Fall Days...

It is cold outside. Almost Stoney Ridge Farm weather. The wind was howling and our poor old house was chilly. We have no heater or duct work in our home so a furnace is not an option. We heat with a wood stove only. I love it much better than a furnace as it is virtually free for us to heat our house(and when I re-learn how to manage the stove every year the downstairs stays a comfy 75 degrees all winter, lol!) BUT it is messy, very messy.

It is another proud year as Daddy only sat on stool and ran the log splitter for countless hours, our two boys, 10 and 7, stacked, moved and restacked all 7 cords of wood for the home and then stock the back porch every day. What providers they are! What young men! Not to boast here(o.k. maybe a little) but we were uptown just a couple days ago and a lady at the counter at True Value looked at Daniel with a sly grin and told him "You are going to make a great husband when you grow up, are you going to get married when you grow up?" You could tell by her expression she was expecting HIM to run screaming "Cooties!!!!" But he looked up at her with a sweet smile and told her with all enthusiasm "I can't wait to get married, God has my wife all picked out and I can't wait!" She told him that was wonderful! But you could tell she was a little taken back, lol!

ANYHOW, not to get off on rabbit trails, whoever the Lord has planned for my boys will be blessed women, imo. These are the pic's I took yesterday and will be the last for the weekend. I canned another 14 quarts of apple pie filling, I know that doesn't sound like a lot but that is me, mommy, running at maximum. School was completed and all assignments checked for the week, only one child *a-hem* turned in 3 assignments when there were supposed to be four so the person sat at the table until they caught up.

During school I took advantage of my Bosch and whipped out 13.5 dozen ginger cookies. Mmmm.

Then we jumped in the van and ran to a friend of my moms and picked 3 boxes of King apples and a bucket of fresh hazelnuts! Free! And to boot, she gave me 3 doz of her old canning jars!

Daniel on his beanbag on the kitchen floor doing his handwriting(Italic). He is there as opposed to the table so I can keep him and his brother from being cut-ups and actually DO their schoolwork, lol.

We scored on fresh boneless/skinless chicken breasts at Safeway for $1.99lb. I bought three family size cartons, cooked them and the girls shredded them into pre-measured freezer bags for use.

Chief bottle washer and cook.

Jacob started washing all my canning jars. He also baked up his 4 loaves of Amish bread, yum!

Our loot. Hard as a rock and perfect for the apple peeler/corer/slicer.

This picture tells it all. Why should a man help his wife can? Who woulda thunk it could be so much fun?! I have been innocently commenting to my husband(with no hint of jealousy or insinuation at all) that aaaaaall my friends husbands help them can... O.k., the aaaaall was little exaggerated, but mostly truthful. Paul didn't seem to mind me telling him this and actually praised the *other* husbands, so I made sure and told him several times, each time he kindly praised the *other* husbands.

Last night he came in at 9pm, my legs were shot(now I have the dog gone vessels on the bottom of my feet, drats!) and I was getting my last batch ready to peel. He saw me preparing my apple corer/corer/slicer and slipped out the door only to appear with his battery drill! Yeah! He hooked it up to my apple peeler/corer/slicer(we like saying that) and apple peel was spitting on the walls. He managed to do 3 apm(apples per minute), against my 1/2 apm. My bucket-o-apples was filled in no time AND my husband helped me in the kitchen. Who could ask for more?

I promised Jessie I would blog this. The children think it hit the window and stunned.

They saved it, made it a comfy home and eventually it flew away....isn't it beautiful?

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We are busy celebrating Emma's 6th birthday. My toothless Emma, my first homebirth, Jessica's long awaited and prayed for sister, coming into the world two weeks after we moved into our new home. Always smiling, always giggling, favorite color is yellow and such a tom-boy. Lover of chickens, schoolwork, horses, apples and carrots. Is notorious for ripping every dress she owns, legs covered with bumps and bruises, Polish blond hair, Dutch freckles and piercing blue eyes.

All she asked for for her birthday was a baby doll and a book on "How To Be Mommy".

My baby. ;-)

Am I Really THAT Bad?

So...after dinner and devotions we played Junior Catchphrase, which I just bought off eBay after hearing how much fun my sister and her family have with this game! I like to copycat, I live in a secluded world ;) Every family MUST own this game. It is one piece a handheld unit, that's all. No pieces to loose in the couch or be vacuumed up.

