How has your day been and what's for dinner...................

Greetings all! Glad to see you back Sonshine. Hope you enjoyed your trip. Glad your Mom is feeling better Mississippi.

My daughter and new son-in-law came over for dinner on Wednesday night and we had marinated chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and hot fudge pudding cake and pumpkin roll for dessert. I'd never made a pumpkin roll, or any kind of a roll for that matter, but my boss kept telling me how easy it was so I did one and it is easier than I thought. I will probably be making one of those for Thanksgiving in addition to an apple pie and cheesecake. We're going to my son's for Thanksgiving because this is the first year in their own home. I'm doing the majority of the baking and my oldest is doing the squash and my youngest is going to the pumpkin pie.

Yesterday I made some pumpkin cookies with pumpkin icing and a casserole with the leftover chicken. Took a dozen cookies over the Michelle and also took a dozen to Jeff, my neighbor down the road. I had planned on the casserole for dinner last night but got invited to a friend's for dinner so took the other dozen cookies there. We had a wonderful evening looking at homesteading articles and talking homesteading goals.

Tomorrow I'm going to my daughter's to pick up some more stuff and then my son and daughter-in-law are coming for dinner along with my daughter and daughter and son-in-law. I'm making chilli, cornbread and lemon sponge pie. I'm also making chicken and potatoes for my son-in-law because you can't get him to eat a vegetable to save his life and there are beans in chilli. I don't mind, I just love having them all here. I'm having a ball cooking and baking. I guessed I moved here just in time with all the holiday baking people have got planned for me to do. Good thing I love to bake huh?

Today I have to work and will be leaving a little early to meet Lexy at my office so she can show her wedding pictures to my boss. If I get started early I can leave early which is a good thing because I don't like driving at night.

Tomorrow deer and bear season opens here and yesterday while I was at neighbor Jeff's someone called to tell him they had spoted a bear on the power line. Last night while I was at my friend Joan's her son and his family came over and his wife had spotted a bob cat at the edge of their property. Needless to say I'm not going for any walks in the woods for a while.

Hope everyone has a wonderful, blessed day.

God Bless,

Donna

Think I'm going to come over to your house for something to eat.

Pumpkin cookies??? MMMM sounds good. care to share your recipe?

Well yesterday was not what I'd call a good day, and neither was the start of this day. Our 14 year and 5 month old Yorkie, our oldest "fur baby" started having pain induced seizures from cancerous tumors. Our Vet found the tumors a year ago in her breasts and near her spine so we knew it would only be a matter of time. We made the decision that it was "her time", and called the vet...

I buried her in our little cemetery, close to where our 16 yr old Lab "Skeeter" and 15 yr old cat (a Russian Blue) "Jasper" were laid to, rest this morning.

"Mattie-Belle" has left in our care her son "Pooh-Bear" and his daughter "Darby"

It's never easy to lose one of your fur babies. Sorry you had to go thru this.

So sorry for the loss of your pet. It hurts.

The coyotes are back, especially since hunting season started. I think the hunters are upsetting the deer and making them move around more, which is making the coyotes more active, too.

We butchered our BIG rooster and BBQ'd him in the crockpot. He was so big we had to use the biggest crockpot and put him in sideways.

Thanks Dizzy, Thanks mountianmama, She was our first rescue / sheltered pet. Skeeter was our second, followed by Duke, and Oreo. Duke was only with us for a year before he passed partly due to the abuse he lived through prior to coming to us. Oreo is 12 now and has decided he much prefers being a house dog since Skeeter is no longer with us to keep him company. Nearing the end of an era I'm afraid as most of our rescues now are cats with physical disabilities.

The older the rooster the tougher the dumplings come out Actually it sounds tasty I haven't BBQ'd a chicken in a while.

As for the coyotes, they normally will not bother full grown healthy deer, but will follow gun shots to free "internals" that hunters leave behind after field dressing a deer.

Sorry to hear of your loss 12acrehome, I'll keep you in my prayers.

I have been lurking and not posting much lately due to my husband's dementia taking a rapid change for the worse recently. I would appreciate you all keeping us in your prayers. Things are very tense and I'm afraid they are only going to get worse from here out. The new medicine doesn't seem to be having any affect on the dementia, but at least the medicine to help him sleep is allowing me to get a good night's rest too now that he's sleeping better.

