Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing? The strawberries are blooming. We're planning to have fresh strawberries pretty soon. I harvested 2 more asparagus stalks & ate them for breakfast this morning with ham & eggs. Kevin has a birthday this weekend. He didn't get a turkey, said he didn't find much good turkey sign where he wanted to hunt, he went fishing instead. Easter was happiness & gratefulness as Grand's grandparents joined together for a joint Easter dinner & egg hunt. There was lots of good food & fellowship. Youngest Grands got bubble blowers that lite up making the ending of our celebration majestic. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage or how about an ice cream today? I'll tell you about our jeep riding this week, Kevin's deal at the grocery store & how many kittens we have. We'll be working on the enclosed tailer camper transformation this weekend then I'm heading out to hang out with Grands while their parents go on an outing.

Shared Easter treat, strawberry
 milkshake flavored.
 

It was so foggy at the top of the mountain,
we couldn't hardly see anything.

We went on a couple jeep rides this week. We had planned to go fishing on those days, but it was rainy one day & a little too cool & windy the other day for an enjoyable day on the lake. We rode on some roads we hadn't ever been on before. We checked out a few places that we thought would be good for camping, riding the side-by-side & maybe doing some creek fishing. We got windows & lights ordered for the camper. Kevin went to Home Depot & got insulation & ceiling panels. He thinks he already has some electrical wire.

Dutchman's Breeches

Beaver Den & Dam

 

Blue & stripped rocks
along the creek.

   

Squawroot also called bear corn.
It looked like pinecones. It
produces pollen. I saw a butterfly
 on it is how I seen it. It seems that
 bears have been known to dig it
up & eat the sweet ears.

Meat Cuber

Kevin got a 10-pound pork loin on sale for about 1/2 price at the grocery store. He sliced the meat then cubed it. I bagged & sealed it to put up in the freezer.

We have 2 little barn kittens.

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!

Let your light shine. A mix of
faith & fun.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 34th week of 2024? It's been a few weeks since we've chatted. I got the blackberry jelly made, enjoyed a food truck event & hosted a Farm Day Summer Day Camp. Kevin butchered some roosters for the freezer & got his retirement benefits approved. We're both officially retired now, though he chooses to continue working part-time for the time being. Great Grand was born & Moma spent a few days in the hospital getting treated for phenomena. I spent a few days with Grands while their parents went on their annual anniversary get away. Me & Kevin had a couple good days out on the lake fishing & then went for a jeep ride. Grand's football & cheer practice started, the leaves are starting to change color & the goldenrods are blooming. Fall is in the air. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll catch up. The gender of Grand Twins has been announced & I'll introduce you to Great Grand...

Meet Ash. 8 pounds 1 ounce.
20 3/4 inches long.

*  I took the jelly making supplies up to Moma's. Me & Grand spent the day up there just a few days before Moma got sick. We made jelly, planned the final touches of Cousin Camp & started planning for a Two Little Pumpkins baby shower for some time in October. Then we all went to the food truck event in town for supper.

Cooking & mashing up the
blackberries to make
juice for jelly.

 

Straining out the seeds & pulp
from the juice.

Beautiful & tasty blackberry jelly. It's so good on buttered toast.

Me & Sister tried the pina colada
lemonade. It was delicious with
the cherries & crushed lemon
pulp.

Elvis was there at the food truck event.
Well, at least it sounded like his voice.
We enjoyed listening to the band while
 we ate.

*  Farm Day was fun. The time went by so fast. There were garden food samples, chicken petting, a picnic & playing in the creek. Have you ever had mud pie coffee? If you have, I know you will agree that it's one of the best kinds of pretend tasting that there is. We did an egg drop activity to see if an egg could be protected from breaking using some things normally found around the house such as cotton balls, newspapers, toilet paper, lemons, marshmallows & pieces of egg carton. The results of the experiment were that egg cartons do protect the eggs very good. Most the eggs survived being dropped from 8 to 6 feet, but there were a few that didn't. 

 

Everyone took turns touring the
chicken house & gathered a 
couple eggs.

The food sampling consisted of looking,
touching, smelling, handling, squishing,
tasting... followed by a spit out bowl. There
 was banana pepper, tommy toes, cucumber,
blackberry jelly & strawberry jam to taste.
 The jelly & jam was tried on graham
 crackers. Several rounds of Hot Squash
 was played.

*  Back in mid-July when Daughter's Friend was visiting, me & her hosted the Grand Twins pregnancy announcement & gender reveal. Daughter wanted to wait for the public gender announcement since one of the babies had 85% accuracy on it's gender at the time. We made predictions & had a lot of fun with it. Baby B continued to be stubborn as it took several hard hits to crack that ball open.

Baby A - It's a girl, 100% positive. Turns out,
 the later ultrasounds show it's a boy 100%.

 

Baby B - It's a girl, 85% sure. The cord
was between it's legs. Turns out, the
later ultrasounds show it's a girl
100%, maybe.

Where the lake meets the river, there was about a 20 degree
 colder difference in the water temperature & we could
feel it in the air too.

Sitting around the fire at Cousin Camp,
eating popcorn & listening to creepy
stories being read. The Cousin's
are Moma's Grands, 3 generations
of them now.

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

Happy Birthday to Grand Austin &
Granddaughter in Law Jessi. Happy
 Birth Day to Great Grand Ash.
We celebrated their days at
 Cousin Camp.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 18th week of 2024? It's 60 degrees here this good Friday morning. The black cherry trees are in bloom & they are so sweet smelling. I'm on the count down for my last days of work this month. I've officially joined the Dull Women's Club in preparation to a retirement lifestyle. I've ordered a magazine subscription as a substitute to work comradery for recipes, what movies are coming up to watch & info on things going on in the world around me & such. People have asked me what am I going to do after I retire. The 1st things that come to mind are... 2 hour morning coffee quite time, meal planning more strategically - cooking things we keep stocked up in the freezer & things from out of the garden using recipes from that magazine subscription, the church cookbook & several cookbooks I have on hand plus all those other recipes I've collected through the years that I had planned to make one day. I have plans to finally & truly organize my pictures & make photobooks that I've had on my to do list for at least 19 years since the 1st Grand was born. Then I have thoughts of everyday feeling like it's a weekend. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll show you our 90th birthday surprise for Aunt before I head out to Grand's baseball game this weekend & a dinner for Moma's birthday & Mother's Day combined. Also, Me & Kevin enjoyed a picnic & jeep ride last weekend, the wild azaleas were in bloom & lots of other wildflowers that I took pictures of that I'll share with you, come walk with me...

I came up with the birthday card idea,
Sister put it into action. Aunt is very
loved by so many. There was a big turnout
 of family & friends to celebrate her birthday.
 She received lots of cards & pots
of flowers. Happy 90th Birthday to 
Aunt Velva.
 

  

I saved room for a piece of the delicious
birthday cake made by Cousin, the same
one that made the cake for Grand's
wedding. Cousin is a wonderful &
true cake artist. 

*  Since I made a countdown of my last days of work, my mind wants to put off doing anything & everything till after I retire. They'll be plenty of time to do it then, I'm thinking. The overflowing dirty clothes hamper along with the small mound of dirty clothes beside it & the dirty dishes stacked in the sink told me otherwise, so there was laundry done this week & the dishes washed as usual. I started a 31-day walking challenge for May. I need to get some weight off & also eat less portions & have less to none sweets for my health to try to get those glucose & cholesterol numbers down or else... So far, I'm rocking it & have walked the 1st 3 days of May. I've been walking 1st thing in the morning after coffee time, of course. 

Some have asked if I was counting down the days
to retirement. I am now, 29 more to go.

* We hadn't been on a jeep ride in a while. Nature did not disappoint with all it's beauty. There were lots of blooms, these were some of the best pictures I took.

Asters

 

Yellow Flowers, Maybe Ragwort
The poison oak does not bother me.
Kevin steered clear of it.

Lady Slipper

  

May Apple

Wild Iris

 

Fern

Wild Azalea 

 

We went through several
fords in the creek.

Lunch, using the new lunch box
Daughter gave us for Christmas. 

  

It's me, sitting on the creek bank 
taking a moment to admire the 
beauty, sounds & smells.

Cucumber Tree

These are some of the things that's been 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 15th week of 2024? The dogwood trees have come alive. It's 47 degrees here this early Saturday morning. I had planned to sleep in, but I was bright eyed & bushy tailed at 4 am. I don't know why, maybe excited to go to the produce stand & get flowers to plant in the newly remodeled flower bed out in front of the house. Soon my everydays will be a Saturday as I get closer to my retirement date. Then I'll have plenty of opportunities to sleep in & take 2 to 3 hours to have my morning coffee. We got all that rain along with some wind that was forecasted last week. I have more sticks to pick up around in the yard. I didn't walk outside during work time to look up at the solar eclipse, but I did look at some interesting pictures of it online later that evening. I had a good time with the Grandgirls last weekend. The girls did end up convincing me that it was not too cold for them to get in the creek. Good thing I had plenty of hot chocolate on hand. It was too cold for me & Kevin to get in the water to move around the rocks that had washed out of their place. Kevin got a load of mulch instead. We all worked on putting it out around in the flower beds, Kevin cleaned out the chicken house. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you about a couple of whoopsies we had this week & a few of the fun things the Grandgirls did while visiting, walk with me...

"This is so much fun" for about 3 buckets, then
they got hot & went to the creek.

The mud bath loving girl.

 

The mud pie loving girl.

The stick fetching loving girl.

  

"Do you like butter?"

The new pulley verses the old
one that fell apart & caused
the belt to break.

*  Whoops... The belt broke on the jeep as we were taking the Grandgirls home. The belt flew off about a mile from our destination. Kevin kept driving on to their house without any power steering but before things started to heat up. Luckly, there are a couple of parts places open around here on Sunday. We were able to get the 2 needed parts to fix the jeep, though Kevin had to get 2 different size pulleys because he wasn't sure which size he would need. Son-in-Law helped Kevin put in the new pulley & belt to get the jeep back on the road. The unneeded pully was returned a few days later for a full refund. I was the flashlight holder & the tool hander in case anyone wonders what I did to help in the situation. 

*  Whoops... We woke up to the power being off one morning this week. Neighbor told Kevin it had went off about 11 the night before. That meant our electricity had been off for at least 8 hours. We went to work & don't know when the power came back on. Kevin has an incubator full of chicken eggs that are supposed to hatch the same time the baby chicks are expected to arrive here in a couple weeks. We're hoping the eggs are ok & maybe the only side effect will be a day or 2 later for hatching.

The hatching eggs look all snug
as a bug under a rug, or maybe not.
 The temperature stays at 99.5 F.
A good range of warmth is 
99 to102, plus a little water
in there for humidity.

A sneak peek of the arch for
Grand's wedding.
 

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

The strawberries are blooming,
the rhubarb has 4 beautiful leaves,
azalea blooms are about to pop
open, an asparagus the size of a 
toothpick has showed itself.