There's Something About Thursdays

Lately there is something about Thursdays.

Last week we were surprised by a snowfall.

Then,

during the night last night...

...we heard the wind howling...

...and the rain coming down.

As the night wore on...

...that rain changed to sleet...

...and that sleet changed to snow.

Yep.

Our world is frozen...

...and glazed with a layer of ice...

...and blanketed with snow.

It is just as cold as it looks like it would be in these photos...

...and the skies are still grey and ominous.

There are not even any vehicles on the highway...

...and I just got a call telling me that tomorrow will be Snow Day Number 8!

Let me just say that and nothing more

Yesterday was not a pretty one.

Let me just say that and nothing more.

Well, let me just add this part...

At the end of my school day...as I was walking to my truck...I happened to glance down at the ground and saw - not one, but two - yes, two pennies lying there.

"Find a penny.  Pick it up.  All day long you will have good luck." That phrase sing-songed  in my head till I stopped and picked them up.

So, the day wasn't totally awful.

Today is looking better.

I got to sleep late.  Well, sort of...

I woke up at 3:40 A.M. and my old body was aching and my head was stuffy.  So, I took a couple of pain-reliever tablets and an antihistamine, grabbed a quilt and went to prop myself up on the couch to try to sniffle and go back to sleep without waking Mike.

However, good old Toby had other ideas.  He knew I didn't get back in bed.  How?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe he didn't hear me snoring breathing right there in the bed near his crate.  Who knows?

Just as I was about to doze off...Toby started whining and yipping and begging to be let out of his crate.

So, I went back in there to him and pointed my finger at him and told him in a firm and authoritative manner to hush.  (Translation: Me standing in front of his crate, wearing one of Mike's t-shirts with my hair sticking out in all directions like Medusa, growling at him to shut up or I would make him be really sorry that he woke up Mike...and there may have been an expletive...or two.)

That worked.

Until I got snuggled back under the quilt and situated in a propped up manner on my pillows and just about dozed off again.

Then, I had to stomp back in there and repeat my reprimand and add in a kick to Toby's crate and closed the closet, the bathroom, and the bedroom doors.

I doubt that worked either, but I didn't hear him anymore until 9:00 A.M. this morning!

Mike was already just about finished with his morning feeding chores.  So, I offered to make sausage, biscuits, and gravy for breakfast.

I puttered round and was ready for the milk to make the gravy.  So, I went out on the porch to get the milk and juice off the table and waved at Mike as he came out of the barn.  As I stirred up the gravy, I noticed that the milk had a few ice crystals in it when I was finishing up that gourmet meal.  So, Mike and I conversed about the chill of the morning and I set the gravy on the table just as he had removed his barn boots, washed his hands, and was sitting down to eat.

What a team we are!  Synergy!

Wait, you say...What?

Yes, the milk and juice and all of the cold foods were stored on the back porch last night - most in coolers but the milk and juice jugs just sat out on the table.  Oh, did I forget to mention that our refrigerator stopped working night-before-last?

Yes.  Yes it did.

Puttin' Up Produce

It's that time of year again!  Produce is ripe and it is time to can and freeze it so that we can have delicious foods all year long.

My brother-in-law, Jim, went to the vegetable auction again like he did last year.  You can read about that HERE and HERE.  So, I have been canning and freezing like we have in the past.  You can read about that HERE.

This time my kitchen has been full of yellow squash, zucchini, onions, and cucumbers (the pepper is from the local grocery store).  So, I have been making Sweet Pickle Relish today.  Lots of chopping!

Chopped Cucumber and Red Bell Pepper

Chopped Onion

I used THIS recipe and made eight pints and nine half-pints.

The jar lids are popping to seal as I am typing this in!

We now have a bushel and a half of yellow squash blanched and in bags, frozen in the freezer, a bushel of zucchini in bags, frozen in the freezer as well.  This time I grated some of the zucchini up and froze it raw in hopes that I can use it for Lemon Zucchini Bread with Lemon Glaze.  I also sliced some and put it up raw in hopes that I can use it for Zucchini Gratin.

Isn't relish a beautiful sight?

My pantry and freezer are full, my floor is sticky, and I am pooped!  Sweeping and mopping will have to wait till tomorrow..

Independence Day Celebration and Zucchinis

Well, the nation's birthday celebration sloshed by me.  Mike had to work.  Yuck!

He said, "Maybe if we work on July 4 we can have off Saturday AND Sunday."

I paused only briefly to think about that.  Don't you think something is wrong if he has to work on a national holiday in order to have two days off that he is supposed to have off anyway?

My gripe session about that is over but I would like to have caused a few fireworks with the powers that be over there at the warehouse!

Anyway, yesterday was a sloshy, mushy, rainy day here at the ole homestead.  So, Toby and I spent the day in the kitchen.

Yesterday we had put all of that bushel of yellow squash in the freezer.  Lots of slicing, blanching, chilling, and bagging going on over here.

This was only the first batch...

Then, today, we (meaning I) began work on the bushel of zucchini.  I sliced up some zucchini and dipped it into buttermilk and tossed it into a cornmeal mixture and laid the slices out on a wax paper/cookie sheet.  You can see a tutorial HERE.

