Oh Nelly

I spent most of the end of January at the Country House. We are having some work done on the barn apartment so I needed to be there while the sheet rock, gas guy, carpenter, etc. came & went.

The 2nd weekend I was there  I was sitting on the back porch around dusk on Sunday (1/24). I happened to look up & saw what I thought was a cat walking near the gas tank by the barn. I would love to have a cat up there to help with any mice problems so I ran inside & grabbed a small baggy of cat food that I keep on hand & went back out & called to it.

It was almost dark by this time & when the poor thing came up to me it wasn't a cat at all but a small Chihuahua. She was skin & bones & could barely use her back legs. Plus, it looked like she had had puppies recently.

She looked at the food & then back at me & whined a bit. She finally ate the food & just sat at my feet. I picked her up because she was shivering. I brought her in on the porch & tucked her under my jacket at my side. She was having a really hard time breathing & I thought that she might be on her way over the rainbow bridge. Since it was going down in the 20s that night I couldn't let her stay out so I put newspaper down in the bathroom & brought her in for the night. The next morning she ate a little more but it was obvious that she just wanted to be held & loved. It also became obvious that she wasn't house broken, oh joy.

Don't know if she ran away or was dumped. This will be the 5th dog that has shown up at the house (a lab, 2 lab mix puppies & a border collie mix). We found good owners for all of them.

I bought her some food & since it was warmer the next few day/nights I got some rugs, towels & a box & made her a bed on the carport. The sheet rock guys finished on Tuesday & I needed to get started priming the walls. The barn is right by the house & faces the carport so I was back & forth all day for the next few days & she got a little stronger each day. I posted her pic on FB but no one came forth. By the end of the week she was still skinny but much more lively & of course I had named her by then. Nelly as in nervous. Greg came in on Friday night & she barked at him like she owned the place.

We agreed that it would be best if she could find a new home. I have a cousin in-law that works for animal control & she offered to take her to work w/her. She came by on Monday morning to pick her up. Nelly was shocked when I handed her off & I surprised myself by tearing up a bit. As I continued with my painting I found that I was missing her more & more as the day went on. While talking with Greg that night I told him I felt bad that I had helped her get better just to give her away. And, I missed having her around. After we hung up I started tearing up again. Unexpectedly, Greg texted me a little while later to tell me to go get her, that we would make it work somehow.

So, long story short I went to get her the next morning & we are now the proud owners of a yipper dog as we have always called that breed. She is the sweetest thing & smart as well. The Vet wants her to gain a pound or two & then she will be spayed at the end of the month. I am in the process of crate training her. She hasn't had an accident in the house since Saturday morning. We've never had an inside dog or a dog this small before & the responsibility is quite different.

Wish me luck in getting her house trained.

Does Raw Milk Make a Difference?

I think it does. One of the guys that works for my husband has started keeping chickens & has been gifting us with a lot of eggs. Even with husband giving to In-Laws & neighbors, I found that I still had a surplus.

I had some smoked ham left over from the holidays as well, so I decided to make some quiche for dinner & to go ahead & make some for the freezer.

I made up a batch of pie crust a couple of days before I made the quiche(s). I used the recipe from the Chickens in the Road Fool Proof Pie Crust which makes 5 single crusts. I like this crust for savory pies.  Note: Still looking for a good recipe made with butter that I can use for sweet pies.

The 4 that I was going to put in the freezer were all made with the same ingredients. Except I only had enough 2% milk for 3 of them & used my raw 'drinking' milk for the 4th (& 5th). I baked 2 at a time & when I took the 2nd batch out here is the difference:

The one on the right is the one made with the raw milk. I'm guessing that store bought regular whole milk might have had the same result?

Each of the 'to be' frozen ones had ham, steamed chopped broccoli, onions & cheese with 4 eggs & 1 cup of milk each. 20 eggs used up!

The last one I made for our dinner I used sauteed mushrooms instead of broccoli & apparently I didn't saute out all of the moisture from the mushrooms because it was a bit watery & bland. However, I just had a slice of leftover for lunch & all the moisture was gone & it was very tasty. Lesson learned.