Anyhow we were in the heat of a game and Jacob has the game thrown at him, literally...he reads his word...glances at the ceiling and starts jumping "Ooh! oh! Um, this is what moms gets when we say a bad word...No! This is how mom gets when we do something baaaad!" The boys team starts yelling "Spankins!" "Disciplines us!" "Mad!" "Sends us to the bathroom!!"....Jacob yells again "No! No! Mom gets what?! when we do something really bad!" Then....the timer goes off and everyone is quiet...the boys just lost the word and the girls get one guess to see if they can double their points. We have NO clue. We pass.

Jacob rolls his eyes and says "Paranoid...she gets paranoid!" Paranoid?! Do I really act paranoid? ROFL!!! Oh well, adjectives are the hardest ones when you're ten.

Zucchini Relish recipe...my very own.

Not that it takes talent to manipulate several recipes into one, but I figured out "my own" according to our tastes and amount we want processed. I only found recipes for half pints and we like mixed. This will do 4 - 1/2 pints and 4 pints(one is in the fridge already!).

9 C shredded zucchini, core but do not peel(not chunked, shredded is best!)

3 lrg onions, chopped

2 red peppers, chopped

2 green peppers, chopped

4.5 T salt

1 3/4 C white vinegar

4.5 C sugar

1.5 t ground mustard

3/4 t ground Turmeric

1.5 t celery seed

3/4 t ground pepper

Combine zucchini, onion, peppers and sprinkle with salt. Cover and throw in the garage overnight or for 12 hours. Rinse well by running cold water over vegetable mixture in colander. Gently press out excess liquid. Place vinegar, sugar and spices in heavy saucepan and bring to boil, add vegetable mixture and bring back to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes. Pour into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space, adjust caps. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

This used up 3/4 of my huuuuge zucchini!!

Ode to That Zucchini

There was that zucchini again. Sitting so lonely along side the road with that free sign. A perfectly good piece of fruit, though tainted by that awful stigma. Quickly in my married life I learned not to ever darken our family's home with a zucchini. At some point in my husbands upbringing he and his siblings were forced to eat an entire overgrown crop of zucchini from the family's garden. It gave him nightmares. He hates zucchini.

Again, I passed that zucchini, day after day, no one picks him up. The motherly heart in me can't stand it. I called my husband(as the good wife I am) and told him my plight. He agreed if I never cooked it in his sight or disguised it in his meal he would pick it up for me on his way home! I did it! I rescued the zucchini! Now...what shall I do with it. Well we could....

use it as a door stop.

Carve a face in it and it cuddles quite nicely in my 5 yr olds arms. The really sad part is she cried when I took it away. Shhhh...she doesn't know she is getting a beautiful new baby doll for her birthday on Saturday or I probably would have let her sleep with the dog gone thing.

Add a paint stirrer and you have a teeter totter for the Fisher Price Little People, hours of fun.

It doubles as a Fisher Price Little People Catapult.

A bath tub plug. Seals mighty nice, too.

A weapon. Fear this zucchini.

The newest in facials, 2009. Who needs cucumbers when they can have ZUCCHINI!

Friszini? Zucchiby? Git it before the dog or he eats it.

Last but not least. 5 pints of Zucchini Relish. My choice. MMmmmm....

Another successful trip...

Another great fishing trip at Silver Lake. The boys used to go out at 5am, but now it is 7am as the sun isn't up yet! They were there for 3 hours at best and caught 8 fish, one Paul caught was a doozy. It measured 15", that is quite big for a Silver Lake trout. So in the freezer they go to join the rest that I look at wondering when/how I will cook them. I must have had the wrong setting on my camera as my family all look sick, lol!

I still stand amazed how these boys barely get their picture taken and out pop their jackknives and before you know it the fish are clean as a whistle. Ewe. Ewe. Ewe. I used to LOVE cleaning fish, I must have turned into a sissy somewhere in the last 10 years.

My mother helped me peel and slice another 7 quarts of pie filling today, however, it ruined my day as 3, yes 3, of the 7 qts jars broke in the canner. I could have pulled my hair out when I heard them popping. So out of 14 qts, I now have 10. I need to find some more apples...

