Mid-October Garden

 

  

Autumn in Wisconsin has been beautiful again this year. Warm days and plenty of color. The flowers and crops in the garden held on without a killing frost till the middle of October. Bouquets kept coming in for our table.

So the girls and I spent some time enjoying the garden  one afternoon. I went out with the camera and called for them to come as well. They wandered out looking like I was nuts, as usual but caught on nicely. They get tired of my camera.

 The cats came, too. Nimrod is growing by leaps and bounds on mice and chipmunk. He will be quite a panther of a cat full grown. We're glad for his help around here keeping the rodents down.

 The zinnia took many weeks to begin to flower for us due to greedy little rabbits. Lance eliminated one of them for me one evening when he was out and about with his not-so-little pistol. No place to target practice here in the village until the little rabbit showed up. I walked down the bean row and herded it toward Lance and then when he said, "Get out of the way," I fled and he shot it. Did I say all this before?
But I was so happy to be rid of it, that it bears mentioning again mostly because the flowers were lovely afterward.

 This picture to the right is tweaked with one of my favorite things on the photo editing program. It is a good picture without the edit, but I like the texture that shows up.                                            
 

There is no editing on the above picture. Looks like we could have taken the laundry in and cut the sewer pipes down a bit though.

   Beans on the trellis and leaves in the background. At least half of the leaves are still in the trees. My children have this joke that goes like this: Q. Do you know how mom broke her leg while raking? A. She fell out of the tree.  Laugh here. Ok, I suppose I deserve this. I rake leaves fall and spring around the year. This year might be an exception since the leaves aren't going to fall before snow does, I guess.

We have been richly blessed with a wonderful harvest this year.

Is It Fall Yet?

Yesterday, after a long day of working on apple sauce, we had a nice candle lit supper of taco soup and salad.  At ten when the guys got home we enjoyed Amy's warm apple pie and ice cream by the crackling fire in the living room. Yes, it is officially fall now. Hurray!  Let the best time of the year begin.

What's Happening At Home Again

 Lance moved into his own house last weekend. He is pretty excited. 

I am posting these pictures for the part of the family away from home.  I hope this helps you all to see what you wanted to see.

   We equipped the house with lots of quick window treatments. It seemed as though God was smiling on our efforts, because we found exactly what was needed at used shops for most of the windows for the curtains.

 The men hosed down the blacktop slick and clean, picked up the decking trash and tree trash, and installed a new mailbox.

The babies helped  to make this feel like home. 

Not In My Kitchen

I found this article today in one of my searches on how to create a replacement window screen.  It is definitely time for lists of projects. I have spring fever.

The article claims that we all have dangerous, toxic bugs hanging off the fridge door handle and everywhere else you've touched the last five minutes, in your food, and all over the counters, etc. Here's my formal, not so humble opinion of such claims.

The article was NOT written for stay-at-home moms who spend  parts of every day in the kitchen preparing and cleaning up for meals.  No, I do not believe that I have mold growing in my kitchen unless it is IN the fridge and I really work on making sure that is not so, as well.  No, I do not have E coli! of all things in my kitchen. Yuck! I surely hope not. When I bring raw chicken to the sink for cleaning and prep I do have, temporarily, salmonella bacteria in my kitchen, most likely, for a few minutes. But by the time I've finished and all that chicken is ready to be cooked/baked/or fried, old Sam and Ella have been killed dead with hot soapy water and bleach.  The meat is safely in or on the pan and in an hour or so Sam and Ella have expired in the oven, as well.

Changing out the dishrag every day and keeping the laundry done up will certainly keep our areas germ free. And did they mention in the article that the high setting on the dryer kills a lot of germs?

 The article goes for folks who eat at home a few times a week and where mom and dad both work away from home. Of course, there's mold and crawlies in the kitchen if nobody is there to clean and cook all day long.  Mom was right when she said to get right at the dishes after the meal is done. "The sooner we get the work done the sooner we can play."

While I'm at it, here's a tip for you.  Using green laundry soap and softeners will keep your wash cloths from smelling badly.  Kill the smell with a cup of ammonia in your next laundering and never buy another bottle of non green soap.  Not only will your wash stay sweet and clean; your sewer won't be building up with a lot of clogging gunk that won't break down. Purex has a "green" soap that works nicely.

A Chimney Fire @TheStoneHouse

             It all started with a lovely warm fire in our sitting room stove this morning. Of course, Elv and I had no idea that we were creating the setting for a fire call. Just a nice morning of coffee and quiet time by the fire.
             The plan for today was for the children and me to haul firewood from the woods.  Elv thought there would be around 4 loads and he would assist us in loading at the woods.  So Elv and Lance left for a short day of work with intent to help us later. Lance planned to be home to study for Sunday School teaching this afternoon.
            Everything was ticking along as planned.  Elv and Lance were off to work.  I had made a quick breakfast of pancakes for the children and stacked the dirty dishes in a sink of hot water.  The girls were getting ready to go out the door when we noticed an odd smell.
            I followed my nose downstairs to till I came to a stop leaning over the stove looking behind it at the chimney door behind the stove.  It is a cute little door with a pretty design all painted white with a little catch just right for keeping it closed.  The problem now was that it was all glowing red as if there was a fire in there.  Wait! The fire is supposed to be in the stove, not in the chimney.
           I quickly called Elv who advised me to call 911. I did that and dispatch seemed to know who I was and where I was calling from. Neatest thing since sliced bread. All I had to do was to say I had a pretty good chimney fire.
          But first I must back track a little. Last night at the supper table, Lance who is Lieutenant on the fire department, was bemoaning the fact that Bass Lake Fire Department could soon be without a chief and therefore no longer in existence. Well, I certainly couldn't see a problem with the department today.
        In about three shakes after dispatch paged the crew I had six guys milling around in our basement sitting room solving and throwing their potions on the fire.  Lance had the little hand held xray machine that gave him the temperature of the chimney walls in the house here. And they all decided that the fire was indeed at the bottom of the chimney and nowhere else in our house.
        Since the fire in the stove was almost out, the chimney fire seemed to be as well, we decided to go ahead and haul firewood as planned. After the first load I came in and checked the chimney wall again by laying my hand on it. OOH! Very hot yet. Hmmm.
       I think we put on 250 miles today hauling firewood.  Eight loads later the woodlot is quite full of it. While Elv finished up the last two loads, Lance and I cleaned out the bottom of the chimney.
      We pulled out buckets of black stuff and it was STILL quite warm. I saw a coal once as we worked.  We put the pans/buckets outside the door and left everything in the chimney/stove area open and airing for Elv to inspect when he got in. Then we could put the stove back and clean up  the mess.
       The mess was mostly a dirty white film all over everything in the room including me by the time we were done. But it cleaned up easily with the vacuum sweeper and mopping water.
       After supper Elv went outside for some something and noticed that one of the pans of creosote on the patio that we had taken out of the chimney after the fire was supposedly out, was now a mass of red hot coals burning away nicely in the open air.  Does anyone wonder why chimney/house fires are notorious for restarting?
      Elv says that if I need that much attention, I am just to let him know after this.  He even offered to stay home from work on Saturday morning if that's what it takes. :) I have always wondered what it would take to get him to not go to work on Saturdays. :)
     We're all grateful for God's loving care over us today, and for a quick response from BLFD.

Projects And Snow

     Today I have been entering names and addresses into an Exel Document.  I have almost 400 more to enter.  There are last names like Sve, Johnson and Halstread.  I found Lundgren and Olson, but no Yoders, Millers, or Hostetlers which tells its own story.
     I started a new Christmas doily today.  I am on round four and it already looks like something. I can hardly lay it down.
    The carrots should finally have been dug today. Bummer, now it might snow. :)
    The laundry dried quickly outside for a change.  I have been resigning myself to a two day wait till I can bring it back in dry. Not today. All done in one day!
    So let it snow.  I have projects aplenty. And plastic to put on the windows. Winter's a-coming.
   Our ordered hardcover copy of Ben-Hur arrived today in the mail.  I read the first two chapters to our school children today.  When I laid the book down Brad said, "Uh, I know who they are." :) 12 year old boys are so smart!
    I am looking forward to cozy reads by the fire at break time far into the winter.
 
