Tis' the season for gingerbread

We have an annual tradition to make a gingerbread house every year.  I made the original template a hundred years ago and we would pack it away with the Christmas decorations every year until the next year.  Over the years we have had fancy and not so fancy decorations on our houses.  Some years we have had houses that were held together with frosting.  Some years we have had houses that were dilapidated and falling down.  Some years we have had Thomas Kinkade houses.  Every year we have had adventures baking, putting together and decorating our gingerbread.

Last year and this year the original template was retired (sad face) for innovative new templates designed by the children.  It is hard to step back and let them go, but always rewarding to see what they come up with.  This year they went for a Hobbit (Abbey) castle theme but decided not to put a wall all the way around it so one could see the courtyard.  Did I mention that our gingerbread goes on a board with lights up through to give the appearance of light in the houses?

 This is another "Old" gingerbread.

 Here is this years gingerbread in progress.  Even though my hands were itching, I stayed away. 

This is a close up of the Abbey, we still need to make a candy run to add the embellishments.











Weird things happen with our gingerbread houses.  One year, on Christmas Eve, our dog ate all the candy off a gingerbread house.  We came home to the dog laying on her pillow feeling rather under the weather and the house licked clean.  That year we decorated with quite a few Chocolate kisses and were worried that we would wake up to a dead dog for Christmas.  Thankfully she just threw up and had diarrhea for a couple of days.  We are much more careful where we put the gingerbread now.

I don't like the kids to eat a lot of sugar so after Christmas I would put the gingerbread out for the birds.  The kids just recently shared a funny childhood memory with me.  It seems that all that time I was thinking the animals outside were eating the gingerbread and candy, it was my little children sneaking by and snitching a piece to eat in secret.  Everyone and everything loves gingerbread, so it seems.  Our cats would even try to have a lick or two.  This all adds to the fun.

I will share my gingerbread recipe with you.  It makes really yummy g-men with nice, spicy flavor.

Gingerbread
1C. Butter softened
1C sugar
1/2 C molasses
1tsp each~cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves/ginger
2 eggs~beaten
1tsp vinegar
5 C flour
1tsp b. soda

-In a saucepan combine the butter, sugar, molasses, and spices;  Bring to a boil stirring constantly;  remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.  Stir in eggs and vinegar
-In a bowl combine flour and b soda;  Add sugar mixture to form a soft ball;  chill for several hours.
-Roll out to 1/4 inch width, cutout cookies and place on un-greased cookie sheet.
-Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
-Makes 6 dozen cookies

Icing to put the house together:
2egg whites
5C conf. sugar
whisk egg whites to peaks and gradually add sugar- should be smooth and form firm peaks
(this is the glue to get everything to hold together)
~we put the house together and let it sit one day before decorating the rest.
 We make a softer icing for the "snow" and to put the candy on.

Have fun making your own!

Thanksgiving and bittersweet birthdays

We did it, we ate Mr. T for Thanksgiving dinner.  He was pretty tasty.  I'm thinking we will be raising another one for next year, Lord willing.  We had so much Turkey that I had to put some in the freezer for a later meal.  It really came in handy yesterday to get some slice turkey out for sandwiches after church.  No cooking, I love it.  I hope you enjoyed the relish recipe.  I am still eating on mine and enjoying every bite.  We had a lovely Thanksgiving (it was 70 degrees outside) with grandparents and some friends.

I wanted to share with you a way to get the most out of your turkey.  In these times with the cost of food going up almost daily, I try to stretch our food out as far as I can.  With teenage boys this is difficult, but I do my best.  When we have turkey I put the leftover scraps and carcass in a bag in the freezer.  In a few days or a week I will get it back out and boil it all down with spring water, some bay leaf, a little salt, and a splash of apple cider vinegar.  Once this has simmered for "hours" and is ready I cool it and pick all the good meat off the bones and out of the broth, strain the broth, and add the meat back to the broth.  At this point depending on what I have going on, I will make turkey (carcass) soup or freeze the broth and meat for quick meals later.  The leftover scraps go to the chickens.  This is very good and good for you as well.

We celebrated the kids birthday on Tuesday. My, how fast they grow up from wee little ones to young adults.  Life is ever changing and I can barely keep up with the pace most days.  I find myself wistfully thinking of when they were small.  One of our birthday traditions is to measure the kids and see how much they have grown in a year.  This used to be done on the back of a bedroom door in our 100 year old farm house, but we moved.  No worries though, one of the last things we did before moving was to transfer all those marks (years) to a four sided stick that has a child's name on each side.  So now you could say we are portable.  We are a tall family and it looks like next year our one son might top the stick.....actually after next year (since they will be 18) I'm not sure we will be continuing.  The kids were having some fun with this pretending to stretch Ian out before he was measured.  Poppa had to get on a chair to mark the stick.  He is one tall boy.

Ian getting help growing before his height measurement

 

 Poppa is not as tall as Ian

We had to be done with some of our traditions as the kids have grown.  No more "spanks" for each year of life.  The year the kids planned an elaborate hide and escape plan where we somehow ended up locked out of our house (with the kids inside) had to be the last year.  That is a very funny story and to this day, I can't believe they were able to thwart us so easily.  Each of the kids also will normally pick (and possibly make) whatever dessert they want for their birthday.  It was kind of sad for me this year when my 17 year olds didn't want individual desserts.  

 Connor's turn

 Rachel might be done growing

Paige definitely is done growing.  Poppa doesn't have to stretch for this one.

Here they are, my beautiful children that are slowly cutting the strings from Momma and getting ready to do their own "thing".  This is a bitter moment but also a sweet moment for me.

Messenger Bags

I didn't know that Messenger bags were all the rage until my four kids started mentioning that they would like one for college this fall.  My first question, "what is a Messenger bag?" was of course met with four incredulous exclamations from my kids.  I guess their Mom is too old since she isn't up on all the new styles.

There are some really funny money exchanges that happen in our house and they have (I found out just recently) been going on for a very long time.  They involve making money off your siblings or soliciting money from your siblings.  The best money making strategy until recently has been gum or candy.  I fear that I have contributed to this since I have tried to limit sugar in our house, albeit unsuccessfully especially now that the kids are teenagers.  So, getting back to making money, one child will purchase a popular candy or gum and come home to sell it off piece by piece to their siblings.  The amount of money to be had is directly proportional to how long the kids have been starved from sweets.  They know instinctively which sweets are the most popular and load up when they get the chance.  Recently though we have moved up to of all things Messenger bags.  My daughter went to the Good Will store with her father, picked up a really nice Messenger bag for five dollars, came home and proceeded with a bidding war between her two brothers.  She ended up selling it to the happy winner for twenty dollars.  Quite a margin if you ask me.  Now if only I could find some Messenger bags of my own to auction off...........................................

Last couple of days

Yeah! Our corn is standing back up and it looks like we will be able to harvest it.  That really makes all the corn lovers in the family happy.  I love going out to the garden and just standing still with my eyes closed, I can feel the energy in the air from all the green plants.  It makes me wonder what it feels like to be in a jungle full of growing vegetation.  We are picking half a peck of cucumbers at a time now.  They never seem to go to waste that is for sure.  I have kicked around the idea of making some fermented dill pickles but have never (and I mean never) been able to make a dill pickle that was crisp.  I found a recipe that calls for grape leaves in the water to crisp the cucumbers but I don't know if I dare try it.  We may can and put up a lot of things around here but dill pickles definitely are not one of them.  The tomatoes are on the verge of ripening, I can't wait to eat that first one sliced thick with sea salt and pepper.  We have eaten tons of zucchini and yellow squash and our palates need a break.  I processed some of the zucchini and froze it to make bread this winter.  Now we are looking for unsuspecting customers to pawn some off on.

Pat, Rachel, and Connor took off to meet my parent's this morning.  I miss Paige and Ian and can't wait to see them.  I was very thankful that they made sure chores were done before they left this morning.  I will be responsible for all the chores this evening.  I keep telling myself that I can do it, and I know that they will get done just not in a short amount of time.  These are the times that I think about having a milking machine to milk the goats.  I loaded a basket up with squash, blackberries (thank you Rachel & Connor), and cucumbers for Mom and Dad to enjoy since their garden hasn't started producing yet.    Rachel also took "Pheobe" or "the Pheobster" (puppy) with her.  She is continuing to endear herself to us......barn dog?  I'm not sure how all that is going to work out but the prospect of her living out in the barn isn't looking good.  So I guess our plan is back firing on us.

