Ready for the 4th

It's hard for me to believe but June is almost gone and the 4th of July is right around the corner.   Before we know it we will be saying goodbye to summer and waiting for the leaves to turn yellow and red.   Oh, come on.   I'm not trying to give summer the bum's rush, really I'm not.  But the older I get the more time seems to speed along.  Haven't you found that to be so, too?

Well, maybe not.  I did find myself getting in the patriotic spirit of things a day ago as I pulled out some red, white and blue fabrics from the shelves in my studio and started playing around with them.  And here is what I made:

 I had just enough of the blue fabric with stars on it to eek out 2 "mug rugs".   Yup, that's the current term for a simple, 'ole drink coaster.  It was kinda fun to sew some up to give my table a little festive lift.  And my computer desk stays a lot drier now since I put the mug rug under my icy cold glass of water.  We will have no drips near the new computer, thank you.

 The mug rug was so much fun that I decided to make a patriotic pillow for out on the rocking chair porch.   The back of the pillow is simply done "envelope style" so the pillow insert can be removed and another cover put on once all the summer patriotic holidays are behind us.   That got me to thinking.......why not make a different pillow cover for the different seasons?    If I use the same pillow insert, then I can simply store the out of season pillow covers flat.....now that will take up a lot less space, right?   And here in our itty bitty farmhouse I am careful to avoid taking up precious storage space for frivolities.

So, now I am working on a fall, winter and spring cover for the same rectangular pillow form.   Geesh!   You'd think I have nothing better to do with my time than to invent new projects.....giggle.   But this was just so much fun and I love that making the pillow and mug rug provided some much needed instant gratification.   Ah, yes, I am so easily entertained.

Hey, give me a break here.   After all the massive projects Joel and I tackled this past 2 months it was fun to create something out of nothing and have an actual finished project in under an hour instead of weeks of working to achieve one goal.   Now you have a view into the life of someone with a short attention span.  Ha!

Now what I really should be doing is working in my garden.   Ah-hem.   Yes, there are a lot of weeds to be pulled and the strawberry bed is overflowing with runners.   But, it's too hot to work outside, isn't it?   And I miss sewing......   But I digress.    What you are looking at here is something to behold.   Just over 2 years ago after arriving on our farm, we planted several thornless varieties of blackberry bushes.   They didn't produce much last year and I was ever hopeful we might get some berries this season.

Well, let me tell you, they have gone crazy this year.   And today Joel and I went into the garden and picked our first berries and ate them on the spot.   Oh, yum!   This is how big some of them are.....I mean, seriously, this thing is gigantic.   It's a whole mouthful!   Tomorrow morning I plan on going out there at first light before the sun gets up off the horizon and starts heating up the day.  

Yup, gonna pick me some berries.
Debbie

Happy Easter

It's hard to believe, but Easter is almost upon us.    Seems like it was just a few days ago we were wearing winter coats, hats and mittens.    And now the grass is greening up and trees are beginning to bud here on the Plateau.   I believe Spring has finally arrived!   Last week we had a brief shower and when I went outside at dinnertime for one last check on the animals, this is what greeted me at my back screen door.

Yes!    A double rainbow had appeared, reaching from horizon to horizon.   How often do you get to see a double rainbow?    And one where you can see the complete arch?

The left side of the rainbow was tucked behind our tree line beyond the chicken coop....

....and it stretched itself high in the early twilight sky....

......and came back down to earth over the ridge to our east.    How.   Very.   Pretty.

Every day here on the farm is a blessing to us.   I have finally learned how to slow down and enjoy the moment.....most especially the "simple pleasures" of life.    I know that can sound cliche', slowing down to enjoy what is right in front of us.   But, it's true.  

Without the distractions of the city, I find myself thrilled at the pleasure of the simplest events.    The sound of the wind making its way thru the tall hardwood trees, our rooster crowing off in the distance, the alpaca happily munching their way across a green pasture, walking into the orchard to see the first signs of flower buds appearing.   Yes, these are the things that make my heart sing, and also have given me a heightened appreciation for all our Lord and Savior has provided for us.

