Country Critters

Day 2 of our cleaning

Today was day 2 of our cleaning out junk.  Hubby had the easy job he took 1/2 the boxes out of the garage and then went in to watch college football !!  I think he got the better end of that stick!

We girls we through all the boxes made a HUGE trash pile a small yard sale pile and a small donate pile.  We went through so many thing that brought back memories.  I found the star fish hubby and I found on one of our dates 20 years ago (yes it was already dead).  I found pictures of me and hubby back when we were dating, we were so skinny then  What happened .  I guess I learned how to cook to good! 

I showed hubby what I want done in the garage soon to be play room.  I want to put up dry wall and pain one side.  He is so cute , he told me he would do it for me!

Yesterday was the 1st day in a year that he let me do normal work!  I felt good but it also hurt at the same time.  But when he offered to do the dry wall it was neat.  Because before I broke my leg we girls would do it!   He is treating more and more like a princess, I love it and some times it drives me nuts!!   I want to be all the way normal and to just get up and do it.  But , this dang leg will not meet me there!  I have one more surgery to do and then we will see what he will do about the bones in my leg that are still broken.   I just wish it was over with!

I need to finish building my ranch, corral ,round pen , arena, fence off for my garden, till the land again, finish the goat pen, make room for a new storage unit, rebuild the feed shed, fix the barn and more. We girls can and will do it all.  Do you know it has been a year since I last rode my pony?!?!  I have been lead around on Cody, rode Stormy for a few minutes but that is it.   I need to redo all the hours I put in my pony, he has gotten verry ornery just running the land.   

Shayna will have to get all the bucking out of him before I get on.  If I was to land wrong on my leg and break it again they might not beable to save it again!  So Shayna gets the fun stuff!

Thats all for day 2.  God Bless, mj

My mom made me laugh , then think!

I come from a family of smart butts.  We all have it in us.  I get it more from Bubba (my grand father) and my mom loves it.

Mom sent me this email on bras and it made me laugh and think here is the part that made me laugh.

Have you ever wondered why A, B, C, D, DD, E, F, G, and H are the letters used to define bra sizes?
If you have wondered why, but couldn't figure out what the letters stood for, it is about time you became informed!
(A} Almost Boobs...
{B} Barely there.
{C} Can't Complain!
{D} Dang!
{DD} Double dang!
{E} Enormous!
{F} Fake.
{G} Get a Reduction.
{H} Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up !

It also got me thinking.  Are we just a size or are we just us ?!?!?  I hate it when I am introduced to my husbands employees because they always look at my chest before they even look at my face or eyes!!  Hellooo I am up a bit higher!  Yes ,I am a female and I bet you mom , sister, aunt , grandma has a chest with breast too.

I do have a large natural chest.  I always have.  I wear a size 36 E to F.  But I am more than just *****.  I am a wife, mom and so much more than what they see.  Please look at my face when you meet me not my chest.  If you are my family or friend then you can joke with me at my chest.  Like my mom, daughters , friends do, they will say I saw a cute dress or shirt that would look great on you but it will never fit over those.  That is ok because I complain about the same thing.  Try finding a bathing suit!!  In high school and after I used to have them custom made to fit me. I had a 34 top then and a 16 inch waist, the good old days. 

I love my sons they never look or make fun of me, I am just mom!  But here I will share a picture of one of my daughters making fun of my over the shoulder boulder holder:

I love you hunny, but I had to share.  Nanna started it with her email!

I hope this make you laugh and think.  We are the size God made us, we are female with female parts, just as God made.  We might be numbers or sizes to buy clothes that fit us.  But most of all we are just as God made us, his perfect work.

God Bless, mj

Love the feeling

of getting my house back and everything looking nice and tidy... well we are not quite to the tidy part yet but is it looking better..  in spots:>   My DD made a good will run, her car was full and if I had not run out of boxes I probably would have had more for her...    she could have always tied them to the top of her car hehehe... dont tell her I said that.. she is a good kid but I think  I would have had a mutiny on my hands....

Things I need to do today, 

Unload and load dishwasher

make cheese curds

make baguettes

make  jalapeno popper dip

vacuum living room

Load and unload dishwasher again  lol

wash some cloths....

hmmm that ought to keep me out of trouble for a few hours anyway... Have a safe and Happy New Year!

