My Kitchen morning

The ant party was relocated this morning!  Seems like they are enjoying the new location---probably not as much as me, though.  Knock on wood that we don't have any carpenter ants around;  these are just tiny little buggars that don't do much harm, but are extremely annoying.

Despite waking up a bit later than normal (6:08AM instead of 5:30), the floors and counters were clean before taking the girls to summer school.

I'm getting into a routine of picking the produce as soon as the carpooling is complete.  I didn't have the camera with me this morning, but the goats were talking, talking, talking DETERMINED to let me know they were there, begging for some weeds.  I caved.  I weeded a bit between each row of picking, so the bean picking took a bit longer this morning than usual.  

Cassie helped me pick raspberries yesterday.  And newly added to the goodies:  Blackberries!  Last night, Paul needed to do an errand at a house he built a few years ago. The owner is gifting us his outdoor hot tub.  GIFTING!  This is a NIIIIIIICE hottub!  Once I gave it a mere glance and asked and double-asked if my husband was SURE he said the owner was "giving" it to us {{and Paul saying for the umpteenth time YES}}, my mind was set.  They MUST receive a thank you throw quilt!  A new deadline quilt to work on. :)

Anyway---back to the loot.  When leaving the property and relocking the driveway gate, Paul glanced over and said..."Hmm!  Wild blackberries!"  He picked a couple and ate them.  Well....**I** wasn't going to be left out, so I went to another small patch and picked a handful.  Next thing we knew---the car was turned off, the ice cream cups (that we just bought before going to the house) were emptied,  and we picked a few cups full of berries.  They were just starting to ripen;  and the branches are LOADED with BUKU-TONS more!  And they have so MANY patches!  I want Paul to give them a call (they live in MN; this place in WI is their cabin) to see if they have plans for them.  If not, we would LOVE to take some of them off their hands :)

I haven't tried Blackberry jam before;  to be completely truthful, I needed to add 1/2 cup of raspberry to the bowl cuz I was just a smidge short of blackberry, but..... it's MOSTLY blackberry.  Yum!   And check out our "butter dish."  LOL.  My sister had a good chuckle when she saw it.  I guess we like our butter!  (Mostly DH)  It's actually a vegetable cooking dish of some sort;  but we just buy the pound of butter packages (not quartered) and plop it in there.

The beans were taken care of before the jam;  only 5 pints today; probably not worth starting up the pressure cooker, but I figured I might as well since I needed to be in the kitchen anyway.  

For those of you who preserve gardening goods or even bake/cook.... the "kitchen dance" is a nice zone to get into sometimes.  This morning, the dance involved cutting beans, washing dishes, prepping berries, blanching beans, mixing berries/sugar, washing more dishes.... And four hours later, I'm done!  A bit pooped out too;  I think I think I'm Andee--staying up so late at night.  Gah.... it's hard to keep going when you play BOTH parts:  being a late-night girl AND a morning girl!  

And as I was enjoying my piece of toast with fresh jam, I spied Lil' Mama with her chicks out at the playground tires (umm.....just ignore the weeds! :p)

I have my feet up right now with plans to look around for a throw quilt pattern for the homeowner.  Happy Friday....

Friday!??!!?  OMGoodness!!!  It completely spaced me.    Well, THAT changes my plans.  FIRST, I'm off to see if the QOV Mystery 28 clue #3 has been posted.

Garden goods and a new Camera

The alarm sounded at 6:00 AM, but we snoozed until 6:30 ;0) By 7:00, I was out in the garden with green beans and cucumbers on my mind.

Two hours later, I was done......and then Mom started giving commands inside. Simply task #1: Caitlyn and Candace to sweep the floor while Cassie helped me clip green beans for canning and clean up the dishes as to have a clean sink and counter to work with.


For those of you who 'can' [American term used as a verb; "to preserve vegetables either by pressure-cooking or by hot-water-bathing], you already know about the organization needed when a garden comes into harvest. Today, I only had green beans and cucumbers to deal with; I am SO thankful tomatoes don't get harvested at the same time! I don't know how I'd manage....

It's already a special "dance" that occurs in order to make best use of canning/cooking/prepping time for preserving. Today, once the veggies were cleaned and scrubbed, I started by cutting 4 pounds of the larger cucumbers with this vintage/antique(?) serrated cutter. I showed this last year when canning too----I LOVE the decorated cuts it makes for my favorite Bread-n-Butter pickles! I "inherited" this from my Grandmother's kitchen; when it came time to clean out her apartment, the directions were simple to all of us who helped...."Take what you want." So, I did :0)

The first batch I made this year, I simply used my Pampered Chef mandoline (gifted to my from my sister). It's a bit quicker than the serrated cutter, but not as "pretty."

Once those were cut, they were set aside to desalting with salt and ice. ???.....hmmm.....guess I never figured out why they call it DEsalting when you use salt to do it?!?!?! **scratching head**....

Anyway.....then it was time to fill some quart jars with dill and cucumbers while the brine was cooking on the stove AND while the water in the canner was brought up to temperature. I use a VERY SIMPLE brine for my dill pickles: 3 quarts water, 1 quart vinegar, 1 cup salt. That's it. Usually, I cut that recipe in half though......half the recipe works well for 4-5 quarts.

I started with the dill pickles because they only need to be hot-water-bathed for 10-15 minutes. SO.......

with THOSE in the water.....it was time to boil some water for a 5-minute bath for the beans. By the time the water came to a boil for the beans and they spent 5 minutes turning into yummy-yums, the dill pickles were finished and set aside in order for me to use the canner for the green beans.

SO......green beans....into the canner for 20 minutes of pressure-cooking at 10lbs pressure.

While THOSE were pressure cooking.....it was now time for me to go BACK to those lovely, decorative cucumber slices for me to make my Bread-n-Butter pickles.

When you find a good recipe, there is NO NEED to make changes. I used to have a recipe I used all the time, but then misplaced it for one reason or another. SO, I grabbed the Ball-Book last year and used the recipe listed in it. OMGoodness!!!!! They were better than the recipe I used to use......so, there ya go! It was a good thing the recipe "got lost."

I need to be careful how many pints I make of B-n-B every year. I am the only one in my family who likes them! I have NO IDEA who I live with.....how can they NOT love these things??!!?!? But, at least FIL loves my B-n-B pickles! So, this will probably be the last batch of B-n-B this summer. Six made today, and 4 made last week.

I filled and prepped the jars by the time the beans were finished. However, because of the pressure-canning, I wasn't able to hot-water-bath these right away. I simply put them in the sink with HOT water while waiting for the canner to de-pressurize in order to be available.

In the meantime, we ate some lunch.....

and took adorable "sisterly-love" pictures :0)

Played with a new "pet." Oh golly....Candace was all...."MOM! What do flies eat?"
Me: Sugarwater
Candace: Okay.....

She comes back a few moments later with the TINY watering bucket (I think from her Littlest Pet Shop toys). And Caitlyn started writing the fly's name on top of the container......I snapped this before it was finished. "Flilena" [Fly-leena] is her pet fly's name. **shaking head**......oh....the silly years of childhood!

Once lunch was over and cleaned up, the beans came out of the canner and the BnB pickles took over occupancy for the next 10 minutes. And v'iola! Today's outcome:
- Seven pints of green beans
- Four quarts of dill pickles
- Six pints of bread-n-butter pickles

Yah....you're thinking...."That's IT!?!?! After 7 hours of work?!?!?!"

**nod**....yeah, I'm thinking the same thing too.

With the morning (and early afternoon) duty complete, I headed to the mailbox. There were TWO packages in there!!!! It took me a moment to recall what I had ordered since both were addressed to me. MY NEW CAMERA ARRIVED! Well, truth be known; not "new," but it appears to be in great shape! A minor cosmetic scratch on top of the flash cover, and some minimal wear-n-tear.

Picture wise..... it takes a good indoor-flash picture....

And GREAT outdoor pics!

Amazing zoom capability!







Now that the picture show is over :0), .... Bethann and Ryan have this camera and I fell in love with it this weekend. I missed my old camera; recall that I have been using a simple camera that belongs to Cassie. Well......for about 20% of the original cost, I landed this camera "Used-Great condition" through Amazon. The seller will get EXCELLENT marks from me! I was HOPING it would arrive before the race this weekend, but I thought my luck was pretty slim considering I placed my order Monday late morning before leaving for my parent's house. EXCELLENT SHIPPING TIME!!! ;0) 5-stars :0)
The camera: Sony DSC-H1 Cybershot; Super Steady Shot; 5.1 megapixels; Mpeg movieVX
Cassie's only zooms to x3.6 whereas this can zoom up to x15! (12x optical zoom lens). YES! I really like it!!!!

