Praise The Lord

Good Morning,


Praise the LORD!
My sister-in-law, Angie, called last evening to give us some good news regarding her lung cancer. After a very intensive course of chemo and radiation to shrink the inoperable tumor she is able to report that the tumor is now less that half the size it was and the doctor said it is a possible that the remaining mass is nothing  more than scar tissue!!!  How wonderful is that? Because of the swelling remaining from the radiation Angie cannot have a PET scan until late August, at that time they will fully determine the effectiveness of the treatment, we continue to pray for a miracle.  The only worrisome part is they discovered a spot in the left lung, the tumor being treated is in the right lung, but the doctor said it is quite likely that the left lung spot is scar tissue from the intensive radiation, we continue to pray.
My sister, Marika, continues to do well, she had her surgery in January for breast cancer, decided to forgo conventional treatment and opted for alternative treatment and seems to be doing well. Please keep her in your prayers.

I found this "video" on YouTube, I love the Doxology and really enjoyed this version and liked that the lyrics displayed.  I also like this YouTube link for Wonderful praise and worship music , again the lyrics display, and it is very pleasant to put on as there are around twenty hymns that play and all are uplifting.

The little boys are doing vacation bible school (VBS) this week.  A local church had a three morning VBS for 3 thru pre-K, so Henry and Patrick were able to go.  The theme song is ,Jesus is My Superhero , it is rather catchy, Patrick just loves watching the video.  Today is their last morning of VBS, tomorrow they will have a picnic with their new friends.

We celebrated Emily's 20th birthday this past Friday, hard to believe my baby is twenty!! Emily wanted hamburgers, seven layer salad and baked beans for her birthday feast, we were happy to oblige. And, she wanted the traditional family birthday cake, chocolate cake, chocolate frosting and m&m's. The burgers were delicious and were from one of our steers, Beef, we had him processed last month, his hanging weight was 721 pounds, that is a lot of beef, we had over 300 pounds of ground beef in addition to all of the other cuts of beef.  Noodle is still in the field filling out, he will probably go in late August, early September.

This past Sunday was Father's Day, we had a wonderful time.  Matt and Dave spent the afternoon babying baby back ribs on the grill, I made a bunch of side dishes, and strawberry shortcake, and we enjoyed a fabulous meal later in the day. All of our children and grandchildren were over, we played corn hole, Dave and I are the CHAMPIONS, we were simply unbeatable that day!

Strawberries, strawberries, strawberries, oh MY!  We have picked close to seventy pounds of strawberries out of our little patch, we have forty pounds frozen which Dave will use for wine making, I have made two dozen pints of jam, eight of which are strawberry-rhubarb my personal favorite. We have eaten strawberry shortcake and just strawberries for the past two and half weeks I think I am turning into a strawberry.  It would seem that strawberries just love the gently spring we have had this year as everyone has a bountiful harvest, there are at the end of many driveways advertising strawberries.

Last week our weather service called for a very severe line of storms to move through the area, they gave warnings for several days and generally had everyone worried. The storm started moving into the area around seven in the evening, Amber and the boys decided to come to our house as we have a basement, at first we sat on the deck and enjoyed a nice breeze, we could hear thunder rolling in the distance and we watched the storm clouds roll in.  We had a few spots of rain so the boys pulled their t-shirts up over their head to keep "dry". As the boys had a lot of energy to burn we went into the yard, and ended up sitting on the garden swing for a bit, all of the sudden we heard the tornado siren so decided it was time to head to the basement.  My neighbor Nancy called, could she and Brian, her son, come shelter in our basement. Amber called her husband and told him to come to our basement as the siren had gone off. Pretty soon we had three babies, seven adults, and four dogs sheltering in the basement. The wind blew, the rain poured, the lightning and thunder raged, but thankfully no damage occurred and the garden got a good watering.  We were in the basement for a few hours, Dave put on some music, I made cups of tea for Nancy, Amber and myself and brought down a tray of crackers, cheese and salami, there are worse ways to sit out storm, we all had a good time. That day I had picked a ton of strawberries and eaten a bunch of them, Nancy laughed at me when I said, after biting into a lovely wasa bread cracker and cheese with salami, "Wow, it is sure good to eat something that ISN"T a strawberry"! (oh, you noticed I had cheese and salami, I am no longer vegan, I will update in another post).

My mother has encouraged me to continue blogging as she enjoys my blog, so for now I will blog.

