Pioneer Woman at Heart

Sometime during my illness, a swift wind or storm came through our area.  More of the "big barn" came tumbling down, including a large beam.  Just sharing today's biggest news discovery, ha ha!  We still plan to get inside the other half and cut beams into firewood.  We haven't found anyone to tear it down that has not wanted a hefty fee, so it's our life-long project.

There is indeed a kitten in one of our barns.  A long haired, female, calico of sorts.  Not good.  Leo, is not "fixed" and so we'll need to be making a move soon.  Fix Leo, find a home for the feral or somewhat feral kitten.  Hm.  No more rooms at the Inn, and I do not want kittens.  Who does? Made some headway with getting better - laundry, cleaned the wood stove, picked up some some clutter, making the coffee every morning, washed the bedding, etc. Don't ever try to write a blog post when your 17 year-old daughter is up making you breakfast - chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter..... ....she's still talking, ha ha! Hubby has been asked to work so much overtime.  I think there is a lack of knowledgeable workers for the parts that need fixed, and he's plum tired every night.  I told him he was a grouch last night, and he slowly warmed up to being home and in peace.  Not on "work" schedule. Bought this book from a used book stor...

Pre- Thanksgiving (while still s ick) , I used King Flour's recipe for soft white dinner rolls, I substituted home grown potatoes for the instant potato flakes (thanks to some advice from an avid bread baker). I let the mashed potatoes cool, while the butter came down to room temperature, and took to filing away my last "file" pile. Using the directions on King Flour's blogpost, I divided them into 16 rolls, and froze them.   How did they turn out? Well, I forgot to take a photo, but they did n ot ri se enough.  I'm wonde ring if I should have t ha wed them in t he fri dge the night before vs. the same day we ba ked them.  Anyone have t ips on this.  I used my dehydrator to help them rise too. 

Courtesy of my 20 year-old "Vet-Tech" in training daughter - happy photos of the goats.  She dressed up all of her animals and took fun photos of them playing (including her rabbit!).  This brought smiles to my face, as I am unable to walk to the barn yet.  Gosh I just love these guys.  They are sporting their Christmas collars and bells, ha ha!  Of course they were not left on, but they seemed to enjoy playing around with them.

I finally got my hot bath, using tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil, and bath salts.  Boy it felt great, especially on my belly.  It's slow going for sure, just to get my walking balance back.  The slow intro of food is the most frustrating.   I'm starving, but I know I have to introduce slowly, and meats are far down on the list sadly.  I could devour a homemade bacon/potato omelet this morning, ha ha!  Coffee is back in action, followed by afternoons of tea and water and rest.   Jesse and I took a short nap together.  He pretty much was on top of me, making sure I didn't over due it, ha ha! First goal, wash a load of laundry, and put it on drying racks.  In a day or two anyway.  Second goal?  Mix up a frittata for Hubby to take to work (easier than standing to mix up a scramble).  That may take a few more days longer.  Bills are an entirely different big job.  I had it all under control, but with being gone so...

I just got home from the hospital yesterday.  I'm a bit loopy yet, off kilter, running on a blip of a cylinder, but I'm home.  It was a long 30-some days of illness.  In reality, it was an illness gone wrong by antibiotics my body could not handle. I have not been sick for years, and well, the Z-pack as they call it tore me up literally, after getting over the pneumonia.  I tried telling the ER people that the first trip.  They sent us home with more pills, even stronger than the last (blooting my innards to a point of non-function). Second trip to ER - more xrays, more everything, they put in an NG tube (a tube they insert into your nose and down into your stomach to "deflate" it, and you must be awake and participate to get it in correctly) and ambulanced me to another hospital.  There, they continued the higher, more potent drug, and added yet another.

Four days of being sick, followed by 10 days of being in bed, one urgent care visit and a visit to the hospital ER, I am pushing myself upright today. Long story short - low immune system allowed me to pick up walking pneumonia, doctor prescribed a pill that ended up killing all my good bacteria, hence the trip to the hospital.  I ended up more sick than I was in the being, more pain, and agonizing nausea (the just repeated a process that was painful and exhausting).  It felt like the antibiotic was trying to kill me. I'm not even close to being back to normal.  The trip to recovery is very very slow. My energy level is the lowest of all lows. While I was in one hospital getting treatment, and pumped with sodium and other things (my sodium was low from not being able to eat), our son was in another hospital getting tests for being sick.  He however, will involve a surgery.  Either last night or tonight he had/or will have surgery for appendicitis.  Hu...

