December Flurries

We woke up to a little snow one morning!  I guess we should expect it this time of year in our area but it was great to enjoy the nice weather we were blessed with.  It may have spoiled me a bit.

Good thing we put straw on the strawberry bed and winterized it the best we could.  Hoping the plants will make it.

My cold frame cover came to late to plant this year but I ordered seeds yesterday and will be ready when the time comes!

 It is 8 foot long and 2 foot wide but sure looks long here!

And then we received more snow!  How many days till spring?

I bought a couple more cabbages and made up more freezer cole slaw in my bread bowl!  LOL  Sure miss my home made whole wheat bread on this gluten free diet!

I bought the Udi's brand of gluten free breakfast sandwich.  It was expensive and I liked mine that I make just as well so made up more and froze.

Of course I save all those egg shells for my garden and crush them with a rolling pen.

I am thrilled to see my Christmas Cactus blooming!  What a cheery sight when I walk by.  Thanks for visiting!  Stay warm and dream about your gardens!!!

November 28, 2017

We celebrated my birthday and Thanksgiving!  Thankful that some of our grandchildren live near us!  Now looking forward to Christmas!

We had help putting up our tree.  Since then we have gotten the rest of the decorations up and the Thanksgiving decorations down.  Bring on Christmas!!!

We have not put straw on the strawberries yet as the weather has been lovely.  I thought the color of the leaves were so pretty.  I hope they are suppose to look this way!!

Dan surprised me with an electric kettle.  It heats the water very quickly and I use it for my tea!

It is time to study and plan next year's garden!  I do hope my courtyard garden produces better than this past year!

I have been crocheting more foldover pot holders to go with the dish cloths.  You would think I would be a whizz by now but I still have trouble with the first couple of rows.  After that it is easy.

Coco says "woe is me".  I don't get near enough green beans to eat!  I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed your visit here today!  Stay warm and be safe!

November 7th

Did everyone have a nice Halloween?  There are no children living in our community except grandchildren but Gracie, Cali and Nora came over so we could see their costumes.  Gracie just loves baby Nora and will make a great babysitter before we know it!

Here is grandson Travis with their darling baby Nora!

We don't use a lot of taco seasoning but needed to make up more.

Trying to prepare for winter in zone 5.  Rosemary will not survive outside in our zone but I put leaves around them and am hoping!!

I made melt and pour soap with rose essential oil.  It is a shea butter soap and is white although this picture shows cream.

It is now all packaged up in cellophane ready to give away.

At the previous house I did nothing with my hollyhock for winter.  I read to cut dead foliage off and cut back to about 6 inches and mulch.  Done!  Hoping for flowers next year.

Made up a gluten free biscuit with a mix from Bob's Red Mill.  Fixed some breakfast sandwiches for myself with egg and cheese.  On a scale of one to ten I would rate it about a six!  But "beggars can't be choosers" when trying to eat gluten free!

I have been trying to figure out how to keep my strawberries in the raised bed on legs from freezing.  We put plastic around the bottom and then I put leaves around the strawberries but read that was not good so am taking those off.  Bought a half of a bale of straw and will put some of that around them after a couple of hard frosts.  This raised bed gardening in a courtyard with a dog that has to have room to "potty" and eats all my veggies is certainly a challenge!  Thank you for visiting.  Please come again!

Keeping busy

This geranium was so pretty this summer.  I think I will take it in the garage when it gets cold, give it water once in awhile and hope for the best!!

I saved my allowance and what did I spend it on?? Not clothes but another 2x8 raised gardening bed for next year!!!!!!!!!

Our great granddaughter, Nora, is six months old now!  She is growing up way too fast!  We think she is so precious!

Thought it time I got busy and put out a few fall things in the house!  Almost the end of October already!

Added this fall table runner again to the antique sewing cabinet.  I think I might be getting a wee bit lazy when it comes to decorating for the seasons!

Does anyone else do this?  I cut any extra cherry or sungold tomatoes in two and freeze them.  When I make our salads I get out a couple and add.  They thaw quickly and add a little color to the salad and a wee bit of nutrition.

I made two more crocheted fold over pot holders.  Two more sets done with knit dish cloths now.

And this is the second set!  So little time and so little energy!  Anyone else with that problem??

I made up a couple more of these mug rugs for presents.  If you don't know what a mug rug is, just look at the next picture!  This one is about 9x11 1/2 inches.

What a mug rug is!!

I made up this gluten free cheesy biscuit mix with herbs from Aldi's.  I am not too fond of it but when I am hungry I will eat them!!

Cali and Gracie are helping us babysit my friend's two furbabies for a few days!  Thanks for reading!  I will visit with you again some other time!  Almost time to feed our Coco furbaby!

Oct. 3rd

I did get the apple donuts made up for "Wonderful Gardener"!  In fact I made two batches!  As you can see they are not donuts but more like apple muffins rolled in cinnamon and sugar.  He is really enjoying them!

It is so nice to still be picking a few strawberries for our morning oatmeal!  Won't be long now and the winter weather will be here!  Ugh!

We keep finding these tiny greenish balls all over our house.  They seem to appear out of nowhere!  Are they spider eggs or does anyone know what they are???????

We got our lumpy applesauce all done so dehydrated a few apple slices out of some left over apples.

Made up three batches of freezer coleslaw.  Here are just three of the containers.  Not sure if I will do another batch or not.

Does anyone else do this?  These are bread bags rolled onto an empty cardboard paper towel holder.  I use them to double bag my bread I buy for the freezer and also to put my cooked hamburg in.  Then I put the cooked hamburg in the bread bag inside a ziploc bag and pop into the freezer.  That way it keeps my ziploc bag nice and clean to reuse and I then throw the used bread bag away after freezing the hamburg.  I call myself thrifty!  Some other people may call me something else!  LOL

I made up my all natural lotion bars yesterday.  I am waiting for them to finish hardening so that I can pop them out of the container.  They are all natural made out of shea butter, coconut oil and beeswax.  Just rub them on your skin.  Not much going on in my garden right now.  Hope you have a wonderful rest of week!!

Too Hot!

In my enthusiasm one day we bought a bushel and a half of apples.  Guess you know what that means!

We canned 21 pints of thick lumpy applesauce.  It is more work the way we do it as we don't put it through a sieve but we love it done this way.  Also put some in the freezer and made up three 8x8 pans of gluten free apple crisp and put in the freezer ready to pop in the oven!  Have a few apples left.  Maybe I will make "wonderful gardener" some apple donuts that he likes!  I don't know where to store my canned goods in this house so for now they are sitting on the cupboard!

"Wonderful Gardener" brought me this beautiful rose!  Do you think I should make the apple donuts for him??!!

Yummy cut up on our oatmeal!  We are still harvesting a few strawberries from our raised bed.  Looking forward to lots for next spring!

The Morning Glories seem to be enjoying the 90 plus degree weather!  Me not so much!!!!!

I found the directions for making this cute gift card holder on Pinterest to place a gift card in.  I should have taken a picture of the inside!

Our darling sweet great granddaughter Nora came for a visit today.  She didn't look too excited about having a conversation with us!  Happy you could visit!  Enjoy Autumn!