Krause Cabin on the Hill

Are you prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse?

2012-01-25T11:08:00.006-06:00

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), if you're prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse, you're prepared for any emergency.

This morning we awakened to a tornado warning and watch. The skies were green, the wind was howling, rain pounding down, etc. I immediated went under the stairs... and I realized that we were NOT prepared. We need a "Bug Out Bag" (or Disaster Kit).

This Kit is to contain items you need to survive during the period between a distaster/emergency and the time help arrives, usually 72 hours or more. I recall my Mother talking about being prepared in the early 60's for a Russian nuclear attack by having boxes of emergency supplies in the car. Being a military wife, she knew what to have on hand. Since that time we've gotten lazy. We expect that FEMA, friends, family or SOMEONE will come to our aid. Hurricane Katrina should have made us all realize that isn't going to happen.

According to the CDC's website, here's what we should do to prepare for a natural disaster or emergency situation:

Gather Emergency Supplies
If disaster strikes your community, you might not have access to food, water, or electricity for some time. By taking time now to prepare emergency water supplies, food supplies and disaster supplies kit, you can provide for your entire family.

Even though it is unlikely that an emergency would cut off your food supplies for two weeks, consider maintaining a supply that will last that long.

You may not need to go out and buy foods to prepare an emergency food supply. You can use the canned goods, dry mixes, and other staples on your cupboard shelves.

Having an ample supply of clean water is a top priority in an emergency. A normally active person needs to drink at least 2 quarts (a half gallon) of water each day. You will also need water for food preparation and hygiene. Store at least an additional half-gallon per person, per day for this.

Store at least a 3-day supply and consider storing a two-week supply of water for each member of your family. If you are unable to store this much, store as much as you can. You can reduce the amount of water your body needs by reducing activity and staying cool.

And don't forget to take your pets and service animals into account!

Disaster Supplies Kit

A disaster supplies kit is a collection of basic items that could be needed in the event of a disaster. Assemble the following items to create kits for use at home, the office, at school and/or in a vehicle:

•Water—one gallon per person, per day (3day supply for evacuation, 2week supply for home)
•Food—nonperishable, easytoprepare items (3day supply for evacuation, 2week supply for home)
•Flashlight
•Batterypowered or handcrank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
•Extra batteries
•First aid kit
•Medications (7day supply) and medical items
•Multipurpose tool
•Sanitation and personal hygiene items
•Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
•Cell phone with chargers
•Family and emergency contact information
•Extra cash
•Emergency blanket
•Map(s) of the area

Consider the needs of all family members and add supplies to your kit. Suggested items to help

meet additional needs are:

•Medical supplies (hearing aids with extra batteries, glasses, contact lenses, syringes, cane)
•Baby supplies (bottles, formula, baby food, diapers)
•Games and activities for children
•Pet supplies (collar, leash, ID, food, carrier, bowl)
•Twoway radios
•Extra set of car keys and house keys
•Manual can opener
Additional supplies to keep at home or in your kit based on the types of disasters common to your area:
•Whistle
•N95 or surgical masks
•Matches
•Rain gear
•Towels
•Work gloves
•Tools/supplies for securing your home
•Extra clothing, hat and sturdy shoes
•Plastic sheeting
•Duct tape
•Scissors
•Household liquid bleach
•Entertainment items
•Blankets or sleeping bags

Pack the items in easy-to-carry containers, label the containers clearly and store them where they would be easily accessible. Duffle bags, backpacks, and covered trash receptacles are good candidates for containers. In a disaster situation, you may need access to your disaster supplies kit quickly - whether you are sheltering at home or evacuating. Following a disaster, having the right supplies can help your household endure home confinement or evacuation.

Make sure the needs of everyone who would use the kit are covered, including infants, seniors and pets. It's good to involve whoever is going to use the kit, including children, in assembling it.

Disaster Supplies Kit Checklist for Pets

•Food and water for at least three days for each pet, food and water bowls and a manual can opener
•Depending on the pet, litter and litter box or newspapers, paper towels, plastic trash bags, grooming items, and household bleach
•Medications and medical records stored in a waterproof container, a first aid kit and a pet first aid book
•Sturdy leashes, harnesses and carriers to transport pets safely and to ensure that your pets cannot escape. A carrier should be large enough for the animal to stand comfortably, turn around, and lie down. Your pet may have to stay in the carrier for hours. Be sure to have a secure cage with no loose objects inside it to accommodate smaller pets. These may require blankets or towels for bedding and warmth and other special items
•Pet toys and the pet's bed, if you can easily take it, to reduce stress
•Current photos and descriptions of your pets to help others identify them in case you and your pets become separated, and to prove that they are yours
•Information on feeding schedules, medical conditions, behavior problems and the name and telephone number of your veterinarian in case you have to board your pets or place them in foster care.

Additional Supplies for Sheltering-in-Place

In the unlikely event that chemical or radiological hazards cause officials to advise people in a specific area to "shelter-in-place" in a sealed room, households should have in the room they have selected for this purpose:

•A roll of duct tape and scissors
•Plastic sheeting pre-cut to fit shelter-in-place room openings. Ten square feet of floor space per person will provide sufficient air to prevent carbon dioxide buildup for up to five hours. Local officials are unlikely to recommend the public shelter in a sealed room for more than two-three hours because the effectiveness of such sheltering diminishes with time as the contaminated outside air gradually seeps into the shelter.

Always keep a shut-off valve wrench near the gas and water shut-off valves in your home.

For more information on how to prepare, check out the CDC's website at:

http://emergency.cdc.gov/preparedness/kit/disasters/

A little on the Wild Side

2012-01-13T14:39:00.007-06:00

I've been wanting to make a Sweatshirt Cardigan/Jacket for myself for a while now. I bought a supply of sweatshirts from Nancy's Notions when they were on sale. They were around $11 each. They come in just about any color and they fit comfortably and reliably.

Last year my friend Beth and I went to a quilt store and took an informal class on sweatshirt to cardigan transformation. My jacket turned out cute but since I started with a white Wal-Mart sweatshirt it never fit quite right. I found, after buying a couple more, that Wal-Mart sweatshirts shrink (in all the wrong places) and are NOT true to size.

After washing and drying the sweats from Nancy's Notions they still fit perfectly. I bought an XL and after cutting the ribbing off, I had to cut the sleeve length by a few inches and take up the underarm seam. Otherwise I had no fitting issues. I chose not to make a fitted jacket but I could have added darts (maybe on another one).

So I had this pile of sweats to choose from ... where to start? I had made Caroline an embroidered 3/4 sleeve t-shirt for Christmas, starting with a brown shirt and appliques out of brown "pleather", giraffe print and cheetah print. I liked the way it turned out so I decided to start with the same design for my jacket.

This jacket was basically made just like the one I made for Journey for Christmas. I cut off the wrist, waist and neck ribbing, and cut down the center. I used fusible interfacing to stabilize the neck and front opening. Next time I'll just stay stitch.

I only had a small amount of the trim fabrics so I had to use them wisely. I made bands to go around the bottom of the jacket as well as the sleeves. I used the last little bit of the cheetah fabric for neck and front binding. The cheetah and giraffe are knit prints I got at JoAnn's and were easy to work with. I bought the faux leather at a yard sale. {Sidebar note: I made a Roman Shade for my bathroom window out of this pleather because I got it cheap and I had a lot of it but word to the wise: you DO NOT want to try to iron it, so pick a project that doesn't require a lot of pressing.}

I sewed the first band to the bottom edge of the sweat so that I folded it to the right side and it was hemmed. I then basted the pleather band in place, then topstitched the animal prints to it. That was all very quick and easy.

Sleeve detail:

In order to sew the bands to the sleeve, it was necessary to rip the sleeve seam up above where the highest band would be stitched, then stitch the seam back together when done.

After all the bands were in place I could see where the appliques would go. I knew I wanted three stacked crosses appliqued on the back, which I did first. Because I used really large appliques it took two hoopings. In order to avoid "hoop burn" I secured the jacket by first using iron on stabilizer on the inside back of the jacket, and sticky stabilizer in the hoop. I then just placed the jacket on the hoop, smoothed it in place and pinned securely.

I chose a simple zig zag finish for the appliques. This particular design also comes with a satin stitch and a "vintage" stitch as well, but I wanted fast and easy so zig zag was the way to go. I went around the edge twice. For the front I used the same design, but in a smaller size.

I then added hot-fix crystals in a brown/copper color.

Jacket back:

Journey in her Christmas Dress

2011-12-24T11:34:00.005-06:00

{Journey modeling the Christmas dress that Grandma made for her}

The Stockings Were Hung . . .

2011-12-23T00:10:00.000-06:00

My Grandma Gray made a felt stocking for me when I was litle. I still have it, but it has a few moth holes, which tells me she made it with wool felt. She also made tree skirts, door knob hangers, and tablecloths, all from felt. She made a table cloth which was essentially red net with appliques out of felt. I think Dana has that. One of these days I would like to copy it. Grandma Gray also made my mother's tree skirt (I'm not sure who has it now) and one for me when Elizabeth was a baby. She appliqued a baby on it and embroidered Elizabeth or Liz, I can't remember now - I gave the tree skirt to Liz.

My mom made Elizabeth's stocking when she was little too. And Liz made one for Rylan. Rylan didn't need another one, but I had some stocking stuffers for her and it's just not the same without a stocking. So before I mailed her Christmas gifts, I made this one with the embroidery machine. I used a water soluble pen and traced the stocking shape on red felt, but didn't cut it out. I had to hoop the felt twice to get all of the snowflakes on this full size stocking. After embroidering, I cut out the stocking shape, front and back. I embroidered the name on white felt, then made the scalloped edge on the sewing machine freehand. I then stitched it all together. It was very fast and easy.

While my mother made Elizabeth's stocking, I bought a knitted stocking for Caroline when she was little and made one for Stephanie using a pre-printed, pre-quilted stocking panel (26 years ago...). Caroline contends that because it's store-bought, she never had a proper stocking. So, about 10 or more years ago, I bought a felt stocking kit to make for her. Looking back, I realize that I must have bought THE most complicated design they had. Every year I think I will get it done and Caroline gives me a hard time when it's not . . . but this year - I finished it!!

Homemade Christmas, the Mud Room and Food Storage

2011-12-21T02:01:00.000-06:00

{Bay Leaf Wreath}

Last year we had a Homemade Christmas. I had wanted to do it for a long time. Turns out it was a LOT of pressure. In my usual form, I procrastinated till the last minute and then didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. Also, I didn't get pictures of most of the things I made.

Some of the gifts were surprising. Those who thought they couldn't make anything came up with some great gifts. Frank made me a fleece blanket and a Texans cap/coat rack for Marc. Stephanie made Marc monogrammed socks (he goes through socks like crazy) and me a gift basket with home made bath products. Caroline made me a turquoise necklace and Marc a Texans fleece blanket. These are just some of the great gifts that were exchanged.

{View of Mudroom from Kitchen}

When we built the mud room we originally thought we would build cabinets on one wall. We decided against that and so Marc made me a large cabinet to be used as a pantry. It was my Christmas gift from him last year. It's quite large (about 3 feet wide and 7 feet tall and 2 feet deep). I use it for overflow pantry storage (since I don't have a proper pantry) and some small appliances that I don't use very often. I also store home canned items in it. I quickly filled it up, so he made another one for me this Christmas. I knew he was building it but one day I walked thru the mud room to do some laundry and when I came out I was shocked to see that he had moved the extra refrigerator out to the shed and moved the cabinet in. I had totally missed it as I walked past it several times.

{Mudroom}

{2010 Cabinet}

I've got wheat and my Excalibur wheat grinder in this cabinet, as well as some small appliances like the bread machine and crock pots, sugar, home canned foods, etc.

{2011 Cabinet}
In the new cabinet, Marc built the shelves a little closer together so I can get more smaller items stored. The very top shelf is lower on the front and higher in the back and has a lip on the front, so that I can put cans on it and they will roll forward. I have 4 cases of canned goods on this shelf already and there's room for more. I have rice, oats, beans, and more stored in this cabinet. I organized everything and took an inventory of what I had in there. I was surprised to see just how much I had stored, but there's still room for more. I've been shopping sales and stockpiling sale items and it adds up pretty quickly. After Christmas I'll do a post about home food storage or "stockpiling".

Marc even went in my craft room and found some Christmas stamps and even hand made gift cards:

Another Quilt As You Go Table Runner

2011-12-20T12:03:00.000-06:00

I'm officially in love with making Quilt As You Go table runners. They are SO fast and easy. I bought a Charm Pack from Nancy's Notions sometime this year when it was on clearance, for like $2.50. It's by Deb Strain for Moda, but that's all I can remember. Anyway, the colors and designs are so modern. I originally thought I would use this to make a patchwork dress/jumper for Journey for Christmas, but after tearing up the attic looking for that pattern (I'd saved it from a Woman's Day magazine from the early 80's), I abandoned that idea. Maybe next year for that project.

I arranged the squares the way I wanted them and then sewed three together to make a strip. I then cut the red broadcloth into strips two inches wide for the sashing. I layered quilt batting over the backing fabric and used temporary spray adhesive (which I use in machine embroidery quite often) to hold them in place. Since this is a short runner (36") I started at one end with a red sashing strip. I stitched as described in my previous post about QAYG table runners. Pressed for time (surprised?) I serged the edges then stitched jumbo red ric rac to the edges. We use this ric rac all the time in making dresses for little girls for sale. We buy it at Hobby Lobby when it's half price. Each roll holds about 9 yards or maybe it's 9 feet, anyway, it's about $2 per roll and comes in a lot of fun colors. The first time I used it I washed and dried it to ensure that it was colorfast - it is.

The charm pack made TWO table runners this size. Plus there were a few charms that were left over that I didn't want to incorporate into this project. I used those on Rylan's scarf and Journey's Christmas dress.

Naughty or Nice

2011-12-19T10:37:00.006-06:00

Here are some pics of the Christmas outfit I made for Journey. I started with McCall's 6062 pattern. It's a peasant style dress. It was very fast and easy to make. I made a few changes from the pattern's instructions. The pattern called for an underskirt and an overskirt. It was a huge waste of fabric and didn't add anything to the overall look, so I omitted the overskirt and added an apron. I wanted it to look like the PortobelloPixie Claire peasant dress. I had used that pattern last year to make Christmas dresses for sale. We made the apron tie style, but found (after making MANY dresses) that the pattern didn't fit as expected, so I didn't want any surprises this year, which is why I used the McCalls pattern. The PP pattern is so cute and features a full color instruction booklet which I liked, but the end result was disappointing. Also it was very expensive!! I used the PP apron pattern piece for this one. I ended up cutting it down just a little. I embroidered the apron first, then added a lining and bound the edges. The tie around the waist is part of the McCalls pattern. I cut the ruffle using the pattern but I cut an extra piece and used the ruffler to make the ruffle. Gone are the days when I will sit and gather fabric. It's amazing what a $20-$30 attachment can do to automatic your sewing.

Since this is a winter dress, I wanted long sleeves, which the pattern didn't include so I converted the sleeve to 3/4 length. Another change I made was adding ribbon instead of elastic at the neck and sleeves. This way, we can customize the fit for Journey this year, and will allow her to wear it again next year.

