SNOW

We are having some unusually cold and snowy weather. Its suppose to snow the next 3 days and we are going to have below 0 degree temps! Brrrrr! I hope it clears by Saturday as we have to drive the kids back to FL. We may have to leave sooner. Hoping tomorrow won't be bad. Just have to keep checking the weather. The grandaughters have to be back to school on Monday! They have exams to make up.

We took the oldest daughter to the airport yesterday to fly back to FL. Hopefully, she had a good time. Thats a 2 hour drive to Nashville. It was snowing when we left our house at 9:30 am and then the closer we got to Nashville, the snow stopped and it was sun shiney. We had left early just in case. She had to be there 1 and 1/2 hours before flight time. SHe got off ok and called us when she arrived in Tampa. On the way home we stopped in Cookeville youngest daughter and I got our hair cut. Then it was off to Penneys to exchange some Christmas gifts. They had some good clearance sales with 70% off! Then it was off to Sams club for our monthly shopping and then home. We got a couple of pizza's at Sams and oldest grandaughter had the oven preheated by the time we got home in 20 minutes we had the first pizza cooked. And enough left over for lunch today.

Well not alot going on. Will be housebound the next couple of days since temps are suppose to drop to zero. Its only 15 degrees now!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I know its been quite awhile since I have written on my blog I have either been busy working or trying to get some Christmas gifts and crafts made.

We have a housefull. Both daughters are here from FL. The girls were thrilled to see snow for the first time when we brought them up from FL on Dec 2oth. It snowed today a little and despite the cold, they were out there playing in it. The girls love to take the 4 wheeler down the trails. Our neighbor lets us go on his property. Chuck took Kristy out (our middle child) looking for arrowheads and she found one and needless to say was thrilled. I don't think any of them realized how cold it would be here Kristy and the girls were here for Thanksgiving last year so thought that it would be in the 40's instead, its in the high 20's and low 30's daytime and in the low teens at night!

Christmas was a small affair but fun anyway. We got both daughters clothes and since one of Kristy's girls broke her digital camera, we found her one on sale on Black Friday at Walmar. The girls got new MP3 players and clothes. Everyone has pitched in to help cook dinners especially on the 3 nights during the week that I have to work (at home with medical transcription). The girls made some chocolate chip cookies and some sugar cookies (grandpa's favorite). We also made some pumpkin bread. I would like to make some homemade ice cream while they are here. Oldest daughter Lisa, flies home on Monday and we drive the others back to FL on the 8th or 9th. Will spend the night with son Stephen and his fiancie. They just bought a house and closed before we got to FL on Dec 16th so we were able to stay there for a couple of days and help them get stuff moved in. They got a bank owned foreclosure and it was half the price of what it sold for two years before. I would say that they lucked out as bank owned houses seem to take forever to close on.

We spent New Years Eve at home just fixed a bunch of finger foods and watched movies. New Years day we had our traditional ham and today I fixed split pea soup with the ham bone. Everyone seemed to like it and the grandaughters said they had never had it and liked it. Tomorrow night its London Broil which they requested. We also fixed Beef fondue, lasagna and chicken almondine. Still have a couple more of their favorites to fix.

Well I think that I will watch a little TV so will sign off for now.

Fall is in the Air

Well its starting to cool down here. Its been in the 80's this week and by the weekend it will be in the high 70's with high 50's at night.

Last week was a busy week, between doing all the extra transcription and trying to get the canning and freezing done I need a rest! The freezer is getting fuller with corn, green beans, okra, tomatoes, spagettic and peaches. I have 2 shelves in my pantry full of jars of spagetti sauce, tomatoe sauce, tomatoes, green beans, peaches, salsa, green tomatoe relish and dill and sweet picke. There are still some green peppers in the garden and cherry tomatoes. Also the potatoes need to be dug. Chuck built a large potato bin under the house and the neighbor is keeping his potatoes in it. He has a basement but in the winter he uses a wood furnace for heat so his basement is to warm for keeping potatoes down there. Joe has about 12-15 bushels of red and white potatoes in the bin. They do have all their jars of goodies down there plus a freezer full. Jan has been giving me pointers on how to can certain things like the peaches. I think I will do some pears as well if they give us some pears again this year. Its really not hard to can just time consuming. Next year Chuck is going to fire up the wood stove in the shed and do the canning out there. That will save on electric to plus time. We have given a couple of our friends some of the things we have canned plus fresh vegetables when we have to much to use up ourselves. The neigbors just gave us a huge sweet potatoe squash now to figure out how to preserve that!

We finally got the office/spare bedroom painted and back together. Chuck just has to move the treadmill back in here from the porch. Its been out there since early July to make room for someone to sleep in here. We hope the start repainting and redoing the main bathroom. We are having a bathroom cabinet made for in there since the smallest one we have seen is still to wide (its a very small bathroom). New fixtures for the shower and walls and a new sink for the cabinet. We have a pedistal sink in there now which we will be giving to Chucks sister she is redoing her bathroom and wants it.

Family Visit and Canning fun!