We have been getting some much needed rain the last couple of days so even though it seems dark and dreary today I am thankful.  Pat and I celebrated out 22nd wedding anniversary this weekend by going out to dinner and a movie.  We tried an Italian restaurant in the area, it was very good but not as good as Tanino's.  Either way we enjoyed a night out together and had some wonderful conversation.  We have completed all the staining on the deck that we can for now.  Pat will be replacing the back stairs so that part will have to wait.  I can't wait to put the furniture back on the deck and see how it looks.  After staining for two days straight we took it easy for couple of days.

There are some projects I would like to get done in the near future like power washing the area we milk the goats in and white washing or painting the wall.  Making a chicken yard for the chickens so we can leave them penned when we don't want them all over the place.  Plus, we will probably be able to gather more eggs since I suspect that some of the hens are running off and hiding their eggs.  Painting a sign with our farm name on it.  Painting and getting the bunkhouse around so it can be used.  Finding room and planting more seeds for a second harvest.  A big one is getting the green house put up.

For today I will enjoy my time alone.  Besides canning some milk for winter use I will spend some time in the word and do a little organizing around the house before it is time to do chores.

Family Fun Day aka The Rock Island Marauders

Dad declared a break from the house yesterday so last minute after the chores were done, we packed up some water and a snack and headed out to Rock Island.  We have never been there before so there was a lot to explore and do.  As it is we will have to go back and check out a couple more of the hiking trails that we did not get to.  It was absolutely beautiful and we were able to see a lot of different and geological formations and also plants and animals.  I am going to attempt to show you some of what we saw starting with the eagle and the buzzard.................  We noticed the buzzard first circling overhead and landing near by.  My husband attempted to sneak up on him to get a good picture but this is as close as he could get.  There were a couple more buzzards circling in the distance and as we were watching an eagle soared by and and decided to join the fun in the sky for a while. We could hear him "talking".  As we watched a kestrel started attacking the eagle while he was in the air and we saw the eagle literally do a barrel roll to get away from the attack.  Talk about a moment of awe!  He eventually was driven off by the smaller bird.  At this location we also saw many turtles in the water but weren't able to get close enough to get a good picture.  Along the upper bank I ran across Pippisewa growing and had an opportunity to show the kids what it looks like.

As we were driving on the road we came across some spring houses along the hills, a neat castle like structure and an old mill that was all boarded up next to the river.  There are also many water falls and caves, and rock formations along the river as well as a hydro-electric plants.

As I discovered all these things I was making up all kinds of stories in my head and can see how writers could gather inspiration from nature and the world around them.  I was ready to go home a write a book about the mermaids in the lagoon, the cavemen on the side of the mountain, and the fairy kingdom on the banks of the Caney Fork.  I was also saddened to see the mill all boarded up and not in use anymore.   To me it was a reflection of how easily we have discarded the past and charged forward for the new.  Not always for the our good.  Just my opinion but I desire for us to get back to some of the old ways. 


After exploring one side of Rock Island, the Marauders headed out to conquer the other side of the river.  This side was by far the best, maybe because some of the family got to jump off high rocks into the river.   I think it was because there was far more to see on this side.  I took pictures of centipedes, rock overhangs, waterfalls coming off the side of the mountains, baby birds in their nests in the side of cliffs, ferns, algae, large overhangs with water coming off them, flowers, lagoons, and my family having a really good time.   I should probably tell you that this wasn't an adventure to have with young kids or people that can't climb or walk long distances.  We clocked around 5 or 6 miles, some of it on a trail on the side of the mountian.  There were many places that were very high up with the possibility that if you weren't careful you could slip and fall many feet.  There were also places that we were required to climb up some steep rocks to get where we were going.  The best places were the hardest to get too.  We almost missed the best parts of the trip because they were kind of off the beaten path so to speak.

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 We ended the day at the car eating cheese and crackers, drinking cold water, and eating watermelon.  Should I tell you that someone decided to have a seed spitting contest and it digressed from there until dad had to step in and end it.  We all went home exhausted but refreshed from our day.

The Rock Island Marauders conquering the rocks.