Thanks Patrice, I am so sorry for what you are dealing with. Both of my grandmothers suffered with dementia, one actually had alzheimers. Both became like children, one happy and uncoordinated, one mad and somewhat dangerous to self and those around her. It was hard to watch, and I pray you make it through with your sanity intact.

12acrehome, I'm so sorry about the loss of your fur friend. I am going through the same thing. I took an older dog a year ago for a friend so she could move up here from Virginia. Well, little did I know that the dog was incontinent. For the past year I, and now my daughter since she is living in my house since I moved out, have put up with this poor girl leaking urine. The sad part is that the friend who gave her to me knew it when she brought her up here. Now it fall to me to make the decision of what to do with the dog. There is an agency locally that will not euthanize and I'm thinking about doing that but that doesn't seem fair to the dog. If the decision is made to put her down the kids said they would take her for me as they don't want me to have to go through that again. No matter what decision I make I feel like I've failed this dog.

Patrice, I'm so sorry about your husband. When I was doing health care, both privately and in nursing homes, those are the patients I worked with. It is so sad to watch. I'll keep you and your family in my prayers.

The kids came on Saturday for dinner and we had a wonderful time. Yesterday I just went to Church, came home and roasted a pumpkin for pies and whatever else I might take it in my head to make with it, knitted and watched Christmas movies. I did have a nice visit with my friends Joan and Michelle.

Today is a work day for me so I'm not going to be doing much before I go in at two. It will be a lot easier when they get my computer set up at home which should be within the next week. I'm going to put some laundry away and bake some peanut butter cookies. I'm going to post the pumpkin cookie recipe in the recipe section.

Hope you all have a good day and enjoy the weather, if it is nice that is. We are supposed to have temps up near 50 which is kind of weird for upstate New York in November but I'll take it.

I am back. I have been in and out of the hospital and they finally found out what was wrong and got the right medicine for it. I have VRA which is a vancomicine resistant infection. I actually had to be put in the hospital and them threaten the insurance company for me to stay 2 weeks for them to pay for the medicine. It would have been $4000 for a two week supply.

We have been taking it easy around here. We lost our goat something attacked her. We have coyotes but we think it was a deer that got a hold of her. We have a huge buck behind the house. the game warden seemed to think it was him.

My step daughter and son in law finally moved out. 2 weeks later we found out she was preganate

For dinner we had patty night. potato patties black eyed pea patties and salmon patties.

Amy, welcome back. I've been praying for you.

Keith, I'm sorry you lost your fur baby. It never gets easy, does it?

Patrice, I'm sorry to hear that your husband is getting worse and will continue to pray for both of you.

I've been kind of scarce on here lately because my neighbor had a cornea transplant that didn't go well, lots of bleeding and it took him 12 hours to wake from the anesthesia. He had the surgery on Tuesday and he still seems out of it. I'm wondering if some of the blood could have seeped into his brain. For those that have been here for awhile, this is the neighbor that use to fly personal planes and was in a plane wreck a few years back. He's been going through several reconstructive surgeries, but still can't really eat. The cornea transplant was to try to repair the damage done to his eyes. One of his eyes I don't think they can do anything about. It's the one that was shoved way back in the eye socket. He hasn't had much vision since the accident, and now, due to the blood in the eye, he can't see at all. He'll be going to the doctor on Wednesday. He's also having problems with confusion. His poor wife is frazzled to say the least. The VA has authorized for some day time help to come, but he still wants his wife to do everything for him. Please keep these two in your prayers. His name is Tom and her name is Mary Evelyn. They are such precious folks.

I've also been busy getting Christmas gifts made. We finally made some goat milk soap and are waiting for it to finish curing. I've also been crocheting some scarves for gifts. I sure hope I get them all done in time.

For supper we had goulash and salad.

Sorry to hear you were so sick Amy but glad you are back and feeling better.

Sorry to hear about your neighbor Sonshine. They are lucky to have you so close by.

I've haven't been around much because I've been sick since Saturday. I was at a friend's for dinner and about 8:00 p.m. started feeling really cold. By nine when I left I had shaking chills that continued through Sunday and part of Monday. Took my old stand-by aspirins, Vicks rubbed under my nose, on my chest and last night on the bottom of my feet with a pair of my
handknit socks and today I'm feeling much better, so far. I'm supposed to work today but I'm calling in because I don't want to expose anybody to this. If I was working at home I wouldn't and I know she really, really needs me to work on Thursday so I want to make sure I'm there on Thursday.