 

Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free)

    Here is the most popular cookie recipe at the Grabers right now.  I concocted this recipe out of sheer desperation when I was sincerely craving a cookie after being relegated to a gluten free diet since spring.  I realize that there are very few folks out there in my readership who want this recipe.  But you never know...
    
                          2 sticks of real butter
                          1 cup peanut butter
                          1 cup brown sugar
                          1 cup white sugar
                          4 eggs
                          1 tsp baking powder
                          1 1/2 soda
                          1 tsp vanilla
                           Bean flour
                           Brown rice flour
                           1 package of milk chocolate or peanut butter chips

It is a good idea to sift the bean flour. I didn't put amounts on the flours because its anybody's guess how much exactly to use.  I use mostly or all bean flour depending on what I have on hand.  Make a good stiff dough and drop by teaspoons full on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes, turn and then time for a few more minutes.

Note: You can warn the dough snitchers or not as you wish, but I'll tell YOU that the dough is nasty.   FINALLY! I don't have to worry about empty spots on my ready-to-bake pans. :)
Don't worry, two of my pickiest cookie boys, (Jaden and George) will vouch for the yummy of this cookie.

Curing Pinecones for Seasonal Decor

 We have been collecting pine cones for our friends who will be making wreaths for sale this season. The wind has been handing them down to us from the tops of our tallest white pine trees.  To avoid getting pitch on our hands we wear gloves to gather them by the box full.
Amber explained that they boil and bake the cones before adding them to their wreaths.  So I found an old rusty tea kettle with a good opening and proceeded to try it myself.  Unfortunately I think I've ruined the good  meat tongs but how else could I hold the cone under the boiling water? The pitch melted off the cone immediately and the whole cone closed in my grasp as I lifted it out onto a foil lined cookie sheet. The incredibly aromatic pitch rolled to the edge of the kettle and collected there. After a while I lifted out the long yellow stickiness and gingerly placed it in the trash can. But I wonder what it could be used for?
While I baked pans full of cones in a slow oven the whole house smelled strongly of pine. In about an hour the cones had reopened and dried completely. The result is a shiny shellacked looking cone. They're beautiful and perfectly safe to handle now.

I have had several people ask me how long to boil the cones.  I held them one at a time under the boiling water for only a few seconds. You can see the the pitch rolling off.  Then I baked them on tin foil in a low oven for an hour or so.  Hope this helps.

What Is A House To You?

    This is the house my dad grew up in.  We went back the other day just to see it again. Right now we have reason to think about houses and what they mean.  Living in two houses at the same time makes you do that.  So I don't know what this house meant to my dad, really; but I know what our house here at home means to us these days. 
    The house we're to be living in over at the job is a new, nice enough house.  But it is full of others' things and it isn't ours.  So we're going to be grateful for a place to call home those few days every week and we're NOT going to complain.  Got that?
    I just feel a little displaced right now, even though we have the stone house, the cabin, and now a job house.  It's kind of messing with my mind, I guess.  The stranger and pilgrim concept is growing on us by leaps and bounds.  That song I Need No Mansion Here Below keeps running through my head. 
   It isn't the houses we live in, but who we ARE in Christ that matters.  Any chair and table in the early morning hour should be sufficient for a place to have quiet time and coffee, right?  Any kitchen to make a good meal, any dining place to sit as a family around the supper table, any sitting room we can still have family time, right?  
    
    

Afterward

In spite of grumbling yesterday; the tide has turned.  We have a house on the job now, and the weather has returned to near normal temperatures.  It's amazing how the head clears when the air does both in the weather and in that we get to live together as a family again.   Cheers!!