So, on this Easter weekend, Joel and I pray you and your family will take some time to thank God for the sacrifice of His son for our sake, for the gift of salvation through Jesus's death on the cross, and pray you have accepted that gift by taking Jesus into your life as your personal Savior.    How perfectly simple.   Just accept the gift freely given to you.....and your heart, too, will sing.

Happy Easter,
Blessings,
Debbie

It's Finished

Yup, Jeremy actually finished the rhyme of our day today which is written tongue in cheek about the death of our alpaca yesterday.   Here it is:

'Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the farm, all the creatures were stirring, except that one in the barn.
It was placed in the cart with some amount of care, in hopes that the bloat would not explode there.
The roosters were crowing, the alpacas moved out, while father and I tried to sort this thing out.
The day after Christmas, nothing's open you see, and a short trip to the dump was just not meant to be.
With the rain coming down and no wood for a fire, there came but one choice, for which we had no desire.
A hole in the ground, it's new place to be, far too much work for father and me.
We had no backhoe, nor friends which to grovel, so father and I went out back with two shovels.
We dug and we dug in the clay through the rocks, occasionally stopping to exclaim, "This sucks!"
Finally done, with the Kubota we tromped, out of the front end loader it fell with a clomp.
Mother returned from town with some lime, and I began to compose this rhyme.
So the spirit of Christmas wasn't ruined, you see, but the alpaca in the ground, was not meant to be.
I hope that my story didn't give you a fright, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

OH.  MY.    What else can I say after that?   Except maybe, good job, Jeremy.
Deb

"Twas the Day After Christmas"

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends.   And now, here it is, the 26th of December.   All the presents have been unwrapped, the cookies devoured and hugs and kisses shared with loved ones.   Joel and I have been so happy to have Jeremy here with us for a couple of days.   We sure do miss our kids, their spouses, and our grandkids back in Florida, especially during the holidays.   But we spoke to them all a couple of times this last week and shared as much as we could via phone calls and FaceTime.

And now that Christmas is over, our lives can settle back into a somewhat normal routine.   Although, what is considered normal for some of us is quite different for others.    For example:   Of all days in the year, we had an alpaca get sick late in the morning of December 24th.   Yup, just like when the kids were little......getting sick late on a Friday afternoon or just before a big holiday when you hated to bother the doctor.   Do we call the vet or wait until after Christmas?   We decided our alpaca was sick enough to warrant a call to the vet.   We proceeded to call the vet and explained what we observed going on with sweet Calico, our tamest female alpaca.

He was so gracious and said that after his family luncheon he would be on his way here to make a farm call.   True to his word, he showed up with his veterinary wife and we four proceeded to walk down to the barn.   He diagnosed Calico with an infection of a parasite, not uncommon in alpaca.  We had been giving preventive shots to our herd, but this particular parasite was not being covered by the meds we had been using.    She was very anemic and he gave us some meds to use and instructions about how to care for her.  After almost a 2 hour farm call here, the vets left and Joel and I walked back up to the house after settling Calico on an old rug in the stall.  

And so I trooped on down to the barn early Christmas morning, singing Christmas carols all the way. But when I walked into the girls side of the barn, I was heartbroken when I saw Calico's  lifeless body on the ground.    Joel and Jeremy joined me as we knelt by her side and stroked her soft fleece.   I cried for the loss of such a sweet animal and was so sorry that our inexperience may have cost her an early death.    We carried her out of the stall and laid her gently in my large wagon that tows behind my tractor.  Um, what else do you do on a holiday with a dead 135lb. animal?    Tell me, please.

The phone rang all morning in our house as well wishes came our way from family and friends, wishing us a Merry Christmas, but our hearts were heavy from the loss of our first alpaca.  I was torn between acting "all happy", forcing myself to not let on to others what we had experienced that morning, or should I just be honest and explain what had just happened to us.    I felt that if I didn't tell why our hearts were heavy, our voices would betray us and folks would know something was amiss.    So we finally just let everyone know what had happened and went on with our day.

