Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I've been brewing us a morning iced tea in a quart canning jar, and adding 1 Tbsp. of infused honey to it.  It was just enough to sweeten the tea and we loved it.  I bought the infused honey at a honey festival last year, and it is now all gone.  I am sure it was not inexpensive either.  It was organic.   Speaking of organic honey, both of us are wondering how they can assure it's "organic" when bees travel.  We are wondering if they have qualifications or specifics to classify honey as organic?  Anyway, we bought it.  We loved it. I do have the phone number for the seller, but decided to infuse my own honey. The above jar is started with an elderberry and hibiscus infused honey.  I'm sure it could be done faster on the stove top, but it's very hot here, and I have patience.  We are excited to see if it will taste the same.  It is a delicious one for teas. On the home front, we had a very hot day yesterday.  My read...

  I have not been watching the news at all, and late Monday, I was told there was a bad storm expected mid-week for us.  What kind of storm?  I had to turn on the news to find out. The storm was rain, thunder, wind, possible hail, and possible tornado.  It came in two parts.  One storm in the morning and one later.  I had charged all the things that needed charged, just in case.  We did lose power, but thankfully it came back on.   It's 63°F this morning.  Much warmer, but it's flooded almost everywhere around us, area towns, etc. Home repairs/updates: we ordered, picked up and installed a new window blind for the window.  I do need one more blind for a kitchen window, but that particular size is out of stock. The remainder of the home repair list is on-going for now.  We tend to run out of time in the evenings. One mole-chasing windmill has broken from years of use.  It's on the repair list, but we may have to replace it....

I brought in more green and wax beans, but boy are they not as large as they should be.  Watering has been almost daily with this drought and heat index, it's so frustrating. I put 1 1/2 cups of blackberries in the freezer too.  The green beans need cleaned and put in the freezer today.  Not sure how I'll have time for all my work today. My 21 year-old knew that I have been having a very difficult time lately, so after diligent watering, and prepping dinner for 2 crock pots, she swooped me off to a day of fun.  However, we found several of the local shops closed on a Monday (and Tues).  That sort of put us in a depressed mood, but we located another town with a general store open and drove there for some local shopping.  Then.... We hit Adli's for some much needed adult beverages and picked up some hard root beers to try as well. Returning home, I had to batten down the hatches for a storm rolling in.  First they said 75mph wind, then 60...

My garden visitor the other day, and oddly, orange and blue.  Those are the favorite colors of daughter's deceased boyfriend. Monday we got a glorious pour down from the Rain Gods!  So happy to have that happen.  We were getting worried about the well and no rain lately.  However, in the morning, you could never tell it had rained (it's been that dry here).  Youngest was gifted a butterfly bush and a rose bush.  She planted both just before it rained. I canned.  It was a half batch of hot pepper mustard sauce.  A success, even though splitting all the ingredients in half taxed my brain.  Thank goodness for google to make sure I was accurate. In total, I have now lost 3 hens and 2 roosters.  Trap has been re-set, and only time will tell. Somehow I scratched up two of my pairs of readers.  I ended up ordering some on Amazon.  I didn't want to go to the store and most likely I wouldn't find them.  The last t...

Thanks to the only rain we have gotten, I have more new blooms at the homestead.  I am picking green beans almost every other day now.  Well, the mask mandate is causing so much chaos in our county.   I simply shop in another county.  So sick of this stuff.  What will they come up with during the next 5 months to keep everyone fighting and dividing?  Who knows.  I'm glad I have my garden to keep me busy.  Our state is being watched by counties now, and have a level grid.  Our county was put in a level to put a mask mandate in place.  They only change status by the week as well. Cases are escalating in our county daily.  I'm starting to wonder if it's not a virus and rather a bacteria now.  It won't be long before they close everyone again. We have no plans to return to the island.  Three businesses have not closed to quarantine.  If campgrounds do not close this fall, we do have plans to go campin...

Baby yellow finch.  So happy to see that Mom and Dad had a baby.  I will have to keep an eye out for more. More blooms in the flower garden. My new addition to the flower bed is blooming wonderfully. I almost had a close up photo of a Boston Oriole, but by the time I got my gimmpie rear to get my camera, he/she flew off.  Hubby and I got to see it though while playing cards on the front porch last night.  That's about all I accomplished, other than watering everything.

I thought I would share some new blooms in the flower gardens today.  Some are not looking great, while others are.  I'm sure it'll all look great after a dose of Mother Nature's rain water.

