Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia.  How you doing this 30th week of 2023?  I sat out on the front porch every morning having my coffee, watching the birds & admiring the beautiful lilies in bloom along with the zinnias, cosmos & marigolds.  Kevin participated in the Gun Club's Smallbore Rifle Silhouette Match & he fixed some more quail & chickens for the freezer.  Daughter's best friend surprised Daughter with a visit. Son-in-Law cooked up some of his most delicious smash burgers.  Oldest Grand came over & Kevin showed him how to change the oil in his car.  It's my birthday month so I'm sharing a little each week this month about how it was growing up in the mountains.  I made some of that cucumber bread I was talking about last week, I'll tell you how it came out. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk more, come walk with me..

That's me, graduating high school.  Moma
made the dress. I received a certificate
 for perfect attendance for attending all
4 years of high school without missing a
 day.  I might have been late a few times & 
perhaps left early a few times but I was
there enough to be counted present
every day.

Moma gave me an outfit for my birthday. 
When I was a teen, Levis were my choice
 of jeans. Moma worked at the Lee plant
for many years, till it closed. Lees 
are now my choice of jeans.

  

Kevin got Domino's pizza & 
cheesy bread sticks for my
birthday supper.  He also got
cake & ice cream.

We put vanilla frosting on top,
the bread was pretty good.

Son-in-Law & Best Friend's Boyfriend
cooking up the smash burgers.  The burgers
smell delicious!  Son-in-Law has an
awesome outdoor kitchen set up for
hosting cookouts.

*  I made the cucumber bread recipe.  It wasn't pretty, but we ate it anyway.  I don't know if it was the almond flour that made it fall or that I opened the oven door & peeked at it while it was still cooking or what.  It rose beautifully, bubbled over & made a mess in the bottom of the oven then went kerflunk.  It seemed to be a little too oily too.

*  Daughter's Best Friend surprised Daughter with a surprise visit.  Daughter had no idea whatsoever that Best Friend was traveling the 16 hour drive for a visit. Son-in-Law invited us all down for burgers.  I made a squash casserole & took tomatoes, onions & cucumbers from out of the garden. 

Best Friend & Son-in-Law preparing
the hamburger meat. 

*  Grand & Girlfriend came over for a visit.  Kevin showed Grand how to change the oil in his car & checked the brake pads & rotors.  Grand talk with us about his changing jobs & was looking for a place to rent to get out on his own.  Girlfriend recently started her 1st job & is going to the community college.  We went out to eat to celebrate both of their 18th birthdays & went for a jeep ride.  

Kevin strung up some beans
to make leather britches.

These are some of the things that's been going on around in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

The eggs hatched in the bird nest in
the garden.

The lilies were so beautiful in bloom.  Moma gave me some tiger lily seeds, so I'll need
to get those planted.  It will be a few years before the seeds produce any blooms.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia.  How you doing this 29th week of 2023?  The 4th of July celebrations have come & gone so now it's time for the Grands to start gathering up their stuff for Back-to-School.  Kevin went to the gun show, I went to Moma's to make relish.  We got an upright freezer & Kevin spent a lot of time putting stuff up out of the garden.  I worked in a neighboring office 50 minutes away, so that took up most my daytime.  The Rose of Sharon was so beautiful this week, all bloomed out with it's abundant purple flowers.  Kevin likes the mimosa trees that were in full bloom this week too.  It's my birthday month so I'm sharing a little each week this month about how it was growing up in the mountains.  We let the chickens out of their house for their 1st time since they arrived as babies, so I'll tell you how that went.  Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk more, come walk with me...

Celebrating my 16th Birthday.  We had cake
& ice cream.  Moma made that shirt.

*  I got my 1st real job when I was a Junior in high school.  I got hired at Lay's 5 & 10 department store.  Some folks called it the dime store, others called it the 5 & dime.  Me & several others around my age were hired to wipe & clean the shelves.  We also organized & straightened the products.  We worked after school till close & worked weekends.  I eventually worked the cash register & stocked shelves.  I worked there a couple years or so till I got married.  Around that time the store sold & changed to Fred's department store.  Earlier in my teen years, Moma operated a laundromat.  I remember having to help roll coins that were collected out of the machines.  Sister & Me helped wipe the machines clean & swept the floor from time to time.  A few times I stayed at the laundromat by myself making change for people & washing, drying & folding a load or 2 of clothes for people. 

Celebrating my 56th birthday at work along with 3 other employees having July
birthdays.  Supervisor Tammy made a chocolate cake for the occasion.  I worked
with Tammy some 30 years ago at the beginning of my career.  I've always tried to
follow my work moto "Always be nice to the people you work with, you
never know who will end up being your boss someday."

*  The garden is doing good overall.   The bell peppers & carrots are not going to produce much if anything.  The okra is still growing but Kevin says it's poorly, so we'll see.  We hope to at least get a mess or 2 of okra.  I did see several pods growing while I was out there gander necking around in the garden the other day.  Kevin worked on getting the onions put up in the freezer & cooked us a mess of green beans & corn bread.  We haven't grown any sweet corn the past several years.  Kevin picked us up a half dozen ears at the produce stand down the road.  Hopefully we'll be able to get several more dozen to put up in the freezer.

The sunflowers are starting to bloom.  They are reaching for the sun & towering
above everything else in the garden. There are lots of green tomatoes, I fried some
up for supper one night.  Kevin added some more support for the tomato vines.  

Moma cutting up vegetables to be put in
her little food chopper to be chopped up.
There are way too many cucumbers there
than what was needed for making the relish.  

*  Kevin helped me gather garden stuff to take up to Moma's to make relish.  Our bell peppers didn't do worth a darn this year, as I mentioned earlier, so all I had was a couple of banana peppers & 1 scraggly bell pepper.  Our banana peppers did good & we've put some of those in the freezer already. We had more than enough cucumbers, so Sister traded their neighbor some cucumbers for some peppers.  Their bells were gorgeous.  The youngest Grands were there at Moma's house, so the relish making was a fun family affair. 

Grand went with Sister to round
up some more bell peppers. 

The littlest Grands kept busy getting
familiar with the veggies & kitchen utensils.
Milk tasted so much better drinking out of
that measuring cup than it did in a sippy cup.

Mixing up the chopped veggies, smelling the strong scent of
vinegar before the pot got too hot.

6 pints & 2 half pints of relish.  Moma said she liked to make relish sandwiches.
  I like relish on my hotdogs, pinto beans & use it to make salads such as egg salad,
 ham salad, chicken salad, tuna salad.....  There were a couple of those gorgeous bell
 peppers & a couple coolapeno peppers (non-hot jalapeno) leftover that came with
 the neighbor's vegetable trade.  I brought those peppers home with me & put them
in the freezer.  I had never heard of the coolapeno peppers.  Sister said she used
 those peppers to make jalapeno poppers & that they were great.

Move rocks - they are still right there,
still piled up.

*  A few of our other planned projects around the house for the week...  Kevin seen a tree service truck in town with a load of wood.  He talked to them & asked what they were going to do with the wood. The guys said they were going to try to find a place to dump it.  Kevin asked if they were going to get rid of the wood for free & told them he had a place to dump it. They took our address then later in the day, brought the wood & dumped it.  We'll use the wood in the firepit & Kevin has plans to put a woodstove in his shop.

Chop wood - Kevin got started on
chopping, splitting & stacking the wood
to dry.  That one there with the target,
Kevin says will be good for ax throwing.

Weeding - See the new growth of the
primrose? I got that grass pulled up
from around all the primrose.
I gave the grass, roots & all
to the chickens.

*  We tried to fix as much stuff as possible from out the garden this week.  It seems like most the produce all comes in at one time.  We cooked it, canned it, froze it, traded it or shared it. This is the 1st time we've grown cucumbers, that I remember in our recent history of growing a garden.  I researched to see if cucumbers could be frozen & what to do with them other than what I know to do with them, slice them & eat them fresh, make pickles or relish with them & to put them on your eyes while you're resting.  I read that cucumbers can be frozen just like we freeze the squash, but they will get mushy.  They are then good for smoothies, soups & such.  The squash will get mushy too, so that's the reason we fry them still frozen or make a casserole with them.  I also read about roasting & baking cucumbers like we would do with zucchini squash.  We didn't plant any zucchini this year so perhaps we'll use the cucumbers in zucchini recipes. I got a recipe for cucumber bread so I'll see how it goes.

