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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Busy couple weeks

The past couple weeks have kinda been a blur for me. I did get to see my sweet aunt Ann and her family for a week or so during the modern gun hunting season this year. I kinda managed the hunting lodge for her. She was starting some medical treatments at the same time and was getting pretty tired. I did call and talk to her today and she is positive and sounds great. I think I will try to go see her for a few days in December before the weather gets too bad. Love her bunches and just hate she was feeling rotten. But we are looking forward to next year when we can cook for the deer hunters in her lodge again. We always had such fun doing that.
I came home on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and made it to the house just a few hours before Rob and Amoy got here. Loved having my kids home for a visit.

  

Are these 2 cute together or what? I think this lil momma is gettin a lil belly. We are sure looking forward to May and a lil grand baby.

 
These 2 are the perfect match. I am so blessed with the best future daughters in law. Both beautiful ladies. And this one has blessed us with a sweet step granddaughter as well. Love this kid to pieces.

Above is Miranda and her momma Mary Kay. Mary Kay made cake for the thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. 
We didn't have our usual family thanksgiving dinner at Tammy's house this year. It has really been a tough holiday for her an her kids. Her hubby Carl, our brother in law got injured on Monday helping an older man move an out building and lost his battle on Wednesday. It sure broke our hearts. Carl was a wonderful brother in law, husband, father and friend to all who knew him. His immediate family made his funeral arrangements on Friday and we had family Thanksgiving dinner at our house on Saturday. ALL the families were here at our house, and it was full. I think we had a good dinner and I hope everyone had a lil time to just chill and relax for a lil while from all the stress and sadness. We have 2 new babies in the family this year so Rob and Amoy got a lil practice with the lil babies. 
Rob and Amoy had to leave our house at midnight on Saturday night to get to Louisville airport to catch their flight at 6am. They arrived at 4 am or so all to find that their flight never existed. Rob was so mad. They booked their flight thru Orbitz on Frontier airlines. I would NOT recommend either of these to anyone. They ended up not getting a flight out till after 4 pm on Sunday. So they spent the whole day sitting in the airport an finally arrived at their house in Elko Nevada 12 hours later than planned. I don't think I needed the stress of them being stuck there any more than they did. I know Amoy had to be really tired an stressed an she sure didn't need that right now. 
Sunday evening we went to visitation for Carl in Irvine. Not sure I have known any man that was so loved an respected as he was. I am certain there were at least 500 people who visited the family that evening. The funeral service on Sunday was beautiful. It was a good tribute to him, sad, lots of tears shed. I know I did my share. Then it was like a sudden cool breeze in summer time, I felt peace and comfort, and after that shed no more tears. Prayers for comfort do get answered. I know they did at that moment. God does work in mysterious ways for sure. 
In the midst of all this chaos, our furnace stopped working. No heat! oh my, but at least we do have a working wood fireplace in the den an a propane stove in the other end of the house, so technically we do have heat. That is as long as Rodger can keep the propane tanks filled at work. Right now the meter is not working on the big tank at work so we have to use the propane sparingly. During our family Thanksgiving dinner, Robbie, our step neices' boyfriend works in heating an air so he looked at the heating unit and we thought we had it fixed. Not sure now what ails it. But maybe he can look at it again and see if he can fix it or replace something to get us thru the winter till we can afforded to get a different heat and cooling system.
If it ain't one thing its 3. But Josh brought us 2 deer when he came down on Friday night. We will likely skin those out this coming weekend. More meat for the freezer. Also there is another muzzle loader season coming up in mid December. Guess the guys will be hunting that one too. If Jason don't go hunting I might go just to visit with Josh's parents and maybe sit in the stands with Dana. Loved hunting with her. We have not been able to hunt together for several years since I got hurt at work. I know it would be so fun. 
Not much else happening on the homestead. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Seems we gonna be busy

