Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I'm cramming a lot into one post for the end of July.   Gardening work has been in full motion, for veggies, herbs and flowers.  Despite cutting the planting down by almost half this year, we have had a lot to up-keep.  On top of all my regular chores and happenings, sweet corn is in season.  Oh boy, the work load has doubled, but happy to get it done this year.  Corn frozen.  Job done. If you did not read about it, we did not plant any squash at all this year, to kill off the squash bug.  However, we have not been able to locate many produce stands with yellow squash.  Zucchini is everywhere, but a lack of yellow squash.  Our adventures continue.  We did our very first local 4 mile bicycle ride.   After many years of having this on my "bucket" list, I grew our very first lemon.  It was delicious too. We have taken more camping trips to off set the work days, relax, and enjoy life.  I have brought home two...

  Wow, the time has really flown by, and it would take a very long post to update every single thing.  Goodness. Thank you all for your advice on recent post question.  

Even though I know spring planting time is not here yet, it was depressing to know that there was a freeze warning out last night for us, and is still in effect until 10am today. We are hoping it won't damage the asparagus or rhubarb.  I'm sure it may damage some of my early spring herbs however.  My sage plants were just starting to produce again too. I found the pattern location for the crocheted rose cup coasters, using crochet thread #10.  Sharing for those who were interested in the pattern. The pattern is in this book, on page 55.  Check your library for the book. Book information:  Creative Crochet, A Leisure Arts Publication, ISBN:  0-942237-63-3 Not wanting to go fetch my recipe binder, I recently just used good ol' google to find a breakfast casserole with sweet potatoes and breakfast sausage (the hubs bought sausage that needed used).  I also thawed and used some kale, added garlic, onions and frozen bell peppers (from last year's garden), a...

  It's nearing the end of our garden season.  The rain is arriving here, so I will wait for the garden to dry up before pulling some more plants/stakes. The hot peppers are doing okay this year, but some did not make it.  Oddly, I got one lonely Anaheim pepper from 3 plants I grew from seed.   I brought in another 15 green bell peppers as well. It's getting down to the 40's at night this week, which is perfect weather for camping.  Speaking of that, we got our very first camping trip in this year.  It was so nice and relaxing, and the campfire meals were delicious. One breakfast we made - omelets with garden bell pepper, onion, spinach, bacon and cheese.  The other breakfast contained spinach, feta, bacon, and topped with homemade fresh salsa (made with garden goodies). We took a walk, played cards, I brought handiwork along, and a book.  On the drive home, I pulled out my knitting project, only to find out that we must have accidently l...

  I forgot to mention, I baked a sheet pan chicken dinner with brussel sprouts and carrots when Daughter E visited.  We cracked open a jar of the sweet chili sauce I canned this year, and it was very good.  In fact, we enjoyed it on the veggies as well.  We took our first, and possibly the last, camping trip this year.  We met up with friends and had the best time ever. It's back to reality and garden/house work.

Winter is a good time for me to sit and make homemade campfire fire starters, but I recently made another dozen. You can get directions here . These come in handy to take camping or for starting a backyard fire.

I just realized, if I run out of pantry and freezer space, I can always utilize my dehydrator. I can make tomato sauce leather.   You simply spr ead out he tomato sauce on par chment paper and dehydrate.  This  would come in handy for backpacking trips or camping meals (uses less space to pack food).  You just combine it with equal parts of hot water, and you have tomato sauce again.  Then you can add spices to create pizza sauce, or make other meals using dehydrated ingredients. The t hing with tomatoes, is that y ou always have so methi ng to make with them.

We've been "off line" for a while so these are posts will catch up all up to date.  Hubby took us camping!  Oh the fun! This is the fire ring that we cooked on.  We bring along a tri-pod as well.

I have been searching for a replacement bulb for this battery operated camping lantern for two years.

Remember all those English Walnuts we bartered for?  I was still cracking them this month.  Apparently , the kids have lost their mojo with helping me. The shells are always saved from these walnuts.  My older brother and his wife gift me their cardboard egg cartons.   Four dozen campfire starters are in the making today, and I have more shells.

Yesterday's chores were still getting worked on when the kids got home from school.  I had to get everything washed and on the line as rain (storms) are expected today.   I got all the rugs washed and dried too.  Speaking of rugs, our 18 year-old daughter took the peach colored (crocheted in cotton yarn) rug for her dorm.  I just read somewhere that they cannot have rubber backed rugs, so that worked out nicely.  So, if you kiddo is heading to college, a handmade crocheted rug would come in handy for her/him.  The ones you see on my clothesline are from old sheets, old jeans, and scrap cotton yarn.  They all wash up nicely too.   I forgot to dump my ice trays and bag it, so I could freeze all the organic collards I had yesterday.  I managed to get half of them froze.  I have more to freeze today.

I have only tried my home canned pepper mustard sauce on chicken so far.  I know meatballs would be wonderful, but this time I tried it on organic pork tenderloin (in the crock pot). Delicious.  Another winning way to eat from our summer stock up.  We topped it over organic brown rice, and had a side of roasted brussel sprouts.   We are having another cold day. 

We earned two free nights at the campground.  Not knowing how the weather will be in October, we decided to go.  We still came home during the daytime (some of it anyway) to get work completed. We enjoyed the campfire again, on quiet cool evenings.

A few asked how I make my laundry detergent.  I simply grate a bar of unscented homemade goat's milk soap (you can use a bar of Zote as well), add 8 cups of water, and heat until melted.  I then add 1 1/2 cups borax and 1 1/2 cups washing soda, and continue to heat and stir until dissolved. . .

Finally!  We got to take our first camping trip this year.  Although short, we made the most of the time - games, hiking, biking, campfire meals and just hanging out.

My older brother shared several books with me, and these two came in recently.  As you can see, I have already started marking recipes to play around with.

Sunday we got the gokart out.  The kids rode it all day long.  Do you see two of them in the middle left of the photo?  They took me for a spin a few times.  We had a blast until....

Remember the cloth napkins I found while cleaning?  They are now getting embroidered.  I found a fun iron-on transfer from Sublime Stitching and love it!  The patterns are a bit pricey, but I ordered mine during a half-price sale.

I'm still deep cleaning.  I came across cloth napkins, that at one time, I had planned to embroider for gifting.  Not sure what I had intentionally planned, but I did tackle this unfinished project. Now, at this point, I could have just given them away or even donated them, but I tossed them all into the washing machine instead.

My oldest brother sent me this.  Camping in winter?  He asked "Who's in?" I would try it.  As long as it wasn't -38°F wind chill.  We could have all kinds of fun - cook over the fire, sip hot chocolate, build a snowman, and hike.   We could ice fish!  Ha! Speaking of snow and winter,  we got more of it last night.  School is closed today.  It's a wet snow, and it rained during the snowfall.  I'm starting to feel better, and spent the entire day yesterday reading writer magazines that have piled up.  It was fun to just sit and read, and sip hot tea.  I actually did some writing too. Head's up on the eucalyptus oil - it can reduce the effects of many medications because it detoxifies.  Once I stopped steaming, my medications worked much better.  Duh moment, and a learning experience.  Once I am healed, I will steam for preventative reasons.  However, the 3 times I did steam, really did help my s...