Winter is Coming!

Yes I am a game of thrones fan!  Although I started on the books, I have become hooked on the series.  Winter is on the way though in real life and we are getting ready.  While youngest son was here he pulled all the weeds and plants out of the garden so it is winterized.  (he did a better job than I was going to!) 

 The Garlic is planted and covered for the cold weather.

 The leaves have been beautiful, however this week they all just fell off in unison!  Hubby and I have raked 18 bags (39 gal lawn and leaf bags!) of leaves for the compost and mulch and some for the trash company who make compost and sell it. 

  We had our first fire today as it was just a hair above freezing when we got up and didn't get a lot warmer during the day. We bought a new wood 'holder', and will have more wood on the porch so when it snows we don't have to trudge to the barn.

 I love this time of year!

We took son # 3 home to California so we could see the rest of the family too.  Got to see son number 2 and their new digs, they are living in the mountains and working at a year round camp.  Hiking, horseback riding, skiing, boating and all that!

Mom went with us to see where they were.  This is the lake they see from their cabin.

 This is where they do s'mores each night with guests in the summer....

Here is son, wife and Grandma.  They seem to be very happy in the mountains.  (son and wife that is, grandma is perfectly happy in the valley! No snow!)

Of course we had to see Miss Lily!

Barefoot in her pretty dress...she is such a character!

And of course we got to see oldest son and his wife as well.  Daughter in law number one loves to play board games so we had several 'game nights'!





October went by very fast it seemed and I have no reason to believe that time is going to slow down for me at this point!  I am working on Christmas gifts and looking forward to son #2 and wife coming to visit in December as the camp is closed for 3 weeks getting ready for Christmas guests.  The mountains got about 2 feet of snow today just 30 miles from us...yup winter is coming...fast!

Slow Living Monthly 9

I can see the evidence of fall but just can't believe the summer went so fast!  I was in Missouri at the begining of September so am going to include two months worth of info and doings.

 Here is our slow living monthly link up for September. 

Nourish - The oven can now come back into use!  We do not have central heat or air conditioning and I sort of pride myself on not turning the oven on in the summer so as not to heat up the house more than needful.  I tend to get real excited about the cooler weather and the fun of having an oven again!  Made pull apart bread and homemade cookies already.   Have gone back to bread baking in the oven.  (In the summer the bread is made in the bread machine as a rule)  As the weather cools down the oven is used more and more and helps to heat this part of the house a little extra.

Prepare - Since  I knew I would be gone in August, I did most of my canning and pickling in July, fortunately the weather and the harvest cooperated.  Hubby became a master at freezing tomatoes while I was gone - we have bags of tomatoes with onions, or garlic or peppers in our new freezer!  (I still think he bought the freezer at that moment because he was afraid I would ask him to water bath everything!)  I will not complain, a freezer is something I have wanted for a long time, and it doesn't matter why we got it, it's there.  Since I got home (September 10th) I have finished off the cucumbers by doing a batch of dill

Cucumbers and corn on the same stalk!

relish, and taking the Armenian cucumbers to Bible Study and forcing friends to take them home with them!  While I liked the flavor, and they were very productive I will not plant them again as they just took over the garden and even ended up climbing my corn stalks!  (Hubby and I referred to them as our "zucchini crop" for the year!)  There are still a few carrots, a couple of cantaloupe, a watermelon and a few hardy tomatoes left in the garden.  The herbs did grow back after the cutting I did on them in July and this week I will start bringing them in to preserve for the winter, before we get a frost.

Reduce - I recently did a post on my "granny squares of grandmas yarn" which uses up all the old scraps of yarn she had.  I have also dug out my old skirts from several years ago when I dressed up for work and church.  I like skirts and jumpers etc, and have just gotten out of the habit of wearing them.  At our new church more of the women wear skirts and dresses so my project this month is to do alterations on the skirts so that they fit the body I have at almost 60 rather than the one I had at 40! (sigh...I suppose you guessed I am not making them slimmer!?) I am cutting off the tops and adding yokes and elastic waistbands.  I haven't tucked a shirt in for years and this will add years more life to these outfits that I spent good money on at the time to get quality goods.  Pictures will be forthcoming. (if it works)

Green - I have run out of ideas for this category, we have just done the usual, composting, recycling etc.

