Pioneer Woman at Heart

I finally got this granny square done.  I finished this book a while ago.  Yikes.  It was a good book though.  It was a blind date with a book gift to me. If you have not read about my crocheted book blanket, you can see my very first post about it, which was posted January 1st, of 2025 (click HERE to see it).  The last "end of the year" update was posted HERE .  I will try and get an updated photo in the next few months. Technically,  I crocheted the first granny square for my book blanket back in December of 2024.  Guess I better get some books read huh?  Thick smog is outside.  Canadian wild fire smoke is heavy.  Air quality is terrible.  It got up to 103 degrees yesterday, and it remains hot and very dry.  The grass is dying.   It's that dry. Thunderstorms may arrive in a few days.  We hope.  It will help water the gardens and cool us down a bit.  It will also get rid of the air smog. I'll admi...

Whelp.  It rained and rained and rained here.  We are getting a slight break this morning, but we are saturated.  Rain returns in a very short bit, and then off and on all day (again).  If we are lucky, the rain will stop come Monday.  Maybe.  Many area festivals are canceling, or have already canceled.  On the bright side, it's watering the new trees we planted, and flower bushes, but I do have one red raspberry plant to plant too. The Bad:  Our weekend camping trip was canceled.     It's not camping if we cannot have a campfire, go hiking or biking and/or campfire cook, or even go fishing.  Stuck in the camper would be zero fun (in our current camper anyway).   Yes, we we have an awning, but the rain was just too much, and our camper is small.  It's not a comfortable place to be when it's raining out.  In fact, we had more seating room in our 7 person pop-up camper than we do in our current hard sided camp...

  Last year, we planted borage and rosemary in with the zucchini, yellow squash and other squash plants.  It was an attempt to deter the nasty squash bugs.  It for one, did not work to deter those bugs (did not even grow well enough to harvest anything from the plants either).   Two, it re-seeds itself very well, so don't plant it in your big vegetable garden like I did.  It's not spreading too badly this year, but I'm yanking it as I see it, and you know I hate to waste anything.... By the way, I'm actually seeing borage plants for sale this year. Borage tea?   Has anyone dehydrated or dried the borage flowers and leaves for a medicinal tea?  I'm not finding a lot of information in the resource books I have.  So far anyway.  I'm reading online that the tea from the plant, is good for reducing a fever and for reducing a bad cough.  Does anyone have any information, or experience, with borage used in this way? Borage for dinner?...

  Woke up to mornings in the upper 30's.  Brr.  Rain flooded our asparagus patch.  I am hoping I will have some more asparagus to harvest today.  The continuation of cold nights, has my green onions looking drab. Food is the topic today, as I have very little to share.   I've been thinking how much fun it was last year to try new Christmas holiday recipes.  We loved the sunflower seed brittle recipe we tried last year.  You may get a "Christmas" post out of me this year.  New recipe we tried and absolutely love it.  I have made many, many breakfast casseroles/quiches and frittatas, and this one is a keeper.  I do believe it is a "first" mushroom type quiche to make as well.  I'm officially saying it's a "first time" event this year.   I takes an entire box of frozen spinach, but once you squeeze all that water out, you don't have much left. I used organic baby bella mushrooms, but otherwise did not change any of...

  I keep reading how freshly popped popcorn, is better after it's been in the freezer, so we tried it.  Honestly, it was not for taste, but for us, it was about traveling with home popped popcorn. We do not like microwave popcorn, and while it's portable, we prefer home popped popcorn, with real butter and real seasonings. First, a metal bowl is not the way to mix in your butter and seasonings.  The popcorn just slides around.  A large Tupperware bowl worked a lot better.  I added butter and seasoning, and put the popcorn in a freezer bag.  It tasted great after taking it out at another time to enjoy and "test" the freshness.  Next test will be to see if it travels well (camping, hiking, weekend getaway etc) after taking it out of the freezer.  Sharing a few more crocheted book blanket granny squares. . . .not in any particular order, as I'm working on "catching up" with this project. The Leslie Meier book was easy to match, but the other book was...

Regarding my recent sprained toe...  I unfolded each piece of gauze to prepare and make the poultices for my toe area. (looks like ants are chewing holes in the leaves) I harvested some comfrey from our "weed" garden, to make poultices.  I only had 2 x 2 gauze, but it worked for my toe.  I used my new smaller food processor this time, and it worked great (comfrey leaves, a bit of water, and flour {can use arrowroot, or whatever for a thickener}). The plant is springing up pretty well, and was large enough to get enough leaves cut for the poultices.  I used a freshly made poultice right away, and froze two more.  The frozen ones work to also reduce the swelling. I also used my homemade comfrey salve, and the bruising is very quickly healing, and pain was gone after day one of poultices.  Thankfully, it was a sprain and not a break. A strong thunderstorm, with rain and wind, moved into our area last night.  Only about half the mowing was completed before...