The other package was a replacement power cord for my MacBook and MacBookPro. My ONE complaint about Apple.....these powercords don't last like they should!!! :/ I know many Macbook/Pro users who have also gone through more than one/two/three powercords. After a while, it stops charging the laptop :0( For the past couple of weeks, I've been playing the "let's turn it this way...okay maybe this way.....hmmm....just a little wiggle.....let's prop it up on a book" game in order for the cord to have a chance to charge the laptop. I LOVE my MacBooks......but Apple HAS to figure out a better powercord to LAST!

Okay....is that enough for one post?? ;0)

I wonder what I can accomplish downstairs now......

First Frost 2010

The sun has already been up for a few hours, but signs of the first frost are still hiding in the shadows. DH said the temp at 6:30 was 30 degrees.

A slight haze hanging in the air, and not too easy to see the trees in the background.....

..but the reds, oranges, and yellows are nearing their peak color around these parts. Over the next 2-3 weeks, they will reach and surpass their peak, which only means winter is getting closer and closer.

Despite the temps this morning, the forecast for the week isn't a typical northern Wiscsonsin forecast for the end of September. 70's everyday and clear; so it's going to be absolutely GORGEOUS!

My plans for the day: prep for Statistics
DH's plans for the day: gather the last of the tomatoes that survived the frost; check potato plants for harvest; can whatever needs to be canned.

Linda canned spaghetti sauce, but we've gone the "lazy" way this year and simply cannd the tomato puree. We will make the sauce "fresh" as the year goes on. DH also picked a couple pails of apples last week with the girls and took care of making applesauce and the by-product of apple juice. YUM! Throw in a stick of cinnimon, warm it for a few seconds in the microwave.....mmmmmmm. I am SO thankful DH takes over with the gardening/harvesting during volleyball season!

Okay...time to get to my Statistics. I am actually quite motivated to get downstairs today after catching up on a few blogs this AM.

And the quilt was a hit---of course! ;0)

Happy Football Sunday!

That nap helped!!!

Well, folks, I DID NOT help the girls with their mess, and in all honesty, I haven't even gone upstairs to see how far they got. They were simply informed that if they each wanted a friend over or even go to the beach during these last few weeks of summer, the rooms and loft need cleaning.

I (kinda) reluctantly headed downstairs to see about working on the 3rd BOM for September, and after 10 minutes, I was well underway and finding some renewed energy. Movie of choice today: "Bedazzle", and it took me the whole movie to sort through my scraps to use up some and to piece the entire block.....and as you can see.....yet another block utilizing Flying Geese units :0)

By 5:00, the movie and block both came to an end and it was time to head upstairs to start dinner: spaghetti with sauce and garlic bread.

While that was cooking, I worked on cleaning and cutting the green beans that had been marinating in the sink with cold water all day....

...and once dinner was over, it was time to start the canning process. Seven more pints to add to our pantry...

...and since I was still going strong, while the canner was "cooking" away and once dishes were done up, I thawed out some rhubarb from last month and made my Rhubarb Crunch dish.

Amy's Favorite Rhubarb dish: "Rhubarb Crunch"
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup dry oatmeal
1/2 cup butter
2-3 cups rhubarb (3 cups makes a fuller "filling")
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 Tbls corn stach

Mix flour, brown sugar, oatmeal and softened butter. Press half into bottom of 8x8 or 9x9 dish. Spread rhubarb on top.
Bring water, sugar and corn starch to a boil in medium sized pan. Pour over rhubarb and sprinkle the remaining "crunch" on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

...and yeah....it's that time of year again. I mowed lawn (on Tuesday, was it??) and was just fine! But Wednesday, when I was out taking care of the animals.....yup! I became Sneezy of the 7 dwarfs. So, these meds will be my best friend for the next couple of months, usually until mid-end October once ragweed completely freezes away.

The girls had the camera last night after baths were finished...here's Candace sporting her newly trimmed bangs and one red tongue. I can't remember what she had ????

Yeah, even I posed for a pic with towel wrapped around my head, and a slightly red complexion from the day of vball in the sun.

Mmmmmmmm.......the buzzer dinged a bit ago and I took the Rhubarb dish out of the oven. By now, it's cooled just enough for me to have one (large) piece for dessert.

GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN to all my blogging teacher friends who head back tomorrow. Some of you head back later on this week. I still have this week off, but will need to spend some time (probably Wed) making sure I'm ready for the following Monday when volleyball practice starts. If I didn't coach, I would still have two complete weeks and three days the following week off before teachers need to head back in Wisconsin. We have a (stupid) state law that forBIDS school to begin until September 1. At least we're not as bad off as Michigan----they can't start until after Labor Day!!!! In certain years, that ends up being a REALLY LATE start!!!

Plans gone astray; top done; cleaned carpet area; and canning clarified

Okay-----plans for the day??? I planned out the next three BOM patterns for September. {{yeah, yeah---nice try zooming in! I purposefully had the August side facing up, 'cept that middle block. Choose not to do that one for August.}}

BUT....as soon as I headed downstairs, these Star Struck rows were still staring me in the face from behind the machine, so I took care of them first off. Then, like many days downstairs, one thing lead to another....

The rows were pieced and were ready for borders. BUT, I really didn't want to schlep up and down the stairs to work on the borders. The carpeted area was still cluttered with tools and all my quilting stuff that hadn't made its ways into my new room. I started tidying up a bit---I really wish I would have taken a BEFORE shot to make this slightly cluttered after-shot look good.

Two hours later : getting sidetracked paid off. Notice the little table towards the center-left of the picture; the one with the blue table-cloth? That's Cassie's sewing area now. She took over my quilting space yesterday and made a MESS of the room! Oh yeah...that's right....I needed to spend 30 minutes right off the bat this AM tidying up the sewing room. Forgot about that! Anyway....on the top-center of the picture is my old sewing table; now house to the little TV setup for the girls to hang out downstairs. Caitlyn's scraps are cluttering the carpet; she'll be cleaning those up before too long! So, the carpeted area is now clean and tidy and ready for me to layout quilts as they get to border stage.

See? It paid off! :0) Star Struck top is done. I haven't measured it yet, but this pic is taken on my design wall which isn't all that big.

I also had an Ah-HA moment-------My Juki98 (used for quilting) uses a different size bobbin and I was starting to get low on bobbins. I didn't want to simply unwind the thread...what a waste! Then it kinda hit me in a "duh-moment"---Use it as top thread since I make so many scrappy quilts anyway.

Part of my carpeted area cleanup involved hoisting a cabinet up to the kitchen (right of pic). With Cassie's help, the cabinet is in place to give DH a lil' surprise when he gets home. We talked about needing more counter and cabinet space. This cabinet was an "OOPS" on DH's measurements when we built in 2004 and we simply chose not to return it for some reason or another; it sat collecting dust for a couple of years downstairs before I threw together my initial quilting space back in Jan 2008. Now, it's up in the kitchen and will be loaded full very shortly.

Finally, for Amanda. I think "canning" is an American term, but definitely not solely an American concept. I use Kerr or Ball glass jars; pickles only require hot-water-bathing while carrots and green beans need pressure-cooking (my pressure-cooker is still on the stove and can be seen in the above kitchen pic). Wait 'til those tomatoes get ripe---this place will look like Christmas with all the red and green :0)

OH! And, I tested the rellish today on top of a hot dog at lunch. It passes inspection! Actually, it tasted just like bread-n-butter pickles; afterall, all the incredients are virtually the same.

Back downstairs I go....maybe NOW I'll actually get to work on the Sept. BOM blocks...

A busy day yesterday...

SO BUSY that I didn't even take any pictures!!!!!! {{sorry}}

From 8:00 - noon, I actually quilted! I loaded up a quilt of MIL's on the frame and finished 'er up and then loaded another. I have 4 in total from MIL that I need to quilt up; all are just little crib quilts, so they quilt up kinda quick. However, the one currently loaded may take a bit more time because I broke away from pantographs and am doing some custom work. {{GASP}}..... I know!!!! Hard to believe, huh???

DH arrived home from work at noon, so it was time to shut everything off and get to work in the kitchen and outside. For the rest of the day, I canned, pickled and canned; spent some time (3 hours) out on the lawn mower, and then spent some more time in front of the canner.....I finally shut the burner off at 11:00! In the end.....{{going from memory}}.....3 quarts & 4 pints green beans, 3 quarts dill pickles, 14 pints bread-n-butter pickles, and 6 half-pints of cucumber relish. {{yeah, the list doesn't sound all the impressive---why on EARTH did it take so peckin' long then?????}}

The relish is a first for me; found a Cucumber relish recipe online to try out, but chose to cut it in half. I had plenty of cucumbers to make a full batch, but I really don't think I wanted 12 half-pints of relish in the event I didn't like it. DH gave the thumbs-up, though.

