Wear Your Slippers All Day ~ October 14th

October 14th is "Wear Slippers all Day" day.

How fun is that? So make sure you put that on your calendar.


Today is National Diversity Day and World Farm Animals Day.  October is also Diversity Awareness Month, Eat Better, Eat Together Month, National Book Month, and National Cookie Month.

It's raining here today.  A bit dreary, but we needed the rain in the garden.  My sugar snap peas were starting to wilt, and my green beans are about ready to harvest.  

In celebration of National Book Month, I am pulling this off my shelf.  Today is a good day for reading this book.  Hubby bought it for me years ago, and it contains seven novels by Jane Austen.  I may also bake us some cookies and hold a "read and feed" night here with the family. 

I am also making a trip to the library.  I to return this book.  I'm not going to have time to make any of these this year.  However, I do plan on checking this book out again.  Cute stuff!

I finished the 4 scarves that teachers ordered, and making a 5th one for my 10 year-old.  They have a spirit week this week, and she has pleaded for one to wear on Friday.

What book(s) are you reading this month?

Excerpts from a Journal Junkie

from the family journal . . .

. . . our 15 year-old daughter raised $104.00 for the Humane Society Mutt Strut fundraiser.

. . . I have been taking my 15 year-old parking lot driving, and now on 2 lane highways (gulp!).
 

. . . it was nice to see the girls playing a board game recently.


. . . spent a day taking school photos of my 15 year-old daughter.  It's been nice on the pocketbook, to take these photos myself.



from the homesteading journal . . .

. . .froze two more quart bags of peppers from the garden, dug up the last of the red potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Picked another strainer full of peppers.  There are still two more rows to pick from.

...made homemade dog treats in my dehydrator. The dogs loved these. 

 (These two photos were from May of 2012)

...coming to an end on cleaning the wood barn.  We let someone borrow the wood splitter, so we are splitting by hand until it's returned.  The farm truck is broke down, so we have to fix that before we haul more wood. Not a great start for fire wood this season, but we'll get it cut.

 Our one black walnut tree was recently trimmed by the city.  It is right under the utility wires, and they spent the summer trimming most trees.  We feared they would cut this tree completely down, as they were with others.  My 10 year-old said to me "Do I have to chain myself to the tree?"  Thankfully, they just trimmed it, and it may actually help it produce better next year.  We picked up a bag full of walnuts for harvesting and for making a dye.

I picked a strainer full of sugar snap peas, some heirloom lettuce that reseeded itself twice now, and some organic swiss chard (which I blanched and froze).




I am still getting herbs, so decided to dry more lavender, spearmint and lemon.  I have plans to make a tea,







 
from the handicraft journal . . .

. . .our 10 year-old daughter brought home orders for 4 Team Spirit crocheted  scarves.

More Spiders....sigh...

This orb weaver is hanging out at the old water trough I use for planting flowers in.  My son is enjoying the presence of it, and loves feeding it bugs.  You have to admit, the coloring is pretty neat.  However, I won't be touching this one. 

This orb weaver spider finally came back out for it's photo shoot. However, you can see that it is hanging upside down under the wrapped grass hopper.  I was not about to get any closer to try and photograph the other side.  Eww!  This spider was the one that almost ended up in my hair while I was picking tomatoes.

Speee-i-ders!

I put an S.O.S. out to my mother.  We are badly in need of some hedge apples.  The spiders are everywhere.  In the kitchen, on the counter, in the bathtub, in the shower. Ugh. Here my son rescued us from this man eating female that was on my kitchen floor (shudder).

The other day, while picking more tomatoes, I almost got my head into a orb weaver web.  That spider was ginormous!  Ugly too (shivers).  I went back out to take a photo, but it was gone, and no matter what I moved in the garden, it didn't come back out for it's photo shoot.

Quick Homemade Barbeque Sauce

I have been contemplating whether or not to can barbeque sauce this year.  

I put southern style ribs in the crock-pot and topped it with one canned jar of homemade grape jelly, and one jar of home canned ketchup.

What We Are Reading

My 10 year-old daughter stole this one off my shelf.  I guess my writing is influencing the kids more than I have realized.

Hubby is reading these magazines.

I am reading this book.  A book about how a pickle factory is taken over by a big city guy, trying to change the way of farming and make more money.

 This is what my son is reading.

This is what my 15 year-old daughter is reading.  With all her school work, she doesn't have time to read for fun.

My 13 year-old isn't reading anything but the computer screen.....tsk, tsk.

Watermelon Jelly and Watermelon Fruit Leather

With more watermelons in the garden, I decided to experiment with new recipes.  We grew heirloom watermelons, so they are full of seeds.