This and That

 

We have been getting rain, so I'm not doing any garden work currently.  I weeded out the larger weeds in the rose bed, but the rest will have to wait until the the rain stops.

I have been successful with my new to-do list (the 7 areas to tidy up).  I have now crossed 2 off of my list of 7.  My husband hasn't noticed.

Speaking of my husband, there is no sign of the long work hours ending.  He promised me a "date" night, which was taking the motorcycle out and dinner out.  Didn't happen.  They held him over at work.  We are all tired of it.  He has been forced over every night.  One night he was to be home by 8pm, and ended up home at 9pm.

I'm considering going back to work.  We never see each other, and there is no sign we will be getting our projects finished.

I still have a list for us when these hours stop, but I not able to vision any of it being accomplished.  I'm still upset half of the garden was not planted.  Nothing we can do about it.  I probably sound like a broken record.  It can be very depressing at times.  

July is almost here, and the coop materials have not even been bought yet.  We still need more supplies for the raised beds.  The solar fence is still in the box.  I never got my potatoes planted....

I'm getting burned out crocheting.  I have been using up some yarn, and making hats for winter.  I went on Etsy, and was shocked that some people are selling hats for $50-70!!!  What??  And here I was worried that $18 or so was too high.  As for that, my husband said he does NOT want me to do any craft show this winter.

I also saw knitted dishcloths being sold for $7.00!!  What??  I've also noticed that everyone is selling something, and no one is buying.  I read that the area garage sales were a flop as well.  They said "no one was into it" this year.  Well, no one has the money.

I'll be back when I have something more positive to post.  I have just been drained of all positive mojo so far this summer, and feeling like we haven't accomplished anything is mentally draining.

This isn't "throwing in the towel" on homesteading, but the thought is there.

Bell Pepper Eggs in a Nest

 

No part of the bell pepper was wasted either.  The parts that I could not make a ring out of, were sliced for snacking, and the seeds went to the chickens.

Why have I not made eggs in a nest this way until now??   By the way, one was not enough, ha ha!  I made each of us two.

I love cooking recipes with bell peppers.  These are delicious!  I cannot wait for the fresh garden goodies to make these all summer.  

I will have to tweak the chicken "sausage" patties however.  I just picked a random recipe online.  It was on the dry side, with little to no flavor.  I prefer the turkey ones over these.

Do you have a good chicken breakfast sausage recipe?  I feel you almost have to add a bit of pork sausage to it.  When I make turkey patties, they are more flavorful.  I may go check my recipe and see if the ingredients to flavor them are different. I know I put sage in these, but like I said, just no flavor.  Healthier, but the recipe needs something changed.

We like to stuff and freeze bell peppers during garden harvest.  I freeze a lot of bell peppers diced and sliced for recipes as well.  We love baked bell pepper rings.  They are so good too.  We also love "philly" stuffed bell peppers.  We eat a lot of bell peppers with many meals - chicken fajitas, stir-fry, Italian sausage sandwiches, breakfast frittatas and omelets....so many ways to use them.

What is your favorite way to enjoy bell peppers?  

I will be planting a better variety next year.  What is your favorite variety to plant?

Roasted Beet Foil Packets

 

I know the instructions on this recipe are on my blog somewhere, but my searching came up empty.  Any way, I bought these organic beets at the store, but they are not the same as homegrown. Nothing is.  Homegrown is the best.  

I didn't measure.  Dice trimmed and peeled beets, dice onion, and put on a oil sprayed piece of heavy duty foil (or toss in olive oil then place on foil).  Sprinkle with thyme and sprigs of fresh rosemary from the herb garden.  Wrap foil and pinch to seal it.  I place my foil packets on a baking sheet.

400°F, 60 minutes or until beets are tender.  Enjoy!  We have made these on the grill too.

Roasted turkey with homemade garlic aioli sauce, and those delicious beets/onions.

Here's to praying we get the new raised beds built in time to fall plant beets.  I am really gonna miss my spring planted beets this year.  

Garden(s) ~ Getting though the days. . .

 I'm cleaning up my blog, and making a few changes.  It was time to lighten the look and make things more simple.  I got rid of the side bars and that bold flower background.  I hope it is a bit more pleasing to the eyes.

The vegetable garden weeding continues, but it's not as bad as the previous years.  The squash plants are looking great, and the cucumbers are too.  I did notice that our National Pickling Cucumbers are much larger plants than our Marketmore 76 plants.  The green beans are looking good, other than a few were trampled early in the season.  No, the fence is not up yet.

I've been pretty successful with rotating the vegetable garden weeding and up keep, with the flower beds. 

I started on the rose bed finally, and boy it is a mess.  We have tried everything but roof shingles to keep the weeds out.  I may get my husband to try that this year after all these trials. 

 We have tried everything from mulch, to black plastic, to weed sheeting to piles and piles of cardboard.  Nothing has worked.  It's the flower bed from h-e-double hockey sticks.  Anyway, my garden sleeves worked great for this garden (so far).

I can't even begin to tell you how drained I am, but seeing so many projects unfinished around here.  It can be so depressing.  I decided to write out a list of rooms that are driving me nuts, and only the areas that I can clean up myself without my husband's help (trust me, there are way more of those projects).

I already checked off one area on my new list.  The new list has 7 areas.  The plan is to focus on this new list each day, and not stress over other things.  When these 7 are checked off, I will re-access, and write a new list if necessary.

Here's what I got done in the way of the list . . .

-put two folding chairs that were in the hall, back upstairs

-brought down a box of trash left by one of the girls, and tossed it all out.

-washed bedding that one daughter borrowed here, dried it on the line and put it back in storage.

-loaded two boxes of items into the truck to donate.

