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Battle fierce beasts as they vie for the fruit of your labor!




Frolic by a bonfire on a summer night or autumn evening! (Warning: If alcohol is consumed, singed eyebrows may result.)

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Side effects may include: strains, sprains, bruises, pains, and occasional bouts of Tourette's.

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World's Best Sweet Potato Casserole!!

3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk

Mix all of the above ingredients well. Spoon into buttered baking dish (9x9).

In a separate bowl, mix topping:

1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup butter

Stir in:
1 cup chopped pecans

Sprinkle over sweet potato mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Someday...

...someday...I will know the simple pleasure of planning a family holiday gathering...

without the insane rush to first finish yet another remodeling project....

...maybe someday....

*sigh*

Dare I hope?

The weather has been gorgeous lately. I mean absolutely incredible, sunny and warm, and totally freakish for Ohio in November. But I'm not complaining!! I love love love it!!

Today we cut wood...again. Hubby has been cutting down dead trees, nicely seasoned on the stump, cutting them up, and then Little Sis and I have been hauling them uphill in wheelbarrows. Remember the Country Wife Fitness Program? Yep, just like that, but minus the berries.

During today's wood cutting marathon, Hubby and I started discussing the fact that our woodlot is just about spent. In order to continue to live in the woods, we have to leave some of the woods. So...what to do? We have an oil furnace. If we heated solely with oil, we'd spend a fortune, which was why we switched to wood to start with. Wood is also a lot warmer. We will be filling up the tank for those days when we won't be home to stoke the fire, but only using it when necessary.

The solution? We are going to buy wood, starting next year. Seasoned, split, and delivered. My springtime job will more than cover the cost and free up a LOT of time. I'll have time to hike, and not behind a wheelbarrow of wood. I'll have time to quilt, harvest rosehips and make jam, or just sit without rushing and worrying about the wood.

Seasoned. Split. Delivered. Dare I hope??

Lost Rainbows

You wait...and wait...and wait....

Then they show up, adorable, and helpless...

And before you know it, they are walking, talking, and asking for an I-Pod.

And then....far too soon...they are off into the world on their own. They are all grown up, but this is what we see:

We miss you, Rainbow Brite, and we're always here when you want us.

Letting go is hard, even when you know she's going to conquer the world.

Monkey Bread

I have no idea why this stuff is called Monkey Bread. Do Monkeys like it? Eat it? Fling it?

Anyway....

The basic recipe for the dough can be found here. I use that bread dough recipe for just about anything baked and yummy. lol

I made a loaf of bread, and since I only needed one, used the leftover dough to make this Pull Apart Monkey Bread.

Use one half of the bread dough recipe, unless you want a LOT of Monkey Bread. Let the dough rise once, then shape into small balls, dip in melted butter, and roll in a mix of cinnamon and sugar (the size pictured used 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon). Place dough balls in greased bunt or angel food cake pan (or any pan, for that matter). Drizzle any leftover butter/cinnamon/sugar over balls. Let rise. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Watch out for monkeys!

Fox Trot

I'm not really afraid of anything. Big Sis always says that I'm the one that goes off into the dark, even though I can plainly hear the scary music (ie...every scary movie ever made). I always answer with, "Yep, but I'm wearing hiking boots instead of stilettos, and I'm carrying a machete."

Shortly after we bought our place here in the deep, dark woods, we were working on the house after dark one night. It was one of those nights with no moon, where the dark seems to devour any light that comes its way.

I heard this strange noise in the distance, so I went outside to listen. I heard it clearly once I was outside. I had no idea what it was. I crept to the edge of the house to try to see what was making that sound. Then I heard it again, unbelievably close to me, as if whatever made the odd noise moved at the speed of light. Needless to say, I showed my chicken side and ran back into the house with a loud, "What the hell was that?!" So much for my tough chick routine.

After a lot of time digging around online, I found the sound. A fox. I never knew they did anything but yip and look cute.

Then, just last week, I heard a noise outside and thought something had somehow gotten into the henhouse. About halfway to the coop, I realize the noise is coming from down in the woods, near the fox den (we have at least three on our property). I did check on the chickens to make sure they were snug and safe, just in case, but I was pretty sure it was just a fox, carrying on a loud argument (at a safe distance) with the neighborhood dogs (which were barking like mad). Here's a cool youtube link I found, with video and sound. The sound we hear most often around here is the one at the beginning of the video (Vixen Barking).

This time I wasn't freaked out by the noise. I knew it wasn't a brain eating zombie or anal probing alien, so I wasn't too worried. I've learned a lot of things, living here in the woods, that I never would've known if I'd stayed in the city. Identifying fox calls is just one of them. ;)

Living in the woods....

