And the winner is........................

Phelan!!!! Congratulations your name got plucked out of a hat by my stepson last night.  So I will need you to send me an email so I can get your package sent to you! Phelan's challenge to me is dancing. So at some point there will either be a picture or video of me dancing. No worries I won't chicken out.

Thank you to everyone who participated in my giveaway. I really had fun doing it and plan on more in the future.

Going Green Giveaway!!

I like giveaways, who doesn't?!  So I've decided that I will be doing one of my own.  What is up for grabs??? So glad you asked ;)  There will be 2 bars of homemade soap lightly scented with chamomile and 2 half pint jars of homemade bath salts, one Eucalyptus scented and one Peppermint scented (good for tired foot soaks).

What do you have to do to get in on this wonderful care package?  Well one way is to leave me a comment telling me what you would like to see me do on here.  If you post a link on your blog going back to this post and let me know so I can confirm it I will put in another entry for you.  Get your entries in by July 23rd!

PA is beautiful, IL is just hot and sticky :(

It has been supremely hot here in Southern Illinois. Hot enough that I've neglected the garden a bit. I'm still clearing grass with the hand held scythe. Just a ten foot square area between the pole bean tripods and the carport where I have the spaghetti squash. I try to wait until dusk so it's cooler,  It's almost done though and then I am going to till the cleared areas.  My cucumbers are dying out and I believe it's mosaic disease. I'm not sure.  If I can get things cleared then I will try and replant in a different area.  I actually have a pretty good growing season down here for another round I believe. It's worth a shot. As of right now I don't have enough to do any pickles and I was hoping to have started that by now.

As a boon (?) of my neglect some of my zucchini are the size of my forearms. So I will be making zucchini bread, with this I can barter, well that and I still have some of the soap Helen and I made.  I am itching to do another batch.  The okra is starting to produce but I am unsure on when I should be picking them, what size, etc.  Eggplant is starting to set and I believe the first one will be ready in a few days. The potatoes seem to be doing well. I need to hill them up in a bit.  The corn is starting to get ears and the beans are starting to flower.  Ahhh yes, the beans.......I'm starting to hate beans as beans equals Japanese beetles. The fight is on again with them and I am losing.  The Stella blue pumpkin that I got from the seed swap is fruiting so is the yellow squash and spaghetti squash. I'm optimistic about the tomatoes and that's all I will say lest I jinx myself.

Going and spending a week in Slippery Rock, PA (where Ragnarok was) was beautiful. I had a really great week and I even met up with some similarly minded people. Talked a little bit of garden shop but not nearly as much as I would have liked, just not enough time. I unfortunately didn't get many pictures but other people did and I'll try to get some put up.  I am wanting to do a road trip soon not really sure when but I'd like it to be before September.  September will be one busy month!  I have a wedding in Pittsburgh the first weekend, and then I have a fighting event in Holden, MO the second weekend.  Third Sunday of September is a fighting event at my home field in Carbondale and the last weekend of Sept my friends are talking about going to the St. Louis area for a PirateFest.  (I'm not really sure what it's called). Maybe I should wait until October? LOL

Yay a weekend for me to do stuff!!! The garden is on the list. It is horrid, I am ashamed to say that in some parts the grass is hip high. I want to tear it all down. Well except for the broccoli and some romas; they and the gourds are the only things that really are doing anything. More venting on that later. Saturday is the last tour day for the Family Friendly Farm and we are going! Will have my camera this time too!! I can't wait!!

Yesterday I made Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread! Thanks to Kathie over at Two Frog Home for sharing the recipe. Everyone loves it here at the house and that was really a confidence boost for me. It was also very therapeutic for me as I was having a bad day at the time.

Getting in gear

So today I slept in until 9am. I puttered around the house till around noon when company came over. Around 3pm after said company left Bill and I went into town to check out Lowe's again. I did not find any cool cheap things like Unusual Farmchick but I did get pricing for several cold frames and picked up a seed starting kit. When we got home from all that I went through my seed stash going over what I had left over from last year and what we saved from plants...then I decided that since the seeds had been in out in the unheated garage that I would do a viability test and planted a few seeds from the leftover seeds (the saved seeds have been in the nice temperate house) So we'll see how that goes.


Today while visiting with my company I found out that she has a bread machine that she never uses...I will be getting it from her. I am very much looking forward to this. Jodi also brought loaf pans when she moved in so I plan on making bread both ways.... Phelan you will be hearing from me soon :)

I forgot to mention yesterday that I hit the thrift store and got a great find! And I only paid $0.99 for it. She told me it is for tomatoes but I think its for any type of food isnt it?

4th of July recap and a sundry of other stuff

Just a note, I haven't forgotten that I was tagged for "What Things I Refuse to Do Without" I just really needed to take a bit to think about it in an honest light.

The first 4th at the house wasnt too eventful. I had to work from 8am t0 4:30 on 2 hours sleep. Caught an hour sleep during lunch in my car and another hour upon coming home. Bill and the Teen cooked and then she was off to see fireworks while we ran some errands and then came back home so that I could catch up on everyone's blog and he can finish belt favors for our fighting group. Ragnorok went well from the perspective of establishing a name for ourselves as a fighting group. It was also a great way for me to meet up with The Unusual Farmchick. As far as a honeymoon it was disasterous (with the storms, the chaos of Ragnorok and all, not to mention the truck crapping out on us). I would really like to save up some vacation time and go away for a weekend, even if its just something round here. Southern Illinois is actually very beautiful with the Shawnee National Forest, Garden of the Gods, FernClyffe, etc. Or maybe we could hit Cape Girardeau, MO or Paducah, KY since both are about an hour away.

The garden is chugging along at a steady (I think) pace so much sprouted and took off while we were gone. We did lose some seedlings, but I am happy with what we have so far. I worry with us getting started as late as we did that we will behind or have poor yield and not much for me to can. We tilled a chunk of the back yard up and I worry that I haven't used the space as efficiently as I could have. But I remind myself that this is our first month at the house let alone our first year, mistakes will be made, losses will be sustained logged and hopefully learned from and avoided. I have pictures on my flickr badge if you follow the link you can see my pics. I will be shooting more frequently because I got asked permission for use of one of my pics for a participatory news group called Now Public.com. I was slightly amused, part flattered and said sure.

Another cool thing that happened lately was that I found out I won a reuseable tote bag from Earthbound Farm with a newsletter, some coupons and a book. I vaguely remember signing up for it back in April I think.. So all in all good day. But now Im tired and going to relenquish the computer to Bill. I have to get up and take pics of the garden...and weed like no tomorrow and also we are going to the farmers market.

So things are starting to even out I think. We had to rent a tiller to do out the back yard. Bill has once again taken over but I can say that I've put in a good deal of work myself. We started some more seedlings that have already sprouted but we also bought some live plants at the farmers market and Lowe's. Also Bill hit Rural King. Its my weekend and I will get pictures of everything.

In other news we are getting married this Friday, the 20th. We are going to the court house with some family and friends in tow and then we are having a reception at our house. You guys are all invited (seriously) but I know you more than likely can't make it...but once again...there will be many pictures. I work the next day and then we leave for Ragnorok on Sunday morning. I want to leave after I get off work at midnight but Bill is wanting to leave at around 4 am :( Its about 8 hours or so to get to Cambridge and I would like to get there before noon so that we can set up. We will be there for a week. I have no idea what Im going to where, my bodices are too big and I don't believe Bill will have time to fix them like he said he would.

I bought some bananas today that Im going to put them into the dehydrator.. its first job! I haven't gotten to do any canning for lack of fresh produce...not to mention that its been super busy. There is so much I want to tell you guys about! I feel really blessed, equally scared and sometimes nauseaous but we are holding down the fort.

Updated

The playlist that is...welcome to my music world where I rock out or mellow-out...still adding in but I added John Lee Hooker, some Stones, some CCR and some Phantom of the Opera..I warned y'all. :D Enjoy.

Pictures and lists

Here are the pics I promised...First we have the loads of canning jars from the auction.

Next we have th plans for the property mapped out...not to scale but the garden IS suppose to be bigger than the house lol! Followed by the seed starter trays and the bag of seeds/bulbs that I have now thanks to a loveable, hyper and somewhat inpatient Bill.

And lastly this is me chilling at the local Denny's at 2am after a rough day at work..Thanks Lelu!
Ok and now for the list

All the vegetables that we are planning on planting

(thanks to Tammie and a super hyper Bill)

black cherry tomato

hybrid white eggplant cloud 96

Rosa Bianca heirloom eggplant

Striped cavern tomato

Nantes carrot

National pickling cucumber seed

few pinches each of Butter head lettuce and Romain lettuce

Garden peach tomato

pinch of tendercrisp celery

Jarrahdale pumpkin

Grandma Mary's paste tomato

Jubilee orange tomato
Green onions

Sweet white onions

Green pepper mix

Pepperoncinis

Straightneck Yellow Squash

Roma tomato

Leeks

Poblano peppers

Jalepenos

Cayenne

Cannonball gourd

Dipper gourd

Loofa gourd

Bush cucumber

Radish

Cantaloupe

Spinach

Bush green bean

Pole green bean

Turnip

Sindara lettuce

Cauliflower

Sugar snap pea

Birdhouse gourd

Spaghetti squash

Zucchini

Honey dew melon

Watermelon

Monday to Tuesday

Monday we have the final walk through at 10am. Tuesday I close at 1:30pm.

I have 4 (72pellet) Jiffy greenhouses with seeds planted. Yeah might be overkill but Bill has taken over :) He insists that we are behind, I think he has become obsessed ;) I think I will have more plants than I will ever need for that matter. But it's all good. I have spent the last couple days working and trying to chill have become obsessed myself with seeds including the soon arriving set that Tammie has been gracious enough to send. To easy my anxiety of all this bruhahah I have been blasting Type O Negative and my 80s mixed cds...yes i know, its a little...different.