This Day In June

~ Havilah Glory was born this morning in Thailand to Dru and Lisl Lattin.  The name is creating some interest and exclamation in our world. Is it my fault for naming Lisl such an unusual name...maybe I started something? Aunt Eva called me when Lisl was three days old and said, "Don't you dare change her name...they got used to Todd (the name she chose for her oldest son) and they'll get used to Lisl's name, too!" I'm with Eva and Lisl here; because the name Havilah is beautiful.

~ Today I picked the first respectable amount of strawberries out of the garden. Pies!
~ VBS is in process this week.  For the first time in many years the Native American children from the reservation nearby are coming each day.  If just one of those children finds the Lord from a seed sown this week; it will be well worth the hustle and bustle they create at VBS.
~And the rain continues.  We haven't had such a lush June as this in years. The lawn needs mowing every week even on sandy soil in Hayward.  

What's Happening At Home

 Since the fabulous front loading washer is no longer functional we have been doing the laundry outdoors with the help of this old relic.  It is really quite efficient.  I can get the whole huge laundry on the line and drying in about 2 1/2 hours. Working over the open washer grabbing at the socks that need turning and scrubbing a little more soap into them for whitening is enjoyable to me. After years of pulling graying whites out of the front loader and no way to make a difference; I am no longer literally locked out of controlling how long the whites stay in the washer. Someone called while I was washing the other day and hoped that I wouldn't eventually digress to the wash board.  I won't.  We are planning to replace the automatic washer, but not a front loader please.

We've been doing the laundry with this faithful old Matag washer.

Sewing dresses this week.

Amy's "new" serger that made our sewing project just fun.

 Amy had saved up a little money and decided that she wanted a serger.  So we found one listed on Craig's List.  We took the day off to fetch it from over by "The Cities".  We sewed up four dresses in the last two days, all with lovely finished selvage (or selvedge) edges.

We had the whole table set up in machines.  The hemmer was a joke. Does anybody know how to run one?

A huge white iris blooming with the others this year. 

     And Brad is getting paid to eliminate the rodents around here. That's because we are tired of sharing our house with them. Frances counted six (6) squirrels playing in a tree near the house this morning. If you are one of those folks who believe squirrels to be cute critters to watch; please come and get as many as you like. They're free for the taking.
   

Chipmunks Again

It was exactly one year ago to this very day that I posted about the chipmunks in the ceilings of our basement bedroom.  The running, somers-sualts. back flips, slides, and squeaks  over our heads began very early this morning around 2 AM.  Words like infestation amd pestilence come to mind. Brad shot many chipmunks last summer. Did they reproduce during the winter? So I have asked Elv to bring home a new box of Bounce dryer sheets tonight.  We'll get them out of the house at least that way, but we're going to set rat traps and be done with those critters altogether, we hope.
Then there's the strawberry patch. You can't beat the chippy's to the patch.  They prefer the largest fruits partially ripened. Therefore we shall have to be entirely rid of the critters before strawberry pickin' time.Wish me all the best in the earthly battles of this week.

Accomplishments

   Today has been a good day of getting things done.  Things other than what I had hoped to get done but that turned out to be okay.  First I was going to plant garden.  And we hoped to buy a few patio brick to replace the winter's crumbling of bricks. The garden needs to be tilled up yet before we can plant, too, and that remains undone.

   Our day started with Elv's boss bringing in several gallon bags of venison, four large white onions, dried red jalapeños, organic beef broth in the cutest little cardboard boxes with pour lids, and empty jars. To date I have 15 jars of venison stew meat in the process of being canned. Sure hope he enjoys it.
But I needed jar seals first, and a few groceries. But before that I had to go to the bank and cash a house cleaning check.  So Brad wanted to go with me to get his yard work check cashed.  And Frances wanted to do returns at the library, and Amy went along to coach me in my garden seed shopping. She said that it was really Jenny's job, but she'd go ahead.  "Jenny isn't here!" I testily reminded her. We bought seeds, onions sets, and red bark for the flower beds.
   Walmart didn't have the right patio bricks at all, and neither did Hardware Hank's garden center. I didn't even bother checking at ABC lumber by that time.  Which meant that I had a few dollars to spend at the local Salvation Army used shop.