Now, this morning, it's 24 hours later and poor Calico is, shall we say, getting bloated?    Gross!    Sorry to be so graphic, but, you guys have been walking step by step with us thru this new farm life adventure and this experience is no exception.   I may as well tell you what it has been like for us today.   Giggle.....aren't you glad you read my blog now?  I called a farm friend of ours who works for the city, asking if he knew why the phone number for the city landfill(where large animals are laid to rest) was disconnected.   Oh, yea, he said, that no longer exists.  Hmmmm.    Now how are we supposed to dispose of Calico?    Dig a hole, he says.

Seriously, it's been raining here since early this week.   We had 2-3/4" of rain fall yesterday alone.    Our farm is as soggy as a huge sponge.   And now we have to dig a large hole....in all that mud.......and bury her here?!?   Deep breath.   Alright.   We can do this.    At least it had stopped raining late in the morning and we had a short window of dry weather that would allow us to get the digging done.   And so Jeremy and Joel proceeded to a spot they thought was appropriate and starting digging.    And digging.   And digging.     Now they're getting silly.    And making all kinds of goofy remarks about burials and leading the processional with the Polaris.   Joel said he'd turn on the headlights of the Polaris after he hooked up the wagon loaded with poor, sweet Calico in it, and drive her nice and slow to the hole.

And then Jeremy blurted this out:  

Twas the day after Christmas,
And all over the farm,
All the creatures were stirring,
Except the one in the barn.

Oh.  My.   Goodness.   I almost peed my pants.   Where does he come up with these things?    Now he says he's going to finish the rhyme and post it on Facebook.   I'm afraid to look.    And that, folks, is how we have dealt with the first major death of an animal on our farm.   (Yea, I know, we lost a couple of chickens to the fox, but they just never showed up again, so, it wasn't as bad as this.)

First thing this morning, I had to run into town to buy a 50lb. bag of lime to "dust" poor Calico with before they put the dirt back on top of her in the hole.   Aw, geez.    And I also picked up the new kind of feed with meds to protect the rest of the herd from the same parasite that killed Calico.   Lesson learned.    And a new bond has been formed with the very patient, very kind vet who so graciously spent some of his Christmas Eve trying to help out our animals.

So I do hope you all did something "normal" today like shopping the after-Christmas sales, or returning gifts, or watching your kids play with all their new toys.   I'm certain whatever you did today, it was a lot more sane than what we did!

 This is one holiday for the books, folks!
Debbie

The most dreaded Project of all, part two

You're not going to believe why it has taken me four days to post this.    I'm telling you, you're not going to believe me!    Ok, here it comes.......our internet is so sketchy and so slow here that when the school kids are home from school, I can't even bring up AOL.   I mean it.    Because of Christmas, all the kids are home and playing on the internet and because we are so far out of town,  the internet slows down to way under 1mbps.   Crazy, isn't it?    So because the little urchins have been burning up the wires I have been unable to blog.    Ha!  I fixed that!    They all must like to sleep in because it is currently 6:00 a.m. and I had zero trouble uploading my pics and getting the blog to come up on screen.

So, without further adieu, here's the next set of pics of the Most Dreaded Project of all.  

It has occurred to me that maybe you'd like to see the outside of what we've been doing and put this all in perspective.   The original farmhouse is obviously on the left and the studio is on the right.   And you can see that the breezeway connecting the two isn't all that big, but it is!    It's huge to me in what it means in availability.   The studio has tan Hardi-Board on it and so we continued the look on the breezeway.    Eventually the house, too, will match the studio as the vinyl siding is getting a bit old and brittle.   But that's a project for another day.  

Anyway, we were able to match the green metal roof of the studio to the one on the house and will also do that for the breezeway.......someday.   I'm not pushing it, you know?   We'd also like to fill in the area under the studio with some kind of wall as right now the studio is sitting up on blocks and underneath it is open.   But again, that's a project for another day.

This is the view of the breezeway from the studio.   It sure is nice having the option of simply walking from the house into the studio now.   I can't tell you how many times a day I do that to work on one project or another.   And last night I sat out there and watched Monday Night Football while I worked on some hand embroidery.   Fun.  Fun.

See?    The ceiling planks match the ceiling in the studio and it's all painted.  Joel even put up my funky pink chandelier that I had used at my shop in Florida.   The dry wall still needs another skim coat over the joints and then I'll be able to paint it.   The wooden boxed in chase on the far wall houses the pipes for the Mitsubishi air conditioner/heater on the wall behind the breezeway in the porch and helps to keep that room nice and cozy year round.

When Joel removed the window in the porch we went back and forth about whether or not to re-use it in the breezeway.   One day I went to town to run some errands and when I came back the window was installed!    And boy, am I ever glad he did it.    It would have been really dark in that little space without the natural light that the window brings in.  He's so clever, isn't he?

 After the walls get painted, it's going to get real interesting to see how we match up the flooring.   I know we will have to install a threshold to span the gap from one room to another.   Yea, another little "problem" for us to figure out.    We're so close to being done.........and then we can settle in and relax a bit over the winter.   Ha!  Don't laugh!   We do so know how to relax.

Isn't it looking great?    I'm getting really excited to get some paint on the walls and watch it turn into a usable space.   We have a huge armoire that used to be in our bedroom that simply doesn't fit anywhere in the house.    I've repurposed it to hold all my scrapbooking supplies and we built the breezeway deep enough for the armoire to sit out there in it's own space and out of the way.    We are doing whatever possible to utilize any available space for storage that we can, and this one is a real winner for us.

As you can see, I have some patching to do on the walls in the porch where we moved a few sockets. Then a quick coat of paint and some trim around the doorway and we're almost there!    I think we're going to take a break until after Christmas and then just 2 or 3 more days of flooring and trim work and this project should be complete!  

In the meantime, here's what Christmas looks like in my studio.

 I keep white lights strung around the four windows all year long.....don't ask.   It just makes me happy to have lights up!    And this is the little white feather tree from my shop, Pink Florida Threads.   The tree has pink and blue ornaments and colorful jingle bells for a garland.  It has a wild colored tree topper, too.   I made the tree skirt a few years ago with all my favorite bright colors in it.....pink, lime and teal.

And in the tree is nestled the little blue bird sitting on her nest with eggs inside it, just like the bluebirds I watch outside my studio window.   Ahhhhh......all is calm....all is bright.

And so, until the saga of The Project continues in a few days, I'd like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.   May God Bless you and yours this holiday.
Deb

It's the Small Things

When I got the idea for this post a few days ago, my intention was to simply showcase some close up photos of our first Christmas here on the farm.    But, life sometimes has a way of turning everything upside down in a flash. 

All it takes is one simple phone call to change everything.   Our phone call came Saturday evening as we were driving home from my lovely early birthday celebration.   Joel and Jeremy had taken me out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant in town and as we were driving home my cell phone rang.   It was Jarrad, our oldest son, and he asked to speak to Joel.

Seems Jarrad was in some discomfort and had a "growth" protruding out from his left upper chest wall and it was hurting and he wondered what doctor to go see.   Joel gave him the name of someone he trusted and Jarrad proceeded to get an appt. for Monday afternoon.   Dr. Rodriquez was very concerned when he examined Jarrad and ordered a CT scan for the very next morning.   The 23rd.   My 61st birthday.  

When Jarrad called us mid-afternoon with the report, it was not good news.   He has a 4" lymphoma tumor in his left upper chest next to his heart and pushing up against his rib cage.   The tip of the tumor has bulged out between 2 ribs and that was the "growth" Jarrad was complaining about.  

A lot of phone calls have burned up the wires over the last 24 hours and a plan is coming into place.   Jarrad goes into the hospital Friday morning (remember, folks, it's Christmas and very difficult to get these complicated tests done with so many docs out of town or out of their offices).  He will be an outpatient as a biopsy will need to be done to uncover what type of cancer we are dealing with.   Then the real work begins.

So what does that have to do with the Small Things?    Many of you will already be able to relate to this, but when you are faced with life threatening circumstances, it's amazing how it's usually the Small Things that take on major importance.  