I ordered some yarn to make the kids hats and mitten and some soap/lotion scents on Saturday. The scents should be here today or tomorrow which is a good thing because I have to get the soap made so it can cure. I'm working on the pair of texting gloves for Lexy and have one almost finished. I thought I would have it done yesterday but I started feeling horrible again around 11 a.m. so back to bed I went.

Hope everyone is doing well and have a good day.

Hi all. Been busy here with Thanksgiving. Sunday was our last day at our church, so it's been kind of a bittersweet, emotional time for us lately. We've been cleaning out dh's office at the church and TRYING to find room for all of his study books and such. I'm wondering how we will fit it all and still have room to put up a Christmas tree. Before dh takes another church, we're going to find someplace with a good youth group for the kids and rest a little while until the burnout of ministry subsides.

Patrice, sorry about your dh.
Amy, I hope you feel better today.

backtotheland, I hope you feel better soon.

mountainmama, I'll be praying that God will lead you to the church you belong in.

Spent the day working on Christmas gifts. I enjoy making them, but sometimes I think I bite off more than I can chew. I just pray I get them all done in time.

For supper we had chili with crackers.

Thanks Sonshine. I'm feeling much better. I laid low from Saturday through yesterday and took aspirin, applied Vicks and drank lots of lemon water with some hot tea occasionally. Oddly enough the hot tea made me kind of nauseous but the cold lemon water didn't. I didn't work yesterday but am going in today. If they had me set up at home I would have worked yesterday but I wan't going to a hospital, of all places, coughing like I was.

I got one of Lexy's gloves finished yesterday and started the other one. I'm just like you Sonshine, I always biting off more than I can chew at Christmas time and this year is no different. I'm waiting for a delivery of yarn for the kids hats and mittens, the scents for the soap that I'm making (if that comes this week, which it should) I'll be okay on that one, and I have one more pair of hunting socks to make for my son-in-law not to mention the cookies and candy. Tis the season!

I roasted a turkey breast yesterday and had some of that, a sweet potatoe, peas and cranberry sauce for supper last night. That is the only thing I don't like about not having dinner at home - no leftovers. Tonight I have to work so I'm going to take some of my homemade pumpkin soup for supper tonight. I only get 15 minutes because I only work six hours but I can nibble while I work.

Have a good day everybody and God Bless.

Hi everyone. I'm sorry to hear some of you have been so sick. Amy, I'm glad you have found out what is wrong with you and able to get treatment.
Backtotheland, I'm glad you're feeling better. 12acrehome, I'm sorry to hear about your puppy (I know it's beyond puppy age but they're all puppies to me), Patrice I'm sorry your hubby isn't doing well and Sonshine it's good to see you able to be doing your Christmas gift making.

William and I are staying busy getting things ready for the flea market booth. There's going to be an open house this coming weekend and we're expected to be there both days. We're trying to get items together to take down there on Friday so our booth will be full. For something that started out as a hobby it's turned into a lot of work. LOL But the items we're putting in the booth are selling well so that's a good thing.

William is still substituting at the school. He has to work tomorrow and Friday and we're still cleaning our two oldest daughters' homes. William told somebody the other day that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. LOL

A neighbor is coming to buy some of our animals tomorrow. That will help us some with the food costs and give the other animals more space to roam.

We lost two of our ducks. We have no idea what happened to them. They just disappeared. No feathers or anything to show that something got them. This really upset me because I had sold all of the ducks except a trio. Now I need two more Khaki Campbells.

We had leftover beans and potato salad for dinner and I cooked some cabbage with smoked sausage and onion.

I hope the rest of the week will be a good one for you all. May God bless each one of you.

Thanks Mississippi. Sorry to hear about your ducks. I had white onces once, I think they were Peking ducks someone gave me, and I said never again. But now my friend down the road has some Cayuaga's and I absolutely love those little buggers. I can see the farm from my kitchen window and so I can see the sheep when they are in the upper pasture and when I hear those ducks start going off I always go have a look see to make sure everythng is okay. If I have animals again that is where they will be housed. It is a nice walk in the spring, summer and fall and I can still see them from my window.