A Pleasant Day

We are still enjoying very mild weather, sunshine, puffy clouds, a pleasant breeze, simply delightful. Today I needed to get many things accomplished, and although I still have a few things to do yet, most are finished.

Yesterday evening we did the first pick on our strawberry patch and were rewarded with seven pounds of scrumptious berries.  While picking in the middle of the strawberry patch I noticed a squirming little mass a few feet from me, YIKES, I thought at first it was mice and let out a very undignified shriek, upon further investigation it turned out to be four baby bunnies, how sweet!

Well seven pounds of strawberries is a lot of berries so today I had to get busy and do something with them, I made four pints of strawberry jam and four pints of strawberry-rhubarb jam.  I then made enough pastry to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie and quiche for dinner. It always seems that I end up with a little leftover pastry, today I used it to make jam tarts since I had a little left over jam after filling my jam jars earlier. Amber, Henry, Patrick, Emily and me all enjoyed the jam tarts very much.

On May 26 little Charlie celebrated his first birthday, he officially turned one on the 27th. We had yet another beautiful day and enjoyed a cook out at our daughter Amber and son-in-law Brad's  home. Charlie enjoyed his birthday cake out on the deck, and we enjoyed watching him get himself covered in frosting. Isn't his little shirt cute, Amber made it for him. Charlie is such a sweetie.

This past Monday baby Alivia turned 7 months old! I am not sure where the time has gone, all of our little grandbabies are growing up. Isn't she a cutie? She was enjoying a graham cracker when we took the picture.

 

And isn't this potato cute? We thought it was just ducky :)

Baking and Other Stuff

On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family, my sister Michelle and her husband Nick are both in the US until Monday when they will return to London.  On Wednesday we were blessed with beautiful weather and a high of sixty, very rare in late November.  Each Thanksgiving we have family picture day, it works well because we are all together in one place at the same time, this does not happen very often, it was extra fun taking the pictures this year as we had two new additions to the family this year.  Follow the link if you would like to see our fabulously fun family pics, it was super awesome because we were able to be outside, always the best place to be photographed in my opinion.  My Dad is the family photographer and does a fantastic job. http://www.indianapete.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?s=0&username=indianapete&a_id=5844948&s_id=6669311&q=http%3A//www.indianapete.phanfare.com/5844948

Tomorrow we will celebrate Christmas at Manitou with my family and it will be a year until we are all together again. This year I will treasure especially as Emily is leaving for the Air Force at the end of January and it may be a few years before we are able to have everyone together again.

Now on to Baking.
Every year a make traditional English Christmas cakes, the recipe is rich and includes 2lbs of dried fruit, almonds and cherries.  Once the cakes are baked they are kept in a tin and each week I "feed" them a little dry sherry, I usually bake the cakes at the end of October and by Christmas they are ready and oh, oh, oh, oh, oh are they good.  It is standard to cover the cakes with marzipan a week before Christmas, and the day before Christmas decorate with royal icing, the cakes look splendid.  Over the years we have decided to pass on marzipan and royal icing, who needs the additional calories? and the fruit cake stands well on its own.  I have a standing order each year to bake a cake for both of my sisters and my parents and of course for Dave and me, I now make 6" diameter cakes, again we can all enjoy the Christmas cake but not live to regret it :).

English Christmas Cake

Another annual baking tradition for me is the making of shortbread, I give a small tin to each of my sisters and my parents at Christmas.  I think shortbread is amazing!!!  It is made with very basic ingredients, I quadruple the recipe from my Marguerite Pattern cookery book, it goes as follows:

Shortbread
12 oz butter - softened
7 oz sugar
12 oz plain flour
4 oz rice flour

Cream the butter with half of the sugar until extremely well mixed, add the flour and again make sure it is really, really worked into the butter/sugar mixture.  Then add the remaining sugar and mix in well.
This quadrupled batch needs to be baked in a 9"/13" baking pan. Put the dough into the baking pan and then push it into the pan and make sure the dough is even throughout the pan, lightly sprinkle sugar over the top.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, it may take a minute or two or three longer.
Allow the shortbread to cool for ten minutes, cut into one and half inch squares and leave it in the pan to let it cool for another half hour. Remove the shortbread from the pan and enjoy, but make sure you pack most of it up to give away as gifts, this stuff is NOT lo-cal.

