Last night I made some cornbread. I thought it would be a nice treat for Sam and the chickens this morning. Believe it or not I got 6 eggs yesterday. Those girls deserve a treat!
Here on our little piece of the great Hoosier State it is currently 5 degrees BELOW 0. There's almost something eery-feeling about the outdoors when it's this cold. In the early mornings, especially, it feels like things are in slow motion. I tend to gaze outside and wonder how the animals and the birds are keeping warm and where they are - all hunkered down surviving the winter blast. It certainly makes me appreciate the warmth of my home. Last night I made some cornbread. I thought it would be a nice treat for Sam and the chickens this morning. Believe it or not I got 6 eggs yesterday. Those girls deserve a treat! I spent a lot of time downstairs today. I'm neck-deep in the whole process of making my own teas. I am wanting some really special teas to come out of this venture and I'm trying to document each step along the way. It's a pain but kind of exciting. For instance, I've had condensed orange juice in the dehydrator for about 36 hours. It's perfect as a leather right now but I'm wanting it to be crisp so I can crush it and put it in with some of my herbs for a strong orange flavor. I've used orange peels before and I make a really nice Holiday Tea and a Herb and Spice Tea that utilizes orange peels but I'm wanting a gentler, sweeter, flavorful orange. At least that's where my head tells me to go. When I get to the other side of the adventure in tea making it could be something totally different. That's the charm of having so many herbs at your fingertips, the blends are endless. I put my traditional Doublemint Tea together, bagged and labeled it so it's ready but there so much more to do. I'll be at this for at least a couple weeks!
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Our thermometer registered 2 degrees this morning. I had every part of my body covered when I went out to feed the girls except for my nose, eyes and forehead. My forehead hurt by the time I came back in the house. That's cold, at least for me!!
I made up a big pan of oats this morning. Hubby and I each had a bowl and the rest went to the chickens. I crumbled 2 homemade biscuits up in the mess and then when I got out to the barn I mixed in chicken feed, so I know their food was warm and hearty. I gave Power and Missi a full can of feed each instead of a half can. That should help warm their bodies a little. Sam got a ham bone and some house food along with his regular dog food. Everybody got fresh water. You have to watch all the animals in this kind of weather. When you live out in the country I think you have a firmer grasp on the fact of how important it is to be prepared for anything. If something happens you could be stranded for who knows how long and you need to be as ready as you can be for anything. We always keep the horses' heated water tank full and we keep 2 buckets of water sitting in the tack room for the chickens and 2 buckets for Sam in the shop so they maintain room temperature. This way we don't have to use our water lines to the barn and the shop and it eliminates the possibility of water in the lines freezing and breaking. Water freezes fast in these temperatures. In the house, I always keep extra water and all my pitchers filled just in case a main line should break. I try to keep food available that does not need to be cooked or chilled, hence my canned meats. I also keep plenty of soups and teas around. If all is well with the electricity, now is the time to use your oven for baking purposes. This is just added heat for you. Hubby handles the heating for the house and he has back-up for us. I try and keep all the dishes and laundry and whatever else all caught up. If something happens and you either don't have heat or water you'll be very glad that this is accomplished. It is something hardly anyone ever really thinks about but you'd be in a real mess if all your dishes were in the dishwasher and you had no water, huh?! Do you keep your commode lids down, your dryer and washer lids shut and how about closet doors? Are they closed? Just a little less heat going into spaces that don't need it. Do you know where your candles or lighting oil, flashlights, extra blankets, batteries, radio, etc. all are or will you have to hunt for them when you need them? I know some who read about our preparations might think this is overkill and they well may be . . . but we just calmly do this on a regular basis and don't make any big deal out of it. If an emergency occurs and I don't need anything there may be someone else who does. I feel it is my responsibility to be prepared as I can be. You can't prepare for everything and if you think you can - well - you're wrong. One must always remember that God is in control and on him we MUST rely, but He gave me many gifts and I will try to use them and accept the responsibility of being a thinking, feeling, productive human being with as much grace as possible. Cold again today but not nearly as cold as it's going to get tomorrow!! Hubby is, I think, a tiny bit better. He at least ate some warm oats today. He's like a giant kid. I would make my sons do what they were supposed to do but Hubby I can't force. He makes me so mad when he gets like this . . . but I just have to remember he's sick and try to maintain my composure and slip something healthy down him when I get the opportunity! MEN!!!!!!! The animals are still unaffected by the cold but we will have to keep a close eye on them when it gets even colder tonight and tomorrow. The straw in the chickens' pen is about a foot deep and I've noticed that the chickens are wallowing