...isn't all storybook characters and wine and walks. Ohhhh noooo.

Today, for example, I had the joy of cleaning the zillion leaves from my gutters (WHAT is that smell??? Oh, it's me...after being splattered with the wet, muddy grossness under all the nice crunchy leaves in the gutter.).

Then I realized that my sweet little lodge style home too greatly resembles the set of Arachnophobia. yikes. So I spent and hour or so with a broom, knocking off spiders, webs, and egg sacks. **shudder**

You know what I really hate about spiders?? Spider poop!! It's that nasty, white, dribbly, bird poo looking stuff that runs down the side of my otherwise log colored (but not really log) home. You either have to spend hours scrubbing it off with a brush, hot water, and a good detergent (homemade Naptha laundry soap works well) or just paint over it. Every year I resolve to knock the spiders down on a weekly basis, but I always get busy doing other stuff, like gardening or firewood...or blogging. *blush*

On the plus side, the house now looks much tidier outside (Thanks, Luv, for cleaning out the shed!) and the weather was lovely...sunny and near 70! Almost unheard of for Ohio in November!

Tomorrow, another lovely day is forecast, along with a day of harvesting firewood. The fun never ends! ;)

Harvest totals

As promised, I'm listing some of my harvest totals. I don't think I remembered to write everything down, as I was busy working, harvesting, canning, freezing, etc etc etc. I was probably the most exhausted I have ever been in my whole life, but we managed and I'm really glad we put forth the extra effort to have a bigger garden....even though we temporarily became The Zombie Family. (Insert groovy Addam's Family theme music here, but with requisite zombie groans.)


In past years, I didn't keep track of what I put up. I do know it was never quite enough. Last year I ran out of green beans before January! The horror of a greenbeanless winter!! augh!

This year is, in fact, the most we've ever put by. Our goal is to one day supply all of our own food, or at least the majority of it.

I think my garden would've done even better this year if I hadn't been working, but the economy...well...you know....it sucked.

So..here goes...

• Green Beans: Froze 31 gallons and 16 quarts (HAHA!! I'll have green beans this winter for sure!!)
• Salsa: Tomatillo: 44 8 oz jars and 20 pints (Hubby LOVES this stuff and it'll be a miracle if it lasts till next harvest. Not all of the batches were made with the same variety of pepper, and the habanero variety is going fast, despite Hubby breaking out in a sweat while he eats and entire jar. Men.)
• Salsa: Tomato: 26 8 oz jars
• Pickles: Dill: 2 quarts and 7 pints. Pickled hot wax peppers: 5 pints. Pickled mild peppers: 7 pints and 7 quarts
• Zucchini: Froze 3 gallons and 65 quarts (That's what I wrote down, but I swear there's more since I have just about an entire freezer full of the stuff.)
• Corn: 25 quarts (The corn harvest just wasn't as good as it could've been if I'd been here to get it all put up on time.)
• Peppers: Froze 10 gallons of various hot peppers (habanero, hot lemon, chili, cayenne, ancho, hot wax, anaheim, hot cherry) and froze at least 3 gallons of mild peppers (somehow I forgot to write those down)
• Blackberry jam: 14 8oz jars
• Blackberries: froze an unknown amount (I didn't keep track as I picked them; I was too busy bleeding and picking brambles out of my skin.)
• Habanero jelly: 5 4oz jars (still not sure how we are going to like this, so it's a sample batch)
• Tomatoes: 7 pints italian, 33 pints tomato soup concentrate, 14 pints 'chili sauce' (tastes just like sloppy joe sauce, so we use it on ground venison for Sloppy Elliots), 14 pints hot sauce, and 64 quarts of plain crushed tomatoes.
• Apple Butter: 7 8oz jars and 2 pints (so far; I'm still working on apple butter)

We also have a lot of chickens (we hatched, raised, and butchered) in the freezer. I'm not sure how many. Then we have potatoes, onions, rutabaga and pink banana squash, all stored in crates in a cool area.
This of course doesn't include what we ate fresh, gave away, or fed to the chickens.
It really doesn't sound like a lot of food, but we managed to fill three chest freezers and two shelving units of canned goods. Oh, the items listed were canned unless it says frozen.
I guess we did ok, at least a lot better than previous years, but I feel we still have a long way to go.
Despite the fact that I'd have harvested a lot more if I hadn't been working, I'm glad I did have the seasonal job. That job allowed us to purchase two more chest freezers, more black plastic for the garden, and a LOT of canning jars, among other things. Not to mention it was a fun job and I learned a lot...I also got to play in the dirt. Best job ever. :)
And now...on to the firewood harvest!! **revs chainsaw**