Well, I didn't feel well yesterday morning, and at 2am woke up to a fever of 102.3°F.  I had to wake Hubby up.  Today was pie baking day, along with two other dishes, which required a trip to town.  Yeah, I just wasn't expecting this.    I sipped herbal tea all day yesterday, so I hope it just sped up the burning out of the fever and sickness, but my stomach says no. If two girls of mine want to bake, it'll happen.  Otherwise they'll go without it for the big meal.  I'm not sure I'll be eating anyway. Why, oh why?

I'll be honest.  I am not feeling the "family" thing for this coming holiday.  It's been a long month for us, and the thought of spending the entire day baking has been taking a toll on me.  Vet-tech Daughter said she'd cook everything, and just wanted a lot of food. My Oldest Army-college Daughter stopped in and asked for us to save "a lot of leftovers" for her as she has not had time to cook.  No pressure there. I really didn't want to cook.  We only had one day to have the dinner.  Thanksgiving day.  Oh, and on top of that same day, Hubby's family is having their big meal.  So he wants to go there, and have the meal here too.  In one day.  No pressure there.   Of course the one volunteering to cook, doesn't care what's in processed food, and said to buy it vs. make it. Yeah.  That's not happening.

Now that it's cold out , handiw ork needs to resume.  I made these crocheted hand towels back in March of 2015 .  they are still looking good.  Other than a bit of faded color, they are holding together nicely and work very well for bathroom hand towels. I have just a bit more of this yarn to make myself a few more, so th at's now in a "to-go" proj ect bag. Trust me, I have very, very lit tle handiwork time righ t now, and when I do, I am too tired to do it, ha ha!

It's not hard to believe, in our state anyway, that were were out on the motorcycle on Friday, with a high of 73°F.  Saturday, we woke up to very cold temperatures and had flurries all day long.  I honestly thought we'd wake up to a good amount on the ground, but....   ...this is what it amounted to this morning.  Sorry for the blurry photo.  It's cold out there and I snapped it pretty quickly.   I almost didn't think I would get up to blog today either.  I fought a migraine all night long, and my lavender freezer pack was not re-freezing fast enough.  I am pretty sure I kept Hubby up all night fetching it, etc. and so here I am attempting to kill off the last of the migraine with caffeine.  Hubby and I spent the morning cutting, and splitting wood.  We got a good amount done, but we'll need a few more good long days to get it re-stocked. We have not yet fired up the wood stove. It's football season, so while Hubby wat...

Waking up on Friday, with my stomach churning, and in digestional-mahem, I was the "guinea pig" of trying the anise seed tea.   Looking up the benefits and healing properties, it fit the bill. It's not as strong as fennel, and not over-bearing in flavor.  I crushed a teaspoon, poured boiling water over, and infused.  I have a reusable tea infuser.

Homesteading comes with not-so-pleasant moments.  The fox is back.  Maybe he/she never left?  Our 17 year-old daughter took King out yesterday afternoon.  On a leash. She rounded the big barn, and through it, she heard a noise and saw the fox on the other side.  King freaked out, pulled backwards, completely freeing himself from his collar. The chase was on.  King barreled after the fox, as she watched the weeds sway.  She screamed and screamed, then sobbed horribly. King ran straight into the woods. After moments of shear panic she had lost her "baby" he ran back out of the woods to her. We've now switched from collars and leashes, to harnesses and leashes.  The fox has to find a new home. I'm hoping the chase has run the fox completely off this time, but he/she seems to come around when the chickens are out of their coop and in their run.   When they are inside there is no sign of Mr. fox.

My go-to produce stand had a few more pie pumpkins, so I stopped in and picked them up. He's getting to c lose it up I think. Those are roasted and in the freezer now too. I have 6 more cups now. Guess what else I'm doing?

My lunch yesterday, and this morning it's Hubby's breakfast.  It was one of those throw-it-together scrambles.  I had just enough chard in the garden to make it, and used another jalapeno to flavor it up.  My sweet potato stash is dwindling quicker than I want it to.

...and it's only Tuesday. Hubby and I made it to the g ym at 5 am this morning .  Slowly, but surely, we'll have a regular routine in place.  I myself, had been up sin ce 2am.   The usual stuff needs done, and I'm still trying to get some foods stocked up and processed etc.  It's a fight this week. I canned 8 more pints of applesauce.   My swiss chard is not looking too good.  I plan on visiting it today and getting the last of it in the f ree zer.