Your supper sounds really good. I was going to have pumpkin soup but gave in and got something from the hospital cafeteria instead. Bad idea. You know what they say about following your instincts, well I'm listening on that count from now on.

Hope everyone has a good day.

Sorry about your ducks, MM. It's hard to lose animals.

A friend of ours called today and warned us to keep a close eye on our chickens, that people have been stealing them. He said now we have to watch out for the two-legged predators. I hope nothing happens to ours, because they are like pets.

I have some venison and gravy in the crockpot for dinner. Someone at dh's work wanted to trade for my homemade bread, so we were thrilled to get the meat. I'll make some mashed potatoes and veggies to go with it.

Mountainmama, your dinner sounds so good. My Mom suggested maybe a two legged animal got our ducks also since there were no feathers or sign of a four legged animal getting them. I hope we don't have that problem.

We sold sixteen roosters and fourteen rabbits yesterday to one of our neighbors. We kept enough rabbits to raise young ones when we need more to put in the freezer. We also kept a couple of roosters for breeding this spring. We're hoping this will help with our feed bills.

William has worked at the school the last two days. I've done chores around home. It seems like I'm not getting to stay home very much anymore so I have to get things caught up when I am at home.

For dinner we had tacos.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Can you believe that December is almost here? I'm going to ask the same question I've heard asked a lot lately....."Where has the time gone?"

Things have started well this morning. Hubby left for work at 5:30 and I went back to bed, was really tired. So now I feel rested. I made homemade pizzas last night for dinner, tonight we are going to the school that's only a block from our house. They are having a benefit supper, auction for one of my son's best friends who fell into a bonfire a few weeks ago. He is home now, recovering, but his medical expenses are outrageous. So we are going to either have chili or vegetable soup, dessert and a drink for a donation.

Kerrig, I hope your son's friend will have a speedy recovery. I will pray for the friend. My heart hurt for him because burns are a most terrible pain.

William and I have been so busy here lately I sometimes meet myself running around in circles. LOL I told him the other day for someone who never went anywhere (and loved it) I now never stay at home (not thrilled with this). I'm behind on everything. But he thinks if he goes looking for flea market items I'm supposed to be right there and some days it's an all day deal.

I hope everyone is doing alright.

For dinner I had egg sandwich and William ate cereal.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.

I made taco salad and tried something different. I didn't have any kidney or chili beans to put in it, so I used a can of refried beans and just dropped small spoonfuls of it in the salad and mixed it up. That taco salad is GONE. (snicker) and dh and dd1 never touch refried beans. I got away with it, this time.

LOL I use refried beans in my burritos, usually leave the beans out of the taco salad

Glad to hear everyone is doing well. Things here this week have been pretty bad. I was in Court three days, one with my granddaughter Bella for a Lincoln hearing, and the other two with my daughter who is going through a custody battle. The judge basically told them that if they don't get along there are going to be consequences. It's not over yet though because he got on the stand and lied about everything. So now we're in the process of getting all the documentation to prove it. This is a nightmare. Because they can't even be in the same parking lot without one or the other starting something (they just need to grow up) I've been the one designated to do the drop-off and pickups with the kids. Friday night was Bella's school performance and that went all right. Yesterday I had to drive from where I live (18 miles away) to the drop off point and watch them to make sure nothing was said. He was a very good boy and she was a very good girl, of course they were I was right there. He usually brings his significant other, who is married with four children she left with her husband to live with my son-in-law, but he was alone this time. I just want this to be over so I can have some semblence of a life but I will do what I have to to protect my grandchildren.

They are setting up my computer at home by the end of this week so I should be working at home by Thursday or Friday. I certainly hope so.

I've got some things done for Christmas but I'll still be knitting on Christmas Eve, as usual. I always say I'm not going to do this again but I always do. I haven't even baked a single cookie and I don't know if I will either. I think the weather has a lot to do with it. It is unseasonably warm here and there is no snow. Of course, I hope there isn't until after this week-end.

I roasted a turkey breast the week before last and have been eating that. I also made macaroni and cheese for my youngest daughter's birthday last Sunday (21) and have been finishing that up. That is a problem I have - I forget I'm cooking for one. Today before I go to Church I'm going to make a meatloaf and get my potatoes peeled and in cold water and make lunch when I get home from Church because I have to go to my daughter's to watch the little ones while she is working tonight.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Sunday.