Family History Christmas Gift Idea

I clearly had a "thing" for Christmas.  I'll admit, when the kids were young, I was the first to volunteer for their school Christmas parties.  I made a hand crafted tree ornament and wrapped one for each student.  That's how crazy I was over Christmas.

Recently, I've realized how crazy.  Cleaning off over 100 Christmas related books, then days later finding binders full of Christmas magazines.  By the way, I had it all - Christmas Almanac, Christmas recipes for around the world, Christmas traditions, Christmas planners, etc.

Then I came across this the other day, while cleaning in the bedroom closet. 

Sometimes a new idea, is not always a good idea, ha ha! 

It's a binder dedicated to gift giving, baking, patterns etc.  I didn't even know I had this, and so it was emptied and binder put away for possible donation.

I know one friend of mine will laugh out loud at this point.  I tossed much of it, but wanted to share one gift idea.  I actually made one for my Mom and Dad. 

Hopefully, you can click on the photos and be able to read them.  If not, let me know, and I'll write it out in the post for you.

Now you all have a fun way to gift a parent, grand parent, or great grand parent.  Maybe your Aunts and Uncles too?  Enjoy, and get crackin' on those homemade Christmas gifts.

Cool Day ~ Calendula Lotion

We finally had a day where we could turn off the air conditioner.  What a change of temperature, but we are told it'll heat up again this coming weekend.  Such a beautiful day.

I woke up Wednesday with zero, nada, zip of produce to either freeze, dry or can.  Nothing.  I realized, before heading out to weed (again), I had the chance to get my lotion made.

Boom!  Done!  I love this lotion.  I have tried a few lotion recipes, but this is by far my favorite.  

1 cup calendula oil (make ahead)
2 Tbsp. beeswax pastilles

Melt over low heat in a double broiler.   While that is melting, place your heatproof glass mixing bowl in a sink of warm water to keep it warm for when you mix with the blender.

Remove from heat and add essential oils of your choice (10-15 drops), pour into a heat proof glass mixing bowl, slowly add 1 cup of room temperature water using a hand blender.  I specifically have a hand blender for non-food handmade items.  I also have special mixing bowls and measuring cups just for this.  Pour into your clean containers.  I store my extras in the fridge.  It will grow mold if you don't or don't use it timely.  

To make oil:  place dried calendula flowers (I grow my own) into a quart canning jar.  I fill mine about 2/3rds full.  Add a good organic olive oil.  Put a lid on it and place in warm, sunny window for 4 (to 6) weeks.  Strain, and store in a cool dark location.

Random Tidbits

Monday, while Hubby and daughter were scrambling around getting ready at 5:45am, I was mumbling.  

"I have to work out, can jam, clean the coop, make a scramble for the week, do the dishes, do the laundry...."

Hubby said, "what'ya gonna do after 9am?"  

I laughed, and laughed.  That is true.  There is an advantage of being up early.  Sparta was giving me heck while cleaning the coop.  He kept getting out of the door, and out into the open garden area.  I had to keep chasing him back into the run.  I think he's getting old or his broken leg from years ago is giving him trouble.  He's having a bit of trouble walking and climbing the ramp now.

Speaking of scramble - this weeks breakfast for a few days.  It's made with some swiss chard, jalapeno, home grown potatoes, onions, green pepper and bacon.

Tuesday, I was up at 4:26 am precisely.  Work called Hubby in, and the thunder and pouring rain kept me from going back to sleep.

I hope we are well stocked now with Cowboy Candy, but if I can get more jalapenos, I'll can it one more time.  We love it!  I canned blackberry-red raspberry (our berries) jam and more peach jam.  I just wish I could find some hot banana peppers now. The purchase of our organic hot banana pepper plants were a fail.

The garden. . .popcorn may be a fail this year too.  The last storm we had, brought very strong winds, and my patch has been somewhat flattened.  Now with more heavy rain, thunderstorms, wind...who knows what'll happen.

Sadly, the 2# of tomatoes I had brought in, starting rotting in a few days.  

Although Hubby is against it, I'm back to considering working again.  We have to buy almost everything our garden didn't provide to stock up, and our cost to put the garden in has set us back.   Not sure what we'll do just yet.  I was so busy Monday, dinner time crept up on me quickly, so I'm struggling to figure out how to even hold a job and keep this place afloat.  There are many things we'll do without I believe too.

One dinner this week was smoked turkey bone soup.  I don't normally like soup in summer, but it was delicious.  I just added whatever I had, but the smoked carcass from my younger brother was worth keeping.  Yum.

I also made a new side dish - a cheesy jalapeno corn mix.  I used the frozen off the cob corn and it was very good!

Oh, and here is the latest new recipe I tried in my dehydrator. . .

Peanut butter cookies.  They were much easier to flatten than the oatmeal.  The only con to this, is it uses 1/2 cup organic coconut oil.  Same with the oatmeal.  I will however, keep this recipe for group meals and holidays.  I think they'd freeze okay, and if I triple the recipe I can fill my entire large dehydrator and save me time and ingredients.

Potatoes

On the pro side of no rain, what I had weeded is stayed weed free.  On the con side of it, I had to water one day and weed another day.  It was like concrete.

Oye.  This is one corner of the potatoes.  It's a total mess.

On July 18th, I started weeding them.  Sadly, all the tops had browned and the potatoes I checked were about 1 inch round.  I continued to weed, not giving up, and hoping the next rain would revive them.

A few plants still have green on them, so I continued to weed.  you know I'm not one to give up unless it's obviously just not going to yield us food.  

Yeah, as the days passed by, and the weeds came back (after that photo), I started digging.

Here's what we got.

Dinky is this summer's word.    A complete fail.  We planted 15# and harvested 15.43#.  The heat waves, despite watering, caused the plants to die off way too early.  Such a waste of money and time.

I will be buying the almanac from now on, and checking the weather predictions.  I won't plant late ever again.  

Live and learn.  Don't plant late if that's the case.  In our area, it did not work.  The tomato plants are not tall enough, didn't have enough time, the weather is already changing, and the tomatoes are way too small.

Not complaining, just sharing reality.  It's not all peaches and cream.

Weekend Updates

An Uncle of mine passed away and we had yet another family funeral to attend over the weekend.  He was 89, and a Korean veteran.  He was such a jokester and had a good full life, but pancreatic cancer took him suddenly and quickly.  It was a beautiful service, and we rode the Harley.  Uncle G. loved our Harley and I'm sure he was smiling in Heaven as we rode to his final resting place.  Such a beautiful day and my cousin's tribute at the church was downright emotional.  There were US Army soldiers there to do the flag folding, and a gun salute.  Just a very nice service.

Sunday morning we found out that a woman we rode with last year (in a group), was killed in a motorcycle accident.  She took a curve badly, tried to correct herself and hit a car.  No helmet.  

Remember that tall stack of library books?  I found recipes for dehydrator cookies and gave them a try.  We love these!  No eggs, no butter, and delicious.  Next time I'll put mini chips in them, but I'll soon try the peanut butter cookie recipe too.  These were oatmeal.

Here is the book the recipe is in.  I'm not an "idiot" when it comes to using my dehydrator, but there are hidden gems in many library books, so I always take a look.

Sunday morning I dug up the potatoes.  I'll have another post for that.

I also went out to do the first official tomato picking, expecting more than I got - 2 lbs.  Literally.  I need 45 lbs. to make sauce, or at least 25 for a half batch.  I am so disappointed this year.  It's definitely not going to be another 500+ lb tomato year.  They are small too. Too small.

The baby birds are born now, and they have left the nest.

Turnips were a failure.  They are small, and not very many survived.

Corn Relish Skillet Corn Bread ~ Extreme Clean Continues

I love our home canned corn relish. It's great on fish, meat, and one daughter (vegetarian), love it with her mashed potatoes when she lived at home.