Guess what is ready already?  My garlic scapes.  First time it's ever been ready before the radishes were ready to harvest. Dinner last night - apples, cranberries, pecans and chicken were added when we ate.  There is blue cheese in there.   So good for a hot day.  We hit a heat index of 101°F yesterday.  Then the temperature started to go down. Does anyone know what this flower is called?  It's not bluebells.  The flowers are upward.  I moved them from the last home and they are still blooming.  My blue daisy plant died sadly.   We got some rain last night and we hope to get some today, but it may come with storms.  I'm thankful, as I do not have to water again.   New carnation for the flower bed.  I'll plant it this morning. We now have spotted 2 kittens, but Romeo scared them and poof, they went under the house so that will be watched today.  I see Momma is hanging around, ...

We split hostas a while back and added them to the troublesome rose bed.  These are very large hostas and will crowd out the grass, but we have much more work to do on it.  Hopefully, I'll be back with a good update. Yesterday I planted 23 sweet potato slips, but the rain returned and the garden is swamped.  I could only plant from the edge.  More rain fell last night and I am so sad that it may be another year of battling the rain. We now realize how important a greenhouse is.  It may go to the top of the list if the rain continues. On a good note, the plants have had 4 days of hardening, and we pray next weeks (predicted the entire week ahead) is wrong.

Sunday's rain that was predicted all day changed on us.  Thankful for that, as we had time in the morning to plant more flowers.   (just a few snippets of our work) We had 4 bags of mulch leftover from last year, but we still need to go get a truck load of it to finish the flower beds and add some pine mulch to my herb garden.  We worked the good part of the day beautifying the front of the house.  I'm debating on dropping some zinnia seeds today or not.  They keep saying torrential rain, but we are not getting it and so far completely wrong on when we are getting any and how much. Today I'm joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom. The weather . . .  99% humidity, 73/59°F, Thunderstorms How I'm feeling this morning . . .  Ready to get back to a regular work out schedule.  With Hubby's crew off two weeks and on two weeks, I've been off track. On my mind . . . Just my to-do list, and making...

My daffodils are blooming like crazy! Yesterday I noticed the hyacinths are starting to bloom too. To update on yesterday, we never saw the person we heard, but it was dark out when we did.  However, when I took one dog out (with my husband) we could smell a campfire in the woods behind the house.  We are going to mow down a path out along the woods to walk all the dogs now. The sun was out all day Monday.  So thankful for that. I had to stay home for a Fed Ex delivery, so my wonderful husband went to the greenhouse and picked up flats of tomato plants etc. We chose to go and get them early this year, as we both have a feeling so many more people will now be planting a vegetable/fruit garden.  I called the greenhouse ahead of time, and she said people were already coming in and buying plants.  Her supplier has warned her she may sell out quickly as May approaches. I'm not sure I'll be getting a rosemary plant or not.  They do not survive h...

Sunrise from a few days ago.  We are finally getting rain this morning.  Even thunderstorms. Now that we have car shopping off the list, we can get back to other jobs this weekend.  Youngest daughter now has her own car and can drive to school.  No more long bus rides and she's very very happy. What was on the weekend work list?  Well, cutting more trees.  That's done.  We had to put a new part in our other daughter's car and pray it's the fix for it. I had to make homemade cinnamon rolls too, for a breakfast with the family.  Why I volunteered rolls is beyond me.  Sigh.  I know they'll appreciate them, but I'm cutting them all in half so I (he he) don't have to make two pans for the entire clan.  I also had to make 2 pans of over night baked french toast.   Schools are starting, so it's already an onslaught of fundraisers for youngin's in our family.  I'm only going to do a few this year.  They are g...

I finally finished up the strawberries I purchased.  Most of the remaining went into the freezer. I saved some for Strawberry Delight.  It's the same as my Mom's "Cherry" Delight, but with strawberries - a cheesecake type dessert. I also started some strawberry vodka. Although I'm behind in weeding the flower beds and herb garden, the flowers continue to bloom.   Motherhood can sometimes be a very exhausting.  Our 21 year-old daughter finally made her appearance.   She was cited for this accident, driving the wrong way in a one way road.  The guy that hit her was on a motorcycle, with no helmet, but thankfully he got back on his bike and rode it home.  Not sure what this will cost her, but I was shaking my head.  Thankfully, she kept up on her own insurance, but the guy still hasn't produced his own proof of insurance.