Things like a soft touch from your spouse to comfort you in your distress.   Things like the sun finally shining thru the clouds to brighten your day after days of stormy weather.   Things like enjoying the lights on the Christmas tree late on Christmas Eve when the kids are finally asleep and the presents are all laid out under the tree.   Things like taking a deep breath, closing your eyes and feeling God's arms wrapped around you as tears run down your face.

I know we are all caught up in our hustle bustle world, especially at this busy season.   There are cookies to bake and presents to wrap and parties to attend.  My wish for you is that you have many moments where the Small Things touch your heart, make you stop for just a moment, and lock those memories away in your heart.

Please lift Jarrad and his wife Dawn up in prayer as they are about to face trials such as they have never dreamed they would have to face.   And pray for me as I drive on Christmas day......hey, a mama's gotta be by her son's side when he is about to get life changing news.  I'll try and keep you updated about Jarrad's condition.

One thing.....for those of you who have never met Jarrad, he's the eternal optimist.  He never met a stranger, always has a ready smile on his face, and has the word "Positive" practically stamped on his forehead.   So it didn't surprise me when yesterday, in the midst of the phone calls and fear, he and I joked that he didn't have to go to such extreme measures to help me forget I was now another year older.  That's Jarrad.   And yes, he knows Jesus as his Savior and that God is in control of all that is happening to him right now.

Have a Blessed Christmas with your loved ones,
And thank you for praying for our family,
Debbie

Quick Peek at Our Easter Decor

Even though we are still living with quite a few boxes unpacked due to the lack of cabinets in the kitchen and small closets in the entire house, I still can't resist the urge to decorate.....just a wee bit for the holidays.   Our back porch is the main entry into the farmhouse so it's the natural place to do a bit of decorating.  But the porch is long and narrow and when it rains anything up against the screens gets wet, so right now I've put all the rocking chairs and tables up against the house to protect them.  

This sofa table used to be in our living room but it works so well out here on the porch and gives me a flat surface on which to put cute objects.   Like the ceramic bunnies.....and the chalkboard....and the runner I made years ago from an old ragged quilt in Easter colors.

As you can see, I've been having fun experimenting with the grandkids' chalk.  Who knew that chalkboard art would be elevated and find a place in home decor?

And doesn't everyone have an egg wreath hanging on their door?   Can you see the April mini-quilt hanging in the background?  I just love those monthly little guys.

I even found my Easter tablecloth.....miracle of miracles!    And the bunny plates, cups and saucers are just too cute.....

Ok, I know I promised that I'd show you pics of my cabinets.....and then I forgot all about it.   So here is the bookshelf built along the right hand side of the refrigerator in the kitchen.   I am so happy to finally have a home for all my cookbooks.   After the rest of the kitchen is finished, the counter portion of this bookshelf will have a matching countertop installed.   But for now at least there is a painted wooden countertop in place.   And the bunnies are very happy to rest there for a while. 

 Behind the bunnies is a needlepoint of fresh asparagus that I stitched many years ago.   The fresh asparagus remind me of Easter, and so every year the stitched pic gets pulled out for a few weeks and displayed.  Normally I have much more put out for Easter but this year I'm keeping it simple.  Works for me!

How do you decorate for Easter?
Debbie

Red Banner Day

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all.   Go on, give someone a big warm hug today.....a loved one, a good friend, your co-worker.   It'll make you both feel good.   And it may even make you both giggle a little.

As I sit here typing this I am watching a very industrious family of bluebirds building a nest.   Maybe they are getting ready for the next generation of bluebirds.    Is there any greater form of love than preparing for those we love?    As for me, the way I show love is to serve......serve food, serve drink, show hospitality.....you know what I mean. 

And that's why I couldn't seem to help myself when I asked Joel to drag out one of my holiday bins....the one with the Valentine's and St. Patty's placemats and red and green decorations.   We may still be living with boxes stacked around us, but we can still take a few moments to cherish each other.

So from our farm to your house, we wish you a red banner day.   Now I'm going to go make myself a cappuccino.   Hey, you knew that was coming!

Signing off,
Sentimental Debbie

River Crossing Thanksgiving

This was a quiet Thanksgiving for us with Jeremy now living in Sioux Falls.   And as it was Jarrad and Dawn's year to spent the holiday with her family, Joel and I decided to spend Thanksgiving up at the river, A.K.A., River Crossing.  It was so relaxing to walk the dogs in the cool morning air and we finally got to enjoy our newly enclosed back porch.   Every morning, Joel and I took our coffee out there and rocked on the new rocking chairs as we chatted and sipped our caffeine of choice.  It actually got down to 38 degrees several mornings!

I had cooked our turkey at home before we went to the cabin because I have limited pots and pans up there.   Wow!   Did that ever work out nice?   I loved just warming up the sliced turkey and making the gravy from all the juices I had saved the day I roasted the bird.   Then, the only other thing to make was my kid's favorite.......stuffing!   Yum!   Cornbread crumbled up and cubes of seasoned bread studded with Granny Smith apples, raisins, and pecans mixed with sauteed celery and onion.    Hmmmm, maybe I need to make some more of that............and not wait for a holiday.

Julie, Cameron, Sydney and Jackson arrived early in the afternoon just as everything was ready to come out of the oven.   Julie had made the sweet potato casserole, the mashed potatoes, the best pumpkin pie I have ever eaten and a gorgeous two crusted apple pie.  

There was certainly nothing upscale about our table this year, but I sure did a lot less work and I enjoyed everyone's company a whole lot more!

Yum!   I could eat this meal all over again!  

All in all we had a truly relaxing day together and ended it with a fire in the fire pit.    The kids and I  toasted marshmallows and Jack had s'mores since he doesn't care for pie.   The rest of us dug into pie and coffee.  

 

What a great way to spend the day, eating yummy food with loved ones, enjoying the fresh, cool outdoors and relaxing by a fire.   Ahhhhhh, more of that , please......

Just me and my favorite guy..........sitting on our deck.......by the fire........doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!     Can you believe it?    There are so few pics of me, over the years, where I am actually sitting still, that I'm sure you can't believe I could do that...........sit still, that is.   Well, I'm learning how....... 


River Girl,
Debbie

Dancing and Dinosaur

Julie and Jarrad broke out in dance as they were giggling about things they used to do during their childhood. Yes, this is what we do at family get togethers!

Jackson was obviously elated with a Christmas present, wouldn't you say?

Nate was tickled to have Dad sit on the floor with him and teach him how to use his Sit N' Spin.

Sydney thought Josh's new toy dinosaur was pretty funny.

And Josh learned how to "feed" his new pet, the trick performing dinosaur.

This guys burps, growls, eats, purrs when you pet him and does a few other things we won't go into here. We're still having a good time.....

Debbie

Boiling

This is not exactly your typical Christmas picture, but, it's an accurate one for our 2010 holiday. On the evening of the 23rd of December I turned on the water in the kitchen and the water pressure had been reduced to a trickle. Hmmmm......the neighbor came over to see if we had any water because she sure didn't have much pressure either. Well, it turns out a 50" water main had broken on Belcher Road north of East Bay....which means about 350,000 people were affected by the break according to the news.

By the morning of the 24th, the news was reporting that we were under a boil water notice under told otherwise. So, the picture above is how we managed to wash all our dishes until the morning of Dec. 26th. One pot for washing and one pot for rinsing. At least the water pressure came back up so we could take showers and wash clothes. Boy, was I ever glad when they lifted the boil water notice! We are so used to all our modern conveniences that you forget how much more labor it takes to go about your daily life when one of our utilities has a glitch.

Thanks to all our camping experiences for helping us take it all in stride. So, this year it was plastic plates and cups for meals. Hey, I might do that next year, too! Sure did eliminate a lot of dishwashing. We still had a wonderful time with our family. Hope you did, too.

Back to running water,
Debbie

Christmas Kitchen

So, I've been a little busy lately and finally got our tree decorated a couple of days ago. This morning I decided to get a jump start on the day and got up early, put on Christmas music, lit the balsam candle and fired up the cappuccino machine. When I put my Christmas mug down, it looked so pretty I had to grab the camera and click off a few shots to remember the season before it's gone.