Shortbread

Today I also baked a Victoria Sandwich, this is a very traditional English sponge cake.  In England it is not the norm to frost cakes. The Victoria sandwich cake if usually filled with strawberry or raspberry jam and a light dusting of confectioners sugar is sieved over the top. If you want to get fancy with the light dusting of sugar you can lay a doily over the cake, lightly sieve the sugar and then carefully remove the doily, this is a delightful way to finish the cake.Another interesting tidbit about the VS, it has four ingredients, butter, sugar, eggs and flour, and the authentic way to make it is to weigh the eggs (usually 3) and then add the exact same weight of each of the other ingredients.  To make you cream the butter well, add the sugar and mix well, slowly incorporate the beaten eggs and then add the flour.  Most recipes now call to add 1 T of milk which should be folded in gently after all the other steps are complete.  If you use plain flour (all purpose) you will need to add 1 t of baking powder.  The VS bakes at 355 for 18 -25 minutes and calls for a 7" diameter cake pan, if you do not have one, in the US 8" seems to be standard, you can use the 8" and simply bake for a little shorter time. Keep in mind that an 8 inch pan will produce a wider, flatter cake than the 7" one. After baking allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then remove and finish cooling on a rack.  Spread strawberry jam thickly on the bottom half, put on the top, sieve lightly with confectioners sugar and voila you have a Victoria Sandwich.  This is NOT a rich cake, but is nice and goes well with afternoon tea.

Victoria Sandwich

I love that my family incorporate many English traditions into our family celebrations, we always have Christmas Crackers http://www.englishteastore.com/crackers.html  please note these are not something you eat :) We always have our English Christmas cake, my Mom makes the best trifle, we have mince pies, sausage rolls, a large tin of Quality Street (excellent candy), and some years Christmas pudding. We have lived in the US since 1978 and in many ways are very American and in other ways we are still very English.

Oh, and yes, unfortunately none of the above recipes are vegan, I generally do not eat desserts so do not mind having a little of something really good once in a while. I will say that the vegan baked goods I have tried have not been very good, it seems that sugar, butter, and eggs are key ingredients for a rich, tasty dessert. I guess I am practicing quality over quantity, I am quite happy to enjoy a vegan diet 99% of the time, but on a holiday or special occasion enjoy a tasty treat.  Moderation is the key to good living.

Today I took Emily and the grandsons into Fort Wayne, we stopped at the Fort Wayne Historical Museum to tour the Gingerbread Festival, this is fun event and there are an awful lot of gingerbread creations on display. The creators ranged in age from pre-school to adult along with a professional category. The boys really liked the SpongeBob Squarepants entry, and another that recreated a large red barn with lots of little animals.  A girl scout troop had a fun log cabin entry with a pond with "goldfish" swimming in it, the boys liked this as goldfish crackers are a favorite treat.  All entries have to be made with edible stuff, and some people are very creative. After the Gingerbread Festival we headed over to Christmas at the Old Fort, there were vendors set up in each of the fort buildings, and games for kids, unfortunately our nice weather from Thursday is long gone and today it was overcast and the high was only in the mid thirties, since this activity was primarily outside we did not stay as long as we might have done if the weather had been warmer.  I was able to visit the Heirloom Spoon man and purchase some more beautifully made wooden cooking utensils for Christmas gifts, and another vendor was selling everything beeswax. I purchased my FIRST EVER beeswax candles, what a pleasant surprise to find that they have the most delightful aroma, I also purchased some beeswax soap that smells divine.  One of the games for kids involved tying a donut on a string and then the participant, in this case Patrick, had to put his hands in his pockets and attempt to eat the donut, this is not an easy task.  With some help Patrick did finally manage to master the donut and his persistence paid off with a tummy full of yummy donut.  When we returned home we had lunch and warmed up and then watched The Wizard of Oz, what a fab movie.  During the movie Pat and Charlie fell asleep, a little later Henry and I headed into the kitchen to assemble our gingerbread house kit, we had fun putting it together, we had a few collapses during assembly but in the end it turned out fine.

Henry really enjoyed this project

And in today's mail my package from Minnesota arrived, I had ordered a tie-dye piece from Beth, another blogger,http://bld-in-mt.blogspot.com/2012/11/matts-artform.html and it arrived today, I just love it and was pleased to pop it on the kitchen table and then place my beeswax candles in the candlesticks. Beth's husband Matt is the tie-dyer and he does some amazing stuff, follow the link to check out some of his other work.

