It is a beautiful fall day and my favorite tree is looking quite yellow. 

 The color spans  to the north along the tree line beside the house. 

So, I don't do much weeding for fall.   Do you see why?  This is what was in my daylillies when I was cleaning them out for the winter.

There are some good ones though.  Here was another unexpected visitor in my flowerbox!

With the weather still nice, the dogs are full of it and want to run all the time.   Poor Jack.  He wants our so bad but he runs away to easily.  When taking them out one time,  Stanley took it upon himself to make sure Jack doesn't run away anymore.  We never taught him to do this.  See how he holds Jack's leash?

Here he is at one end. They run up and down the long thoroughfare along the side of the house.  He doesn't let go either!

When out milking, Little Kitty has learned where she can get free milk.  She sits and waits until I pour some out for her.

Those that are wondering what ever happened to the barn,  The north side now has the poles in the ground.  We are expecting days of dry weather and being the weekend,  Tom has it set that he will enclose it  by the begining of next week.  It would be great to move the goats and give each of the horses their own stalls!!

this the the front on the east side

I'm not back on my regular computer, but I think I can get some stuff out.  Many changing conditions here at Muddy Boot.

Jessalyn had her 12th birthday!

I am not mean,  it is tradition to make your own cake (that way you are the one that gets to lick the bowl!)

 The girls were in a Fun Horse Show in August.  Lots of horse games and races. She and the neighbor (who has the horse trailer) practiced for weeks before. Jess had her own horse, Becky rode a neighbors Mustang.  A little faster than Rosie. They each got a few ribbons between the two of them.   Ken even got in on the act and rode Dusty in the Dolly Parton race.  Yep, you got it.  Ride in and put on an unmetionable, put the water balloons in and race back to the start line without losing them. 

Back a few weeks we were having health problems with our biggest sanaan boy, Zeke.  He seemed to have punctured his chest somehow.  We think it was a bush while he was out grazing.   I had it healing up just fine, but think it did too much damage.  We had to put him down.  Poor Clem. (He is the one featured up on the right side of my page sniffing the sunflower) We moved him into the barn with the ladies but I know he misses Zeke.  They were always together.

Beautiful gardens yeilded nearly nil.  I bought the cabbage to make my kraut, cheated and bought canned sauce for soup. I had only enought of my own tomatoes to make 6 qts.  And that was with doing up the cherry tomatoes with the romas.  I did pick one bunch of broccolli and tons of beans.  That , cherry tomatoes, and carrots were the only things that  actually came in.  I had stalks of corn, but only one ear grew, and that was so small Jess gave it to the rabbits. I  have started apples, some from our own tree but most bought to make sauce.  With shortening being priced out of this world,  I thought it would be good to have a bit more applesauce than usual to use as a substitue for baking.  We were fortunate again this year to have picked pears from a friend of my mom's. She has a tree in the city that the pears go unused so she offers them to us.  I think I will puree them and try to make jelly.  I know there are recipe's to make strawberry jelly with tomato preserves, and I am wondering if I add flavored jello or maybe coolaid if I can do the same with the pear?   It will be an experiement. It seems that the 36 jars of stawberry are going to fast and won't last all winter!

Things are coolg down.  We are starting to work on the yard and getting it ready for winter.  Putting away and storing up yard goods. 

The barn is coming along with hay in the loft, but we are still waiting for some metal roofing to come in from the Amish to cover the last few feet of the hay roof.  Tom and Ken put rolled paper on the attatched leanto roof  this year so that will be good for the livestock this year.  Tom is still digging holes around the yard making way for the front pasture fence and working on the the north side of the barn where the other leanto stalls will go.  I would like him to dig a few for post for my garden next year too.  I have metal poles, but would like something more permanent and a little nicer looking. It should at least look nice even if it might not actually be functional. 

Friends have moved into their newly built home and tore down their old farmhouse.   I ask if they would mind if I took their pine cupboards.   Again, Tom and Ken were busy and put them in the kitchen.  It is so nice to have cupboard space!

before

and after!

I am busy filling the cupboards and storing for the winter.  I just started making my master mixes.  I made buckets of bisquick and shake and bake and will probably make the pudding and hot chocolate mixes today.

little keys.  That is what I have to type on.  My big computer is messed up again!   You go to connect, and you hear the recording say, "If you would like to make a call, hang up and dial again."  What's with that ?  I take the same line and plug it in here and POOF!  I'm online.  So, no pictures until I can get to work on my tower.