While we peeled and sliced the kids all played with playdough. I expected just Micah and Emma to play, but everyone seemed to take a liking to it. Emma came to me and said I HAD to take a picture of her birds nest and mother bird for my blog. I don't' know WHY I didn't take a close-up!

You know your a homeschooler when...your husband comes home from work and has to tell your 6 yr old son change out of his pajamas. Whoops, somehow I overlooked that one aaaaall day long.

Apple Pie Filling and More Dogs

Today was another fruitful day. Got up, got school done for all four in 2 hours, everyone was willing to work hard and it really payed off. Then off to lunch. My sister, sil and I took my mother out for lunch for her birthday. I was able to leave Jessica, Jacob , Micah and Gracie at my mothers house WITHOUT a babysitter. Then took Daniel and Emma to Aunt Julies house to be sitted by their cousins. Jessica has offered often for me to leave two or three of the younger ones with her while I run a quick errand or go to my favorite consignment store. I can't believe this is finally happening. I have dreamed of these days. Not that I feel I *need* to get away, because I don't. It is just sooooo much easier with three children in tow rather than six.

After lunch the girls and I had a Mothers and Maidens of Virtue meeting in Lynden. We watched a great film and afterwards had food, tea and fellowship.

Off to home to start the apples for canning, and dinner and cleanup...and dogs. By 9pm I pulled my last, and first, set of jars from the canner of apple pie filling. Things didn't go as planned and it took forEVER to get 7 quarts done. After that I got a call from Mrs. Sunshine, my neighbor, that we could go pick up some dogs that were being delivered about 25 minutes away. So away we fly into the rainy night to buy dogs, lol! I sat down about two months ago and mentioned to the Lord I was ready to get a couple more dogs, but the expense is high and good breeding stock is not easy to come by, so if He thought it was a good idea to please bring me some new dogs as I do not have the time or will to go searching. Don't bring the dogs and I will except that as what is best for me at this time. Well, I received two female pups as an unexpected stud fee a couple weeks ago and received an email from another breeder a couple days ago who had to downsize quickly and offered me two mature females at a nice price. So, basically I received four dogs in one month at the cost of one very good dog, that's it. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." James 1:17

Jessie added a twist to the apple peeler/corer/slicer tonight. She found she can put one end of the peel in her mouth and slurp up the peel as it comes off the apple, just like a noodle! I tell you, these kids.

Keeper at Woods

Our church has a lovely meeting for mothers and their daughters called Keepers at Home or Keepers of the Faith...I have heard it called both and am not quite sure which it is. At any rate, our first meeting of the year was last night. I was tired after a day of 8 children under 12, had a big dinner to clean up after and asked my daughter if we could go out to coffee instead. She is so sweet. With out hesitation she agreed that would be fun, she doesn't exactly like the ride into B-ham either. So we had our own meeting "Keepers at Woods" Woods Coffee, that is. Grandma even joined us and we learned the fine art of drinking coffee like ladies, playing Connect Four like ladies, loosing like ladies - o.k. SHE did, and conversing like ladies. All needed traits to becoming a keeper at home, right?

Man, I look old.

We laughed, we played, we had a blast.

Jess had to take a picture of everything...

Must I add, I won. Yes, I won three of four games and the ONLY reason I lost the last one is because I was out of coffee.

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We took the E. boys home this morning. We will miss them. Last night we had pancakes, eggs and bacon for dinner and they thought they had died and gone to heaven. We went through 18 eggs, 1 lb of bacon(I set limits) and heaps of pancakes. This morning at breakfast we went through 17 slices of toast...17!!! Yikes. The boys were happily packing first thing, don't quite know how to take that one, but glad nonetheless they are happy to get home to their family, too. Poor little D got stung by a yellow jacket yesterday afternoon right in the tender fold of skin below the eye ball, and I mean just below the eyeball. We kept a cotton ball soaked in apple cider vinegar on it for 1 hour and it was barely noticeable this morning and last night. That stuff is short of miraculous on bee stings.

Baby Toes.

http://kidsandi.blogspot.com/ You have got to read the October 1 post on my cousins blog. It not only made me about spit my coffee on the puter screen it made my morning.
I love babies, and the pictures she captured are absolutely adorable!