The carrot plants are dead as if the carrots
 are ready to harvest. Kevin pulled several
 & said the carrots were about an inch long,
 don't know what happened.  There're not
even the size for baby carrots, more still
like just a root. We still have canned carrots
in the pantry from last year, so will be eating
those up this winter.

Deer burger sliders, green
fried mators & squash
casserole for supper. Kevin
had cucumber slices too.

   

Kevin made the squash casserole using this recipe handed down from Moma.  He
usually leaves the casserole making up to me, though he did most the cooking this
week while I worked more hours on the job.  His casserole turned out simply delicious.
 I told him he needed to make casseroles more often.  He said he used a whole onion
instead of 1 tablespoon. The recipe does recommend using a little more onion.  Also,
he used cornflakes instead of the crackers or stuffing because that's what we had on
hand.  Sometimes I put cream of chicken soup in the recipe when I make it. Really, I
think you could use any kind of cream soup.

*  It'll take the chickens a little time to figure out how to go in & out of the chicken house.  We had to catch them to put them out then we had to catch them to put them back in.  They stayed close to the building during their 1st time outside. The rooster on the ramp has his eye on Rose & he didn't back away as if he was protecting his flock. We were going to let the chickens stay out a couple hours that 1st time but after about 20 minutes, thunder rolled a couple times.  We thought we better get them back in before it came up a rain.  

*  Driving on the curvy winding road to help out another office wasn't too bad, considering. One day there was a section of road closed that took me on a detour to some place I didn't know where I was at. One day it came a down pour of rain that I couldn't' see where I was going.  One day a tree fell across the road & I had to wait for the tree to be sawed, chopped & cleared out of the way. I was thankful I was only 15 minutes late to work instead of the hour to 1 1/2 hour that I had expected.  I didn't see the tree fall but the driver on the other side said he did see it fall as he rounded the curve.  One morning I saw a wild hog & was so thankful it didn't step out into the road.  I wouldn't want to dive that road every day, day after day after day.

                                                                       
                                                                            

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has you week been?

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia.  How you doing this 28th week of 2023?  It's my birthday month so I'm sharing a little each week this month about how it was growing up in the mountains.  Grand stayed a few more nights, Kevin got him home in time for the 1st football practice of the season.  Kevin joined the Gun Club, I went along as a guest to the Range Rule Review & we checked out the shooting range.  It was my Sunday to work so I was up at 4 am to get that day started, during my split shift we went on a jeep ride, walked on the Appalachian trail & had a picnic.  We found mushrooms Kevin thought might be edible chanterelles, we weren't certain so we let them be.  Kevin put up peppers in the freezer, set some more quail eggs, butchered & dressed a chicken & 8 quail.  We decided to let the roosters grow a couple more weeks to get a little more meat on them before butchering more.  The quail were full grown & won't get any bigger.  I washed the sheets on both beds, cleaned & organized in the refrigerator & freezer & done my other regularly scheduled housework. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk more, come walk with me...

Sister, Brother, Moma & Me - Moma's 80th
birthday celebration & family reunion back 
in May.

*  Brother is 7 years older than me, Sister is 2 years younger, I'm the middle child.  Sister & I were tomboys growing up & I guess I could say we still are.  We both played Little League baseball at a time that not many girls played.  I was the only girl on my team, the Pirates.  All 3 of us kids played the available sports while growing up including the swim team.  I tried band for a short time.  I played the trumpet. I liked it & thought I was good at it but then I got to thinking it would interfere with playing basketball.  I begged Moma to let me quit not understanding anything about the rent agreement she had made on my instrument.  Moma was the basketball coach for Sister's girl's youth team for several years.  Our parents divorced when I was about 4 or 5.  Sister & Me shared a bedroom back then & we had bunk beds.  I remember falling off the top bunk & getting the breath knocked out of me.  I was playing or such & pushed too hard against the wooden rail & down I went along with the rail.  There were lots of kids that lived on the street, mostly boys.  I remember all us neighborhood kids walking to the bridge at the end of the street to catch the school bus. We actually lived at the dead end of the street & the bridge was at the beginning of the street.  We called the bridge the end of the street because it was on the other end of the street from where we lived.  

Me & Sister, Moma made these outfits & most
of our clothes back then, very stylish for the times.

Me & Brother

We took a couple bowls with
  us on the jeep ride to pick
blackberries.  Kevin thought
we would get enough to at
least make a cobbler but hardly
any were ripe yet.

We took the back windows out
of the jeep for our exploring
 adventure.  We had to ford
the creek several times.

* Nana Grandjoy Camp Run-A-Muk - We went thrifting, Grand got a pair of Harry Potter socks, I got a cute cat puzzle.  We stopped by the car show then had ice cream at Dairy Queen.  We had several more matches of ladder ball, played in the creek & made no bake cookies.  Grand helped us move a pile of rocks from the big camper cleanup.  We placed these rocks along the top of the creek bank.  There is one more rock pile to go.  With the 3 of us working, the rocks were cleared lickety split.  Grand is an Adam Sandler fan, so we watched several of Sandler's movies.  I had found a dvd a while back that's a 4-movie collection.  I saved the dvd for this such occasion.  We also watched The Poker Club, a murder mystery.  That dvd came with the house.  We watched that movie a 2nd time to look closer for the clues indicating the person that did it.  My eyes were closed a lot during the 1st go around & Grand might have been doing things on his phone. The clues were definitely there & the guy flat out admits to doing it at the end of the movie.

Kevin's choice for supper out with Grand was
Taco Bell's $5 classics.  My choice last week
was trying out a different pizza place.

There were 21 vehicles at the car show to look at.

*  We have cucumbers coming in from the garden along with the squash.  I'll be making relish with Moma next week using some of the garden stuff, she said she had enough jars & lids.  The beans are about ready, Kevin wants to try making leather britches.  There's several different blooms around the yard, the sunflowers are going to pop open any day now.  The primrose I got from Moma back in early spring are putting on new growth. They had wilted down & I wasn't sure they were going to make it.  The hostas she gave me didn't wilt at all & most of them bloomed.  We've been saving eggshells to put around the hostas.  It's time to get that done.  I read somewhere that eggs shells are good for hostas.  I thought I'd give it a try since we eat lots of eggs & have the shells to do something with. We've been picking Japanese bettles off the fruit trees & feeding those bugs to the chickens. The chickens love bugs along with the clover Kevin picks for them every day & the garden scraps too.

There were 3 bloom stalks on
the gladiolus, 2 of them broke
over so I cut all 3 & brought 
them in the house to enjoy.

1st mator of the season.  I could hardly wait to
slice it, douse it with salt then sink
my teeth into it.

One of the Rose of Sharons bloomed out. It
looks like the other one that's about to bloom is
going to be white.  There was a 3rd Rose of
 Sharon, it was dead, so we cut it down back in
early spring & cleaned it up.

The strawberries are putting
out lots of runners.  Kevin is
rooting them in little cups.  I
don't know where he is going
to put all these new strawberry
plants, he said he didn't
know either.

 

Kevin discovered this bird nest
in a tomato plant. 

These are some of the things going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia.  How you doing this 27th week of 2023?  It's my birthday month.  We got squash out of the garden, cooked some of it & put several bags in the freezer.  We took TC (tiny camper) out for our 1st outing together along with Mickey & Minnie.  We heard crackles & booms from neighbors celebrating the 4th, we made a few of those noises ourselves.  It was my holiday to work so I was up at 4:15 am to get that task done then Daughter's family came over for a picnic.  Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk more, I'll share a little this month about how it was growing up in the mountains, come walk with me...

This is me in the beginning, 6 or 7 months old. 
This is the earliest age picture of me that I've
seen.  My parents ran the auto parts store.  I
went to work with Moma.

My parents in 1958, Harold & Fran.  They
were on a date hanging out with friends.
Moma was in the 10th grade.  About a year
later they were married.

  

This is me now, 56 years later, married
to the same Adventurous Guy for 38
years come September. We have 1
daughter & 9 grandchildren.

*  Kevin made his special biscuit bread.  He usually made the bread in a glass baking dish we had that was about an 8 X 8. He was disappointed to realize we didn't have the dish anymore since the move.  He was scavenging though the cabinets & discovered we now have an actual bread pan that came with the house.  He thought he would give that pan a try.  His 1st loaf of bread in the new loaf pan turned out excellent.  He was very pleased with the results.  He said his biscuit bread always turned out just right.  He said when he makes biscuits it's hit or miss for some reason.  Kevin remembers having biscuit bread at their cabin on Little Snowbird creek when he was growing up.  To make the recipe, he said it was an old family secret.  The way I've seen him make the bread is make the mix like making biscuits, perhaps a little thinner & pour the batter in the pan instead of patting out the dough for biscuits. 