  March was, not what I call "busy" for us, but adventurous, and filled with more of "living life" than doing all the "doing" stuff we do all day every day.  Warning:  Post is long today (gulp!).  Grab a cup of java or tea. "Busy" is sort of synonymous with negative vibes.  I mean, we still had medical appointments (some regular, some needed), hair appointments, husband's full time job, but only a few commitments.  However, we spent much of the month "enjoying" life  (maintaining balance).  I have not harvested much other than fresh grown green onions.  I do have some oil on order to restock homemade hand/body lotion. Not sure if I will re-stock our homemade lip balm just yet.  We have a plan to build one more item for the chicken castle (more on that later), and we plan to better landscape one flower bed. Planted:  Feverfew, Mullein, Radishes (two types), Beets Harvested: Green onions Purchased:  Seed potatoes On the "to-buy...

  We went from sub zero straight to a week of up to 64°F, and a sloppy, slushy, muddy mess.  I was very tempted, and almost twice, used the clothesline.     However, with the warmest weather days brought us rain and thunder storms (yes thunder storms in February).  Add that rain to the already mushy mess, and you have slosh yards. The house was refreshed with several days of open windows, and we are very thankful for that. Nothing better than fresh air circulating indoors.   Of course, as it is still our winter season, the weather cooled right back down to the 30's and brought a small but of snow.  We got outside anyway, and did our very first "snow" walking trail. It's been a mish-mash of a February.  Lots of re-organizing, purging, and home repairs.  It seems like the hardware store shopping list is maintaining it's weekly to-do list. We have not cleaned out clothing in more than two years, so it's been this month's focus, and boy...

I don't watch the news often, but we do try and listen to the weather report if we can.   We are dipping into another very cold, cold spell here.  The news is warning us that the temperatures could dip as low as -25°F with the windchill (the forecast changes hourly).  Not only that, but they are predicting snowfall in abundance.  The snow expected could be 10 inches and up in areas here.  The weather predicted, is said to last another week.  They are calling the weather "Mother Nature's Fury." The snow does not concern us, as much as the sub-zero temperatures do.   We have been to town to re-stock a few items, but typically we avoid town when people are panic shopping (thank you news people).  We were low on chicken feed and a few other necessary items. Now...about  books.  First, I have had very little reading time if you can believe it.  When your house is 6 weeks behind in cleaning and what not, there is no problem with...

  We finally got rain!  So thankful for it.  There was a field fire near us the night before the rain arrived.   It's been so dry, and the field dust was causing upper respiratory issues for so many people (wind didn't help with that). Spicy Barbeque Sauce was canned.  It takes a lot of ingredients, so it's not my favorite to can, but it is real ingredients.  Yes, it has brown sugar.  It's a canning recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, that we have been using for several years now. Rain ~ Spicy Barbeque Sauce ©  October 2025 by  Kristina  at  Pioneer  Woman at Heart

  I have not been around in blogland much, due to being under the weather after I pushed myself way to far one day.  I have to remember we cannot do it all in one day.  Thank goodness for teas and tinctures, and healing foods (and rest).  We are feeling better. As for our blogs being used for advertising on many websites, and so forth (I can't see any other reason for the source of views: howstuffworks, dominospizza, mayoclinic {not the blog readers interested in my actual blog}) the numbers continue to climb.  I have not found a way to "opt" out either.  If any of you find a new way to avoid this, blog elsewhere, find a new platform etc, please be sure to share.   If your blog has ads, you are are not going to complain, ha ha!  You are probably making a bucko-bucks with all these visitors to your blog. Okay, back to the update post . . .

  I have yet to remedy the websites using my blog for whatever they are using it for.  The views cut down by about 200, but considering I posted a very, very short post yesterday, it's still getting 300 views from advertiser businesses and other businesses.  All to read about how they are using my blog too. It is very annoying to be honest.  I have not had a lot of time to work on putting a stop to it, but I did look into a few of the sites to "opt" out and there were no options to remove my blog.  Not sure what to do next.  If I do remedy the situation, I will remove the page breaks on my posts. The majority of viewers are from Hong Kong and Singapore (huh?).  Like it's been suggested, AI may be the reason, and one we cannot avoid, as Blogger has very little privacy options.

I have had one run-in with a baby deer this garden season.  I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or him/her.  Off it ran and no damage to the garden.  I do think we may have another ground hog, but have not seen it for a while.  A bug of some sort is having a feast on my garden kale, so once we catch up on the weeds and such, I'll sprinkle some flour with pepper mixed into it (husband's trick). It's a bit disconcerting to not have much to harvest yet , and hear the sound of locusts announcing fall is around the corner.  The rain is coming down almost every other day or every day, so the weeds are winning I think.  The bonus win is not having to drag 200+feet of garden hose out to water stuff. Our first Anaheim peppers from the garden.  They are huge as they should be.  However, it's not enough to process, so they are in the crisper drawer to use for current meals.  Or I have plan B too. The cherry type (heirloom) tomatoes are finally on an...