Pioneer Woman at Heart

I couldn't hold myself back any longer.   I mean why not?  Hubby is still fixing his truck, so the tree(s) still stands. I found this recipe by purchasing a discarded library book at a library book sale. You never know what you'll find at one. And a note:  I do not go looking for recipes like this one, they seem to find me.  And I really enjoy making them, and trying them.  I've been making this one for four years now.

I recently mentioned our Queen Anne's Lace Jelly , and thought I'd share my Nature Journal.  

 (Winston, playing under the rug during a snowstorm) I don't know if you remember or not, but last winter (before last Christmas) we found this cat in one of our barns - declawed, neutered, and the best behaved, loving cat I ever met. Unfortunately, with 3 indoor cats already, and two that are males, spraying was a huge problem.  Unable to find a home for him myself, he went to a shelter about 1 hour away. I don't think I even blogged about it either.  It was just a sad moment for me.

I woke up Tuesday morning with a stuffy nose.  Not good.  I had trouble sleeping on account of congestion.  I was up early to drink my honey/ACV/water mix, hoping to prevent it from getting worse. I spent the day canning more Queen Anne's Lace Jelly.  I plan to give samples out at the next Farmer's Market day.  I was told that we can give them out, and I several people interested in trying it.  I was disappointed to see the color more yellow than pink this time.  I think it has to do with the amount of purple centers in the flower that I put in. I canned more sweet pickle relish too.  Long day for sure. In between that, I cooked up 7 pounds of ground beef for homemade sloppy joes. The weather is much cooler at nights here.  I am yearning to go camping. All but two of my zucchini plants died - squash bugs!  They are on my heirloom baking pumpkins now.  I spray every day with a natural spray, and even dust with ...

  I canned 5 more 1/2 pints of Queen Anne's Lace Jelly.  If I had more jars, I'd can up the entire field of flowers.  We have it all over the property. It's growing where my sunflowers won't grow.  Despite watering by hand, the lack of rain is a concern. It's growing around the barns. All around back, it's growing in the tall grass.  We have to rotate the goats on tie-outs due to the lack of grass in their pen. It's even growing in the yard, where the grass is not.  The grass that we mow down is brown and crunches when you walk on it.  However, the Queen Anne's Lace is still growing and blooming.

from the homesteading journal. . . The garden is producing kohlrabi, lettuce, sugar snap peas, beets, organic red stem Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens, and radishes. The green beans, peppers, tomatoes and broccoli are just now coming in too. The joke's on us.  The flat of cauliflower that we bought just down the road at the produce stand, was marked incorrectly.  It was not cauliflower.  It was kohlrabi.  Big bummer.  The company hubby works for, dropped us off our insurance plan, and put us with their basic plan.  All because hubby forgot to fill out an online survey.  We are sunk.  We lost our co-pay, and don't have prescription coverage and have a huge deductible per person.  He's sending in an appeal, but it takes 45 days.  Basically, we'd have to spend out thousands before our insurance would pay anything.  We are paying a large amount to not have anything covered that was covered before.   The ridic...

If my kids think I went nutso, by making the Dandelion Coffee, the Dandelion Jelly, and the Milkweed Flower Bud Quiche, they will really think I've fallen off my rocker now. I have been going through old cookbooks, and reducing my supply.  I found a recipe for Queen Anne's Lace Jelly.   Instead of cleaning my much needed bathroom, I walked around the property and plucked about 18-19 full heads of Queen Anne's Lace (not to be confused with Hemlock). I soaked them in water to remove unwanted "guests" and then rinsed them twice.