I just love the colors in this tie-dye

Well that is today's update, I hope all that celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful day with family and friends.
Bean

June Happenings and Wise Words To Live By and a Recipe

Wow can you believe that June is over and we already a week into July?  We had a busy June, Emily turned 19 on the 6/14, and Amber was 26 on the 6/26.  We had a family reunion in mid June with Dave's, mother's side of the family, and last Saturday we had a family/friends party at our house.
Indiana is in a drought, our part of the state is now classified as  "extreme drought".  We did get a little rain on June 30, but not in a way that we wanted, the storm blew in with 90 mile an hour winds and did a huge amount of damage throughout our county and left 118,000 customers without electricity.  Amber was over at our house visiting with our three grandsons, and Dave was at home. We sat in the family room and watched the storm clouds roll in, the sky got darker and darker and almost had a greenish color to it, and then an extremely strong wind hit the house, we all leaped up, grabbed a child and rushed to the basement, we were no sooner down the stairs when the power went out.  As our basement is a walkout we were able to watch the storm, the neighbors wooden swing set toppled, a bale of straw picked up and blew across their yard, branches ripped out of the tree by our barn, the rain came down horizontally and thunder and lightning were non-stop.  Once the weather calmed down a bit I went upstairs to look out out front of our property, I was saddened to see that one of our huge pine trees at the end of the driveway had snapped in half.  We were very thankful that our house was not damaged and we were all okay.
Once the storm rolled through the temperatures started to heat up, and for the past week we have had highs in the very upper nineties and low hundreds, it is extremely hot.  We were without power for about 78 hours,   we were hooked up early, there are still about 800 people without power and they are now in their eighth day.  Most people were without power for five days.  On Thursday evening another violent storm rolled through and knocked out power to almost 30,000 customers, the linemen have really had their work cut out for them.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we celebrated two birthdays this month. Emily turned 19, she wanted chocolate chip cheesecake for her birthday cake and hamburgers, asparagus, and hollandaise sauce for dinner.  Amber turned 26, she wanted strawberry cake and mexican food.  We had a fun time celebrating both birthdays.  On June 30 we had a big family/friends party at our house, our son Matt, and son-in-love Brad grilled chicken for everyone, they did an awesome job as everyone raved about the chicken.  I fixed 10lbs of potato salad, baked beans, veggies and dip, layer salad, coleslaw, creamy cucumber salad, a large pan of banana pudding, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and monster cookies, we had plenty to eat and not a whole lot left over so we guesstimated about right.  We did not have power, thankfully I had baked the cake and cookies before the power went off.  I was able to prepare the rest of the food and am always glad for my gas stove when the power goes out.  Without power we have no running water, so we had to buy water for cooking and drinking, and haul large buckets of water from our son Matt's house. Thankfully we have a generator so we were able to keep our freezers and refrigerator running along with a couple of other things, everyone was understanding of the situation and enjoyed the party.
On July 4 the temperature was around 100, no one wanted to go outside. Dave slow cooked short ribs on the grill, they were mighty fine and took 3 hours to cook to perfection and about 10 minutes to consume :).  Because of the drought there is a burn ban in place and a firework ban, Fort Wayne had their annual display but most communities opted to not do a firework display this year.  Of course it would not be July 4th if someone didn't find the Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV, broadcast live from Coney Island.  I must say it is a most revolting event, in fact I was getting so grossed out I couldn't watch. The winner was Joey Chestnut who managed to consume and astounding 68 hotdogs in 10 minutes, YIKES!
Can you believe that our newest grandson Charlie will be six weeks old tomorrow. He has filled out so nicely and is such a well behaved, contented little fellow, he is starting to smile :)
Last week I was in a local Amish store picking up some sewing notions and I noticed a coloring book picture hanging on the wall behind the counter.  The picture was carefully colored and hung with pride and had an excellent message, "A Hard Job is Many Easy Jobs Left Undone", how true is that.  I think they are  words to live by, and as we know it usually does not pay to procrastinate.
Today I made bologna salad, something I make a few times a year, grandson Henry had fun turning the crank on the meat grinder and stuck with it to grind 2lbs of bologna.

Bologna Salad

2lbs of bologna (ground)

4 hard boiled eggs (chopped)

2 T pickle relish

Mayonnaise to combine

Directions:

Grind the bologna, stir in the chopped boiled eggs and pickle relish, then add mayonnaise and stir until everything is blended.  Makes very nice sandwiches, store in the refrigerator.