I can tell you how great  VBS went.  It went quick, like always!  The kids had fun.  Ken made a great impression as King Solomon, and Jessalyn was a good, wicked lady that didn't care if her baby was chopped up!  If you would like to read the rest of the story,  you can always read it here: A Wise Ruling

Tom pulled out the top  pine cupboards from my friends old farm house before they tore it down.   Ken and I had taken the doors and bottom, but figured it would be to hard to get the top down.  When Tom had taken a day off and the house was standing still after two weeks, I figured it was good enough reason to have him go over and give it a try.   Took him almost an hour!  Those homemade cabinets were in better than the whole house was put together.  One push and it was down and level in twenty minutes!

Jess had her birthday this last week.  A few gifts, a trip to pizza hut, and a big cone finished off the day.  She and Rebekah have been riding (or should I say practicing the games) a lot!  Becky is riding a mustang named Sal that a young woman in the neighborhood owns.  She works out of town all week and only can ride weekends now with her new job, so she is as excited that there is someone to ride him as much as Becky is to get on.   He is a fast horse!   I have taken to riding Rosie our appy.  She was for becky and is more laid back but I think she was bit by the thrill of a little more speed.  I still have Methias, my 'stang but he can't be ridden like the others.   Just when you think he is to lame,  he runs and bucks all over the pasture.  Ah, what to do and when.

Count it a loss for the pickles, lopes, mellons.   All the leaves are turning yellow and although there are flowers, there isn't any fruits.  The corn looks like swamp grass with only two small ears for 40 some plants.

Hope to figure out the puter problem soon and get those pictures up!

One more day until Vacation Bible School! Yesterday I was in town until 8 p.m.  gathering things for the next week. I have spent the last two days painting  an eight foot banner with the theme scripture on it.  This year it is based on Matthew 6:19-21.

Do not store up your treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, or thieves steal, But store up your treasures in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not steal.   For where your treasure is,  there may be your heart also.

I bought three small wooden treasure boxes at the craft store that Jess painted for me.   We will be using them in the intro to our story.

Many stories are being used with mine being Solomon and his wisdom.  After telling the lesson,  Ken and Jess and two other young people from the church are acting out the judgment of the two women and the baby.  So, here I am sewing the King's sash, finding jewels, doing the verse.   Hey, it only starts tomarrow night! 

So here is something weird.    This morning Tom got up before me and went to the mud room to put out Stanley.   Gone.  He was gone!    Where could he be?  The doors and windows were closed.    Ah....a closer look revealed that he busted through the screen in the door going outside. Not an easy task as the window is only 18" square!

He's back within a few minutes of calling him.  Who knows how long he was out.

Great day for a ride.  Six of us were out for a "short" ride today.  It ended up being the better part of 3 hours.   Way to long for me.    We came home and what did we see?    Jack!   Now how can that be?   Stanley was in the mudroom,   the other boys were left in the house.   Hmmm.....no visible sight of screens nocked out.   Did I leave the front door open and he broke out that screen?   No.....so after putting the horses in I came in and did a once around.   Wait!   what is that ?  The front curtain is messed up.     HA!   He jumped up on the couch and busted through the front window screen.  So that window is locked up until I can replace the screen there.    The price we pay when we leave the animals for to long to many times in a row.

Thank you Marci over at   Down On The Farm  blog.

I love the surprise at finding I have been sent an award!

Once an award is recieved, these are the rules:

Put the logo on your blog.

Be sure to add the link from the person that sent it to you!

Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

Be sure to add those links to  your blog too!

Oh, and leave a message on their blogs so they know they are nominated!

I know of quite a few.  Some were already awarded on Marci's blog. 

I am giving the award to the following blogs that I find interesting:

Crystal at  Homemaking Homesteader

HandsNHearts  at  A Gathering of Days at Abundant Blessings Homestead

April  over at the  ElCloud Homestead: Waiting on God

Julie is  Seeking the Old Paths

Jo Lynn at Domestic Goddess~Homesteading in Central PA!

M J  at Thunderwolf Ranch

Patricia has a Little Cabin in the Woods

I hope you all get a chance to go and visit these ladies.  They have a lot of great things to share!

Last post I was asked about my roses.  The roses that I have around the yard I had found over the  years throughout our property.   As we cleared areas to brush hog or for the pasture, I discovered them.  They grow like wild grapes!   You cut them and they keep coming back.  In fact, I transplanted a couple that I found to under our front window and along the front of our house.  I am trying to trim and train so it will look like a flowering hedge under the windows.

Today was the first time Jess was in a horse show.   Our friend and neighbor who was kind enough to help both girls learn more about horses, took the time to trailer Jess over to the ring where she had lots of fun!

She and Rebekah practiced the last few weeks up the road in the ring, but Jess was the only one to enter today.   I hope Becky goes next month!