Here's the back view:

I used some of the motifs from the skirt fabric to embroider the jacket and apron. This is the same owl I used to make Rylan's scarf, shown in a previous post, just different fabrics. It's featured in this month's Designs in Machine Embroidery magazine I noticed. It's from Planet Applique and SO cute. They have really cute kid's applique designs.

This fabric at first glance doesn't look "Christmasy" at all. But if you look close there's a stocking, present, snowflakes, etc.

We have professional labels that we add to garments that we sell, but I like to add a "Grandma" label and a size label to gifts too.

The jacket is a project that I've been wanting to try for over a year. The concept is basically taking a sweatshirt and refashioning it into a cardigan. I have searched high and low for a sweatshirt in a toddler size that didn't already have designs on it and couldn't find one. I finally found a fleece shirt that I could use. To make this you start by cutting off the collar and cuff ribbing, cut up the center of the front, and stabilize all edges with iron on interfacing. From there it's all design fun. I embroidered motifs that matched the skirt fabric and apron on the front and back, then made about ten miles of bias binding which took longer than anything else.

My friend Beth loaned me a book by Mary Mulari and Nancy Zieman called "Sweatshirt Makeovers for Kids" which contains some techniques and ideas. The closure idea came from her book, although I altered it just a little. It's a little flap that uses hook and loop tape (which I have in pink of course).

When I got my sewing machine I bought every accessory they made for it, some of which I still haven't used yet. I have a bias binding foot but it says it's for commercial binding, so I didn't try it out on this project. Commercial binding has one side that slightly wider than the other. Obviously my home made binding is not perfectly straight much less wider on one side... I also bought a "Ditch Quilting Foot" which I'd never used before, so I thought I would try it out. I am wondering how I ever lived without it. It made 'stitching in the ditch' incredibly easy and SO precise. Here's a closeup of the foot in action:

It has a blade that skims along in the "ditch" keeping the stitching lined up perfectly.

Nancy's Notions had a sale on sweatshirts so I bought about 6 of them to make cardigans for myself. These are nothing like Wal-Mart shirts - the fit is perfect and they are preshrunk. Stay tuned for more sweatshirt transformations.

Christmas Table Runner for Stephanie

2011-12-14T14:53:00.003-06:00

My Quilt As You Go Table Runner

Stephanie's kitchen is green and pink so I made a table runner that would match her colors. Her Christmas tree is white, covered with pink and silver balls and other decorations.

After my Fall Table Runner, which turned into a long drawn out project, I wanted something fast and easy. If I'd had a "jellyroll" it would have been even faster, but I used scraps of fabrics left over from dresses that we sold. I cut the strips about 16 inches by 2-1/2 inches with a rotary cutter. I wanted the finished runner about 15 by 60, so I cut a piece of batting a little bigger than that, as well as the backing fabric (I used plain white, cause I had a lot of it already). I should have used temporary spray adhesive to hold the batting to the backing fabric, but I forgot till I was about half way through the whole project. I just used pins and it worked fine.

I started by placing one strip approximately in the center of the runner, right side up, and sewed it down to the batting and backing, using a 1/4" seam. Then I laid the next strip on top of that first strip, right sides together, and stitched over the first seam. I then turned the 2nd strip over and pressed the seam flat (being careful not to melt the batting!). I kept adding strips in this manner until I got to one end. Then I started doing the other end by placing a strip over that very first strip, and working toward the opposite end. You basically work from the center of the runner to the ends. It was so fast and easy. Then I had to "true up" the edges using the rotary cutter. I serged the edges just to make it easier to deal with in the binding process.

Next I embroidered snowflakes on each end. I had bought some iridescent and metallic threads during JoAnn Fabric's after Thanksgiving Doorbuster Sale and tried them out. I slowed the machine speed down, used a metallic needle and still had the thread break a few times. [Sidebar: I had lots of problems with the next couple of projects I did after the snowflakes - thread shredding, "nests" and so on. After researching the problems, I realized it was operator error (always is). I have a habit of impatiently pulling the thread cone off when I'm changing threads, and pulling the thread tail back through the needle and tension mechanism when I should snip the thread and pull the extra piece of thread thru the needle. I happened to see a glimmer of that iridescent thread in the "works" and once I got it out I didn't have any more problems. I guess it does really pay to read and follow the directions.]

After the thread issues, I was anxious to get done with the table runner quickly. I had already made bias binding out of the green stripe fabric, but at the last minute decided to use lime green jumbo ric rac to finish off the edges. It was super fast and looked really cute.

I have a couple more runners cut and ready to sew. I'll post pics of those when (if?) I finish them.

Fun With Fleece

2011-12-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

Since there are only twelve days till Christmas I thought I would title this post "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and do a post every day until Christmas, but then I realized that was too much pressure . . .

I've had a booklet from Hancock Fabrics that I picked up at a yard sale years ago caled "Fun With Fleece". It has all kinds of projects made out of fleece, with all the instructions, patterns, and tips needed.

I decided to make a hat and scarf for my granddaughter Rylan who lives in a colder climate for Christmas. She plays in the snow and needs to stay warm. She won't wear clothes that Grandma makes, but I figured I might be safe with a hat and scarf.

I first used a pattern for a hat which turned out terrible! It wasn't lined so it wouldn't be very warm, and the brim/band was floppy. It called for lapped seams, which made it look way too home made. I then tried serging, which worked better. But the band was just too limp, even thought I tried doubling the band by using a lining. Trash that one.

That's when I remembered the Fun With Fleece booklet in which I found instructions for making a hat without a pattern. You basically make a tube (aprx. 11" by 17"), sew the short sides and gather the top. I made two tubes - one for the lining and one for the outer fabric. I made the lining a few inches longer (aprx. 14" by 17") than the outside so that it could become the "brim" or hatband or whatever you call it. I decided I wanted about 4 inches of fringe on the top, so I used a rotary cutter and cut the fringe. I then used a piece of the selvedge to tie the top instead of sewing gathers. It turned cute and it was super fast and easy.

The booklet said to cut a scarf 9" wide. Again I used two fabrics, white for the outer fabric and pink with dots for the lining. I cut the scarf the width of the fabric. First I embroidered a winter owl motif on one end and two snowflakes on the other of the white fabric. I then cut off some of the excess fabric on the selvedge ends and made that into fringe, then top stitched the whole thing.

Both projects were fun and easy!

Scenes from the Baby Shower for Cody & Marie

2011-12-13T11:35:00.000-06:00

Create a free photo slideshow

Boutique Handbags

2011-11-17T14:12:00.005-06:00

"Boutique" handbags are very popular right now, and they're quite pricey. I wanted to try making one so I searched the internet for some ideas using "boutique tapestry handbag purses" as search terms but didn't come up with anything. I stumbled upon one on Pinterest that described it as "boho" and "gypsy" .... who knew??

This style handbag uses various tapestries, chenille, trims, satin, etc. all in the same bag. Pictured below are three "Gypsy Boho Handbags" I made recently.

The bottom two are made with a 1970's era pattern. The black/brown one on the right is full size and the sage green/brown one on the left was made a little smaller. I looked at the pattern and thought it was way too large so I made it smaller, only to find that I need all the room I can get.

The green one is made with a green/brown/gold tapestry, brown chenille (front panel and strap lining) and faux suede (gusset and strap). I trimmed the flap with brown and gold. The flower on the front is made with the same fabric I lined the purse with. I used an antique silver and amber pin that I seldom wear to finish it off.

The second purse was made with black, brown, green and mauve tapestry and brown chenille for the front and gussett. The straps and lining are a cheetah print. The straps are extra long and can be tied or slipped through a D-ring (haven't decided which I like best). This picture shows the gusset, which allows for LOTS of stuff in the purse.

Here's a close-up of the flower on the black/brown purse. I used the cheetah print and black chiffon for the flower and finished it with a vintage faceted glass button. I used a black chiffon ruffle and "eyelash" trim on the flap of the purse also.

The third purse is made from a black/gold tapestry. I made the straps from a cheetah print "velboa" fabric which is soft and has a nap to it. I inserted ruffled chiffon all around the side, added a gathered strip of the cheetah to the front flap and finished the flap with a tassel trim. I lined this purse with brown satin. All three purses have one or two pockets sewn into the lining.

Home Canning is Fun

2011-11-07T20:25:00.005-06:00

"Home Canning is Fun" - That was the caption on a box of used canning jars that I bought at a yard sale. I'd say the box was at least 50 years old. Not much has changed in the exciting world of home canning in the last 50 years I would imagine.

I've canned just about everything you can can (may can?) in a water bath canner over the years - jams, jellies, syrups, relishes, pickles, bbq sauce, ketchup, tomatoes of all kinds, fruits, etc., but I have always been just a liiiiitle bit scared of a pressure canner. Pressure canning is the only safe way to can low acid foods such as vegetables, meats, etc.

The local stores have had some really good sales on meat lately, such as sirloin for $2.99/lb. and chuck roast for $1.97/lb. and turkeys for $0.59/lb. Now that the freezer is FULL I decided to bite the bullet and buy a pressure canner.

Tractor Supply had one for about $80 during the summer and I bought it. It sat there for a few days and I took it back. Still scared.

So during the recent meat-a-thon I went to Tractor Supply and saw that it was on "clearance" - $10 off. I found the manager and told him if he'd take another $10 off I'd buy it. He did so I got it for $59.99.

After cutting up meat for what seemed like hours, I was ready to can. I think I have the instructions memorized, I've read the book through so many times. Even so, I stopped and started the process three times. I was afraid I had missed something in the directions. Still Scared.

I literally sat and stared at that pressure dial for 75 minutes (the amount of time it takes to can meat in a pint jar). It was exhausting (mentally).

After that first round, it was a cinch. Really easy, much easier than water bath canning.

I've done three batches so far: 7 pints of chuck (stew meat essentially), 7 pints of chili (no beans, another 5 in the freezer with beans), and 5 quarts of sirloin strips. I really like the idea of home-made convenience foods. Who wants to thaw a brick of whatever at 5:30 (like we normally do)??

Assuming we don't die of botulism ; ) then this should be a real convenience to have all this precooked stuff in the pantry.

As I sat and baby-sat the pressure dial, I surfed the net. I found all manner of bizarre things on YouTube. People who are living subsistence type lifestyles (with internet and video no less) showing you how to can and live off the land, people who stockpile food for religious reasons, and then there are the Preppers.

I watched a National Geographic show a while back called Doomsday Preppers which showcased several families who are preparing for their own versions of doomsay - or as some call it "when the shit hits the fan".

So these people are stockpiling not only food but gas masks, guns, ammo, silver, gold, you name it. One family who lives in a suburban home raises tilapia in their swimming pool and fish them out every night. They eat tilapia every night. Bizarre! And they all seem to be on YouTube. Thousands of videos. Between YouTube and Pinterest I no longer need my TV.

OK, so I got a little sidetracked off my canning post. While I don't think zombies are coming anytime soon, I think it makes good sense to buy something on sale, and store it as a hedge against inflation. I mean you will have to eat and I'd be willing to bet grocery prices won't be going DOWN.

Fall Table Runner

2011-10-14T12:52:00.011-05:00

I wanted to make a Fall themed table runner this year (before Fall was actually over . . . ) and I actually got it done!! As some of you may know I have a Phd. in sewing (lots of Projects Half Done). So when something gets completed timely it's exciting.

I have a few fallish embroidery/applique designs that I wanted to use. The Acorn is from http://www.swakembroidery.com/ and it was Free!! It really was fast and stitched up nicely. The pumpkin was from http://www.digistitches.com/. For some of the blocks I used two pumpkins, mirror imaged one and stretched them to make them look a little different. The turkey also came from Digi Stitches. We've sold many a t-shirt and dress with this applique on it. For the pumpkin and turkey you can choose to use a satin or zig zag stitch to finish. I used both in the table runner.

I started with muslin squares, about 8" each and appliqued pumpkins, acorns and turkeys on 7 squares. Each block has a slightly different design and fabric and color choices. I used my embroidery machine (of course!) to applique each block.

Once each block was done I thought they were a little boring. I did a little research and decided to make each block into a "snowball" block. This way there's less muslin showing.

To make the snowball blocks, you basically start with small squares (mine were 4"), draw a line through each diagonally, stitch one in each corner, cut off excess and press. Here's a picture that shows each step, double click to make the picture larger so you can see details.

I laid out the blocks on the table and arranged them the way I thought they looked best. Three face one way and three face the other way with one in the center. Then I alternated the color of the corners on each block (pumpkin/orange).

After each block was done I used a dark print for the sashing strips that join the blocks together.

Then to make it more complicated I finished it off with Prairie Points which I think add a lot to the look. They're actually not hard to do. Again I started with 4" blocks. I used the pumpkin/orange broadcloth and alternated colors around the edge. It took just a little adjustment to make sure they lined up correctly.

I think the overall effect would have been better if I'd used batik fabrics, but with the exception of the dark print used for the sashing I used scraps I had on hand left from other projects.

A table runner is basically a table sized quilt and has to be "quilted". I had grand ideas of quilting the whole thing with the embroidery machine, but I ran out of stabilizer and decided to finish up on the sewing machine. If you look closely you can see the quilting design of acorns and oak leaves in the sashing in the picture below.

Talk about easy! There's NO way I would ever attempt to do this by hand. It would take a lifetime. I finished up the straight stitch quilting on the sewing machine, boring but effective.

I also made a kitchen towel using some leftover fabrics. I used Monogram Wizard for the "Harvest Blessings".

I am making potholders now and will post some pics when (if...) I get done with that project.

Country Kitchen

2011-07-31T15:18:00.005-05:00

Here are some pics of our kitchen. I realize I've never posted any before now.

I love the design of the vent hood. There's a ledge like a fireplace mantel so I can display platters or whatnot. I have a large platter that Liz made for me which I display in the fall - it's a turkey. I keep meaning to buy a neat rooster platter at Hobby Lobby, but I'm too cheap to spend the money, even at half price.

The bar is great for eating dinner, preparing foods or cutting out patterns. It's about 48" wide. The wood below is tongue and groove aspen.

In this pic you can see the wicker baskets which slide out. They have a plastic liner which keeps everything clean. They're perfect for onions and potatoes. The cabinet above houses (some of my) cookbooks. Initially I was going to have a plate rack in this cabinet, but I realized I needed the space for cookbooks. I LOVE the trim on this cabinet. It's the same as the front of the vent hood. I searched online to find it. It matches my china cabinet. Yours truly installed all the trim and painted the cabinets.

Fun at the Beach

2011-07-05T21:39:00.004-05:00

Look who's having fun at the beach on the 4th of July!

Cute outfits courtesy of Stephanie!

Henpecked

2011-06-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

Machine embroidered "cross stitch" kitchen towels.

Get Real People

2011-06-15T13:16:00.003-05:00

I guess this is a "Rant" type post. My blog probably isn't particularly interesting to most people. I started it as an easy way to upload pics so that family members could see what we were up to, without having to email them several times.

What you see is what you get here. The pictures, unless otherwise indicated, are all mine, taken by me. The pics are of whatever's going on in our lives right now, as are the comments. Again, not real interesting to most people. And I'm not trying to sell anything to anyone on this blog.

I love reading other people's blogs - they're like free online magazines (and I am a magazine-a-holic). I like the pictures, the "feel", and so on of my faves. I have a few that I regularly visit, some of which are linked to this blog.

