Happy Thanksgiving!

 

It's going to be a quiet turkey day here at Wandering Star Ranch, just TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart and myself. With grown children, distance (mostly distance), cost of travel, extended family and time off get in the way of everyone being able to come together for holidays. I should have known this day would come but it always seemed so far off, with all the daily hub bub of living. Since I am now on the other side of fifty and coming up on the golden years I realize the golden years have already passed us by...... They were the years when we were raising our children, dealing with day to day angst, but enjoying family dinners, teaching moments, reading books, discovering nature, dancing to oldies radio in the living room on Saturdays nights, making a mess in the kitchen mixing and baking cookies, crafting ornaments for Christmas, raking leaves and then jumping in the pile, cooling off (we adults always paid the next day for throwing our bodies on the ground) on the slip and slide out in the backyard, playing 500, and lots of board games, we got a new game every year for Christmas! Those times are GOLDEN! So on this day of giving thanks I'm so very thankful for all the family memories of the past and for the new "making memory moments" to come, especially with our granddaughter.

 

Family Fun at Wandering Star Ranch July 2013

 

I hear TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart waking up, so I think it's time to turn on the coffee maker and enjoy a cuppa with the person who help create all those wonderful memories. While I still think the golden years have passed, these are a ummm maybe the silver years to match my changing hair color, I'm really beginning to like my gray!!

I'm back and it's Autumn!

I think our pumpkin display looks "sincere"! So I'm expecting the great pumpkin to come on Halloween! Linus too! And Sally!! I love that Charlie Brown holiday special!  The three pumpkin vines did well this season, we got approx. 70 pumpkins.

I've been very busy with canning and it all started with that June post and just snowballed.

1. Strawberry Jam

2. Mulberry Jam and syrup

3. Strawberry rhubarb jam

4. Yellow tomato salsa and red tomato salsa

5. Canned tomatoes and juice

6. Concord grape jam

7. Pickled okra

8. Apple pie filling, applesauce, apple butter, spiced apple jelly

9. Green tomato jam

and lastly some pear honey as soon as the pears ripen!

  I'm ready to put the canner back in the basement and enjoy the fruits of my many labors!!



It's Strawberry Harvest Time!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam (on the left ) & Strawberry Jam
 

 

True to form our June bearing strawberry plants are bearing in grand style, due to very timely rains this spring and some winter moisture. We started picking on Sunday evening and have picked for three evenings straight, my knees and thighs can vouch for that! I've froze most of the harvest along with making these jams. We will probably have several more days, (I'm guessing 4) of productive picking until the harvest is exhausted. We didn't pick yesterday evening, because we received 2.25 inches of rain early (about 3AM) Wednesday morning, a timely break for my hips and knees. We will probably pick again on Friday and over the weekend. I want to make one more batch, or may two of plain strawberry jam. It seems the later in the harvest the smaller the berries so they make better jam. Strawberry jam along with grape are our favorites and the grape harvest shows promise to also be a good one this year. TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart is hoping for a banner mulberry harvest, he loves mulberry jam and mulberry syrup. I'm so-so on mulberries as the seeds are always stuck in my teeth.

This year's garden (knock on wood) is shaping up to be one of our best, all due to getting rain at proper intervals!!! We've had plenty of asparagus, lovely rhubarb, great salad greens of spinach & lettuce,  and spring onions. So can tasty tomatoes be far behind???? We shall see! Oh and my perennial herb plants, especially the lavender (it's blooming), look great! We've been eating the garlic chives and parsley for about a month now! The annuals of basil and rosemary, planted in the last week,  are flourishing and will yield pickings in a few more weeks.

This has been a cooler at times to near normal temps for spring so I know that has helped immensely. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the real heat holds off for another few weeks and the rains keep coming.

 

 



What I did this morning!!

 

 

I finished my obsession with Sookie Stackhouse this morning! While Sookie didn't end up with the Vampire/Shapeshifter/Were (I'm not telling which one) I wanted I guess I'm good with the conclusion. My addiction to the "Dead" novels began in the summer of 2009 and I've been a fan ever since. I've also watched the True Blood series from HBO, but my viewing has been on DVD from the library or Netflix.  The TV series takes a different road and veers away from the novel storyline early in the book series, but I've still enjoyed their direction.

When I needed a fix between waiting for the next Charlaine Harris novel I found another vampire series "Undead/Queen Betsy" by MaryJanice Davidson! Satisfied my need for....blood! LOL

I've read all the series through book #11 and book #12 comes out in August!