S cleaned out his closets, Bill and I cleaned out some of ours and we swapped...lol except for my clothes they are being donated to the womens shelter. Bill got some really sexy army cammo shirts and some steel toed boots....I miss having combat boots myself. Im going to read up on everyone then I'll come back later and blab more.

Earthquakes and bakes

So I get online about 9pm or so Tuesday and the first thing I see is that Britain had an earthquake and I'm all in a panic. The second thing I see is that my friend Matt (who lives there) is on my yahoo messenger. So I'm blazing up an IM to know that him and his are all ok...they are thank Gods. So it got me to thinking that I really need to show and let ALL my friends know how much they mean and have meant to me even when I don't see them that much or in this case, at all. I've known Matt for many years but I've never actually met him. I actually "met" him online via my ex husband and an online game called Everquest. Anyway, over the course of time Matt became a great source of friendship and sanity for me when everything went to hell in a handbasket. Sometimes we'd lose track of each other and what we were doing for long periods of time but I still consider him a my friend, and that is a rare thing in my world let me tell you. It's kinda funny how life is. So I have a project in my head to go with "I need to let my friends know I care" kind of thing.

In other news I have a dutch oven that I'm borrowing coming tommorow and I am going to attempt to do the "No knead bread" recipe that was featured in Mother Earth News magazine.
It will be my first attempt to make bread. I am also trying to find my glass bread pan to use for when I attempt "normal" loaf style bread..I have no idea what I'm doing on bread stuffs.

7 things

Unusually Unusual Farmchick posted a thing where you're suppose to divulge seven things others might not know about yourself. So I'll let you in on seven things about me:

1. I was purely left handed for quite a bit of my life, actually right up until elementary school. They saw fit to fix that. My father is a lefty. I seem to have adapted into quasi-ambidexterous. I drink using my left hand, switch with utensils, grab and hold with either hand but when it comes for writing I am a righty and as for the computer mouse I can do either way but I am more comfortable using my left. My desk at work is set up lefty style. But Bill is a righty so thats how it is set up for our computer here.

2. I currently own 3 pairs of jeans, thats it. I also only own a total of 4 pairs of shoes.

3. I listen to everything thing imaginable when it comes to music. From Les Miserable to Pantera.

4. My favourite dessert is a tie between Tiramisu and Honey Glazed Chocolate chip croissants(only found at Panera so far) it's funny that I rarely ever get to have any though.

5. I am NOT a morning person without massive amounts of caffiene. On the occasion that I drink coffee it has to be with LOTS of sugar, usually I opt for diet Coke or Mountain Dew.

6. I have never owned a coffee pot as an adult on my own. We had one here at the trailer but it was J's.

7. Every female on my mom's side of the family is somewhat "gifted", heavily intuitive (to a creepy point sometimes) and have all had run ins with "weird" stuff happening to them. It's all pretty much accepted yet quite a few of these women freaked out when I came out as a pagan LOL.

I tagged a few people I read but I will leave it open to anyone who happens upon this post, too. Just leave a comment to let me know who to visit.

The blob, bucket style

To update, the laundry soap was a gelatinous thing with little liquid, maybe i needed more water?? It also was on the floor so it might just have been too cold. Moved it to the laundry room on top of the dry we'll see how it does. Teen got her drivers license. And we haven't heard anything from the real estate agent yet. J moved out and S hasn't been home much. So I got super industrious tonight and cleaned like a mad woman. Here's my proof....

The place only looks this nice when I do this; otherwise, it is a sad, sad sight. My own mother can attest to this. Bill will be pleasantly suprised when he gets home. When I wake up Thurs I am tackling Teen's room..she's had more than enough time to avoid this. Now Im off to find my body lotion as my hands are screaming dry.

House inspection ...take 2

So I realized I never told you how the first house inspection went LOL.. It was a riot a la the movie "The Money Pit" but not that bad. In a nutshell, the water had been off, the propane had been off and when the water turned back on the faucet exploded in the kitchen...it was cool to watch. The seller went straight out bought all the stuff for a new one and installed it while we waited for the furnace technician to come out and bleed the propane lines and light the pilot lights. Found out that the pipe trap in the bathroom had also cracked. Pretty sure he was fixing that as we were leaving. So with all that the inspection didnt get finished but we meet back up with Mr. Inspector tomorrow so it will be done. Im just waiting to hear about paper work after that.

In other news Im going to attempt to make my own laundry soap out of Washing Soda, Borax and Fels Naptha bar soap stuff. I will take pictures as I finally got new batteries.

Saturday Bill and I went to the Public Library book sale and I came away with these fantastic books for only $3!! The green and tan one is the Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook circa 1967. It even had cut out articles from newspapers inside it with extra recipies. I got to also go to Rural King and price a food dehydrator ($40-65) and a pressure canner. The smallest one had a price tag of $79 the other ones I couldnt find prices listed but I could guess it was over a $100. I plan on shopping around prices online as well. I still haven't gotten to spend time in the library itself to check out books but its been busy. I have a job interview Wednesday morning.

I was talking at work about wanting to make cheeses and butter and Deanna said they did that once using baby food jars? Wonder how well that works out and if I could use a good sealing mayo jar for that.