out little nests in the straw. I'm not really sure whether they are using those as dust baths or to keep them warm but they seem pretty happy. I hate to watch the horses walk because the ground is so hard and icy, that I wonder if it's not hurting their feet. Sam, our dog, has tons of straw in his house and Hubby keeps him well fed and watered. We may baby our animals but in this kind of weather I feel like they need a little extra babying. I'm all for letting them handle what they can handle but extreme temperatures require giving just a little more assistance. Bottom line is we have animals and we are going to take care of them. To not care for your livestock is an obscene lack of responsibility and cruelty. Today I'm meeting a friend at a restaurant that burned down several years ago and has just recently reopened in another location. It's a soup and sandwich joint and I'm really looking forward to trying it out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Talk to you later. ---------------------- It was such a wonderful place to lunch!! They had terrific service, tasty food and the company was, as usual, such a joy. In February I am going to assist my friend in preparing some appetizers for her card club and it was exciting getting together our ideas and is going to be great fun to do too. While I was gone hubby ate what I left him in the refrigerator and I was very pleased. He acts a little better and I'm hoping by tomorrow he'll be human again. I've been soaking a big pot of Great Northern Beans and now have them on to cook. I've got a 7-pound semi-boneless ham and intend to put a little ham and onion in the beans and prepare about half of them for a meal and freeze the rest of the ham and beans for another time. I'm going to cut several slices off the ham for fried ham and eggs, then put about a quarter of it in the crockpot for another meal sometime this week and a quarter of it into the freezer for a meal sometime in the future. I should be able to get at least 4 meals out of this half-ham. Maybe more - but at the very least - 4 meals. Oh my goodness Hubby just said he'd like to have scrambled eggs and homemade biscuits for supper. No doubt now. He's on his way to recovery!!!
Wow! It's really cold outside and it's fixing to get a whole lot colder too! My chickens are so funny. I went out to feed and water this morning and goodness, they're sometimes just like people. Some of my girls weren't stepping outside their coop, no way. It was too cold for them and then I had a few that cold doesn't seem to bother them all that much. It's so fun to see the different personalities.
Hubby is sick and I don't just mean a little sick. He's DOWN!! He was supposed to go to work today and had to call in as a "no show". That tells me a whole lot, right there. He's really feeling badly. He says that he aches from the top of his head all the way down to his toes. He can't eat and right now is in bed with a pan, just in case he has to barf. He's one of those guys that can be sick and keeps right on going but when he gets down like this I feel like I've got to keep a really close eye on him because, trust me, he's a little more than merely sick!! So far, I'm good; but needless to say, there's not a whole lot I can do about staying away from hubby and keeping out of the scope of his germs. I'm spraying the house, eating properly, drinking lots of liquids and doing my best to get plenty of sleep. -------------------------------- It's 3:30 p.m. and I've just put supper in the oven. Hubby is still not much better - but at least he isn't any worse! I've been practicing using my cast ironware hubby bought me for Christmas. To be honest, for me, there's not whole lot of difference other than I need to watch the heat and cooking times; but what it does do is get my creative cooking juices running and I probably by now don't need to tell you how exciting that is to me!! I also have to confess that I've never really owned a dutch oven and now I have a cast iron dutch oven, which is even more exciting. Today I put a couple pieces of bacon in my dutch oven and fried them up to render the grease and then removed the bacon. I had two leg and thigh pieces and browned them in the bacon grease. I then added about a quart of my own canned potatoes some thinly sliced purple onions and about 8 small garlic cloves, salt, pepper and lemon thyme. I'm a big fan of lemon thyme. When you get used to eating herbs you will notice the subtle difference that lemon thyme adds to a dish. It's wonderful with chicken and fish dishes. I continued on and added about a pint of homemade turkey bullion, sprinkled the crumbled bacon in the mix, put the lid on the pan, and slipped it into the oven on 400 degrees. I can tell you right now - it's going to be so-o-o good. I drained a quart of Italian Flat green beans and stir-fried them in brown butter. I then scattered just a bare minimum of parmesan cheese over them. Hard to beat this meal. Hearty, full of flavor with a tiny bit of flair. Add a little applesauce with cinnamon and I think we'll both be eating quite well. We've been gone almost all day. We went to Southeastern Indiana to a Christmas Gathering at my nephew and wife's home. My nephew's father is crazy about Christmas and we used to have our family reunion around Christmas. It was such fun and when we changed the timing of the reunion my brother could not stand Christmas without family around so he decided to start having a gathering every Christmas Season on his own and we've been doing it now for several years, meeting at his house; but this year it was held at his son's home. We all brought a dish and ate until, quite frankly, we couldn't eat anymore. It was shamefully delicious.