Need a new photo...Aww much better :*)

It's about time I get rid of that snow picture!!! BLAH

 

It's been more spring like and along with that more weather watches and welcome rain! We have been lucky so far to have had only small pea size hail, and some winds accompany the rain. Over the weekend we attended two graduation open house parties about 50 miles west of our prairie home. On Saturday afternoon skies began to cloud and when the heat and dreadful humidity of the day met up with the cooler air of the front we had all kinds of thunderstorm and tornado watches go up. I was driving between affairs once when my phone went off for an actual tornado warning in the county, scared the bajebers out of me! My phone had never before made that alarm sound! The warning applied to the northern part of the county so for our location it was already north of us and on it's way out of the county!  Great cloud watching as my sister, mom and I stood out in the driveway looking up and keeping an eye out for ominous formations. What we got was temperature changes as winds would blow cool one moment and then warm the next, then stop blowing completely! Scary!!
When we got home later in the evening it appeared we had had some winds come through as a chair was blown over down by the shed along with 1.15 in the rain gauge!
 Woohoo we needed that precipitation on the strawberries, they're full of blooms, with promise of a bountiful harvest come June! The asparagus has been plentiful and we have been eating and sharing the harvest with others. The rhubarb harvest has been good, I made a pie and some rhubarb sauce, but not the usual overwhelming amount that allows me to put up cartons in the freezer. It went to seed so early that we picked the seed heads off in hopes of prolonging the grow time to get more for jelly and the freezer, we shall see if that works. We've had two pickings of spinach and lettuce for salads, YUM good stuff! So much better than iceberg lettuce salad!

This is Spring! NOT!

AAgghhh! Can you believe it!

For four consecutive weeks now we have been experiencing the last gasp of winter! It warms then a freak cold front comes through, and we experience a hard freeze.

 Warms~freeze    Warms~freeze  Warms~freeze  

Snow today 2 inches accumulation then another hard freeze, down to 22 tonight, this is number four! Our poor flowering trees, peonies, and garden!

So today I am baking, Pumpkin Streusel Muffins and Gingerbread Biscotti. My sewing machine is at the shop getting a tune-up, much needed as I have neglected this annual clean up. The place I usually take it too closed over a year ago and I had tried another about 70 miles away last fall but they were not able to get my machine in for months and I needed it for Christmas sewing. So I decided to part with it (temporarily) last Friday. It's hard--- I just love knowing it's waiting for me in the sewing room. Now a large dusty empty hole in the sewing table looks so forlorn {big pouty lip here}! I could get out the serger I inherited from my grandmother and see if I can teach myself how to use it. That's a strong possibility as I really want the use of this machine, I'm just a bit cowardly!

 So... more coffee a warm pumpkin muffin and then...and then........

Meet my granddaughter!

Katelyn Marie
Born 4/3/2013 7:36AM
8lbs.   21 inches

I'M A GRANDMA!!!!!

JUST GOT THE CALL ABOUT A HALF HOUR AGO!

 

KATELYN MARIE

8 LBS

BORN AT 7:36 AM

APRIL 3, 2013



Breakfast chocolate!?!

My two favorites!

Dark chocolate has really inched out milk chocolate over the years. My taste has changed, more refined or matured or maybe more intense is what satisfies my taste buds.

 Dark chocolate has that intense flavor!

The Lindt dark chocolate with chili is spice and just a little sweet! I break off just a small piece and place it on my tongue, letting the warmth of my mouth slowly melt the piece enjoying the chocolaty goodness then comes the heat as I rub it around in my mouth and swallow!

The Manoa chocolate is from our February vacation to Hawaii! If you look closely at the chocolate bars you will see three flavors, Sea Salt, Hawaiian Chili Pepper, and Breakfast Bar!!

Breakfast Bar isn't that a kick!! Just what this post menopausal woman needs to start her day!!

The bar contains coffee beans, Coffee + Chocolate = a perfect marriage!

Manoa Chocolate Hawaii is a bean-to-bar chocolate company on Oahu, located at Grass Shack Industries LLC, Kailua, HI so keeping a supply of this chocolate on hand will be a bit tricky. More trips to Hawaii or have The#1Son and daughter-in-law D send a care package at proper intervals to keep my addiction in check! ;)

 

Well I have a project on the front burner today so time to put the breakfast bar to task and get busy!

I hope to post pictures of the project tomorrow! Wish me luck!!

 

Bath towels for baby!

I had fun this weekend sewing and especially detailing the hooded newborn bath towels

for my "soon to be born"granddaughter!

I spoke with DD recently and asked her what was needed to care for the new baby, she said hooded bath towels and I said "Done"! I went to the Dollar General and bought a couple of colorful (the photo was taken on a cloudy day under the dining room light so not accurate color), one aqua bath towel & washcloth, and one lime green towel & washcloth for just under $10. Cut each towel in half and each washcloth on the diagonal to make the hood. The bath towel is more of a rectangle and not a square like I usually do, but since it is for a newborn it will be a good size for several months as the baby grows. Then I'll make more!!!! I had such an enjoyable time looking through my trim bins and finding all kinds of detail ideas. As I was sewing each one "it" was my favorite!! So it makes it hard to pick a favorite, but when the little yellow duck motif came together That became my favorite!

I made the duck applique with fusible web and doubled the fabric to give it more stability and depth of color. It reminds me of "Ernie's (from Sesame Street) Rubber Ducky" that DD had for a bath tub toy when she was a baby! So I think that influenced my choice as the favorite design detail.


I have added close up photos of each towel below. Which one is your favorite?

My favorite! Bias tape waves, sewn with decorative stiches and the cute duck applique!

 

Fabric with a Hawaiian sarong motif to give the towel a tropical look!
Note the pins~ I ran out of lime green thread and have to wait till I get to
 town on Tuesday to pick up more.
 

A short piece of red and white checked bias tape that has been in my bin drawer for years!
(I've been saving it for just the right project! ;-) and this was it!) Aqua rick rack that matched
perfectly and white bias tape sewn with a decorative flower stitch!



Pink rick rack with light pink bias tape trim stitched with a decorative heart stitch!


 

 

Almost Spring (7 days to go)

Almost a Grandma too!! 20 days till DD's due date of April 2nd!

Today will feel like we are on our way to Spring.. 57 degrees! 71 degrees Thursday and wait for it..... 77 degrees on Friday!!! I'll get to open windows and let the breeze blow through! It feels so alive to have windows open!! TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart purchased seed potatoes on Monday and some Nasturtium flower seeds on Tuesday. While in Hawaii, yes we were just there last month (February 14-20)! It was wonderful to getaway, but so difficult to come back to over a foot of snow!!! aagguh!
But while there our daughter-in-law D, married to #1Son, served us a fresh greens salad with a single nasturtium blossom, from her flower pot garden! It was so pretty, edible and had a subtle peppery taste. D is really into box gardening and garnishing salads with edible flowers! So I want to give my greens salad that same pretty edible touch!!!! We had great lettuce from our garden last year so with the fresh greens, and other garden additions I want to also garnish with Nasturtium blossoms!

I leave you today with a few of the 80 pictures from our Hawaii vaca! Aloha!

Cute little tetrahedron bags!

 

Sweet treat little bags!

 I love sewing up a few of these from time to time. Picking out the ribbon and the coordinating zipper are so fun and then seeing the outcome is satisfying. But, adding the finishing details are my favorite!! I keep a bead tackle box (the green metal tackle box is from my college art classes) with misc. jewelry pieces and beads collected from years of crafting, to give these little bags just the right finishing touch on the zipper pull! My one quandary with these little bags is the shape, sometimes I get a perfect little triangle bag and sometimes it's well... NOT! I wish I could figure out if it's the ribbon width? or the length? that causes such a variable??? I check and double check, but then my brain starts to hurt, so I just go with the resulting shape. Not perfect but still a cute bag, (sort of like me, lol) ((I see you smiling....... TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart))

 

http://www.craftpassion.com/2011/07/zip-itself-coin-purse-tutorial.html

 

The above link is for the tutorial for making the little tetrahedron bag. Give it a try or just have a look, but be warned they are addictive.



Oreos and Coffee

Good way to start the day! Oh yea!! I was thinking granola raisin bran, but then the devil on my left shoulder said "oreos, Oreos, OREOS" I got the message!!! I dunk'em whole, I do not split in half and lick out the filling. How about you? The package has gotten smaller over the last few years, it use to be over a pound, then down to one pound, now it's 14.3 ounces. Was also $1.99 a package back then, now it varies I only buy when I can get them for about 2.50 a package. I rarely bought Oreos when the kids were at home, I baked cookies and filled a Winnie the Pooh cookie jar with chocolate chip, oatmeal, molasses, sugar, etc. I tried a lot of different recipes back then but chocolate chip was the favorite. DD friends would drop by after school and hit the cookie jar, Hard! Those girls all have fond memories of sitting around the kitchen counter or on it, eating chewy chocolate chip cookies! #1Son's friends were all about my homemade salsa and Doritos! (TheOther#1Son, was in his early years back then so he always joined which every group was there and snacked accordingly!) Oh I miss those days! I'm so thankful I got to be the stay-at-home mom who was there, so our home was the gathering place for the kids and their friends after school!! Great Memories!!

Puzzle Time

I love 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles!