Grow - Ah, the "close in" woodpile, growing and ready for winter.  The rest of it is out in the barn and will be used on days when it is not too cold or wet to go the distance.  Keeping a supply close to the door makes the 'blizzardy' days a little easier.  I know there are those who do not think that wood stoves are very 'green'.  Let me make my case - The wood we buy is from fruit orchards that are being cut down to make room for young new trees, our wood stove is EPA rated at the highest efficiency (when we are burning you can't even see smoke coming from the chimney!) - last year we heated our home during a very long and cold winter on just a cord and a half of firewood!  So let me know if you disagree (nicely please!)


Create - All of my creativity recently has been focused on my crochet hooks or my sewing machine!  I am in the process of creating a new website that is requiring me to relearn the html that I knew a few years back and then forgot!  This is a family history website and will hopefully give me enough space for the whole lot of it!

Discover - During my time in Missouri I joined the Putnam County Genealogical Society and read the entire 2 volume set "A history of Putnam County".  It has histories submitted by families in the area and stories about local landmarks from newspaper accounts etc.  I have a hard time convincing my kids or husband that this was an 'awesome read' but it's OK, someday people will call me eccentric and they will just be old!! 

Enhance - My time with Grandma and Mom was my 'enhance' time this recent period.  I feel so blessed to have been able to help get grandma get out and about and take drives and go visiting.  Grandma has continued to get weaker and is failing now, she is pretty much bed fast and ready to go home to be with the Lord.  I hope I can help now by encouraging my mom and making her laugh now and then, I am so glad that mom is able to make this effort to see that her mom remains at home till the end.  (so proud of her...told grandma she was lucky - she gets to be 102 and her 80 year old daughter is still in good enough shape to take care of her!)  It probably won't be long now though and that is a good thing.
 

Home of a champion!

Enjoy - We went with friends to the Boise "Tour de Coop" tour of urban gardens and chicken coops.  There were 7 houses on the tour and each had interesting gardens and different kinds of hen-houses.  What fun to see all the decor and planting ideas. we even got to see the Western Idaho Fair Grand Champion Rooster!  Very cool of these families to open their yards to a bunch of strangers, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot about backyard chicken raising. (this is an eventual goal of ours) The houses ranged from the edge of town up in the hills to right downtown in high density housing and from 2 to 10 birds.  We learned about the laws and regulations and about keeping the flock warm in the winter.  A good time was had by all, and we even won a door prize! (a cool cookbook and a dishtowel/oven mitt combo with...you guessed it- chickens on it) 

The bridge across the river and hubby

Hubby and I also went fishing on the Snake River (OK he fishes and I take a crossword puzzle and my crocheting - and of course a lunch!) The fish were not biting but the day was beautiful!











Be sure to check out the other blogs on the Monthly 9 here

Finishing Up For The Season

Frost on the ground two days running definitely says the garden is done!  This week I finished up some things from the garden - dehydrating the last of the herbs and green tomato pickles.  Thought I might get the curtains done for the kitchen as well but the sewing machine is taking a holiday and left behind a great blob of thread in the bobbin compartment, I'm pretty sure it is not coming back till I clean it out and maybe oil - so that is on the list for tomorrow.

I think I figured out my love of fall.  Spring is nice but spring is the harbinger of more work to come.  As I consider myself to be naturally lazy (My dream job is still book reviewer!  Somebody pay me to read all day!) fall then is better - all the good - cooler temps, pretty scenery and fall is the precursor of winter - projects, reading near the fire, warm bread and hearty soups and stews.  Oh yes I love fall!

