What a fun week! My dear precious sister-in-law and my niece and nephew came down on Wednesday. By the time they arrived my counter was overflowing with zucchini and squash from the garden. It was complete madness. I had been using them in every meal and not a dent was made and each day I was picking more. So with her canning expertise and my abundance of veggies, we made zucchini/squash relish and zucchini/squash pickles. I must say this really didn't sound like it would be a success - pickles not made from cucumbers REALLY? But the final product was beyond amazing! We used the relish that night on our hotdogs. The next day we put some pickles on our deli sandwiches. It is just beyond good. After day one of canning, we made zucchini/squash GLUTEN FREE cookies. They were so moist and delicious with a lemon frosting. It was great!The best part of the entire process was doing it with Maria. She was so fun and we had a good time talking and chopping.
Owen and Ruby shadowed their Uncle Jim all day and he is always great with the kids. The first day he took them fishing down at the pond. Oh my ~ Ruby caught a 14 inch Catfish and reeled it in all by herself. Owen did even bigger with his 17 inch catfish. I was so excited Jim used his phone to video these amazing catches.
Saturday night we had a big ole' pot of what I like to call "Ann's pot". It has potato, corn on cob, keilbasa, shrimp, onion in a pot of water seasoned with Old Bay Seasoning. MMMmmmm. This came from my friend Ann S. out of Nashville, TN. Of course she told me the real name and I just can't remember it, so I renamed it Ann's Pot. Well we added to this delicious meal Rhubarb Margarita's posted on FB by Gillian - It was just a delicious night.
I must say it was a great week other than a few crazy moments. Like our bright idea to try to shade the front porch using one of those canopy tents. Let me just start by saying this thing held up in 40mph Oklahoma wind at Rocklahoma. All was going GREAT - no wind in Kentucky it provided great shade to cut the heat off the front door and windows. Then while cooking lunch I hear a loud bang. I open the door to discover the canopy was over my car. Ok, I try not to be materialistic, but my car is my baby! All I saw was white paint from the canopy poles all over my nice black car and of course lets not forget the scratches and dents. Many tears later and smart thinking from Jim (rubbing compound) the white was gone and we only have 2 scratches (barely visible) and one dent. No more great ideas coming out of me ~ well for a few days at least :)
Our other not so great moment was when Lucky (our grandma dog - 17 years old) went to get up out of her dog kennel and she was all leaning and kept falling. Well we have found she had a stroke. Ruby is such a caretaker, because she just has loved on Lucky and takes care of her. I pray she recovers, but readers I will say she has gone 2 days no eating. Yesterday she did eat a couple spoonfuls, but last night she was throwing it up. Many tears, much more than the car, have flowed daily. The tears have been full of sadness, but also just pure joy of all the wonderful memories I have of Lucky in our family. She is one super special dog! I pray she recovers and continues to bring us many great memories, but if her time is more limited than I want it to be, I will hold her in my heart forever and thank God for us finding this stray dog in Hawaii and making her part of our family. We were truly LUCKY to find her!
Focus for this week - learn to compost. It seems like it would be easy, but when I google there just seems to be way more to this activity than I thought. Of course dad said - just throw the food scraps in the garden. So I did this, REALLY dad - have you met my dog Rufus? I didn't even have the bag empty yet and he was eating it all up. I think Rufus may be part pig. So I will need to figure this compost thing out with a more contained system to keep the dog out. Wish me luck! Have a great week.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Adventures on the Farm
I haven't posted on here in a long time and I am thinking it is time to change the BLOG title to something more general since this won't have anything to do with gluten free baking. We left Edmond, Oklahoma May 30th to begin a new chapter in our life in Kentucky. Oh my what a difference. There are many moments I question our decision, but after I stop and pray I know we were doing what God wanted of us. Spending most my life in a city, this has been a serious learning adventure for me. Being 20 minutes from the nearest restaurant and grocery store has changed the way I cook and shop. It amazing me how much money we do not spend now! Of course that is a great thing since I have yet to find a job here.
Our first week was crazy as we were preparing to host the Williams Family Reunion ~ the first ever weekend long reunion. It was fabulous! I had a wonderful time and I think everyone else did also. We had people in tents, houses, on air mattresses. It was great.
Also our first week, we found a baby fawn. The momma was found later dead in the woods apparently giving birth to a second fawn (hoofs were visible). Sadly, Jim had to put the fawn down when she tried to stand and had a broken back leg. She would have never survived a day on her own. Whew ~ Welcome to country life Deana!
We are slowly getting settled as we work daily on various chores. Today we mowed the lawns - started at 9am and we wrapped it up at 2:15pm (that was both of us mowing too). I love using the zero-turn mower. How amazing is that invention! After mowing around all the trees by the double-wide, I may need to go ahead and rethink my decision to get some goats. I had decided against this due to upkeep of the goats, but wow would it help with the mowing and they would have them a real nice place to live and we would also get some great fresh goat milk. I could even take a stab at making cheese, goat soap, goat lotion. So many possibilities!
I go up and see the horses daily and love on them. Spirit is getting very used to us and comes over for a nice rub down when we go into the horse pasture. He is still bossy though and does not allow Jessie or Domino to get any attention. I hope by fall I will be able to get up and ride him. After my daily visit with the horses, I go over and check on the cows. Our bull calf is a little mischievious! He keeps getting out of the cow pasture and we find him in the wooded area, just on the other side of the barbed fence. So some fence reinforcing work is on tap this week too. They are beautiful cows. There is a terrible fly issue around the cows though, so in addition to everything else I am learning, I have been making myself a fly expert. So this week I will be working on an all natural fly spray to spray on the cows and horses to kill the current flies. I have learned about a salt like that kills fly larvae, which will prevent future flies, and I have learned of a mixture I can make that flies drink then they die. Next year I will be more on top of this and not let it get out of control. Some flies are always expected, but this is an outright overtake by the flies and it is not good for the cows or horses to have this many on them. I can't wait till we start building the herd more and then can have some butchered. I haven't built my chicken coop yet, but need to get on that soon. I want to get some chickens in here before the end of summer. My plan is to use them for eggs, but also have some to kill and eat.
There is some great wildlife and I am thinking of some great hunting for Jim. Deer every night out in the field. I saw a turkey one morning from the kitchen window. Jim and I both feel we heard a bear one night. It was a little on the scary side actually, so needless to say ~ we carry guns as we walk through the woods! The catfish in the pond are getting bigger. We hope to get it stocked more by summers end.
My garden is beyond amazing! We kept it small this year since neither of us has kept a garden before. Jim came and planted back in April and when we got here it was alive with plants. I have picked so many zucchini and squash they are everywhere. Our beans look about ready to start picking. Cucumbers will be anyday now. My tomato plants are starting to liven up after some good rain. The corn is about waist high. Onions are delicious and the beets are really looking good as are the carrots. Our canteloupe, watermelon, and pumpkins are getting bigger each day. I pick lettuce about every other day for an amazing fresh salad. It is just so wonderful to grow and eat your own food. I have plans to continue building and expanding our garden, especially after our house is built. This year I want to get aspargus, rhubarb, and rasberry bushes in as these take a few years before we will be able to fully harvest. I hope to get a peach tree or two planted this year also.
This past weekend, we drove to Nashville to visit with some dear friends from Naples Italy. It had been eight years since I had last seen them. As I reflect back on my life, wow I have done some pretty amazing things and I feel so blessed! Many people never leave their state or even their county or hometown. With all my fears about this move, I do feel it was time to pack up and leave the comfort life of Edmond. I have loved downsizing and getting rid of things that at one time I thought I had to have! It is crazy. I would recommend a book I am currently reading: "7 - an Experimental Mutinany against Excess" by Jen Hatmaker. What a wonderful book to help refocus on our true purpose in life and our relationship with God.
Well my dear readers, I was hoping to put a few pictures up, but they were taking way to long to download and many of you can see them on my FB page anyway, so I will leave this blog entry with no pics. Sorry!
To stay true to my blog title, I have made a Gluten Free cookie since I have been in Kentucky. I used the chocolate chip recipe on the back of some chocolate chips, but used of course my gluten free flower blend and organic cane sugar (rapunzel). This time I even cut the 1 cup of butter out and used 1 cup of coconut oil (AMAZING!). The other variation...I crushed up 1/2 cup of GF pretzels and put into the batter. Oh my word..... words cannot really describe the deliciousness of this creation. The pretzel addition were a tip from my dear sister-in-law who I am envious of her cooking mastery! Sorry God, I will work on not being jealous!! My next baking adventure will be this week, maybe even tomorrow as I master some GF zucchini bread (I got to start making a dent in the using the 20 zucchini taking up fridge space). So I will let you know how that goes.
Happy Baking!
Our first week was crazy as we were preparing to host the Williams Family Reunion ~ the first ever weekend long reunion. It was fabulous! I had a wonderful time and I think everyone else did also. We had people in tents, houses, on air mattresses. It was great.
Also our first week, we found a baby fawn. The momma was found later dead in the woods apparently giving birth to a second fawn (hoofs were visible). Sadly, Jim had to put the fawn down when she tried to stand and had a broken back leg. She would have never survived a day on her own. Whew ~ Welcome to country life Deana!
We are slowly getting settled as we work daily on various chores. Today we mowed the lawns - started at 9am and we wrapped it up at 2:15pm (that was both of us mowing too). I love using the zero-turn mower. How amazing is that invention! After mowing around all the trees by the double-wide, I may need to go ahead and rethink my decision to get some goats. I had decided against this due to upkeep of the goats, but wow would it help with the mowing and they would have them a real nice place to live and we would also get some great fresh goat milk. I could even take a stab at making cheese, goat soap, goat lotion. So many possibilities!
I go up and see the horses daily and love on them. Spirit is getting very used to us and comes over for a nice rub down when we go into the horse pasture. He is still bossy though and does not allow Jessie or Domino to get any attention. I hope by fall I will be able to get up and ride him. After my daily visit with the horses, I go over and check on the cows. Our bull calf is a little mischievious! He keeps getting out of the cow pasture and we find him in the wooded area, just on the other side of the barbed fence. So some fence reinforcing work is on tap this week too. They are beautiful cows. There is a terrible fly issue around the cows though, so in addition to everything else I am learning, I have been making myself a fly expert. So this week I will be working on an all natural fly spray to spray on the cows and horses to kill the current flies. I have learned about a salt like that kills fly larvae, which will prevent future flies, and I have learned of a mixture I can make that flies drink then they die. Next year I will be more on top of this and not let it get out of control. Some flies are always expected, but this is an outright overtake by the flies and it is not good for the cows or horses to have this many on them. I can't wait till we start building the herd more and then can have some butchered. I haven't built my chicken coop yet, but need to get on that soon. I want to get some chickens in here before the end of summer. My plan is to use them for eggs, but also have some to kill and eat.
There is some great wildlife and I am thinking of some great hunting for Jim. Deer every night out in the field. I saw a turkey one morning from the kitchen window. Jim and I both feel we heard a bear one night. It was a little on the scary side actually, so needless to say ~ we carry guns as we walk through the woods! The catfish in the pond are getting bigger. We hope to get it stocked more by summers end.
My garden is beyond amazing! We kept it small this year since neither of us has kept a garden before. Jim came and planted back in April and when we got here it was alive with plants. I have picked so many zucchini and squash they are everywhere. Our beans look about ready to start picking. Cucumbers will be anyday now. My tomato plants are starting to liven up after some good rain. The corn is about waist high. Onions are delicious and the beets are really looking good as are the carrots. Our canteloupe, watermelon, and pumpkins are getting bigger each day. I pick lettuce about every other day for an amazing fresh salad. It is just so wonderful to grow and eat your own food. I have plans to continue building and expanding our garden, especially after our house is built. This year I want to get aspargus, rhubarb, and rasberry bushes in as these take a few years before we will be able to fully harvest. I hope to get a peach tree or two planted this year also.
This past weekend, we drove to Nashville to visit with some dear friends from Naples Italy. It had been eight years since I had last seen them. As I reflect back on my life, wow I have done some pretty amazing things and I feel so blessed! Many people never leave their state or even their county or hometown. With all my fears about this move, I do feel it was time to pack up and leave the comfort life of Edmond. I have loved downsizing and getting rid of things that at one time I thought I had to have! It is crazy. I would recommend a book I am currently reading: "7 - an Experimental Mutinany against Excess" by Jen Hatmaker. What a wonderful book to help refocus on our true purpose in life and our relationship with God.
Well my dear readers, I was hoping to put a few pictures up, but they were taking way to long to download and many of you can see them on my FB page anyway, so I will leave this blog entry with no pics. Sorry!
To stay true to my blog title, I have made a Gluten Free cookie since I have been in Kentucky. I used the chocolate chip recipe on the back of some chocolate chips, but used of course my gluten free flower blend and organic cane sugar (rapunzel). This time I even cut the 1 cup of butter out and used 1 cup of coconut oil (AMAZING!). The other variation...I crushed up 1/2 cup of GF pretzels and put into the batter. Oh my word..... words cannot really describe the deliciousness of this creation. The pretzel addition were a tip from my dear sister-in-law who I am envious of her cooking mastery! Sorry God, I will work on not being jealous!! My next baking adventure will be this week, maybe even tomorrow as I master some GF zucchini bread (I got to start making a dent in the using the 20 zucchini taking up fridge space). So I will let you know how that goes.
Happy Baking!
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