Cookies, Gates & Snake(s)!

Hope everyone had a great end to 2015. Can't believe this was the 3rd Christmas w/o my sweet niece Brooke. Everyone is moving forward with their lives but it will never be the same. As the saying goes - Life does indeed go on.

I've almost always made cookies to share at Christmas time. I used to take loads & loads to work to place at each coffee station or in each Department. One year we made over 1000! Since I don't work anymore I still found that I wanted to bake the week before Christmas. This was my haul this last year.

Peppermint Bark (new)

Pineapple/Coconut Cheesecake Bars (new) & Lemon Squares

Oatmeal, Sugar, Coconut Meringues & Flourless Chocolate (new)

I had success & failures this year.

Only half of the pan of My Lemon Squares baked. Weird, one end was done & the other completely not done.

It was very humid the day I made the Meringues & they had a hard time drying (usually on a 175 degree setting). I eventually just turned the oven off & left the majority in it to see if they would dry by the morning. I neglected to tell Greg that I had left them in only to come back in the kitchen a while later to him heating the oven (at 350 degrees) for our dinner. We saved most but some were waaaay brown. They are supposed to be just a very light tan.

I always try a couple of new recipes. This year was:

1. Pineapple Cheesecake Bars - good.

2. Peppermint Bark which also was good but way too thick.

3. Flourless Chocolate which turned out ok. I always give a big batch of cookies to a good friend of mine for her large family. She has a daughter with Lime disease & she's trying a gluten free diet to see if that helps w/her symptoms. I wanted her to have something to eat besides bark & meringues so I tried the Flourless chocolate. The first batch (w/o nuts) weren't even close to being done in the time frame the recipe called for so I stuck them back in for 5 more minutes (after sitting out for about 5). They were flat as a flitter but melt in your mouth light & airy. The 2nd batch (1/nuts) rose & cooked just fine but not near as light as the other ones. Hopefully I can reproduce my mistake next year.

I also decided to make homemade Cinnamon Rolls for a select few families to bake on Christmas Morning. I made the icing & gave in a mason jar for them to ice immediately after taking from the oven.

Ready to rise & bake

We celebrated with my family on Christmas Day & then headed to the Country. Note: I only have my Tablet when we are in the Country & I can read blogs & email but have trouble commenting.

We always have some project or another to do since we have the entire week between Christmas & New Years. We were originally going to work on the Garden Shed since it's been in place since Nov. 2013 & still not finished. But since the ground was fairly dry we decided to go ahead & extend our gate instead. We put the poles in the ground on the 27th & came back the next day to add the boards.

Before extensions

After extensions

*** WARNING - If you don't like pics of snakes don't scroll down past this point ***

When I walked out to the edge of the driveway, by the ditch & road to take the above pic, I noticed movement on the ground to my right. It was a small King snake that I thought was shedding it's skin. I ran to get the camera & when I came back I realized it wasn't shedding it's skin .... IT WAS EATING ANOTHER SNAKE! Hopefully a poisonous one! Hubby thought it might have been a Water Moccosin.

Didn't see the head or how much had been eaten already but the eaten snake had to have been almost as long as the King.

Close up.

About 10 minutes later - making progress.

More progress .... that tail was still moving --- ewww!

All done!

You can't tell from the above pic but the tail was sticking out the side of his/her neck & was still moving!

Slithering away ... About 3 foot long

We figured he/she had caught it in the ditch & drug it up to consume. It definitely wasn't there when we started on the gate boards. Gotta love the wildlife. Makes me remember to watch where I'm stepping at all times up there!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Peanuts, Cotton & Pecans ... Fall in the South

Went to the country last week for Thanksgiving. MIL, FIL, SIL, Niece & her boyfriend came for Supper. Had all the usuals ... turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, butter peas, snap bean  corn casserole, mac & cheese, dressing, gravy, rolls & pumpkin & pecan pies. It was all very good & the weather cooperated so we could eat on the screened in back porch.

After cleaning up hubby & I took our niece & boyfriend to the Lights! Lights! Thanksgiving Night in our nearby town. It is a beautiful little town with a town square with a beautiful Courthouse in the middle and restaurants & shops lining the square. They string lights from the top of the Courthouse & light them at dark. They bring in Santa & he goes to the top of the Courthouse stairs where the little ones can visit. Almost all the shops open up for more window shopping than anything. It's not as commercial as it sounds, not like they are trying to 'get a jump'. It's really more of a social affair where neighbors meet & talk & stroll the streets.

The next morning was our 34th Wedding Anniversary so we didn't want to work all day. We had gotten some pecans from a cousin & I had picked up a 5 gallon bucket so we took them to the Cracking & Shelling place, .40 a pound & worth every penny. They do a great job so there is very little to pick through before storing.

Then we went to a special place to buy some sausage. This place sells, smoked & fresh links as well as 'loose' sausage. We had some at the family reunion & it is really good so we wanted to stock up on some for ourselves.

On our ride we passed many cotton fields which is gathered this time of year. The fields that have been defoliated are just beautiful, it's the snow of the south.

Some farmers harvest into large rectangle shaped pods:

And others in rolls:

Either way it's a sight to see them gathering & to see all those rolls out in the field before they are picked up by many semi trailers (usually in the middle of the night for some reason).

The other fall thing to see is rolls of peanut hay. Peanuts had been gathered in September & October & the leftover plant is harvested & rolled into hay. Good for cows, horses generally won't eat it.

Got back home & just couldn't stand it, we had to fill our time with some kind of work, so we mowed the grass, the last time for this year, yea!

The next morning we cleared some of the fence line that had gotten out of control then went visiting. When picking up some fallen pine logs we discovered that one had partially turned into fat lighter! This is like getting an early Christmas present.

See the top portion that looks really hard, that's fat lighter. Nothing better to use for starting a fire! We'll chop it up soon.

Of course we ate leftovers all weekend long but I wanted to try my hand making biscuits like my friend in SC does. It worked!

They were light & fluffy & delicious. The secret is to use Martha White Light baking flour & follow the recipe on the back except to replace the lard with frozen butter (grated into the flour). I am so happy I finally have a biscuit recipe I can turn to, this has taken a long time for me to master & that may or may not be a good thing!

The moon was a full one on Thanksgiving night & I finally got a decent photo through the trees.

I'll sign off with a pic of the beautiful sunset the last night I was there:

Note: All picture, except the biscuits, fat lighter, moon & sunset, were taken from various sites off the internet. I was lazy with the camera, again.

A Mini Vacation!

We went to SC last weekend to visit our friends Debbie & Bob from Fox Trot Farms. They raise Dorper/Katahdin Sheep. They have also chickens, honey bees & goats as well as many dogs & cats. I have been to their place many times but this was a first for Greg.

We got there Friday afternoon & toured the farm then had a nice relaxing evening with a simple meal of delicious bean & pasta soup & crackers. Sat outside & talked for a while but made it an early evening.

Saturday, after the menfolk fed & watered the animals we had a late brunch of homemade biscuits & sausage gravy, delicious! We went to a consignment shop & then Debbie started preparing things for dinner.

There were about 15 people coming for chili (with all the fixins) & cornbread before heading over to the Homeplace Bed & Breakfast for an open house & to attend the Bethlehem Marketplace. It is a play that the family puts on every Christmas season. Their are 33 rooms in the mansion, 33 Christmas trees are put up & this year they have 33 grandchildren! They act out the play 3 times on Saturday night. You start by following Joseph & Mary trying to find a room & then finally wind up at the stable which is actually the family's very large beautiful barn complete with blacksmiths, vendors selling cloth & herbs, horses, cows, etc. All the family gets in on the act, playing the parts of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Angels, etc. An orator tells the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, to his execution, his resurrection & then of him coming back one day. The singing was beautiful & overall it was very well done. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

They then served refreshments in the banquet hall, which is where we hold our quilting retreats that I posted about back in March - 2015 Quilt Retreat.

Several people went back to Debbie & Bob's for some after dinner wine & drinks.With a very diverse group of people, the stories were all over the place but I can honestly tell you that we haven't laughed that hard in a while. We stayed up telling stores until after 11:00p, late for us!

Not one single picture was taken, just wasn't in the mood. Debbie & Bob are gracious hosts, food was delicious & we had a great time! Greg loved seeing how they have things set up & got some great ideas for when we finally/eventually/can't come quick enough, move to the Country!

Of course Debbie sent us home with biscuits, cornbread, chicken chili, red chili & various other gifts. Greg ate biscuits for lunch & the chili will be heated up Wednesday night as I am preparing for Thanksgiving in the Country.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday this week ... Happy Thanksgiving!

Note: Historically, I can't make biscuits for anything but after watching Debbie make them, I think I am going to try my hand at them this weekend. Mine usually turn out a lot like hockey pucks .... we'll see.

I Visited a Cemetery & Saw an Elephant

While at the Expo last month I had some business "in town" to attend to. On the way back I stopped at a cemetery.

It was loaded with many Civil War graves.Some elaborate & well maintained ...

Others, not so much ...

But what made me go there in the first place was this ...

It is a memorial for a man named William F. Duggan who was born in the town. He ran away from home as a boy & joined the circus where he fed & watered elephants. It was his life long dream to be a circus owner. He finally got the chance a few years later. He bought an animal exhibit & was in the processs of turning it into a 3 ring circus when he died of a heart attack while wintering in Florida.

His son had this monument made to go on his grave. It is a replica of his favorite baby elephant - Nancy. Legend has it (according to a granddaughter) that the elephant followed him to the hospital the day he died. The detail is exquisite.

You can see it from the road. The cemetery is behind a church that sits almost directly across from a funeral home where I have attended many viewings but never looked across the street. Who knew?

I can't tell you how eerie it was to be in that cemetery all alone, especially standing right in front of that elephant. I kept expecting it to made that elephant sound. I didn't stay long ....

I Got My Dining Room Back!

Even though I didn't take a pic just imagine ... on my dining room table .... sewing machine, thread box, extra parts for machine, scissors, seam ripper, bits & pieces of material, quilt patterns & a whole host of other things, plus unfinished projects draped across each of the chair backs.

I have a workout room in my house in the city. It held a treadmill & yoga stuff. The treadmill hadn't been used in quite some time. It was a very nice one but when I looked on Craig's List there were 15 or so listed so I gave it away to a former co-worker instead of listing it & then waiting for it to sell. I had a project in mind ... a sewing table!

I now have a sewing room!

The opposite side of the room.

Got filing cabinets & chair from work. Greg bought & cut a 3/4" piece of plywood 34" x 8'. I had an old picnic tablecloth that fit it perfectly. We attached it w/spray adhesive & stapled to the bottom.

I still have plenty of room for stretching & doing my little exercise routine. The top bin is empty & the other two contain my less than desirable fabrics & my work shirts waiting to be turned into more of these:

One end looking onto courtyard. Door to right is to back porch.

Grow light stand/storage shelving. The other end is just a closet wall.

I found that I had enough room to the left of the sewing machine to hold a mini ironing board.This was made with leftover plywood, some batting & an old pillowcase. I don't have to set up the big ironing board for pressing those small quilt pieces. It's 9" x 26". Here's how I made it.

Board, batting cut just a bit bigger than board so it wraps the edges & pillowcase.

Place batting on top, flip over, then start stapling pillowcase to back.

Simple letter fold & staples.

Viola. a mini ironing board!

That empty bin in the above photo used to contain what is now in 2 of the drawers!

Some of my reproduction fabrics.

Solids, misc, Fall & Christmas.

One other drawer contains patterns, books & my unfinished projects & the last one contains extra supplies like batting & large background material.

Now I can invite friends over for supper & we have a place to sit & eat. I am a happy girl!