Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Muscadines, kittens & trumpet plants

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing? Neighbor started laying out the Christmas decorations, we've been watching for them. The leaves are starting to fall & the dogwood berries have turned a beautiful bright red. We went for a jeep ride, have 1 little kitten left, got some mulch & made muscadine jelly. I assisted with a Meet Up at the Park & the making of an apple pie. Kevin helped rebuilt an old pond & level out for a house site. This was his last week of working for a while, he is ready for hunting season. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & let's look at the muscadines & see if the trumpet plants have bloomed yet.

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been? Go out & have a wonderful weekend.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

41 years, a squirrel, buckeyes & an apple fritter

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing? September is moving right along & so are we. 41 years... the day came & went doing our usual things. We're still here, still together & still making memories one day at a time. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you how many fish we caught to put in the freezer this week.

We got up before the sun, stopped by Bojangles for a couple of their sausage egg biscuits then headed to the lake. The water temperature was just above 84 degrees. It felt like bath water as we reached down to test it. The water was calm & glassy just like Kevin likes it. We saw starting of leaf color, watched a squirrel cut acorns & saw a heron. It was a peaceful morning on the lake but not a good day for fishing. Maybe the water was too warm for the type of top water fishing that we do. There wasn't even any fish showing up on the fish finder. Kevin caught several fish, but they got off before he could get them in. He commented that the fish wasn't biting aggressively. I caught 1 fish a little on the small eating size & put it back, so no fish for the freezer this week's fishing trip.

Why do leaves change color? It's
one of next month's lesson plans.

Goldenrods, another sign that 
cooler weather is on its way.

We went on a good trail ride. There were 5 side by sides. We were all related in one way or another. We met up then hauled to the parking spot. The woods were beautiful. It came up a little shower of rain during mid ride. During one of the stops, everybody picked up buckeyes to put in their pockets for good luck. There were several rough places that made me queasy thinking about going over, so I got out. The drivers were delighted to have the challenges. We all ate at Wendy's afterwards. I tried the pretzel bacon pub cheeseburger. It was good but, oh boy, loaded with carbs for those of us needing to eat a keto-ish diet. Yikes! 

Orange flag marker

I assisted Daughter on a field trip to an apple orchard. The staff was so friendly & helpful. I was impressed & I think Daughter was to. It's probably the place we'll go back to next year, if going to an apple orchard comes up in the event plannings. I arrived a little early to find out where things were & to get apple sampling snacks ready. We were welcomed to a covered shady picnic area centrally located to all the things. All the staff went above & beyond to be sure we got to do & see all the things. We did an apple tasting test to see if we could really taste a sweetness difference in apples. First, we had a slice of Crimson Crisp then tried a slice of Granny Smith. Oh My Yes! There was a difference. The Granny Smith seemed really really sour. We picked 2 pecks of Rome Beauty to take home. We have a day planned next week to make an apple pie.

    

We picked Rome Beauty.

Look at me wearing my tie dye shirt
from last week's Meet up at the Park.

   

Cow milking

Hillcrest Orchard

We did all the things except the trikes & bubbles. We sampled the apple cider doughnuts along with the fried apple pies, apple fritters & the cider sippers. There was an extra apple fritter left over. Me & Kevin shared it a la mode after supper.

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been? Go out & have a wonderful weekend.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing? It's time to bring out my fall coffee cup, the soybeans are turning yellow on the way to Granny's house, another sign of fall. The begonias are really putting on a show. We went to Kevin's side of the family's get together. School started back & I assisted Daughter with a Meet Up at the Park. Kevin hauled gravel, pushed dirt & burned brush. He butchered 2 roosters, I cooked them up in the crockpot for supper, maybe the best ones I've done yet. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you what we were making with the aluminum foil last week & show you how my tie dye turned out from the Meet Up.

My tie dye t-shirt was supposed to
have blasts designs. Let's see
how it turned out.

One of Grand's guinea pigs had babies. The babies are called pups. They start eating hay & food their 1st day. Come to find out, guinea pigs like peppers about the same as they do lettuce.

Picking peppers for the
guinea pigs. We had
plenty of extra.

  

The guinea pigs eating a
couple of the cut up peppers
 I gave them. They can't
have too much at a time.

One of the baby guinea pigs.
She had 2.

  

Both baby guinea pigs fit in my hand.
They are so cute.

What secret method do you
use to peel eggs?

I took meatballs & deviled eggs to the family get together. I read a blog last week asking what food would you hope to be remembered for. Back when the oldest Grands were little, they said I made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. My Mother-in-Law used to always tell me I could bring macaroni & cheese to our family get togethers, if that meant anything. I have always enjoyed cooking when I had time & still do. Thinking back, I had a career & not a lot of extra time to perfect my cooking skills through the years as much as I would probably have liked too. I've told this story lots of times & it's still funny to me... I had made a peach pie. In conversation with Daughter talking about having pie with supper, she asked, "What kind of pie did Dad make". We currently like my meatballs & gravy. I'm perfecting my deviled egg skills since we have plenty of eggs on hand to work with. 

We started back our Homeschool Day at Granny's. A couple of the things we did was play a card game & do a craft. We've started out this year playing a card game that seemed to go over very good, "Who Knows Geography Better". It involves things like reading, vocabulary, concentration, communication, critical thinking & doing research while learning about all kinds of stuff about the United States & around the world. We did one round & the kids wanted to keep going. I'll plan to do 2 rounds next week & see how it goes. We finished up the balloons we started last week. The balloons were made using aluminum foil & a laminator. It was a fun interesting project that involved lots of different skills such as creativity, following directions, measurements, fine motor skills, hand & eye coordination, problem solving, cause & effect, so many learning things we don't even realize we're learning about. The kindergartener got some one-on-one time for writing, reading, letter recognition & counting.  

My balloon, "Wooooo's ready for school".

Happy 12th Birthday
to Grand Tripp.

 

We hosted to celebrate Grand's birthday at our place. There were burgers, a family kickball game & the bouncy water slide. We had a cookie cake to celebrate during school for snack.

Grand had a friend over for his birthday party.
They worked on a Lego set together. 

The results of my tie dye 

Daughter's Meet Up at the Park for Daycare & Homeschool was a success. Daughter had activities planned for read alouds, games & tie dye along with free play on the playground & a picnic. It was hot & we had plenty of water. It was fun!

Investigating a cricket. 

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been? Go out & have a wonderful weekend.