I also made Lemon Zucchini Bread using a recipe by NancyCreative.  It is absolutely divine!

Lemon Zucchini Bread with Lemon Glaze

I tried another zucchini bread recipe that my friend Joann G gave me.  It is delicious and she says it freezes well.  You can see that recipe HERE.

I pinned a couple more recipes on my Recipes to Try Pinterest Board that I'm going to give a try.

On another note, Bridgette and family have gone on V-cation and Lillie and Lydia sported their 'zucchinis' (really it was a tankini but guess what was a more familiar term...)  today and went to the hotel pool!

Finally, when Mike got home from work at about eight-thirty, he told me to look out front to see what was going on and this is what I saw:

Yep, there was a roadblock set up right in front of our house!

Stephen and Bonnie fired off a couple of fireworks up on the hill - a warm-up for Saturday, I guess.

Here is what Toby did all day:

Then, when folks started shooting fireworks all around us, he had to look out the window of the back doors and give a few woofs!

Hope your day was exciting and festive.

Decorating for the holidays

I remember when I was a bit more youthful than I am now.  I decorated elaborately for every holiday.  The inside of our house would showcase what the holiday season might be - New Year's Eve, Ground Hog Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter...you name it and I had home decor.  This extended to the entry doors - both front and back - and to the lawn with flags and to the mailbox with some sort of decor.

Somehow, life got faster-paced or, and this is more likely, I got a lot slower-paced.  The all-out decorating isn't quite so popular for me these days.  However, this year I did decorate a bit for the Independence Day.  I decorated the kitchen fireplace.

I went all out.

It started when I remembered that I had some of those little inexpensive flags that come about six to a pack from the craft store and I began searching for them.

I didn't find them but I did find the plaque I made a couple of years ago that was inspired by Suzanne over at Just Another Hang Up and her Plaque Attacks.  These make quick and easy hand-crafted, personalized gifts to give to folks that are quick and simple to do.  Here is one I did for myself:

I just swapped out the one that usually sits there describing our household for this patriotic one.  It looks really festive there with the blue Ball jars and the old red tea kettle that belonged to one of Mike's relatives doesn't it?

It says everything I can think of to commemorate Independence Day.

I have squash to freeze and cucumbers to chop in the making of sweet pickle relish.  Mike is working.  So, we will be celebrating with the children on Saturday up on the hill when Bonnie's Barnyard rolls out their Fireworks Extravaganza.  Hope the day is a little different than it is today.  Here is what it looks like today:

Wet, wet, wet!

The rain gauge says we have already gotten over two inches today and it is still falling steadily.

Hope you have a happy 4th of July!

Busy Week, ahem... Actively Engaged Days

What a week!  Sunday was a day for sharing.

I shared what little I know, ahem... my vast knowledge about canning and freezing with my daughter-in-law and her friend Kali.  (I really have a hard time figuring out what this poor girl's name is because Mike, Stephen, and even her husband, Mark, tease her by calling her Kallie and Kathy and who-knows-what-else.  And when you are sitting and chatting with one another, you rarely call somebody by her name...So, when I got ready to introduce her the other day, my mind just went blank.  Sorry, Kathy Kallie Katherine Kimberly Katy, ahem... Kali!)

~sigh~

Anyway, I guided these sweet girls through canning six beautiful jars of green beans that were fresh from Stephen and Bonnie's garden and picked and snapped and washed by her!  (What you don't realize is that she has never aspired to be a domestic goddess and has always been an outdoor girl and is now a business maven during her off-outdoor-girl time, which is six-days-per-week, since she and Stephen own their own business.  Read about that HERE and HERE.)  Her beans turned out to look like blue-ribbon-winners at anybody's state fair, though.

At this point, you may be wondering why I'm not sharing photographs of this momentous occasion.  Well, there is a perfectly good explanation and it might have something to do with my sitting at the island tasting a splash of Arrington Vineyards' Firefly Rose (that they brought along) and yack-yack-yacking and never even thinking of taking a photo of these cute, sweet, hard-working girls I'm bossing around, ahem... mentoring through the preservation-of-food lessons.

 ~sigh~

The girls also sliced and blanched and chilled and bagged five quarts of yellow squash and five quarts of zucchini squash.  It turned out to be beautiful as well!  Of course, this culinary delight which was 'put-up' for future meals when we are in the dead of winter, for example, was also grown right in these girls' gardens and picked by their own sweet hands (and maybe the rough, calloused hands of their husbands, too).

Do you see me puffed with pride over these girls?

~sigh~

Monday was a day the hubs took a day off from work and we had the chance spend the day together.  Wednesday was another day for my friend Margaret and I to do some more work on school-work, ahem... Refreshing and Updating.  Friday was a day for a follow-up visit to the doctor for Mike and, of course I went along to find out what the doctor had to say because who knows what it would sound like coming from Mike?  Somehow he seems to hear medical instructions a little bit differently than I do.  You know, like, "go home and keep your leg propped up," turned into, "I'm going out to the barn to feed and water the chickens and do a little grass mowing."

So, I'm spending this Saturday morning trying to catch up and wrangle the house back into submission, ahem... leisurely sipping coffee and I might swish over the floors after I nibble a piece of toast.