Green Tomato Pickles is something I don't make all the time, I don't always have enough green tomatoes, just depends on how fast it gets cold and how many don't ripen on the vine - some years it stays warm long enough I have hardly any.  I found this recipe in an old  'Doubleday Cookbook Complete Contemporary Cooking Volume 2' from 1975.  This was one of the cookbooks my MIL shared with me years ago when hubby and I first got married and I needed the help!  :)  Around 2000 she and Dad were in Mississippi on a trip when she got deathly ill and was in the hospital for a month, their garden at home suffered and hubby and I went up to clean it out before they got home - there were tons of green tomatoes and I just couldn't throw them out, so some went in newspaper and ripened and then I went searching for recipes for green tomatoes.  I discovered I do not like 'fried green tomatoes' don't care what Jessica Tandy said in the movie.  But this looked interesting and I tried it.  We opened jars to rave reviews and most have said they sort of taste like 'bread and butter' pickles.  Here's the recipe:

Green Tomato Pickles - makes about 5 pints
2 quarts sliced unpeeled green tomatoes
2 Tbsp pickling salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 pint cider vinegar
2 Tbsp mustard seeds
1 tsp celery seeds
2 bay leaves crumbled
   (I used equivalent amount of pickling spices)



2 large yellow onions peeled and sliced thin
   (I used frozen diced onions)    
2 large sweet green peppers cored seeded and
   minced                                                               
1 large sweet red pepper or 1 small hot chilli pepper
 cored seeded and minced  (I do not put this in)

green peppers

Mix tomatoes and salt, cover and refrigerate overnight; drain well.  Wash and sterilize 5 pint jars and lids, stand on a baking sheet and keep hot in a 250 degree oven until needed.  Mix sugars, vinegar, spices and onions in a very large enamel or stainless steel kettle, cover and boil slowly 10 minutes.  Add tomatoes and peppers and simmer, uncovered stirring now and then for 5 minutes.  Ladle boiling hot into jars filling to within 1/8 inch of top (I leave more space than this) and making sure liquid covers vegetables.  Wipe rims and seal; cool, check seals, label and store in a cool, dark, dry place 4-6 weeks before using.

Jars in the oven - let me say here this is not a method I recommend, I suspect modern regulations would say to water bath or something similar - do this way at your own risk!
I'm comfortable with the amount of vinegar killing most germs but you are on your own!

boiling  the vinegars and sugar - this is the part where hubby walks out and says "whew the whole house smells relishy!" 

boiling for another 5 minutes after adding peppers and tomatoes.

I had almost double the green tomatoes so ended up with almost double the jars - 8 pints total.



The little bits of pinky red you see are the couple of almost pink tomatoes I decided to leave in the mix for the color!
Hope you enjoy -

Fall is here - I think.

You can feel it in the air, the coolness in the breeze, the need for a little extra on the bed at night - I think fall is here or at least close.  Why aren't I sure?  Because every year about the time I predict the demise of summer it comes roaring back for a week or so and I am depressed.  I love fall!  I am ready for fall, I want the trees to start turning, I want to break out light jackets, use my oven again, watch football and work on my winter hobbies.  I have enjoyed my summer and I think we have accomplished a lot this year on the property, but I am done. 

I have celebrated this Labor day weekend by contracting some kind of gastrointestinal bug, so we didn't get to church this morning (limits to things we try to share!) and I just have no energy this afternoon so I'm working on cleaning out my computer files.  This involves me going through every folder one at a time and organizing the files, making new files for things that have built up, separating folders if they have become overused or unwieldy.  I do this fairly often and have really been pleased over the past 2 years with the results. (saving time spent looking and searching through files and folders) Instead of a 'recipe' folder with a lot of saved documents or a bookmark folder with a lot of blogs and web pages that I can't remember why, I made internal folders so I have the equivalent of tabs like the recipe books.  Divided my Genealogy files on the computer into ever smaller family units (this one grows by leaps and bounds sometimes!)  I have been scanning over 30 years of photos (mine), and 50+ years of photos (relatives, in-laws, grandmas) onto my computer so I went through and grouped them by activity, so I have a file of 'Christmas' and within the folder are the years and whose house we were at.  This has helped keep it in control and made it easier to find things.  When someone asks for pictures of some event (like my cousin did for Grandmas 100th birthday party) I can go to the file labeled 'trips to Missouri' and then go through the individual years, rather than having to ask (or remember) what year it happened!  This is an ongoing project but at the end of it (hopefully this winter) I will have handed each of the kids a set of CD's with all the family photos on them and not have to worry about being fair (who got that picture - I wanted one of those!) or how much it will cost.  It will make a nice gift in a notebook with CD sleeves!  This also insures that they won't end up with a box of photos of folks they don't know or remember, labeling on the computer is a snap.  I have a few photos of Hubby's family that I don't know, he doesn't remember and his folks have passed away!

