Hey Howdy Hey!

I had NO intention of disappearing like that. But I started work on Muffins birthday present, then I realized I could start on Christmas stuff and with schoolwork, project making, and life, well... so anyway, there's a teaser of Christmas gift making. And I will finish tonight : ) Miss you all, be back SOON!

Howdy-Do

The fair is next week, but I thought I'd pop in with a quick "No I'm not dead" hello.

Hello. 

And:

It feels like fall, my garden has pretty much gone to ruin (stupid weather. And weeds), I'm sewing like crazy (fair stuffs), school will be starting in a few weeks, canning/freezing is omni-present, we butchered the roosters last night, we got 2 Delaware and 2 Silver-laced Wyandot hens (did I tell you that?), and then the Buckeye hen we had, the dishwasher just beeped, Sprouts asleep, the kitchen's a wreck and I must go.

Later Gators.

Gathered Up

Kind liking all the posts I've been seeing where all the pictures come first and all the chatting comes next.

I can hardly believe July is nearly over, that the fair is next month, that we'll be starting back up with school next month and that my BABY will be ONE next month. This year has flown.

This summer is flying and I can't think of a gol-durn exciting thing to write about. We've just been living.

The weather has been all over the place: cool. beastly hot and rainy. (B. sent us all down the basement the evening we got the flooding you saw in the garden pictures. Not real fun to hear on the news: "Don't look for the rotation before seeking shelter. The clouds will not allow it and any tornados will simply appear...") cool and rainy. beastly hot. no rhyme or reason and the bugs are so bad, not real conducive to playing outside. 

I'll be picking my first batch of beans tomorrow, and probably basil. Other than a little yellow from all of the wet, the garden seems to be doing good. It's grown even more since those pictures were taken.

And I get all crazy after a day of weeding, tilling and mulching and start taking pictures of my sunburnt  dust covered self.

I've got lots of canning to do, homeschool assessments to do, last years books to put away, this years to get out, fair projects to work on (and to decide what to do) and and and...

Tonight we're going to go get a few more hens. The 6 that we got a few months ago? FIVE roosters and ONE hen. Really. I think we go took.

Or someone knew what they were doing and picked out most of the hens, because really, even though they were straight run, to get only 1 hen? Something ain't adding up.

A snippet of home and farm.

Trying to slow down and savor.

Hey There, Remember Me?

Maybe I should reintroduce myself: Hi, I'm Bonnie the girl who blogs here once in a blue moon.

Yeah, it's been awhile. And I would love to say that I haven't posted because I've been doing all kinds of wonderful things: we took a family trip to Tahiti, built a barn, I published a book and won the nobel prize. Nope. Haven't posted because we have spent the majority of the winter sick. I've come to the conclusion that new babies mean months of sickness in the fall/winter. I don't think I've been to church 2 Sundays in a row since before Christmas. The stomach flu hit B. and all 5 kids in the last week and a half, but everyone is feeling much better, so (knock on wood) I am hoping we are *finally* done.

Moving on. Some of random-ish food pictures, and other non-sense to keep you entertained and somewhat informed of the goings on here at Crabapple House:

This was Sunday morning (This particular Sunday being a day I'd like to forget as it was one of those dark days of motherdom. Also a day when 2 different people complimented us on how well behaved our children are at church/in public and what a great job we're doing. If they had been at our house that morning, they would have probably kept their mouths closed, but that has nothing to do with this picture) I kept hearing a strange noise while trying to get ready for church and keep Beans from breaking all my make up, falling off the toilet lid and brushing his teeth with the old toothbrush I keep in the shower to scrub my engagement ring (when I remember). Light dawned and I yanked open the bottom drawer of the vanity. An entire bottle of mousse emptied. Yay.

While the flu was making its rounds, I decided chicken (and turkey) and noodles would boost everybodys morale, and it did, for those who could keep it down. I made some banana muffins too and Oh-my-good-gravy are they gOOood.

This is Deep Dish Hunters Pie. More about it Thursday, since I missed posting it last Thursday thanks to 2 dentist appointments in 2 days. I have another appointment this Friday. Aren't I lucky?

This was breakfast this morning.

Anna's recipe.

My seeds are all here, and as soon as it thaws enough to dig some dirt out of the garden, I'll be getting them started. Can't wait.

I saw a robin last week too.

This was supper tonight. The most awful chili ever UNTIL you add some sugar (brown please), then it is the BEST chili ever. My kids go crazy for it.