-cleared off the kitchen island, wiped it down and wiped down the chairs.

I can't say I will be that productive every day, but it's a good start.  

Spearmint Iced Green Tea ~ Blooms

 

It was high time to make homemade spearmint iced tea.  I love this stuff!  My Mom hated it, but her Mom (Grandma), used to make it.  Love, love, love it on a hot day.  It's nice to have when I come in from the garden.  Now that my husband is doing all the mowing after work, he too enjoys this delicious tea.  I use organic green tea bags.

My popcorn is not doing that great this year.  I may have planted it too late.  I hope I did not waste garden space with a fail crop.  

Here is what's going on in some of the flower beds.

The two "red" ones are actually two different colors.  The last one is more of a burgundy.  

My lavender is in full bloom too.  I brought some in to enjoy.

Happy Homemaker Monday

 

The weekend went fast.  Thursday night tornados hit northeast of us.  One daughter's family and several friends were in it's path.  All are okay, but there was a lot of damage done.

I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay a Home Mom.

The weather . . .

Mostly 80's for high's this week, with possible rain this weekend.

As I look outside my window . . .

It's cloudy.

Right now I am . . .

Drinking coffee.

Thinking and pondering . . .

Canning this season.  It's been on my mind.  What is the most favorite condiment you like to can for gifting?   Not sure it'll happen, but thinking about it.

Did I mention our handy-man quit on us?  He won't even come tend the hens anymore either.  We even have unfinished work from him, and have no idea what's going on.   I have chicken people to contact, but we may be doing everything else, from here on out, ourselves now.  It means it could take longer with my husband working so many hours.

I have a lot of unfinished crochet/knit projects right now.  I'm considering frogging them all and storing the yarn for now.    I do need to finish a few, but some were for craft shows, and that is just now on the homefront right now.  Maybe not even for a few years.  Anyway...those unfinished projects are in the boxes I need to move.

A chaotic home is a chaotic mind (for me anyway), so my focus is to really tidy up/purge etc so we can wake up to a happy home (happy mind).

Listening to . . .

The birds outside.

How I am feeling . . .

Somewhat better, but my throat is still scratchy dry.  The stress of my husband's work hours can really weigh a person down.  Garden work is full swing this week.  The rain brought weeds.

On the breakfast plate . . .

Not sure just yet.

On the lunch plate . . .

Leftovers.

On the dinner plate . . .

Not sure yet.

On my reading pile . . .

On my TV this week . . .

Nothing special.

On the menu . . .

-possibly chicken sandwiches
-turkey roast, veggies
-leftovers

Looking around the house . . .

The living room is a hot mess.  There is so much that needs to go upstairs yet, but I've put it off until the gym flooring is installed.  I'm thinking I'll move it up there anyway.  It could be a while for flooring.

To-do list . . .

An all week list, in no particular order:

-laundry
-check garden/till/tie tomatoes, weather permitting
-wash down west wall kitchen cupboards
-wipe kitchen windowsills
-clean East window blind
-sweep/mop floors (still haven't found a vacuum I like)

-pay bills

-order propane

-tidy up computer/desk area

-grocery shop

-purge remaining craft supplies/move the rest upstairs

One Extreme Clean Pick for the Week:  Clean inside cupboards under kitchen sink.  This job may flow into next week, depending on how much time I need to spend in the garden(s).

From the camera . . .

Devotional, verse, thoughts . . .

Prayers for those who lost their homes/were hurt due to the recent tornadoes.

This and That

My experimental Einkorn flour biscuits did not go to waste.  We enjoyed (or I should say my husband) them with some freshly canned, reduced sugar strawberry jam.  Very good!  I will keep working on this recipe, and make them larger for breakfast sandwiches (although we do prefer a homemade muffin).  Einkorn didn't work out for English muffins. They would deflate so easily when I would move them from the tray to skillet.

During my internet searching, I've been looking at buying a new apron.  I do have a sewing machine, but the drive to sew one on my own is just not there.

(source:  Amazon)

I really like this style of the criss-cross back vs. ties.  Also, called Tessuti style.  I do like the two pockets too.  I see that some Etsy sellers have some online as well.  Just not sure on fabric/color.  Do any of you use aprons of this style?  Do you like them better than the ones that tie?  Does anyone here make and sell them?

I have totally ruined one apron, so it's dubbed solely for tomato patch work.  I have ruined so many shirts, with the green tomato stain, that you get while working around a tomato plant.  It's pathetic.  We have reduced the tomato plants, but the apron will come in handy for that work, and save my shirts from stains.

I did some more internet surfing, watched some Youtube tutorials, hand wrote a pattern, and started a smaller project for my on-the-go project.  I used to keep supplies for hot pads for this project bag, but I have too many of those in storage.  Anyway, I'll be back to show you that soon.  Oh, and it uses yarn I already have too.  Big bonus for me, ha ha!

I had to hand write the pattern, due to our  Microsoft Word on the computer expiring.  Apparently, the license is no good, and we installed it way back in the day when the kids were in high school.  I guess that is on the shopping list, as I use it very often.  Darn it all.  I use it to print labels, tags for crochet/knit packaging, print recipes, write letters, store patterns on the computer, write lists, and whatnot.  I'm cringing at how much it will cost us.  I mean, everything is so high priced right now.

The sun is shining today.  Thankfully, the rain is rotating with some sun as well, but we are definitely having a cooler June.  Actually, I am thankful for that.  We do not have AC in all of the house yet.  

I'll be honest, I am feeling a bit better, but not completely back to normal.   I'm going to take the rest of the week off of blogging.  I know, shocker, right?   I'm lacking interesting/homesteading content right now anyway.  If the weather is good outside today, I may soak in some porch time, but then again pollen is high right now.