I drained some and added it to basic corn bread.  It was delicious.  Next time I'm going to try this with einkorn flour. 

Recipe:
1 stick of organic butter, 2 Tbsp. divided (see note below)
1 1/2 cups einkorn whole grain flour
3/4 c. organic cornmeal
1 Tbsp. non-gmo baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 farm fresh eggs, beaten
1 1/4 c. organic milk
1 1/2 c. home canned corn relish, drained well

Mix dry ingredients.  Mix wet (melt butter) and add to dry.  Heat your 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet with the 2 Tbsp of butter (note: I used organic non-gmo olive oil and it worked great).  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425°F.  Depending on the size of you skillet, bake 20 to 35 minutes.  Check center, if needed, using a wooden toothpick.  Cool a few minutes before serving.

Corn Relish - I use the Ball Canning recipe found: Here

If you are a regular follower, you know that I've attempted to extreme clean my bedroom closet, utility room and garage for 4 years now.  Every time I clean it up, the kids put things everywhere, and it's right back to a big total mess of chaos.

Finally, finally, I have my bedroom closet about 89% of the way purged.  Hubby has to go through some clothing, and I have to get busy on some unfinished crochet/knitting projects - too many bags in there of those buggers.  Oh it is looking so nice too.  I'm super excited to get started on the garage and utility room now too.

I have found a home for 2 softball helmets and my oldest daughter is coming over soon to take some school supplies I'm purging.  Just too much stuff now that the kids are all moved out (but one, and I can actually keep things organized and clean). 

On top of that I managed to re-stock the comfrey poultices.  I have a nasty bruise on my knee and needed one anyway.

Found this little article in while purging.  

Thought I would share. Now go wash your kitchen dishcloth - 4 billion living germs??!!

Meanwhile. . . .

. . . in the rose bed

I'm still weeding it.  It looks small in that photo, but it's the entire length of the kitchen wall. 

 I managed to spend an hour and pull out the 7 foot thistle though.  We are enamored in sweat bees this year, and I can only stand being out there so long, especially in the heat.  Nothing works to keep the bees off me - not homemade bug spray, nor water with peppermint essential oil.  They are horrible, and I cannot even enjoy the front porch now.  They are driving us all insane.  I will try setting a citronella candle out there later if I remember to do it. So far the winning numbers are, flyswatter-4,000, spider webs - 4.  

As for the vegetable garden.  I give up.  The weeds will come out when the plants come out and that's all the time I'm putting into it. I put out a plea for anyone's extra zucchini, yellow squash (we got zero from those plants that looked so good weeks and weeks ago), and hot banana peppers.  I'll be posting about what happened to our potatoes soon too.  Yeah, a really, really stinky, unsuccessful garden year.  

I still have flower beds to weed, pull giant weeds by my barns, mailbox and other various places.  You should see my chicken run, ha ha!  It must appear to the chickens as a jungle.  At least they have shade, ha ha!

It rained, so Thursday I woke up confused.  I had zero produce or fruit laying around my kitchen awaiting work.  I had my kitchen spotless.  Front room spotless.  Front porch unbearable.  So I decided to start back in my utility room/new craft storage area.  I have narrowed the extreme clean list down to: utility room, bedroom, bedroom closet and garage. I actually got a little done in each room too.  I have a few touch ups to do in the kitchen bathroom.  

I mended a hole in one of my favorite shirts, un-buried a bunch of empty 1/2 pint and 4 oz. canning jars, discovered more small balls of yarn....I am starting to see the floor of my closet.  Almost.

I refilled my homemade dry taco mix.  I use my homegrown, minced and dehydrated garlic for this recipe, as well as others.

My car still has a flat tire.  Hubby has had one excuse after another (or it's raining) to remove it and plug it, and it's driving me mad not having a vehicle to get things done.  I asked him to finally make a library pick up for me.  He told everyone that the library was "closed until" I bring them all back, ha ha ha!