Pioneer Woman at Heart

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?...

  It's a happy month for me.   Don't get me wrong, as things can go haywire on any given moment, but good things are happening. Back in 2015, I posted about some writing adventures.   At that time, it was 11 years ago. You can read about them (it's a short post) HERE .  It feels like I put writing to the pasture long before that year, but.... I used to freelance many years prior to that, but put it all aside to raise the kids, and run the household (one was in about 4-5 school sports and activities  - softball, basketball, you name it!).  They were all active in something - school plays, band, sports, etc.  In other words, we were a very active family, so I put my writing on hold.  It wasn't on purpose.  It just happened. Well, back when I had surgery last December, I decided to enter a poetry contest that was local.  I did not win the top prize, but my poem is printed in a book (have yet to pick it up).  Not long after th...

  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...

  Whelp.  The rain and cold is still with us.  Early morning temperature was 33°F.  My rosemary looks fine however.  We may actually see a day with zero rain today.  Crossing fingers. Not sure if you can really see the below recipe, which came from the cookbook I shared in my last post (scroll back to see). I guess, because I have never made garlic aioli, I did not realize it is basically fresh mayonnaise with a bit of spice to it. I'm still looking through several cookbooks, but we remain on the hunt for a good burger sauce for grilling season.  I have obtained one from a restaurant, but I need to figure out how to downsize the recipe for two people.  There is a funny story regarding looking for this recipe, and one of these days will share it. I'm also looking for my copy of the fruit cake recipe that was asked for so many months ago.   Update on finding San Marzano tomato plants this spring.  We found them, and the flats range fr...

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...

  Do you ever notice how it's hard to be around people who are negative about "Monday" and the start of the week?   Monday gets a bad name all around.  I used to tackle so much around the house, but I have since then created a cleaning/housework schedule, and it's been working out fantastically.  Monday's are not bombarded with overwhelming to-do lists any longer. My husband had a recent conversation about how his co-workers complain on and on about "Monday" and how terrible it is.  Is it?   Every year I look forward to learn something new.  A new trail to walk, new herbal remedy to make, new handiwork to learn, or just about anything.  It's not only rewarding in most cases, but fun. My "firsts" this month: - dehydrating wild violets, and leaves -dehydrating dandelion flowers  -read a new author, picked up another at the library (yet to read - gulp!) -reading a new devotional -learned the words to a song, and inadvertently learned w...

  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...