The other plus to this will be the 'what do I grab' issue, I will have all my photos and genealogy information (which I think is Terribly important!) on a set of CD's in my emergency bag that includes birth certificates, passports, insurance policy copies etc.  I also  have a CD in that bag with pictures of everything in my house including pictures of my drawers!  From an insurance standpoint it is a great thing to have in case of fire or flood or hurricane, you can prove you had all that stuff and there is no arguing about it!  Insurance adjusters love people who can prove their stuff existed, it makes the job so much easier!  I cannot tell you how many claims interviews I did where I would have to remind someone "of course you owned underwear?"  It is hard to remember things after a disaster - as you read this try to do a mental inventory of one of your kitchen drawers, then go an check - how many things did you forget were there?  If you can't remember/list them you won't get compensated after a fire etc.

This organizing chore takes several hours about once a year and I divide it up usually into smaller bits by doing 'bookmarks' one night and 'documents' another, but since my office is near the bathroom and I don't feel like moving around much I may get the whole thing done today!

This is also allowing me to stay inactive and not be too bored!!!
The kids will be here a week from tomorrow - I'm so excited!  I have so much to do!

Somehow this turned into a sort of 'brag and nag' thing - sorry, blame it on the stomach ache! 

Waning Days of Summer

It is in the air, that thing, the smell, the feel that says we are on the tale end of summer and not the beginning.  You would know even without a calendar - but you can't explain it to your city friends to save your life!  We have accomplished so much and yet have so much left to do. (sigh)
Still no hot running water - the plumbing issues were worse than we thought and now there is more electrical rewiring.  So we get to practice our disaster plans for water and bathing etc.  Yes we can do without hot running water - it is just not as easy.  But we have lived now without running water, without hot water, without a stove, and without air conditioning in the hottest summer on record.  Yup it's doable - OK so I'm ready to stop practicing!!  (smile)

I have been thinking about the political climate and all that is going on in the political arena lately. I am convinced now that so many differences could be solved if we just used the right words!  We conservatives need to learn to use the correct words so we could quit scaring the the other side!  We do scare them you know, with our guns and our God, all that clinging you know.  So I have come up with a few suggestions to help our progressive neighbors get over their fears....
My suggested word Substitutes:
Food Storage = Earthquake Kit (Snowstorm Kit, Hurricane Kit -you see where I'm going here)
Bicycle, horse = Green Transportation
Homesteading/living off the grid = Sustainable Lifestyle, Permaculture living
Gardening and food preservation = Natural/organic food
Concealed Carry classes I teach for women = Empowering women, closing the gender gap
(smile) I think I just lost them!!  Oh well I still think the theory is a good one!

Back to fall -  fall and winter are my favorite seasons, I hate to be hot, I am more comfortable a little cool.  I love the colors and the smells.  I love that crisp bite to the air.  I love football!!!  My beloved Broncos will be playing this Sunday night and I have already informed my sports challenged Handy Hubby that the TV is mine for the duration of the game!!!  What?? Orange is a fall color!!!  I miss my Daddy most this time of year, he and I and my brother - hundreds of miles apart would be calling each other throughout every Bronco game and then do the breakdown afterward.  He was a HS football coach for years and my brother and I were weaned on football.  My Mother is a saint!!!

For the record - I love the colors of the leaves on the trees, once they hit the ground or the roof they become enemies, if I could just train them to fall into the compost buckets!