Our Piece of Country Paradise

Taking Turkey Time to a whole new level.

2011-11-23T10:28:00.001-08:00

If you know me you will know that I have a pretty addictive personality. Or I like to consider myself passionate. When I do something I do it full force. Often becoming so focused I have tunnel vision. In a conversation if you bring up one of my addictions you will quickly see my eyes light up and my mouth start running, spewing all the sheer excitement I have pent up. The problem is not many people that I come in contact with have these same addicitons so it is not long before I see the glaze come over their eyes and I snap back into reality that, 'no Amy no one really wants to hear about your issues'. Then my ingrained manners kick in and I say, "so what have you been up to?"

It is pretty much the social norm when a woman is addicted to shopping. Going on the hunt for that perfect fitting pair of jeans for the right price is not unheard of but pretty common. So if I simply state that my addiction is shopping it sounds much better but when I am completely honest and say I am addicted to shopping for rock bottom prices on produce, meat and groceries it makes me sound a bit coo coo. Well what if I said I was addicted to buying turkeys? What will that make me? It is true. I have bought not one, not two, not 3 but 4 turkeys and not one of them is being served on Thanksgiving. We are traveling to visit family for Thanksgiving this year so I am not responsible for the bird for the first time in a long time.

Meijer is having this crazy deal on turkeys and if you are smart ~~crazy~~ like me you are able to get a 16 lb turkey for $3. That is 18 cents a lb!! This excites me way too much! So I have purchased turkey after turkey which means then I have to do something with all these birds too, right! A friend and I have dismantled 3 so far and have ground, boiled, canned and frozen many pounds of poultry the last few days.

Next week I will be doing 2 more birds. Mostly grinding with some canning and freezing involved. I do the same thing with produce in produce season, with gardening and the Amish produce auction. Buying mass amounts of produce and canning and freezing. It is my way of contributing to the family and I take it so seriously it is probably not healthy. I was recently called lazy and unimaginative by someone who does not know me. I would love for that person to come spend a day at my house and see if they change their mind. Crazy, passionate, intense, reactive, opinionated with an addictive personality that I am. Lazy? HA

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Jalapeno popper balls

2011-11-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry it is a bit late but maybe you chopped some of those prolific peppers and froze them. Here is something to do with them. I typed this up a while ago. Not sure why I never posted it. I have been MIA for a while but I really hope to be better about keeping up. I have some great posts in the works. Making the time to get them on here is the bigger challenge.

Have jalapenos and don't know what to do with them? I have made the traditional poppers in the past and we enjoy them but with the variablness from pepper to pepper alot of time the peppers are just too hot. We like some heat but homegrown jalapenos can be over the top. So I came up with this idea as a way to control the amount of heat. We made a few to try it out and not only were they amazingly yummy but they were easier to make. It is sometimes hard to get an even breading coating over the shiney side of the peppers and it was messy trying. But with the balls they coated evenly and easily.

          12 ounces cream cheese, softened
          1 (8 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese
          1 tablespoon bacon bits

12 ounces jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced

1 cup milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup dry bread crumbs

2 quarts oil for frying

Put the milk and flour into two separate small bowls. Dip the balls first into the milk then into the flour, making sure they are well coated with each.
Dip the balls in milk again and roll them through the breadcrumbs and repeat into the milk then breadcrumbs.

1. In a medium bowl, mix the cream cheese, Cheddar cheese and bacon bits and minced jalapeno. Form into 1 inch balls.

2. Put the milk and flour into two separate small bowls. Dip the balls first into the milk then into the flour, making sure they are well coated with each.

3. Dip the balls in milk again and roll them through the breadcrumbs and repeat into the milk then breadcrumbs.

4. In a medium skillet, heat the oil to 365 degrees F ( 180 degrees C). Deep fry the coated jalapenos 2 to 3 minutes each, until golden brown. Remove and let drain on a paper towel.

Finished product! MMM...mmmm..mmmm

What is value?

2011-08-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Is value interpretive? Is it cut and dry? Black and white? Or is it all perspective? I am talking of all things within God's laws and values. I am talking about good things. Good things to do with your life, your time, your energy, your love. Is there a good, better, best? I think I find my value in some very different areas than most. I think it is safe to say I have NEVER gone with the flow. Or fit in any where or at any point in my life. And I have devoloped into a woman that is very much that way. I am not the 'typical' woman persay. I don't love shopping or shoes or care to have a career or like to watch reality t.v. Though I do enjoy a good mani, pedi session and getting dressed up and having a night out. So I feel like there is some balance in my life. But on the day to day I find value in saving money, feeding my family healthy, making as much from scratch as possible, staying at home and taking care of my children. In my mind "a penny saved is a penny earned" and if I can save my family money that money is just as good as the money I could make out in the 'real' world. But actually it is even better because I get to be here for my children, have a relationship with them, have time to spend with my children and husband, I know where my food is coming from, what goes into it and that it didn't come from the freezer section at the grocery store.

I grow my garden, have a milk goat and raise some turkeys for meat. It isn't much though it is alot of work I know there are those that do more but they usually either have a husband that helps or older children that do. So for one person I do as much as I feel like I can at this phase of my life without completely interrupting the balance.

But what happens when God unites you for all of your life with someone that just does not have that same value system, what ever that value system may be? When the one person you love and live with does not support or even remotely find value in those same things. When for them going and working a job is more valuable than any of those things. That having a pay check and making the neccesary sacrifices that go along with that pay check is the only thing that will make them happy. I feel I am confronted constantly with this problem. I then feel I am confronted with a decision that needs to be made. Do I do that which I value or that which the other person values? Is there a happy medium? Or is it just black and white? These are questions of which I do not posses the answers. These are questions that I don't know if there really is a 'right or wrong' answer. If there was I would have made it. On the outside looking in one might be able to come up with a reasonable solution but without all the ins and outs of the matters you probably cannot see the stalemate I feel I am in.

I had a person once tell me that "I was just lucky to have found the perfect person and to have had a successful relationship". This person has obviously never been in a relationship with one person for over a decade. Or they in their ignorance would have surely learned by now that there is no such 'luck'. There are no perfect people. There is no one that is 'the one' that will forever into eternity make your life complete and utter bliss. Those fairy tales are for the books. The reality of it is that relationships are hard, they include, sacrifice, selflessness, forgiveness, mercy and even the depths of dispair at times. They are not always beatiful and probably more ugly than most would like to admit. BUT if you can do those things, not in perfection but even some of the time there are true moments of beauty that make their way to the surface. And for those moments we continue on and try harder and do better and sacrifice and forgive and make those hard choices. Because you know that you too will require those same things granted to you and when it is returned that is when the beauty truely shines. And I guess that is my real answer.

Sorry birds. No Vaccancy!

2011-08-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

Weeding the garden one evening this little guy gave me a scare. He is such a cute bugger and he gave my husband and I good laugh.

Just hanging out on his front porch on a nice evening.

Spring time in my back yard!

2011-06-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Spring time in my back yard means;

Farm fresh milk...mmm.

Oregano, chives, basil, lavender, dill, thyme, sage...

Tiny tomato plants

vining peas

tender lettuce

onions

curious baby goats

Ornery Mama goats

cuddly kitties

shedding winter coats

fluffy pony faces

sniffy little noses

tender little blue eyes.

Hungry chubby horeses

shaggy little ponies

irresistable little faces

pretty purple flowers

tire swings and the setting sun

pony rides

fun with friends

and meeting new furry friends

gorgeous days

life long memories

hide and seek in fields

and much much more....

A long over due update. This is for you Esther :). Spring time here is busy but this year I purposely made life a little less hectic. It is just not the year for me to over do it. Ha that was well done last year. I didn't start any of my seeds and wimped out bought plants. We have lettuce, spinach, onions and peas all growing great right now which were all started in the ground. We have lettuce and spinach with almost every meal right now and it is yummy. Herbs are coming in nicely and if you were close I would gladly give you starts of oregano and dill since they are very abundant. Some tomatos are in the ground but I also need to get the rest of them, peppers, brussel sprouts and cucumbers in the ground. Once again like last year we had a cold start to spring which turned into weeks and weeks of rain and more cold then as soon as the weather snapped it went from that to now we are hanging around high 80's 90's. Not great planting weather unless you have nothing else to do but get up early and put in a garden, ha, if only my life was that simple.

We had some friends from college days come by the farm for a visit with their 3 adorable, sweet children. We spent the day together chatting, going to the amish store, going on pony rides, chasing baby goats, cooking and eating. It was such a blessing to have them. Esther is such a sweet and transparent person that is just easy to get along with and I am so glad that after all these years we reconnected.

It has been a while since I last updated and not only have we had 4 baby goats since then but they are all sold and only one is still awaiting to be picked up by his new family. Bubbles had quads this year!! One was not alive when we found them that sunday morning before church. She successfully raised all three that were left. Now with only one still here I am getting milk agian! I am getting about 1 quart when I milk once a day. Early next week the last baby should be picked up and I will be getting 2 quarts a day, yumm. That not only means plenty of the best milk you will ever taste but it also means CHEESE :).

I made the decision to not raise turkeys this year :(. I know I will miss that delicious meat come fall and we will miss having them around the farm this year but I just needed to simplify things a bit for now. I am going to be gone for about 3 weeks over the summer and it is alot to ask of someone to care for all the animals and then to add more on to that just seemed too much. Even as I type I am still not 100% decided about this but as of right now we don't have any chickies.

Spring and summer are times that we really get to enjoy having horses. We are not the type to have pasture pets or hay burners. If we own them they will be put to work or good use. Even if their jobs is just to give us pleasure or enjoyment they must do their job. We ride them alot. We went on a fabulous trail ride and if you want to see some videos from my new helmet camera from that ride just head over to my other blog and check them out. It was great fun! Though not without its scary moments but it was over all an amazing ride with my two older girls 6 and 8 and my Dad.

I think that brings you pretty much up to date. Happy spring!!

It's my blog I can cry if I want to!

2011-04-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

My mind has been in deep thought lately and I am finding it hard to bring myself out of it. There is one word that keeps coming to mind, content. I am finding it nearly impossible to be content. Not with money or things, those kind of things mean very little to me and would give it all away if it were for the good of my family and others. I could live in a shoe box house and be fine. It would take some adjusting but I would be fine. I have been blessed and am happy with what I have. I am happy with the husband God gave me, the children he blessed us with, the home we own and the life we live. Those things are not or are ever in question. I live a good life and enjoy it to the fullest.

The contentment that I struggle with comes from a very different place. It involves where we have been placed and the people that are in our lives. Not only the family(extented) that we were given but the friends that have been in our lives. I probably spend too much time in my life wondering and contemplating the state of these relationships considering the other parties seem to care less. See things don't matter to me but people that is a different matter. I love people, I love to be with people I love to have people in our lives. Now the people that matter most is my husband and children they are a constant and loving relationship that I value beyond measure. I feel they are first and foremost in my heart, mind and life, so nothing or no relationship can put those relationships in jeopardy or it will quickly be dismissed.

My first issue of contentment is with family. These are the people in our lives that we have not choosen. The ones that God gave us. We live 3 1/2 hours from our nearest relative so involvement in our lives I guess you can say is limited. If for no other reason simple distance is the cause. But with the technology today involvement can take on many different forms. It could be traveling to be phyiscally present or phone conversations to be involved in the happenings, or facebook to communicate or even skyping. The options seem limitless on the ways one can be "present" in anothers life. But it seems that those avenues are rarely utilized and for the most part the occassional monthly or every other month few minute phone call is the extent of involvement. And with most family members not even that is the case. The once or twice a year visit is all that exists in the relationship. I can tell you from the family members perspective that is far away this can be tough to deal with. You see your children growing up and grandparents seemingly content missing almost the entire process. Aunts and Uncles that the children don't recognize for lack of involvement. Cousins that just don't know each other. In all of this I feel like the odd ball because it seems I am the only one who even gives a rats ass about the situation and lack of relationship. So for the most part I keep quiet. I have approached the subject on a few occassions but with little to no acknowledgement or change. So I attempt to keep in touch but often find myself sucking back from the relationship with the mindset that "if they don't care, then why do I?". I mean if you are the one always putting in the effort in, any relationship can be tiring and hurtful and I have found I could only sustain that type of relationship for a certain amount of time. So if I were asked to define most of the relationships between my family and our other family members it would be, distant, uninvolved and hurtful. Maybe the yearly Christmas letter is enough involvement for them? It is like they want to veiw our lives from the outside but have no desire to be a part of it. Then I find myself becoming defensive of our life and feel if you don't want to be involved then why should you get know what goes on in it? I feel like they enjoy hearing and knowing of us like we are in a fish bowl. People to be entertained by but not a part of. This situation at times I have become accustumed too and just cope with it and at others it tears at my heart and I yearn for grandparents to really know my children and interact with them more than the occasional token visit. For ones that though they may not be present on a daily basis but still find a way to show they care. I wish that it couldn't be months that go by without as much as a phone call or card or anything. That they actually had an ongoing relationship with their grandchildren. Maybe I am asking for too much and I probably am I just have a hard time imagining someday not really knowing or even caring about my children and what goes on in thier lives. The whole situation just breaks my heart. I think it is made worse by the fact that I see how the same grandparents interact with other grandchildren. Knowing that Grandma always makes cupcakes for one to take to her class on her birthday and that another is taking their grandchild to a museum because they just want to see their face as they see the dinasour exhibit. Why cannot I not just be content without those things? Why do I wish those same grandparents wanted to see my childrens faces as they light up with excitement or comfort them when they are sad? Maybe they do care but it is hard to know someone cares when they really have very little to do with your life. I need to learn to be content without those things and know that we will make it and our kids will be happy, healthy adults without those things/people but sometimes it is easier said than done to just let it go.

Then their is friendships or a connection with where we are and maybe the two things combined is what makes it all the more hard. When we moved here over 6 years ago we didn't know a soul and it was tough. We had no one. We were in a new area with a toddler, a baby on the way, in new house and a new job. All hard things to deal with and adjust to and it was all at one time. We struggled and went through some of the hardest time in our lives getting through it. But really that was to be expected. It is almost like we had a good excuse to why we were struggling. But now 6 years later we have made "friends" we have attempted to get involved and connected to those people, groups and the area. But is seems that almost everyone in our lives have come in and left. We(my husband and I) can say we feel no more connected to where we are than we were 6 years ago. Maybe we are not the only ones who struggle with this but it feels like we are. It seems everyone has their family or life long friends that are in their lives and they know will always be there. I have two people out of everyone in our lives that I know if I called them day or night they would be there to help in any way possible. I am grateful for those two people and am glad they are a part of our lives but sometimes it hard to not feel guilt about always having to call on those two people. That those two people are the only ones you can depend on. To me it seems like a big burden to place on just two people. But there have been many people that I thought would always be a part of our lives that have for some reason just "disappeared" from it. I mean they are still there but not in our lives. The kind of "friends" that you considered to be more like family. That you invited to kids birthday parties and family gatherings. Then you stop recieving invites to their birthday parties and gatherings and I soon get the hint that we will be taking on a new place in thier lives. Maybe it was something I did or something about me that drives people away but I would think that if our realationship was important that I would at least be given chance to make things right. But that was not the case and pretty much distance was put between us. Not the physical distance that seems to be the challange with family because we live very close in proximity but emotional distance with little to no involvement. I have way too many friendships that have happened this way and they can go back all the way to my best friend when I was 19 years old. You know the kind of friend that you are inseperable. Then one day you realize they are putting you at a distance. I go to her to try to see if I had done something or if we could make things right and after the conversation you realize that anything I do will not change the fact that they just don't want you in thier life anymore. Ouch it hurts and it took me years to get passed that relationship but I have seen it happen over and over again and I have to wonder if I am the common denominator in each relationship? I don't know but I do know that I never stop caring and I would be willing to fix the broken relationship but often are not given that chance and the relationship fades to the type that if you happen to bump into eachother at the grocery store you are kind and ask how the family is and then you part ways. Sad.

Then on a little lighter side it feels like the area we live in is a black hole. If you meet anyone when you first move here the conversation goes like this, "are you from here?", "no we just moved here". The response is always the same, "WHY???". Whether they are people who were born and raised here or are transplants themselves they all say the same thing. Surely that is not a good sign. Now I can see what they mean. The area really has nothing to offer. The landscape is terribly boring completely flat and all farm land. The statistic are depressing with the highest droppout rate, teen pregnancy and divorce rates in the state. The economy is just sad. No jobs, poverty and poor school systems. There is just not much to speak of at all. And you are hard pressed to find an upside. To make matters worse we moved here for my husbands job which since has changed and now he doesn't even work in the state. His sales territory starts about 40 miles from here and goes about 150 miles out from there. I find myself asking daily why we live here and I cannot come up with a good answer. It is pretty much that picking up and moving doesn't seem easier of the two options with projects in the house needing finished and the housing market the way it is. We would also need to move farther away from family but really I don't think that is going to make a difference considering how involved they are at this distance. I mean could it really get worse??

I want to be content with those relationships or I want to be given the chance to make them right or maybe I just want someone else to care. I don't know but I do know that I wish I had peace about all of it. Sometimes I want to just start over. Leave where we are and start again. If only that was the easy way out!

Soaps and Bonbons.

2011-04-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

I had my first two days working outside the home in almost 8 years this week. This is a hard transition for me for my heart is at home. Doing the work of the home. Caring for my children, teaching them, gardening, cooking, cleaning, barn work, yard work and even the finances. I made it my lifes work to keep my home running and hopefully running well. Perfect? No, but well.

Funny thing is it took me years to learn to love the job of staying at home. If you pursue any job you recieve training. I mean I got a job at a truck stop and they require me to take 10 different courses and not to mention the training I have to recieve on the floor to learn the ropes. And this is for a job that is well, kind of the bottom of the barrel kinda job. But staying at home is something you are thrown into and expected to float kinda thing. It is a career that requires self motivation, organizational skills, management skills, self dicsipline, manual labor, relational skills, financial planning and budgeting. It is a highly demanding and requires a great amount of abilty.
You get almost no recognition for the work you do. And there is almost no immediate gratification and definitely no monetary compensation.. You have to juggle about 5 things at all times and with a smile as to not show those little impressionable people that are at your feet that mommy is sad, stressed, frustrated or angry.

Yet it is thought of as lazy and ambitionless to take on the role of a stay at home wife/mother. Thought that you must spend your hours at home watching soaps and eating bonbons. Who eats bonbons anyways?? I will admit I spend time thoughout the day online and occasionally will turn on the t.v. But I do not have the luxury of any other job where you can clock in and clock out. My lunch break usually consists of grabbing a bite of food here and there while I am making lunch for ever-hungry kids. There is no time clock or required break times. You are on duty 7 days a week all day and on call even at night.

There is also no water cooler conversations and rarely interaction with other adults. And sometimes the loneliness can still get overwhelming. Though I have learned to cope with it better. It is lonely, stressful and neverending work load that gets little to no respect or thanks. But the most important job that exsists. We are shaping the hearts and minds of the next generation. One's who will be the next president, CEO's and fill all those "important" jobs that will need filling someday.

I wish that the mentality toward the stay at home parent will change and it will get the much deserved respect it deserves someday but there are advocates for every group or sect out there but the reason you see no advocates out there for this minority group is because we are too busy catching up on soaps and eating our bonbons!!

Boiling Mania

2011-03-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

We had a free weekend and I would like to say we chose to boil but with approximately 80 gallons of sap we didn't really have a choice. We need to get this stuff moving. Living on a farm and not having an never ending bank account I think it is absolutely eccential. I wanted to boil using wood this year to save money and for effiency. It turned out that efficiency was the biggest challange. We are extemely happy with our collection method. It is efficient and reliable and best of all CHEAP! For boiling I planned to use a woodburnng stove that just happened to be laying in our garage with no home. So Saturday started out with two very large pots on top of the stove in the back yard. After hours of working at a hot fire and still no hard boil frustrations started to set in. We kept at it since we already had the fire going but it was very slow going. By the end of the night we ended up with all of about 1 2/3 cups of syrup.

But sitting there watching the pot boil, literally, I had alot of time to think about how to correct this problem. I planned up my scheme and got the husband to agree to give assistance the next day to make it happen. This guy gives me the hardest time about some of these things that I do but he sure does work hard to make it all happen for me! So today we had to wait until after church and lunch to get things going but the plan was to take off the top of the stove and get a more direct heat to the pots. This is what our boiling system ended up looking like.

You can see how great of boil we got with this. I am very pleased.

That is my seat in front of the stove.

I have one word, efficient! And that is what we needed. If I wasn't so exhausted my excitement about my ability to set it all up and make it work word come through my post but I am just getting through this post in a daze. Between constant keeping up with the fire, wood splitting, animal chores, and family duties, and considering it is midnight and I still have a few gallons of sap boiling outside, I am spent! At the end of two days we have a total of 6 cups of syrup. Most of which were from today and we only got in a half day of boiling. So things should move along better now with our "system".

And just for kicks here is this lovely guy I was telling you about. I think he might be going a bit looney...lol.

Sap update...and other various ramblings from the farm.

2011-03-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

It has been 5 days and we have collected about 60 gallons of sap. We have pulled out all the stops in containers to keep it all in but so far we have adequate storage. Between rubermaid totes and all my canning pots we are in good shape.

I also hope to be able to give a photo update on things around the farm now that the ground is not covered in snow. Though now the snow has turned to mud. It just doesn't give that cute homesteading farm feeling but it is reality I guess. I have a 1 year old Louise that is as cute and sweet as ever, a very pregnant Bubbles who is actually sweeter than normal (I think the pregnancy hormones are effecting her). And some very fluffy horses to show you all.

Chick days are started at the local feed store and I was checking them out. I am a little tempted to get some of those little fluff balls but this year have decided to hold off until a little later. May possibly. Last year I think I got them in March and they were ready so early and with the unpredictable weather we still get in april early may when it was time for them to head out doors it was still too cold. Oh and we have the turkey tractor situation to figure out. This is what I want. Though I am not sure if it will be what I get. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg but I also don't want to build something cheaply and have to rebuild every year or two. But this thing would be fabulous. As long as the weight was doable to be pulled by the 4-wheeler.

Work on the farm is never done and at times it is overwhelming and thoughts of an easier life take over. But it is a good feeling using your hands to make, grow and raise all you and your family need. Not that we are there yet but each year we get closer and closer.

Well oh my stars and garters!

2011-03-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

Did I hear that correctly? Are my ears playing tricks on me? Did my husband just say, "I will plant the garden"? Don't get me wrong my husband is a wonderful husband and father but in the years I have known him I have seen him spent a total of 5 minutes in the garden all added up and that is the trips he made over the edge to grab cherry tomatoes off the vine. I have to give him the credit he deserves he is not the every day nitty gritty get involved with out door chores but he IS the nuts and bolts of this operation. You can see him here building a cold frame. Not to mention the animal enclosures and garden boxes he has assembled. He is muscule that picks up lumber and compost and other various items for all of it. So it could not be done without him. But he has never been a willing partner in the planning, planting, harvesting, weeding end of the garden. Shhhhh I think I may be winning him over to this whole lifestyle ;). So he offered to plant and no I would not expect him to go out and plant the whole thing by himself but it will be the extra push I needed to get motivated this year and to have a partner to share the load. It also means that he finds value in all the work that I do. So much so that he is willing to help me continue it on a year I am struggling to keep up.

Lazy woman's bread part 5: bagels.

2011-03-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

This recipe is slightly different but the nice thing about making this recipe is that is is good for bagels but you can also use it for any of the other recipes I have posted so far. So if you ask me, make these couple changes and use this as your stand by.

So for this everything is the same as to how you make the dough except a couple ingredients and amounts. So you can look back here for the "how to" and use these amounts and ingredient changes.

Ingredients for dough

3 cups luke warm water
1 1/2 T granulated yeast (2 packets)
1 1/2 T kosher salt
1 1/2 T sugar
6 1/4 flour

Prepare dough as I showed you in the first post in this series. After your dough is done and refridgerated this dough can be used for any of the previous breads along with bagels, soft prezels, bilays.

Depending on how "dense" you want your bagels you can give them the 20 minute rise time or form them then immediately boil them.

Boiling-pot
8 quarts boiling water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
I have halved all this before and it has turned out fine.

Poppy or sesame seeds optional
extra flour for dusting towel
whole wheat flour for pizza peel (not 100% neccessary)

My first suggestion is to start your water boiling before starting to form your bagels. That is usally the longest part of the process it waiting for the water to boil. 20 min before baking preheat oven to 450 degrees. If you have a pizza peel you can put your stone in the oven before preheating.

Dust your dough with a little flour and pull off a piece of dough about 3 oz or the size of a small peach. Form the same as all the other recipes. Rolling your hands down and under to make the top to the "ball" smooth rotating as you go, blah blah, you know the drill. Repeat and form the rest of your bagels. Cover them loosely with plastic wrap or dont' and let rest for 20 minutes. Honestly this isn't rocket science and there is nothing to be intimidated about. It is hard to mess up and even if it isn't salvagable it costs so little it is not like much is lost. Go for it!

Here are my bagel balls! How you like em? I'd have to say though that these were a bit bigger than a small peach and they made, well, large bagels.

Once your water is boiling punch your thumb through the center of the ball and stretch the center of the bagel hole is about triple width of the bagel wall.

There are alot of different ways you can get the desired shape. You can do a little spin on the finger.

Or pull it apart and try to fit your head through it.

But the idea is to have fun in your kitchen act like a complete fool and get about this kind of result.

Drop the bagels into the boiling water one at a time making sure not to crowd them. They need enough room to float. Simmer for 2 minutes, flip and boil one more minute.

Dust a towel with flour, sound weird? It kinda is, just do it :)

and place the them on the towel.

At this point you can sprinkle them with seeds if you like or not if you don't have them.

I got me a pizza peel! Do you need one? NO. I have been doing this for over a year without one but it was a little indulgent on my part. I wanted one!

There they are ready to bake for 20 minutes.

Put the bagels in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until brown. You will love these! They store great so you can make them for now or later or both!

For breakfast egg and sausage bagel!

Or with chicken salad for lunch!

Remember how I said these were big? That is why you see them halved in these pics. Unless you are a lumberjack half was plenty!

Or you can go simple with these yummy bagels and just a little cream cheese. I dare yo to just eat one bite! It ain't gonna happen!

Tree tapping day!

2011-03-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

I wasn't sure if we were going to get to it this year because we have been extra busy. But this winter has been mean, harsh and nasty BUT it has been a fantastic year for sap so the tapping weather stuck around long enough for me to get to it! Last night was the night. I was determined to do it this week because the entire week should be lovely for good sap flow.

Last year we only tapped two trees to try it. This year we decided to do all 6. So after a quick trip to the Amish farm store around the corner to get taps and tubing we were set to tap. We were trying to be resourceful and find the cheapest way to collect. Last year we had a tubing system which worked well but was more costly than we would like. Not that we consider this a money saving venture but we also don't want to spend a bunch of money on it. This year we used a combination of milk jugs, tubing and rubermaid containers. Pretty much what we had on hand other than the taps and a little tubing. Bottom line is you don't need any fancy equimpent if you ever want to try it yourself. If you have a milk jug, a little tubing and some twine you can pull this off. It can be a fun learning experience! Or you can read about me doing it and make me do all the work and you can follow along in the process. Also taps are cheap I bought some online last year for $2.50 but this year I found them here locally for plastic one they were only $.52.

It was a fairly quick process except when my dear husband got a bit zealous and broke the bit off in the tree. So a quick trip to Lowes and we finished just before dark with the first 4 trees at least since I needed some time to come up with a few more collection methods.

Here is the over zealous husband and our crazy little helpers!

Milk jug metal taps and tubing, method.

We came up with this last year. It is a combination of tubes and connectors all going in to one 5 gallon bucket. It works ok but the jugs are a bit better and less cost and less complicated.

These are the milk jugs and plastic taps. The plastic taps are made to fit that blue tubing so it all fits great and easy to put together.

I got to last two today. I invited a friend and her kids to come over and take part in it. Here is me and my wild monkey "helpers".

Here is a closer look at the platic taps, tubing and milk jug assembly.

This is the last tree. Here we had some tubing and a rubermaid container so I drilled 3 holes in the top for the tubes and just connected it all.

If you look close you can see the sap line. This was only 20 minutes after tapping.

This morning we woke up to some gallon jugs over flowing and others almost full! For a total of 9 gallons in about 12 hours! And that is only the four. So we are adding two more to that today. So after 7 days of collecting 20 gallons a day we should end up with 140 gallons! That is fantastic except when it comes to the fact that we are not adequately prepared to store 140 gallons of liquid. So we get to practice our resourcefulness again and come up with something. The cool thing is sap to syrup is about 40-1 so 140/40 we are talking over 3 gallons of syrup!!! That is awesome! We shall see how the week goes and I will try to update you on collection numbers.

Lastly our resourcefulness will be tried again when it comes time to boil. I have a feeling there will not be a whole lot of sleeping going on for a couple days. But I am going to see if there is interest in a boiling party with some friends of ours and at least it would be fun times!

My hopes are to continue this series with the rest of the sugaring (that is what it is called by the "real" syrup people,though I don't know how much sense it makes) process along with some of the technicality of tree tapping.

Lazy woman's bread part 4: Batard

2011-03-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

So far we have eaten 4 pizzas, two loaves of bouhl and the last thing out of that batch we had were Batard. These are great for individual loaves for sandwiches or whatever.

The nice thing about artisan bread is that once you get these few steps down almost all of the variations start out the same. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. And similar to the other breads we have done you sprinkle the top of your dough with flour and take off a hunk of dough. This time about the size a a large peach. Roll it down and under with your hands forming it into a ball. I formed 6 of these for our dinner of Italian beef.

Then you can practice your playdough snake making skills. Really, just roll them in your hands that same way . Sprinkle your stone with corn meal and let them rise for 20 minutes.

Just before baking sprinkle the top of your mini loaves with flour and take a sharp knife and cut about 1/4 of the way through each loaf.

I do about 3 slits each and this is what they look like pre-baking.

After approximately 20 minutes they will look something like this.

And when you serve up these mini loaves with this or just about anything you will get rave reviews. I promise.

Cake truffles

2011-03-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

These are also featured over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies in her sweet treat linky party.

These little dessert treats will make you look like the gourmet cook in all of us. When in reality they are as easy as can be and you won't believe how delicious they are!

It may not seem this way but I really am not a baker and rarely do but with most everything I do I cannot just make a cake and slap on icing. Why? Will it taste the same? Yes. But I cannot settle for just one aspect of the process. I not only love funtionality but beauty in the practical is what I love. So it is actually hard for me to bake cupcakes and slap on icing for childrens treats because I just don't see the beauty in it but when I stumbled upon these beauties in a bakery I just had to find out what they were. Because the look of them caught my eye enough to get me to purchase one for $3.99 but when I ate it...oh mmm. My curiousity wouldn't rest until I found out what it was I was eating. They were called cake truffles. What I found was they are incredibly simple. So here it is in a nut shell.

Today I made "Turtle Cake Truffles" to celebrate my husbands 32nd birthday. But last week they were "Chocolate Covered Cherry Truffles" for my daughters 6th birthday. The combinations are endless.
What you will need: Cake mix of your choice, container of icing your choice, chocolate for melting and any other extras you want to add. Here I also used carmels and pecans.

Step 1: Make the boxed cake mix as directed,

OR enlist any helpers from the 4 ft and under crowd to do it for you.

The you have a perfectly good cake. Slap on some icing and done! Ha, nope I said simple but it is not that easy. You take that perfectly good cake and....

demolish it! Cut it into peices while it is still warm. Not need to worry about keeping it pretty.

Then take a container of frosting. I used caramel. (It did not auto rotate so it is sideways icing)

Dump the cake and the icing into a large bowl. I know it may seem weird but stick with me here.

Mix it all together until it is all well incorperated. No need to over mix.

I said it was simple but I didn't say you wouldn't get really messy! Now you need to form balls. I do 1 1/2-2 inch balls. They will be kind of rough at first but if you let them set for a couple minutes and clean your hands you can reroll them and they will be more shapely.

Let them cool. I would suggest putting them in the freezer for about 20 min before dipping in chocolate.
During this phase you could also get a little fun and add suprises in the middle. EX: chocolate covered cherry, chocolate cake, cherry icing and put a marcino cherry in the center of the ball. Or Turtle, you can put a whole pecan or caramel in the center.

Some people use dutch ovens, I improvise. This is my set up to melt the chocolate.

Drop in the balls...

Cover them thoroughly and quickly.

The last couple steps I failed to get photos of because my hands were full. I just used the same method to melt the carmel as I did the chocolate. Drizzled the balls with the caramel and quickly sprinkle with toasted pecans. And here is your finished product!

And they taste amazing! Like a super moist, dense, rich cake, covered in chocolate. What is not to love?!

Happy Birthday Love!

Have you ever ridden Steady bareback?

2011-02-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me today on facebook and my response I thought you guys might enjoy.

ouch! yes, I try not to but sometimes I will. Mostly just walking though. But one time at a horse show I entered myself unknowingly in a ride-a-buck class. My friend told me it would be fun. She said that we had to put a dollar under our leg and whoever kept it there the longest got all the money. She failed to mention it was BAREBACK! So they called out walk, trot and canter and the goal was to keep the dollar between you and the horse. My personal goal was to keep my butt from hitting the ground!! Though I never actually got him to pick up a canter he flew around the ring in his fastest trot instead which is way worse than if he would just canter. We actually did pretty well and I was impressed. I think we were third to last left in the arena. I guess when your goal is just to not fall off and you basiscally made it to third place then you are doing good. My motto should be set your sights low and you won't be disappointed. That would be a terrible title of a self help book but has worked well for me and Steady.

But riding Steady bareback is the worst version of a wedgie one can imagine. It is a spine wedgie repeatedly administered with incredible force. To say the least it is not fun and you are sore for days. Though I can only imagine the way that Steady would describe the experience. Probably something like. "Hey Moonlight you know that lady that gives us food? Well seriously has she ever considered weight watchers! I mean why would someone insist on climbing on my back with absolutely no padding the force me to run around in circles while they repeatedly slam their fat ass directly onto my spine??! These people are idiots!"

Lazy woman's bread part 3: Bouhl

2011-02-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

Bouhl is a fancy term for what I call a round loaf. Which is completely versitile. I have used it for soup bowls, for sandwiches, it is fabulous when you make the knorr vegetable dip and use it as a bread bowl. A huge crowd pleaser. This day I used it for garlic bread with our spaghetti dinner. We had homemade spaghetti sauce all ingredients right out of our summer garden perserved for a fridged winter night like this to have a taste of summer. Also meat balls made from our homegrown turkeys that we ground ourselves. I also served green beans steamed from the freezer which also came from our garden. The only thing that was store bought unfortunately was the pasta. My mother insisted on confiscating my kitchen aid attachment pasta maker last time she was here. Ok ok I guess it did belong to her but still :). And it is a bit pricey for me to justify purchasing. And I am domestic and all but you won't find me hand rolling pasta when I can get it in a box for a buck.

So you take your dough from the fridge. Preheat your oven to 450. Sprinkle your stone, or if you have a pizza peal then put your stone in the oven while it preheats and do everything else on your pizza peal, but since I don't have a pizza peal I just do everything directly on the stone. Sprinkle the stone with corn meal.

Grab a hunk about the size of a grapefruit.

Use your hands to form it into a ball. Rolling it under, turning a quarter turn each time. It should be smooth on the top. This whole process should take all of about 30 seconds.

Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes...about the time it takes for the oven to preheat.

When your oven is preheated sprinkle with flour.

Take a knife and cut slits into the dough. You can make what ever pattern you choose.

Sometimes this dough can be funny depending on how long it sits. What I have found though is that it all tastes the same may just not be as pretty. But 90% of the time they do turn out very pretty.

Cut into slices covered in butter garlic and herbs put under the broiler for couple minutes you won't even care what the loaf looks like...mmmmm.

there you have it now we have made 4 foccia breads(we had pizza another night) and two loaves of bread. The garlic bread was made from one loaf my family devoured the other the next day. This bread does not store long. Which is fine since it doesn't usually last long :) It does store well for 1-2 days but not air tight. I usually use paper bags.

Cows, you can thank me later.

2011-02-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't eaten ground beef in probably 5 months. Since we butchered our turkeys I cook everything I would normally use ground beef for. Meatballs, chili, burgers, tacos you name it all with turkey. I hadn't realized until tonight when I made tacos using ground beef that I really have not missed it at all. Turkey tastes sooooo much better. One nice thing about turkey is it really takes on the flavor of what ever is in it.

It won't be long now and we will have some more gobblers hanging around the farm. Raising turkeys has been such a great experience for us. And this year having ground up 30 lbs has been wonderful to have. So I cannot see myself buying any ground beef in the near future, so cows you can thank me later.

Dreaming of green.

2011-01-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

I was scrolling through some photos and these caught my eye. I was quickly drawn in by the thoughts of warmer days, fresh produce and dirty fingernails. Go away with me, if you will to greener days.

Days where lettuce is abundant.

and there are herbs galour.

Garlic is ready to be harvested.

Green beans and peppers are prolific.

mmmm basil...

The days when the garden is green, the temperatures are warm and working outdoors is enjoyable.

In my attempts to avoid complaining about the temperatures that have consistently stayed blow average since the begining of December. And not complaining about the winter blues that have set in and make fighting the weather even harder. I am not complaining because I know this is how farm life goes. There are ups and downs. There is always work to be done and it doesn't slow down because it is cold. So I keep at it and remember this too shall pass and not too long from now there will be greener days and dirty fingernails and more basil, tomatoes and swiss chard than I will know what to do with. This life is a good one!

Lazy woman's bread part 2: focciaca

2011-01-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

Wow I didn't mean to wait so long to continue this post. I have been baking I just have not had time to post. I love to blog but it is so time consuming. I was hoping the winter months would make some more time to post but so far that has not been the case. So if you made your dough I am sorry I have failed to show you the correct way to use it.

So artisan bread, it is free formed loaves. No loaf pans needed. What you will need: A baking stone, extra flour, a rolling pin, olive oil and herbs of choice. (you may be able to bake on something other than a stone but I have not personally tried it and from my baking experience there is nothing better than a stone to bake on.)

Focciaca bread is what we make for all of our pizzas. We have homemade pizza at lease once a week. Easy and cheap! Even Jack's frozen pizza will cost you more and well, shouldn't even be placed in the same catagory as far as food.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Once you have your surface ready, I roll it directly on my stone using a silicone pot holder underneath to keep it from sliding. Pull off a piece of dough about the size of a large orange.

Use your hands to roll dough over the top and under. It forms a smooth surface on the top and almost into a ball. Put onto floured surface and begin to roll it out. I use the combination of a rolling pin and...

Practice your pizzaria skills buy using your hands and even tossing it into the air! It can be fun! Though I must warn you each time I toss it flour proceeds to spin off the dough into my face...lol.

I am not nearly as graceful at it as you see on tv.

You end up with something looking similar to this. Remember this is artisan bread the whole idea is that it is imperfect shapes. So striving for that perfect circle might be frustrating.

Then do with it as you please. I sliced some garlic and put it into olive oil.

Then brushed it on the dough.

A little oregano, basil and parsly sprinkled on.

Poke it with a fork to avoid bubbling and bake for about 15 minutes at 450 degrees. And it will look something like this...

Then do with it what you will. The options are endless and can be what ever is in your fridge/freezer. BBQ Chicken or Buffalo chicken are quite yummy along with the more traditional. On this one we fried up some italian sausage, sliced tomatoes, garlic stuffed olives and my homemade spaghetti sauce.

Put it all together and....

Pop it back into the oven for 7 minutes or so and....

Viola!!! Gourmet homemade pizza!!!

For our family of 5 good eaters we make two and that is plenty. So far from our dough 2 pizza crusts/focciaca breads.

The lazy man's(woman's) bread part 1: the dough

2011-01-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

Artisan bread it is rightly named I think. But working with this art form you will never be a starving artist. Art is interpretive and the artist is in complete control. There is no right or wrong way and if you use the correct mediums it is hard to go wrong. I am going to post on this as a series. First post will be the medium(the dough)The following posts will come over the next two weeks(the lifespan of the dough) I will post all the great, artistic and tastey treats that one can create with this one simple medium. It is easy, versitile, delicious and I hope to show you just how easy it is to have this bread at your disposal at all times.

All you need is:

A non air tight container

3 C luke warm water

1 1/2 T Kosher salt

1 1/2 T yeast

6 1/2 C flour
First pour water into your container. Add salt and yeast. Next add all flour and mix until all flour is throughly incorperated

And if you are anything like me when you need flour you just dip into your trusty 50lb bag from the Amish bulk store.

I start with a wooden spoon but toward the end it helps to wet your hands and and get a little messy.

And when you are done you might look something like this. Don't worry God made you washable.

Then you find a spot that it can do all the work for you for the next 2 hours. Place the lid on and....

Then you teach your daughter about place value.

Walk past and say "Hi laundry waiting to be folded. When will fold yourself?"

On your way to play barbies.

Then read a good blog.

And about 2 hours later your "medium" should look about 2 x's bigger than it did before.

Last you place your NON air tight lid on and find it a nice spot in your fridge that it can stay for the next two weeks. Or if you are a simple carbohydrate junkie or a bakaholic you could do it all in one day.

Amy's artisan tips: I have baked literally hundreds of loaves of this bread in many different forms. A few things I have learned along the way. It is easiest to handle after refridgeration for at least a few hours if not over night. Your dough will seem wet for bread dough. That is the way it is supposed to be. I always double the recipe(that is what you see in the pictures). When counting out 6 1/2 or 13 cups of flour count out loud. You may seem silly to everyone in your house but it is way better than loosing count. You can use any container you have around the house. If it is an air tight container you can leave the lid cracked or use a nail and poke a hole in the top. Lastly I like to use a square container it fits snug in the corner of the fridge and you can easily stack things on it. Because if you are anything like me space is not something you have in excess in the fridge.

Where the Funny Farm is headed this year.

2011-01-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

After all of my experimenting last year with different ways to try to bring in income the good news it not all of them were flops. We have decided what areas we will put more effort into this year to try to make more successful. I sat down and wrote down my goals for the year so I thought I would share.
See I am not intending to make a living off of these "projects" of mine. My goal is to bring in at least $2500 over the season that my services are viable. So it is not much but I consider it alot knowing I am starting from nothing. We decided to take it in two main directions. Pony parties and summer camps. So I wanted a clear plan as to how those ideas will be turned into reality.

First the pony parties. My goal is to do a total of 10 parties over the season. Which is between 1 and 2 parties a month. Last year I did two so I have some work to do to get them booked.

Next the summer camps I plan to go two ways with these. The farm camp was a success so I plan to continue those. But I also plan to start a horse camp. Most kids love horses and almost all little girls would love to go to horse camp. So my goal is to do 2 farm camps and 2 horse camps. Each with 10 kids. So I need a total of 40 children to sign up. That seems like a reasonable number.

Now I did not set my goals incredibly high because I wanted them to be attainable. And my goal for advertisement is to get flyers to every elementary student in my entire area.
Next to accomplish is to design flyers and contact schools, get prices on printing and turn these plans into reality!!

Being Neighborly.

2011-01-11T17:35:00.001-08:00

I am so not going to get into my situation with my neighbors...ugh. But sadly the relationship is far from good. It has always saddened me. I grew up where everyone knew each other and had not problem popping over for a cup of sugar or and egg. Even if it was a 1/4 mile to the nearest neighbor. I played with the neighbor kids all summer long and that is just the way it was. They looked out for each other. Now a days my Dad goes around for hours after every snow storm and clears everyones driveways. And living in MI that is more often than not this time of year. Anyways so it is weird for me that my neighbors are so awful. Sorry there is no other way to put it they are awful. I have tried and tried. Bringing over pies and cookies and always waving and smiling when driving by. But after so long of them looking directly at you and just staring then looking away I have kind of given up. I mean we can be working outside in the summer 10 feet away and they will act like they don't even notice us. Ok I said I wasn't going to get into the details. Anyways it has always bothered me and you never get that feeling of belonging to a community. Something that I think you should have and almost need when you are out in the country. For those little things like an egg or something when you are snowed or just pop over to the store. But I guess that is the way the times are taking us but something I try to hold onto. All that to say I have always wanted to have that feeling of community and today I was completely blessed by on of our neighbors and it just warmed my heart.

We buy our hay from our neighbor about 3 houses down. Every two weeks or so he drops off a round bale. It is wonderfully convienent since we do not have much storage for hay. I can call sometimes even the same day and he will pop on over 30 minutes later. Well today I hear is loud old tractor coming down the driveway and I look outside and see no hay. I mean I knew I didn't call for it but I wasn't sure why else he would be coming especially in the middle of the snow storm. Then I realize he is plowing our driveway!!! You don't even know what a blessing that is. I am not kidding when I say how blessed and excited I was about this. You see the first year we moved in here we talked to local people and they said we wouldn't really need to worry too much about having a plow. Well that year we got over two feet of snow in one day!! We didn't know anyone and our driveway is a good 200 ft long. I am not joking my husband spent 8 hours straight shoveling our driveway. I guess we could have called someone but for $100 we just couldn't afford it at the time. Year after year we have struggled with this problem. There has maybe been one year out of the 6 we have been here that we have had less than a few feet at one time or another. We have payed to have it done or shoveled it or just tried to drive through it but never once have we had someone offer to plow it for us. Not that I expect it but it really is just something that is very common living where we live. But I have never once until today felt like we are finally starting to feel like we belong here. I hope this will become a trend. Not just the plowing thing but the feeling that we are part of a community.

Sparrows

2011-01-10T07:55:00.000-08:00

This week was a rough week for many reasons though I will not get into all of them I am going to use one situation as the context of this post. We went out of town this week and were about 5 hours from home when our car would not shift into any gear. We had it towed to a shop to find out that we needed a new transmission. Thankfully we were there to visit family so we did have some help in trying to get it all straightened out and we had a place to stay. My husband and I were very distraught over the situation. First because we already had put $1000 into it two weeks prior on 3 seperate occasions (1000 total). Then to find out at the minimum it would cost $2000 to fix. Not to mention the fact that we needed to get home the next day which was Saturday and our car wouldn't even be looked at until Monday. It was just a tough situation. We were trying to work through the best way we could. Something was said to us that kind of just added salt to the wound. The statement was made by a loved one "I know a story of a good christian family that needed $10,000 and met a man on the street that handed them a check for that amount". I replied "yes those stories are great but God usually has us work through our problems and not just make it all go away". Her response was "I guess if He needs to teach you a lesson". Ouch, I don't know what that is supposed to mean but it just rubbed me the wrong way. A simple I am sorry you are going through this would have been sufficient. Or a "I will pray for you". Proverbs 25:11 Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold and pictures of silver. Meaning they are beautiful things. The opposite is well kind of like rubbing salt in and open wound.
I am not arguing the fact that God uses EVERY situation in my life for a reason. I know this is true. I am arguing the idea that you can be "good" enough for God to bless you and make all your problems go away. I will use the verses from Luke 12:22-28

22And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

23The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
24Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
25And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
26If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?
27Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Is it not very clear that God does not rely on our goodness in order to provide us our needs???? Does he require of the birds to do anything but be a bird in order for them to be fed? NO! What does he expect from the birds? Just to be exactly what God designed them to be, a bird. To eat and fly and poop and sleep. That is what He made them to do. Now He made all things on earth for the ultimate purpose of bringing Glory to himself. So tell me what is it that a bird can do to make him more glorifying to God? Nothing, God just wants the bird to do exactly what He designed it to do and that alone is glorifying in and of itself. Ok how about the lilies do they do anything special to have color? No, of course they don't. Do they bring glory to God? Yes! Why? Because God designed them and just growing and serving their purpose brings glory to God. How about the grass? I mean really must I go through it again. He pretty much says that grass has absolutely no value yet it grows just the way it is supposed to and does exactly what He designed it to do.
Now I Jesus simply giving a lesson in earth science here? No He is making a parable. Are not you more valuable to me than these things??? Then what is your freaking problem? Why do you think you can do, have or be enough and then I will take care of you? Why do you work, toil, worry, stress and try your hardest to be better than everyone else around you? It is not for God's sake. Why? Because He does not require that in order to take care of you. All He wants from us is to serve the purpose He designed us for. So next time before someone gets up on their high horse and tells you or someone else that if they were good enough then God would provide their needs. I think I may just say that I think you might be confused about the Bible and you may want to check that information before you spew it out next time.

So to answer our loved one that made such a hurtful comment in our time of need my response to you saying "I guess if He needs to teach you a lesson" is yes I am sure God needs to teach me many lessons. Hopefully someday He teaches you to hold your tounge.

From our farm to yours....

2010-12-31T16:57:00.001-08:00

wishing you a happy happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!

Passed my goal so I made new one.

2010-12-31T16:08:00.000-08:00

I just realized I have not updated on my weightloss in a while. This being the end of the year and this is one of the biggest accoplishments I have done in my life not to mention this year. My goal was 30 for 30. Meaning, my goal was during the year I turned 30 my goal was to loose 30 lbs. I have not only acheived that goal but surpassed it and still going. I NEVER thought I could do. Bad I know but I definitely had lost the confidence in myself to do it after the last 8 years of being overweight. The weight gain started when I started having babies. Baby 1 gained 10 lbs, #2 10 more and #3 10 more then over the next 4 years it slowly climbed climbed. To 50 lbs over the weight I was when I got married. Woah that is alot of cake! About 2 years ago I participated in a biggest loser competition with some friends and did lose 25 lbs but once it was over I lost motivation to keep going. I kept the weight off for a year and slowly gained about 10 back though I never got as high as I was to start, thank God! This year I decided I was going to quit wishing to be thinner and go for it. It all started when I fullfilled my dream of horse ownership and got interested in eventing and I remember the day my trainer says to me "If you want to do eventing you are going to have to loose some weight. Eventers need to be in great condition." That was all I needed. A goal, something to work toward, and something for myself that I loved. No better reason to start taking care of myself. So July 14th I joined weight watchers and started my weight loss journey. To date I have lost 35 lbs!!! I said before my initial goal was 30lbs but once I started getting close I realized I could do it and made my goal 40lb. Which will be the weight I was when I got married!!! I didn't think I would ever happen and I feel so good. Not just health wise, though I do feel great, but also mentally. I have realized that I am worth taking care of and there is NO reason to feel guilty for putting myself higher on the prority list. I have built confidence in myself that I had lost. Now I know that if I can accomplish this then that just means I need to make a new goal in my life and just go for it!!!
The old me. The week I started WW.

The new ME!!

Reflections on the last year.

2010-12-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

I figured I had posted about my goals for the up coming year I should post how far we have come in the last year. This is actually the Christmas letter I send out to friends and family along with our card.

2010 has turned out to be as adventurous if not more than 09'. One thing we don't do is lead a dull life. Our travels took us to visit with family. Which are our favorite kind of trips. Yes our kids are growing like weeds and we seem unable to convince them to stop. So here it is in a nutshell the Grayson 2010.

In attempts to find a way to add income to the home without sacrificing our homeschooling lifestyle we tried our hand at many things this year. Some were good but were more work than they were worth and a couple turned out to be successful. First was the local farmers market. I spent hours over the winter months teaching myself to make artisan breads and homemade pastas. We decided we love it, so why not try to sell it? So each Saturday and some Tuesdays we would take a stash to the market. It was a big hit. We consistently sold out every week and I guess you could call it successful, but the time and energy it took to make everything proved to be a bit much. Though we loved getting to meet all the people at the market and the kids had a great experience taking quarters to feed our pony and greeting people at our booth.

Then was “Farm Camp”. This endeavor was like the best of both worlds. I had 10 children from 8:30-11:30 for a week. We did all kinds of things from learning to milk, to making cheese, baking, riding horses, gardening and even a camp out on the farm. I wanted to give them a fair picture of the farm life though so they also got to do chores including feeding animals, cleaning stalls, hauling wood and weeding the garden. And what do you know the kids LOVED doing the chores. Parents were asking how I did it.

We also started doing “Pony Parties” . We will load up our little miniature horses, goats and even the bunny and bring them to your back yard for any event. We did parties and even a church VBS. This was one of our favorite adventures and we have decided to pursue more events in the future. There is nothing like giving a little kid their very first ride on a horse.

Then there was the pumpkin patch. It sounded like a good idea, really it did, but I don't see this anywhere in our near future. It had it's great parts and we are happy that we not only broke even on the costs but maybe made $20..haha. With only working 4 weekends split between the 5 of us we all made about $1 a weekend. No in all seriousness there were some really great times and the people who came absolutely loved it and well, now we know what we are good at!

Adding all of that and not to mention the fact that we doubled the size of our garden. This also being the first year we started all our plants from seed. Kept up with all of the canning. Raising 5 turkeys, homeschooling and of course the regular day to day of living on 15 acres. Among that, these other adventures the year took us on.

We got to witness birth on our farm for the first time. Triplets from one goat and a single baby from another, sadly though she lost that baby but she gladly became a surrogate Mama for one of the triplets. One thing we have had to learn to handle is the loss of animals. Though I'd like to think it gets easier with time but really is just as sad each time. Though the kids handle it so well and seem to understand it all even better than I sometimes. We had three bouncing, literally, baby goats. Two found great homes and one stayed on our farm.

We started our adventures in milking! I chose to milk one of our goats this year and boy was it a learning experience. With weeks of battles, with a goat that really didn't want to be milked and a woman who really didn't know what she was doing. We finally figured it out and actually started to enjoy it. Everyone LOVED the milk with the exception of Ryan who really never gave it a fair try. With with the excess of milk I tried my hand at cheese making and it is oh so yummy. Now Ryan didn't care for the milk but the cheese he loved. It was a great experience and we will continue to it do next year!

Another adventure we had was teaching ourselves how to make homemade maple syrup. We tapped 2 of our 9 maple trees. After collecting sap for about a week we ended up with about 5 gallons of sap. And after it was all said and done we enjoyed all of about 2 cups of delicious syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup! We are planning to tap all 9 next year. It was a great family experience.

At butcher time we had 4 big healthy turkeys. We may not grow them out as long next year considering all 4 were between 30-35 lbs dressed!!! We have LOTS of turkey in the freezer! We ground over 30lbs and are surely enjoying it and the health benefits of using turkey instead of beef. We dined on one of those turkeys for Thanksgiving this year. The Grayson family came to share it with us again. We hope to make this a tradition because it is one of our favorite times of the year.

We took a vacation driving and stopping to camp on our way down to the gulf coast. Seeing some beautiful parts of our country along the way. One being Cumberland Falls, KY. The girls were amazed at the sight of the first waterfall they have ever seen. In Alabama we visited and caught up with Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Harry who took such good care of us it was hard to leave. Cousin Amanda and the girls made their way from WV to see us and we all had a great time. Along with many other friends and family we got to see this year made it so very special. Are you tired yet? Cause we sure are. The good news is that was the end of our adventures, for this year at least.

Kelcie, now 4 with the personality of a 30 year old. Loves to grow up way too fast and still protests when we call her our baby. She LOVES to do “school” and will sit for hours working on pages I give her to do. We hold her tight and ask her to pleeease stop growing and to no avail it seems. One of her favorite past times is to snuggle and she is oh so good at it.

Macy, 5 started kindergarten in our local school district this year. We do plan to bring her home in the first grade to start her homeschooling adventures. She LOVES school and looks forward to going everyday. The beginning of the year she was disappointed on Saturdays because there was no school. She is really looking forward to this being her first year to be able to ride horses in 4-H. I think I am successfully passing my love of all things equine on to my little girls. Ryan will surely sympathize with their future husbands.

Elaina, 7 oh the difference a year can make when you are 7 going on 8. She has blossomed into a lovely young lady. Not a little kid anymore and though we protested that fact we are quite proud of who she is becoming. If she is not out caring for the horses or riding horses, then she is pretending that she is a horse. She did get her very own horse this year. She named him Moonlight. Elaina and Amy have enjoyed many many hours out on the trails together. That time is surely cherished. Her schooling is going great though the beginning of the year we struggled to balance school with the pumpkin patch. She is on track now and there are days she is in working at her desk before I even wake up in the morning. A second grader willing doing their school work, it's a hard enough life but someone has to do it. Really though as her parents we are grateful for such a lovely child and we know she is a gem!

And just because I will throw in a little update on Ryan and I. What we have found is that with the children getting bigger we have a few more moments here and there to start to pursue our interests. This year with Ryan's support I have gotten to fulfill a life long dream of owning my very own thoroughbred jumping horse. It has been such a great experience and after living without horses in my life for the last 15 years I am grateful for every day I get to own these magnificent animals. And that is what has pretty much consumed every free minute (and dollar) I have and I am loving every moment. I have been able to start training for the sport of eventing:dressage, jumping and cross country combined into one sport. Steady Smiler came straight from the racetrack and actually had an impressive racing career winning over $350,000. It takes a tremendous amount of work to get a racehorse from track life to farm life. They honestly don't even understand how to graze in a field. In our efforts to succeed at the sport of eventing and becoming healthier and fit I have lost 35 lbs and still working toward better fitness. We competed in our first event mid-November and won in our division! I was on cloud nine for quiet some time after that and you couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

As for Ryan he is, in all of it, every step of the way, with each idea, project and dream I scheme up he is the backbone. Strong, steady and supportive, rarely thinking of his own wants. For him we are all grateful. Over the last 7 years his golf game has been, well, mostly non-existent. This year he has spent more time on a golf course than he has in probably the last 7 years combined. Which really isn't saying much but hopefully next year he will be able to spend even more time golfing. It is something he truly enjoys. We could not be more grateful for his job, the people he works for and the opportunities it presents him. Working in the healthcare industry he has found nothing moves quickly but over the past two years he has built relationships with customers and is growing his territory weekly. So much so that the company has rewarded him with a trip with 24 other sales people to Naples, FL. He is obviously looking forward to that coming in March.

It may sound that our lives are crazy which in many ways they are but the reality is we purposefully live a quiet and simple life. The most important thing to us is that all of our endeavors are done together as a family. Ryan, I and the girls together, loving our lives and working together to please our Savior with who we are and what we do is our ultimate goal in this life. Once again another year has past and we are thankful for those of you we were able to connect with again and those we didn't, we miss you and hope to soon. You are always welcome at our farm! We promise to feed you well, take good care of you and give you a feel of our hard working yet simple life!

Hopes for the up coming year.

2010-12-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

The list is long and my sights are high and I know the year will bring more than I will be prepared for. The the list of things I want to learn, do, see, accomplish.
Make a point of spending as much time as possible with my kids and make a plan to do so. Spend more time reading the Bible because it has supernatural transforming power that I desperately need. I am going to Sacremento, CA for a week to visit with a friend and horseback ride through the Sierra mountain range and camp at Lake Tahoe. I can only imagine the things that my eyes will behold in that week and I anticipate it being a life changing experience. I want to teach myself how to make lotion bars and I want to continue learning to make diffferent artisan breads. So far I have Boule, focaccia and down pat and absolutely love them. And if I get really brave I may possibly attempt to make hard cheese, though quite honestly it scares me half to death. Who knows why I am scared of cheese but it is the truth:). I want to get more more fit and want to get my horse more fit in the process too. I hope to go to lessons once a month and a show once a month. Those are pretty high ambitions and I will be happy to make a few shows all season. The lessons though are a must. I plan to go to the eventing camp at Come Again Farms in July and I am already overwhelmed thinking about the work it will take to prepare, then all the work during the 4 day camp and 1 day show and all the information I am surely going to me inundated with. But it is all so exciting. We will surely add more to our garden this year and I am still going to do most of my seed starting and hope to be even more successful at that this year. I started a few things in the cold frame last year and they were all very successful so i am going to try it a little earlier and plant a little more. The garden is an amazing amount of work especially since I am the only one that does the work though each year I utilize the kids more and more but it provides so much satisfaction. First of all knowing that there is no healthier food on the planet. It is of course a way to save an great deal of money throughout the year on grocery shopping. We eat from our freezer and pantry throughout the winter months and the homemade food cannot be matched from the store. We will again purchase turkeys though I wll probably put my foot down and not do it until we have proper housing for them. The amount of extra work it is for me because I am constantly moving them all over is not something I want to do again. We are going to have to break out our nonexsistent engineering degree and come up with the perfect solution. Some sort of turkey tractor would be ideal because free ranging is a must. Then going trail riding with Elaina and possibly Macy depending on how she does in 4-h. The hours out on the trail with my daughters are something that will stay will them throughout their lives as it will mine.

These are the ones on my heart today and as the year draws to an end I know my mind will be making more lists and goals as it does every year about this time. I know some people find resolutions cliche and a waste and I cannot say I disagree. I don't see this as a time for resolutions but a time of refocusing. We all need to take time out in our lives to think about where we are and where we want to be. If we have no goals then we will unintentionally spend too much time wandering aimlessly with no destination in mind. For me it is usually just after Christmas and into the New Year that I refocus my heart and mind toward the ultimate destination that I want to be in my life. The time I question my focus for the past years and get a picture of what kind of life I want. I decide with a prayerful heart what steps I need to take to make that picture a reality. Then I write down the steps. Then the only thing left to do is to take the first step!

My prayer for the new year.

2010-12-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

There alot of goals I have for the new year. Sometimes it is discouraging coming up with the list since I know in advance I will surely fail at meeting all of them. Though I am not the one that is supposed to be improving myself. My life it not one big self help book. At least it is not supposed to be. It should be a book about the faithfulness of the one and only true God. I am who I am by the grace, mercy, love, patience, compassion, strength, power, longsuffering, birth, death and ressurection of my Saviour. So why would I think I would be able to continue to be who I am without completely relying in Him. My life is His and I pray He do with it what He will. I only ask that You continue to love, protect and be close to me through all of it. Help me to be the woman, wife, mother that You want me to be. I pray my home will be a place where the Holy Spirit roams free working in our lives everyday. If You do those few things I know that not only will my goals be met but You will surpass all I could ever ask or imagine. These are the desires of my heart so please help me Lord.

Spreading the Christmas spirit.

2010-12-24T07:45:00.000-08:00

After a friends post yesterday concerning how it is hard to see that Christmas is the best time of year if you spend any amount of time at a public place, especially at a store. I was reminded of this experience that happened to me on Dec. 23rd two years ago. At the time I wrote about it on my myspace account. I copied and pasted it here as a reminder to myself and others that if we slow down and watch moments like these may not happen every day but when they do they impact you for years to come. I still not only remember the day but that same emotion that overwhelmed me and changed me.

I was at the grocery store today. When I got to the check out my total was $56. I checked in my wallet and I only had $46 in my wallet. I then reached for my debit card and it wasn't there. Then I remember that I had given it to Ryan the other day and never got it back from him. I don't carry credit cards with me. At this point there was a man in line waiting behind me. Then another cashier came and he went in her line. (this is just a small grocery store and it is about 25 min from my house) So I offer to write a check and they say they can only take checks if you have a prefered card. So I ask if I can fill one out. They said sure but it will take a week to process so it won't help today. Then I procede to call Ryan to try and get my debit card number from him. He doesn't answer his phone. So I am standing there trying to figure out what I am going to do. All the stuff I got we needed and I really didn't want to have to go to the store again before tomorrow(Christmas eve). Then the guy that was in line behind me hands the cashier $10 dollars and says he will take care of it. I was a bit caught off gaurd and if I had had time to process I probably would have refused. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes. Then I asked for his number so I could pay him back and he said no don't worry about it it's only $10. Then he walked out the door. I was so floored that someone would do that I started crying. I mean during this time of year when people are busy, in a hurry, and down right rude especially if you are taking too much time in line at the store. This man helped me for no other reason than to be a nice person. It makes me want to be a better person. I mean would I have done the same thing or would I have rolled my eyes at the person for taking up my precious time. On the way home I prayed for that man and his family that God would give them an extra blessing this Christmas. Then I prayed He would give me an opportunity to be a blessing to someone else the way this man was to me. Just a little touchy feely story for you.

Though I do not know his name or his situation in life I to this day still pray for him and the ones he loves every Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone and I pray that each of us will have the opportunity to make someones elses Christmas Merrier this year and when the opportunity comes we won't be so "busy" that we don't notice.

.

Getting Bubbles for Christmas.

2010-12-23T07:32:00.000-08:00

I am going to go pick up Bubbles today from her baby daddy's house ;). I can almost taste the yummy milk already. 5 more months and hopefully some warmer weather!

Have a Merry Christmas from us at Country Pardise Farm!!!

All 15 of us!

I pray you enjoy this time with all those you hold near and dear to you. Both the two and four legged!!

Bubbles

2010-12-08T06:28:00.000-08:00

I am speaking of Bubbles the goat of course. She has been shipped off to goat, um, well, I don't know exactly how to say this, uh, off to the goat stork. You know where they put the baby in her tummy ;). No really she is over being bred by another pygmy buck. So about April we should be having some more babies arriving and getting milk again. I chose to breed a little later than last year in hopes to be a little more in the clear as far as freezing temps are concerned. Last year we had to use heat lamps and I am not all that comfortable with that considering most barn fires are started with heat lamps. I will go and pick her up in about a week and she will return to her rightful place here on the farm as the raging hormonal #*&@#! Really you have never met a more grumpy goat. But she makes such a good Mama, such cute babies and oh so yummy milk!

The cold has come.

2010-12-08T06:14:00.000-08:00

Boy oh boy! And it showed up with a vengence. They said on the news average temps for this time of year here are around 40. So why in the world it it 3 degrees?? Along with a bitter cold wind chill factor makes it feel like -5. Don't get me wrong these kind of temperatures are not unusual for us to deal with, we just don't usually have to start dealing with them until January.

Well this is good news for this blog! This means more time spend indoors which means more likely to update on things around here.

Along with blog updating I also have a long "to do" list for the winter months. Lets hope and pray for the motivation to get them done.

One thing that I did this harvest season because of my busy busy scheduele and my new toy(my horse) to play with I didn't have enough time to get to all the canning and jam making I had hoped. So instead when I didn't have the time to properly store something I would throw it in the freezer with the idea come the slower winter months I could easily go back and take care of it. Also it is much better to have the stove going all day long when the temps outside are below freezing than when they are in the 90's.
I sauced tomatoes and chopped pepers for my spaghetti sauce, froze a couple gallons of blackberries for jam, a ton of peaches for jam and a few gallons of cherries for preserves. So rather than dread turning on my stove and spending another day in the burning hot kitchen I am actually looking forward to spending a few days in the kitchen standing near the warm stovetop.

Winter is the time for long days in the kitchen, catching up on reading, sitting in front of the fireplace and any other activities that helps me avoid freezing. Though don't you worry I spend plenty of time outdoors keeping my furry companions company.

I am also looking forward to getting back to cheese and butter making. I have't made milk since my goat dried up this summer. So I will start getting raw milk from an Amish friend. And baking artisan bread again. Since I finished doing the farmers market I have been kind of burnt out on baking but I think I am ready to get back to it again.

Those are few things that you can expect to hear about around here :)

A great way to spend a day.

2010-11-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

In the kitchen with two of your best friends making all kinds of holiday goodies. Last year we had a holiday cooking day and I decided to throw it together again this year. It is sooo nice to have some yummy good treats in the freezer for the holidays. Entertaining or just spending a quiet holiday at home with the family the less time we women spend in the kitchen the more time we can spend with our families the better right? But we also want to make it as special as possible so all of those special touches of homemade goodness.

Susan threating my life if I take a picture of her in her lovely, lovely sweat pants...lol

"OK I guess I can I will pose for you if you insist"

We made 7 pumpkin rolls, 4 quiches, brocolli potato soup, cheesey bacon tomato bites, cherry nut coffee cake and lots of pie crusts to to make pie baking much easier. It was a great day and I got some much needed girl time.

These were named tomato, bacon cups. After tasting the yummy little treats we decided that name just didn't do them justice so this was one of the names we came up with.

Aleida working on the pile of dishes.

So what about you? When is the last time you invited a friend over to enjoy a cup of coffee or even make some tasty treats? It is therapy and good for the soul. So give it a try. You will make great memories and make the holidays just a little less stressful.

A sad day

2010-11-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

It is always a sad day when you loose one of your animals. Flower was 2 year old pygmy that was born on our farm. She was one of the triplets to be the first animals to be born on our farm. The only one of that bunch that we kept. She also was mother to Louise. Flower passed away Thursday last week. I went out in the morning and let all 3 goats out to roam and eat and 3 hours later she was dead when I went back out. No visible signs and I don't know what happened. It did upset me. Though I have gotten much better with the loss of animals around here.

I did love Flower she was such a sweet friendly goat and a great Mama. Louise is sad and cries for her Mama alot but she will adjust. I just wish I knew what happened. So good bye Flower thanks for what you added to our family and farm.

It has been a while.

2010-11-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I have been neglectful to post about the daily goings on around here. I have been so overwhelmed it has been hard to separate all my thoughts. So a few things to update on.

The Pumpkin Patch. I believe last post about that was after the first week and it was terribly discouraging. Well I am happy to say things got better. We had 5 weekends in Oct. and the first was a strike out, #2 we had alot of friends show up and show their support which was very encouraging, week 3 was the big one we had about 60 people come I gave ALOT of pony rides lol it was great, #4 we had say 15 people show up and week 5 we decided to not open. We were worn out :). We did have a few random people show up though out the weeks but most business was on the weekends. The good news is I know we at least broke even and I think we even made a very little profit.

It was fun, exhausting and a learning experience. In the end though I think we decided not to do it again. I thought it was a great idea and really it is, it just isn't what we want to do. I know that it would grow each year but at this point we don't plan on doing it next year.

Pony parties, we did a total of 2 this year and we loved it!! We are definitely going to put more energy into marketing that next year.

Animals, well everyone is healthy so that is great for anyone on a farm. It is time to have the goats bred so we can have some spring babies and MILK! Horses well they are great. We have a total of four right now. Two minis, my thoroughbred and my daughters fox troter.

In the home, Well you did see I have been on an organizing spree. It has been great and it feels so good to get order back after a busy busy and did I mention busy gardening season. After organizing I started cleaning. Every room got a top to bottom cleaning and now feel ready to take on the holidays.

Weight loss, it has gone wonderfully. Though the past few weeks have really slowed down I am still losing. Right now it is a total of 28 lbs. That is almost 30 pounds people!! Not to give to much info but my husband is pleased to say the least. Not a day goes by that he does not tell me how good I look and how awesome I have done. It does feel good and I will take all the compliments I can get. It doesn't come easy for those of us who LOVE food but it is worth the work.

Homeschool, well I cannot comment much on that right now because I feel much like failure in that department right now. It is something that I am working on but it has been a hard hard year for me in this area :(.

My mind and heart have been so many different places recently and most of those places I feel have been dragging me away from my real purpose in life. I am refocusing and trying to bring myself back to where I need to be.

I am on a junk hunt.

2010-11-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

I am ready to feel uncluttered. Each passing year seems to bring in more clutter and you know what they say "one mans trash is another mans treasure". I have been searching high and low for things that need to go. We have filled up trash cans of the true trash and we have filled boxes and trash bags of stuff. Stuff to go to goodwill and be reused and repurposed. Already we have filled the entire back of my SUV and taken it to goodwill and I have not made it through the entire house. Everytime another trash bag goes I feel that much lighter. It feels good to declutter. To rid ourselves of stuff. Stuff that seems to just collect.

I have gone room to room and organized top to bottom one at a time. I am tired of feeling like my house is controling me and I am ready to take control of my home.

Rooms done:

Bedroom, and believe me that was a feat.

Playroom/schoolroom

Laundry/mudroom, which will soon be turned into a laundry/mudroom/tackroom

Garage, not comlpetely finished but I can at least fit my car in it.

Rooms to go:

Guestroom/ office

Girls bedroom

Then once organized will come the spring(fall) cleaning. Everything cleaned from top to bottom. It is such a good feeling to be making such progress. Everyone has pitched in and done their part. The kids have even gone through their toys and filled two big trashbags to donate.

It is such a freeing feeling.

Then once it is done, I have some super great remodling projects going through my brain!!

It has been a long month but I finally have some answers.

2010-11-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

We are not moving! We are staying put. I won't bore you with all the details. I am refreshed and renewed and ready to moved forward. So that is what I plan to do!

Transitions

2010-11-03T06:26:00.001-07:00

It seems we spend our lives between the transitions. I mean in the moment it seems that the transition is the ultimate goal. To master the transition is the goal. Then you look at the big picture and you soon realize that mastery of one transition is just a door that is opened to work toward the next. So there is no finish line. The light at the end of the tunnel is really just your eyes playing tricks on you. Because once you reach the light it becomes clear that the light was only the light shining through the key hole of the door that is about to open to the next transition. Sometimes that cycle seems monotonous, vicious and unending.

You work, strive, you put everything you have into conquering the transition that is before you. It is all you can think about. It consumes you because in your mind all you need to do is to get past this hurdle. Then and only then will you have gotten it figured out. Then you can really relax and enjoy the ride. You know it won't always be easy but as long as you know how to do it then you can get through it. Which is all true but, once that transition is mastered and life seems easy, look out because that is just about the time another transition presents itself. When you get a little to comfortable that is when things must change.

You can ask yourself why but you probably already know the answer. I mean I guess it is the way it needs to be. Living a stagnate existence really doesn't sound appealing. You can see God's hand in all of it. He is there shifting things around. Well, because He wants you to grow. He wants to watch His children flourish. Flourishing cannot happen standing still or sitting back enjoying the ride. So yes I may whine and complain about these transitions. I may try my hardest to resist the change but no matter what you cannot move the hand of God. It is and will be for the best interest of me and my family. Sometimes though it gets real tough pushing through to the next transition.

And I hope that one day I can get really good at the transitions that they will become a comfort. A reliable place to find solace in knowing you have made it through so many transitions before this that you know you can make this one smoother, better and easier. As for now though I have a few too many rough edges, a little too much rebellion still in my system that the transitions come hard and they last too long. But God is smoothing the edges and taming that rebellion and using it all to make a vessel for the finer.

The mastery of one transition inevitably brings another along to strive toward but as you move through those transitions each one comes a little bit easier and takes a little less time to master the next. So you move forward always avoiding the stagnate and building confidence in yourself, in each other and in God.

Missing the point.

2010-10-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

I have been consumed with thoughts of moving/not moving. If Ryan gets this job or if he does not and what it will mean to me and my family either way. I have been full of fear, fear of the unknown. What will happen if we do move, what will happen if we don't. We have been stuggling financially the past few months and I wonder what will happen if we don't get this promotion. Then there are all the details that all of it entails. Houses selling/buying, moving, animals, money, kids our relationship and the toll that relocating has had on it in the past. All of these things have consumed my mind and my heart. To the point that it has become paralyzing to me. I felt I couldn't move forward and that I was stuck in limbo. I am a all or nothing kind of person. I always have to be moving in one direction or another, there is not a stagnent bone in my body. So waiting on someone else to make life changing decisions for my life is not my cup of tea.

I have asked God what the point of all this waiting and termoil has. I was wondering that maybe the point is patience. I do lack a serious amount of patience so it wouldn't surprise me but it just didn't seem like the right answer. None of it was making any sense. Though I know in my heart of hearts that everything that happens in my life has a purpose and that God has my best interest at heart. So though I did fear the unknown I did not fear that I would be taken care of either way. But I could not move past all of this and put it out of mind until I got my answer. Like I said I was paralyzed. I couldn't bring myself to do anything except the absolute neccessary.

Sunday morning standing in church I got my answer to my burning question "what is the point of all of this?". We were singing and could not tell you what the song was, the song is not what spoke to me. I think God finally had me in a place that I was quiet enough, still enough to hear His voice. It wasn't the preaching, it wasn't the music, it was just me and God alone in a room full of people and noise all around but my heart was still and that is what He needed to get me to hear Him. So you may wonder what He said to me, it was, "Amy you are missing the point". Was the voice audible? Of course not but that made it no less real. He spoke loud and clear and it was right to my heart and soul. "You are missing the point". As tears started rolling down my face, my heart and mind were being set free. Free from self consumed worry and fear. Freedom that can only come straight from God Himself.

So what is the point? The point is, none of it matters. Where I live, what house I am in, if I even have a house, how much money we have, it doesn't matter. That does go against the grain of everything that we are taught. I think that is the point. "Not my will but thine be done", "put not your trust in man", "the heart of man is decietfully wicked, who can know it" "trust in God with all thine, heart, soul and mind". The lesson wasn't in pateince though this lesson brings patience. The lesson is. no matter where I am, what I am doing, what State I live in, the point is, the entire point of my exsistence on this earth is not measured in what I own, what I accomplish, where I go, it is the whole reason I am even on this earth the point is to: worship my Creator and Saviour. None of the other stuff really matters. I can love Him, praise Him, worship Him and honor Him with my heart, soul and mind. As long as I have breath on this earth the point is to worship my Saviour. Nothing else matters.

I got the point the releif came. God is good!!

Decompressing

2010-10-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have been placed into the pressure canner to cook and 100 lbs of pressure for 3 weeks. Longer than something should typically be processed. Well you know there is only one thing that can happen when under this kind of pressure? At some point you explode. Unfortunately for my dear husbands sake he got the brunt of the pressure released on him yesterday. He has since forgiven me for my outburst and we are fine. It seems your life at times builds to those moments and for some reason or another you don't handle it the way it should have been and the pressure starts to build.

I won't even go into the things that caused all of this pressure because well it doesn't really matter. The main part of all of it is that one person can only do so much. I need to realize this and stop trying to do it all. Then I need to come to grips with the fact that it is OK not to. It all started making more sense after irrationally taking out my frustrations on someone. The words coming out of my mouth I was needing to say. I just needed to be saying them to myself not someone else.

The pressure as been released and decompression begun. This week will be dedicated to simplifying my life. Slowing down and take care of the important things, my husband, my children, and the things that make them happy and healthy. After all God has told me that is my place. That is His will for me for this time in my life and where my focus is supposed to be. All the other stuff is just that, stuff. Not necessarily good or bad just not my priority.

So that is what the next few weeks will be for me, decopressing. Learning again to simplify my life. Laugh more, stress less and embrace these amazing people God has put in my life.

Patience is a virtue.

2010-10-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

One that I greatly struggle to obtain. So to update you on my "in limbo" post. The very basics are that an opportunity has presented itself within my husbands company. One that if it works out will require us to move. Most likely to a new state. The good part is that the move would bring us closer to family. That would be a huge blessing in our lives. Now I am going to go all nostalgic on you so you may want to stop reading about now.

6 years ago this month actually is when we moved into this house. We moved from northern Indiana. We lived within 20 minutes of almost my entire family. We had a babysitters, family get togethers and a great support system. My husbands job brought us about 3 1/2 hours south east. It could have been much worse. At least we were in easy driving distance but still far enough away to make visits quite far apart. Especially once we started accumulating animals. It makes it very hard to just pick up and go when you have all of these animal babies to care for. We were excited about the prospect of moving to a new place and starting a new life in a new place. That ideal quickly came to an end after just a short time here. We kind of realized how good we had it. We had no one in our new town. We had never even visited here before we made the move. It took a LOOOONG time to build a new support system of friends. I mean it took years. It was very hard on us as a young married couple having a baby about every year and a half. In a new place with a bunch of babies and no help. We spent about the first two years trying to move back. Then we got through the toughest part and really started to stand on our own two feet.

A few years into it we started growing roots so to speak and grow where we were planted. We grew physically as a family, we also grew emotionally as a family. There is something about not having anyone else to depend on that makes you either split or depend on each other. Thank God we chose the later. We started making our life what we wanted it to be. Growing our little hobby farm and living our dream. We are truely content and happy with where our life is.

Then this prospect has presented itself and we really had to figure out what was best for us. We are a family unit and that is what is the most important thing to us now. Honestly the idea of living closer to family and friends kind of scared me at first. When I lived there before I was a different person and I need to remember that. It was only 6 years ago but the changes that have taken place in the last 6 years in me, my relationship with my husband and our family are amazing. They have been wonderful changes. I do feel it will be a great thing. As long as we can continue to stay close the way we are now and grow together we will be just fine. No matter where we live or who we live near it will all be okay.

We should know more details by the middle of next week. I will keep you updated as I know the details.

Disapointment.

2010-10-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today was opening day for our pumpkin patch. Sad to say it was a flop, ahhhh, deep breath. It is hard, it is hard to put forth an effort, put your heart out there trying to fullfill a little dream and fail. I cannot look at it as a complete failure. I still have 4 weekends left to make a go of it but it is not a good start. It was an awful day as far as weather. It has rained here 2 times in the last 3 months and today of all the days it rained. The high was 60 and the drizzle that started in the morning has not completely come to an end yet. I have to look past this and just move on otherwise I will drive myself crazy. It is heartbreaking.

No one showed. Well I shouldn't say no one I had two friends that came by to show some support and help. This makes my heart happy and I am grateful for these friends. Literally rain or shine they were there for me and that means the world to me. But no other customers showed up. We were all set up and ready to go in the morning but we gave in and came in once the rain really started to come down.

It is what it is and there is nothing I can do. It does not help that I could be at the world equestrian games right now and I had to torcher myself by looking at the weather in Lexinton and it is beautiful. God knows and I just have to remember that and not get too consumed with disappointment. He is in control.

In limbo.

2010-09-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

The Pumpkin Patch is moving ahead dispite whining on my part. The bad part is that no one really has a whole lot of sympathy for you when you got yourself into the predicament in the first place. Most things are in place and other than it being kind of cold this weekend I am looking forward to seeing how it goes.

There are ALOT of other things occupying my thoughts and emotions right now and I am in disbelief that this has all come at the same time. I am a bit at my wits end with it all and am ready to, well, be out of limbo. I cannot share right now what is going on but by the end of this week I should be able to. Though God has been known to test my patience a bit in situations like this so it could be longer. It could be very exciting and scary at the same time. Or it could turn out to be nothing and all of this worrying is needless energy lost. That is the thing about limbo you don't even know how to feel. That is where I am and that is what is consuming my thoughts.

I should update on all of the animals but there is not a whole lot. Which is good when it comes to animals. They are all healthy and happy. I did get a duck yesterday to add to our petting zoo for the Pumpkin Patch. I am sure the animals with have to do some adjusting with a bunch of kids coming in and invading but I know they will do fine. Especially since we got a nifty candy machine to dispense food for the children to feed the animals. That will make the adjustment much easier. They love grain.

Thats it, so I will update you soon and let you in on all of the craziness that is going on as soon as I get the details. Pray the details comes soon!

Pumpkin Patch

2010-09-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

Those followers that are horsey people please check out my other blog dedicated to my OTTB.

You see this sign? Isn't it cute? Decorated nicely and well done, right? Yes, I thought you would agree. I like the sign but the one thing I am having a hard time figuring out is WHY IS IT IN MY FRONT YARD???? It is not in my yard because I had too much time on my hands and thought, hey, I should start a business. No that would not or could not be true. It is not in my front yard because, well I am a business type woman and really belong starting a business. Nope thats not it. Hmmmmm, think, think, think, oh yeah I think I got it......

One nice fall day about 2 years ago I was mowing the grass. Two years ago mowing the grass was heaven. I had a 1 year old, 2 year old and 4 year old and I couldn't hear anyone cry with the mower running, ahhh peace and quiet. Opps did I just say that out loud? I would never ignore my crying babies, no, not me. Anyways, that is neither here nor there. Beautiful fall day, me, peace and quiet, and thoughts actual thoughts were going through my brain. "Wouldn't it be so cool to have a pumpkin patch?" (this is me talking to myself, just incase you were wondering) . "It would be so fun! Someday the kids could help out and it would be a little family business! That is such a great idea! I mean we have the land. Even the animals. What fun! I want to do that." Can you hear the excitement in my voice?

Well that is the begining of the end. If I get something in my head, no matter how hair brained it might be, I have a habit of following through and making it happen. There are some that may consider this a good thing. For my poor poor husband he would have to disagree with those people, strongly disagree, I might add.

So that is it, that is why that sign is sitting in my front yard. That is why my stress level is through the roof, my to do list has reached and all time record length and well my home, my childrens schooling and many other things have been placed on the back burner. I am going with the explination that my children seeing first hand either how to or how not to start a family business is more education than the public school could ever offer. An entrepenurial education. Yeah that one sounds good, right??

Come, come to our pumpkin patch, take a pony ride and pet the goats, swing on the tire swing, pick out a pumpkin and take a hay ride back to the corn maze, wander the corn a maze, eat a caramel apple or a personal pumpkin pie or both. Make some memories with your family.

Please otherwise it will be a lesson in what not to do :)

Changes here and new blog.

2010-09-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

If you haven't noticed that horse related stuff seems to be taking over this blog then you probably haven't been reading. This blog was meant to document my life as a wife, mother and farmgirl and it is taking a different direction. So I want to separate these two subjects and I will hopefully be able to better balance the posts in each. So here you will still be able to read the general goings on here around the farm. From the kitchen, garden, barn, school room and where ever life takes us.

My other blog Slow and Steady wins the race will be dedicated to the training/retraining of me and my OTTB Steady Smiler to be eventers.

Thanks all for reading. You make doing this so much more fun!

Rodeo?

2010-09-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

What is the deal? I was already having a not so good day. I go out to take a ride because it is my therapy on days like this. I always finish on cloud nine. Well NOT today, Steady had other plans in mind. I rode a horse today. He was in my pasture and looked like my horse. He was a pretty reddish brown with a star on his head and a funny little non-commited snippet on his nose.

I could have sworn he was my horse. So I tacked up and he was as quite as a lamb. His head was low as I brushed him and was practically taking a nap by the time I was ready to head to the arena. The first sign was when he refused to walk out to the arena. He sometimes stops but after a second moves forward, not today. Kelcie comes up to me and says "Mama are you gonna wide(ride in Kelcinese)" "Yes sweetie I am", "Are you gonna wun(run)", "no, I am not gonna run". "Can I wide with you?", "ok but just for a little bit". So I pulled her up and we walked around, no problem. Then it was time to start working, he has had 3 days off sans the chiro. After about 10 minutes the pony ride ride time was over so I plopped Kelcie to the ground.

That is when it all started going down hill and I think Steady's evil twin appeared. He was HOT to say the least. Any leg pressure was sending him into a canter. I am talking about leg pressure to get him to bend. Something we have done a thousand times and whooops canter. I could barely hold him back. And if you have never ridden a racehorse I will tell you now that is not a good feeling. You know the power behind that bit and it is not a force to be taken lightly. And it is not like he has been off of the track all that long. It has only been 9 months since his last race. I hate pulling and pulling on his mouth. I hate it, but what are your options when the boy won't take the hint to slooooow down. So we troted and trotted and trotted. It soon became appearant that this energy was not quickly dying. Though he did become a LITTLE more under control.

We cantered to the right with little problem. He was high strung but controlable. Then to the left, not so much. He started in and then started drifting way out to the side, cantering sideways. I used some outside leg to try to get him to turn and move forward and....then.....wait...for.....it..........the....RODEO began!!! Ahhhh you butt head what are you thinking. This horse has not once ever bucked on me. That is why I am thinking that someone switched out my sweet fun to ride liver chestnut. This was the closest I have come to falling off in well at least 15 years. I wasn't really that close. My feet didn't even make it out of the stirrups and I was thrown off balance some but relatively kept it together. Pulled him to a stop then headed straight to the barn. He was very happy to see that he got what he wanted. Little did he know that the only reason we were headed that way was to get the dreaded lunge line. Back to the arena we went and I put him to work. I wasn't going to stop until I was confident he was prepared to listen. Let me tell you he can handle ALOT of work and it not even phase the boy. So not willing to let my children go without dinner I knew he was gonna outlast me with that energy of his.

I decided to get back on and make sure he knew that behavior was not going to be rewarded by getting off easy. We trotted a bit then picked up the canter. It was a little to the side but not nearly as bad. Around again and again after about the 5th time he went around nicely and we were done. Even as I was trying to cool him out he was just speed walking. What is wrong with my boy.

Well I think it probably has something to do with 3 days off. We will have a talk with the chiro about 3 full days off. But I think I know the true culprit to the sudden surge of energy. I recently upped his feed to 15lbs a day of equine senior. And no I didn't up it all at once it has been gradual for the past few months. It is supposed to be a cool energy feed but still I think 15lbs a day of any feed could get to you. I just don't know what to do. He is finally starting to put on a little weight for the first time since I owned him. I am sick of seeing him skinny. I don't want him to be fat, just healthy and healthy looking. So I up his feed to fatten him up and at the same time make him loco. Do I really have to choose: skinny or loco???

Horse crazed

2010-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am fully preoccupied with my horses. I just can't seem to help it. I am going about my regular tasks all the while thinking about, next time I get to ride, I wonder if Steady needs his feet done, I really should work with Lily, maybe me and Elaina can ride later...and it goes on and on.

So my blog then is seeming to be dominantly occupied by horsey posts.

I have mildly decided that since I posted an add on craigslist trying to sell Lily hasn't gotten any responses, that I am going to turn her into a little eventing pony. She will be great with the dressage end of it. I will have to see, though, if she is capable of the cross country/jumping end of it. I have started with lunging. I will be doing ALOT of lunging for a long time and that is how we will start. When I deem her ready I will try lunging her with Elaina on her back. I don't know how soon that will happen though. We will just see how it goes.

Now on to Steady, he is just a dream. I am happy, excited, thrilled, elated to announce I believe he is FINALLY starting to put on some weight!! At least I think he is. It is something kind of hard to gauge because you never see a huge jump over night. It is slooooooow and so you can't always see a difference, but he is looking a little less ribby.
I am loving how soft he is in he mouth. He is really moving into the bit and now we are working on bending to the right (common issue with OTTB's. They only run to the left at the track) and trying to even him out with his balance. He is just a dream to ride.

I took a friend riding yesterday evening. It was her first time on a horse. She rode Moonlight and he was a good boy for her. He has a tendacy to be a bit stubborn, especially if he knows you don't have the control. But it was over all a good experience for a first ride.

Now horses is by far not all I am up to but horses are the therapy to get me through some of the other stuff.

School is in full force. We have to take the time everyday to get our lessons done. Not always an easy thing to do.

I am opening up our property in October and starting a pumpkin patch. So I am overwhelmed with trying to get everything in order for that. But that is an entirely different post.

That is it for now. Sorry for being so choppy in my thoughts but this is how I end the days. Mind racing, heart full and thoughts jumbled. It all means...it...is...time...for....beeeeeeeeeed....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Excited might be an understatment.

2010-09-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

I went to my first horse show that I have been to in like 15 years. Well I didn't take my horse or anything, but still I had fun. Actually I have never been to an eventing show whatsoever. I went to check out what it was all about, and, I, love, it! I can't wait to take Steady! The bigget thing I walked away with was the confidence that, I can do it! They start all the way at "Green as Grass" and go up. Now that is my kind of show. We won't have to start at green as grass but we will begin with the "Starters" group. They had cross country courses that ranged from small 6 in high logs on the ground to BIG jumps. I learned so much. The people were so nice and are not snobby at all.

I met up with a fellow OTTB owner and friend. She and her horse are kind of in the same place as me and Steady so we are going to start showing together. How fun to have a show buddy!!!

So listen to this I was asked to help judge at the next jumping show! It is all so exciting! I am so excited to learn about judging. You may ask if I am qualified to jump, well not technically but I think I will be able to catch on quick. I mean I did spend 7 years showing and training in the hunter jumper discipline.

So the scheduele of events; September 25th my first small fun show in 15 years that I will actually be riding in, October 10th my first judging experience at a jumper show, November 13th my first EVER cross country/dressage show. oooooh I cannot restrain my total excitement to be fullfilling this dream that I thought would be just that a dream. It is coming to life thanks to this amazing OTTB that is in my back yard!

Riding lessons

2010-09-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

Something that people (non horse friends usually) ask me is "Why do you take lessons, I thought you know how to ride?" It does take everything in me to not just burst out laughing. I usually just chuckle a bit and then try to explain the best I can that after riding for the past 25 years and taking lessons for over 10 of those years that I am still not good enough nor will I EVER be too good to take lessons. I can tell even when I say it that it goes in one ear and out the other. Not because they don't care but because it just doesn't make any sort of logical sense. I mean I don't blame them I even struggle with the idea that I am giving lessons (beginner) and taking them too. HA this humors me a bit.

It is a frustrating thing to try to explain to people. You could get into the details about constantly critiquing posture and leg position, where your hands are, how long your reins are at any given moment. But you quickly start to see their eyes glaze over and you realize they have not one clue what you are taking about. They nod their head and you change the subject because, well, whats the point?

The bottom line is the more I learn the more I realize I still have to learn. With each new break through between me and Steady for as gratifying as it is, it really just opens about 3 more doors for things to work on. But never at any point does this become discouraging. Why? Well if you ride, and I mean REALLY ride you know that answer and if you don't, well then, what's the point????

Favorite quote of the day: "If you want to ride for fun, then go ride a carousel".

Progress

2010-09-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

First off sorry for the video quality, my 7 year old is not the best videographer but she did a fine job. Then the quality is bad cause it was taken on my camera. To add to all of that is was really windy which made it noisy. But the point of the video is to show off Steady's head position he is getting so good with it. He really puts his head low and really feels for the bit. He is so much more collected and his balance is so much better. He seriously had zero balance. He can even actually bend now. He was like a board when turning right at the begining. Even his canter is coming along nicely but I am not posting videos of that quite yet. Though I should have done a before and after of it. He first started not knowing any signal for leads and only picking up his left lead when asked and doing random flying changes when not being asked. Then he would go tooooooo fast I mean not racing fast but too fast. And at the turns were the worst he would cut the turns and really pick up speed around one of the turns. After seeing some of his racing videos the last turn is when he picked up the pace and came from behind to win. So I do know why he does it but not really practical for a dressage ring. Then he started almost loping instead of cantering. From one extreme to another. Well yesterday he had a very nice canter and even started listening when I asked for him to tuck his head and collect himself. But only for a moment, so we have a ways to go. It is progress though and that is all I can ask of him.

When I first started my lessons a few months back I thought there was no way either of us would ever be able to pull of anything that resembled dressage. Well we are on our way. Not in any hurry but on our way. He needs to take things slow and so do I. I still have weight to loose and get into better shape. So I hope hope hope that next year will be the year for us to event. But even saying seems a long shot. But I think I will be surprised when next spring rolls around.

My instructor said we are ready for our first small show! I am excited about that. It has been sooooo long since I have showed it will be like learning all over again. So I am meeting up with a lady I met via internet at a show this weekend without horses. Just to get the feel of it again. I came to know her because she bought an OTTB about the same time I did from the same lady. Actually she almost bought Steady and that is how we started emailing. So I am lookng forward to hanging around the show and observing.

Frickled Beans

2010-09-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

mmmm...if i do say so myself. As far as I know I came up with this idea on my own. Though I had inspiration from two different sources. You may be asking yourself "What is a frickled bean?"

It starts with a pickled green beans.

Then 1 Cup flour and 1 Cup beer whisked together. Dip the beans into the batter.

Shake off excess and put them into the fryer.

Then you place a plate on top of your fryer so it will stay shut. Oh wait, that's just mine. You can probably skip this step.

After about 2 minutes dump them onto a paper towel.

Then get your favorite dipping sauce.

Then enjoy!

So frickle = fried pickle

frickled beans = fried pickled green beans

In a nut shell it is a delicious treat to eat while watching your favorite college football team play.

I made it to 30!

2010-09-04T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have 30 followers! I am appreciative of each of you that bother to read my ramblings. I am so happy to have started this blog. I didn't even know about the world of blogging not too long ago and now look at me all blogified...lol...I made that up could you tell?

30 is significant for me this year in more than one way. I turned the big 3 0 this year! Not a big deal to me. The number really doesn't mean too much but it does make me think a little more about how I am spending my time, what I am investing myself in and what I want to accomplish. Time starts to move a little quicker with every passing year and I definitly want to seize the day. That is part of the reason I "just went for it" when it came to persuing my passion of horseback riding. I wasn't willing to let another year go by saying "one of these days" I will fullfill that dream. I mean if I don't do this for myself it is not like someone is going to do it for me.

Then there is the 30 lbs I am on track to losing this year. At weigh in today I was down 16 pounds! It feels so good to feel so good. One thing I realized today is that my knees don't hurt anymore! The last few years my knees have hurt when I would go up and down stairs and squating. I don't know if that has all to do with weight or if riding agian has helped but I do know it feels good. My goal is 30 and I may go for a few more once I hit that goal but that is a weight I am happy with. It is another one of those things that I realized that if I don't do something about this now it will only get harder. I am going to weight watchers and it is the accountibility I needed. Along with dropping weight my goal is to be in shape to start eventing next year!!! Now that is a motivating goal for me!

So 30 is the number of the year for me. Thank you to each of you that make that number up and I am glad you are going on this jouney with me.

Harvest!

2010-09-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have just been busy! I can't tell you how many blogs I have read with that as the first line in the post. Maybe it is because I follow so many farm/homesteading blogs and well this kind of lifestyle does not lend itself to loads of free time to write about all of the exciting adventures this life takes us on. Well school has started and strangely enough that actually gives me a bit more time. It makes me get schedueled. And I am also in a break of canning for the moment so that alone frees up time.

Here is my harvest from today. Red long beans, some green beans, cutting celery and tomatoes; san marzano, better boy, yellow pear and black cherokee.

Me in the garden. Have I mentioned on here that I have lost almost 15 lbs!!!! Just tooting my own horn a bit.

I haven't had a ton of motivation to be in the garden this year because of the incredibly HOT summer we have had. It seems rare to get a day under about 90 degrees and 100% humidity. They say though we are getting a break from the 90's starting tomorrow!! Just in time for the holiday weekend. Maybe they will stay away. To add to it we have had NO rain. It has been so dry and all my plants are thirsty. We do water some but it is not the same as a good drenching from a summer rain.

So when I am not here(on my blog) you may just find me here(in the garden)

Its turkey time!

2010-09-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

Can you guess how many pounds our turkeys dressed out at? Today was the big day. We dropped them off last night at a local amish butcher. When I went to pick up the turkeys to put them in the trailer they decided to put up a good fight. I am not kidding I was beat up by a turkey. One hit me in the jaw and it is bruised today, one hit my in the cheek and it is sore, one hit me in the arm and left a nice bruise and one some how scraped my arm and left me bleeding. I think I need some turkey lifting lessons or maybe it was the fact that they were like 40 pound monsters!!!! The turkeys may have won the battle but I won the war...LOL!!! They dressed out at 34, 33, 28 and 22!!!! I came home today with 117 lbs of turkey!!!

We are grinding two of them. Boiling down the carass for broth and the rest of the meat that we didn't get off the bones since we are NOT professional butchers. Then two will remain intact for Thanksgiving and another special occassion. We got one ground tonight and here is that experience. It was a whole family event. Well except for Kelcie she really didn't have much to do with it.

Here is one of the biggest, 34 pounds!

Ryan's job was de-boning and cutting.

I manned the grinding station.

The two kids weighed and baged it.

15 pounds of turkey burgers, tacos, chili, meatballs and yummy turkey goodness!

By the end of raising these birds I said I was NEVER doing this again. It is a pain in the butt and I don't even know if you save very much money. But it didn't take long after having them in my fridge/freezer to get me thinking about how nice it is going to be to have all this meat. So I am sure I will be going for it again next year.

Pickled green beans.

2010-08-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

I love pickles and was looking forward to putting some up this year. Well my cucumbers had other ideas. Something is killing off my plants when the cukes are small. So I am going pickle some green beans. I had some last year and I really liked them. Though I have NOT tried this recipe before so I cannot say whether it is good or not. I will try a small batch first to try it out and in a couple weeks do more if they turn out good.

I borrowed this recipe from Hickory Holler Farm . She had posted it for dilled okra but I am altering it a bit for my beans.

Pickled green beans

4 cups water

2 cups vinegar

1/2 cup pickling salt

5 1/2 pounds okra with stems

1 1/2 tsp celery seeds

6 cloves garlic

6 jalapeno peppers (optional)

Prepare beans, trim them 1/4 in from top of jars. Heat water, vinegar and salt to boiling. Meanwhile pack beans into cleean hot quart jars. To each jar add 1/2 tsp dill seed or 2 head of dill if you have fresh dill. 1/2 tsp celery seeds and 2 clove garlic sliced. Add 1 hot pepper if desired. Cover beans with boiling hot brine and leave a 1/2 inch headspace. Seal and process in boiling water bath canner for ten minutes. Let sit for about 2 weeks and enjoy.

It's amazing!

2010-08-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

Just a few months ago I brought home a pushy, stubborn, anti-social horse. Some of the things that were daily occurences with him were: any time I would go to pet him he would throw his head so far in the air I could barely reach him, when I would try to tie him he again would use his height to his advantage and throw his as high as he could, one time even snapping the metal clip on the lead line right in two. How about brushing? Well he really wanted nothing to do with me, he would cow kick at me any time I got close to his hindend and if I turned my back I better watch out if I didn't want some skin missing. Riding, well, he hated it but that I cannot blame him for we had some serious saddle issues.

I honestly questioned more than once whether him and I were ever going to get along let alone have a real bond. I thought maybe his past would be more that what I am capable of getting him past. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew.

Well four months have past and I tell you what you would not recognize this horses attitude. Tonight he followed me around the pasture like a puppy dog and when the other horses would come close he would walk between them and me. Making sure they didn't get too close. If you know horses you know this is big, it means that you are their herd and they are just setting boundaries for the others. Needless to say we have bonded! When I go to pet him when he used to call him a snob because he would do anything to avoid it, now he puts his head as low as my tummy and lets me love on him. Tying, he will stand there all day long no antsiness and no more broken leadlines. Grooming, when I go to brush his hindend he not only does not cow kick but he actually relaxes the leg closest to me so I can better reach his extremely high buttock, and the riding, oh the riding, the saddle issues have been settled. We have been taking lessons with a fabulous trainer. I never thought that dressege would be in our near future, it just seemed so far out of our grasp. He could not bend to the right AT ALL. Now he is flexing nicely, definitely not perfect but, he can at least get his head all the way to his side in our carrot stretches. His balance is improving, he is starting to learn to take cues with picking up the correct lead, when before a lead was foreign. He would pickup one, do flying lead changes for no reason just because when your only goal in life is to run across the finish line first it never really matters what lead you are on. I could go on and on about the miraculous turn around this horse of mine has made. I couldn't be more proud of his intellegence, his love for me and willingness to learn this new lifestyle that is so foreign to him and all so quickly.

I need to make a correction.

2010-08-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

So I just posted about my daughter and her new horse, Moonlight. I said in the post that he is a Walker mix. Upon further research he is definitely a Fox Trotter mix. You can look at his ears and it is a dead give away.

Every little girls dream

2010-08-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

In your dreams as a little girl you imagine a white horse that is all your own.

You will wash, brush, ride and love this animal with all your heart.

My daughter's drream came true about 2 weeks ago. Now what would you name this white horse if you are a 7 year old girl? Well Moonlight of course!

Steady and Moonlight make great trail buddies.

He is an 8 year old gaited Tennessee Walker mix.

They make quite the pair!

Now she doesn't look happy at all.

As this little girls mother my dream is similar with a few more things on the list. Like SAFE, gentle and did I mention safe. He is all of those! Oh I couldn't ask for a better horse for her. She does like a challange so he is not half dead but he is SAFE and that is all that matters to Mama.

This just warms my heart.

What I've learned about taking in a racehorse and giving him a new life.

2010-08-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

I learning more and more about what it means to take a horse straight from the race track. I have always loved the athletisicim of thoroughbreds and they are such beautiful creatures. I love horses in general but thoroughbreds definitely hold a special place in my heart. But I really had no idea what I was getting into taking one of these animals and give them a new purpose in life. I first of all am thankful for the trainer that finally decided that Steady deserved to retire. He spent 8 of his 10 years of life on a track. He started racing as a 2 year old and his career did not end until January of this year. His last race he won was September last year. He was a come from behind kinda guy and that race was an exciting one to say the least. He came from the back of the pack around the last turn to pulling ahead and winning by a nose at the line. I tell you what for an old man that is pretty awesome.

His sire is Repletion

His Dam A Song and a Smile

He had 75 starts 8 wins, 9 place, 10 shows. He raced mostly in Canada and then later came to the US. Over his entire career he earned $335,801!!! This man deserves to retire and enjoy the easy life.

Well that is easier said than done. See when horses race they are in amazing physical condition. They have never been turned out in a field, EVER. They don't even know what it means to graze. They are in their stalls for the entirety of the day except when taken out to work. They are handled quite a bit by many different people and don't always know how to create a bond with any one person. They usually develop nervous habits that are created through bordom of a highly energetic animal being stalled.

Then when it comes to what they know. Well what have they ever had to do? RUN, and run fast. Always in a straight line and as fast as they can. Now I will pause for a moment to answer one of my biggest pet peaves about what most people say when they find out about his former career. "Aren't you tempted to take him and run him and see how fast he can go". I know this is asked out of pure ignorance and so I try not to let it bother me all that much but here is the answer to that question, NO!!! NEVER!! Is that simple enough for you? There are many reasons why this is but I will not get into that now. Just know it is not in anyones best interest to do such an ignorant thing. Understand these animals are strong powerful and unpredictable those are a few reasons to start. Ok back to what I was saying, they were never taught anything but run. They don't understand leads, gaits, or really other terrain. Steady has the hardest time when he sees a hill. This may seem dumb but trust me there is nothing dumb about this horse, he is incredibly smart. He has never seen a hill let alone try and walk up one. So the simplest thing may just set these OTTB's off their rocker and if you are not on your game at all times you will end up on your a__! And from the top of a 17 hh horse it will not be a good ending.

So here is the first post about life after the track for a retired racer. This is not even scratching the surface on this amazing and challanging journey I have been on with this new found friend of mine.

Ikea product with my own twist.

2010-07-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

So I was taking down pictures and stringing up herbs and garlic from the nails in the walls. And the pasta, oh my the pasta, I had that stuff strung all over my house. Over chairs, butcher string strung across the kitchen that we almost had to crawl to get under. Then it occured to me that this was not the best solution considering soon I will have no pictures on my walls and more garlic, pasta, herbs and onions then I will know what to do with. So I thought and thought and thought. Then this idea hit me, an idea that my husband was sure to balk at but a good idea in my mind either way :). He is such a good sport because he is always a willing particiapant in my cookey ideas. He sometimes works near an Ikea so I called him up and lo and behold he was near by it must have been meant to be! So he stopped in at my request and got the product I had asked for. So here is my solution

I have seen these at Ikea quite a few times. They advertise them as something you hang kids artwork from. They are simple cables you attach to the walls. Which is a cute idea but I not nearly functional enough for me to dedicate my wall space to. I love design with function but design without function is not nearly as interesting to me.

It is like this empty wall space was just waiting for me to figure out the perfect use for it. And by george I found it!

The table is from Ikea also. It was in my living room and I knew it would be way more useful in my kitchen. I mean you can never have enough storage in the kitchen. All I need now is to get some baskets to fit on the shelves.

My heart is full, my mind is racing but my energy is gone.

2010-07-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

Which makes for an empty blog. Between the busy busy time of year and the intense heat since April when I finally get a chunk of time to sit down at the computer I just can't muster enough mental energy to put the creative words running through my brain onto the page. So here it is in the short version of what has been going on around here. 4-H fair went great my daughter and her little miniature did so awesome! Our camera was still out of commission at that point so we did not get any photos. But a friend of a friend took this picture and by chance she found us and sent it to me! For which I am so grateful. I just love this. Just a candid moment of a girl and her pony.

My first farm camp that I put on here at my farm went great!! Wait did I ever mention on here that I was doing a farm camp? Ugh I don't know. But I did do a camp. I had 6 campers dropped of every day for a week. I put them to work. We cleaned stalls, milked the goat, weeded the garden, planted and we also had lots of fun. Riding the horses, playing games, making cheese and pies. It went so well I am opening it up again in August and I already have 4 spots filled. The crazy part is the kids LOVED all the work. Here are my campers.

I am still going strong with farmers market. It is alot of work but it is paying off some. I have also started bringing my little miniature and doing pony rides. He made about $15 all by himself last week! here is our table.

Here is the stuff I bring. Bouhl Artisan loaf, basil fettuccini, focaccia and some herbs.

Here is blaze getting some love! 25 cents to feed the pony and $1 for a ride.

I am also going and taking my first riding lesson in 15 years tomorrow which I am super excited about. I am mostly excited that I am going to have a professional help me figure out a solution to the many problems I seem to be having with my sweet horse. I am having the worst time getting weight on him. He has the worst case of rain rot I have ever seen. That I have had the vet out for and he got medicine and a perscription shampoo that I cannot tell if it is helping or not. Then my saddle is giving him a terrible sore on his withers. I have resorted to riding bareback until we can find a saddle that works :( Ugh horse ownership does not come without it's costs.

Market Success!

2010-06-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

The farmers market was a success! It is an amazing amount of work to put it all together but it has been a cool experience. The people are so awesome to meet and get to know. I actually had a woman tell me today that she has "been dreaming about my bread all week". It is pretty cool that I am already getting faithful customers. I had at least 10 returning customers this week!

We brought our miniature horse today and kids could feed him and we did pony rides. My goal with this was to try to bring people in and it was successful at that. I had quite a few people that stopped in just to see the pony. But in seeing the pony they have to walk through the market. At least five had never even known there was a farmers market. So it will help get the word out about the market. I have been to farmers markets before that you could barely walk through because of all the people. Well ours is NOT like that. At best we have a consistent trickle of traffic. And that is 99% the faithful farmers market types. We need more of those! I am hoping it picks up. In reality though I baked 20 loaves of bread to bring and 2 batches of pasta and I have always sold out of everything. So I don't know if I could keep up with a bigger crowd.

In other news I got a charger for my camera and I am kicking myself I didn't get pictures. But seriously I feel like a chicken with it's head cut off from the moment I wake up to the moment it is over. It is hard to keep my head on straight half the time so the camera slipped my mind. I will aim for next week to get some pictures.

Keeping up

2010-06-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Keeping up is hard to do. I keep asking myself what made me think I had the time to start up a business at this point in my life. I feel God is in it. So on I go in this exciting yet exhausting path. God and I have had lots of talks through out the years about what He wants me to do. I have ALWAYS felt that He wanted me at home caring for my family. There has never been one doubt in that. But I have always had this little itch that someday we would have a family business. Something mostly run by me and my 3 girls but that Ryan was involved and supportive of. I mean he already has a full time job he doesn't need another. My mind has gone many different routes as to which way we might take this idea of a family business. But I have not really taken a jump with both feet into that direction until now.

WOW I am having a hard time slowing down to enjoy this. I am hoping though that I will soon find the balance I need to keep up with it all. But tonight it is making pasta until 11:30 at night and up at 5 packing up bread, produce, pasta and a pony to head out to the farmers market.

I am truely truely blessed to be living this life! God is fulfilling my dreams and all I can do in turn is give Him the glory for every last bit of it! So undeserving am I to receive the love He gives. NOTHING is impossible with God!

I think I am accidentally starting a business!

2010-06-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have in the past sold a goat here and there but other than that I never really made any money back from my farm. After two friends requesting that I do a summer camp for city kids to experience the farm life. I decided to give it a try. To my surprise I started to fill up spots quickly. It is so exciting and it gave me some confidence to maybe try out some of the ventures that I have only dreamed about in the past.

In other news. I did post about the farmers market. I have still been doing that and making a small profit here and there. I am not getting rich by any means but I think it is has alot of other benefits so I am sticking with it.
Well our local farmers market is well kinda dead. So I started thinking what I could do to help bring people in. Then it hit me. I have all these cute little animal why not bring out a little petting zoo. Of course that lead to researching what regulations there are for petting zoos. Well I found out that the USDA regulates and requires a license for any petting zoo. Also insurance is needed to pursue this avenue. I didn't know what to expect when it came the work and cost involved. I have googled, called and been transfered and called some more and finally got to the bottom of what I need to do to get this going.

I guess I will spare all the details but I will say that I am well on my way to the begining stages of "Country Paradise Farm/ Funny Farm Petting Zoo and Pony Rides" Above is the link to the facebook page for my business.

Ok I guess I will give you some details. The license requires paper work, inspections, a regulation book, more paper work and some money. Then I can be USDA licensed. Insurance, I got some good news from them today that I should be insured by this weekend. Just in time for the farmers market and I can do pony rides there this weekend. The reason I can do that is because equine are not regulated so they do not have to be licensed.

So that is that. Between baking bread, making pasta, going to the market, doing research, planning for camp, keeping up with the garden not to mention taking care of my beloved little family and the regular chores that is what I have been up to.

First farmers market experience.

2010-06-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

So a friend and I decided to do a farmers market booth together. I didn't really plan my garden with the market in mind but my friend did. So I am focusing more on baking, pastas and what ever else I can come up with. So I was more than a little unprepared. Well in all fairness it is pretty hard to be prepared for something that you have never done before. So I went into it with the mind frame that it is a learning experience. So I brought 3 loaves of artisan bread, 3 loaves of zucchini bread, chocolate pumpkin bars, aloe plants and tomato plants. The artisan bread and zucchini bread sold out quickly. Quickly as in the market started at 4 and the bread was gone by 4:15!! So I definitely need to find a way to get more of that made. I also plan to make some homemade pasta and granola. I actually already have an order for pasta for next week. I am trying to make this worth my while. I am still working on it but I will let you know what I come up with. The other challange for me is to come up with a fair price. I think I have a tendancy to undersell myself. So I think after my first day I realized that I really need to raise my prices a bit. This was my first experience with the farmers market as a vendor. Next learning experience Saturday!

Sorry still no camera charger so no pictures :( I am having serious withdrawls.

So much to say....

2010-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to post about whats been going on around here but I keep running into problems. First is I lost the charger for my camera battery. Grrrr I have been finding it hard to function without a camera and posts are just so lamo without pictures :) So I have been trying to take halfway decent pictures with my phone BUT I cannot figure out how to get pictures from my phone to here. Last dilema is blogspot! It hasn't been wanting me to post anything. Everytime I have gone to write the last few days a notification comes up saying that it is not available. I guess it is just not God's will for me to blog at the moment ;). So just thought I should let everyone know I am not being neglectful of my blog, really.

A weekend of play!

2010-06-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is me and my daughter is the tiny little thing right next to me. My friends daughter is bare back behind us.

I have had the most fabulous weekend. I have tried to soak up every minute of it. Cause realistically I know in the back of my mind that one day soon I am going to have to grow up and and not be able to play all day. But for this moment in time I am just taking it as it comes..

Again me on the left and you can see my daughter but not her little horse since the grass is taller than he is.

Our horse and pony 4-H club set up a horse camping weekend at the near by state park. So my oldest daughter and I packed up and headed down. We decided not to camp over night but we did spend the day trail riding and stuck around to cook out with the club. The trail ride was not with out it's hiccups. The trail started out with well ummm about 5 different places we had to cross water. To make a long story short our little miniature that my daughter was riding DID NOT like water. She was nervous as heck to make him go through it. Well my club leaders son so sweetly walked them through the river. Cause heaven knows I wasn't getting wet with my boots on and then riding all day. Let me tell you before we were done my daughter was getting after her horse and they were jumping streams and walking through water up to her boots. I am so mad my camera battery was dead.

We had two people offer to buy our little miniature. He is the cutest little thing ever and a trooper trail riding with the big horses.

Well once we were done riding and untacked our horses. We put all the kids in the back of the pick up truck and drove them down to the lake. They all still had their riding cloths on so we told them they needed to wade in the water. I will give one guess as to how long it was before they all dove into the lake. All of about 2 minutes. It was wonderful!! The whole day was just any kids dream. Well and any BIG kids dream too. I couldn't ask for more from life!

My thoughts on frugality.

2010-06-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

For a short time in my life I was of the mindset that the more I had the better. If my kids had all the toys they wanted. If I had a pretty house with perfect landscaping, nice cloths and all my ducks in a row. Then I would be happy. The problem with came when I got the car I wanted and it did not change my state of mind, and the house I wanted and still no change, then all the nicest for my kids nope nothing, and all the best for me, huh still no satisfaction. I really started to reevaluate not what I had but my thought process about what was neccesary in life.

I have come to the conclusion that with contentment comes satisfaction not with anything material. That denying yourself can actually make your life more peaceful than fulfilling every whim. So I hopped off the hamster wheel and slowed down and started to ask myself the difference between needs and wants in life. If you get down to the true basics you will be suprised how much in your life is unnessecary. What if you didn't go out for 5 days in a row. Would you spend money? Probably not. What if your children were not in a sport every season of the year and sometimes two at a time? Are those things truely neccesary? I do not believe so. Unless they are in the running to become a professional athlete, which sorry but they probably aren't. How will these activities help prepare them for the real world as an adult? Realistically they probably hold very little value in the long run. What??? I mean it is teaching them team work, right? I guess, sort of, but I think a little more time spent learning how to get along with siblings will teach them much more realistic relationship skills for life. Than playing on a team with a majority of the people being your friends playing a game together that you all like to play

How about going out to eat? What if you limited that to once every two weeks? It all seems like a big endless cycle. You work to make money to run around and spend it. So you have to go work to make more. So you can afford to do more. And it goes on and on. Ok so maybe you cannot stay home for 5 days straight but what if you start with 1 entire day each week? Just a thought.

Then there is shopping. Do you shop for recreation? There are ALOT better things you could be doing with your time. Why do you buy things? You don't have to answer that question to me but it would be a good question to ask yourself. Because you NEED them? Because you want them? Or because it was a good deal? Nothing is a good deal if you don't need it. It is just money wasted. What about because you don't want you children to go without? Listen if you think that giving your children the best of everything is important don't be surprised when your child is grateful for nothing they have. You are not preparing your child for life by this mindset. You are actually being counter productive because it is going to be a harsh reality some day when they realize that everything in life is not just handed to them

Vacation day 5: Made it to Mobile, AL

2010-05-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Approaching the city of Mobile

After about 6 hours in the car and the 4 previous days on the road. Staying somewhere new every night we were all ready to sleep in the same bed for more than one night. So Aunt Marilyn’s was just what we all needed. And for anyone who likes the whole shabby chic look, WOW you are in for a treat. Her home is beautiful! It is in the historic district of Mobile and they have really kept the homes historic features but brought it into the present day. She has her own artistic flare to everything in the house and there is not a room that there isn’t something handmade by her. I will take you on a tour.

Charming is the best word to describe their home.

She has more antiques than and antique shop.

They installed a old fashioned water pump. The girls had fun with that.

The gardens and this swing...ahhh...charming.

Vacation day 4: Leesburg, AL

2010-05-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

I LOVE camping, Mama!

Why don’t we camp more? After Chattanooga we drove into Alabama and found a campsite on Weiss lake in Leesburg. We pitched our tent about 5 ft from the water.

We had a campfire and made smores though I did make my own variation of the smore. Instead of using a hershey bar you put a reeses peanutbutter cup on it. It is pretty yum yum.

You are a smore making champ when you can roast marshmallows while eating your smore

We (oh and by we I really mean my wonderful husband :) woke up and cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast. Which sounds way easier than it really was. We had packed a coleman camping stove but realized when we were there that it did not work. So Ryan had to start a fire using the wood that I insisted he douce with water the night before …oops. He did it though just like any real man could.

It was very tasty and good hearty breakfast to start the day.

Good morning little campers.

We also realized how unprepared we really were for camping. But you live and learn. I now have a list of what we need for next time. But we made due and everything turned out just great. We usually camp once a year but it is with my whole family and my mom is usually the prepared one of the bunch. I guess she has spoiled me a bit.

We packed up and were back on the road headed to Mobile, AL. What I realized though was that we really love camping and we should do it more often.

Vacation; Turning 7 an all American way.

2010-05-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t get more American than spending the day driving across the country. Getting to learn what this great country has to offer, the history and diversity of this country that we are priviledged enough to call home.

We stopped at Fava’s Restaurant for a late lunch in Georgetown, KY.

It is a historic little town that seemed to be doing well. Usually when you drive through those little towns the old building are empty. Not so with Georgetown.

They served a Kentucky hotbrown, an open faced sandwich with turkey, ham, bacon with brown gravy and cheddar cheese poured over it with a tomato on top. The Boss tried it. I would have to say that it was not all that good.

But the frickles on the other hand were pretty darn good. Frickles; fried pickles. Then we ended the birthday lunch with a big banana split!

Brain freeze

Scraping the bowl

Happy Birthday my baby girl I am so grateful God blessed me we you 7 years ago. You are truely a joy to us!

Vacation day 3: Chattanooga, TN

2010-05-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Waiting to go in.

I have never been in a cave before let alone taken down in an elevator hundreds of feet underground. It was cool, beautiful and definitely worth seeing! Then a waterfall in a cave....pretty cool. Here are some of the things that we got to see.

Ruby Falls

Me and my girls, love them!

It's a tight squeeze.

The idea here was that it would show the Ruby Falls sign. I guess when you ask a random stranger to take your picture, you can't be too picky.

At the top of look out mountain.

For a 7 year old it's like being on top of the world!

A civil war canon.

My kitchen was featured on another blog!

2010-05-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

I am so excited that my kitchen was featured on Down to Earth. If you want to see the post look here. I have loved this series. You get to see kitchens from all over the world.

Seed companies supplied by Monsanto (reposted)

2010-05-18T06:29:00.001-07:00

This was taken and reposted from Never Done Farm

Seed companies supplied by Monsanto

Some info I already knew, had saved and now is found. Unfortunately this won't help you this season in your seed choices, but save the info. for future reference.

Here is an interesting post on Seed companies supplied by monsanto. If you think it is relevant please pass it on to the growing food and justice list serve.

Recently on a gardening forum in which I participate, a list of various seed companies now owned by Monsanto was posted. I was so shocked to discover Territorial Seeds on the list that I immediately wrote to them to ask if it was true... As it turns out, while Territorial continues to be owned

privately, by Tom & Julie Johns, one of their seed suppliers, Seminis, is in fact owned by Monsanto. Over the course of my correspondence with staff from Territorial, they provided me with a list of the seeds currently purchased by Seminis, which I have attached. And I was told that the owners are 'considering' whether or not to continue using Seminis as a vendor.

I'm sending this information out in the hopes that *you'll* consider writing to Territorial Seeds to request they terminate their relationship with Seminis, as well as expressing support for them as a company you'd continue to buy seeds from in the future. I can't express enough how important it is for those of us who are dedicated to food security, and the ongoing availability of good, local, organic produce, to do whatever we can to prevent Monsanto from colonizing our primary sources of seed. Toward that end, I'm also posting the list of companies owned by Monsanto for your

review, in case you find others whose seeds you've bought.

* Territorial Seeds

* Totally Tomato

* Vermont Bean Seed Co.

* Burpee

* Cook's Garden

* Johnny's Seeds

* Earl May Seed

* Gardens Alive

* Lindenberg Seeds

* Mountain Valley Seed

* Park Seed

* T&T Seeds

* Tomato Growers Supply

* Willhite Seed Co.

* Nichol's

* Rupp

* Osborne

* Snow

* Stokes

* Jungs

* R.H. Shumway

* The Vermont Bean Seed Company

* Seeds for the World

* Seymour's Selected Seeds

* HPS

* Roots and Rhizomes

* McClure and Zimmerman Quality Bulb Brokers

* Spring Hill Nurseries

* Breck's Bulbs

* Audubon Workshop

* Flower of the Month Club

* Wayside Gardens

* Park Bulbs

* Park's Countryside Garden

And one final thing: here's a link to another seed company, Fedco, who posted information on their website about their own decision to forgo using Seminis any longer once they had been purchased by Monsanto: http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/monsanto.htm

Fedco Seeds - The Monsanto Debate/Monsanto Buys Seminis

Whats growning in my garden~ May edition~(also how the cold frame worked for me)

2010-05-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

The box closest to me is the one that I used the cold frame top on.

All the plants in the front are volunteer cherry tomato plants. Anybody want any?

Ermosa lettuce, with a few volunteer tomato plants in between. I don't have the heart to pull them and throw them out.

Bright colors swiss chard.

Spinach

Two of the four brocolli plants.

Tallest in back, cilantro, to the right chives, front oregano. All of these came back on their own.

In back is garlic. In front of that are red long of tropea.

Garlic and onions.

Happy gardening!!

Turkey update!

2010-05-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok I know I promised one of these a while back but all you country girls know what time of year it is. Which means you also understand that it is hard enough to keep you head on straight because of the amount of work that needs to be done. Let alone trying to keep a blog straight. So true to my motto "Better late than never ;)"

Remember those cute little fluffy birds a few weeks back? Well here they are now.

Not so little anymore. As you may notice there are only 4 instead of 5. I was going to mention later in my vacation posts about the phone call received while on vacation from my friend that was taking care of my animals that one of them was killed :( Turns out she decided to leave them out over night which was a big mistake. They need to be locked up at night because all sorts of things would like to make them a midnight snack.

Here is Kermit struting his stuff.

We have 3 males and one female. Not that it is relevant when they are going to be dinner.

Tukreys for us have been a pretty easy animal and we enjoy them both alive and on the dinner table.

Vacation day 2: Cumberland falls, KY

2010-05-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that this is not the way our vacation was supposed to be? Ok let me rephrase, this is exactly what our vacation was supposed to be but it is not what I had planned. Sometimes I wonder if God just chuckles while He watches me working on all of these plans that He knows are not going to work out. Day 1 we were supposed to be at the Kentucky Derby but it was rainy and cool. We were also suppose to be camping but again it was raining. Day 2 we were supposed to be in Chattanooga. Haha like I said not what I had planned.

Also though I was away and not able to post. Blogging was not far from my mind and with my handy dandy notebook (hahaha..if you have toddlers you know where that saying is from). But my notebook is not a blue paper one shaped like a dog paw. Mine is new and red and my Ryan bought for me a couple weeks ago. So I keeped it close by and wrote about each day on our vacay.

So now on to day 2

We stopped for the night at the Cumberland Inn. It is a beautiful hotel at a very reasonable price.

We woke up and the Boss took the kiddos to the pool for about 3 hours. Which meant peace and quiet for me, now that is what I call vacation! Then we packed up and made the decision against the weather mans advice to head back to the waterfall that we found in the rain on day 1. The rain was supposed to start by 1 pm and we reached the falls about 12:45. What the weather man did not foresee was that on the way we asked Macy (5) to pray that God would keep the rain away so we could see the waterfall.

We not only saw the falls but we got to explore the trails for about 2 hours.

Why we all should think a little more about reducing, reusing and recycling. Such gorgeous beauty God has created that man has tainted.

My wonderful husband and my sweet Macy.

The sights we saw were just overwhelming with the awesomeness of God.

I loved this tree

If you have ever had a shoe come up missing you really need to go look at the Cumberland river. I think this must be where they all end up.

We drove lots of these winding roads.

And guess what? On our way back to the car the rain started. Macy asked us why we always ask her to pray, I think it is pretty obvious why. The beauty we saw in this entire area is some of God’s greatest handiwork. It was just amazingly beautiful. This rain that I speak of some of you may have heard about on the T.V. We were driving right through the heart of these flood causing rains. God has His hand over us though and brought us through safely.

Then we were on the road headed to Chattanooga.

Our trip: day 1 Kentucky back roads.

2010-05-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

We started out on I-75 blazing down the road and making great time. Which is all fine and good but have you ever seen the movie "Cars"? Yes, I am talking about the one with all the talking cartoon cars. Well in that movie it talks about the old forgotten almost ghost towns that are off the beat path but were once pretty happening places. In my opinion the best way to travel is to get off the interstate and go the road less traveled. (Come to think of it that is kind of the way I live my life). Anyways, so part way into Kentucky I convinced the Boss to forgo speeds pushing 80 and take the next exit to nowhere.

I will not lie it does take some adjusting of the mindset from the modern, get where you are going as fast as you can attitude. To life is more about the trip than the destination! But when we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of Daniel Boone national forest. Somewhere amongst the winding roads, rocky cliffs and waterfalls we lost any sense of where we were going and were loving right where we were. I think there is a life lesson somewhere in here. Oh it was beautiful! We were exploring and discovering something new with each bend in the road. Maybe not JUST like Daniel Boone but cool none the less. And I am sure you can imagine what the kids were feeling looking out into these forests with trees and rocks everywhere you turn and very little evidence of human presence anywhere. We talked about bears and mountains, waterfalls and trees. If it hadn't been pouring down rain we would have pitched our tent and slept amongst the bears. Unfortunately, we risked the chance of floating away if we would have done that.

So this was day one of the 7 day trip through 9 states. The best part is the adventures have just begun!

I promise there will be pictures to come. I guess I got so caught up in the moment taking a picture didn't cross my mind. I will do better, promise!

Some bonding, a tackroom, a coldframe. aspargus, fruiit trees, looking forward to rain!

2010-04-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have to appologize in advance for the lack of photographic input. I have been so overwhelmed with all the work around here that I have neglected to have my camera at arm reach at all times. So if you can bear to read with no visual stimulation then kudos to you ;).

First, bonding

The honeymoon phase with my new horse was nearly jeopordized by his pushy antics. He for no other reason than ,he can, thought it a good idea to see how much he could get away with, with me. The last straw was when I tied him and he threw his head and snapped the clip on the lead line. So after some wonderful advice I decided to settle this matter. But I knew that would take time. Time has been in very short supply around here lately. Wednesday I had a couple hours so I decided to take on this battle of the wills. I was a bit skeptical that it was gonna work quickly but here we go. I took him to his stall and attempted to tie him. He acted like his normal self ancy and pushy self. So immediatly took him out to lunge him and worked him until he was ready to listen. Only about 15 minutes. Then back to the stall. It took 3 times of this and it was like magic. His attitude was 100% different. He stood quietly while I groomed him and it was wonderful and encouraging that we were getting along. I did the same thing on Friday and it only took lunging once! Then we had a fantastic ride!!! Oh it was glorious! He was really listening to me and I even had the chance to figure out some of his cues. Oh I cannot explain how wonderful our ride was.

Second, a tackroom.

My hardworking farmboy (AKA my husband) went out to the barn and built me racks for my saddles and saddle pads. So now I have a bonafide tackroom!

Third, a coldframe.

We have this pile of wood that we salvaged from a platform we tore down in our barn. Farmboy has been busy repurposing this wood into garden boxes. Well we have two windows that are hanging around our barn from some reason or another. Today he made me a small coldframe with some of the wood and windows! I am so blessed to have such a willing handy man that is always up for yet another project at my request.

Fouth, asparagus.

Recieved my 25, 1 year old aspargus roots in the mail this week. We finally got them into two garden boxes (made out of repurposed wood) on Friday. Just before the rain was supposed to arrive.

Fifth, fruit trees.

We also recieved one rainier cherry, one stella cherry and one contender peach tree this week. We got them planted too. We put all this into the same area of our property. I decided to put all of my "permanent" fruits and veggies in one area. OCD much ;). So the fruit trees, aspargus, blueberry and raspberry plants will make up the area.

Last, looking forward to rain.

And can you see why? All of this has been wearing me to the bone. I have more than once this week considered getting on my horse and keep on riding.... But I am still here. Me and my neglected housework and laundry pile. Rain, God's way of making people like me take a break.

What farm life means to me part 2

2010-04-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

It is spending the day cooking and chatting it up with good friends. It is the kids outside climbing trees and chasing goats. It is planting fruit trees until 9:30pm. It is feeling like you want to throw in the towel on a weekly basis. It is remembering that there is no other life more satisfying so you may as well keep on going.