The Early Garden

Our early garden, spinach, onions, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, collards, kale, Swiss chard, and peas.

Rare opportunity to see Cedar Waxwings

The other day we had the rare opportunity to see a flock of cedar waxwing birds come and devour the Pyracantha bush of ALL the red berries at one time, it was quite a site to see. Our picture may be to small to see the actual bird so I am attaching a web site to view what the bird looks like. It is very pretty with a yellow tip tail and red tips on the wings with a crest like a tufted tit mouse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Waxwing

Steve's favorite cookies!

Oat meal Cookies

1 1/3 C Butter

1C Brown Sugar

1C Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Cream together

Mix the following

1 C WW Flour

1 C White Flour ( I use bread flour)

1/2 tsp B. soda and salt

1 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder

combine with cream mixture then stir in

2/12 C Oats

1 C Raisins

Bake 350 12 min.

The Wedding

Jeff and Melissa's Wedding this past Saturday!
The love for each other was shining! What a special man! He loves the 3 boys also and will make a great father. Best Wishes












Like mother like son, they look so much alike!

Gloria with a new special friend Paul. Seems like a nice man and you can tell he is smitten with Gloria!

Cousin Debbie and her man Jon. They made the trip all the way from PA.

Cousin David, Karen and Katie, (big/little) David did not make it.

A lovely event and fun visiting with family.

Doing what I love

Doing what I love, staying home, working on plants and cooking.


Hopefully we will get some new plants to share














Jade plant after pruning and cuttings put in dirt to hopefully root!
















Jade before pruning











Somewhat healthy banana bread
Cream together 5 Tbs. butter
2/3 Cup sugar
2 Eggs
Flour Mix: 3/4 WW Flour, 1 cup bread flour
1 tsp B. Soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp cinnamon, salt, nutmeg
Add flour mixture alternating with 1 cup mashed bananas.
I added some dried cranberries, dark choc. chips and chopped nuts.
Bake in greased loaf pan 350 for 1 hour





Nothing like the smell of fresh baked bread this has a dusting of corn meal on top, hence the light color. It was added when put in the pan to rise and slits made on top. This is our staple bread. Made with 1Tbs salt, 2 Tbs yeast, 4 cups warm water, 4 cups WW Flour, 4 cups bread Flour and 1/2 ground flax seeds. It is a wet dough, you let it rise until it falls then put the dough in the frig in a covered container, not sealed. Then all you have to do is take out how much dough you want and let it rise and bake with a pan of water in the oven to retain the moisture. I use it for everything, pizza, rolls,cinnamon buns etc. It makes 2 loaves bake 375 40-50 min depending on if you are baking one or two loaves. I bake 2 and freeze one.

Spring Outside

Welcome to our Home! Happy Spring Outside!

Yesterday I picked our first asparagus! It was delicious, we had fresh cress that grows wild and raw asparagus with a little ground nuts and a homemade creamy basil dressing. I loved it Steve was not so impressed, he like the dressing the best but to his credit he ate it all. He said he likes his asparagus lightly steamed, good so far, but then likes to dip it in mayo. I meant to take a picture of the salad, I will next time

Spring inside

Steve stained the duct work to go in the craft room, note he cut the hole for a vent in that room. Next will be cutting a hole in the floor from the craft room into the dinning room! Yikes that scars me, hope it is in the right place! Oh yea and the large hole into the living room wall above the quilt rack. Great fun making things happen!

Spring has come to the inside, the hibiscus is blooming in the bed room!

I am off to the dentist today to have a filling replaced to the tune of 250 dollars! Then going over some line dance moves with a friend then off to lunch with more friends.

First Blog posting!

Steve had some excitement last week, on Wednesday he was holding something and someone else was operating a saw cutting what ever it was he was holding and it jammed or slipped or what ever but it cut a flap open on his finger and he had to go to the emergency room to have stitches. It required 7 stitches, he was lucky, it didn't hit either knuckles or cut the nerves on the sides of the finger.

In the work shop is the beginning of the duct work for the ventilation system we are trying to make.

Can you see the squash flowers starting?

Oh Yea see the tract lighting Steve put in this weekend in the dinning area!

It is chilly and raining here. Those April showers next month we will get the March winds.

I hope the blog works for those of you that would like to follow what we are up to. I thought this way I wouldn't be bombarding you with unwanted emails.