Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I took these photos of the sunrise yesterday.  There won't be many left to view as winter is rolling in.  So beautiful. This is what the view from the porch looks like this morning.  Foggy and raining today.  No sunny sky today. I got so side tracked on my to-do list.  I started in the living room, but realized I need a taller ladder, so that was brought in.  I took more yarn back upstairs, but brought more down, and completely got off track with the living room.  I did however, put a roast in the crock pot, so tonight it's easy leftovers. We are so frustrated with ordering supplies for the living room.  The delivery date on our heater (fireplace) was Nov. 30th.  We've called two times, and each time they say they'll send an email to get more information on why it's not been shipped yet (and they never followed up/called us back).  I have brought in our small electric heaters we used to use in the pop-up camper.  It's taking ...

I'm up at 4am.  Can't sleep, so I'm gluing snowflakes/stars to the tops of a few wine cork Christmas trees and sipping hot coffee.  I've already let Romeo out, as he came to the gate and let me know (I think I woke him up). Meanwhile, over the weekend, Daughter became more ill.  I made her sage tea, and homemade ginger ale .  She's congested and has a sore throat.  I also gave her a eucalyptus steam.  She slept a lot over the weekend too. Sunday we needed wood cut, and it did not get done.  Instead, I pushed the start button on the dishwasher, and water was suddenly flooding the kitchen floor.  Hubby's attention was called to the situation, and he spent a while working on that. All this time the problem wasn't the dishwasher falling apart by it's self.  A mouse chewed through all the rubber hose parts and water wasn't getting to the dishwasher or back to the drain.  Parts may cost up to $50.00.  I may have Hubby convince...

Canning took up most of my morning yesterday. We've been out of Candy Apple Jelly for over a year, so some of this is going in the pantry. I had to whip up a batch of homemade ginger-ale syrup.  Youngest texted me that she was feeling pretty sickly.  Thankfully, I have club soda on hand, but now I'm out of honey. Made my first batch of organic cashew brittle .  I hope to make one or two batches more yet. Dinner was easy yesterday.  I used leftover mushroom gravy, combined with homemade condensed mushroom soup, and cooked pork chops it in the crock pot.

Woke up to a sick daughter.  Whipped up some homemade ginger-ale , and got a crock pot of healing bone broth soup started.  Sprayed everything I could with "anti-ill" essential oil spray.   I made cornbread to go with the soup, and it'll be part of tonight's dinner too. My day went lick-ity-split fast due to the drive to the store for fresh organic lemons and limes, and a few groceries.  Followed by a mountain of laundry I wanted to get done in case the rain came as predicted today.   Baked a cheddar and chili egg casserole for our "grab and go" breakfast this week.  It's delicious with real maple syrup on it too (odd but good).  I was lucky to get organic cottage cheese at a good price.  The other container will be frozen for future baked goods. Hubby's work accidentally gave him (and many others) a $1,000.00 bonus (only some were to get them).  Now they are taking $500.00 out of each of his next two checks....

We woke up to all the white stuff melted.  All of it.  I am so glad to see that.  It was an ice rink walking to the barn, to fetch wood and to get the mail.  It'll be sloshy out there, but I'll take warmer weather and mud over ice and freezing temps at this point. There are so many nutritional and medicinal benefits of herbs and spices, so I won't go into detail of each one.  However, I mixed the following together for their benefits, and tried it on eggs, on sandwiches, meats etc. Although I called it "Fire it Up" we like to think of (or call it) "Full Throttle" because it fires up our "engines." A body boosting, immune boosting, sickness fighter, overall health boosting mix. First I picked dehydrated garden parsley, and my home ground garlic. 

This bird is annoying the heck out of me, and trying to take over my front porch.  I have no idea what type of bird it is, but the beak on it is longer than most birds.  The sound it makes is sooooo annoying.  It would come all the way to the door when I was inside, squawk, and fly off before I could get a photo. I keep ringing my dinner bell to keep it away. ....just another day in the life of our homestead. So?  Did we get more rain? 

This young guy has been seen off and on since last winter.  We thought he was housing up in what's left of our largest barn, but wasn't sure.   Well, my Vet Tech-in-training, has been able to get the cat to come to her, let her hold him (a bit reluctant), and will come to the house to eat the cat food.

 . . . made my first homemade ginger ale and loved it!  I plan to make more of this (more so for health reasons) for a refreshing summer treat.  There are many recipes on the I nternet.  I also made a hot ginger tea.  The recipe is from my sister's I ndian cookbo ok.  I am enjoying this, in hopes to speed up my recovery from this col d/sinus /cough /ches t pain ill ness.