The moon was nice and bright last night.  I haven't looked this morning, but they say it will be visible like this today too. Rain barrels are all emptied, flipped over and in place for winter now.  Expandable downspouts are in place, but I need a few more pieces to complete them.

Every few days I have been making a crock pot of steel cut oats, so Hubby can take his breakfast to work (or we enjoy it after the gym, and before h e leaves for work ).     The frittatas, and other dishes fill up the remainder days.  I made a zucchini- tomato frittata recently.  The roadside produce stand still had some

It's time for some salve making to happen.  Ideally this would be much easier in the summer when the coconut oil is already melted in the jar. I used my crock pot this time, so I didn't have to watch the stove.  I just put a dishcloth in the bottom, to make sure my jar didn't break. Once the oil was infused with the comfrey, I strained it, added melted beeswax and poured it into the container. (Some of the beeswax started to harden as I poured the warm oil into it) I made a small batch - 1 cup dried comfrey and

We lack orchards that do no t spray in our area.  The only way I'll get organic apples, is to wait for my trees to produce or buy gala organic apples from the grocer (and hope they are really organic). I've been happy with the taste of my homemade applesauce, using gala, even though other types are suggested more often.

I used a portion of a head of cabbage to make a carrot/cabbage/potato frittata (loaded with fresh chives).  I found 4 pea pods while gutting the garden, so not to waste them, they went in too.

Our pears have been sitting in a bag in this brewing bucket for 6 weeks now.  Just the other day, Hubby had a conversation with a co-worker who makes wine.  We got some tips. He asked questions, we got answers.  We explained that the two locations we can purchase supplies as, would not provide recipes.  They said, we provide a kit, you find the recipe "there are tons on the internet."  We knew this.  We found one, and well, we found another store that provides a recipe with full instructions.  Do your research folks.  Or just follow blogs like mine, wi th trial and error, h a ha.  So far, no error. He said we needed an acid to keep this from turning into vinegar.  We removed the bag of fruit.  Squeezed it and poured it into our 3 gallon carboy (glass).

Way back in the summer, we ran out of hay.  Dallas got mad.  He soon learned to jump out of his stall and eat up the tidbits where we store the hay.   I could write a book about this goat.  He became more of the goat from h-e-double hockey sticks.  He jumped out so many times, I got tired of putting him back in. We built up the sides of the stall, north and south (the west wall is the barn wall where we have slide gate for them to exit and go into the fenced area).

Hub by and I took off on a few motorcycle rides.  One ride we did on our own, and one with a few of the guys.  It's not yet cold enough to put my insulated half chaps on, tha t Hubby is trying to steal from me.  They are unis ex, so he now wants to make a ride back to ge t a pair f or h ims elf.   We've had some wonderful weather.  However, it 's wet a nd cold out when I want to w ork in the ga r den early.  We shouldn't even be riding the Harley in N ovember either. I put it off long enough.  I spent some time in the garden anyway.  Again.  Pulling all the green bean plants, and bringing in a handful for Jesse's dog food.  Pulling the last cabbage, and bringing in some small-ish cauliflower heads.  I pulled 6 foot ragweeds that grew in the carrot row, bringing in a few teeny tiny carrots, so the tops could go to Daughter's pet rabbit. 

I've been looking for something unique to crochet, to add to my stash.  Just in case I build enough up for a craft show one of these winters (ha!).  I noticed that hemp is the new thread for crocheting dish scrubbies, so I finally got around to getting a few balls of it. Oh, does it smell too.  Just FYI.  I had it in my bedroom, and it took us a day to figure out what "that smell was." I crocheted mine somewhat following a free pattern online.  I  also checked stores for the colored hemp (contains chemicals, so I didn't buy it). I went ahead and simply crocheted the two pieces together, and skipped the extra edging.  Then we gave it a "whirl" at the kitchen sink. First thing we discovered - water will rinse out green after first use. Second thing we discovered

I've had this on my to-do list for the entire summer, but I'm just now getting around to making it.  And trying it. Homemade mouth wash.