Emily with the chocolate chip cheesecake

Amber with the strawberry cake

Branches down by the barn

Our poor pine tree

The top half of the tree lying in the road.

One of gardens, notice everything is leaning eastward after  the wind

Henry the master of the meat grinder.

Early Mornings Make For Productive Days!

Dave is currently working on a job that is about an hours drive away so we have been getting up at four-thirty in the morning so he can leave by five-fifteen.  Each morning as I blearily look at the time, yes it is only four-thirty I force myself out of bed with the comforting thought that I can return once I see Dave off to work. But by the time I have started the coffee on the stove, made sandwiches for Dave's lunch, put away last nights supper dishes, I am wide awake and feel no need to go back to bed.  I am getting so much done in the morning, it is wonderful.
Here it is not even nine in the morning, I saw Dave off and have since done done four loads of laundry, three are hanging out and fourth will go out shortly, five loaves of bread are rising and will be ready for baking in about forty minutes, the house is tidy, the chickens and calves are fed, peas picked last evening are shelled, blanched and in the freezer, strawberries picked a few weeks and frozen are now thawing on the kitchen counter in readiness for jam making a little later. I have had my prayer time, done my bible reading, and plan to get some sewing done today.  Dave will be working out of town for the next six weeks or so, and although we don't like getting up so early, once up it is not so bad.
I have several sewing products to work on.  I had blogged recently about a huge gift of fabric and other bits and pieces of sewing notions, in the fabric was a pretty mauve floral calico and I am using some of it to make a dress and bloomers for our grand daughter, Alivia, who is due to arrive in late October. The fabric goes well with a lilac colored cardigan and bonnet I recently finished knitting for Alivia.  The dress is cut out and I hope to get it finished today.  I have made my husband many, many, many, shirts over the years, and I have another one to make for him, it will be a little wild!  We recently made some corn hole sets, a game that is easy and fun to play, I made the toss bags out of flame print fabric, one set was black background with orange flames, the other black background with blue flames, jokingly we said that Dave needed a matching shirt for corn hole, so now he will have one.  The shirt will be in the blue flame fabric, the underside of the collar and the pocket will be in the orange flame fabric - it will be a very loud shirt.  I have joked with all the guys that they should enter a few corn hole team competitions and that I will make them  flame shirts to wear, they haven't taken me up on the offer yet!!  I recently purchased some blue pinstriped poplin to make myself a jumper, I would like to get it cut out today and hopefully finished over the weekend. Poplin is such a comfortable fabric to wear in the summer time as it is light weight.  I have a baby quilt to make for Alivia, I recently went shopping with my daughter-in-love Traci to choose fabric, I haven't yet decided on a block pattern but plan to browse through my quilting books for inspiration.
Well have a blessed day,