I think I'm DONE with cucumbers, though!!! Green beans are just startin' to really come and they are so easy to can, just takes a bit more time because they need to be canned under pressure. We ran out of green beans REALLLLLL early last year, so I'll can as many as we get. Next year, we need to plant a few more plants; I think we have about 12 plants out there that actually lived :0(

Anyway...the day is pretty open today with NO CANNING on the schedule!!!! :0) Cleaning-schmeaning! I think I'll be downstairs for much of the day.

Happy Wednesday!

Another "me" day?

First of all, an update on the weather...

THANK YOU MAMA-NATURE for not holding a grudge! All the nasty weather blew south of us; I am afraid to watch the news to see all the damage that is/was unescapable with this system! I'll have to give my parents a call too, because the hometown was right in the path of the storms.

DH and I DID get the deck stained and we hope it had it enough time to dry initially before the rain came. **crossing fingers**. A 2nd coat needs to be done yet, but obviously that'll have to wait until things get dry again...

On the way back, we mosied along our merry way, taking lots of back roads. After a cafe-style lunch at a nearby 'blink-n-ya-miss-it' town, we continued to mosey. RIGHT past a "friend's" house (how thoughtful, right?). Nah....DH needed to pick up a motor that the "friend" was going to tune up. While talking and shootin' the breeze, his dog jumped in and made herself at home: Anje (ahn-gee). CUTE AS A BUTTON!!!! She could easily have come home with us!!!!


After checking out the friend's shop area and saying our departing words, we mosied further north to buy some more stain for the deck's 2nd coat, and then drove some more further north to pick up some thread at a quilt shop, then back south for a stop at Dairy Queen.

Once home, the weather was just starting to act up, so after taking care of the animals, we both put our feet up and napped. Ummmm.....can you call a 1.5 hour "snooze" a nap? Needless to say, my room didn't see any action yesterday. NO BIGGY!

Instead, at 8:00, I figured it was time to do something with these cucumbers.....

I've learned a few things from canning dill pickles in the past;
1) Leave the cucumbers WHOLE if you can
2) If you must cut them, cut them at least 1/4" - 1/2" thick
3) Use dill plants rather than dill seeds if at all possible

Our cucumber plants have only just begun to produce; we have BUKU blossoms that are going to be giving us cucumbers daily! So, I hope to keep up with canning, a little bit at a time. We only have 2 jars of dill pickles left in our panty, but about a dozen bread-n-butter (MY FAVORITE!!!), so, we're going to stock up on some dill.

I haven't found my favorite Diil Recipe yet, so I'm trying another "new" one. Here's the recipe I'm trying this year; of course, since I didn't have that many cucumbers, I halved the recipe. I ended up with the equivalency of 4 quarts, and the recipe worked perfectly in half.

I was able to leave a few cucumbers whole, but also had to cut up about 6 of the cuks that were too big. So, look at this gem!!!! A few years back when I helped my parent's clean out my grandmother's apartment, we were allowed to "help ourselves to anything we wanted." {{Yeah, that's when I "inherited" all my grandmother's fabric and quilting supplies!!!. My DH has an "antique-thing" going on, so he enjoyed sifting through much of her stuff. This cutter is one of the tools we have displaying on our mantel, but last night it found some actual use. That thing is SHARP! It didn't take long to cut through a handful of cuks---sure, I can see that a couple bushel-full would be annoying to do this way, but.....psht! I love how the slices look!

Bounty: 1 quart and 6 pints. How many more will be coming????


Today's tasks:
Sew, Sew, Sew.
DH promised me that my room would see a finish today. I think I'm going to hold him to that.
I want to finish Jared Takes a Wife today.
I need to work on August's BOM since my time is limited over the next two weeks.
I need to update my Stash Report since I didn't report last week.
Then?.....don't know yet. It'll be a classic "look-around-the-sewing-area-for-what-strikes-my-fancy" move. Maybe I'll pull out a UFO? Maybe a WIP? Maybe a PIG? {{Oh yeah, I still have Jen's "floofy" quilt to start}}

Happy Sunday