Day 1 of our cleaning

Today was day 1 of our cleaning junk out.   We started in the tack/storage unit on the ranch.   What we did is take it all out, move all the saddle racks, bridle holders, blanket hanger, halters hangers, medicine chest moved, blanket boxes, hog supplies, goat supplies to the verry back of the unit rehung it all and organized the rest.  The best part is we went through it all donated some, trashed some.  We were shocked to see we have 11 saddles!  And  I need a new one for my pony .  Mine one is to long for his short back.  It works for now.

We put on one side the keep stuff and made stack of go through stuff.  Then we put the yard sale donate stuff on one wall along with my patio table and chairs that will be moved to the patio in the next few days. 

We also cleaned up one barn stall that has toys in it for the grand-babies. We still have to pick up the crushed boxes in that stall, we filled up 4 trash cans.   Then I started in the feed shed.  Why did I do that .  Hubby fixed the shed gate , thank you hubby .  I picked up empty feed bags, hay ties.  But we need to empty out all the barrels and take out the hay holders, then rake it out and level it. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the day we will take everything out of the garage for me to go through.  I will make a keep stack , a donate one, a yard sale one and a trash one.   The keepers will be moved to the ranches storage unit as will the yard sale one. 

I am turning the garage into a family room for the girls and grand-babies.    I will put a rug in there with a futon  a t.v. center with t.v. and game units.  Put the books out there , toys , sewing machines and more.

Dinner was easy tonight fast food.  Well I am off to soak in a nice long hot bath, my leg is hurting from working so much today and hot baths help.  Maddie is staying the night tonight, Jeffie and Michelle are sick.

That all for today God Bless, mj

declutering

I packed Christmas away this morning.. I had so many boxes of various things...it has all been compiled into one tub.. of the things I love and cherish most.    I have been working on my kitchen the last day or so.. today I have a cupboard I want to go thru.. there are things in there that I am sure have not seen the light of day for  5 years or so...  I'm sure someone will give them a good home..

Tomorrow evening we are going to my Brothers... I am going to cut up some of the summer sausage I made and make some fresh chees curd... flavored with  garlic and some with sage.  I am going to make some  french bread.. and also I found a recipe for jalapeno popper dip on  allrecipes that really looks good... I have some fromage blanc chees I can use for it...it very similiar to cream cheese...

Well off to declutter the cupboard... gotta have a place for my pie Plates  lol... Have a great day

Home schooling info for all, I fixed the link

Kristi has been board with her school books, so I took out of storage  the Far Above Rubies unit study based on Proverbs 31:10-31.  I was looking for things to use for this unit study like books, web info and so on.

I was happy to find this site :

http://www.geocities.com/trishnonaka/FAR_intro.htm

I fixed the link.

This site has soo much info for each of the 20 unit studies in the set.  But it also has a ton of pages for parents not using the study on every subject.  I found that most of them are Christian site and Christian info.

I had to stop looking at it for a few minutes to share this amazing place to you all.  Some of the pages are no longer there, but look around and see all the stuff they have.   Who ever did this did a ton of work looking up hundreds of web site for us all.

Go check it out, God bless, mj

productive weekend

I have been breaking the grinder in... I have ground up 20 lbs of hamburger,  made  17 lbs of breakfast sausage,  a couple of pounds of  jerky, and about 8 lbs of summer sausage..  It has been raining here quite a bit so it was a good weekend to stay in and mess around... the jerky and summer sausage turned out a bit salty.. will have to rework the recipe...

This morning we went to the local bowling alley and met my sister and 3 of my nephews and Mom and Dad... Sherell and Jim bowled.. I didnt... just watched and heckled... it was fun...

Tomorrow.. I will make some cheese curds for New Years eve.. we are getting together at my brothers house.. we are a pretty tame bunch... I am also going to take down the Christmas tree and drag my spinning wheel out of the other room... I want to start spinning again.. a bit every day... Its a very calming activity and sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered..

We finally decided on the decor for inside the house!!

About 1.5 years ago when we were going to sell this house and move to our ranch I packed up so much of the house.  I then broke my leg and it is STILL broken a year later, yup a year!!  I broke it on 12-27-07.  Any way due to my leg I did not unpack.  I have done some but need to do more.  Hubby is going to help next week, thank you God.  I can not move the heavy boxes any more and he stacked the boxes too high for me to reach.

So hubby and were talking about redoing the decor in the house again and we could not agree, Husbands!  I have leaning towards cowboy decor, hubby was wishy washy about it.  But he saw his friends house (his mentor) Pat (uncle pat) and his house was cowboy decor and he loved it !!!  Finally we agree on it.

So we are going to redo the house in cowboy decor.  I loved a rug uncle Pat has in his living room. I asked where he got it?  He told us the national finals redo.  So we talked about that and now we are going with him to the next one in December 09, ( can you believe it 09??).   I have found a rug we like on ebay, so we will get that.  But I am going to save up a few thousand for the decor for the home at the finals.

As I have been shopping on line hubby is sitting next to me watching his hunting shows.  I hate it when the hunt turkeys!  The dumb turkeys answer back when they are called and then get shot.   I think hubby love to put turkey hunting on because I yell at the turkeys, telling them to not talk, hide, what are you doing?? .   But do they listen noooo.  

We have had 3 pet turkeys.  Whitey even went to a turkey dinner at church one year (alive).  We also had Wanda and Waddles.  Waddles was a 65 pound tom that was a blast to play with. As for Wanda well she was funny to watch because she like to fight the chickens!  We laughed so much watching her fight because when she was done she sat on the chickens .   We all pulled out feed buckets and sat on them watching her.   No one ever got hurt or killed, we would never let that happen.  They all have passed on but the stories we have. 

That's all for now.  God Bless to all, mj

Saturday on the Homestead

Well even though winter is just starting I am so happy to say we are finally thawing out!  The temps went above 32 and now everything is beginning to melt into one big soupy mess..  But hey at least we can get out and about now.  Emily and Leanne dug out her car yesterday..  no easy feat.  Today I think she is dying for a shopping and Starbucks fix with her sisters.  Cabin fever is alive and thriving around here!  LOL..   

Today I will be at home.  I have soap business stuff to catch up on and a house to clean and food to make.  We feasted on Christmas Eve dinner and then leftovers for a few days.  My son was thrilled to enjoy lots of homemade food..  and lots of food is what I made.  But now it is time to make some more.  I did make a pot of navy bean soup yesterday with my leftover ham bone. Today I think spaghetti or lasagna will be on the menu too.   

I typically take down my tree the day after Christmas but my son had two requests before he came home.. one was pizza (did that for him the first night he got here) and the other was a Christmas tree..  so for him I will leave it up a few more days.  But by Monday it has got to go..  I start feeling a real need about now to get my life reorganized and ready for the new year.  

I am currently contemplating my new year goals..  I am not a big fan of resolutions instead I make goals.  So I will be praying and working towards some new personal goals, business goals, website goals, and more.  So what do you typically do..  goals or resolutions?   

Well that is all from the homestead today..  Keep warm as we head into 2009!

A wonderful Cast iron Christmas

We woke up to a skiff of snow Christmas eve morning...the day was pleasant...we spent alot of it preparing for the family get together later in the day... I made stuffed eggs, and fudge and pepperoni pizza, DH made a Chocolate silk pie and stuffed celery, and DD made brownies.  Our meal had a Italian flair.. my SIL  is Italian and she hosted this weekend... It  was a great evening... we ate and visited and opened a few presents and ate and visited some more... about 8 it started to snow so  we headed home...

The next morning I got up and started the lights on the tree and made a cup of tea..  turned on some celtic Christmas carols and waited for   my family to wake up...we opened a few presents and I think everyone was happy... I got some cast iron pie plates... and a cast iron muffin tin...

Later in the day DH used our new grinder and ground up some pork and venison.. this morning I seasoned some of it for breakfast sausage and this evening I seasoned the rest of it for  summer sausage...I will pack the casings tomorrow..

We went to town today  we have a place here that sells to resturants and so on... we got some pork for 1.26 a lb and some beef for 1.69 a lb... we are going to make some sausage, and hamburger and I will make some formed jerky as well..  I know I cant  buy hamburger for 1.69 a lb...especially  as lean as this will be... I think this grinder will save us some dollars...

It has been snowing on and off all day...but its supposed to warm up tomorrrow... so the snow will be mostly in the hils....  we never did get more then a skiff at a time:< but its as close as we have been to a white Christmas... I love watching the big fluffy snow flakes fall..