What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Friday, September 20, 2013

Chatty

 











 














Rising early can be such a pleasure.  It changes your outlook and perspective on the whole day.  How could it not when you are so often greeted with dense fog, deer lifting their heads in curiosity, and gorgeous silhouettes.  When you are very lucky, you see the curtains begin to have an certain pink glow about them and you race outdoors to find the sky gilded with gold and tied in a pink ribbon.  Just for you. (Or so you tell yourself.)

This hasn't been the case THIS week, mind you.  Matt has been out of town in Maine this whole looooooooong week, and as I always do when he is away, I crawl into bed around 1am and then read until my eyes finally shut for good.  I can't sleep well without him and avoid the bed until I can do so no longer.  No pink sunrises for me this week.  Only a bleary-eyed beginning to another long day without Matt.

He comes home today!  YAY!

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We made a new Hopestead improvement this month!  One that we had to hire out.  We got five new windows installed!  No more boarded up windows in childrens' rooms during the wintertime.  No more old broken windows that freeze you to death with the winds that blow through them while you sit on the couch.

We are doing this as we can afford and five was our lucky number this year.  I hope that we will be able to do a few each year until they are all done.  The five windows that we replaced were the worst of the windows.  I am certain that this will help retain more heat this winter.

FIVE windows replaced!  Only 20 or so to go....

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I made cheese!  I finally did it!  Granted, it is yogurt cheese, and is super simple to make.  It doesn't even require rennet.  BUT.  It has the word cheese in it; it involves hanging to drain; it is made of milk and it tastes cheesy.  Therefore, it totally counts.  It tastes almost exactly like cream cheese only with a bit more tartness.  Cheesemaking, along with soapmaking, sewing, canning, yogurt making (and many others) was a major goal of mine that was put off and put off because it seemed too hard.  I do this to myself: convince myself that I cna't do it before I even begin.  Such a foolish way to be.  Had I begun to do the things I longed to learn to do waaaaaaayyyyy back when I wanted to learn them first, I would be experts at all of these things now.

Mozzerella is next.  When I finally get my hands on some rennet.

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Our apple trees did INDEED survive my brutal trimming last year.  (May I take a moment now to flub my tongue at the Mister?)  One, in particular, is absolutely GORGEOUS with dripping apples!  Of the three apple trees that were here, this is the only exceptional one.  The one that looked the healthiest as a tree has brown and spotty apples, the other tree that was barely alive grew apples but they only got a bit bigger than walnuts.  I think that one just wants to die peacefully.  But THIS gorgeous one makes up for the others.  I hope to make some cider and dried apple slices this weekend.  If there are any apples left- the children eat about ten a day.  EACH.  

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Judah has been potty-trained pretty much all summer.  In the spring I let him walk around in his skivvies so that I would have to wash fewer "accidents".  But then, I guess he just got used to walking around in his skivvies, even when no accidents were happening, and I guess I totally let him.  Because hey!  We live in the country for goodness' sake!  Nobody would see him anyway!  And because the boy gets dirty five seconds after waking up!  I could just save of the pants laundry.  (Though I did feel guilt knowing how horrified my Mom would be, knowing this fact.)  Now that the weather is colder, I am insisting the boy put his pants back on.  But I must admit, I will miss those adorable legs and tush.  Really, he has the cutest tush in.the.world.

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My sister is coming over for lunch in precisely 24 minutes and here I sit blabbing about backsides and apples.  Really Rebecca.  

I must now go and scramble to tidy up this house and bake something yummy.  
Now it is 22 minutes.

Have a great weekend and 
thanks for always listening to my random chattiness.

12 comments:

Ruth said...

Chatty posts are the best :)

Lovely pictures, as always.

stephaniegiese said...

These pictures are beautiful. I wish we were neighbors. I agree with Ruth, I love your chatty posts!

Julian said...

We all love your chattiness;).
Have a blessed weekend!
Christina

debbie said...

i cant believe its the weekend again so soon

Mrs Abbott said...

I see your pictures and think- "God is Good." Thank you for blogging so much lately- I love it!

Anonymous said...

Love, love, love the kids in apple tree pics...reminds me of being at grandma's when I was little. Sigh...miss those days :( Apple question for you. I remember many moons ago you mentioned canning cinnamon apples. Is this a pie filling recipe? I see a recipe in my Ball blue book for canning apples like you would peaches with a sugar syrup...I've thought about adding cinnamon to it, I just wonder if it's been your experience that the apples stay intact for pies, etc. Normally I freeze apples for pies...but there may be a move in my future so I would like to can them instead. Thank you for your constant willingness to share so much of yourself with so many. You're an awesome lady! Blessings always, Janet

Anonymous said...

Long time no comment!;-) I almost always read your posts on my phone (and it doesn't allow me to comment). Love these pics! Reading through your archives for photography tips, your comment about thinking things are too hard before you give them a try struck a cord with me;-) You're looking totally gorgeous by the way! xxx

Anonymous said...

Wanted to ask: I've got a Nikon D5100, with one longish lens and one normal one. (can you tell I don't know much?!) Do you think I'll be able to get these sorts of photo's with it? Is there hope?;-)

Rebecca said...

Ruth- I am glad you think so because I seem to do a lot of it!

Stephanie- yes! All my blog readers come live on our hill! Do!

Christina- thank you and you also!

Debbie- I said that very thing many times and now I am saying something like I can't believe the weekend is OVER. sniff

Pink Panda- His IS. And THANK YOU.

Janet- I did try canning apple pie filling once and was not pleased with the particular recipe (it called for flour which clumped up terribly). I think you must be referring to my cinnamon "pickles" which are made from cucumbers (and are NOT true pickles) but taste like red cinnamon apple candy.

You should absolutely be able to can apples in a sugar syrup with added cinnamon...that is a great idea! You could even add a cinnamon stick instead of powder! But if you are looking for a bonafide canned apple pie filling- try this one:

http://hickeryhollerfarm.blogspot.com/2012/10/canning-apple-pie-filling.html

This lady is amazing and I trust her judgement. If she says it is good- it will be! I plan to try a batch this year too. Let me know if you like it! (And good luck with the move!)

Sandy- pshaw! I snuck over to your site just now and see you take beautiful pictures! HOPE. Ha! :-)

The longish lens is a great telephoto lens which I have but has been broken since the first year I got it. :-( With that you could take amazing long distance shots, like birds and the moon.(VERY jealous!) Thanks for the comment- it was so nice to hear from you (and to hear such nice things too!) ;-)



Leah said...

I can't decide which picture I like best: the chess dough board, Adele and her drawing, or the hug in skivvies. Three way tie I guess. :)

(Maybe I'll get chatty someday and actually post something on my blog...)

Anonymous said...

Haha! They're all on auto. But I am scouring the world wide web for how to get started. I went over to that prudent housewife blog you linked to, and her photo's are so lovely too! Today is the day! I'm putting this camera on manual and giving it a go!:-)

Abigail said...

Cheeeeeese. Yogurt cheese totally counts.

For future batches, something Mrs. Terry suggested when I first made her easy cheese was to add rosemary, cracked pepper, etc. to it before pressing. YUM! I will happily sample yours, by the way, if you need a taster for quality control. (You DO need a taster, right?)