(here's where I get my Rant on . . . )

One blog in particular that I visit has charming pictures and topics that I find interesting. I was in Tractor Supply (what? you don't shop at TSC??) perusing their books when I saw a picture on the cover of a book on keeping chickens that this blogger has on her blog. Some of her pics give credit to the source of the photo and some do not. This one in particular did not - I checked it again just now. Now, unless she wrote that book or provided photography for that book, then she basically "borrowed" someone else's picture and put it on her blog.

OK, so maybe I'm naive or slow, or both, but I finally realized that this particular blogger isn't blogging about her real life, but is merely using other people's images to lure unsuspecting people like me in, and then hope to make money on the links on her blog.

I guess there aren't any rules when it comes to blogging. Who says you have to be blogging about your actual life? I've come to realize that some people create an online persona that is not really close to their actual life at all. Maybe that is the life they really want or maybe that's just the life they want you to believe they lead. I guess that's fine if that's what you're all about, but using someone else's pictures to make it look like that is your life is just wrong.

Onion Harvest

2011-06-10T10:15:00.003-05:00

Wow, check out the great onion crop! Marc planted about 400 onions and most of them made it. We've been using them and have sold some and we still have about 350 or so. We have white, yellow and red.

Marc has really big hands so they make these onions look average-sized.

But just look at the weight - 1-1/4 pounds!!! I think onion rings will be on the menu this weekend.

Muscadine Daiquiri's

2011-06-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

I have quite a bit of grape juice in the freezer from last year and the grapes are getting ripe already again. We decide to try making a cocktail like a berry margarita, only with muscadine grape juice and rum, not tequila. Ok, so it was not really like a berry margarita, but it was still good. Muscarita??

Procrastinators Anonymous - Meeting Tomorrow

2011-06-08T00:13:00.005-05:00

I enjoy sewing for Journey but as usual I procrastinate and find myself in a time crunch. Stephanie asked me to make Journey's Easter dress MONTHS beforehand, even gave me the pattern she wanted me to use and the color. The pattern was vintage and she wanted purple/lavender. Everything else was up to me. I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do, so I didn't do anything until the last minute.

The dress pattern is a simple design with puffed sleeves, and a slightly empire waist. The date of the pattern was 1968 I think. It was really easy to sew. One thing that was a surprise is how SHORT the finished dress turned out.

I made an overlay on the bodice to add a little interest. It ended up making the dress look like it was from the 40's. I did a similar effect on the sleeves. I added ric rac everywhere. The pattern didn't call for any piping, but it definitely needed it, so I added it to the waist and sleeve overlay.

I adapted a design in Sewing With Whimsy by Kerri Mecca. The design features a lattice effect along the hem of a sundress with ric-rac flowers scattered around. The instructions said to create the hem on tear or wash-away stabilizer, flat, then sew it to the dress. The lattice hem "floats" at the bottom of the skirt. I was worried that she would snag it on something so I stitched the lattice on the skirt, and didn't have it "float." It turned out cute.

The ric rac flowers were super easy to do, but time consuming. The design called for glass beads in the center of the flowers, but I used pearls. They turned out really cute. I bought ric rac locally and had to make do with the colors and sizes I could find. If I make these ric rac flowers again I think I will order some ric rac from Kerri Mecca's website.

I don't have a picture of Journey in her hat, but I used a 1940's hat pattern, shown below.

So . . . Journey's birthday is in December - Stephanie thinks I should start on it now.

Mmmmm....Strawberries!

2011-04-20T13:01:00.003-05:00

We get calls every day from people wanting to pick fresh, ripe organic strawberries. We've never grown them before so we decided to try some out this year for ourselves before we dive into commercial production. Marc planted 200 everbearing plants which will give us a steady supply of berries, unlike the "June bearing" types which ripen all at once.
Here's a pic of Journey picking the rirst ripe strawberries! Since we don't use any chemicals she can eat them right in the garden without washing.

Happy Birthday Caroline!

2011-03-16T22:51:00.001-05:00

This ecard generated with Smilebox

Birthday Top for a Special Girl

2011-03-13T12:44:00.006-05:00

Rylan is turning 7 soon and she's "into" dragons right now, so her Mom asked Grandma to make a top with a dragon to wear at her dragon-themed birthday party. I hope she likes it!

Before I got my first (I'm on #2 now) embroidery machine, I had no idea what-all you could do with them! I thought I could do monogramming and occasional designs, but I was afraid I would get bored with it soon, so the first machine I bought was an entry-level model. I didn't want to spend too much, just in case . . .

It wasn't long before I realized that I love machine embroidery! I quickly learned that there's so much more than just monogramming. The designs on this top include lettering and applique.

Applique back in the days before embroidery machines was a LOT of work, and always turned out looking "homemade". I mean, who could get that satin stitching just perfect?? With an embroidery machine it turns out perfect every time and it's SO easy. There are literally tens of thousands of designs available on the internet, which you can download to your computer, at a very reasonable price.

To machine applique, you first apply stabilizer to the back of the fabric, mark the placement of the design, hoop the fabric, and if necessary apply a "topper". The first stitching is a placement line, which shows you where the design will stitch. You place your applique fabric over this line. The next stitching is a tack-down stitch. After this stitching, you remove the hoop from the machine, but NOT the fabric from the hoop. You carefully cut away excess fabric from around the stitching using curved tip embroidery or applique scissors. Then you place the hoop back in the machine for the decorative edge stitching. That's basically all there is to it!

For this top, I used a dragon design from www.planetapplique.com, the set of applique numbers from Big Dreams Embroidery and the lettering was created in Monogram Wizard. I merged all three designs in my embroidery machine.

Here are a few hints for perfect embroidery or applique on t-shirts:

use iron-on stabilizer. This keeps the fabric from moving as you hoop and stitch.
always use a water-soluble stabilizer as a topper. It looks kinda like Saran Wrap and you stitch right through it. It keeps your fabric from distorting as you stitch and keeps the stitches from sinking into the fabric. I also use a topper when embroidering on minkee or terry. When you're done stitching, you cut away excess topper, then rinse in warm water. It dissolves in water.
mark the placement of the design carefully before hooping. I use a water soluble blue marker and draw "cross hairs" where I want the design. There's nothing more annoying (or costly) than finishing up a really cute design only to find that it's off-center after you unhoop it.
clip threads as you complete one color or area of the design to avoid having "tails" poking out when you're done. If you look closely you'll see that I missed one in my design.
after clipping away excess fabric and before you do the satin or other decorative stitch, use a piece of Scotch tape and pick up excess fabric pieces, threads, fibers, etc.
this top will probably only be worn once or twice, but if you plan for your garment to be worn and washed a lot, you might want to use an iron-on adhesive product (stitch witchery, wonder under II, etc.) on your applique fabric.

Bullion Bunnies

2011-02-19T12:30:00.000-06:00

Last year's Easter dress for Journey was made with Simplicity 2392 pattern. It is a reproduction of a vintage pattern. It features A skirt gathered onto a scalloped yoke and a scalloped hem band. The sleeves are puffed, set in and (gasp) elasticized.

I used Spechler Vogel pink sateen for the main body with white for the yoke, sleeves, and hem band.

The yoke features three silk bullion bunnies, one in pink, one in lavender and one in yellow. Their bodies are brown. The pattern came from Sew Cute Couture by Gail Doane (the clothes in this book are adorable!). I had never done this before and couldn't seem to get it right - I tried several times on a practice scrap and was about to give up. Then I went out and bought the CORRECT size needle!! What a difference the correct tools make.

Here's a close up of the bunnies.

On each scallop of the hem band I embroidered a small rosebud, leaves, and french knots. This idea came from a bib featured in Jeannie's embroidery book Jeannie B's Book of Heirloom Embroidery Designs & Stitches.

Instead of simply hemming the edges, etc., I got the brilliant idea that I would LINE the bonnet, which of course made more work. Anyway, it's basically a rectangle with a casing along the back edge to insert the ribbon to gather. Pressed for time (surprise, anyone??) I didn't have any time left for hand work, so I used the machine to embroider scallops and feather stitching along the front edge of the bonnet and made a little ruffle as well. I used the same lace on the ruffle as I did on the dress. I used silk satin ribbons for ties, with little bullion rosebuds holding it in place on the bonnet.

Love Labels

2011-02-17T22:28:00.002-06:00

I've always liked these little "Made with love by Grandma" labels. Not only will they serve as a reminder as to who made it, but they serve a practical purpose too. With home sewn pants, it's hard to tell the front from the back (the sewer knows the back is longer than the front, but a 5 year old doesn't), so I sew in a label so it's easy to tell the back from the front.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T15:26:00.006-05:00

I'll cast spell on you like I did my Grandma!

Lil' Punkin

Stephanie & Journey

Pics of Makenzie

2010-10-09T21:09:00.008-05:00

I took some pics of Journey's little cousin Makenzie when they were down for a visit recently. I know her Mommy is anxious to see the pics . . . here are a few:

Where DOES the time go?

2010-09-30T11:55:00.005-05:00

It's been six weeks since I posted anything - I've just been SO busy. So what have I been doing?? Well, to start with, Stephanie and I started a business - Journey Baby Boutique - and have been busy with that. We're going to craft shows selling baby items, most of which we make ourselves - burp cloths, bibs, hair bows/barettes, diaper bags & tote bags, diaper wipe cases, nursing covers, diapers, and more! Check out our blog:

http://journeybabyboutique.blogspot.com/

We attended our first craft show last weekend and it went great! Journey went along and was perfect of course! She drew in the crowds! We monogrammed lots of items on the spot and that kept us busy. We'll be at the Scarecrow Festival next weekend. Our booth will be next to Mary's, which is called Beads & Bling. Savanah is wearing one of her necklaces in the picture I posted in August (my last post).

YEARS ago, when Stephanie was a baby, Dana and I made some crafty stuff and went to some craft fairs, including the Scarecrow Festival. I took a "playpen" (that word is no longer fashionable, now they're called Pack & Play) for Stephanie and she went along too. I was into ceramics back in those days. Dana made wreaths and dried arrangements. We sold baked goods too - that was back before you had to worry about getting a commercial food license.

What else has been going on - we turned the back screened porch into a mudroom and SEWING ROOM!!! Well, it's not 100% finished, but getting there. I can't wait to have a dedicated craft room, what a luxury! The mud room is going to be nice too - with cabinets for more storage! I'll post pics soon.

Marc started a new batch of chicks. When the salmonella outbreak was on the news, people were beating a path to our door for eggs. It was crazy. So we decided it was time for more layers. We sold all the ducks - even Daffy - they were just too smelly & nasty - they poop all the time.

In addition to all the fun stuff, my company has been acquired by a bigger competitor and while I thankfully still have a job, I will have to move to another location which means a MUCH longer commute. I think I will start taking the bus again at that point.

I think that about sums up all the highlights for now.

Here are some recent pics of Rylan:

At summer camp - amateur archaeologist.

Here's Rylan and her Daddy, who is also her soccer coach, at practice.

Rylan's FIRST DAY of FIRST GRADE! I can still remember when her Mother went to first grade - she looked so much like Rylan.

Navasota recently had Homecoming and Journey and her Mommy went. Journey's wearing a sundress embroidered (by Grandma of course) with a sparkly diamond with a drill team dancer in the center and "Future Diamonette". You can't see her little bloomers, but her name is embroidered on them, all in Rattler Blue! Stephanie was a Diamonette (so was Liz), so maybe Journey will want to be one someday. She has a matching hair bow. Not shown in this pic is her corsage - too cute! I didn't go to the game (if it involves sports, I'm not interested), but I hear tell that Journey was passed around like a football, so I probably wouldn't have been able to hold her if I had gone.

Savanah & Beads & Bling

2010-08-14T13:51:00.003-05:00

Bathing Beauty

2010-08-08T18:48:00.001-05:00

This free digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

Savanah Smiles (that was a movie wasn't it?)

2010-08-08T18:39:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday Liz!

2010-08-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

Greeting personalized with Smilebox

Sisters make Salsa

2010-08-08T12:15:00.002-05:00

During the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Caroline, Stephanie and Caroline's friend Jackie came to make a couple batches of salsa. They each took a case home. We made up some cute labels for the jars. Labels seem like an extravagance, but they're so easy to make, look cute, and save you from wondering what in the world is in the jar and when did I make it. I have some jalapenos in the pantry that I put up last year and it's a guessing game every time I open a jar cause I don't know if they're pickled jalapenos or Cowboy Candy jalapenos cause I was in a big hurry and didn't label them.

Grape Stompin'

2010-08-08T12:00:00.004-05:00

After working at a winery for almost 10 years, Marc's not too keen on picking or pressing any more grapes. He has a few wine grape plants scattered around and they're ready to pick. He initially planted 60 when we first bought the property, but wild hogs rooted most of them up before we moved out here. We have a bumper crop of wild Muscadine grapes this year too. They're not planted in civilized rows with manicured aisles between, they grow on trees, fence lines, etc. You have to watch for spiders, wasps, snakes etc., when picking them, and I don't like wild critters at all.

I remember when I was a teenager, Dana made some homemade wine. All I remember is that she put it in a crock in the pantry and must have used a lot of sugar, cause it was sweet. (I dipped a few sips out of the crock).

I would like to try making some home made wine, but don't really have all the equipment yet, so I guess I'll have to wait till next summer. Meanwhile, I'm juicing grapes for jelly, syrup and maybe even just to drink.

I pulled out my trusty Roma Food Mill and inserted the grape spiral and started cranking. It was incredibly easy (Sidebar: I am not getting paid by Lehman's to advertise, but I have to say, this is well worth the price. You can get the basic food mill and all extras for about $75. It saves unbelieveable amounts of time and work) The skins and seeds went out one side and the juice and pulp the other. I ran the skins through again just to be sure I got all the juice. So far I have 1-1/2 gallons of juice in the freezer.

Journey's Special Christening Gown

2010-08-08T11:04:00.007-05:00

the little angel

Stephanie was shocked when I suggested making Journey's christening gown out of her wedding gown. I had to talk her into it really. But when she saw her little angel in the dress she had worn exactly 6 years and 1 day before, tears came to her eyes.

wedding gown

Stephanie's dress featured an A-line skirt with corset back. It was a beautiful dress, but there wasn't a lot of fabric in perfect condition to work with. Imagine how hard it was for me to cut into after spending $$$ on it!! As I started to take it apart I was surprised to find that the entire dress was completely lined with self fabric! Then there was an interlining. I quit counting the boning strips at 40. I'm sure it was quite hot and heavy to wear.

bodice construction

As I looked at the back of the dress, with the loops for the corset ties sewn in place, I wondered how I could use them in the christening gown. The picture above shows my pattern piece laid over the two back sides of the of the dress. The loops are forming a "V" shape on the bodice front. In the center I placed the "modesty panel" from the back of the gown (which was already finished!) and after stitching them all together, cut my bodice front. Perfect!! The wedding gown featured a beautiful silvery-bronze embroidery with Swarovski crystals, bugle beads and sequins. With all of that going on, the christening gown didn't really need any embellishments. I made simple puff sleeves with entredeaux and lace and silk satin ribbon to gather. The wedding gown had no lace at all, so I did purchase the entredeaux, lace, and ribbon (and cheated a little by buying satin covered buttons). Otherwise, the entire christening gown was made from the wedding gown.

Because the wedding gown was A-line, I had to cut the christening gown skirt in panels (3 for front and 3 for back), and add a hem band at the bottom, to get enough fabric. I do have enough scraps left over to make a little boy's outfit if needed in the future.

The bodice of the gown was so detailed and beautiful. I was able to make darts to use the entire bodice as Journey's bonnet.

The gown featured embroidery on one side, just below waist pleats. I used that flourish of embroidery to cut little slippers for Journey. I used a scallop embroidery stitch on the machine to finish all edges and added silk satin ribbon to tie. I embroidered the soles of the little shoes with her name and date of baptism.

sleeve detail

bodice details

Baby Boy Christening Outfit

2010-08-08T10:52:00.003-05:00

Journey's cousin Kaden was baptized not long after Journey. Kaden's mom, Brandy, asked me to make him a christening outfit using her wedding gown. I have never made boy's clothes before! It was hard to do because I couldn't add a bunch of lace, ruffles, etc.! Brandy asked me to incorporate some of the lace from her dress as well as something blue.

Her dress had a chapel length train that was completely re-embroidered scalloped lace. I hope they have a girl next and ask me to make a dress for her, because it will be beautiful!! I used some tiny lace medallions with some seed pearls and appliqued them to the collar of the outift. I used blue silk ribbon for the bonnet/cap ties and added some of the seed pearls to the ties. The entire outfit, including the lining, was made from Mom's wedding dress. It turned out pretty, if I may say that about a boy's outfit.

I can't think of a better way to make use of a wedding gown. You could save it and hope that your daughter would wear it, but styles change, and the likelihood of its being used as a wedding dress again is slim. A christening outfit is special, but making it from mom's wedding gown really makes it an heirloom.

A New Swimsuit for Journey

2010-08-01T18:48:00.004-05:00

In the recent "Blue" issue of Sew Beautiful magazine there was a little gingham two-piece swimsuit featured, including a free pattern. I knew it would be adorable on Journey.

I had a piece of turquoise seersucker that I'd been saving for a while. I had enough to make the swim suit as well as a hat. The suits in the magazine and the ones featured on the Sew Beautiful blog all had monograms on the bodice. While I love monograms, I wanted something fun and playful. I found a seahorse on the Embroidery Library website (http://www.emblibrary.com/). I'm on their email list and one of the latest emails was all about 'beachy' patterns. Here's a close up of the seahorse:

I love the combination of turquosise and lime green and naturally Journey needed hot pink, so I combined all those colors on the seahorse.

I needed lime green Ric Rac and guess what - the only store that carried it was Buttons 'n' Bows in Houston! I bought all they had. I looked at Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, a quilt store, even JoAnn's!! How frustrating! Buttons 'n' Bows has a lot of nice things, but they're not exactly close to me! I guess I need to plan ahead and order everything online from now on. . .

I changed the pattern/design just a little bit. I tapered the ends of the lower bodice ruffle to match the upper ruffle and I made two ruffles for the the pants, each open to the sides, instead of one that opens to the back. I found that the directions in the magazine were kind of vague, so if you decide to sew it, be sure to read it thoroughly. You have to know how to construct a garment before tackling this, since the instructions are so skimpy. All in all, I really liked the way it turned out.

"Diaper Wars"

2010-07-29T11:40:00.004-05:00

I watched Nightline the other night and one of the stories was on the "diaper wars" between big diaper companies trying to get the largest share of the market. The reporter stated that some parents had posted on facebook that their babies developed a rash or irritation from the new Pampers DryMax. Pampers spokeswoman said she was "surprised" to hear this claim and they chalked it up to "advocates of cloth diapers" spreading rumors. I thought it was interesting. I'd heard that to make disposable diapers more absorbent they were adding gels and fibers (not natural) that may or may not be a health risk in the long run. Of course, not having a baby in the house, I'm not too concerned about it, right?

So the next night Journey was visiting at her great grandma's and needed a diaper change. Rather than run home and get a cloth diaper, Stephanie borrowed one from her sister in law. Journey wore ONE disposable diaper for only a few hours. The next morning it appeared that she was burned. She cried and cried. The Dr. looked at it today and said it was in fact a chemical burn caused by the diaper.

Nevermind that landfills are brimming with plastic diapers that will never disintegrate, or that they cost way more to use, but how about the fact that the disposable diapers can be harmful to your baby??

When Stephanie was a baby I used cloth diapers. I remember being excited about "prefolds", which people now use to make burp cloths. Back in The Day you had a large square of birdseye and you had to fold it every which way to fit your baby and then use diaper pins (scary!). So the prefolds eliminated a lot of that work and I found some little clippy things that eliminated in the pins. I also used liners so I didn't have to rinse a poopy diaper in the toilet (disgusting).

But now, with extra absorbent FITTED diapers and cute covers, why would anyone use disposables? With enzyme sprays, you don't even use a diaper pail with water. There lots of websites that discuss how to use cloth diapers, the different styles, and the cost comparisons. It just seems SMART to use them nowadays.

Here's a link to the Nightline story:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/diaper-wars-battle-babys-bottom/story?id=11252355

Journey's New Diaper Covers

2010-07-22T10:42:00.005-05:00

Journey is wearing bigger diapers now and needed some new covers. Making waterproof diaper covers is fast and fun.

The bumble bee cover is cute, but I love the cheetah one!! The purple one is for Ava, Jackie's baby. It's a size small I think. The others are size medium.

Here's Journey modeling them for us:

Farmers Market

2010-06-26T22:31:00.003-05:00

Here's a pic of Marc helping customers at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market in Houston. We go every other weekend to sell extra veggies and eggs. We had watermelon, cantaloupe, squash zucchini, tomatoes (3 varieties), bell peppers, seedless cucumbers and duck and chicken eggs. The crowd wasn't quite as large as other weekends so we ended up taking home a lot of tomatoes, which is ok, cause I need to can more!

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

2010-06-24T21:00:00.004-05:00

Remember when I said I wanted enuf Salsa to last the whole year, and how I wanted to try to produce all the tomato products we needed? Well, I have 62 jars of Salsa so far, so I'm pretty good on that, and have about 42 jars of tomato sauce, so next will be stewed tomatoes. Last night I made Salsa Verde (green that is) from Yellow Pear Tomatoes. I thought it would end up yellow, but apparently the color is in the skin, which is discarded when making salsa. This was SO easy - no coring or chopping - just drop them in the hopper and grind away.

SO, this is what I saw when I walked in the door tonight. All I could say was OMG. Mary came over, walked in and said OMG. Seriously, have you ever seen so many tomatoes from ONE picking???

Journey's Baptism

2010-06-13T15:10:00.009-05:00

Sweet little Journey was baptized today at the First Presbyterian Church.

Mommy & Daddy celebrated their 6th anniversary yesterday. They were married in the same church. Journey's dress is made out of Mommy's wedding dress (which I'll describe in another post).

Journey's Godparents, Evin & Jason Coad, came all the way from Georgia with their little boy, RJ.

Mrs. Paiyou made a cake for Journey. The first layer is Italian Cream Cake. The top layer (the cross) is Vanilla with Raspberry filling.

Aunt Caroline made all the food, including a beautiful watermelon cut in the shape of a basket, fillled with fruit salad.

Salsa!

2010-06-07T14:53:00.005-05:00

Last year our tomato crop was sad (due to various operator errors...) and we had about enough tomatoes for a couple batches of salsa. We rationed it for as long as we could. It was a sad day when we ran out.

This year I stood in the garden after pulling a turnip and vowed, as God is my witness, I WILL have salsa this year!

Seriously though, my goal is to grow and preserve EVERY tomato product we will use for the next 12 months. Tall order? Yeah, maybe. I've never made tomato paste - not sure if it's even feasible at home. So maybe I won't try that one. But I refuse to pay $1.00+ for even one can of tomatoes this year.

Marc is even on board with making home made ketchup. He's never tried home made ketchup before. He likes all things pre-prepared - Heat & Eat. He probably won't like home made ketchup. I made it once years ago and while good, it's not as smooth as store bought.

I made the first batch of Salsa last night. It took about 3 hours from start to finish, which is pretty good. The OLD method involved scalding tomatoes, peeling and coring them while still hot (ouch), then chopping in the food processor. What a mess!!

I have a gizmo called a Roma Food Strainer & Sauce Maker. I bought this from Lehman's online. (I had one many years ago that I got with S&H Green Stamps!! I guess I sold it in a yard sale somewhere along the way). Anyway, it looks somewhat like a meat chopper. It has a big bowl that holds the food, a handle that you crank and an auger kinda like a meat chopper. But instead of knife blades, it has cone shaped "screens" that the food travels through. Here's the cool part: the good stuff (pulp) comes out one end and the stuff you don't want (peel, seeds) goes out another. No peeling tomatoes!!! It's super easy to use, you just cut up the tomatoes and throw them in. No cooking or peeling!

Roma Food Mill

The Roma can be purchased with various screens - at an additional charge of course. It comes with the basic puree screen. I've used this to make tomato sauce and "apple" sauce (from pears). The additional screens are: grape, berry (it takes those pesky little seeds out of dewberries!!), pumpkin and Salsa. Pumpkin works for other large seeded things like butternut squash.

Close up view of the soon-to-be-Salsa

The Salsa recipe I used came from Mary who got it from Haven Wisnoski. It's really good. Here's Haven's recipe:

1 1/2 Gallons chopped tomatoes (liquid drained)
3 large chopped onions
8 bell peppers/poblanos chopped
1 quart jalapenos chopped (I don't seed all of them)
5 cloves garlic chopped
fresh cilantro
1 tbsp. garlic powder
4 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. pepper
1 tbsp. crushed red pepper
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. veg. oil
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. chili powder

Put all ingredients in a large pot- bring to a rolling boil- turn down heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Put in sterile jars and seal makes approx. 17 pints

That's a lot-a Salsa!

I increased the vinegar to 1-1/2 cupes and processed the jars in a water-bath canner for 15 minutes. All of the veggies were grown in our garden.

The finished Salsa

Prune Pop Anyone?

2010-06-01T15:53:00.002-05:00

Journey's chillin' again - this time in her own little pool. What's she snacking on? A home made Prune Pop, made from prune juice.

Yum-O

The Farmers Market

2010-05-29T22:37:00.004-05:00

Today we had a booth at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market, which is just off Richmond Avenue in Houston. We started the process some time ago, which involves an application, review by a committee, attend a board meeting and answer questions (nerve wracking) and a farm visit. A lot of work, but that weeds out a lot of people I'm sure. In fact, at the board meeting one farmer was told he would not be accepted.

It was HOT! We had a neighboring vendor take our picture but it really doesn't show anything, so I won't be posting it here. I'll try to get a better pic next time.

We sold:

New potatoes $4/quart
Greenbeans $4/quart
Squash & Zucchini $1.00 each
Swiss Chard $3.00/bunch
Onions 50 cents each
Chicken Eggs $4.00/dozen
Duck Eggs $3.00/ half-dozen

The prices are unbelieveably high! We walked around after we set up to see what other farmers were selling their produce for and all of them said don't underprice your produce. So we priced our produce the same as theirs. I can't imagine paying those prices but I guess if you're used to buying organic produce at Whole Foods it's not a big deal. There's a family that sells chicken, fresh and frozen. One of their chickens costs $20.00 - EACH. I didn't even look at the price of the chicken breasts.

We didn't have any ripe tomatoes yet like everyone else, but then again no one else had swiss chard. The duck eggs were very popular and the chicken eggs sold out in one hour! People would stop and ask for eggs long after we were sold out. When the market closed we only had 1 quart of potatoes to take home.

Next week we'll have tomatoes, green peppers and who knows what else.

I also took home: fresh cheve (garlic and dill) which comes from a goat dairy very close to us, blackberries, and blueberries. The berries were $5 each (but they sold them to other vendors for $4)! Pricey, but I can't remember ever having blackberries so good. These were actually ripe and sweet! We had Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream for dessert with blackberries on top.

We had our first ripe tomato tonight for dinner. I made something that I remember Mom making when I was young, but I don't know if there's an actual name for this or not. She would pare cucumbers and cut into smallish chunks along with tomatoes and slice up onion and top with Italian dressing. I guess she did that when she had them fresh from her garden.

It's something that I really like to make but I change it up just a little. Instead of Italian dressing I use balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar, kosher salt (I don't think there's any real difference between that and regular table salt, but I like it being big enuf to see) and freshly ground pepper. So we had that with our dinner - so fresh tasting!

We also had what I guess you'd call Potatoes O'Brien maybe. Basically all it involves is sauteeing chopped onions & bell peppers in oil, then adding potatoes. I precooked the new potatoes in the microwave then cut them into chunks and added them to the cooked onion & peppers. I used red onions out of the garden and bell peppers from the freezer. (Sidebar note: we still have TONS of pre-chopped and -sliced peppers in the freezer from last summer!! Talk about convenience! I still have one bag of chopped onions too).

I don't know if it's because the food is homegrown, fresh, and organic, or if we were just tired and hungry, but it was DELICIOUS.

Happy Birthday Stephanie!

2010-05-26T13:59:00.002-05:00

Stephanie is 25 today!

Journey Chillaxin'

2010-05-24T10:20:00.003-05:00

After Mommy, Grandma and Aunt Mary did a "photo shoot" for the Country Peddler Show showcasing the baby accessories that Grandma and Mommy are making, Journey decided to take her first swim!

Journey likes the cool water!

Chillaxin' during the Photo Shoot

ADHD and Pesticide Use

2010-05-17T11:40:00.009-05:00

A study published today in the Journal of Pediatrics found that one type of pesticide commonly used on fruits and vegetables may be a contributing to ADHD in children. Exposure of children in early life to these pesticides can cause brain injury. The study says that even tiny amounts of pesticides effect children's brain chemistry. The researchers claim the chemicals can have harmful effects on development, including behavioral problems and the ability to think and communicate. Some experts recommend buying organic foods whenever possible.

Zucchini

Homegrown Cucumbers & Bell Peppers -

All Organic!

Everyday I pass a field which was recently plowed and planted with watermelons. These plants are vigorous and growing really fast, much faster than the watermelon plants on our farm. There are absolutely NO weeds in that field either. The topsoil blows away every time the wind blows.

Homegrown Spring Mix (No E-Coli here!)

It would be really easy for us to apply chemical fertilizers to grow our fruits and vegetables faster, to spray pesticides to eliminate bugs and herbicides to eliminate weeds. But those are not sustainable options. We're slowing building our soil health through natural fertilizers and cover crops. Some of our produce is attacked by bugs and that's just a fact of nature. We work extra hard to keep the weeds at bay. All of these factors can effect the price of organic foods.

Yellow Squash

Why go to this extra effort? Because my sweet little granddaugther is eating the food we produce. We want the healthiest, freshest food possible and organic is the best way to do this. We never have to worry about whether pesticides were used on our foods or if the lettuce or spinach will cause E coli. We want to know where our food comes from.

Marc and organic carrots

Journey likes Grandpa's carrots!

Journey's Nite Nite Diaper

2010-04-30T09:40:00.003-05:00

Stephanie is busily making larger diapers for Journey. This time she's making fitted diapers without the waterproof cover (called "all-in-ones" or "AIO"). AIO's tend to leak more than diapers with separate covers, plus having just a few covers will be cheaper than using the waterproof material on all diapers, and the drying time is much faster.

After cutting out all the diaper layers (birdseye, velour (for the layer next to baby's skin) and super-absorbent microfiber terry) she was short one birdseye layer but had more of the terry, so it made sense to make a super-absorbent night time diaper. To make it easier to identify, Grandma embroidered it!

Baby Burp Cloths

2010-04-15T21:23:00.004-05:00

I made these burp cloths for a baby shower this weekend. These colors match the baby's nursery - not the usual pastel pink & blue.

I used my new embroidery machine to stitch the baby's name. I made them just like the tea towels described in a previous post, but used birdseye for the main fabric.

Bluebonnets

2010-04-15T11:51:00.008-05:00

Easter Pictures

2010-04-05T09:43:00.004-05:00

Here's Journey in her Easter dress and bonnet (made by Grandma of course).

Isn't the setting cute? Great-Grandma Vacante has an Easter display in her yard every year and it's perfect for picture taking. Doesn't Journey look like a little DOLL??

Here's a family picture:

L@@K who turned 30 today!!

2010-03-17T20:55:00.000-05:00

Customize a greeting

It's Spring Everywhere it seems!

2010-03-13T09:44:00.008-06:00

I was just getting ready to post some pics I took last weekend and I got an email notification of a post on Kathy's blog about Spring in Ohio. This past week I couldn't help but notice the bright green grass everywhere. Our fruit trees are blooming and there's nothing prettier, maybe because the blooms last a very short time and there's the promise of fruit to come.

These are blooms on a Nectarine tree.

Snow Day and Oatmeal Cookies

2010-02-24T12:36:00.009-06:00

After the warm weekend we had, we thought spring was on its way. Wrong! It snowed yesterday! I left work early just in case the roads got icy. Coming out of Houston it rained most of the way then magically the rain turned to snow about 2 miles south of the house. Then it snowed all afternoon until dark. It was beautiful!

Unfortunately when we woke up the snow was gone..... But at least today it's sunny. I wish it snowed here in winter instead of the dreary rain! It was so nice watching the snow fall (from inside).

I decided oatmeal cookies would be a nice snack to enjoy while watching the snow fall. I'll share my recipe.

My favorite oatmeal cookie receipe comes from a little booklet that I bought at a yard sale for 25 cents. The original price was 20 cents. There's no date on the booklet anywhere but it looks like it was from the 50's or 60's. It's called Pillsbury's Best Butter Cookie Cookbook (Volume III). I've made several of the recipes which are all very good. The Peanut Blossoms recipe is great too. It's funny reading these old recipes because most of the women used their husband's name, for instance the lady who created the Peanut Blossom recipe is a Mrs. Chester Smith. Can you imagine??

This receipe is called Oatmeal Chip Cookies. Of course I always change a recipe somewhat so here's the way I do it:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In mixing bowl, cream together:

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
Aprx. 1-1/2 tablespoons of molasses (I think this is what makes these cookies moist on the inside. The recipe calls for 1 c. white sugar and 1 c. brown, but I always use molasses.)

Then add 2 eggs and beat well

Stir together in a separate bowl:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Then add to creamed mixture, mix well.

Stir in:

2 cups quick cooking rolled oats.

1 cup raisins OR chocolate chips

The recipe calls for 1 cup of nuts also, which I sometimes add and sometimes don't, just depends on whether I have them or not.

You can chill the dough if you prefer, for easier handling. Shape dough into balls, using a rounded spoonful for each. Place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 9-12 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool slightly then remove to wire racks.

I like small cookies and I like them to be uniform, not only because they look better, but they also cook more uniformly, so I use a gadget from Pampered Chef that looks like a melon baller or ice cream scoop, but basically it measures out a perfect portion in a nice round ball. It makes easy and fast work of making cookies. They come in three different sizes. I have a large one and sometimes make cookies with the larger one also. You can see it in the picture below.

I also use an air-filled cookie sheet for even baking and parchment paper for easy clean up.

Yum-O

The wire cooling racks in this picture were Mom's. I can only imagine how many cookies and cakes she cooled on them over the years!! They're probably pretty old and still going strong. I also have 2 racks from Marc's Mom. They're a little different but also old and well made.

The other cookbook in the picture is the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. This cook book was Mom's also. The page that showed the copyright is long since gone. There's still a sticker on the front that says $2.95 so you know it's old! I think it came out in the 60's. A few years back they reprinted it exactly as it was then so I gave all my daughters a copy, along with a note about which recipes were favorites. (Note: Stephanie had it for years with the cellophane wrapper still on... only recently, after moving into their house in Navasota did she crack it open)

I remember as a kid making recipes out of that book (making recipes with friends with spent the night, and leaving the mess for Mom to find in the morning). Pages 22-23 are stained from use. On those pages you find Snickerdoodles (I won a ribbon in the county fair many years ago with that recipe) and Chocolate Crinkles, as well as Peanut Butter Fingers, all of which I've made countless times.

I like cookbooks and have collected many over the years. I finally had to purge my stash, I simply didn't have room for all of them. I like any cookbook from the 50's because it seems like life was so wholesome and simple back then (our grand kids will probably say that about 1999).

I have a cookbook that Kathy gave me in 1977 - The Joy of Cooking. It is tattered and stained and sections have come loose from the spine but I still use it all the time. I learned to cook with that one. Everything you could need is in there - from how to set a table to how to stock your pantry to how to cook any food you could imagine. I am sure that I've literally read every recipe in that book.

Visitors to the Farm

2010-02-24T12:23:00.003-06:00

Twice now we've had a flock (or whatever you call a group of turkeys) come to visit. They appear to be wild turkeys, but they are very tame so I suspect that they belong to a neighbor. The flock consists of a male and three hens. The first time I saw them I heard the rooster and ducks making quite a bit of noise and when I went to see what had upset them I saw several large birds that at first glance resembled buzzards. I realized they were turkeys when I heard the male gobble. The three hens were right next to the electric fence eyeing the scratch grain Marc puts out for the chickens and ducks. The male had somehow managed to get stuck in the adjacent pasture and couldn't figure out how to get through the fence so he was pacing back and forth gobbling and ruffling out his feathers.

The second time I saw them they came across the field from the adjacent woods and headed straight for the garden. I thought - great, they're going to eat all the plants. But instead they headed for the chicken pen, again eyeing the grain. We ran outside to snap some pics and Marc threw them some grain, which they enjoyed.

The Perfect Day

2010-02-21T17:55:00.003-06:00

For those of you UP NORTH... the temp was in the mid- 70's today! I wore flip flops outside! I managed to get a lot done:

laundry (all of it!)
clean the kitchen
organize the laundry closet (yes, I know it's not terribly exciting but it needed doing and I can get more STUFF in there now)
sewing
pruned all the fruit trees, crepe myrtles and other assorted trees
Marc tilled up a flower bed around a crepe myrtle and we planted some daffodils, daylillies and irises that we've had in pots for THREE YEARS in the new bed and around the well house
enjoyed the sunshine (right now I'm sitting in a rocker on the front porch looking out over the pond enjoying the sound of the birds)

When we sold the house in town we potted up some plants that I had in the yard. It never dawned on me that three years later the flowering plants would still be in the pots. What's really cool is most of those plants were in the yard when I bought that house, but had been neglected for so long they had pretty much quit blooming. I divided them and moved them and they took off. The irises were salvaged from some trash bags that someone had set out for collection after digging up flower beds in their yard. One man's trash is another's treasure.

I haven't had flowers in so long - I am really excited about that. I loved having roses and other flowers in the yard. I vowed that I wouldn't plant anything until I had my picket fence. Marc says he's going to tackle it soon....

Meanwhile, the trees are budding out. The fruit trees will have blooms soon and the bees will be buzzing. If we don't get another freeze, I may have some apricots!

Babies on the Farm!

2010-02-21T17:28:00.004-06:00

On February 18th our chickens and ducks turned one year old. On the same day they turned one they became parents. Marc got an inexpensive incubator (at Tractor Supply of course) and after reading and researching all we could, he placed 14 eggs in it.

He also got an automatic turner so he wouldn't have to mark and turn the eggs daily. The turner holds about 40 eggs, but he only put 14 in for the first experiment (now we wonder why we didn't fill it up...). Basically you plug it in and adjust the heat until you have it at 99.5 degrees and place the eggs in, small side down (the head develops in the big end). You keep water in the incubator so the air is humid. You make sure the water level stays constant and that's pretty much all there is to it for the first 19 days.

You're supposed to "candle" the eggs to see if an embryo is forming, but since we have dark brown eggs, we really didn't have much success with that. Thankfully we didn't have an exploding (rotten) eggs. As it turns out, we had two eggs that didn't develop. Next time we will try harder to candle them to make sure we don't have any accidents.

I marked the calendar on the day we put the eggs in the incubator and counted 21 days (or so I thought). Actually I miscounted. Thursday night we heard a strange - chirping - sound and ran to the incubator and saw this:

I looked at the calendar and realized I had miscounted.... Three days before the eggs hatch you're supposed to take out the turner so the chicks can position themselves for hatching. I hoped I hadn't screwed it all up! We quickly moved the eggs onto the wire (after placing muslin on the wire to catch any nastyness) and waited. The first chick came out about 1-2 hours after we first heard the chirping. I could hardly go to sleep that night, it was so exciting.

We figured we'd get about 1-2 chicks out of the deal, but we have 10 chicks. We would have had 12 but we learned, too late, that you're not supposed to open the lid until all the chicks hatch because the humidity drops. But even so, 10 out of 14 is great. Now if only all of them would be hens!!

We have a huge brooder cage in the shed, but it seems like a lot of work to set that all up for 10 chicks, so Marc put a plastic tote in the clawfoot tub and clipped a heat lamp on and that's where they'll stay for a week or so. Aren't they cute?

This is exciting because we can now add to our flock without having to order (and pay for) chicks. Marc is now collecting duck eggs. It will be interesting to see if we have a similar success rate with the ducks. I am envisioning an Easter picture of Journey with ducklings all around....

Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto

2010-02-21T16:52:00.006-06:00

A few years ago when Martha Stewart was released from prison, a reporter asked her what she was having for dinner. She replied "Risotto!" I had never had risotto before although I'd heard of it. I figured that if Martha Stewart was having risotto for dinner on the first night she was released from prison, it must be something special. So I decided to make it. I couldn't believe my taste buds. I made the simple, classic recipe on the package of arborio rice. It was delicious.

Since then I've experimented with other combinations. Since I had an overabundance of butternut squash this fall I've made Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto several times. Since the first time I've made it I realized that it's one of those dishes that you can make substitutions and cut corners and it still turns out great. So, here's how I did it.

First, I cooked the butternut squash. Most recipes tell you to peel it first, but that is a LOT of work and I am looking for the Easy Button whenever possible.

I cut the squash in half, remove seeds, place cut side down on a stoneware pan with a little olive oil and bake till done. Then I scoop out the innards and discard the peel. This is a good way to do it when you have a lot of squash and need to get them processed quickly, which is what I had to do. I then packaged it in recipe-sized portions and froze it. Of course this only works when you will be mashing the squash. Ok, back to risotto...

In a heavy saucepan, saute 1 medium onion in a combination of olive oil and butter (about 3 Tbls. total) till tender & transparent, but not brown. Meanwhile, in another pan heat about 6 cups of chicken stock and keep it hot. Add 1-1/2 cups arborio rice to the pan with the oil and onions and saute for a few minutes.

Here you can add a little wine if you want to. Otherwise, begin adding the chicken stock, one half cup at a time. Cook at a strong simmer till the stock is absorbed, then add the next one half cup. Keep doing this till the rice is tender (or al dente if that's how you like it), which will take about 20 or 30 minutes. You're supposed to stir constantly, but hey, I don't. The rice will be creamy when done. Add the mashed squash, salt to taste, and add 1/2 cup or so of parmesan cheese, grated.

The thing that's neat about this is so long as you don't burn it you really can't screw it up. Also good - mushrooms and spinach instead of the squash.

L@@K who came to see Grandma today!

2010-02-15T19:34:00.001-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T16:48:00.000-06:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

2010 Garden

2010-02-09T12:12:00.003-06:00

Here in Texas gardening is a year round activity. Right now we have lettuce ("Spring Mix" (leaf lettuce) and Red Romaine) and radishes in the garden and we're having salads just about every night. We also have carrots, broccoli, swiss chard, cabbage, cauliflower and who knows what else growing right now. I just cooked the last of the butternut squash the other night (I'll post a couple of my favorite recipes soon).

While it's nice to have fresh winter vegetables, it's more exciting harvesting vine-ripened tomatoes. Marc has started enough seed trays to plant 1/4 acre of tomatoes! Like Blue Bell we plan to eat all we can and sell the rest.

Here's a picture of the seed starting stand he built using PVC pipe and grow lights holding about 12 flats of seeds. We need about 2 more of these units.

My $5 Cardigan & Tank Set

2010-02-08T16:11:00.006-06:00

I love fabric stores but there aren't many left in these parts. Most of my purchases these days are online. I heard that even Wal-Mart is discontinuing sewing departments in its stores. No matter whether I'm online or in a store, I am compelled to browse the clearance section and every now and then I find something worth buying. Recently, I found some interesting fabrics at Wal-Mart on clearance for $1.00 per yard.

The price of patterns has gotten ridiculous so I only buy them when they're on sale for 99 cents each, then I usually get about 10 at a time. If I don't ever use the pattern I can sell it on Ebay and recoup my cost.

Here are a couple of pics of my cardigan & tank top set that only cost $5 including the cost of the pattern, made from my $1/yard clearance fabric. The fabric is a knit with several different colors and has a slightly nubby texture, very lightweight and comfortable.

I've been sewing on and off for 30 years and recently came across something that I'd never heard of before and now wonder how I ever lived without it - double needles. I always thought you had to have a special sewing machine to use double needles. Now that I know I can use them on my sewing machine I've bought every one I could find, including one for stretch knits. You can see the topstitching on the closeup of the tank top done with the double needle. There's no way I could ever top stitch so precisely without it.

Sleeping Beauty

2010-01-28T11:39:00.001-06:00

Tea Towels - Make your Own!

2010-01-27T12:52:00.014-06:00

Here’s a quick and easy project you can make for yourself or to give as a gift. Following are the instructions for the two different types that I’ve made.

Method 1 - Using purchased terry towels

I purchased plain white waffle-weave cloth towels in the kitchen department of the local “big box” store. They came in a pack of three for less than $6. Prewash and dry the towels and press. Do the same for the fabric unless you buy quilting cotton, in which case it’s already preshrunk.

Using the width of the purchased towel as a guide, cut a band of fabric the width of the towel plus 1” (the seam allowances will be ½”). Make the band as long or as short as you want, this is just the decorative band which will be at the bottom of your finished towel. This is where you can use scraps left over from other projects. In this case I used a band about 5” long so that I ended up with a 4” strip at the bottom of the towel.

Cut off the hem from the bottom only of the purchased towel.

With the right side of the band to the wrong side of the towel, and raw edges even, stitch or serge using ½” seam allowance.

Press, folding band to the right side of the towel. Then press under your seam allowances on all raw edges of the band – 1/2” on each side of the band and ½” at the top of the band. Press well.

If you want to add any embellishment, such as ric-rac, this is the time to do it. I inserted jumbo ric-rac just under the band so the top of the ric-rac shows after it’s all assembled. You could also add piping or a coordinating strip of fabric. If you’re using any embellishment, stitch it in place before proceeding to stitch the sides. You can also add a decorative stitch here. I used the featherstitch.

Then stitch along each edge of the band using a regular straight stitch to secure the edges of the band to the towel. That’s it!

Finished Towels, to be given as Christmas Gifts!

Method 2 - Creating your towel from fabric

This method is a little more work. You’ll need a fabric that’s 100% cotton for absorbency. I used an interesting heavy fabric that I found at the quilt store for the “towel” part and a pretty green and red paisley for the decorative band.

Decide what size you want to make your towel. The best way to do that is look at some towels you already have and measure them. I wanted mine about 18 x 28 inches, finished size. Be sure to add ½ inch seam allowances to all edges before cutting.

So, I cut the "towel" fabric 19” wide by 25” long and the decorative band fabric 19” wide by 9” long.

With right sides together, having raw edges even, stitch or serge the decorative band to the towel.

Press, pressing seam toward band.

If you have a serger, serge all edges then turn under ½” and press. If you don't have a serger, press under 1/4" then press under 1/4" again (basically you're making a 1/4" hem on all sides).

Fold the decorative band wrong sides together so that the pressed edge meets the seam on the back of the towel. Press well then “stitch in the ditch” on the right side, catching the pressed edge of the band on the back of the towel.

Finished Towels!

My Favorite Small Kitchen Appliance

2010-01-26T09:24:00.003-06:00

I'm always finding new ways to use my Kitchen Aid Mixer - it's my favorite, most useful small kitchen appliance (thanks Caroline!). I have a food grinder attachment and buy roasts on sale and grind them into hamburger for a fraction of the cost of lean ground beef. Now even Marc has learned to do this! We've made sausage too as you can see from a previous post and bread. I made pizza dough two nights ago, using our home made Italian sausage and it was delicious! If you want the dough recipe let me know.

So, I have this attachment that I think they call the Roto Slicer Shredder or something weird like that. It comes with four "drums" about 4 inches across on the front. I inherited it from Mom. I'm not sure what exactly she did with it - I think I recall her shredding cabbage to make coleslaw. It's stainless and aluminum but the new ones are made of plastic.

It's my new favorite toy in the kitchen. I used to have it squirreled away in the closet under the stairs and had to move 25 things to get it out so I rarely used it. I wasn't sure what I'd do with it anyway.

But now, in my quest to save money I found a fabulous use for it - grating cheese in bulk. I quit using pre-grated cheese a while back, not because of the cost, which is staggering if you do the math, but because they add something to keep the cheese from sticking together, and I can taste and feel it when I eat it. I used a hand grater which gets old fast. So now I buy cheese in bulk and if you pay attention you will find that it's on sale quite often. I just got several types for $2.99 per pound recently. I grate a whole block (1-2 pounds at a time) with the Roto Slicer Shredder thingy and it takes about 5 seconds! I store the cheese in a Pyrex refrigerator dish.

I remember Dad making potato chips when I was a kid and he used this gizmo. He was always making some really weird dish like potato chips or donuts. He never made run of the mill meals. So last night I wanted sweet potato oven fries but I got a wild idea that we'd have sweet potato chips! The potato I used was huge, so I had to cut it in half and I used the thin slicer drum and even though sweet potatoes are hard to slice it worked great! Most of the slices were paper thin, a few were a little thicker. I fried them in 350 degree oil in a cast iron pot until they were golden then drained them and sprinkled coarse (kosher) salt on them. We snacked on them while dinner was cooking - they were great with a beer... Even Marc, who does not like sweet potatoes, liked them.

So I wondered if the chips would be good today and they're still crisp so I will be having some with lunch.

The High Price of Convenience

2010-01-25T21:20:00.014-06:00

When we lived in the camper while building the house we used lots of disposable products for convenience's sake. Not only are disposable items expensive but then you have to deal with the trash. Living in the country you don't have city trash service so you have to figure out how to get rid of it. It's a lot easier to reduce the amount of "stuff" that comes into the household than it is to get rid of it once you're done with it.

I've been trying to whittle down the amount of disposable items we consume in our household. We've eliminated paper towels for the most part (every now and then Marc buys some cause he likes them). I use only dish cloths, cloth kitchen towels, cloth napkins. I wash them all separately in hot water so I know they're clean. I have lots of them so I always have fresh ones.

I love using the Swiffer Sweeper but I was cleaning yesterday and didn't have any of the mop refills... what to do? I figured I could make some reusable ones out of old towels. I had some towels destined to become rags (some would say they've been rags for a long time) so I measured, cut and serged them up into cleaning cloths which fit the Swiffer Sweeper perfectly.

To make your own, measure and cut old towels into pieces 8 inches by 10 inches. Be sure to cut off the selvedges and hems. Serge the edges. Either tie off the threads or apply Fray Chek (which is what I used).

Other ways to reduce your consumption of disposable items include:

using old-fashioned glass refrigerator dishes (Pyrex, Corning Ware) and jars (canning jars or repurposed mayo jars, etc.) instead of plastic baggies and plastic wrap. I have a turquoise Pyrex refrigerator dish of Mom's that must be at least 40+ years old and still going strong
sew or buy cloth or recycled plastic grocery bags to eliminate those plastic or paper grocery bags from the store
get a "commuter mug" for coffee or other drinks such as water
OK, if you're squeamish or a guy don't read this one - cloth "pads". After all, what do you think women used 50 years ago??
cloth diapers (see Stephanie's by clicking on her blog link above) and baby wipes. Stephanie made wipes using 8x8 inch squares of cotton velour, serged the edges together using a complimentary thread color. Not only do cloth diapers save tons of money but the amount of waste in the landfill is staggering.
A friend gave me a hand-knitted cotton dish cloth. It's almost too pretty to use, but it really works well. She also gave me crocheted pads that look a lot like Brillo Pads - they're crocheted out of tulle or net. Hard to believe that they're hand made and they go in the washer (but not the dryer) and they don't scratch.

Got any good ideas? Please post them!

Sausage Making

2010-01-12T11:35:00.003-06:00

We FINALLY had the pig "processed". Josh came with a trailer to load him one freezing morning. We lost track of how long we had him. Savanah got him to show in a fair, but he developed a limp early on which made him unacceptable as a show prospect so that's how we got him. We think we had him about 7 or so months. He got a large amount of cracked corn each day but he preferred table scraps. His favorite food of all was home-grown ripe cantaloupe.

Josh estimated his weight to be around 350. His hanging weight was 250 pounds. I could write an entire post about raising animals for slaughter, processing, humane treatment, etc., but I'll save that for another time.

We're not sure exactly how much meat we ended up with, but it was a lot! We didn't have room in the chest freezer for all of it - some had to go in the fridge freezer and some (the head and the fat) in the fridge in the shed. We gave the head to some people who make tamales. We're going to render the lard (more on that exciting project in another post....)

Since we weren't sure how much sausage we wanted to have, we just had the trimmings ground and put all the roasts in the freezer. In the future we can always grind up some roasts if necessary to make more sausage. We had 25 pounds of trimmings, which is a good bit to work with when you're making the sausage yourself. It was really nice having the meat ground by the butcher. What a timesaver! All we had to do was season, stuff if desired, and smoke (which comes a little later).

I researched home sausage making on the internet and found recipes using 45 and 90 pounds of meat!! I finally found recipes that used 5 or 10 pounds, which is just about right for us. The recipes can be found at www.dakotahsausagestuffer.com/makesausage.htm

The first batch of sausage we made was breakfast sausage. This was very easy. It's basically ground pork, salt and spices. A note on the spice jars shown in the picture - I wanted a spice rack and looked all over the internet but couldn't find one I liked for less than $50. I happened upon one at a yard sale for $2. It included a wooden rack and about 20 or so jars. I cleaned it up, wiped a little stain on the rack to shine it up, and made labels on my ink jet printer. What a good deal!

Ok, so back to the sausage. We made some links and some bulk. The links are somewhat difficult and practice makes perfect. After making all the links I realized you can make one long tube THEN twist the individual links. You want to try to get the links all a uniform size and it's pretty tricky trying to make sure the meat is pushed down into the grinder, you support the casings as the meat is filling it and so on. Of course just about the time you start to get the hang of it you're done. Marc had to handle feeding the grinder while I was in charge of the casings. After a while we got tired of doing that so we finished with bulk sausage. I got supplies from Eldon's Jerky and Sausage Supply. I bought casings and poly storage bags which I used for the breakfast sausage. We packaged the sausage in Foodsaver bags and vacuum sealed them.

For the breakfast sauage, I carefully measured the salt and spices according to the recipe and made a small tester patty, which tasted really good. However, the finished sausage tastes a little salty. Again in hindsight I realize I didn't follow the directions exactly - you're supposed to mix all the salt and spices in the water before you add to the meat. I initially sprinkled the first tablespoon of salt over the meat before I remembered! For 10 pounds of ground trimmings, I added 2 Tbsp. table salt, 1-1/2 Tbsp. sage, 1-1/2 tsp. thyme, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 3/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/2 tsp. pepper, 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper and 1/2 cup water. Caroline and Stephanie said it needed more sage.

Since the meat was already ground all I had to do was stuff the casings using the food grinder attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer. I use it quite often to grind roasts I find on sale into hamburger. I bought the sausage stuffer attachment set (the tube thing that comes out the front) on Ebay for about $8 including postage. The grey plastic bin in the photo is a food grade storage tote that I got from the restaurant supply store. It really came in handy for mixing the 10 pounds of pork that we used for the breakfast sausage recipe.

After making the breakfast sausage we made a batch of Beer Brats. I substituted beer for the water in the Bratwurst recipe. Don't they look good?! Marc likes to grill brats but I've never really liked them. I'm hoping that homemade sausages will taste better than store-bought.

Next, we made bulk Italian Sausage. I used our home raised dried cayenne peppers in this to add a little kick. We packaged this in 1 pound packages. I plan to use this for lasagna, spaghetti, pizza, etc. The ground pork is fairly lean - it has less fat than ground chuck.

Next weekend we plan to make Polska Kilebasa, which will be smoked.

We have 12 pounds of bacon curing right now. This weekend when it's done we'll smoke it and I'll post some pics of that process!

Easy Christmas Stocking Tutorial

2010-01-10T16:30:00.002-06:00

Journey came before Christmas and we couldn't find a Baby's First Christmas stocking anywhere. Her Mom is planning to make her a felt embroidered stocking for next Christmas, but what would we do this year?? Grandma made her a quick and simple stocking. If only Grandma had an embroidery machine... think what I could do! Here's a tutorial if you'd like to try it out yourself.

Sisters

2010-01-10T11:26:00.001-06:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Caroline

2010-01-10T10:12:00.001-06:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Tipping the Scales

2010-01-10T01:11:00.002-06:00

Journey is up to 10-1/2 pounds now!

The 2010 Homemade Christmas Challenge is Under Way!

2010-01-06T08:42:00.003-06:00

OK folks, I've threatened it for years .... and now 2010 is the year for the first Annual Homemade Christmas! Call it "Homemade Christmas From the Heart" or something along those lines. Out with commercialism, in with Homemade from the Heart!

There are a lot of reasons why 2010 is a good year to plan for homemade gifts: I don't want to see gifts I've bought and paid for end up in a yard sale; the national economy is grim; I will probably lose my job; we really don't need as much as we want; etc.

Some of my best Christmas memories didn't involve expensive gifts.

Grandma Gray had scads of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and yet she managed to give everyone a gift at Christmas on a low fixed income. I asked her how she did it and she said she shopped throughout the year, buying items on sale and stockpiling them and making handmade gifts throughout the year as well. One of my all-time favorite gifts that I ever received and that I used for years, literally until it fell apart, was a "tote bag" for lack of a better term. She used the base of a plastic sherbet container and punched holes around the top edge and crocheted a "tube" about 6-8 inches up with a drawstring to close the tube. Thus, a tote. I loved that thing! I think she made a bunch of them. Mary says she thinks hers was made from a plastic milk jug. Grandma Gray made Christmas tree skirts, tablecloths (Dana has a beautiful one she made with net/tulle and felt and cardinals sewed on it if I recall correctly), dolls, Barbie doll clothes, Christmas stockings, embroidered felt door knob thingys, and so on. I particularly loved the topsy-turvy" doll that she made me. I found a pattern for it on Ebay and plan to make it for one or more granddaughters!

These gifts could not be bought with money and they are the ones I remember so well. I'd like to leave those memories with my children and grandchildren.

Even if you're not "crafty" there are LOTS of things that can be made. Here's a quick list of things that come to mind:

1. Christmas Decorations, such as wreaths, stockings, ornaments, etc. The great thing about this type of gift is that if the recipient doesn't love it, they only have to drag it out once a year!!
2. Aprons - they are so IN right now and very practical. Make them with Christmas fabric that will be on clearance soon.
3. Kitchen or "Tea" Towels. Everyone needs them. Make them to match the recipient's kitchen theme/color or make Christmas theme towels. I made some this past year and I will post a "tutorial" soon.
4. Slippers. Who doesn't always need slippers?? They can be made pretty much with scraps leftover from other projects. I scoured the internet and found free patterns. Watch for a tutorial coming soon.
5. Other sewing gifts that are fairly "safe" - meaning the recipient is likely to actually use them - and would be appreciated would be a robe, nightgown, after-bath wrap, bath pillow.
6. Food gifts are always great to receive and anyone can put them together. You could make something like cookies, bread, jelly, pickles, etc. or make up "mixes". There are lots of mix recipes on the internet for free. It's all in the presentation. Use canning jars and layer the ingredients, or use a cute gift box and put the ingredients in zip-lock bags. Look for decorative plates or other containers throughout the year at yard sales.
7. Bath products. The ingredients are available everywhere and recipes are available on the internet for free. Look for jars and containers at yard sales throughout the year.
8. Lap Robe or Throw Blanket. I saw instructions to make a lap robe out of fleece on the internet. The pattern included a "pocket" in which the blanket is folded up and tucked into so that when not used it looks like a pillow. If you leave off the pocket no sewing is involved at all.
9. How about a set of handmade cards or stationery along with a calendar with family member's birthdays and anniversary's already jotted down?
10. Search the internet - especially people's blogs - to find more inspiration! Martha Stewart's website has tons of ideas too.

The gifts that can be made are only limited by your imagination!

So, anyone want to join in the challenge?? Don't wait till December! Start now by making a list of the people to whom you want to give gifts and jot down notes about what you could make for them. Start looking for materials in that pile of stuff that's destined for the next yard sale (maybe repurpose fabric from some old clothes?), go to the Christmas clearance sales at the craft stores now and shop at yard sales throughout the year. Just get started!

Finding the Time

2010-01-06T08:38:00.003-06:00

How many times have you said "I just don't have the time to..."

Did you know that if you eliminated just 30 minutes of television watching per day you'd have 182.5 hours each year to do something more productive. 182.5 hours equates to 7.6 FULL DAYS or 22.8 WORK DAYS (based on an 8-hour work day).

What could you do with that much time??

My Christmas Present to ME

2009-12-31T19:02:00.004-06:00

I've been wanting a soup tureen to match my Johnson Brother's Friendly Village dishes. I have an automatic search set up on Ebay to notify me when new ones go up for auction, but the auctions always went up beyond what I was willing to pay, especially since it's not a necessity, and how often will I really use it anyway??

So, during the Christmas holidays I bid on one that was pretty reasonable and I won it - for $35!! New and unused in perfect condition!

I also bid on a demitasse cup and saucer set (for Rylan) which I didn't win.

I have been looking for Cream Soup bowls, which are hard to find outside of the UK. The biggest problem is that I want to get them for a really good price. I also want a pitcher and a butter dish. Not the modern style butter dish but the Round one - again expensive and rare...

Part of the fun of collecting is finding the really old pieces in good condition and for a really good price. I've really had fun building my collection.

You can see other pieces I've collected in this picture. I hunted far and wide to find this Welsh Cupboard (found it on Craigslist). The classic English fretwork on top matches my kitchen cabinets. If I EVER get the drawer pulls on the drawers in the kitchen I'll post pics of it....

Sweet Journey

2009-12-31T18:58:00.004-06:00

Journey Rose Vacante

2009-12-15T23:05:00.007-06:00

Journey Rose Vacante finally arrived, at 10:25 on Wednesday, December 9, 2009. Here are a few pictures of her getting ready to leave the hospital to go home.

Waiting on Journey

2009-12-07T21:18:00.004-06:00

Stephanie went into the hospital Sunday at noon. After an afternoon & night of various medications, she was dilated to almost 2 cm. She had a cough when she went in which kept getting worse, so the nurse did a flu test, which came back positive. The dr. decided to wait on the induction until she was feeling better (100 degree fever and labor - bad combination). She is still in the hospital, the dr. wants to keep her and watch her until tomorrow. If she is not dilated any further she will go home to rest and go back to the hospital Thursday or Friday. If she is dilated to 3 cm the dr. will reevaluate what to do...

What Feels like Autumn in Texas is What Summer is Like Everywhere Else in the US

2009-09-19T20:20:00.012-05:00

Today when I got up I went out on the back porch to have coffee and the temperature was 68 degrees! I can't remember the last time it was that cool! The high was around 90, which isn't TOO bad, considering we just went through a horrible drought and heat wave, where the lows were around 85.

I got quite a bit planted in the garden today: spinach, beets, swiss chard, carrots, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, sugar pie pumpkin, and sugar beets.

I am hoping that we won't get an early frost and I'll be able to harvest the winter squash I planted today. I'm going to plant more butternut squash tomorrow. They grow like weeds. I have a laundry basket full of butternut squash already and more to pick tomorrow. I am going to make muffins out of some tomorrow. With the abundance of the all the squash I am going to try some new recipes. Maybe I'm going overboard with the butternut squash but I refush to buy any high priced store squash again! The last time I went to buy one at the store it rang up $4.50. I told the clerk to take it off - I'm not paying $4.50 for ONE squash!!! It wasn't even organic! So that weekend I planted the first butternut squash and they've done great.

I have some acorn squash "making" right now. The variety is Honey Bear and they're a miniature "personal" size. I think they will be perfect for two servings.

So, sugar beets you may be wondering. I have had this weird fascination with sugar beets, so I finally found a source for seed. Supposedly they grow to be huge and we can cut them up and feed them to whatever animals we have.

Here are some garden pics:

This is the new field that Marc worked up a month or so ago. You can see eggplant on the left. These rows are 100' long. On the right is a row of French cantaloupe. I have never tried them and can't wait. Supposedly it's the best melon you can grow. The seeds were quite expensive, so I started them in seed trays so I wouldn't waste any of them. The cantaloupe we grew over the summer were very good - SO different from store-bought melons! The butternut squash over-ran the melons so I missed a few and they got overripe, but Pig-Pig LOVED them. He even ate the rinds.

Fall tomatoes. Our timing on our spring crop was way off, so I am hopeful that we'll get a nice fall crop. We have a LOT of them. I've lost track of exactly how many. Note the plastic. Mulch is the only way to go. We just can't stay ahead of the weeds without it. Marc put down irrigation first which has really made it easy to keep everything watered.

This is my Earthway Seeder. I got it from Johnny's Seeds with a gift certificate from Stephanie. It has "plates" sized for different seeds. You pour your seeds in the hopper and start walking. Talk about a back saver!! It drops the seeds at perfect intervals and covers and tamps down the dirt too.

We live about 125 miles from the coast and yet our pond has had a flock of whooping cranes on it for the past week. We could drive back and forth over the dam and they stayed in the pond, but flew off if we walked along it. They probably got every catfish in the pond. Yesterday Marc snapped a few pics of the birds (I really want a telephoto lens!!) and today they're gone.

As we drove by the pond today we saw yet another water bird. It was pink like a flamingo, but had a spoon shaped bill. Marc says it's a Spoonbill. We saw them at Freeport. I need to get a bird watchers book for Texas.

Our bell pepper plants are still going strong even after the drought. We have gallons stored in the freezer. This picture shows just one picking!

Apparently blogging isn't one of my strong points...

2009-08-22T22:13:00.002-05:00

Jeannie just pointed out that I haven't updated my blog in about 6 weeks... OK, here's the quick update.

July 15th I had a hysterectomy and I've been off work since that time recuperating. Meanwhile, Stephanie and Frank and Liz and Rylan had vacations planned to come and visit. Since their tickets were bought and paid for, they came for a visit anyway. Liz, Caroline and Rylan stayed in the camper and Stephanie and Frank in the loft. Liz and Rylan stayed 6 days. Stephanie and Frank's visit was to last 3 weeks. Caroline took off 3 weeks to spend time visiting with everyone.

Rylan absolutely LOVED helping "PA" with the farm chores! She got to drive the tractor, collect eggs, feed the chickens, ducks and the pig!

Stephanie and Frank's vacation was to end August 19, but due to complications with her pregnancy, she is staying here and Frank will be returning Sept. 30. Several friends and family gave Stephanie and Frank a baby shower and I'll post pictures of that soon.......

I've really been enjoying being at home. I don't know HOW I will be able to go back to work - how can I take a nap??? I have been sewing during my "convalescence" and have enjoyed that. I think now I need an embroidery machine! Stephanie and I have been thinking of all the things that we could embroider for the baby!

Stephanie decided she would learn to sew while Frank was in Qatar and is making diapers. We'll post pics of that project when complete!

Which came first - the chicken or the egg?? The chickens, by about 4-1/2 months

2009-07-01T21:51:00.004-05:00

Exciting things going on here at the Krause residence - we had our first eggs today!!! And what did I do with the first one?? Throw it at the rooster who tried to charge me of course.

I have been saying for days that surely we'd find an egg any day now and we should get the nests up. If you know anything about me/us, then you know that hasn't been done. I do tend to procrastinate....

The ducks are scared of everything, including the chickens so they tend to steer clear of them, never going near the chicken hut until most have gone in to roost. The last couple of days we've noticed the ducks going into the chicken hut. This evening I saw a duck sitting down in the dirt near the door, not near any other ducks and wondered what in the world it was doing there. Later I got my rubber boots on and went to investigate. Lo and behold - an egg. My first thought was that it was a chicken egg but this one was white and it should have been brown - what's that all about??? Dumb me - it took me a while to put two and two together and figure out that the duck I'd seen squatting there had laid the egg. I've never had a duck egg before so I was looking for something huge. It's a little longer than a chicken egg, but otherwise looks the same and the innards look the same too. I'm sure they'll get way bigger over time.

We found one tee-tiny pullet egg, nice and brown with a dark orange yolk. I swear it was like 1-1/2 inches! We had four duck eggs, one of which was a double-yolk. Pig-pig got them all because they were all laid in the mud & muck and not in nice clean nests.....

So guess who's putting in nests this weekend?

Grandma Update

2009-06-08T13:05:00.002-05:00

Rylan riding a pony. She is fearless. I think it's adorable the way she is always wearing sunglasses!!

Here's Baby Vacante . . . Stephanie says Frank talked her into finding out the sex at the next ultrasound (June 16th). I am thinking BOY . . . (are there ANY Vacante girls???)

Garden Update - June

2009-06-08T12:40:00.002-05:00

The garden is doing great. It's 50'x100' and all of it is planted. The squash are "volunteers" that sprouted from some squash that I just left in the garden to rot last summer when we were trying to finish up the house to get moved in. Marc transplanted them and they are huge and producing tons of squash! I am freezing it and taking plenty to work and giving it away. Tonight we'll be having stuffed squash - there were a couple that I let get just a TAD too big...

I've never had such success with green peppers before. The ones pictured are as large as store-bought (chemically fertilized) but these are organic. I guess it's the mushroom compost that is doing it. I used a bunch of these peppers in relish and froze some (halves & diced) and there's more on the plants to be harvested. Dana suggested halving them and freezing to be used for stuffed peppers later. I love convenience foods...

You can see the cucumbers to the left of the peppers, they are long and straight (Marketmore variety) and really nice for dill spears. I made 7 quarts of dill pickles (both spears and hamburger dill slices) and 7 pints of relish this weekend. The relish tastes just like Dell-Dixie brand, a little sweet, just like I like it. The recipe came from the Ball Canning book and it's just called "Cucumber Relish" but contains bell peppers and onions, all of which came from our garden.

Here's a pic of the poultry pen around 8 p.m. before the chickens have gone in to roost. The moon is just coming up and looks pretty cool.

Here's a shot of the house with the moon coming up. It's about 8:30 here. You can see that we don't have a fence or landscaping yet.... maybe someday.

Spring in the Country

2009-04-14T21:52:00.006-05:00

The bluebonnets seem more vibrant, almost purple this year, and there are so many on our place. The fields nearby seem to be filled with them.

Patches enjoys the screen porch.

I really enjoy hanging out laundry on nice weekends, maybe because it's so low-tech, not to mention free. I love the way sheets smell and feel after being dried in the breeze.

We've been working in the garden. We've planted lettuce, spinach, onions, eggplant, squash, peppers (bell, jalapeno and cayenne), potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers... and more yet to plant.

Duck Update

2009-04-14T21:34:00.006-05:00

The ducks were taking turns getting in the water bucket trying to swim around so Marc put a small cat little box bottom in the pen. Here they are taking turns getting in the water.

We put a bucket in the pen for extra drinking water but they kept getting in the bucket so we got a small kiddie pool It took them a better part of the day to get over their fear of the new pool. In this pic if you click on it to enlarge, you can see one duck in the bucket - it looks like an easter basket. They are amusing, but smelly loud things. I had no idea ducks traveled in a pack and are scared of everything. One squawks and the others join in and then they start running. It's hilarious. We feed & water them one or two times a day and yet they are scared to death of us. We got more electric fencing so they can wander around during the day eating grass & bugs without coming into contact with the fence - unless they decide to nibble on it. This morning before leaving for work a cow bellowed and it scared the ducks and they RAN into their house. It was so funny.

The chickens are much friendlier and definitely calmer. Pics of them coming soon...

Pig in a Poke (or Hogzilla Jr)

2009-03-28T22:39:00.009-05:00

We've had a lot of wild hogs on our place lately. They root around and create ruts. Last year the man who cuts hay for us broke something on his tractor when he ran through some ruts. We set out a trap but didn't have any luck for several weeks. The pigs like the roots much better than the corn in the trap. I was getting nervous cause there was fresh rooting around the garden fence a couple of nights ago. I sure didn't want to lose all the potato plants. The picture above shows how destructive the hogs are.

The first hog I ever saw on the place, and which turned out to be a regular, had a something wrong with his foot which caused him to limp when he ran. We nicknamed him Gimp. We saw him several times but were unable to catch him until a couple of nights ago.

The tusks are really large and nasty looking. He tried really hard to get out of the trap. He snapped off one of his teeth trying to chew his way out. His hair is standing straight up. He's trying to "charge" Marc.

And here he is after a bullet between the eyes. We called around trying to find anyone who wanted the meat, but no one wants an old male hog including us.

Ugly!!

So what do you do with a 130 pound dead hog no one wants to eat? You let nature take its course. Lovely pic here with Marc dragging the hog with bluebonnets in the foreground....

The Chicks & Ducklings have arrived!

2009-02-21T22:01:00.003-06:00

Our first chicks & ducklings have arrived! We have 25 Buff Orpington chicks (straight run - hopefully we'll have more hens than roosters - and 20 White Pekin ducks. It looks like a couple of the ducks may be "crested" - a few of them have what looks like little cotton-ball caps on their heads. The ducks scamper around constantly - eating, drinking, and running. They are really amusing to watch. The chicks are happier sleeping most of the time. We've had them for 3 days and no casualties ... yet....

The ducks are so cute, we have to keep reminding ourselves that most of them will end up on a dinner plate in a couple of months.

Sausage Making

2009-02-21T21:43:00.004-06:00

A couple of weekends ago we went out to Manuel Lebeck's place where he and Roy & Josh Wisnoski were making sausage out of deer meat and wild hog (not sure where that came from). Anyway, you could do just about anything in that shop - weld, work on your tractor, sit by a blazing fire, or do any kind of food preparation in the fully outfitted meat processing kitchen. I got there too late to take pics of the grinding and stuffing process. But I do have a couple of pics of the 300 pounds of sausage hanging in the smoke house.

That's Manuel on the left and Josh on the right. Manuel fired up the grill and cooked us a link and it was really good. Since then we've had the smoked version and it's good too. The other pic shows the "men folk" in the shop.

The Tradition of Christmas Pajamas

2008-12-28T22:08:00.006-06:00

Every year when my kids were little they used to beg to open a present before Christmas. Every Christmas Eve I let them open one present - one that I picked out. Of course it was always pajamas - the ones I got to take their pictures in the next morning. So this year, I had a cute Christmas nightgown that I was going to let Rylan open on Christmas Eve.

She had told me that she sat next to a soldier on the plane who told her if she had been a good girl she would get all the presents she asked Santa Claus for but if she had been bad all she would get was clothes and underwear.... I was hoping she had forgotten that when she opened that present!

She was so excited that she got to open one of her Christmas Presents!

She gleefully ripped the paper!

You can see how excited she is until....

She realizes it is CLOTHES!

Her Mommy explained the tradition but she was not amused until she found an extra surprise inside - chocolate gelt.

Here she is in her nightgown and Santa hat.

Hudy Family Visits for Christmas!

2008-12-28T21:09:00.012-06:00

Liz, Ryan and Rylan came from Maryland for Christmas. Unfortunately, they took Rylan with them when they left....

Here are just a few pics from their visit.

I took as many pictures of Rylan as she would let me. She got so tired of posing. Here's a pic of Rylan in a dress that Jeannie made for Caroline when she was little - about 22 years ago! She is just so adorable and sweet.

Enjoying a warm fire.

We made cookies a few days before Christmas. Savanah rolled and cut them out. Rylan and her Mommy decorated them. They were delicious. Rylan put a plate of cookies and milk on the fireplace for Santa (he found them!)

Liz not interested in having her picture taken.

One step closer to being done

2008-12-17T22:02:00.006-06:00

The stair railings are finally done!! As with everything else, we changed our minds a couple of times on what materials we'd use for the stairs. I wanted iron but decided it was too "fancy" for our house. We liked rustic peeled cedar logs, but couldn't find anyone who could install them. We finally decided on milled cedar. The railing and balusters are cedar (and smell so good) and the trim in ponderosa pine and aspen. The landing has tongue & groove ponderosa pine.

Baking Bread

2008-11-30T18:05:00.005-06:00

Dana and I had been talking about the high prices of groceries and the poor quality of so many things that you buy in the stores and I was telling her that I had been making homemade bread for a couple of months now. She asked for the recipe that I use most often so I thought I'd post it here. I enjoy making bread (and enjoy eating it more...) and for the last couple of months have made all the bread we've eaten. Marc said one day if I'd slice the bread just a little thinner he'd make his lunch sandwiches with it. Since then we've only had homemade. The bread I like in the store is almost $4 per loaf. I should figure out what homemade bread costs, but haven't. I know it's cheap though.

