it only mentions the medicinal use for asthma and regrowth of hair. No mention of allergies, poor circulation or other ailments. Yesterday's tea was nettle/peppermint.  Nettle grows here wild and the peppermint I grow from organic seeds.

The outside Christmas lights have been put up.  Zuri caught a glimpse of Hubby climbing up the ladder and let out a "stranger danger" bark.    Oldest daughter has been over two times with her new puppy Mia (hope I am spelling that right).  She is also 4 months old.  So, here in the photo, is Mia, Zuri and King.  All relaxing after a fun day of puppy play.  Jesse actually showed the first signs of playing with them, by playing with Mia.   It was refreshing to see Jesse join the fun for once.

Before we got started, I had to empty a canning jar of homemade vanilla.  It smells so good!  New cookie this season - whiskey caramel cookies.

The puppies sleep all night, but get up between 5:30am and 6:30am.  Not a big deal really.  Today they slept until almost 7am.  It helps me get up and going and back to intentional exercise (again).  They don't like going in their crates while I work out, so I've been testing their behavior by blocking them into the kitchen where I can mostly see them.  So far so good.  I have noticed they have exceptional hearing , whic h i s always important when you want "guard" dogs.

I have only posted one herbal bath tea, and it was difficult to find again.  Blogger is having a few issues I guess. Herbal Bath Tea ~ Cold and Flu I pu rcha sed chemic al and tag free "press n' brew" bags for tea making, but will mostly use them for traveling , and for bath teas.  We used muslin before, but ended up with tea leaves in the bath water each time.  By the way,

Oh dear, I have had practically nothing to share lately.  No new recipes, no new concoctions of herbs, or even anything remotely exciting. Unless you count the night that King proudly brought in a dead, flattened mouse.  Two girls went ballistic and screamed for me (or their Dad who conveniently ignored them) to come rescue them.    I found one daughter holding one puppy, and one holding the other and both screaming and pointing to the dead mouse.  I removed it of course, even while they were screaming at me while doing it.  I had gloves on, but they still couldn't watch.  I told them when they grow up and have kids, they'll be able to do almost anything without gagging.  P uppy nap time - Zuri with her head on top of King.  They both are growing so fast already.  King still thinks he's a lap dog, so this will be interesting.  Kin g has learned "speak" already.  He's been easy to train in th at department.  He's v...

I apologize in advance for the fuzzy photo, but these pulleys are way at the top and I was on the ground photographing them.  They are the original wood pulleys, still intact.  I took a quick picture for our album.  There is one more at the very top peek of the barn too. Once again, we have someone interested in the barn .  What's left of it, minus what we'll take from it .  Not sure if it will happ en, but we'll see .  This w ill be the umpteen th person to look it over.  It is a lot of work , but I would like to see it r eused as much as possible.  

 I have fallen onto the ban d wagon of the 20+ questions.  Enjoy! You'll need a cup of something to read th rough this.  I hope it entertains you today.   1.  Do you like bleu cheese?  Yes, but only mixed with whiskey and butter to slab onto a grilled steak.

(Puppy na p time)   The other day I was up before 5:00am, and not because of dogs.  I just couldn't sleep for some reason, and then the phone rang - fog delay.  I was able to get a few good hours of writing in while the pups slept.  The pups pretty much sleep like this when the are worn out from play time. I had to laugh at King one day.  He had a squeaky dog bone toy in is mouth and was barking at the same time, trying to get Jesse to play.  Jesse wanted none of it, but the sound King was making was hilarious.  Like he was saying "pretty please?" to Jesse.

I've been borrowing books from the library, over and over, contemplating which is the best medicinal herb book to purchase and have on hand (along with handicraft pattern books).  The above stack came in all at once, and my loving Hubby picked them up for me.  He was struggling to get in the house with them, ha ha!  I had to explain, how it saves us money.  I do like the recipes in this book - Medicinal Herbs, A Beginner's Guide, by Rosemary Gladstar.  I think I've shared this book before also.  I have one of her books with herbal tea recipes and make the teas.  This book remains on my wish list, unless another one interests me. These other three have many recipes that may be useful for us too.  There is a headache tea I'd like to try, and a few others, but need a few more herbs planted next year.  For now, I'll borrow these again. In the process of borrowing books on growing mustards, and making mustards, I located more ...

Mail delivered this absolutely adorable hand knitted miniature sweater Christmas tree ornament!  It came with it's own hanger too.  And a lovely card to go with it.  It totally made my day!  Thank you Mama Pea !

Warning:  It's a "grab a cup of ...." kind of blog post today.   I was taking bets as to how many people would notice, including our kids th at were not home, the work we did on S unday . They noticed.  Whew.  Looks so nice when I look out my window now.  It's that ki nd of reli e f when you see a messy room all cleaned up. Our 19 year-old surprised us with a visit last Sunday night.  First thing she said, was "I noticed you don't have any outside lights up." Guilty. We had zero time with all the outside work.  She insisted we at least put some up around the front porch. We did not.  We ended up taking a road trip.

In July of 2014, we came home to this.  Free wood.  Delivered for free.  Pieces were bigger and taller than myself, and wide.  Very wide. Guess what?

Like most of you, my hands, face, and lips are feeling dried up and awful already (cold and wind).  My younger two girls love the homemade lip balm, and we are almost out of homemade hand lotion.   That is now on my to-do list now al so. The last time I made the lip bal m I used small plas tic , round cont ain ers.   This time I u sed lip b alm tubes.  I used 10 of them.

Now, first of all, I have no business in starting any o f these new fun projects , but I did.  I still have a baby blanket t hat is not finished .  Re member the granny square one?  I put it away a nd p lum forgot again.  I have to use different white yarn so we'll see if it even turns out right when I do fin ish it.   So ....  Cup of coffee anyone?  This one was a bit of a challenge for me, and my coffee is sitting up a bit too high in the cup, but I'm glad I'm venturing into toys for kids.  This would even make a nice pin cushion for someone who sews and loves coffee.  Heck, it could be hot chocolate.  I could crochet mini marshmallows on to p.   I mean it's a play toy, so we can play all sorts of make believe.

Guess what I am making next?  Hint:  It will need to infuse for 3-4 weeks and will be ready in the nick of time for Christmas day.

Rainy days are good for bread baking.  I made my first Jalapeno Cheddar Artisan bread the other day.  Yum!  If you 'd like to try th e recipe it 's from Candy at Lazy J Bar C Blogspot   Delicious !  I baked it to go along with ham bone soup for dinner.  The w eather continu es to be we t an d cold here.  I made a trip to the library and brought ho me these: