Recently in Living Well Category

The drought hit us pretty hard in this part of Virginia. Pumpkins aren't as plentiful and in most places they are priced at a premium. One place was selling them for $2.77 per pound. Last year they were .39 cents per pound. I can't see paying that for a pumpkin and only using it for a day or two and pitching it out. That is a waste of food, if not for people then for animals. The frugal part of me just comes up short and I told the kids no pumpkins for the front porch this year.

Instead we took that same money and bought fun-kins. The faux look-alike pumpkins that won't rot, we can use every year and I don't have to feel bad about wasting food.

 

We waited until the craft stores where putting them on sale to move 'em out and we picked up several Sunday evening. I spent a little time yesterday carving them. If you haven't yet carved one of these don't be fooled. They are nearly as hard to carve as a real pumpkin. I used the same technique for transfering the pumpkin face then used an exacto knife to carve the lines. My hands were tired by the time I finished all of them. It ws work people! I used photoshop to make some face patterns. I printed them out to use as my guide for cutting. Using a stick pen I made little dots through the paper template then cut out the pieces following the dots.

You can see that Fingers McGillicutty had a great time being in the middle of it all. I did the carving and he carried them out to the porch for me. He gets very excited over everything. He wants to be in the middle of it all. He was climbing up and down on the table and chairs. He took the little pieces that came off as I carved and carried them around like priceless treasures. He is so funny. It is really hard for me to believe that in about a week he will be 21 months old. Already. He has left his baby stages very quickly. He is talkative but it is the baby talk that only the trained ear of a mother is able to interpret. Don't even ask Steve what he just said. He just stares at you with that look of a deer caught in the headlights.

I had been wanting to do the 'boo' set of pumpkins every year and finally this year I made them. With these foam pumpkins you can't use candles or the oil lights for lighting. I refused to buy those battery operated things that flash so annoyingly. Besides Halloween night is not a good time to have flashing lights in the dark that might set off some schitzo feind on a Jason or Michael Meyers trip and ruin a perfectly good evening. Also what a huge waste of batteries that I could better use in my camera making photos of my kids and the cute trick or treaters that come to my porch.

For this very out of the way place we get a lot of trick-or-treaters. alot who are too old to be out trying to get some candy. I am going to be mean this year. Anyone who looks like they are 14 or older I am turning them away with treats. Last year far too many teenage boys came to our house not once but TWICE trying to get candy. What is up with their parents letting them go out alone knowing they are scrounging for candy and in some cases pushing little kids down to get to a door first. I am not putting up with it this year. I am going to say, "NO," and send them on their unmerry way. We get about 200+ kids and that is ALOT of candy. And great day in the morning have you seen the price of candy this year? Are they lining the little foil packages with precious metals now days? I think I should dress up as the Grinch and be done with it. LOL

Ok. So. Moving on.

In keeping with the chicken theme I have had going lately I would be remiss to let you all down without at least one more post featuring poultry of some sort.  Here it is. This is my rooster jack o'lantern. I wish I had gotten a couple more of the really big pumpkins and done a hen on her nest to go with the rooster. We did go back to buy another big pumpkin but the craft store was all sold out. Imagine that. Two days before Halloween and the stores are selling out of decorations. What ever will we do when there is nothing left to buy at the after halloween sales? That is usually when I buy a few things to have for the following year without having to pay full price.

These pumpkins are lit with the replacement lights that are sold in the Christmas section. You know, the ones that you insert into a little hole in the back of a little village house or store. Now I shouldn't have to invest in pumpkin decor for a very long time. or perhaps we could add just one to the collect each year. That would be fun.

