A Trip To The Farmer's Market

Every Wednesday our city has a Farmer's Market downtown where I love to go and purchase fresh produce. This week I asked my dear hubby if he would like to come along with me. He has been pretty much home bound since his back surgery the end of October and I knew he was ready to get out of the house. It is very painful for him if he has to sit or stand for very long so this quick trip seemed like the perfect opportunity.

While visiting one of the farmer's booths we found the most beautiful green tomatoes! Now my boys-everyone of them-LOVE fried green tomatoes. Monroe and I had to have a basket of these beauties. We could taste fried tomatoes just looking at them! Happy with our purchase, we went on to the other produce stands and finished our shopping.

On our way to the truck we both realized that just one basket (4 tomatoes) would not be enough to feed our family. But at $3.50 per basket I was not ready to buy any more. However, my husband was not going to leave without another basket of tomatoes. Now you must understand how our grocery budget works. Basically, Monroe has NO idea how to stretch our money when it comes to food. I have always bought the groceries and he never. ever. goes with me to the grocery store. I didn't argue with him though and we went right back over to the booth with the green tomatoes and bought yet another basket. $7.00 for a side dish people!! I would never pay that much for a vegetable for one meal. I glanced over at my business partner. Humpf-he wasn't worried about it one bit. "Do you realize we just paid $7.00 for one meal of tomatoes?" I asked. "Oh well, they(our boys) are worth it." was his reply. And that was the end of it.

We went home and had fried green tomatoes for lunch and they were just as delicious as we thought they would be!!

I decided to show how I make mine in case this blog has inspired someone out there to give fried green tomatoes a try. First of all, start with very hard and green tomatoes otherwise they get all soft and mushy when frying. Wash and slice them. Then salt and pepper.


Next I mix one part cornmeal and one part flour. Then coat each tomato in this mixture.

Get your grease, I use peanut oil or homemade lard, nice and hot and gently lay the slices into the grease. If you get your oil too hot the flour that settles in the bottom of the pan tends to burn and that causes the tomatoes to taste burnt. Lightly brown on each side and that's all there is to it! Oh, if you have cast iron ware this is one of the foods you just have to cook in cast iron! There is no comparison to the end result.....really!

And here they are crispy, hot and oh so delicious!
How do you cook your fried green tomatoes?

Hmmm....it is almost time to make a trip to the grocery store. Note to self: Do not ask hubby to come along ;-)

It's Almost Christmas!

Once again the Christmas Season is fast approaching. It seems that no matter how hard I try to slow down and enjoy the days with my family and friends I find myself out of breath and rushing to finish last minute plans. With money in short supply this year I can't even say I spent a lot of time waiting in lines and/or waiting in traffic. Where has the time gone? I don't know!

It doesn't dampen my holiday spirit though. I love, love, love Christmas time!! Tomorrow I plan to spend the day prepping the food and beginning to bake for Christmas day. Our family will be attending the candlelight Christmas Eve Service at our church. This is such a sweet and special service we have every Christmas Eve. I will also make time to play Rokenbok with Bryce and Brandon too. The Rokenbok set is only played with during our Christmas break. The boys look forward to setting it up each year. I try to add a new piece to the collection each year as well. The set has grown so big that this year we assembled it in the garage. Here it is still in the set up stage. If you are not familiar with Rokenbok you should go to the website. They have some great video of the set in action. Just go to Rokenbok.com

Brooke, Ricky and the little ones will be spending Christmas day at our house. I am so very glad that they still enjoy coming over on Christmas morning. We always wait for them to come over before we open our gifts. I hope my older boys are making a mental note of their sister's holiday rituals ;-) I would love to have all of my future daughter-in-laws and grandchildren at my house on Christmas Day!!

I wanted to share a few of my Christmas decorations and crafts I have out this year. I decided to have a more "natural-rustic" tree. It just seems to fit with our lifestyle. I have tried having a more sparkly, glittery tree but it never looked right. So, I put together this garland on burlap to decorate the tree and I love it! The ornaments are rustic looking as well.

We are working on this Christmas puzzle. It is fun to watch the puzzle come together as different ones stop and work on it.

I am proud of my garage sale find a few weeks ago! Isn't this pillow adorable? It cost me $2.00!

Bradley helped a friend of his move a couple of weeks ago. The day after the move I saw this little Christmas tree lying haphazardly in the back seat of my truck. I am not a big fan of ceramics but I picked this little tree up to keep it from getting broken and.......

look what I found on the underside....
Yep! It's a real McCoy!!! We researched it on the internet and discovered that it has a base that it sits on. I asked Bradley if he remembered seeing a green base to match. Of course he paid no attention to that type of thing. I could not find the value of this tree and it may not be worth very much without the base. I would love to find out more about it.

I also found this little tart burner at the same yard sale that I mentioned earlier. It was brand new!

And I saved the best for last. My precious nativity scene. I have had this set for about 20 years and I still love it as much as the first day I got it. It is a Fontanini collection so I have been able to slowly add pieces to it through the years. Believe it or not, I have actually found a couple of pieces at garage sales and clearance shelves! One of the things I love about this set is that my children and grandchildren can set it up and move the pieces around as much as they like because it is unbreakable. Helping Mom/Nonna set up the nativity scene is a memory I would like for them to keep in their heart forever!
To all of my dear family and friends I pray you all have a blessed and Holy Christmas Day!!

Quail Anyone?

Of all the many different kinds of animals we have raised/taken in here at our farm we have never had any experience with quail. A friend of ours started the hobby of raising quail. He became too busy to care for them so we took over and here we are with a quail pen in our yard!
The pen was set up to encourage the hens to lay. They were doing a great job too. Now that the days are shorter they have stopped laying altogether. When they were laying we would gather the eggs daily and put them in the incubator.

As they hatched we put them in this smaller pen that was kept in my LAUNDRY ROOM! We learned an important lesson in a terrible way. We put the younger quail in with the adult quail too early. They looked almost the same size so we thought they would be safe. We kept a check on them for a couple of hours and all was fine. However, the next morning when we went in to feed them the older quail had pecked the younger ones in the head and they ended up dying. We knew to watch for this because chickens will do the same thing to the young chicks unless a mother is there to protect her little ones. We felt just awful about our mistake.

Now you may be wondering what we are going to do with all these quail. Trust me, I wondered the same thing ;-) However, my guys had a plan all along. They are raising the quail to release them in the field behind our house. Then they want to go quail hunting. We will, of course, be eating the quail. Our boys have been taught by their father to treat all animals humanely and with respect. Also, they know that when they go hunting to kill an animal it is to provide food for the family.

I remember a time when Brandon killed a squirrel without asking his Dad. Guess what Brandon ate? Yep. He had squirrel for supper. He didn't mind though. He thought it was pretty cool because he cleaned it and cooked it over an open fire outside.

Have you ever eaten quail?

Boys Becoming Men

Lately all of the boys have had to pitch in and do more than their fair share of the work around out little farm. With their Dad's back being out, many projects have been put on hold. However, some things just can't wait. Most days the older guys are either at school or work which puts a lot of responsibility on Brandon and Bryce. They have been great about it and Monroe and I are very proud of them.

On this particular day, we had two rolls of hay that needed to be put out in the field. The two youngest had to hook up to the trailer, pull it out in the field and unload the hay. I decided to grab my camera and watch.

Bryce helped Bran hook up to the trailer. Brandon is in the truck

That didn't work very well so Bryce backed the truck up to the trailer while Brandon guided him.

With the trailer hooked up to the truck Brandon drove out to the field. The next problem....how to unload two rolls of hay with no dad or big brothers to help. I watched and waited to see how these two would solve this problem.

Now when I saw them attempting this maneuver I thought to myself, "There's no way that will work. Those rolls of hay are way too heavy." I'm glad they couldn't read my thoughts because I probably would have discouraged them. After a couple of minutes of pushing and rocking that hay actually began to move!

Later on that day, after Bradley (the artistic one) got home he gave our rolls of hay a happy face to welcome our family and friends.

Mission accomplished!!

Cold Fall Weather.....Finally!!

Okay, maybe not THIS cold but our lows will be in the mid forties tonight. That is pretty chilly for us down here in central Florida!! I am so happy to see the cooler temperatures finally coming our way!!! I have been trying to get into the fall mood by decorating around my home with pumpkins, fall flower arrangements, burning my "Harvest" scented Yankee Candle, has anyone smelled that one?....love it!!....while running the air conditioner and sweating! It just isn't working!


Now I am feeling it! We have had a gorgeous day today and I can't wait for the cold weather to be here to stay. My guys already have a bonfire planned for tonight. I made our favorite hot cocoa mix today. We are using our fireplace tonight. We are ready. Can you tell? I am going to have to keep an eye out on my husband. You know where he will want to be-right out there with those boys around the fire!

I am going to enjoy this cooler weather while I can. Our temps are going to climb right back up into the 80's by Monday :-( I realize the warmer winters is what attracts the "snowbirds" to our state but being a Florida native, I long for more seasonal changes. Oh well, I am going to take the good along with the not so good and go pick myself a fresh Florida orange tonight. They will be so sweet after this cold snap. I think I will sit in front of my fireplace to eat it and I will reflect on the blessings and goodness of my Lord!

Happy Fall Ya'll!!

I'm Back....Again :-)

I apologize for not being more faithful to blog but I thought my days would get back to normal and slow down a bit. That has not been the case.
Unfortunately my hard working husband has been having terrible back pain. He has been seeing a doctor in Tampa and going through numerous tests. We knew that the doc would suggest surgery after all other attempts had been made. That is the point that Monroe was at. He had taken the epidural shots in his back, he had taken physical therapy....nothing seemed to help. So, last Friday he underwent back surgery to repair a disc and fuse two vertabrae together. The surgery went very well and the doctor was pleased with the results. Now it is recovery time.

The problem is my hubby has a hard time sitting still or in this case lying still. He gets cabin fever very easily. Let's just say that he is keeping me hopping around off and on all day! He will rest for a little bit but then I hear the walker dragging across the floor! He must use a walker when he is up walking. I am having trouble keeping my eyes on him!

I put a chair with cushions and pillows in it on the front porch for him to enjoy the outdoors. Was that good enough? Nooo sir. I looked out to find him in the BARN! He got himself stranded out there though. By the time he made it that far he was too tuckered out and couldn't make it back to the house. So, now we have a chair in the front yard halfway to the barn. He goes to the chair, rests a bit, then heads on to the barn. He is determined. Once at the barn, he has this padded chair on wheels to sit on. He likes to go out and sit in the barn while I work in the garden. He isn't able to stay out long though.

Speaking of the garden, the mustard greens are coming along nicely. I love thinning out the young greens and cooking them. They are so tender and tasty! Have you ever had fried greens? You know, everything we cook in the south is fried!! Actually a more accurate description would be wilted greens. To cook them you take the young and tender greens and pour hot bacon grease over them with a little salt. They only cook for a couple of minutes. That's it, they are done! Of course you must have a slice of southern cornbread to go along with the greens!

This is the row of kale. I haven't thinned this row yet nor have I had time to weed.

My late crop of purple eyed peas is in need of picking as well. See the dark pods? They will probably be too dry tasting, more like a dry bean, if I cook them. So I will not cook them with the yonger pods.

And my poor broccoli is about to get choked out with the grass and weeds. I plan to work on this row tomorrow. I may need to hire a husband-sitter while I work!!!

And this is what happened tonight. The rain started while Monroe was out in the barn and he had to call for help. Brent came to the rescue with a huge beach umbrella that belongs to Brooke (thanks Brooke for not taking it home yet!).

This was a slow walk back to the house because he has to take tiny steps due to the pain and he couldn't stop to rest halfway in his chair this time. He did stop for a small standing break, however. That outing did him in for today! But tomorrow.......

Thankful For Big Brothers

It's nice to have big brothers that remember their little brothers when they find an unexpected treasure. That is what happened one afternoon last week as Brent was coming home from college. He passed this prized possession that someone put out by the road for trash pickup! Imagine that! Disposing of this perfectly good volkswagen car! This family obviously didn't have boys or they would know that when the battery operated cars break is when the real fun begins! So naturally Brent stopped and threw the broken car into his truck. Never mind that it is pink. A little blue and white spray paint will fix that problem.
Now to rig up this fun ride. See the yellow car beside the pink one? Our neighbor saw what a great time the boys were having and donated his granddaughter's broken car to add to the fun.

Off they go!

Bryce would rather drive than be pulled. He is my ONLY child that will not throw caution to the wind and do anything too risky (smart boy).

Bryce does not have to live life on the edge like my other child that is being pulled behind the four-wheeler. By the way, the helmet is mandatory. Dad's rule!

I wasn't able to get a picture of the crashes but according to Brandon (the sometimes not so smart child) that is the best part. He would lean to one side to make the little car flip. Of course that always seemed to happen when Mom wasn't looking....hmmmm.

You know, as I sit here remembering, dare devil Brandon is the son that slightly fractured his toe doing a cartwheel on my carpeted bedroom floor (he was so excited to finally get a cast-remember he is the sometimes not so smart child) while poor Bryce severely broke his wrist a few months ago while carefully swinging on a rope in the back yard. Go figure!

Preparing For Winter

My husband is just about the most handy, creative guy I know. Really. He never ceases to amaze me. When things are broken or in need of repair in and around our home it seems he can always fix it. There are very few times we ever have to call a repairman out. You know how much money that saves us?

So, I decided to brag on him a little today. Can you tell what this invention is? I looked out my front window one morning and saw my man outside with this "thing" behind his truck. Out the door we came to see what he had created. This, my dear friends, is a log splitter!

Last winter Monroe borrowed a store bought log splitter from a friend. We use a lot of wood during the winter. It is our main source of heat for our home. We have a large fireplace in our living room that keeps us nice and warm but it surely likes to devour wood. So, using that borrowed log splitter set my hubby's imagination spinning. He had been pondering about building one for a few days because we talked about it several times. Work has been very slow over at the shop so that gave him some extra time to put his thoughts into action.

He used all scrap pieces of metal, parts from a wrecked truck and a lawn mower motor that were of no use at the shop and TAAAH...DAAAH....a log splitter!!

The axe or blade thingy that splits the wood is just a flat piece of metal that he bent and welded together. Then he used a grinder to put the edge on the blade. Pretty nifty don't you think?

The trailer was an old road sign trailer that is used on the highway to hold the flashing signs.

I looked in the Tractor Supply flyer that came this week and they were advertising what else but log splitters! Guess how much they cost???? They cost from $1,000 to $1,800!! Talk about a savings!

It makes me happy to know that my boys can learn from their Dad. They are watching and learning. One day when they are in charge of their own household I hope they will look back and remember all the things their Dad made and repaired at our home. I have a feeling he will be getting some phone calls in the future for some advice which he will not mind at all :-)

They are already excited about the new log splitter because splitting logs is a chore they must take a turn doing during the winter months. Now they just have to stack, stack, stack!

A Summer Re-cap

Summertime always seems to fly by too quickly for me. Before I know it, it is time to hit the books again with my boys. This summer was no different. We worked, we played and we visited friends. We were not able to have a family vacation but we did manage to take a couple of weekend get aways and day trips.

So here is a quick look at some of the highlights of our busy summer.

We bought a pregnant Saanen dairy goat the first of this year and by late spring we had two does born! There is nothing quite like having baby goats. They are so much fun. They can be just as much a pet as a farm animal. Just look at these two! We named them Sugar and Spice. We chose the right name for Spice because she does have a "spicy" attitude ;-)

We learned how to milk a goat, how to prepare the milk and I was very busy finding ways to use all of the wonderful milk we were able to get! I began to hear complaints every time someone opened the refrigerator. "I can't find anything in here for all this milk!" was a common remark.

So I began making yogurt, shown below, and a yummy soft cheese, sour cream, buttermilk and ricotta cheese. Talk about busy!! It was very rewarding though.
I was fortunate to make a trip to the farmer's market with a dear friend. She suggested going along with me for my first "buying experience" and I am so glad she did! It can be very overwhelming. There are so many vendors and they will negotiate with you on their prices! What fun! I bought this box of tomatoes for only $5.00!!! Aren't they beautiful? I had planned to can them but we ended up eating them all fresh. They were so delicious.

I also bought corn from the farmer's market. This was my first attempt at freezing corn. Brooke went in on halves with me so she came over and together we put up creamed corn....whew.....sore fingers and a messy kitchen was our sacrifice. Speaking of messy kitchen, even now, months later, every once in a while a speck of something will catch my eye in the most unusual place in my kitchen and I will wonder, "What in the world is that? Oh, of course, CORN!" Next year this will be a back porch job!!

Our summer garden didn't produce as much as I would have liked but we were able to get a few good pickings of peas. We did get lots of okra. It seems every year we have a good crop of okra that continues producing through the entire summer.

Here is our pea sheller. What a time saver!

There was time for a little R & R. Brooke and I had girls' night out with a couple of friends and we went to see Mary Poppins at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. We really enjoyed ourselves and this was something that no one else in my family envied me for going to see. This was most definitely a "girl thing" to do, according to all my guys!!

How was your summer?