   The used shop shopping was highly successful.  This is the time of year when the cabin owners come up to the big vacation land over Memorial Day weekend to clean and rejuvenate their second homes.  They take lots of perfectly good furniture, and household goodies to the used shop and buy new stuff.  It's a bonanza for the likes of the Grabers!  We found new throw pillows, bed sheets, a lovely "vintage" (don't laugh) candlestick holder, picture frames and doilies.  We left a lot of stuff there that we would have enjoyed, but enough money and time spent. We left a few things for the rest of you.
   From there we stopped by McDonalds and the girls bought 2 sundaes and 2 Caramel Frappes. Yummy iced coffee! Brad didn't spend a dime all day.  He has a 22 in mind. "I figure it might cost $150.00," he announced and has a bit more to save yet. Brad can happily not spend money, period.
   What we didn't do and should have done is shopped for Tilly, Lisl's new little girl who is about to be born.
   I almost forgot to mention the biggest accomplishment for the day. The writers group mailing is about to arrive in my snail mail box and I had nothing to contribute to it.  I have been praying about that and each time I pray I am reminded about the story I had been writing chapter by chapter. Okay, I get the point. Sat down today and the next chapter got itself on paper, I mean on the computer Word document, just like that! Too bad they all aren't that easy.  The hardest part is knowing good and well it may never be publishable. At least the writers in the group will tell me what's wrong with it and even maybe what's good about it, we hope.

Kitchen Project 2011

This post is for Lisl and Jenny and my mom and anyone else who cares about painting and home redo projects.  This was a major undertaking for us, both in labor and in decision making. Jenny, they say that imitation is the sincerest compliment. I guess you will know what I mean.  
To start with, we have been putting this job off for three or four years due to weddings and other projects.  The squeaky door gets the oil and there were plenty of other squeaky doors around here. Besides I was dreading it horridly.
I spent hours poring over paint cards and internet inspiration galleries searching for the colors and ideas that I needed.  Valspar, Dutch Boy, Sherwin-Williams, and Benjamin Moore and Co. all have good information for seekers like me.
And prayer…okay I admit it, I was scared of this project.  I wanted it to be good when we were done, and I wanted to love the new just as we loved the old when IT was new.
If we had known that it was going to take the greater part of five days to redo our kitchen; we would have all turned tail and ran.  I’m glad we didn’t know.  I was guessing it would take us three days at the most.  I was wrong!
All of us but Elv have decided that it is good…a success.He says it's okay.  Elv’s reticence is due to the memory of having to sand many layers of enamel paint off his mother’s cabinets long ago.  The dominant color was green not unlike the color I unwittingly chose for our cabinets. (Still rolling my eyes,. How could I?…I PRAYED about it!) Elv is being as polite as he can be.  I hope that one day he can get past the green and  see what we see and enjoy it.  
 Lance helped us by taking off all the doors on Monday and by taking me to Menards to buy paint. Thanks, Lance.
 
Take a good look at the old. It used to be nice and beautiful.

All of the contents of the kitchen covered the table and much of the dining room floor space.  It’s a terrible way to try to cook and eat!


The old border came off slicker than a whistle with a razor blade, some spray to wet the remains and a pancake turner.  Frances knew the tricks to that because she helped Jenny do the same.

Frances painted all day Wednesday and then went to bed early in the evening with the flu. Amy stepped right up to the plate.

Here are the colors: Chocolate River, Washed Green, and Wheat Straw.




At first we thought that the brown was too much!  I painted two walls of it on Tuesday, slept over it and took the plunge and painted the other two walls on Wednesday after all.  We had plenty of paint to paint two walls one of the other colors.  Yeah, decisions!




This is for you Jenny. Thanks so much for your good ideas. It’s almost as nice as yours, don’t you think? And thanks to my patient family this week while the house was bombed and the meals sketchy.  Thanks for your wonderful help, girls.  And Margie, you too, I sure needed the boost you gave me at the beginning when I thought I was going to lose courage and run. 
And a special thanks to my dear husband who puts up with my brainstorms and supports me in doing them by trusting me and letting me try them out.

Tablescape For Spring