The only hitch today was rain. Oh my gosh!!! I went out before I got dressed up this morning to feed the chickens and thought I was nearly going to drown. It was coming down in sheets and we were pounded with rain all the way to the other side of the State too. On the way home it wasn't quite as bad but even then it didn't stop raining. It was a good day for a gathering but not-so-much for driving. When we got home we managed to have to deal with rain as well. It was just an overall wet day - but we're home, drinking hot chocolate and cozying up for the evening. My sister was at the gathering and brought me some white truffle oil and some black truffle oil for my cooking adventures and as you can well imagine I was groveling at her feet. My mind is whirring about all the ways I intend to use it!! It's been a long day folks and I'm tired, but it's been a good one! Have a nice Sunday and I'll talk to you again on Monday. Bye!! It's January 2, 2015, and now it's upward and onward . . . or is it back to the norm? What is your normal? One has to admit that sometimes the norm is comfortable, very comfortable. It's familiar and feels secure. A little piece of advice - it's dangerous to get too comfortable with the norm. It's not nearly as secure as it feels. Sometimes no matter how hard you try - life intervenes. How strong are you? Are you capable of withstanding a shake-up in your life? Sometimes stuff just happens. Practice a little out-of-the box doing as well as a little out-of-the box thinking. Don't just stop and smell the roses. Make tea from the rosehips. Don't just bask in the sunshine, lie in the grass on a sunny day and stare at the clouds passing by. You don't have to shake your life up into crumbles, but try a little something different and strengthen yourself for your future. It will help ready you for ANY circumstances that might come your way. ----------------------- I made a big pot of chili this morning and I'll fix some cornbread to go with it for supper. My friend sent red velvet cookies, coconut something covered with chocolate and spritz cookies home with us so I don't have to worry about dessert. Hubby will be just fine. I'm really sort of floating through the day. I've been spending a great deal of time making plans and writing lists trying to decide what needs to be accomplished and when. This along with doing laundry. Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do!!
This year I'm going to try making some new herbal teas. I'm planning on putting quite a bit of effort into it and I have to admit I'm real unsure about it. I've drank herbal teas for years but I want to put together some super awesome blends. I am also planning on trying my hand at maybe a perfume or two and that, I have never tried. You know, that's the really nice thing about herbs, there's always something out there to try and you never seem to be able to try it all!!! We spent the day yesterday with friends. We enjoyed some of the best Chinese food I've ever put in my mouth while we were in Columbus, Indiana. Then we went back to our friends' home for the evening and saw the New Year in together. It was a really nice evening and so nice to have spent it with friends.
This morning we got up and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and I reintroduced myself to their wonderful biscuits and gravy! LOL!! We then drove home and hit the ground running. The horses were nickering and carrying on like babies, Sam was whining and the chickens were clamoring for attention as well. You would have thought they hadn't been fed or watered for days. Goodness, they are so spoiled. After we soothed our furry and feathered friends' feelings we finally settled in for the evening. Oh, and the chickens gave me another 6 eggs. I am so proud of them!! It was simply vegetable soup and crackers for us this evening. We really didn't need that. We were still full from breakfast but it would be 9:00 p.m. before we would be hungry again so we thought we'd go ahead and eat a bite now!! There's really not a whole lot to report on the day. I just didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you. Hope you all have a great New Year. 2015 holds great promise!!! |
AuthorMy name is Nina. Southern Indiana has been my home since 1952. I've been a legal secretary most of my adult life and for my leisure time I enjoy everything connected to the world of herbs and cooking is almost like a "fever". I am also quite opinionated but try not to push my opinions on others. My family is grown and I'm left with a wonderful hubby sharing life with me. I'd guess you'd say my passion is living that life to the fullest. Archives
May 2016
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