 

It took me about two days of mornings and evenings to complete!! I spread out the pieces on the dining room table, get a cup of tea or coffee, my adjustable sewing chair, wool socks for my feet and I'm set! My favorite puzzle styles are still life settings, or a colorful flower garden, or a farmyard scene just not the big panoramic landscapes. Most of my puzzles come from the second hand store but on occasion a family member will gift me with a goodie. This one was from TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart for Christmas over a year ago! I'd been saving it for a snowstorm or rainy day both of which have been pretty scare with the drought conditions we have been experiencing for months now. With the last snowfall on New Year's Eve that was a busy family time and not a puzzle piecing kind of situation. My favorite time to piece a puzzle is on a rainy day, it's also my favorite time to sew. I love to be able to open a window to hear the rain fall and the thunder crash!! I'm pretty driven when it comes to a puzzle about as much as when I get into a good book, I'm always looking for a few minutes here and there to read. Time flies and I get nothing else done, but sometimes that's ok because "me" time matters too and I deserve it !!!! Yeah!! Rrriiight!  Still struggling with that one, but getting better, isn't that why they're called hobbies???!!

 

Frigid cold this morning 12 degrees but slowly climbing, so glad we don't live in North Dakota anymore!! Did my time below zero now I want more balmy temps for winter!

I now know why sunbirds fly south!!!!! ;)

 

 



Sunrise is 7:47

TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart and I are up, with coffee in hand, to watch the sunrise this beautiful Saturday morning!!

Pretty Pretty Pincushions

These are most of the 14 pincushions, some were already gifted when I took the picture,

 I made for Christmas stocking stuffers! In the original pattern they were suppose to be pumpkins with stems and leaves, but I didn't have a good pumpkin orange (I know go figure) in my fabric stash. I don't know how that happened but it's clear to me that I NEED more fabric!!! LOL   I had decided to make a pincushion for DD, daughter-in-law D and our daughter-in-law (to be someday) K. So I just started pulling fabric combos that I liked from my scraps and fat quarters, well the group kept growing and I  couldn't put any of the choices back, so I thought why not sew up all the combos and give them away to my sisters, sister-in-laws and nieces. So that's what I did! (You know while writing this I'm reflecting and seeing a pattern here~~ this is what happens with many of my gifting projects~~ humble beginnings and then I let them blossom and get out of hand)    Note to self - keep control- humph...  like I ever listen to the little voices in my head! Mwuahahahaha     They were fun to sew up and I loved looking through my button collection for the center detail. Most are antique buttons, some were removed from items bought at thrift stores, just for the buttons and others are recent purchases of clearance or sale buttons. The display pins featuring hearts or leaves are from Joann's bought in the notions section in packages of 12 I think, I'm not sure since I open the package shortly after purchase and dump into a decorative tin.  I did end up keeping the first one I made, it's the black one near the upper left side. I placed all the pincushions in a large basket and let the recipient choose! It was fun to see if the person choose the one I sort of made for them with their personality in mind, most did!!

 

Today is also our 36th wedding anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart!

 High school sweethearts, married at 20 between college semesters, so we could start "Loving" on the rest of our lives together!!!

New year, new (Internet) provider!

Oh what a feeling! This speed! It's soo nice. I can feel my blood pressure going back down. Happy happy dance. We switched from Wild Blue to Verizon 4G! I can view tutorials, watch how-to videos, view all the pictures on a blog without refreshing, refreshing, refreshing! I can even waste time like the rest of America on Pinterest!! ;-) Though I will miss taking "Lappy" to coffee shops :-( Now I can just go for the take-out cuppa coffee and continue on with my errands! Look at all the time I'll save!! Or it's more likely I'll use that time to shop JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby, or The Quilting Bee! hehe

We've had snow on the ground since New Year's Eve, 6 inches, the hubbs measured! Slowly it's melting ~ all this week it should keep melting as temps are suppose to be in the 40's! Fine with me :) I don't really like all the mud and wet melted snow puddles (in the house!!) that always follows the snow :-(  I'm a warm weather person, not hot, just warm. It's just so much easier to run outside for whatever reason and not have to put on boots, gloves, a hat and a coat! Bah to winter :-p

TheManWhoHoldsMyHeart and I watched Downton Abby tonight on PBS! The hype is right it was really good and we can see ourselves watching more. We'd like to get the earlier episodes on DVD and catch up. Before tonight's season opener there was a special feature on about the current owners of the castle featured in the program and about how much maintenance and money goes into the upkeep of the estate. It's pretty mind boggling, and the rich history of the home was fascinating.

I wanted to post a picture of the pin cushions I made as gifts for Christmas, but for some reason the site is not opening for photo transfer. I'll have to try again tomorrow.