Jess entered in a few of the events, but not all.  She suprised us all when she won a blue ribbon for the Key Hole event.  You ride into the arena and have to pass through two cones that are four feet apart, turn tight, and exit out the same cones in a record time.  Four feet sounds easy, but not with the size of Dusty's rear!

She also entered the ride run in which you ride into the arena to a designated area and then jump off and run your horse back out of the ring.

She tried the cake walk where it is actually like musical chairs, except you are on your horse.  The music stops and the closest to the predesignated point wins a cake.

Her last event was the magazine race.  You ride in and find the page in a magazine that is announced by the MC, tear it out, and race back out of the arena and hand it to the person at the gate.

Mind you, everything is timed and there were a lot of fast horses.  They were divided into two classes: Junior and Senior.   Junior was 15 and below,  senior was above, of course.   The youngest was a girl about 4 that participated in events that were lead by an adult.  She did the pole bending event where you weave in and out of the poles.  She bopped along being led on her horse giggling the whole way.  Everyone was smiling and coaxing her along.  There were a few older people there too!   One man was propbably in his  60's  and he made pretty good time in the ride and run!

Some kind of butterfly (can't be moth, it was middle of the day) was flitting around the side of the house.  Three of them, in fact.  I wonder if they were drying their new wings because they all floated around the porch area and up and down and around us for quite a while. They seems to float into us, then out into the sun.  It was really something to watch and then they were gone.

This doesn't do the wild roses any justice.   All my domesticated roses died, even the ones from the "Lvoe Garden"  I planted last year with two kinds of roses.   

These wild ones have endured the weather and although for just a short time that they bloom unlike domesticated that can bloom over and over,  they smell wonderful!  When you are sitting on the couch in the living room the smell comes in from right there in the front window and from the front of the house in the front door.   I have tried to use many wild flowers instead of investing in domesticated and I have to tell you, the wild are much better! Just think of the free garden decor you can get:   daylillies, roses, grapes, daisies, blackeyed susans....

I have been trying to keep up on the garden.  I think I have picked the last of my peas and yellow beans.   My pole beans are being choked out by themselves because I didn't do a very good job of giving them climbing room.  

I must tell you I was very blessed with green beans anyway!   The Amish woman down the way has her new garden this year and it is flurishing.  She had a huge box of green beans that she shared with our family.   She said she couldn't look at another one to can.   So the other day when the girls went riding I cut and froze many gallon bags of beans.  Lots of casseroles this winter!

So needless to say, the internet was unavailable until the water dried up somewhat.  I don't know how, but it always messes up gettting online.  One of the last storms left hail like snow out front on the the step.

I have a few pictures of our July 4 picnic at my sister-in-law's.  I love when I don't have to cook!

Grandma and some of the grandchildren

My sister-in-law cooking with hubby and other sis-in-law

The results is good eats!

Thankfully we could get some water in the pool.  Do you think it is finally enough?  We had it a little more than half full when the tanker came.  It didn't take the whole load so Tom started running the backwash while the tank was still emptying into the pool.  We figured might as well keep it coming in while we are cleaning it out, right?  Well, it ended up in overload and blowing some of the hoses off!  We were soaked, but the tanker kept emptying.  The poor guy ran to the truck to turn it off.   Now with the rain, it is so full I don't think we have to worry about evaporation for a long time!!

With Belle's kids now gone, I have started milking her.  I am getting about 1/2 gallon a day.   This means I am on way to putting up Mozzerella!   Oh, wait,  not if we eat it like this!  Check out how I used the pound I made yesterday.  Big enough for everyone?   That is a butcher knife on the pizza for size estimation.  If that is not good enough,  let me tell  you, I lined our oven rack with foil and pressed out the homemade dough that way.  It barely fit!

The word from my Traveling Tom is that he and his buddy made it to California!

  Then his transmission failed.

He came right across into Sacramento to put his feet in the sand, only to head south of Burbank for his transmission to go in his car.   Stuck near there for a few days, he scrapped the car and plans to take a train home.   Not before trying for work, of course.   Plans?   Well, today his says he is coming back to go to school.   Let's see how far the train brings him.

As if picking strawberries this week wasn't enough,   thought I would pick some more today.  Jess helped me pick these little ones over on the side yard on the outside of the electric fence.

It was a long road trip south, but Tom is happy with the trip.  He came home with a new farm truck.  The selling cinch was the new tires and the tow package so he can now use the trailer that he had bought from a neighbor down the way.

Grandma couldn't wait and called Tommy today.   Seems that at the time she called he was waiting in line to sign up for climbing a mountain somewhere in northern Wyoming.   He mentioned staying there a few days.