Al though we didn't do alot while the kids were here everyone seem to have a good time. Kristy's favorite thing to do was to take a book and read out on the back porch. She was amazed that she could sit out there and not sweat like FL. Plus she didn't have to worry about people always showing up there. They left to go back to FL on July 21st the house was sure quiet after they left. The cats that had been hiding out the whole 2 weeks that they were here finally came out of hiding. Two of the cats got out somehow one of which was gone for four days! Guess they don't like their routine being messed up! Talk about set in there ways! The cats learned to run whenever Lilly the 20 month old was in site! All except for the youngest cat Cricket.

Speaking of cats a long haired black female showed up and we didn't know that Kaylee and Jynna were feeding her! She is also pregnant. This was confirmed yesterday when we took her to the vet. We left her there to be spade. There is a male cat hanging around if we can catch him will get him fixed as well. I guess thats one drawback to living in the country!

I am still putting up vegetables. I sent Kristy home with Spagetti sauce, dill pickes and potatoes. Joe keeps bringing us veggies (excess from his garden). We have gotten tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and beans. I still have a few more pickles to put up this time sweet pickles. His tomatoes got some kind of disease from to much rain and they are rotting before completely ripening. We picked some green tomatoes and I made a couple of jars of sweet relish. Corn and pole beans went into the freezer as well as yellow squash from our garden. We are still getting cucumbers, tomatoes and onions and the potatoes should be ready to dig up. Joe says he will have about 40 bushels of potatoes and asked if he could store them under our house this winter. Chuck is in the process of building a bin for the potatoes. Joe has a wood stove in the basement so its to hot down there for the potatoes to keep. Hopefully, they will keep well under the house.

Thank heavens for my Ball books since I never canned before the books have been a big help.
I hope to put up more veggies next year.

Visitors

Well today our youngest daughter and her three daughters will be driving up to TN from FL. Its about a 12 hour drive and their air-conditoning quit in the van so they decided to travel at night. They will be spending the night at a motel between Atlanta and Macon. Hopefully they will be ok and won't have any car trouble. When they get up here we can take the van in and see whats wrong with the air conditioning. Hopefully it just needs freon. The two oldest girls are so excited. They drove up here in Nov. for Thanksgiving and now they will see how pretty it is up here in the summer. They want to hike in the woods and go swimming in the lake. We have a huge lake nearby. We hope to have a pontoon next year if they come back again which I am sure they will.

Thank goodness they like dill pickes I have so many jars made. I seem to get cucumbers and squash every day. Even a few tomatoes. Potatoes will be ready soon. Well I will write more later and post pictures of the family later on.

Garden Bounty

I have been busy the past couple of days canning pickles and freezing squash. Our neighbor brought over a bucket almost half full of cucumbers last night. I guess they must have planted alot but didn't need to can anymore. I went over to their house on Sat. and Joe's wife Jan was canning pickles. Canning is something that I have never done. She gave me a jar of sweet pickles that she put up last summer and boy were they good she also gave me the receipe. So I have spent the last 2 days canning pickles. I went out and got a canning pan with rack yesterday and its alot easier and it holds 6 jars at a time. The pint jars take 5 minutes and the quart 10 minutes to process. I also made some sweet zucchini pickles. Walmart sold packages of the kosher dill, reg. dill and bread and butter pickle mix. I don't care for the bread and butter mix so will use Jan's receipe next batch. The kosher dill and regular dill turned out good. I found a receipe in my canning book for dill pickles and made a batch today. Hope they are good. Now to find a place to store them all. I plan to make some pickle peppers to. Our daughter and 3 grandaughters are driving up from FL on Monday and they all love the dill pickles and daughter likes sweet pickles. My husband doesn't like sweet pickles. Can't wait till they arrive it will be fun to cook for all of them and the grandaughters want to learn to cook and sew. I hope that they will stay longer than 2 weeks though. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving.

We have potatoes about ready to harvest plus our neighbor has given us a bunch of red potatoes from his garden and green beans, onions and okra. We pulled some of the onions which still need to grow and the radishes are about ready. We only have 2 cucumber plants but are getting plenty of cucumbers. Lots of yellow summer squash and yellow crook neck squash and even have had some cherry and regular tomatoes and some cabbage. The peppers are slow growing as is the egg plants. The garden is doing well because of all the rain that we have had. I am surprised things grow this well in the hard clay ground. When the potatoes are done plan to put some greens, spinach and winter cabbage in. I think the garden will do even better if we get a load of top soil in there before the spring.

Garden Bounty

We are already getting vegetables from out garden. This week it has been yellow squash, red and green lettece, romaine, zucchini and cucumbers. We had so much lettece we shared with friends. Picked head of romaine and red lettece yesterday. Chuck brought me one cherry tomatoe yesterday hopefully, we will have some tomatoes soon. We hope to plant some fall crops as well, like greens and such. The potatoes plants have flowers on them which means we have some potatoes to eat soon. The neighbor brought us some red potatoes from his garden nothing like fresh potatoes! We have a good variety of veggies out there to enjoy all summer. Fortunatley, we have been getting rain on and off and don't have to water the garden. We have city water here believe it or not. Well thats all there is for this time.