Monday, December 30, 2013

The Thrifty Homesteader: What's so bad about raw milk?

The Thrifty Homesteader: What's so bad about raw milk?: Maybe it's just coincidence or maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems that since Farmageddon was released, the heat has been...

Friday, November 1, 2013

Fall Colors

I'm not real partial to the cold weather, specifically I hate being cold as the cold causes me pain these days, but after seeing the trees in this last week, I'm enjoying the change.  (I guess I'll have to wear another layer of clothes this winter).  In Kansas it's highly unusual that the trees even still have leaves
at this time of year. Generally it gets cold, the leaves turn and in a day or so the wind blows so hard the trees lose their leaves.  So really we usually only have fall colored leaves for about 1-2 days.  This year, it's been different.

These are the leaves on the trees in our yard, the yellow one being a Mother's Day present from my son about 20 years ago and the red one being a gift from my mother also about 20 years ago, although the red one had a tough start and is a smaller tree to begin with, being what's called a Smoke Tree.  I only have a few pretty ones, mostly what we have are hedge that aren't real colorful.  They do look much prettier when the sun is shining especially in the morning, but I had to leave the house before the sun came up that far.  So, when I am able in the next day or so to catch these trees in the sun I will retake these and post new pictures because they really are much prettier than these pictures show.

I work on the 16th floor and have been looking over the city, noting there isn't a lot of red in our landscape, mostly dull yellows and oranges.  As I look down closer to our building I note a number of red fall colored trees, and they're short, I'm thinking you just can't see most of them from my vantage point throughout the city.  Now as I'm driving home from work, I find myself unconsciously looking for more and more tree color in the city.  I don't see as much as I would think or like which is a shame, as the deep, bright and rich reds, yellows and oranges add such depth to the fall colors, they are so bold, bright, so pretty.  We have yellows and oranges, but they just aren't the striking colors you can see in some trees.

However, in the mornings, when the sun comes up, the colors we do have seem bright, like they are alight, maybe even glowing and while on I'm on my way to work, that is what I would call a morning "Smile", making the morning worth the day ahead.

Tell me what you see, what you like in the fall when the trees begin to change.  What are the colors like in your area?  Drop a picture if you like and share.

Enjoy the colors while you can.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Laughing at Myself

This morning, on the way into work, instead of listening to my usual audio book or audio lecture series, I tuned into music.  The ipod, after being charged last night, turned itself to music and rather than try to drive and find my place in the book I had started, I just left it as it was. 

Sunday, October 27, 2013

UPDATE: Homemade Applesauce

At the end of last month I wrote about homemade applesauce.  Today I made some.  I bought some apples from the store's discount rack, they were spotted and not perfect, so I got a good price and the bonus was most were organic.  If you've read any of my blogs about cooking you know I don't do precise measuring much, but it usually works well, but I generally followed the recipe.

I quartered the apples, cut out the seeds and the core, and pealed them and then cut them in half again when I put them in the crockpot.  I added about 3 small fingerfuls (as opposed to handfuls) of brown sugar and about 3 table spoons of lemon juice I had squeezed a few months before for use in cleaning liquids.



Thursday, October 24, 2013

Today's Smile

My major smile didn't come to me until I got home from work tonight.  Not that I didn't find my morning smile, a beautiful golden glow from the morning sun on the trees and across the pastures along with watching the birds catching bugs in the morning sky.  It really doesn't take too much to make me smile especially where nature is concerned.

When I got home tonight, like most nights, my girls are waiting for me at the door, usually making all kinds of noise.  Cally has a "woo woo" kind of bark that just makes you smile when you hear it.  My husband said he fed them early because they wouldn't leave him alone while he was cooking some stuff for his lunches.  So we went ahead and went outside, I was hoping they would do their thing,

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Drive to Work

My drive to work is generally 35-40 min long, 25 miles one way, about 7 miles of that being city miles.  The first 7 miles is on a little 2-lane paved road to the 4-lane highway into the city.  As I'm driving into work this morning about 3 miles from home, there's a thin and wispy fog above the road, looking like I'm just below the surface of water, rippled like someone dropped a pebble on a pond and I was looking up from underneath the surface.  Was very cool to look at, not something you see very often, nothing I've seen anyway.



Sunday, October 13, 2013

Mother Earth Fair

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Mother Earth Fair in Lawrence.  We both had a great time.  They had a lot of exhibitors and a ton of scheduled speakers for everything from dirt to making cheese.  We weren't able to stay over night so we didn't listen to many of those, but did catch most of one about having bees, learning some good tidbits in the short time we listened.

First we just made a circle around the outside of the park to see what all was there.  We saw people selling cheese making kits, seed companies, animal education booths, lots of books, growing systems and a group selling gluten-free soda pop.  We even bought a bottle of root beer, my favorite, which was very good even though I rarely drink pop.

We came across a place selling soap stone items, among other things, which I thought was really cool.  Vermont Marble, Granite, Slate & Soapstone Company is the name of the place.  You can click their name and see their store. They were

Monday, September 30, 2013

The Benefits of Honey

I ran across this article today.  When I was a kid my dad used to use honey to sweeten everything.  We bought honey from a guy nicknamed "Honey Bee".  That was the only name I ever knew the guy by.  Once in a while dad would get the honey in the bees wax.  My brother and I thought that was so cool, cause we chewed the wax like gum and it was sweet.  Just like regular gum your jaws got tired and you spit it out in short order.  Mom used warm water, honey and apple cider vinegar as a type of sedative when I didn't feel good.  We also used it as a cough syrup.  I can tell you I'd rather eat a teaspoon of honey than some of the cough syrups out there.  I grew up loving honey as a sweetener and then found molasses.  (By the way, did you know if you mix a little bit of molasses with milk, it tastes like chocolate milk?).  Mom and dad didn't have sweets in the house and dessert was a special thing we had once a week or so.  Honey & toast was a nice sweet type of snack for us and adding peanut butter was even better.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

A contemplation

I read this today and liked it.....thought I would share.  "Whatever your life situation is, how would you feel if you completely accepted it as it is - right now?" --Eckhart Tolle.   Interesting.

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About Me

I'm a country girl who loves to learn new things, some things for living and some things for fun, and other things, just because.