Pioneer Woman at Heart

I started a crochet book blanket at the beginning of this year (2025).  I crocheted a granny square for every book I finished, and crocheted the square with matching colors of the actual book.  The plan was to get back into reading, be motivated by the crocheted blanket, and use up scrap balls of yarn.  An overall fun, and positive project for myself.  The blanket is a join-as-you-crochet type of blanket, making it less intimidating to start, work on, and eventually finish.  How many books did I manage to read? 43 books, with one last book that will be finished on the 31st, will make that final year end number a whopping 44 books! Not the amount I had hoped for, but I really did not have a number goal in mind. It's not a bad number either.   In the past 5 years, I was lucky to even read 1 to 5 books within the years.  There were all sorts of reasons reading didn't happen. On the bright side, the blanket is coming along very nicely, and it is such ...

  We have been using local beef tallow for maybe a year now, but it is $5.99/pound.  We have located a better resource for buying it, and at a lower price of $2.49/pound.  Thankfully, we can freeze it, so we are re-stocked for a while.  We only fry fish (perch and walleye), and that is only when we are gifted the fish.  Once a year I make homemade corn dogs with all beef hotdogs.  I have used the beef tallow to grease pans, and that works great too. I have been substituting oil with the tallow, for when I make steel cut oat patties, squash patties, or anything similar needing "oil" to pan "fry" or cook. The same resource also sells local lard, and that can be frozen as well. I have been checking around at prices for vanilla beans, and the online resource (for organic) is still the best price.  In store prices seem to be high.  The above photo was taken at a bulk Amish food store. The daffodils are starting to bloom here.  We have several vari...

  It's a "this and that" sort of post today.  It seems to be that in-between season of slowly emerging from winter resting to spring activities.  The weather continues go all over the map. We purchased this popcorn seasoning last year sometime, and the bottle is about empty.  I just now realized it has fennel in it.  Anyway, we cannot locate it in any stores, and apparently it's made in Indiana.  I'm sure it's for sale on Amazon, but I'd like to find a recipe to make this myself.  We love popcorn as a snack, and often times after a hot day in the garden, alongside a cold iced tea. We love this seasoning, as it is not super salty, and offers the herbs for healthy flavorings (added health benefits).  I've sent an email off to inquire within a store.  I may be experimenting with my own homegrown herbs, if we cannot locate it again.   Current puzzle.  Nothing news-worthy going on, other than we are getting outside more often as the...

  The last time we had temperatures at -20F° was back in the first week of January of 2014.  Eleven years ago.  According to my blog anyway.  The weatherman on the news channel is saying we had these cold temperatures six years ago.   Tuesday it was -12°F with a windchill (feels like).  Monday we at least had sunshine the entire day.  Tuesday it was dark and cloudy with a bit of sun here and there. Today we didn't quite hit the -20 mark, but we did hit -5°F with a windchill of -19°F.  Thankfully, water is running, as we let the faucets drip overnight.  We restocked on bird seed, and this one has a lever that will shut the feed area if a squirrel tries to hop on for a meal. Garden prep: I had some time to go through my garden planting plan for this year, and I realized we did not plant any type of pea last year.  We never got the pea fence back up. What are you gardeners planting for sugar snap peas?  I am considering trying so...