Here I am...

I know. I seemed to fall off the face of the earth. Life is crazy. The chickens are butchered and in my freezer. The steer is hanging out at the butcher's place. Sold four of the dairy goats. I've canned what I could, froze whatever was left. Some how the batteries disappeared from the house and I kept forgetting to get more from Hubby's truck. I needed the batteries for the camera. I could have had more interesting pictures of what's gone on since my last post .

This is the homemade pasta I made last night for dinner. My Aunt bought me a pasta machine for Christmas one year. I love it. Last night, my youngest and I took turns cranking the pasta through the rollers and then the cutters. The kids think it is fun and tastes better.

Pasta is simple to make. This batch I used 4Cups of flour, 4 eggs, 1t. salt, and a 1/2 C warm water. I used my dough hook on my mixer and then ran it through the pasta machine in batches. Hung it to dry a bit before cooking it. It takes a little time and muscle but it is cheaper than buying it. Plus I know what I put in it!

These are peppermint patties. I found the redipe in the Lancaster Farmer Newspaper. Simple and yummy. 1/4C karo syrup, 1/3C butter, 1/2t peppermint extract or to taste, 1lb 10x sugar, Chocolate wafers(coating chocolate)

Mix the first four ingredients together and form into patties. Freeze for 20 minutes while melting the chocolate. Coat the patties with the chocolate and allow to set. Less than an hour and you are a super mom!

Archery season is here and John had Charlie out practicing his form. It's best to take him by himself. All three boys with bows and arrows is not such a good idea. This child is the reason BB guns are banned from my house. two windshields at the cost of $212 each.

This is Charlies leg after he picked at a bug bite in his sleep. He ended up at the urgicenter on a Sunday morning getting antibiotics.

We went to the apple orchard on a Saturday. Dropped apples were $3 dollars a bushel.

They are such good apple pickers. I had to talk to the youngest about shaking the trees to make the apples drop...

Yummy...Best car freshener ever!

This is the view from the orchard. Worth the ride just for this!

This is my latest sewing project. I'm determined to get this quilt done. It's a sampler quilt with 13 blocks. This is block 8, the Dresdane Plate.

Last week John's grandfather passed away. It's sad but it was expected. Pap was a great guy. He loved his family and it is a large one at that, 97 decendents. Father, Grandfather, Great Grandfather and Great Great Grandfather.

Pap was a JunkMan. He went to sales and auctions and bought up stuff and sold it at the flea market. My girlfriends loved going to his place and rooting through the sheds. It was like digging for gold. Whatever you were looking for, he had. You just had to find it. And Haggling the price was just as much fun. Even if he paid a dollar for the box full of junk he would charge 5 for one item you found. If you tried to argue down he would tell you, "Well, I gotta have somethin for haulin it"

We did have an unexpected loss on the homestead. One of the little brown does died yesterday. She had taken sick last week. I'm pretty sure it was pneumonia and I thought we had it taken care of, she was doing much better Monday even playing with the children and escaping her pen. We had her isolated from the other goats. But yesterday morning when they went out to do chores she was lathargic and couldn't get her head up. We tried a energy drink of corn oil,molasses,and karo syrup, but it was too late. It was a hard one for the kiddos. But I guess it's another life lesson from the farm.