I have a Kitchen Aid Mixer (which Caroline gave me years ago for a Mother's Day/birthday present!) that does a great job of mixing and kneading dough (in fact, I made home made pizza dough with it last night), however, nothing beats the convenience of a bread machine. There's no rolling dough out on a floured board, shaping, rising, etc., not to mention washing and drying the bread board. Marc got me a Sunbeam bread maker one year and at first all I made was mixes from the store. They were really expensive and there are only so many to choose from. Then I found a couple of bread machine cook books that have some really good recipes.

My favorite is pictured here. It's called The Complete Guide to Bread Machine Baking by Better Homes & Gardens. I think I got it at Barnes & Nobles. Mary found one on Ebay (for much less than I spent). My machine makes 1-1/2 pound loaves and this book has both 1-1/2 lb. and 2 lb. recipes. So, my favorite everyday bread recipe in this book is called Oatmeal Bread. I've made it many times and have now improvised the recipe somewhat.

Here's the way I make it (recipe for a 1.5 pound loaf):

Spray the pan & blade with Pam if you want, it helps the blade come out easier, then place the following ingredients in the pan:

1 cup oats (the recipe calls for quick cooking, but I've used regular as well. The recipe also says to toast the oats in the oven but I never have.)
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1 Tablespoon butter (recipe says you can use margarine or shortening)
2-1/2 cups bread flour OR here's where I've improvised.... I use about 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup flaxseed meal, and the rest regular flour)
4 teaspoons wheat gluten (the recipe doesn't call for it but I add it because since I'm not using bread flour, which has more gluten, and I use whole wheat and flax it will rise better)
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon active yeast

Place those items in the pan in that order, then put pan in machine. I use the regular (white) setting and light crust color. When it's done I immediately take it out of the pan and rub butter on it. When cool I use an electric knife to cut it into very thin slices. That way it makes a good sandwich. I eat at least one of the ends while hot, with butter..... I bought a plastic container that is about the same size and shape of the finished loaf to store the bread. I got tired of using gallon zip-lock bags. This bread also makes great toast in the morning.

Two other recipes in the book that make great sandwiches are Jalapeno Cheese Bread and Sun Dried Tomato.

Grinding the Whole Wheat Flour ....

I can remember reading issues of Mother Earth News back in the early 80's and I really wanted a grain mill but couldn't afford one. The one I wanted was the Excalibur grain mill. It was somewhere around $280 or about $50 less if you bought the kit and assembled it yourself. Still too expensive... So I never got one. Fast forward to 2007 - I found one on Ebay. It was (supposedly) never used and I got it for $35. It came with the instructions and it really didn't look like it had ever been used. This particular grinder is housed in a wooden cabinet, which helps to keep down the dust while you're grinding. Anyway, the thing works great! And it's so easy to use. Here are a couple of pictures.

In this pic you can see the wheat berries in the hopper (on the left). The wheat is gravity-fed into the stones and ground between them and then the flour falls into a pan below (not in picture). You can change the settings for more coarse or fine flour. You can use it to grind corn and other non-oily grains too.

In this pic you can see the flour. There are doors to keep the dust from coming out, but I have the doors open in the pictures so you can see the flour.

In this pic you see the freshly ground flour in the pan under the grinding stones. Until I ground wheat berries with this grinder, I'd never had truly FRESH whole wheat flour before. There's really no comparison to store-bought. It's got a nutty taste. It has all the parts of the wheat kernel - including the wheat germ, which is removed from commercial flour so as to avoid spoilage. I buy organic wheat at the health food store in bulk for about 79 cents per pound. It takes about 1 cup of wheat berries to make the amount of flour needed for one loaf of machine made bread.

The Blue Bathroom

2008-11-28T00:59:00.000-06:00

The "Blue Bathroom" opens off of the screened back porch. It's really convenient. This is the same color blue that I used in the guest room and bathroom in town. That blue is so relaxing. In this first pic, you see the door on the right - that's the laundry closet. The washer and dryer are in there and we installed shelving in there so everything is well organized. I wanted this bathroom to have a victorian feel to it. This is the only room where the fixtures aren't oil-rubbed bronze - they're chrome with white porcelain.

We're not done with this room yet - we still have to paint the doors (you can see the blue tape) and touch up the tub - it got scratched during installation. We haven't cleaned the windows (more work than it sounds, what with the labels stuck on and the sheetrock mud sprayed on and whatnot). Also we haven't installed a mirror, towel racks, etc.

Here's a close-up pic of the clawfoot tub. I bought it in Warrenton for about $200. It is in excellent shape. I bought it before we even sold the house in town - it sat in the warehouse for about 2 years. I cleaned it up and painted the outside the same blue as the walls. The feet are painted white. While cleaning it I found the date stamp on the bottom and it was made in 1923. Hard to believe it's been around that long. The faucet and drains, etc. cost more than double the price of the tub. And that was the cheapest I could find. I love it though - it is completely modern but looks old fashioned. It has an "English Telephone" style hand shower. I also got the soap/sponge holder that hooks over the side of the tub.

The Loft

2008-11-28T00:52:00.001-06:00

We're a long way from being done with the loft. We want to replace the door to the balcony because it leaked in the beginning. Marc caulked it and it doesn't leak any more but we don't feel confident about it and just want to install one that we know we won't have a problem with. You can sort of see the balcony out the door in this pic. It's not big, but room enough for us to have a glass of wine in the evening. We couldn't decide what kind of floor we wanted so we painted the floor with porch paint. It actually looks good. This way we were able to move furniture out of the warehouse we've been paying for for 2 years! Later we'll put down a wood floor, but we're in no hurry. We want to buy a desk for the loft, maybe a roll-top, and build or buy book shelves. And I want some sort of sewing cabinet, but I haven't been able to find one that I like that will fit. The side walls are 50" tall, which sort of limits what I can do.

Within the next couple of weeks we expect the stairs to be finished and we'll post pics of them.

The Great Room

2008-11-28T00:29:00.000-06:00

The "Great Room" as some people call it is one big room - 30' deep and about 20' wide. The fireplace is in the middle of the west wall.

This first pic shows the living area from the loft.

You can get a good idea of what the floors look like from this pic. We stained the floors ourselves and it was SO hard. I only wish we'd had the time to practice and finish one room before doing the whole house. We see some flaws but others don't and we get a lot of compliments. We applied a mop-on wax after the floors were done. That wax protects the floor and we are supposed to reapply it every six months or so. The floor feels great under foot. It's easy to keep up with - just sweep and mop occasionally.

This pic shows the dining area. You can see a side view of the fireplace. You can also see part of one of the ceiling beams. There are three of them - ponderosa pine with a natural finish.

Fireplace

2008-11-28T00:06:00.000-06:00

Here are a couple pics of the fireplace. In the first one, Caroline's dog Catahoula is sitting on the hearth. We looked in lots of magazines (mostly log home mags.) to find pics of what we wanted. We had plenty of time to research while the house construction was moving along slowly. We found that the look we wanted was created using a "cultured stone" (no one uses real ones anymore) and is called "Stream Stone", made by Owens-Corning. It was unbelievably expensive. We had to buy it by the pallet. You can't just buy the amount you need. I plan to use some of the left over rock for my outdoor pizza/bread oven. We plan to apply a sealer to the rock in the near future. This is supposed to bring out the color more. The color we chose is called "Summer", with cream, taupe, grey and white stones. Those colors go with the floors and aspen trim best.

We hunted high and low for a mantel. Most of the ones we liked had to be ordered well in advance. The prices are crazy. We decided we would have the pecan tree that's dead on our place milled into mantels. They sell for around $800 or so. The mantel we ended up with was found (used) on Craigslist. It's made of cypress and we really like it, plus it was only $250.

We've had a couple of cold nights (around 34 deg.) and built some nice fires. We have some downed pecan here that Marc has cut up but we need to get more wood. It was too hot today (Thanksgiving) to have a fire, in fact I had to turn on the air conditioning for the first time in a while. We initially planned to put a flat screen TV on the fireplace but changed our minds. There's an electric plug above the mantel which will be nice when we decorate for Christmas.

The Bedroom was the first room completed

2008-11-27T23:51:00.001-06:00

The bedroom was the first room that was completed in the house. We were able to move out of the camper and 364 days after moving into it. While the shower wasn't done and we still had to take showers in the camper, at least we were able to sleep in a king size bed. There was so much construction still going on in the rest of the house we had to keep the door closed to keep out the dust.

Here are some pics of the bedroom. This first pic shows the hallway that leads from the bedroom to the bathroom. The two doors on the left are the closet.

You can see the way the walls were glazed. The color is dark brown over ivory. In the future we may want to add another glaze color over it. I'm not 100% happy with the color.

We haven't done anything to the closet yet - we plan to put in built-in closet organizers which will really make the most of the space.

We haven't put up blinds yet. Out here in the country we don't really need them but will still do it in the near future. We put up temporary (I call them "construction blinds") shades on the front two windows when we still had workers coming to the house. I plan to put up window "scarves" on decorative hardware in the future too. Other than the window treatments the bedroom is done.

Master Bath

2008-11-27T23:29:00.000-06:00

Here are some pics of the master bathroom. As with the rest of the house all the hardware is oil-rubbed bronze, which as it turns out is really easy to keep clean. The vanity is a little higher than standard bathroom vanities. The tile on the counter matches the tile in the shower but is 6" square. The tile in the shower is 9"x12". The tile on the floor is the same pattern but a darker shade, and the squares are 18". There's a tile medallion in the center of the floor, pictured here. The crosses are hanging on the wall opposite the vanity and reflected in the mirror. To the right of the vanity is a linen cabinet. The paint is the same paint used on all the doors in the house. All of the window and door trim and baseboards is natural aspen.

We have just a little bit of touch-up painting to do but other than that the bathrrom is done.

This is the tile medallion in the center of the floor. It's made of several different shades of stone in rectangles, squares, etc. and matches the tile perfectly.

You can't see it in the picture, but there are two recessed niches in the shower tall enough for shampoo, etc. The shower head is 8" so it makes a really nice wide "rain shower". We also have a hand-held shower which makes cleaning the shower much easier.

2008-11-22T22:12:00.000-06:00

Marc insulating the ceiling in the living/dining room. Messy itchy stuff. Horrible. I got to be an expert in cutting it though. Marc did virtually all of the stapling. It took way more than we expected. Marc also sound proofed every interior wall with insulation. You can see the Reflectix material between the rafters and the roof - it's kinda like aluminum foil with insulation sandwiched between. It bounces the heat from the sun back off the roof. We also have it on the west wall of the house. We blew in cellulose insulation in the attic areas above the porches. Those areas are completely enclosed. Since they house the A/C ductwork we wanted them to be well insulated.

2008-11-22T21:25:00.001-06:00

Here's a pic of Marc starting a spring garden on Feb. 29, 2008. I took these pics from the loft balcony. He had a load of mushroom compost delivered and you can see it's in the middle of the garden. That stuff is like black gold. It seemed like we couldn't kill the plants if we tried - they grew so well. We planted tomatoes, including grape tomatoes for the first time ever, potatoes, peppers (jalapeno and banana), onions, radishes, lettuce (mix of several varieties), spinach, summer squash and cucumbers. We were able to put up some tomato sauce (which is finally all gone), dill pickles (gone), bread & butter pickles, salsa, pickled peppers, and tons of frozen squash. Mary and I made salsa together in her kitchen. We were over run with tomatoes at that time. I was able to can pickles and tomato sauce while living in the camper. We set up the "turkey fryer" in front of the camper and put the water bath canner on that. I figure if we could do as well living in a camper and working on the house at the same time we should be able to produce a whole lot more next year. When we starting doing finish work in the house (around May-July 2008) we abandoned the garden. Marc tilled under everything a week or so ago to get ready for a fall garden. But believe it or not, as of today's date, Nov. 22, the peppers are still going strong. It's crazy. We're going to set out brussels sprouts tomorrow. We have "salad" seeds on order. It will be nice to have "free" salads again. That stuff is $3-4 in the stores. When we had it going in the garden last spring we'd go out with a colander, and pick what we wanted for dinner. It was really nice having a "salad bar" in the garden. One day I went out there and some bug or other had totally decimated the spinach. That's what happens I guess when you ignore it for a week and expect everything to be as you left it when you go back. I've never been able to grow summer squash before, so it was a real treat to have all we could eat fresh. Those squash kept growing until Marc finally took a hoe to them to till this fall. It was like some kind of "Day of the Triffids" thing - they would not quit growing! We were so busy with the house that we just quit picking them but those crazy plants just wouldn't die. Ditto with the tomatoes. We planted a variety called "Celebrity" and they just kept coming. Of course, SOMEONE planted them too close, then never did get around to staking them... so they sort of sprawled all over the place. Despite that, almost all of those tomatoes looked perfect. We didn't have as good luck with the Roma variety. For whatever reason (again, perhaps the spacing issue??) they developed blossom end rot on most of them. The grape tomatoes still have flowers. It's crazy. They were very easy to grow but a lot of work harvesting cause they're so small.

Krause Cabin on the Hill

Are you prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse?

A little on the Wild Side

Journey in her Christmas Dress

The Stockings Were Hung . . .

Homemade Christmas, the Mud Room and Food Storage

Another Quilt As You Go Table Runner

Naughty or Nice

Christmas Table Runner for Stephanie

Fun With Fleece

Scenes from the Baby Shower for Cody & Marie

Boutique Handbags

Home Canning is Fun

Fall Table Runner

Country Kitchen

Fun at the Beach

Henpecked

Get Real People

Onion Harvest

Muscadine Daiquiri's

Procrastinators Anonymous - Meeting Tomorrow

Mmmmm....Strawberries!

Happy Birthday Caroline!

Birthday Top for a Special Girl

Bullion Bunnies

Love Labels

Happy Halloween

Pics of Makenzie

Where DOES the time go?

Savanah & Beads & Bling

Bathing Beauty

Savanah Smiles (that was a movie wasn't it?)

Happy Birthday Liz!

Sisters make Salsa

Grape Stompin'

Journey's Special Christening Gown

Baby Boy Christening Outfit

A New Swimsuit for Journey

"Diaper Wars"

Journey's New Diaper Covers

Farmers Market

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Journey's Baptism

Salsa!

Prune Pop Anyone?

The Farmers Market

Happy Birthday Stephanie!

Journey Chillaxin'

ADHD and Pesticide Use

Journey's Nite Nite Diaper

Baby Burp Cloths

Bluebonnets

Easter Pictures

L@@K who turned 30 today!!

It's Spring Everywhere it seems!

** Snow Day ** and Oatmeal Cookies

Visitors to the Farm

The Perfect Day

Babies on the Farm!

Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto

L@@K who came to see Grandma today!

Happy Valentine's Day

2010 Garden

My $5 Cardigan & Tank Set

Sleeping Beauty

Tea Towels - Make your Own!

My Favorite Small Kitchen Appliance

The High Price of Convenience

Sausage Making

Easy Christmas Stocking Tutorial

Sisters

Caroline

Tipping the Scales

The 2010 Homemade Christmas Challenge is Under Way!

Finding the Time

My Christmas Present to ME

Sweet Journey

Journey Rose Vacante

Waiting on Journey

What Feels like Autumn in Texas is What Summer is Like Everywhere Else in the US

Snow Day and Oatmeal Cookies