For the next few weeks it will be kinda busy around here on the farm. First off I have to leave on Thursday to go to western Ky to help my aunt with the hunting lodge again this year. Sure cant do the physical part of it anymore but will more or less be just keeping things in order and make sure things go smoothly. And I get to baby sit her lil dog Jack. Please keep my sweet aunt Ann in prayer as she starts her battle with cancer this week most likely with chemo and radiation. It will be tough for all of us for a while. I hope to be able to relieve her stress by taking care of the deer hunters and seeing that they are fed an have a clean lodge. I wont be back home to my house till November 18th. Rob and Amoy will be home that weekend so I must come home to spend the holiday with them. Rodger and Jason and probably Mary Kay will all be deer hunting for the next couple weeks. Not sure which ones are staying on the farm an which ones are going north to hunt. Be nice if I also bring home deer meat, ya think? I do enjoy working at the lodge but my body cant handle the long hours on my feet anymore. But back at home we will have Thanksgiving with Rodgers family on thanksgiving day and then I will fix dinner on Saturday for us here so local friends can come down and see Rob while he is here. The next week we will skin and process what deer we have harvested and get the meat in the freezer and canned up. Some time in all this mess Rodger and Jason will have to pick the corn and get it in the crib or sold, which ever comes first. We still need a few more good frost on the corn to get the moisture down so it will store well. I didn't get my sweet taters canned that I wanted to so that will get done after the holiday too I suppose. Maybe we get some snow the first part of December so I can just hibernate till spring. I just know that wont happen.

Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Friday, November 2, 2012

Slowing down

Its the time of year to slow down and think about the holidays that are so near. Not near enough for me as my lil boy Rob and Amoy will be home for Thanksgiving. I am really looking forward to seeing them. We have Thanksgiving at Rodger's sister Tammy's house on thanksgiving day and then I will have a dinner here at the house on Saturday for family and friend here that want to come see Rob and Amoy while they are here. So in the next couple weeks I have to get busy planning dinner and meals to feed the kids while they are home. Rodger is off the whole week for deer season. He and Jason will deer hunt the weekend Rob gets to Kentucky till they have several deer for the freezer then they will be home.

Tomorrow Rodger and Jason will skin an process the deer Rodger got a couple weeks ago and get him out of my summer kitchen.That is if Jason can use his right hand well enough. He has a splint on it because he had an accident at work and broke his hand. Just a boxers fracture and it will heal fast. Its no biggie for him. It rained last weekend and they didn't get that task taken care of. We just got rain from the tail end of the hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast devastating several states. Please keep those folks in your prayers. After the fellers get the deer processed I will need to spend a week in the summer kitchen canning up some of our smaller sweet potatoes. After canning they can just be drained and glazed an served. If you hadn't noticed I can a lot of what I call "convenience foods" for us. There are time in winter if we get a big snow storm we can lose power for several days and the things I can are things that can be opened and just heated up and served with minimal resources. I also need to get some pears canned before they are all gone and get eaten by the deer an rabbits. By the time I get this done I hope the fellers have more deer to hang in the kitchen to cool out. Most likely that will be the end of our season of canning and preserving. Till next year at least.

I finally made my granola today. The recipe I used is great but the idea of toasting the granola in the crock pot was a no go. So I made the granola the old fashioned way. So here is the recipe for granola.

Granola my way

5 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup coconut oil (I use half butter, half oil)
3/4 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups coconut
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup raw almonds

1 to 2 cups mix ins (seeds or nuts of choice, raisins, dried fruit, chocolate chips)

Melt oil and/or butter, stir in honey, vanilla and cinnamon.
In a large bowl mix remaining ingredients except mix ins. Pour oil mixture over all and stir to blend evenly.


 Pour granola into a baking pan and put in 350 degree oven till toasted. Stir every 5 or 10 minutes for even browning. When toasted cool add the mix ins of choice and store in air tight container.


This only took about 20 or 30 minutes in my oven as I used a dark pan and it browned faster so watch the granola closely as to not burn it. Below are the mix ins that I used. On the left is dried ground cherries, dried strawberries and dried apples, and in the bag Chia seeds.


 IF my plans go as I plan I will make another batch of cookie dough to freeze for later when the kids are home. We always need snacks when the kids are here. Somehow they think they need to eat while they are home. But thas OK, thas what moms do for their kids when they are gone from home too long.  I am really looking forward to their visit. I guess I will just stay busy till then.

Remember the orphan kittens I raised after their momma got killed? The black one has disappeared but I still have Possum. When they were little they spent a lot of time with the chickens. So now in the evening when I go out to close up the chickens Possum is usually in the building with them. I have a confused cat that thinks hes a chicken.

During the day when it rains Possum stays all day in the building and sleeps with the chickens. Poor fellow don't know hes a cat.

Not much else happening on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella