Christmas 2012 Wish List

Here is my latest Wish List for family.  

2012 Christmas/Birthday/Holiday List - Margaret


Panasonic SD-RD250 Automatic Bread Maker with Fruit/Nut Dispenser
(I would think a regular bread machine would work too)

Amazon Gift Certificate  - Kindle Books
(Love my Kindle!!!)

Popcorn popper   (I keep thinking if I had an airless popper it would be healthier?)






Gardening shoes/gloves/gloves
Anything related to gardening

Lilac bush - spring??

Summer of 2012

So here are some of the vegetables I grew in the garden this summer.  I froze beans, extra squash and zucchini.  I made pickles that keep in the fridge, plus we bought some fruit and I canned applesauce and peaches.  I canned tomatoes and also made blackberry jam.

I am looking forward to eating the stuff in the freezer and what I canned this winter.  It will give me a clue what we like and don't like.  I have both strawberry plants and blueberry bushes in the garden.  I didn't plan to well but it should work out OK.  The strawberry plants are on the east side of the garden and the blueberry bushes are on the west side of the garden.  So the tractor will need to be careful to not dig or cover them but it will limit garden space for the next several years until we move the strawberry plants.  I am thinking both will need to be covered from animals and birds.

My garden experience this summer has been that I need to plant enough for both us and the animals.  When we dug up the sweet potatoes last week we found baby mice.  I noticed the tops of the sweet potatoes were eaten.  So then we found the mice . . .  yes, we let them live.

We hosted my family reunion this summer.  We actually need to call it a "gathering" for the Amish.  We cleaned up the garage and put the food, etc in the garage.  We had flies, but food shouldn't sit out for hours in the summer, so this made sure the food was put away after we ate.  We didn't have home made ice cream this summer, none of the younger people came and the older ones decided they didn't want to crank the freezer.  The ladies helped get the food put away and stuff washed up.  

The ladies played cards most of the afternoon and others played washers.  This takes 2 teams of people.  I practiced several throws and discovered I could hit the holes, so I played washers.
 

The Amish come early and stay late!  Since Ed and I are early risers, we were dressed and ready for company!  The day wasn't too hot which would have been hard to sit on the patio.  We have seats on the screen porch and people could sit whereever they wanted.  Everyone sat in the garage for the most part.  I got benches from the Amish.  I stopped in at my brother Emanuel's place to ask if we could use benches from him.  We had extra chairs to move around and the benches were mobile too.  Steve, my younger brother brought them and took them home that night.

All in all we had nice weather for the day.  Since we still had mounds of dirt it was nice that not many small children came.  One of my great-nephews sat on top of the stone wall with his feet dangling down the steep side so I called his mother!

I am so thankful for our large family and that we have these gatherings several times a year!  God has been good!

2012 Garden

I have a garden! I planted peas, lettuce and onions today! I am excited! It finally happened! Paul, my brother-in-law plowed the plot several weeks ago then came and disk the garden yesterday, and it looked pretty good after he went over it several times. This plot hasn't been used for at least ten years! I didn't take the top layer off so the dirt is full of roots and what not. Our kind neighbor Forest came soon after Paul left with a rotor tiller on his tractor! He went over the ground at least three times, so the dirt is pulverized! I plan to fill the garden space this summer, planting tomatoes, several kinds of peppers, pickles, squash, carrots, more onions, more lettuce and maybe even sweet corn. We'll find out if the wild animals will stay out of the garden! Paul's dog and that's her name too, has been coming to our farm for several days and now we don't see any ground hogs. Yeah! The empty house next door had several living under the front porch. It was Sunday, our dogs daily entertainment.

I found the farm has several big patches of daffodil along with several types! I am getting excited to get our water feature completed along with the stone wall rebuilt, get our patio poured, etc. Our farm house has ivy that I want to pot and let it creep over the stone. It will help soften the appearance of the stone.



I am hosting "Sister's Day" next Saturday, so they will get to see the house, several for the first time. Well, we only moved in several months ago! We are pretty much unpacked, the boxes are out of the farm house where we stored the stuff we moved out of our Sheboygan home. Yeah!

Its February already! I keep saying I thought I would blog more often! We are getting settled in our new home. We started moving stuff to the farm around 3 years ago so we have all those boxes to unpack. We put up some Christmas decorations this year. It was fun to put up a Christmas tree again after all these years! The stuff we didn't use this year we moved and put in the attic.

Our boxes of books are open and put on the shelves we had built for that purpose. They are deep in both rooms so several layers of books can be stacked. I continue to be amazed at how much the book cases can handle. Thank God for Josh; while visiting over Christmas he organized the bookcase so it looks wonderful. We keep finding stuff and are able to find a place for it. Otherwise we plan to sell what we can't use. Thank God for flea markets!

I need to start painting again. Maybe we'll have some sunny days coming up in March. I want to be done giving all the trim work its paint. at this time I don't plan to change any wall colors. The bathrooms are white . . . so maybe after this summer I'll have some fresh inspiration and come up with a color to paint them. They need another coat of paint, so we might as well wait and see if we want to keep them this color of white.

Now that hunting season is over we are seeing deer again. Sunday, our dog starts to bark, but after dark we can't see anything. When we walk to the mail box in the morning I see deer tracks out and about so she must have been barking at them.

Both Ed and I are so totally enjoying living out here on the farm! I didn't know how this would play itself out but so far its really been fun. We still don't have any curtains up . . . that has really been nice. I know the sun will start shining before I am ready to get up so I am thinking about some window coverings. When summer is in full swing our dining room will get hot so we will need to put something over those windows too.

Our children gave us this Homer Lane address for Christmas. We will hang it on our house around the front door somewhere. So cool!

We Moved to PA

We moved the first week of December 2011. This year has been the most work in my life! I feel like I painted and painted and still not finished! We painted enough to pass inspection. Thank God we hired a crew of Amish men to give our house the under coat of paint. All we need is to give everything the last coat of paint. Plus paint all the trim, doors, we have many windows which all have trim! Baseboards all around!

We hired my brother Stephen to do our carpentry work. When he saw what all needed to be done he asked if his son Stevie could help us. So, along with Ed's brother Paul, we got finished. Paul hung all the doors, put on many or most of the handles. My brother sprayed all the doors and trim. He finished all the doors. (Some of the frames were an off white that I painted). All I need is to give the trim its final coat of paint which is a big help. I quit painting until maybe February?

We painted most of the walls a sunny yellow. Without furniture it looked like it could overwhelm everything. Since we moved in with our furniture it is blended very nicely.

We had a big bookcase built right into the living room which helps with our books and trinkets. Its amazing how much went into the bookcase! We are still finding books and finding places to put them in the bookcase! Josh spent several days of his Christmas vacation helping us get organized. He worked at least a day on organizing the pantry! Thank you Joshua!!! I am starting to find things without spending lots of time looking!

The bookcase looks great thanks to Joshua spending several days working on it. We still haven't put up any curtains. Its amazing how much light we are finding living out in the country without curtains! I am sure we'll want some before spring when the sun rises early in the morning!

I am thankful for all the help we had moving both in Sheboygan and PA! We had so many people helping us in Sheboygan, it rained and so the people they lined up like a brigade which helped. Thank God for Ed Horvat, he's a professional mover and volunteered to direct the loading of the truck. It took several hours but we got the truck loaded with more stuff then we could imagine! Our new church provided 4 men to unload which is an easier job by far! By noon the truck was unloaded! Thank God for the church!