Pickle Juice

I smell like a pickle. 

An extra juicy vinegar filled pickle.

Not from eating them but from making them. 

My aspiration is to be a modern day Suzy Homemaker. 

Quite literally. 

Supper served by 6, house clean as a whistle, and craft projects galore. 

One day I will be that complete package, but until then I will settle for letting a "glimpse" of her surface every once in a while.

Tonight she showed up while Cam and I made homemade pickles. 

I felt right at home slicing and dicing in the kitchen. 

He cut the onions, because they make me cry every time, 

and I prepared most everything else. 

I would like to say I made my grandmother's recipe, but I chose to try my hand at refrigerator pickles instead to get my feet wet. 

You can find the original source of my recipe here.

I adapted this recipe by adding red onion to my jars instead of red peppers and cauliflower. You can pickle anything, but cauliflower didn't sound too good to me. I think the carrots give the jars a nice pop of color though, and pickled carrots are actually quite delicious! All 8 jars sealed after canning them, which means we don't have to refrigerate them after all.  

In a few days we will open a jar to test them, but I think the others will do best to sit and season for a month or so. I'm excited to try them, and even more excited to let my inner Suzy shine in the future with more than just pickle juice. 

Greener Pastures

So this happened yesterday.

Cam hopped in the bucket of Mr. Jimmy's bulldozer to trim up some tree limbs. 

It made me nervous at first, but he seemed to be having fun. 

Sometimes that's all that matters. 

After trimming several limbs and an hour or so of work on the bulldozer this...

Has become this!

Work is finally underway to build us a driveway!

Many thanks to Cam for helping clean this area up.

Pretty soon we will have a new drive and a greener pasture to boot!

Sloppy Seconds

For those of you that have ever owned chicks,
you know that they're messy eaters.

And for those of you that haven't, now you know.

They're messy.
Like hopping in the feed trough, spilling more feed
than what they eat kind of messy. 

And when you have more than one feathered friend 
eating from the same trough, the messiness just gets multiplied.

We feed our chicks scratch feed once they lose their "fluff."

It has sunflower and corn seeds in it, among other things.

And when you have messy eaters, these seeds get all over the place.

And sometimes, they plant themselves.

We currently have three corn stalks and four sunflower plants
growing in our backyard.

I guess the chickens wanted a little more "character" to their yard.
It's been a nice little summer surprise!

She's a Layin'

We had a bit of excitement yesterday. 

Dad came running in the house at dusk saying, 

"Ahna, grab your camera and come look!" 

I didn't know what was going on, but grabbed my camera anyway 

and went outside to see what all the fuss was about. 

Dad was standing by the Pheonix pen pointing at the ground.

So I walked over, went inside, and found this. 

Our very first Pheonix egg! 

It's so tiny, but absolutely perfect for pickling.

When Dad checked the Dominique house they had an extra egg too.
Look what beautifully brown eggs our Dominique is laying! 

That means we have two new egg layers on the farm. 

That's five eggs a day y'all, in a range of sizes.

Our girls weren't supposed to start laying until August. 

I guess my calculations were a little off, but that's alright with me!

Post-It

 

My life is a series of Post-It notes right now.

They're making millions off of me, honestly.

 

Go buy more books.

Label my books.

Organize my library.

Build bookshelves.

Paint the bookshelves.

Book the florist. 

Pay the jeweler.

Call the trailer guy.

Order save the dates.

Decide on invitations.

 

And the list goes on...

 

I'm getting a little overwhelmed by all the things I have to do this summer. My brain is in constant motion thinking about what is to be done, bought, or paid for. I seriously have about 12 different to-do lists in three different notebooks. And some where in the middle of all those lists, normal life has to continue. I'm beginning to question whether or not I can get everything done in the next two months, and more importantly if I will have the funds to do so. But I know that no matter what, My God will provide.

 

Philippians 4:19

"And my God will meet all your needs according

to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus."