Pioneer Woman at Heart

I woke up Thursday realizing I had no plan for the day.  I always have a plan. Yikes. The only think I needed to make was a nice home cooked dinner and deliver some to Dad for his 87th birthday.  It all depended on if the chickens gave me more eggs too. I had to flour and pepper my pumpkins due to the excess of bugs.  I am sad too.  Only 2 jack'o lantern pumpkins on them, and no pie pumpkins (a few blossoms, but they look terrible). If we ever have another wet spring like we did, I will not plant our garden.  It's so big and wide that I can't get the weeds caught up either (due to rain).  It's been a huge issue, and now faces us with the cost of putting in raised beds (so I can plant and weed no matter what), or move the entire garden, or reduce it's size. As for the tomatoes, the weather is now cooling down, and they don't like that, so I'm going to salvage any green ones and start ripping them out. Yeah, not gonna plant a garden late ever again. ...

Wednesday I knew it was going to rain, but still did some laundry.  Hubby has been working overtime, and forgot to put his laundry in the utility room.  We have indoor racks so it was not a big deal. I had no produce to put up (feeling sort of odd about that too), so I whipped up some dog treats.  I now have them on hand for grand-pup visits here or their place.  I used my home grown pumpkin puree to make them.  All organic ingredients.  Normally, I'd bake these with our homegrown carrots, but we were force to plant late, and I have not even checked them yet.  I've used a few different recipes, but here is one of them: Homemade Organic Dog Treats 3/4 cup organic pumpkin puree (I grow my own pie pumpkins) 1/4 cup shredded organic carrots 1/3 cup organic (ingredients should say peanuts only) peanut butter 1/4 tsp. organic cinnamon 1 egg beaten (I use our organic fed hen eggs) 2 cups organic all purpose flour Preheat oven to 350°F, line b...

The garden has been nothing but a struggle this year.   On the up side. . .and all done in 2 days . . . I got a small batch of salsa canned, and some tomatoes mad e it to the freezer.  I left the jalapeno seeds in this time.  I'm labeling these jars "ON FIRE!"  Boy is it hot. Super hot.  Hubby loves it.  I do not.  Next batch, if there is one, will not have the seeds left in. It's a new recipe for me to try (Ball book recipe), but it fit my need with how many tomatoes I had. Onion soup made it's way to the freezer - 12 pints made. Another batch of Cowboy Candy was canned. A small bit of green beans went into the freezer, and some into our tummies. Since we don't have a root cellar or basement (yet), the tiniest of the potatoes were boiled with the green beans, with bacon and bacon fat added.  One of our garden favorites. A batch of zucchini meatballs made it's way to the freezer.  Bought the zucchini...

Sunday the heat started rolling in, along with thunderstorms and a lot of humidity.  Second picking of tomatoes brought us 6#.  Not much but tomatoes no less.   Humidity and heat rolled in on Monday and t he heat index reached a high of 98°F.   Today it will be the same.  Rain is in the forecast for Wednesday.  The porch is unbearable, so crochet time was indoors (again).   Hubby and I wandered out the pear trees.  They are loaded, but deer are bedding under one tree.  We also discovered that two other trees growing are producing apples.  Not enough to pick, but producing.  That was a happy discovery.  They were smaller over the years and they were planted before we moved here.  Thankfully, the pears are not ready to pick.   The treadmill and I are back in a relationship.  I have used it since the passing of our nephews.  It's been a rough time, but now I'm back on track as they say...

First, let me just say this.  I am posting only from personal experience (blog has a disclaimer).  I know that internet "experts" will say don't follow "advice" from blogs, but I'm posting anyway.  I can't really say it's "advice" either, as it is simply my experience. Today, I realize how much nettle tea balanced my female hormones.  I truly went gun-ho, in drinking it, in desperation to grow my hair back.  When I stopped drinking it so often, I felt depressed/fatigue, had mood swings as I turned another year older.  Once that happened, and weight came on vs. off (despite exercise and healthy eating), so I thought back to what I had been doing. Here are a few teas that I have found very helping in hormone balance in women (aside from herbal supplements you can buy): Stinging Nettle (Grows wild) Raspberry leaf (Grow your own) Tulsi/Holy Basil (Grow you own) Rooibus (Red tea, a drink of South Africa) I purchased my Rooibus tea (org...

After unwillingly working in the garden the past few days, I realized one thing - we need a day of destruction. Boy it will feel so good after all the hell we went through (and still going through), with the garden. I put a little ditty in Hubby's mind about it too.  The dune buggy.  I asked him to get it running, so I could have a good day of it in the garden.  Still makes me grin just thinking about doing it. It's not out of the realm of possibilities either. Finished my "scrap" yarn lapghan.  I have it up for sale for $45.00 now.  Whew.  One more done.  And I still have more yarn in the closet, ha ha!

Our green pepper plants we started from heirloom, organic seed, are producing.  However, they are not tall enough, and as you can see, the peppers are half or less the size they should be.  I only saw these and a few more out there.  It sure doesn't help me start the day in a happy, motivated, upbeat, peachy-keen attitude. I can't weed very much due to the ground being so wet yet, but I managed to pull all the thistle from my front flower beds.  I was contemplating what to do, with nothing to harvest, nothing that could be easily weeded etc.  A few balls of pizza dough made it to the freezer, but that was about it.  I am out of everything all at once it seems. I have had a few very nice tea breaks on the porch with this cooler weather.  I'm still working on the crocheted lapghans, but I can only handle sitting idle for so long.  I decided to head to the garage and at least try to clean up some stuff.

