Before & After, Birthday, & Give - Away

I promised you updates on the homestead.  Below are two videos, both showing the woods around the driveway which encompass approximately 5 acres of wooded area, broken trees, and tons of underbrush.  Our goal was to clear the old unwanted alive, and dead trees, along with the underbrush.
Bulldog Man and I started the work and realized it would take us a year, or longer, to get all the work done.  So, I hired a company, Bushwackers Land Clearing (from the Oklahoma/Texas areas) to come out with one piece of equipment for 3 days to do the work.  They did an excellent job of shredding the underbrush, dead, and old trees.  It is now so much easier for us to eventually level out the area, and create some garden beds, RV storage, and areas for future building.

BEFORE

AFTER

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We've been busy down in Texas this week as well.  We finally had our probate court hearing for my sister's estate.  It took over 7 months to finally get administrator rights, and heirship.  The delay was mostly due to an election, where the original judge was voted out of office.  We had to wait until a new judge was put in office, and trained.    Having the legal paperwork finally allowed me the opportunity to get the ball moving with bills, banking, my sister's house, and her vehicle.

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Catalog picture from Baker Creek (Rareseeds.com)

Did any of you get "The Whole Seed Catalog for 2019" from Baker Creek yet?
I'm already marking pages in the catalog for new seed purchases.  You really need to get this catalog, it's got all kinds of unique seeds, and makes for a great book for your coffee table in the living room.


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Today's Tanks birthday, 26 years of age....time sure flies.  Instead of making lunch this afternoon, Tank suggested we go to a Mexican restaurant in the next town.  We honored his wishes, and I'm making a cake right now.  Actually, it's in the oven, as I piddle with the computer to get a post out to y' all.

In the near future, I will be sponsoring another one of my awesome give - away's to show my appreciation to my blogger friends for sticking it out with me while I deal with the loss of my sister.
Keep an eye out for my give-away!!!

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Friday the 13^th of June, my birthday.  It’s hard to believe I’m 52 years of age today, I only feel like I’m 29 :-).  Every time my birthday falls on a Friday, it brings me good luck.  

Bulldog Man and Tank took me out to eat last night, at a place called BJ’s.  I suggested we go out on Thursday instead of Friday.  Restaurants in town are so busy on Friday nights, and I really didn’t want to have to deal with crowds………besides we had a coupon for buy one meal and get the second free.  What a deal right??  The meal was delicious, and then we topped it off with this awesome berry cobbler with crème and nuts.  

My husband and I have this deal; we don’t get each other gifts for our birthdays or Christmas.  We may go out to eat or just have a wonderful homemade meal.  

I did however make my husband promise to take me back to Lake of the Arbuckles tomorrow morning real early to go fishing; before the weather breaks loose with severe storms.

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The funeral home who took care of my Dad’s arrangements when he passed away contacted my Mom; to see if she would be interested in being a part of a memorial they were presenting, for all those who had passed away the first 6 months of the year 2014. 

This memorial took place in a well known park in the city where my Mom resides.  There were over 400 people who attended this event.  The funeral home read the name of everyone who passed away, and then gave a butterfly to each family member to release in the name of the person who passed away in each family. 

We released 5 butterflies for every member left in our family; the first landed on my Mother’s chest.

The remaining 4 flew off high in the sky.  This memorial was beautiful, with flowers all over. A light lunch was also served to the family members.  This was the first time the funeral home sponsored such an event.  They now plan on doing this each year to support all family members who suffer the loss of a loved one.

 

Speaking of butterflies, this one paid me a visit while working in and around my flowers today……..do you think it’s a sign?

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Pictures inside my garden area right after it rained.  The water just puddled, we received too much all at once.  It took 2 days to dry out.

The sun finally came out, and the grass finally dried enough to get outside and cut the grass with the Zen machine; tractor mower!!  The property looks nicely groomed, that is until we get more rain and our weeds start growing again.

We harvested another large pot of green beans.  I blanched the beans and placed them in a food saver bag to store in the freezer.  Here’s a picture of more tomatoes harvested from the tomato plants in the garden.  These are on the window sill soaking up the sun.

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Bulldog Man gives this recipe a rating of 4 paws.

I wasn't able to get a picture before the casserole was spooned out.

Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon

1 pound Elbow Macaroni

4 cups milk

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons of all purpose flour

4 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (I use the 2 packages by Kraft it has 4 different types of cheddar cheese already shredded). Set aside 3 tablespoons of cheese for using later on top of casserole.

Pepper (to taste)

¼ cup chopped flat parsley

8 slices of bacon

½ onion, diced

1 can tomato soup

Fresh thyme (4 small branches stripped of leaves, chop leaves).

Directions

Cook pasta in pot until al dente (refer to instructions on box of pasta), drain pasta after cooking and set aside.

Preheat oven 400 degrees

In a pan cook onions until translucent

Transfer onions to another pot; place 4 tablespoons of butter in pot, let butter melt.  Once butter has melted place 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour in pot and stir continuously until all the flour is worked into the butter onion mixture.  Make sure there are no lumps left.  Add milk to mixture keep stirring, and then add cheese, thyme, and tomato soup stirring continuously.  Once everything is melted and mixed together, set this pot aside.  In a frying pan cook up 8 bacon slices (don’t cook them crispy).

After cooking the bacon slices, chop up the bacon in small pieces.  Place the bacon in the pot you set aside the one with the cheese and tomato soup mixture.  Now add your cooked pasta and parsley.  Mix well, transfer casserole mixture to a large casserole dish.  Make sure to grease this dish before putting the casserole mixture in.  Place the casserole mixture in the baking dish; level the casserole mixture in the pan, and sprinkle a little bit of leftover cheese on the top of the casserole. 

Baking time 20 – 30 minutes.

Duck Tape - Garden Update - Birthday - Accident - Temperatures

Duck Tape, what a great resource to use for repairing all kinds of things; like my husband’s reclining chair. Where your body touches the recliner, the material started peeling.  No, it’s not leather, it’s that stuff we call pleather.  The cushion constantly peels leaving a fine layer of pleather pieces on the floor in different parts of the house.  Instead of sewing a cushion cover, I decided to use brown Duck Tape.  This stopped the peeling and covered the worn spot.  The tape works for me…….that is until we purchase a new chair for Bulldog Man. 

Did you know Duck Tape comes in a multitude of colors and designs to include but not limited to; animal prints, college and NFL football team logos/colors? 

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Garden update on several areas:

Arugula, time to harvest and place in salads.

Collards, still growing, need to spray because bugs are eating at them.

Lettuce, Boston and Mesculin, ready for harvest.

Asparagus, bolting.

Tomatoes, Dad’s Sunset and Purple Russian both need cages and more time to grow.

I’m not sure what this is, it popped up in my Tomato above ground box.  This may be a melon of some sort or squash, your thoughts?

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Yesterday, June 13^th was my Birthday.  I told Bulldog Man and Tank I really didn’t want to celebrate, I just wanted some quiet time to relax and maybe catch a pizza in town.  Earlier in the day, I went to court with our son Tank to settle a case regarding his injuries from being jumped and injured at his previous job.  It took months to get to court.  When we went into the court room, the entire process took 10 minutes and the case was settled and closed.  I’m happy this case is over, and our son is in the process of healing.  He still doesn’t have 100 percent usage of his hand and shoulder.

Later that evening while enjoying my birthday pizza in town, I received a phone call from Tank; he informed me a young male driver in a Silverado decided to turn in front of him to get a parking space located off the side of the road.  Let me explain the situation.  In town there are several streets that are one way.  Main Street has 3 lanes, all of which head east.  Along side of the street on both sides are parking spaces.  Tank was driving his truck in the left lane east bound when another truck was driving east in the middle lane.  All of a sudden, the middle truck decides he wants to park on the left side of the street, cutting across my son’s lane with no regard to any traffic.  Instead of watching for vehicles in the left lane, this young man turned his truck toward the parking space on the left side of the street: driving right into our son’s massive 1 ton truck’s front quarter panel.  Damaged the front right side of our son’s truck, pushing in the big bumper he made for the truck. Squished the front quarter panel and the hood of the truck into the engine area.  So much for a quiet birthday L

I’m looking forward to the weekend; I have Saturday to do a few things around the house.  Then on Sunday, I return to Texas to help my Dad.

Temperatures have peaked into the high 90’s.  Any type of gardening or yard work this time of the year is done in the early morning hours or later in the evening when the sun starts to go down. 

BD - Garden Updates - Bird Bath - Peach Jam - Guar Gum

Today has turned out to be a beautiful day.  The sun is trying to peak out amongst the clouds.  We had some rain, not much though.  My husband surprised me for my birthday with a Kindle Fire, my son, a beautiful necklace and this afternoon the door bell rang and there was a special delivery of roses from my sister and parents.  I told everyone not to do anything.  I am however, looking forward to going out to eat tonight, we are planning on getting BBQ.  It’s been a while since we’ve had good old fashioned brisket, corn, Cole slaw……………and it just sounds good.  Especially, when I don’t have to cook ….hehehehehe!!!!

Garden/Property Updates:

The corn has really taken off since we had that bad storm. Remember when the storm and winds caused our corn to lay flat down on the ground, requiring Bulldog Man and I to create support?  Well lookie ….lookie, we have several red-headed women (I mean corn) standing up and looking prettyJ . 

The celery planted in pots has bolted and gone to seed.  Time to pull the seeds and dry them for next year’s planting.

The ginger that came home with my son (you know the one; the company he works for was going to toss out).  Well it apparently likes its new home.  It has produced flowers and now new leafs and branches.

The avocado was transplanted into its own bucket and apparently it loves its new home too.   The leaves just look so strong and hearty, almost like a maple/oak tree.

My Roma tomatoes have taken off, and started producing tomatoes. Hopefully the little green fruit will turn into large vibrant red tomatoes.

Bulldog Man saved a part of a tree trunk we cut down weeks ago.  I figured I would borrow the bird bath idea from one of my Sweet Blogger Friends, Kymber. When I went into town, I purchased a deep plate for $1.00 from The Dollar Tree store.  This weekend sometime, I will be putting the entire contraption together and moving my old bird feeder relatively close to the homemade bird bath.

I picked up a 1/2 bushel of peaches from the local Farmers Market the other day and made peach jam.  I used Cindy Burke’s recipe from the Culinate.com website.  The jam came out very tasty and really good.  http://www.culinate.com/recipes/collections/Contributors/cindy_burke/peach_preserves

Guar Gum (is created from the guar bean. It’s husked, milled and screened) used specifically as a thickener (8 times better than actual corn starch) and considered a hot commodity.  The price of the Guar Gum has and will continue to go up in price dramatically.  This product is typically used to thicken food products like ice cream, cheese, and baked goods (which will increase the dough size) in commercial food products. Guar Gum is also found in many medications and cosmetics. Here’s the kicker, prices for this product are rising.  The reason, companies like Halliburton have found a way to use Guar Gum to help process hydraulic fracturing. Because of the high demand for Guar Gum by Halliburton and other drilling companies, the price of Guar Gum has gone up, depleting availability of the product, which in turn changes the price of the product.  Halliburton stated; “they experienced a loss in their profits for the second quarter because of the price increase of purchasing Guar Gum”.  Yep, and this is where the old terms “supply” and “demand” come into factor.  Not enough of the product produced for everyone’s needs naturally causes a rise in the prices!!!!  What did I do?  I went out and bought enough Guar Gum to last me a lifetime, lol…….nah, really…I bought enough to last a long time.