Before I go and start sorting out my candy to give out tomorrow night I have to tell you something about my goats. Cindy, the not so nice doe, is sick. She has little sores on her udder bag. I called the only goat vet in our area for hundreds of miles and she will be coming by sometime this morning to check her out. Also, we have been making some super nice homemade soaps to add to my baskets for Christmas gifts. Goat milk soap is some of the best for your skin. I have goat milk. PLENTY of goat milk. I'll make some photos to show you all of the process of transforming oils and fats and lye into some of the most luxurious soaps you can buy. Yes, I said lye. You cannot make soap without lye. Once the chemical process has taken place there is no lye left in the mix. It is the process of saponification. If someone tells you lye soap is harsh to your skin tell them they know nothing about soap. And tell them that bar soap mess they buy and shell out big bucks for is chemicals and actually a detergent they are washing their face with. Not soap at all. Wait till you see my goatmilk and cornmeal exfolliating bar! Or my goatmilk and lemon kitchen soap. Or my goatmilk and grits gardeners hand soap. Good stuff!

Go get ready for Halloween. See you tomorrow.

My mood is very light today*. Start the video below if you want a taste of the mood that has filled me inside out this afternoon. It's music to read by.

I was out on the front porch watering my plants. Gracie and Steven were in the driveway, Gracie pulling him along in his red wagon, their voices punctuated with bursts of laughter. The cool breeze in a grey sky stirred the leaves on the trees making the hanging baskets swing gently back and forth as they dripped water from the long soaking drink the shower hose provided just minutes before.

I love my front porch. I love the rockers. I love the plants. I love everything about it (except maybe those aweful lamps at the front door but those can be changed one day when I remember to pick something new up from Lowes. Perhaps this but with a brighter brass finish to match the hardware on the glass door. There are some very high priced things that I love but, get real, I am not spending that kind of money on some outdoor lights when these will work and look just as nice.)

There is something so completely southern and victorian and charming about ferns on a long front porch of a big white house. It is gentile. Even on a very hot day it looks cool and inviting. White rockers, white wicker, green ferns and tall glasses of lemonaide filled with cracked ice, sweating into cool puddles on the side tables as the creak of the rockers make harmony with the birds and crickets - soothing and serene is how my brain interprets it.

My grandmother always had tons of plants on her front porch. It was like a jungle. Passersby would see a big white house with a long white front porch filled with baskets and baskets upon baskets of various plants. She had pots of mother-in-law tongues, wandering jew (varigated and purple), swedish ivy, rubber tree plants, string of pearls, peace plants, bridal veil, spider plants, several types of begonias (angel wing is my favorite begonia), corn plant, hen and chicks, moses in the cradle -just to name a few. Her plants where monster sized. She fed dozens of plants weekly with a drink of water mixed with Peter's plant food (back when it came in little white cups). I can see her now with her gallon milk jug full of blue water and a large tumbler in her hand. Every plant got a full tumbler of water.

I remember that during the winter the room she kept them in had lots of light and was filled to brimming with her collection of plants. She would see something she liked somewhere and would pinch off a piece and bring it home and stick it in a pot of soil. She would plants seeds from her grocery store fruit just to see what she could grow.

My grandmother had a green thumb beyond belief. The vining plants she grew were amazing. Some of the plants would hang from their pots and measure over five foot in length. She would eventually get around to snipping them off and starting yet another plant or give them away to someone who was awed by her plants.

My grandmother never had ferns. I don't know why. I never asked her and she never actually said but she never had ferns on her front porch. I have always loved ferns. Especially boston ferns.

The boston ferns I picked up in early spring when it might have been a bit too cool for them to be outside. I had brought home two ferns and I broke them up into four pots. In this area ferns are at a premium in price. You could have knocked me over with a feather when one plant nursery had theirs marked at the low discount price of $19.95 each. Um, no thanks. Not interested. I found my two little baskets at walmart's garden center and repotted them myself. I have spent the summer periodically breaking them up and setting new pots. Now I have eight ferns in various stages of development.

I have no idea where I will put them when the weather changes and they need to be brought in. I love the hanging baskets they are in. The baskets are lined with cocoa fiber so watering them in the house will be a mess. It is a nusance to me to have to take all the plants one at a time to the tub and water them and then have to wait for them to drip dry before rehanging them.

The large ferns on either side of the door are two I picked up at Lowes garden center. The plants had been marked down for clearance for quick removal. I always try to have something large and green on either side of the front door. It just looks inviting to my eye. These two large plants need to be broken up and put into at least 20 inch pots. Where I would put 4 twenty inch pots so that they get good light and are easily accessible for watering? I hate dripping mess after watering plants but I love the plants. LOL I don't mind all the care they need when outside I just dread bringing them in and the leaf dropping and dripping water mess they can create. Any suggestions?

On the wicker tables are peace plants, I started those from 2 little tiny $2 pots (small small plants lol). They should be transfered to larger pot also. I don't know if a larger pot will as nice on those tables. I guess I need to break them apart and make new pots, too.

I don't think I can justify the need of new (more) flower pots to Steve. He won't understand that the square ones on the chains are outdoor pots and just won't do in the house. Also have you looked at the price of large pots? Plastic ones just will not do either. Added to the problem is the need for them to match the decor in the room in which they are to rest over the late fall and winter. See? Always something in need of beautifying. He completely won't understand and will suggest some of those old ugly green or white plastic pots most hanging baskets come from the nursery in. I want something ceramic and lovely to set on a dresser or side table upstairs. I want something fullbodied to set in the downstairs hall which floods with light. I can hang two of the plants in the kitchen in new hanging baskets but the rest will have to be transplanted to regular pots with a drainage saucer. Steve just wouldn't understand the need of it.

You know, you could save me from all of this headache and send me one of your own lovely 10 inch pots and take the chore right out of my hands. Email me at big red couch (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll tell you were to send them. Haha! Just kidding! I am not scarfing for free flower pots! Who am I kidding? Yes, I am! Ummm ...

See this little rocker? I know someone is going to ask me where I got it. This is one sweet deal. This is a rocker for Steven. At nine years old Gracie is still able to sit comfortably in it so it isn't as small as you might think it is. I had seen these rockers at Tractor Supply in early summer. I refused to pay the price they wanted for it. Nearly 100 bucks. The hell? It is a small rocker not an adult sized rocker. Every time I would go in I would look longingly at them but just could not pay the price for them. I watched and waited. One day there were two left and the store had marked them down 25%. The price was still not nearly good enough for me to bring one home with me. I was waiting and watching every time I went into the store until one day there was one left and it was marked down to 25% of the original price. Score! So I brought it home.

I love the look of my front porch. It makes me happy to be out there. I love water the plants and wonderful smell that rises with water, wet soil, plant food, and the fresh air. I even like the chore of sweeping the porch as I wait outside for Gracie to be picked up by the school bus.

Now that you have seen my front porch would you show me yours?

Post a photo of your front porch (or back porch or side porch or patio) and leave a link in the comments section of this post. I'll come visit and post your link here in the main body so others can come visit your porch.

*This post was written early saturday afternoon

Porches

Badger's front porch

You might remember back when I was pregnant (almost 2 yrs ago!) I got busy and painted the upstairs bathroom so that it would be nice when my mother came for a visit. All these months later I had been biding my time, absolutely sure the furnishings I really wanted would fall into my hands. A couple of months ago we went to an estate auction. An older gentleman was selling off everything in his outbuildings. Some of it had been around since his grandfather was a boy. Some of it had been collected over the years and then cast aside. Up for auction came this old beat up bureau that had been in an open barn for over 20 years. I was once deep dark almost black in its finish but now was so weather worn that it was greyish white. I knew that piece of furniture. It most definitely was not a bureau. I was a buffet to a long forgotten dining set otherwise called a sideboard. I knew this because I have one almost exactly like it, twice as big, inherited from my stepfathers estate. The large buffet is in my bathroom used as a dressing table and linen storage. I knew that removing the top piece with the small mirror it would fit perfectly in the upstairs bathroom. I really wanted it. Someone else bid on it but at $50 they quit and I won. It has been sitting upstairs for about two months aclimating itself to the temperature and humidity of our house. Look at the grain of that wood!Wednesday night I set about cleaning and began oiling it. Colby was mad to the point of tears that I was putting that "nasty old thing" in their bathroom. I told her to get over it. When she paid the mortgage she could decorate the house. She got madder. Stomped and huffed. Told me how it was too big to fit in the door. It was too big for the room. It was disgusting and ugly. I ignored her. Put it in place. Rearranged the linen storage and all of the upstairs toiletries. It is not too big!I think it looks pefect in there. It is the look I wanted to achieve. It certainly sets off the clawfoot tub. The only thing left that I would like to do in this room is to have hardwood floors put in - but they have to match my existing pine floors and to have crown molding put up. I have some glass shelves I am going to have Steve put up tonight tomorrow night. Matching pink soap!Heaven help me. He will certainly gripe about it. The flower arrangement is there to help take the eye away from the pipes that come up from the floor. The type of tubs I have the pipes are exposed and do not run inside the walls. Colby now loves the look. I knew she would.

One of the very best things I have learned to do is make yogurt at home in my very own kitchen. The kids eat about 1.5 quarts every day or day and a half. They have it for breakfast, make smoothies or have it for a snack. What is left in the jar gets scraped out and fed to the chickens as a cool treat in this hot, hot weather we are having. (It was 101 today! And we need rain so very badly right now.) You will need: A couple of clean quart jars with lids and ring A couple clean dish towels A cooler Boiling water A candy thermometer (Or a digital one) Milk Dry powdered milk Yogurt culture Boil a large pot of water. Pour it into your empty cooler to allow the cooler to begin heating up. Close the lid and let the cooler sit while you work on the next steps. This is your incubator. You are going to grow all of the beautiful and healthy bacteria that makes milk into deliciously thick and creamy yogurt. You can make more than 1 quart at a time, just remember to keep the ratio - (2 quarts milk, 2/3 cup dry milk powder, 4 tbsp culture) - (3 quarts milk, 1 cup dry milk powder, 6 tbsp culture) - (4 quarts milk (1 gallon), 1 & 1/3 cup dry milk powder, 8 tbsp culture). I make 3 quarts at a time. To make 1 quart of yogurt - 1 quart of milk 1/3 cup dry milk powder Mix well. Place over medium heat. Stir to prevent scalding. Heat milk to 185 degrees F. Watch it carefully. Don't let it boil and don't scorch it. In an ice bath begin to cool the milk down to a temperature of 110 degrees F. Sometimes it will drop very quickly. Other times it might take awhile. It depends on your type of pot and how much ice in your water bath. While your milk is cooling take the time to boil some more water and fill a couple of quart jars, wrapping them in a dish towel to insulate the heat. At 110 degrees add 2 heaping tablespoons of your yogurt culture to the milk mixture. Stirring well to mix. You can buy a yogurt culture in powder form but that is not what I use. I buy a very good organic PLAIN yogurt from the grocery store. Stoneyfield Farms to be exact. It has 6 different cultures in it and it one of the best on the market available in commercial form. You must use a plain yogurt. No flavors. None of that with the fruit already in it. Plain. Once your culture has been added pour your milk into your quart jar closing the lid hand tight. Wrap it in a towel. Pour the boiling water out of your cooler. Put the yogurt and hot water jars all in the cooler and close the lid. Don't open for 10 to 12 hours. When the yogurt is set move it to the refrigerator. Allow it to get cold before serving. If you make it in the morning it can incubate throughout the day and go into the refrigerator that evening. The yogurt will be perfect for breakfast the next day. I serve the girls a plain bowl. They top it with fruit, honey and granola. 3 quarts every 2 days. It must be good. I promise you it is good. Better than anything you can get in a grocery store. The homemade yogurt doesn't have a bitter after taste and it isn't as sour as its store bought cousins. You can add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar to the milk in the beginning if you prefer a sweeter dessert type of yogurt. If all you can find is the large containers of plain organic yogurt go ahead and buy it. You can spoon the yogurt into an ice cube tray and freeze it. Pop them out and keep them in a freezer bag. To make another batch of your own yogurt just set the number of cubes you need of the frozen yogurt out on the counter and let it thaw. In the beginning whne you mix your milk and dry milk powder you can also add a couple tablespoons of instant pudding to flavor it. Once you accomplish the basics of making the yogurt you can experiment and create your own custom flavors. This is one of the easiest, healthiest, best things I have taught the girls to make this summer. Next we are tackling mozzarella cheese. Go on. I dare you to make a quart.

We make our own compost. It is not hard to do. You can do it in an outdoor plastic trash can with a lid. We just do it on a larger scale. Warm, clean and free. Our compost is a mixture of the remnants of about 15 giant round bales of hay that were left scattered in our field and around the fence line by the previous owners, animal poop, yard clippings, orchard clippings, weeds, and the kitchen garbage of vegetable matter only. Pile it up, mix it up, wet it down. Keep it turned, keep it damp. The bacteria present will begin to get very active. On a cold morning you can see steam rising. When you turn it you can feel the heat. It can get hot to the touch. Natures way of cooking makes a very clean, dark brown dirt. The cabbage have tripled their leaves in a week. Yesterday I spread 15 scoops from our front end loader in the garden and around the grapes and fruit trees. The peas have doubled their size in a week. All of the plants love the nice rich tea that runs off when it rains. Compost tea is full of all the nutrients your garden plants need to grow and produce. I know it sounds gross to think of things rotting and decaying but when the cycle is complete compost is clean, doesn't stink at all. It smells fresh and clean. The corn hasn't sprouted yet. We are very careful not to put any meat scraps, oils, etc into the compost pile. We do not want to attract wild animals or rodents. Neither do you. If you make your compost use only vegetation and plant waste. The potatoes are peaking out from the soil. They are purple skinned. When I was spreading the compost I found some things we did not put in there. I have no idea where they came from. It is sort of gross but interesting, too. First, I shoveled up a scull. I have no idea what it came from. It looks to have the beginnings of horn bumps on the top of the scull. Second, I came across a jaw bone with teeth. It is not the same or part of the scull that I found. This was found in a different section of the compost pile. Third, I found a fully intact sea shell. Both halves still closed and the membrane sealed together. Do you think a bird could have dropped it? It takes me longer to do tasks now than it used to. When Colby is home in the mornings she watches Steven and the tasks roll right along. When she leaves for work and its just me and Steven things slow down and sometimes come to a grinding halt. Some days he is content to wander and play in the grass. Some days he climbs on the tractor and 'drives'. There are times he plays in the dirt. Then there are the days when he will not stay close to me. Days when he runs off the minute I turn to do something. Days when he is bound to fall head first into the koi pond. Those are the days I give up and we go inside. The past few days have been pretty productive. Today is already looking like it won't be so productive. Steven has been up since 4am whining and tossing and fretting. He only gets still and cat naps when I am holding him. It is 7:15am. I am already exhausted and pushed to my limit. I have so much that needs to be done today. Anyone want to come play with him while I get my chores done? P.S. - I know I have a ton of email and comments to answer but I haven't had time. But I will. Maybe this afternoon or tonight.

With warmer weather and lots of rain things are very busy on this little farm. It takes me an entire day to cut the grass, mow with the push mower places the rider can't reach, then trim with the weed eater and put out round-up as needed along the paved drive and tight places where weeds grow. Not to mention picking up limbs that drop from the trees. The pruning and cutting back as needed is another entire days work. Once the big stuff is done in early spring it doesn't need to be done again until nearer to fall. Thank goodness! Steven put up this rustic looking arbor for the grape vine to grow on. The vine was a tangle of knots and a lump of mess left by the previous owners. I have managed to prune, cut and mow as well as try to train the vine into some bit of order. Compared to the heaping mess blobbed on the ground this is a hundred times better. It took several hours to get the vines untangled and tied in place. We'll have to use bird netting this summer if we want any grapes.Steve and I also made these arbors of pvc and chicken wire for the peas in my garden to grow on. The total cost for them both was about $20. They should give plenty of room for the peas to grow on and make picking lots easier as the peas will hang down through the wire. Thanks gravity! The peas have sprouted.The very long awaited for fig trees are beginning to show signs of green budding. I am so excited over these trees! We have planted three of them -a very cold hardy variety. Fresh figs are incredible!The blueberry bushes are looking wonderful, too. We planted four of these. I made blueberry yogurt muffins this weekend. Check the recipe journal.The fig trees and the blueberry bushes were purchased from Lowes. I know many people who do not like buying plants from Lowes. I am willing to give it a try because of the cost difference. The fig trees from a nursery would cost me nearly $100 each up here. I found these at Lowes for $10 each. I think that says it all. The blueberries are very healthy looking and the price was far better than any place we had found also. Lowes will replace these plants or will refund our money if they fail to thrive within a year. Most places I know will not make good on their plants for a year. Right now I am just anticipating fresh figs and blueberries. What a luxury it will be! The damson trees I got from the National Arbor Day Foundation last year are look amazing this spring. They are now about 3 feet tall and growing beautifully. Damson jam is a luxury.The dutch early cabbages are doing great. 18 cabbages.So far the tomatoes are growing vigorously. Some even have blooms on them. 14 tomatoes. Not near as many as normal.This area near the koi pond is a troublesome lot. It always overgrows quickly with vines and clover. J. and Gracie pulled out the clover. I put down black ground cover. I then put in a bed of hosta that I bought from a PTA sale. Ten bags of mulch later and this place might finally be under control. The area is very shadey and the hosta should really thrive. I love the look of lush hosta.I love seeing small plants go in knowing the following year when they come back they will be amazingly big and incredibly beautiful. So now you know what I have been doing the last few days. We have also been working on the chicken barn. Those photos are a post all on their own. I'll get to it very soon. Have I shown you my little monkey lately? He self feeds. I keep the peel pulled down.He loves bananas. Does he look 15 months old?He eats an entire banana every morning for his breakfast. I wonder how long before he decides he is finished with them as his fruit of choice. I am buying fresh bananas twice a week otherwise they ripen on the counter too quickly. He seems so grown up lately. Feeding himself and drinking from juice boxes. He prefers to do things on his own. He also climbs far too much. It is wrecking my sanity.

1. Home alone from 7:30 am until 9 or 10 pm for the past 2 days. No help whatsoever with a baby who doesn't want to take a nap, refuses to take a nap and as soon as I do get him to take a nap someone who lives in this house calls and wakes him up at the very beginning of the nap!! Arrghhh! Note: I am NOT complaining about the baby I am pissed off about the damn phone callers who KNOW not to call in the middle of the afternoon unless it is a life threatening emergency situation. 2. NaNoWriMO? Hahahahaha! See #1. I am going to try and crank out some more words today. I'll try (I said TRY) to post what I have for the last four days sometime this afternoon. 3. Trying to get ahead with my Christmas organization. Ordered my cards and they have been delivered. When will I get them addressed? Hahahahaha! See #1 and #2. 4. I have chosen and ordered the kids Christmas pajamas. For those who are new here every Christmas the kids get new pajamas just for Christmas morning. This year we are doing plaid. When Colby and Grace were little I made all the pajamas and pj's for my neices and nephews as well. Now it is easier to buy them because the flanel material I have seen and used in the past few years has been poor quality that for unexplained reasons blew a hole after a couple washings. What is up with that? 5. I have items in the shopping carts of a couple websites for all my Christmas gifts from Santa. I just need to review, type in the credit card information and be done with my Christmas shopping for the season. Free shipping! Saves me a huge amount of trouble! 6. Thanksgiving will be with my in-laws. We are bringing the dessert. I plan to go get me some more of those stayman apples. I am in love with this apple. Steve has asked about planting a tree or two as I am smitten with them. I will be taking apple pies and pumpkin bread as my offering. 7. Which do you think Steve would like more - a plow or a disk harrow from Santa? Isn't that a damn fine and romantic Christmas present? 8. While I do spend a huge amount of time planning and preparing for Christmas I anticipate Thanksgiving just as much. It is the gateway to the most wonderful time of the year. I get so excited watching old Thanksgiving and Christmas TV specials. 9. I need to cut the grass one last time before everything is put away for the season. Good thing it is raining because I am not in the mood for grass cutting today. Maybe I will get a chance to come around and visit your journals today. 10. Do you plan ahead or wait till the last minute for your holiday preparations? I will post the prime rib/standing rib roast recipe on the recipe journal. Updated: Standing Rib Roast Recipe

I have a new favorite apple. I like it better than the apples in my orchard. It is a Virginia Stayman. The stayman is the perfect all purpose apple I have ever cooked with. Virginia Stayman The photo just cannot show you the detail in the color. This apple is not one grown commercially for grocery stores and the like. The skin it not perfect and has a bit of texture. The skin is also prone to splitting. Gorgeous yellowish white flesh The flesh is beautiful. I picked these up yesterday from a grower down in Nelson County. These are so very juicey. I can't begin to even relate the beauty of the yellowish white flesh. Nor can I even begin to describe the perfect tartness when you bite into it. I have never been much of an apple lover. I like apples and do cook with them but I am not much of a pick an apple to eat kind of person. These have made me change my ways. They are an awesome vintage apple developed from an 1866 winesap from Kansas (I think). Simply delicious. I am thinking about making a batch of applesauce for the baby and maybe some applebutter to have at Christmas. Yummy! Last night I cooked pork chops for supper. As a side dish I sauteed a few apples in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. It was a perfect addition to the meal. Time to mash the pumpkin I went yesterday and purchased two more cushaw pumpkins like Steve asked. The guy was so very nice and gave me a third one at no charge. I baked one last night and one this morning. Mini bread loaves and a quart of soup I made a batch of pumpkin bread and pumpkin soup. I took him down a quart of soup and a few loaves as a thank you. The cushaw pumpkin soup recipe is very similar to thePumpkin and Potato Soup I made last fall. The cushaw pumpkin bread recipe is also posted over on the recipe journal. Now you know what has taken me so long to get this post published this morning ... errr.. afternoon. Look! A sweet baby pumpkin. Well, that and trying to type with a baby banging on my keyboard. Or pulling my mouse cord. Or wanting to nurse. Or learning how to open the cabinet doors and pulling out a gazzion things. I do mean sweet. But he was so darn cute while doing it I couldn't resist smothering him with kisses and making him giggle. I have to go get ready for the trick or treating tonight. I'll have plenty of photos tomorrow. Happy Hallowe'en to you all.

Things have really picked up in pace over the weekend here. Just how big of a change? This big - The view of my backyard from the attic window this morning.We were left on November 3, 2005 with this for a backyard. It sat like this from November until this past weekend. Then a flurry of activity began as the weather had warmed up enough to be able to continue the construction process. These guys work fast.An electrician was scheduled for friday. He was a no show. The plaster guys were to come on Saturday. They went to the wrong job first. The water guy called he was on his way. Had to cancel. About two and a half hours later they were finished.Finally the plaster guys show up at 7:22am on a sunday morning. WTH is up with that? Where I come from no one does work on Sunday morning. It never fails to surprise how you can get just about anything done in Northern Virginia on a Sunday. Even a doctor appointment. Yes! How surreal for me. The plaster was pretty much considered dry but it is the water that actually cures it. It is all done in the same day.It took three of these beasts filled with water to fill the hole in the ground. This truck brought 5000 gallons of water. Another truck brought two loads of water at 4300 gallons a load. It takes longer than you think to empty a truck.That is somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,600 gallons of clorinated city water works water. MUCH longer.About 3 hours later the pool was finally filled. The girls sat out by the pool every minute possible anticipating the moment that would come when the pool was finally full of water. They saved everything from last summer to have on hand immediately without having to look for it.These two were bound and determined to get in as soon as the water was in. The water temperature was below 60F.Did I mention what the temperature was yesterday? Don't let all of that sunshine fool you. Official temperatureYes, you see correctly. Tomorrow I must tell you about the shoes the plaster guys wear.

What have I been doing that I could not post or come visit much this past week? Well, it has been spring break here and I have had kids home from school and a lot of spring cleaning going on. Most of the work has been outside the house. That is not a ghost on my porch. It is Colby sitting with the baby. This is what my house looks like with spring all here bright and shining. The boxwoods in front of the house that we took a couple feet off the height last spring have recovered and the inside that was bare is now filling in with nice green limbs and tender leaves. But they are still much too high and block a lot of the front of the house. So we decided it was as good a time as any to pull out the chainsaw and set to work around the house and yards. I told Steve to cut down anything that crossed the fence or cause the fence to break. There was little to nothing to be seen of this fence. Last spring we cut back about 7 feet of brush and undergrowth. Then I found out I was pregnant and the heat and the all day long morning sickness put a very quick stop to the cleanup. This week we cut everything down and completely exposed the fence so we can repair and replace it as needed. This pile is really bigger than it looks. I don't have anything to give perspective on it except to say it was about 7 feet long and over three feet tall. The porch is just over breat high on me and I stand 5'11". After cutting down everything along the fence we started on the boxwoods in front of the house. After Steven took down about a foot and a half I went back with the trimmers and clippers and took off almost another foot of their height. We also cut down some voluntary things that had been growing that blocked the front of the house. What to do with piles and piles of limbs and debris? What any red blooded male would do. Go out and buy a new toy peice of equipment. Yes, a chipper shredder has joined our vast array of tools and motorized equipment that can leave you lame. But is sure made quick work of all those limbs and leaves and stumps and roots! What took a couple hours to cut down took less than an hour to grind up into beautiful smelling mulch that is now around my plots of peonies. The boxwoods are as old as the house (97 years) and the only way to repair the past neglect is to plant new boxwoods in the gaps and let them grow in as fillers. So we bought 4 nice sized plants for this purpose. He has fussed and worked in this pond for several weekends now. He can be like a pissy old wiman aboutit some days. I won't complain too much there are worse things in the world. Steven also gave the pond its spring cleaning. He has pulled out buckets upon buckets of muck and vegetation. Now it is nice and clean and the koi fish love their spring cleaned home. Why do weeds grow like wildfire and you have to beg and plead with everything else to grow? While Steve worked on the pond I worked in the garden plots around the pond. I weeded the areas and made them all tidy and ready for the flowers to grow and bloom. This is the view from standing at the top of my fruit orchard. This is the view from standing at the bottom of the orchard loking toward the koi pond. The lightening strike last summer killed one of our 85 - 90 year old damson trees. Through the Arbor Day Foundation we have been able to replace the tree with a new tree. Steve planted this little tree last November. It and 3 others are thriving well. These wild violets cover the front yard and the orchard. The grass has a purple sheen to it there are so many. I cut grass this morning and they are so low they missed the mower blades and are still pretty. This is what the front of the house looks like after all the butchering, pruning, hacking and sawing. I don't have a photo of this morning of the new Boston ferns hanging on the porch. It has been raining all day and I haven't dared to go out and get the camera wet. A white house. A wide front porch. Rocking chairs. Boston ferns. It all just screams old fashioned goodness! This is what my baby boy did most of the days while we worked around the yard. I could totally eat him up. Doesn't this make you want to have another baby? *Sigh*