My sweet and very thoughtful friend, Bonnie, knew how busy I was taking care of Joel's mom this year and she baked these yummy cookies for us. (I LOVE the coconut- cherry- chocolate chip ones, Bonnie....would you share the recipe?) Well I'm heading out the door to do something fun today instead of work.....I'm having lunch with Teresa to celebrate Christmas early and then I'll try and do some final Christmas shopping. Hope you are taking a few precious moments to soak up the sights, sounds and scents of this cherished holiday season.

Eight days until Christmas,

Debbie

Recipes and lists, Oh, My!

For those of you who think I'm so organized...let these pics be evidence to the contrary. My kitchen looks like something blew up in it and I've only just begun. You can't see the cooler hanging out in front of the oven.....I needed to use it to hold the turkey after it's in the brine bag since it won't fit in my refrigerator with everything else that's in there!

The cooked giblets are cooling in their pot alongside the brine that also has to cool before dunking the bird into it's lusciousness. My recipe books are out and scattered across the counter for reference and before the night is out, I'm sure every surface of the kitchen will be covered with dirty pots, pans and dishes.

And speaking of the bird, my "fresh" 25 lb. turkey had ice crystals on it when I opened it this morning. Good thing I didn't wait until Thanksgiving day to open it up and discover that little detail or we'd be having Chinese for dinner. Trust me, the turkey is soaking in cool water even though the sink looks empty in the photo.

Ok, doesn't the brine look pretty in the blue dutch oven? I had to try this recipe after seeing it on Pioneer Woman's website. I'll let you know if it keeps the turkey moist and tastes as good as this looks. Well, I guess I am going to get back to the turkey, pies and casseroles.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Debbie

Happy New Year

We hope you had a wonderful weekend bringing in the new year.   This is how we spent our weekend.   Oh, don't get the wrong idea....this is how we spell F...U...N... in our family!   We actually had a blast working up at the river. 

The temperature dropped to 29 and was expected to be there for 4 nights.   We didn't care, though, because we were cozy warm working inside.  Everyone had a huge bonfire burning outside of their RV's and some even had a fully decorated Christmas tree parked outside, too.

Wouldn't you like to have your morning coffee here with this view of the river? 

Speaking of coffee....it's time for me to make my morning cappuccino.

Have a blessed and healthy New Year,

Debbie & family

Turkey Roulade or....It's just a Turkey, you Turkey!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this year.  I had a great day, I just got off to a little bit of a late start.   Note the pink "Santa Baby" pajamas....at 9:30 Christmas morning in the photo above.   I had planned on waking up around 7 or 8am, sipping my first cappuccino while I worked on a new recipe for the main dish of the day, turkey roulade.  Well, it was cozy under the covers in our bed, especially since the house was a bit chilly.   When I finally looked at the clock, it was 9:30.  Yikes!   The bird was supposed to be in the oven at 9:30 and I was just getting up!

I jumped out of bed and raced around the kitchen prepping the stuffing for the roulade.   Now, I've never done a roulade before....talk about brave(or really, really stupid).   My family is used to being the taste testers for my culinary attempts.   I had had the butcher at Publix debone an entire turkey for me the day before and prep the turkey breast as had been called for in the recipe.   I was able to knock out an hour of prep in under 40 minutes.....chopping dried figs and soaking them with dried cranberries in brandy on the stove.  Joel was put to work sauteing onions and celery and pork sausage to add to the cornbread stuffing.   Yummy!  Then came the part I was unsure of...how to roll the turkey breast around the layer of stuffing and tie the whole thing together.   It actually went better than I thought it would have.

 

As you can see, it came out of the oven looking pretty.....nice and brown and done to the correct temperature according to the thermometer.  But how was it going to taste?   After letting it rest for 15 minutes under a tent of foil I transferred it to the platter and held my breath as I sliced it open. 

What a surprise!   It worked!   And we actually ate right on rime.  My sweet daughter-in-law even pronounced that it was the juiciest turkey she had ever eaten.   Ahhhh, success.  Oh, and by the way, I did take the time to actually get dressed before everyone arrived.

I wonder what I should try to make for our next holiday get together?   Hmmmmmm.....I'll let you know.

Back in my jammies,

Debbie