I decided to whip up a swiss chard frittata, since I was already blanching some to freeze.  It was my lunch, and Hubby's breakfast for the next day.  It was kind of an "end of the season" and "just toss it in" kind of meal.  I read up on chard and it's good for the heart, as well as fresh thyme.  The eggs were topped with fresh chives and thyme.  The recent rain and warmer days are providing fresh herbs.  Mmm, was this tasty.  Did you know thyme helps the body prevent heart attacks, strokes and coronary disease?  I didn't.  Until I read up on it. However,

Although I don't have a photo of the soup, we recently enjoyed some crusty baked bread with some homemade potato leek soup.  Our leeks did not do well, but we found an organic source this fall. Leeks provide cardiovascular support, and we love the soup.   Homemade bread baking has resumed. Two chairs now have a fresh coat of paint on them.  One more job off the to-do list.  Although , the wicker sofa remains to be pa inted.  We had a few days in t he lower 70's .

It's been too long since I joined the Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom , and Happy Homemaker Monday.  I hope you enjoy today's post. The weather outside is. . .

I'm adding more chives to meals.  Eggs are not just eggs anymore.    I read that chives work like garlic does, when it comes to "heart" health.  I'm adding red onions more often to meals then before as well. Hubby's snack at work is a combination of non-gmo nuts - walnuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews and raisins.  In moderation of course.

Yesterday was a busy day again.  I can see more of the kitchen table top, and we can actually sit and eat there.  Some of us anyway.  I had two crock pots going, while another batch of green tomato chutney (the one with raisins) simmered.    ...and all while the laundry went on the line.  It was still a dark, dreery, cold day.  However, it was windy.  We tasted the chutney on the turkey breast that was cooking with sweet potatoes and onions in one crock pot.  Delicious!

I had my own sous chef yesterday, so I got a lot done by 2pm.  Hubby was my chopping helper and enjoyed it actually.  I told him he needs to hurry up and retire. I kind of like having him at home. I roasted the last two pumpkins for making pumpkin butter - delicious!!!  One container for the fridge, and two went into the freezer. We'll use it to top waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, biscuits, toast and more.  Maybe use it in a dessert if the need arises. 

I brought in 17 # of green tomatoes before our fr ost , so I canned a simple green tomato chut ney.   There are so many recipes, I just wanted to try a simple one first.  It filled 6 half- pin ts (trip l ed recipe) , so I hope it's tasty.  This came from the book "Foolpro of Preserving ."  I t appears I could have thickened it just a bit more, but it was already sticking to the pan . What was next?

 A frost warning was set for last night, so I moved into high gear and worked on what should be brought in first.  I Cut the last of the parsley my herb garden could give me (while canning) .   ...a few more comfrey leaves   ....the last of the calendula flowers.

I purchased 8 pie pumpkins so far, and roasted them all for puree.  The first 6  weighed in about 1 5 . 71 lbs.  I typically cut them and clean them all, and roast them all in one day.  This time I roasted two a day, until I was done.  I have a dog that likes to steal food , so I made sure I didn't have a lot going on.  Funny how all the dog s don't touch the tomatoes.  An yway... I used parchment paper this year.  I usually add water and cover, but not this year.  It works pretty well too.  Parchment paper isn't cheap, so I buy it at our dollar store for $1 a box.  It gets me th rough the ho liday baking sea son on a dime as well.

Saturday was pretty productive.  I boiled and ice bathed the last 11# of tomatoes I picked on Friday.  Yes, there were more, even after I let the hens at 'em.  Grand total of to matoes has moved up to 511#! I got 8 1/2 pints of crushed tomatoes canned.  Not bad for the last bit of tomatoes.  Ripe ones anyway.  While the can ner boiled, I started washing down the k itchen cupboards.  The fall cleaning has started .

We have had an ample amount of tomatoes in the house lately, and the gnats are horrible.  One daughter found this idea on the internet and it works.  Simply put fruit in the jar and add a piece of paper.  They can get in, but not back out.  I added a drop of dawn soap down the center to kill them.  Today the jar has twice as many in it.  Best thing that has worked so far.  We even caught a fly in it.

The other day, our Army daughter stopped in for a porch visit.  She told me, "Mom the only thing I want for Christmas is a jar of pickles." It's the thing a hard working, gardening, self-sufficient mother wants to hear from her kids - an appreciation for home grown food.   The problem with health issues today, in my opinion, stands on the fact convenience kills (when it comes to food).  I can only hope that my kids will understand the importance of eating real food.  Even if they have to buy it vs. grow it. I should have done this with the tomato soup (much chopping involved), but I'll entertain some folks with the art of making tomato salsa.  Mind you this is only one thing to can with tomatoes.  Imagine all the work into our 500# this year.  This shows you h ow crazy us homesteader/se lf -sufficient nuts are , ha ha! First:  You have to prepare the garden, till it, weed it, plant it, weed it some more, then wait for the bounty.  Th...