I clearly had a "thing" for Christmas.  I'll admit, when the kids were young, I was the first to volunteer for their school Christmas parties.  I made a hand crafted tree ornament and wrapped one for each student.  That's how crazy I was over Christmas. Recently, I've realized how crazy.  Cleaning off over 100 Christmas related books, then days later finding binders full of Christmas magazines.  By the way, I had it all - Christmas Almanac, Christmas recipes for around the world, Christmas traditions, Christmas planners, etc. Then I came across this the other day, while cleaning in the bedroom closet.  Sometimes a new idea, is not always a good idea, ha ha!  It's a binder dedicated to gift giving, baking, patterns etc.  I didn't even know I had this, and so it was emptied and binder put away for possible donation. I know one friend of mine will laugh out loud at this point.  I tossed much of it, but wanted to share one gift idea....

We finally had a day where we could turn off the air conditioner.  What a change of temperature, but we are told it'll heat up again this coming weekend.  Such a beautiful day. I woke up Wednesday with zero, nada, zip of produce to either freeze, dry or can.  Nothing.  I realized, before heading out to weed (again), I had the chance to get my lotion made. Boom!  Done!  I love this lotion.  I have tried a few lotion recipes, but this is by far my favorite.   1 cup calendula oil (make ahead) 2 Tbsp. beeswax pastilles Melt over low heat in a double broiler.   While that is melting, place your heatproof glass mixing bowl in a sink of warm water to keep it warm for when you mix with the blender. Remove from heat and add essential oils of your choice (10-15 drops), pour into a heat proof glass mixing bowl, slowly add 1 cup of room temperature water using a hand blender.  I specifically have a hand blender for non-food ...

Monday, while Hubby and daughter were scrambling around getting ready at 5:45am, I was mumbling.   "I have to work out, can jam, clean the coop, make a scramble for the week, do the dishes, do the laundry...." Hubby said, "what'ya gonna do after 9am?"   I laughed, and laughed.  That is true.  There is an advantage of being up early.  Sparta was giving me heck while cleaning the coop.  He kept getting out of the door, and out into the open garden area.  I had to keep chasing him back into the run.  I think he's getting old or his broken leg from years ago is giving him trouble.  He's having a bit of trouble walking and climbing the ramp now. Speaking of scramble - this weeks breakfast for a few days.  It's made with some swiss chard, jalapeno, home grown potatoes, onions, green pepper and bacon. Tuesday, I was up at 4:26 am precisely.  Work called Hubby in, and the thunder and pouring rain kept me from going b...

On the pro side of no rain, what I had weeded is stayed weed free.  On the con side of it, I had to water one day and weed another day.  It was like concrete. Oye.  This is one corner of the potatoes.  It's a total mess. On July 18th, I started weeding them.  Sadly, all the tops had browned and the potatoes I checked were about 1 inch round.  I continued to weed, not giving up, and hoping the next rain would revive them. A few plants still have green on them, so I continued to weed.  you know I'm not one to give up unless it's obviously just not going to yield us food.   Yeah, as the days passed by, and the weeds came back (after that photo), I started digging. Here's what we got. Dinky is this summer's word.    A complete fail.  We planted 15# and harvested 15.43#.  The heat waves, despite watering, caused the plants to die off way too early.  Such a waste of money and time. I will be buyi...

An Uncle of mine passed away and we had yet another family funeral to attend over the weekend.  He was 89, and a Korean veteran.  He was such a jokester and had a good full life, but pancreatic cancer took him suddenly and quickly.  It was a beautiful service, and we rode the Harley.  Uncle G. loved our Harley and I'm sure he was smiling in Heaven as we rode to his final resting place.  Such a beautiful day and my cousin's tribute at the church was downright emotional.  There were US Army soldiers there to do the flag folding, and a gun salute.  Just a very nice service. Sunday morning we found out that a woman we rode with last year (in a group), was killed in a motorcycle accident.  She took a curve badly, tried to correct herself and hit a car.  No helmet.   Remember that tall stack of library books?  I found recipes for dehydrator cookies and gave them a try.  We love these!  No eggs, no butter, and delicio...

I love our home canned corn relish. It's great on fish, meat, and one daughter (vegetarian), love it with her mashed potatoes when she lived at home. I drained some and added it to basic corn bread.  It was delicious.  Next time I'm going to try this with einkorn flour.  Recipe: 1 stick of organic butter, 2 Tbsp. divided (see note below) 1 1/2 cups einkorn whole grain flour 3/4 c. organic cornmeal 1 Tbsp. non-gmo baking powder 1 Tbsp. sugar 2 tsp. salt 2 farm fresh eggs, beaten 1 1/4 c. organic milk 1 1/2 c. home canned corn relish, drained well Mix dry ingredients.  Mix wet (melt butter) and add to dry.  Heat your 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet with the 2 Tbsp of butter (note: I used organic non-gmo olive oil and it worked great).  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425°F.  Depending on the size of you skillet, bake 20 to 35 minutes.  Check center, if needed, using a wooden toothpick.  Cool a few minutes before serving. ...

. . . in the rose bed I'm still weeding it.  It looks small in that photo, but it's the entire length of the kitchen wall.    I managed to spend an hour and pull out the 7 foot thistle though.  We are enamored in sweat bees this year, and I can only stand being out there so long, especially in the heat.  Nothing works to keep the bees off me - not homemade bug spray, nor water with peppermint essential oil.  They are horrible, and I cannot even enjoy the front porch now.  They are driving us all insane.  I will try setting a citronella candle out there later if I remember to do it. So far the winning numbers are, flyswatter-4,000, spider webs - 4.   As for the vegetable garden.  I give up.  The weeds will come out when the plants come out and that's all the time I'm putting into it. I put out a plea for anyone's extra zucchini, yellow squash (we got zero from those plants that looked so good weeks and weeks ago...