My husband, being the wonderful kinda guy that he is, brought home a miniature rose for each of the girls yesterday. Honeys is orange and Muffins is pink.

I have been missing Amanda's closed blog (homegrown and beeyoutiful) something fearful- I'm so glad I copied down some of her recipes and wise words before she closed down- BUT! I have found Lydia and she has been filling that void and I've gotten some much needed "Mama-couragement". I've been going through her archives as time allows.

I don't really have anything to say about this picture, so instead I'll talk about something that freaks me out and has me all excited at the same time: Honey starts 4-H this fall. Yep, next year she gets to show critters at the fair!!!! We *should* be getting chickens this spring, which well, never mind. I'll talk about all that later. But anyway, yeah, 4-H. Wow. I can't believe how fast that snuck up on us.

I got a bur under my saddle one day about my spice cupboard, and decided to do something about it. Silly me, what I think will be a quick little projects always turn into all day affairs.

Totally worth it though. And it's still neat and tidy!

Sprout went and turned 6 months on us. And he has 6 teeth. And he is enormous. Like 12-18 months sized clothing. He's also sleeping on my lap right now, my sweet kissy boy.

I fussed around here too, making a book wreath.

It's not as sparse as this picture makes everything look.

School is trucking along. I'm not sure we'll ever finish we missed so much being sick.

And I'm bordering on burned out and despising Abeka right now. My Charlotte/Abeka plan ain't panning out at the moment. I also am extremely envious of people who have school rooms. My brain has been wracked, but I cannot come up with anywhere to do it but at the kitchen table. My goodness, we live in the kitchen here. I sometimes forget we have other rooms on the first floor.

                                                                   And just because:

I know there is lots more to say, but this will do for now. I've got a chocolate chip cookie and a hand-me-down magazine calling my name. Tootles.

Little House Day

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

So, way back in November, we finally had the Little House Day I've been planning for oh, 2 years now.

I had so much fun planning it out, and even had a playlist of the fiddle music that Pa played, which I put together by writing down all the titles of the songs named in the Big Woods, the finding them on You-tube. The trick was to put "Fiddle" after the title so you wouldn't have to weed through 100 songs to find the version you want.  I wanted to share the soundtrack, but when I went to pull it up for this post, I found the site had been shut down. Phooey.

My friend Becca and her 4 littles made the trek out here to join us.

We combined Little House In the Big Woods and Farmer Boy. I had big plans for what to teach, but eventually whittled it down to using what you have, not being able to just run to the store, improvising, using things up, not being wasteful. Most of that pertained to food. What can I say, we all like to eat.

I dragged this hutch into the dining room and improvised a little kitchen.

It was my favorite thing.

Becca read a bit about harvest time etc. from the Big Woods before we started.

After reading about how Laura and Mary and Almanzo helped to make butter, and how different their methods were, we made our own. 

Everyone had a turn shaking.

Making do: No cheesecloth, so I used a leftover scrap of my wedding veil material to drain the butter.

We used the buttermilk in the cornbread.

Lots of stirring.

And baked it in my cast iron skillet greased with bacon fat.

While lunch was baking/warming up, we made scrapbook paper quilt blocks. I figured it was the easiest way to include everybody.

The big kids did Laura's Bear Paw

and the Littles did Mary's Nine-Patch.

And then we ate. All recipes (except the sausage) from the Little House Cookbook.

Baked beans...

Mashed Pumpkin, which we then drizzled with maple syrup...

Bean Porridge...

Haha! Just realized I forgot to get out the cloth napkins and these are paper! SO authentic.

We also had venison sausage that I made, the cornbread and butter we made together, and blueberry "pudding" which was really a cake like bread cooked in tin cans in boiling water. It was good.

Originally, I had planned various chores for the kids, here are the boys "fetching water from the well" (A pot for the well, and an ice-cream bucket for the bucket). Unfortunately, with 5 of the 9 children under the age of 4, that got pushed to the side and they all went out back to play instead.

I put together a gift basket for Becca's family with a slate and chalk, maple popcorn, leftover soaps from the baby shower last summer, and some peppermint sticks. Made the basket from brown paper lunch bags.

This was Muff after telling Daddy about it all.

All in all, LOTS of fun, not as detailed as I wanted, but that's alright. Also appropriate that it came right before Muffins Birthday since this was her gift.

Looking forward to doing another Little House Day : )