Bean

Gardening

Well it is that time of year again, time to plant the garden.  We keep several very large vegetable gardens and grow a lot of our food. We work hard in the springtime preparing and planting the gardens. We work throughout the summer weeding and keeping things tidy.  We work hard in August and September harvesting and storing all of the food grown.  We can tomatoes, green beans, beets, jalapenos, and sauerkraut, and we freeze corn, peppers, some strawberries, and peas. Onions and potatoes are stored in the basement. Strawberries, black raspberries, and concord grapes are used to make jams and jellies and my husband uses some for wine making.  Cucumber and lettuce are eaten fresh from the garden along with some of the wonderful tomatoes and peppers. I planted carrots this year, a first for our garden, I imagine if they grow nicely we will simply eat them freshly picked.  I love the smell of fresh carrots, and I love the smell of tomato plants as I brush against them in the garden.
Each year we put in around 50 tomato and this year is no exception.  We can the tomatoes mainly in quart size jars and we do many, many quarts, I do up about a dozen pint jars.  I like to can the tomatoes as is, then I can use them for whatever I want throughout the year.  We like canned tomatoes with fried eggs and toast, this is why I can up the pint jars.  The quarts are used for many, many meals throughout the year, a jar dumped in the food processor with an onion, some jalapeno pepper and cilantro, a little cumin and lime juice and voila you have a wonderful salsa..  Two jars with a bit of oil, onion, basil, sugar, salt, and tomato paste and spaghetti sauce is made. Chili, a couple quart jars of tomatoes really make the chili.  The tomatoes are fabulous when added to stews and soups.  I feel that when I can tomatoes I am also canning summertime, because when I open a jar in the middle of winter the aroma is amazing, the tomatoes simply smell of summertime in the garden!
We still have a few items to plant, beet seeds to be planted, tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants to put out, they are currently hanging out on the front porch adjusting in a sheltered place to the great outdoors.  I have planted a few rows of flowers around the garden, marigolds and zinnia, I think I will get some cosmos seeds too.
Last year we planted asparagus, it has come back this year, we were told to leave it be for the first two years and then harvest some for eating, so next spring we will enjoy!
Dave pruned all of our fruit trees and took out a sucker cherry tree and a peach tree that had died then grew many suckers and looked like a giant peach bush, it did not produce good fruit.  We will purchase replacement trees to fill in the gaps.
Last spring Dave built a small raised garden for me to use as an herb garden, the mint and oregano are flourishing, the chives returned along with the cilantro.  This spring I added dill and lavender, and I plan to add rosemary and sage.  I like weeding the herb garden because everything I disturb while weeding smells so good.
Our chickens enjoy the fact that we keep a garden, they benefit greatly as they get to eat all kinds of good things, like lettuce that has bolted, tips and tops of green beans and strawberries, the tops of beet plants, wormy ears of corn, and many other things.  The chickens are used to many scraps from the house and whenever I walk out to them they come running to the fence in the hopes that I may have something yummy for them to eat.
This weekend the weather is going to be pleasant which will allow us to finish up planting.
If you are doing a garden this year what are you planting?

Hot Summer Days and Chocolate Zucchini Bread Recipe

Henry the Farmer 

Patrick the Little Urchin!

We are in the middle of a heat wave, the temperatures have been in the mid to upper nineties since Saturday, and the humidity is very high, we are looking for a cool off hopefully by next Monday.  Today it is very overcast which has helped keep things cooler, but has done nothing to reduce the humidity.

I got up at four this morning with Dave, I made his coffee and a couple of sandwiches for his lunch, tidied the kitchen and got the laundry going.  Dave left for work at five, I showered, tidied our bedroom and headed out for a five mile walk.  When I returned I let the chickens out and Henry and Patrick arrived. After the boys ate breakfast, a nice bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and applesauce mixed in, we went outside to hang laundry and weed the strawberries.  It is nice to get the outdoor activities done early in the morning before it really heats up, or in the evening as it starts to cool, but lately it has still been ninety degrees at nine in the evening.  While I weeded strawberries the boys played, Henry really likes to play on Grandpa's tractor, and Patrick just likes to muddle around getting into this and that and always manages to get himself very dirty! 

The boys will be picked up later this afternoon and then I plan to get some sauerkraut going, I use a recipe that allows the cabbage to ferment in the canning jar for a few weeks prior to processing in a hot water canner.  In August we want to get a pig and take it in to be processed, I am looking forward to some pork and sauerkraut dinners this fall.  I also plan to make chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon, we did not plant any zucchini but we have been given some, so we will make good use of them.  If you have not had chocolate zucchini bread you really should try it, it is a delicious sweet bread, I enjoy a slice of it spread with raspberry jam - YUMMY.  Which reminds me, I need to get my raspberry jam made. I picked all of our black raspberries over the last couple of weeks, they are currently bagged and in the freezer, perhaps on Friday I will get the jam made.  It looks as if we will have a bumper crop of concord grapes in another month or so, so I know I will be busy making making many pots of grape jelly, it is a favorite in our house.

Well that is all for today, Patrick is evidently worn out from his outdoor adventure this morning, because he fell asleep on my lap as I was typing :)

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups of sugar (don't forget this, once I did and the bread was revolting :)
3 large eggs   (this reminds me one of our new laying hens started laying :)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup of nuts (optional)
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350, grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans.
2. Combine first six ingredients in large bowl.
3. Combine sugar and eggs, beat until blended, add oil and vanilla, beat until blended, add zucchini.  Add wet mixture to the dry ingredients in the first bowl, stir until just moistened, add chocolate chips and nuts.  Divide batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans.
4. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool on wire rack.

***Helpful Hint***

If you have lots of zucchini, grate it, a food processor will make this much easier, then bag up in 2 cup quantities and freeze, then whenever you want to make chocolate zucchini bread you will have the exact measure of grated zucchini ready in your freezer.

This and That

We are attempting to get our garden planted, all of the potatoes, onions, cabbage and some corn are now planted, and we were able to plant out 100 strawberry starts to renew our aged strawberry patch. There is much more to plant, we will plant peas, green beans and beets and finish the corn. On Memorial Day weekend we will put in about forty eight tomato plants and a variety of peppers, broccoli, (my new favorite food is steamed broccoli!), and plant some melon and squash. Other chores that need to be taken care of in the garden, prune out the dead brambles in the raspberry patch, they are very prickly and I always look as if I got into a fight with a cat when I am done, gloves are an absolute necessity, we need to pick a spot to plant some asparagus root and we want to make a built up box area to plant some new rhubarb and transplant some old rhubarb into.

Our steer, Jersey, who should have gone to butcher in February, has had a pleasant extension to his comfortable life because of all of the rain, it has just been too muddy to get a truck and trailer back to his home, so I know for sure Jersey is very happy about all of the rain :)

The new chickens, we started with a dozen chicks, we now have eight, at one month we moved them out of their brooder in the basement, they get kind of stinky, and out to the chicken coop, once they were two months we started opening the door so they could venture outside, the first time they went out a hawk got one of them, and now, and who can blame them, they are rather leery about the great outdoors. Anyway, I am pleased to report that the Great Eight, are all doing well, and in another couple of months should be producing a bountiful supply of brown eggs.

Today I am baking bread, I have a dozen loaves rising on the kitchen table, the grandsons are coming over later so they will be pleased to have warm bread and honey as an afternoon snack, and come to think of it, so will I.

I really like to sew, but have a hard time finding a pattern that I like, I recently visited a blog, clevsea.blogspot.com, Clevsea is an avid seamstress and she has pictures of completed garments along with the pattern she used, I particularly liked the jumpers she had made using an old McCalls pattern, I googled the pattern number, and amazingly found one copy for sale in my size for $4.65, so I ordered it, I am looking forward to its arrival. Clevsea's site then led me on to another site, Sense and Sensibilty at sensibility.com , this site has patterns for historical dresses from the Georgian, Regency, Edwardian, and Romantic era's, they are delightful. My daughter Emily's best friend Katy really likes Jane Austen, this morning on the ride to school I told the girls about the dress patterns, and suggested we make some and have a Jane Austen party, I think it would be a hoot!! Another site that has beautiful fabric at a reasonable price, and unique, handmade patterns, is Candle on the Hill, http://www.candleonthehill.net/store/catalog.php? item=265, this link takes you to their site, specifically to a pattern that I think I will order. If you do not sew you can order ready made items from Candle on the Hill.

Ben, our almost twenty year old son, purchased a new unicycle last week, it has a 36" diameter wheel and a brake. He is a little wonky on it, but is improving, it is a big change from his first unicycle.

Emily, who will be eighteen next month, is off to the prom this Saturday, she is getting very excited, they are going out for dinner, then to prom, then the afterprom party at the bowling alley which is supervised by parents, then home for a brief sleep and then a bus is taking the tired prom goers to Cedar Point for fun on Sunday - we will have a quiet weekend and an extremely tired daughter returned to us on Sunday evening.

Matt and Traci will be moving home from Wyoming in late June, early July, as Matt will have completed his time with the Air Force, it will be wonderful to have the two of them home for good.

Amber and Brad are busy with their new house, they had to purchase their very first lawn mower this spring, and they just love having a yard of their own to take care of, they dug a garden, Amber calls it her Salsa Garden, as she plans to plant tomatoes, peppers and onions, so she can make salsa. Henry and Patrick are just delightful little boys, growing up too quickly, but so much fun. Henry is two and half, last week he was playing in the front yard and noticed that when he yelled he could the yell come back, he was absolutely fascinated by his echo and much yelling ensued and he kept saying, "Henry talk to me", it was really neat. Patrick is now thirteen and half months, he has been walking for about two months now, he is a bundle of energy and a boy who knows what he wants!

Strawberry Jam

This morning Dave and I headed out to our strawberry patch for a second picking of strawberries. To date we have picked 14 pounds of strawberries! Not bad for a little strawberry patch.

This afternoon daughter Amber and grandson Henry stopped by for a visit. While Henry took a nap in the chair with Grandpa, Amber and I made a couple of batches of strawberry jam - what rewarding work!