Pioneer Woman at Heart

  One of my extreme clean projects (craft binders) landed on the kitchen table, and it made me realize, I need the table for tomatoes.  Yikes.   Tomatoes, although we are getting black rot on some, are rolling in, so I have set up a small camping table for the extras, as they are not all turning red at the same time this year.  The sound of locusts outside, reminded me to wash our bathrobes while I still had good clothesline weather.  Plus, they were on the bathroom door, and I need that door taken down to paint anyway.  Eventually. I didn't get a photo, but that clothesline was full.  I washed all the towels, clothing and anything else to beat the rain. Speaking of laundry, my washing machine is now acting up.  I am getting codes, and it will stop completely.  We got it running again, but it is 14 years old.  It may be the next appliance to be replaced.   So, what would eat jalapenos?  I have one plant almost eaten c...

  In the process of swapping out the old and new refrigerator, I found a tote with more goat supplies I was keeping.  We have already given away the milk pail. I guess I was hanging on to all of this, just in case things got very bad in this world, and we needed to invest in dairy goats again.  We decided to let it go.   The "zebra" goat coats were sewn from old pajamas from the kids.  I made them myself actually.  The other was made from old sweatpants.  I guess you could say this is my only purge this week.   We are still enjoying fresh cucumber salad, cucumber salsa, and I tried a new yellow squash casserole (which lacked flavor). The green/wax bean plants were yanked.  We enjoyed some of the freshly picked ones.  It's too late to fall plant them.  We had a good harvest this year.  We got 37# this year.  I gave some to the kids, we ate some, and froze some. After several weeks, we finally got 90% of the flower...

The recent rain gave the garden a sip of glory, but not a full drink so to speak.  There is a good possibility for a good soak tomorrow.   The gardens are doing well, and my green onion is springing back to life.  I check it daily, as those squash bugs can lay eggs in a hot minute, and I have to keep the sensors on my motion sensors out there clean, and make sure they are charging. I started weeding the herb garden and flower beds, but it will take several days.  We did not mulch the flower beds, as we had plans to expand one flower bed (for easier mowing).  It is on the back burner for now.      I'm still working on the utility room, by washing up hats, scarves, gloves, sweaters, and coats, and drying them on the clothesline.  Anything I haven't worn for the last 14 years, is going in a donation box.  That all came out of one coat cubbie, including more sweaters that I put to dry inside on hangers. One coat cubbie scrubbed cle...

  We did get rain over the weekend, followed by some cooler nights, so I had to give the garden a few days to dry up a bit. Grab a cup of java.  I tend to get chatty some days, ha ha!  It's probably a boring post as well.   On the inside of the homestead, there has been much work being done on the utility room purge. The Before. . . Pattern purge.  Oh my....had several binders of craft instructions from when I took part of MOPS.  Ha!  That is a group of Moms with preschoolers.  Good gravy! Two cupboards above cubbies were cleaned and lined. Painted the added trim.  I used leftover door paint from the kitchen bathroom repairs/renovation project. Broke out the label machine to properly label binders. Saving these to possibly help organize the garage, when we start that purge/re-organization project.  Here, all those years I thought I was keeping my yarn organized.  Ha!  I was creating more space to store more I think.  ...

  Our 4th of July started out very foggy, but the remainder of the day was in the high 80's, and sunny.  We spent the morning tying up tomato plants, until the heat index turned 91°F.   Those tomato plants are not all of them, I have a main tomato patch as well. Our zucchini plants are about 5 feet wide this year.  Never in our life, have we seen them this large.  Don't mind the weeds, I'll get those when the ground is a bit more dry out here.  You can see the small whirly-gig, and can compare that to the plant.  Amazing!    I'm still trying to resurrect the green onions.  Golly they took a hit with the heat and recent drought.  I was hoping for the rain to help, but it will take some work to bring them back to life. I like to keep healthy snacks prepared for hot days.  Some days we don't feel like eating a large meal, so I whipped up some hummus, and added spinach this time. One of our favorite breakfast casseroles with chili ...