*  About 35 quail hatched in the incubator out of about 48 eggs, so that was a pretty good hatch, considering.  I noticed about mid incubation that it looked like the turner was not working.  These quail hatch in about 17 days, so on about day 6, 7, 8 or so, Kevin did an inspection & sure enough, the turner wasn't working.  He contacted the company & they sent him a new turner & a new incubator.  The new incubator was sent in error, so it was returned unopened along with the faulty egg turner.  We weren't sure if any of the eggs would hatch since they didn't get turned liked they should have.  There were lots of healthy peeps keeping us/me awake a couple nights while they were hatching, though the peeps didn't seem to phase Kevin.  As I age gracefully, my hearing is not as good as it used to be, but I could sure hear that peeping noise loud & clear coming from the other bedroom where the incubator was set up.

Coturnix quail are full grown in 5 to 6 weeks & will start laying eggs at that time. 
We eat some of the eggs & some eggs will be saved for incubation.  Kevin will
dress some of the adult birds & we'll be eating them.  

"Buckhorn"

*  Our neighbor stopped by about supper time one evening, he bellered very loud so we'd be sure to hear him.  He liked the squash end pieces I gave him. 

I cut up squash to freeze while
Kevin cooked up squash & 
deer burgers for supper.

I put the squash pieces on a baking
sheet so they'll freeze individual. 
We cook them still frozen so they 
don't get mushy. 

 

1st bag of squash of the season vacuum 
packed & going into the freezer.

Taking a walk on the
Appalachian Trail. See
the trail marker?

*  We went camping to a nice spot near the Appalachian Trail.  A thunderstorm threatened but didn't produce much except for a little rain about bedtime. The wind blew & the leaves turned backward giving signs that a storm was coming.  Other areas did get some storm damage with trees down & power outages.  We took a jeep ride & walked a piece on the Appalachian Trail.  The woods were beautiful & several wildflowers were in bloom.  Rose randomly barked with the hair raised on her back while looking into the woods.  We had conversation that it was probably bigfoot & that it would be awesome if he run though camp & raised his arm up to say hello.   This 1st outing with TC was kind of trial and error.  Everything worked perfect best we could tell.  I forgot my phone charger & the pork & beans.  My phone's battery went dead for taking pictures, but I had already took enough of everything we had seen & done.  We had plenty of food without the beans.  Kevin mentioned he felt a little cramped sleeping in the camper but that's something we'll have to get used to with having a tiny camper.

  The awning finally arrived & Kevin had got it installed. We didn't even put it up.  

I kept calling it a canopy, but I guess it's supposed to be called an awning. We 

set up camp in a nice spot in the shade beside a branch.  The drinking water 

jug worked perfect bungy corded there on the tongue.  The cooler & water jug

traveled in the back of the jeep with the seat let up.

The woods were beautiful with
the sun shining through in the
morning while I washed up the
breakfast dishes.  The baskets
I got to use for sinks are made
of rubber.  They have handles &
are collapsible for easy storage.

Kevin the Camp Cook getting
ready to cook a one pan squash & 
veggie stir fry along with the biscuit
bread.  I roasted the cheddar dogs
over the fire.

 

The inside front of the camper with a
fun Minnie & Mickey mouse theme.
The headboard/shoe rack/storage unit
that Kevin made worked perfect.  I
came up with the idea & he built it.

The back door on the camper
opens to the pantry & storage
area.  The top has the dishes &
cooking supply stuff.  The
 bottom has tools & the place
the wheel stabilizing stuff is
kept.  The 2 tables go in there.
The chairs travel tied on top of
the spare tire.

*  Nana Grandjoy Camp Run-A-Muk - Grand 

stayed several nights.  We tried out a new pizza 

place, had a triathlon of games, went for an 

after dark jeep ride & there was some Lego

building done.

These are some of the things going 

in my neck of the woods, how has

your week been?

 

The inside back of the camper is a good
place for our food out of sight  of bears. 
It was also a good place to put extra
pillows & Rose's dog bed though
she seemed to find herself more
comfortable in the center of the bed
between us, snoring her very loudest.

A good place for hide & seek.

Grand cutting up more squash
for the freezer.