There is nothing to harvest in the garden, but the rain is speeding that process up for us.  I know that I will be very busy out there when it dries up ha ha!  However, the rainy days are speeding up my indoor progress.   Sorry if these cleaning/purging posts are boring.  It was a long time coming.  The big purge/clean.  This is a long post, so you may want to grab a cup of coffee, ha ha!   My indoor purge/clean up is moving along.  I checked off another area off my clean it list, so that leaves two more areas.   I will need the assistance of my husband for the last two, as it involves putting some tools and fix-it items away.  The garage will get a complete do-over this year.  It's just not on the "do it now" list. Anyway, at one point in my early life, I was really into freelance writing.  I had articles published and kept articles in files.  I still had poems I wrote at a kid growing up.  I tossed th...

  Thankfully my husband got the AC back up and running.  Whew!  We will have to replace it next year for sure.   It's been raining, hot and humid here the last few days.  We are thankful for the rain, but could do less with the tornado warnings or watch alerts. I took a quick look at the garden, and I will definitely need to tie up tomato plants on the next dry day.  Everything is looking good however, other than the popcorn and spring planted garlic.  Some of my newly planted Gladys in the flower bed are now coming up too.  I'll definitely be busy weeding and tilling on the next dry day. The upstairs AC was installed, and we are pricing new units for next year (don't want to end up without AC again).   I brought down two trash bags full of stuff left from one daughter, and there is more to bring down.  I'm starting on the flooring in that room this week ( or next week ). A dozen crocheted hats were spilling over on a bookshelf...

  Success!  If you were reading my blog, do you remember my new list of 7 areas (these are all in plain sight) to clean up/purge/ put things back in their homes?  All of our set backs were making me depressed, so I dove full speed ahead into my list. I have now checked off 4 of those 7 areas, and it has been heaven to wake up and start my day.   I would otherwise get side tracked, or be outside.  Anyway, my kitchen is back to neat and clean, and tidy.  I filled the truck with more donations (can't believe I found more stuff). I even washed the tablecloth! I have gifted these a few times, and they were well received.  They are sturdy, and hold notepads, you can buy at Wal-mart or the Dollar Tree.  I glue a magnet to a pen, so the pen stays on the fridge too.  I will not glue magnets to the pens until I gift these (so the pen does not dry out).  You can get the full instructions:  HERE (on my S.C.R.A.P. Blogspot). In the process...

  We have been getting rain, so I'm not doing any garden work currently.  I weeded out the larger weeds in the rose bed, but the rest will have to wait until the the rain stops. I have been successful with my new to-do list (the 7 areas to tidy up).  I have now crossed 2 off of my list of 7.  My husband hasn't noticed. Speaking of my husband, there is no sign of the long work hours ending.  He promised me a "date" night, which was taking the motorcycle out and dinner out.  Didn't happen.  They held him over at work.  We are all tired of it.  He has been forced over every night.  One night he was to be home by 8pm, and ended up home at 9pm. I'm considering going back to work.  We never see each other, and there is no sign we will be getting our projects finished. I still have a list for us when these hours stop, but I not able to vision any of it being accomplished.  I'm still upset half of the garden was not planted.  Noth...

  I'm cleaning up my blog, and making a few changes.  It was time to lighten the look and make things more simple.  I got rid of the side bars and that bold flower background.  I hope it is a bit more pleasing to the eyes. The vegetable garden weeding continues, but it's not as bad as the previous years.  The squash plants are looking great, and the cucumbers are too.  I did notice that our National Pickling Cucumbers are much larger plants than our Marketmore 76 plants.  The green beans are looking good, other than a few were trampled early in the season.  No, the fence is not up yet. I've been pretty successful with rotating the vegetable garden weeding and up keep, with the flower beds.  I started on the rose bed finally, and boy it is a mess.  We have tried everything but roof shingles to keep the weeds out.  I may get my husband to try that this year after all these trials.   We have tried everything from mulch, to bl...

  The weekend went fast.  Thursday night tornados hit northeast of us.  One daughter's family and several friends were in it's path.  All are okay, but there was a lot of damage done. I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay a Home Mom. The weather . . . Mostly 80's for high's this week, with possible rain this weekend. As I look outside my window . . . It's cloudy. Right now I am . . . Drinking coffee. Thinking and pondering . . . Canning this season.  It's been on my mind.  What is the most favorite condiment you like to can for gifting?   Not sure it'll happen, but thinking about it. Did I mention our handy-man quit on us?  He won't even come tend the hens anymore either.  We even have unfinished work from him, and have no idea what's going on.   I have chicken people to contact, but we may be doing everything else, from here on out, ourselves now.  It means it could take longer with my husband working so many hours. I h...