Down on the homestead - Sept 25th to Oct. 1st

**homesteadmamma** · 09-25-2005, 05:35 PM

Dh needs the computer so I thought I would come on and see whats new.

We are having wonderful weather. The sun is shining and its in the high teens here. Can't beat that for this time of the year.

Yesterday we went to the MCC craft sale and then headed to dd's farm. It was nice to get away.

Today I've been quilting most of the day, except for when I baked bread early this morning.

Tonight I have to clean the po and then home to play a new game we picked up yesterday at the sale.

Hope everyone is having a nice Sun.

**QuilterMom** · 09-25-2005, 07:07 PM

Dh has been working hard around the house, mostly painting. I mowed our property and unfortunately came across a slithery someone who evidently did not read my memo that he was NOT to be on my land.

I also rearranged and inventoried our fridge freezer and chest freezer today and need to make a list tonight of all that I want to get made up in the next few weeks while I'm still able. I have a suspicion I'm going to end up on bedrest before it's all over.

**forestdale** · 09-25-2005, 07:16 PM

It's a warm Monday morning here. Hello ladies.

I've spent the past hour sweeping my front verandah and rearranging my plants for summer. We have the vent for the a/c out there so I've moved all the plants away from the vent and taken all the orchids into the greenhouse.

I potted all my hydrageas last summer, I'm about to put them back into the garden. They're all healthy and about to flower and I have a nice shaded area where they'll get morning sun and shade for the rest of the day.

Yesterday I potted 12 seedling tomatoes. When they're a bit bigger, I'll plant four of them out front to see if they grow there over summer; the other 8 will be in the regular vegie garden.

I picked the last of the lemons when I went to feed the chickens this morning. I'll be making lemonade later and freezing whatever is leftover.

I have some vacuuming to do, one bathroom to clean and then I'll be writing for the rest of the day.

CJ, it sounds like you had a nice weekend.

Kim, take it easy. I don't want you getting sick from exhaustion with your precious cargo.

Hello to all who follow.

**Mom23boys** · 09-25-2005, 07:31 PM

Hello to all!

CJ, enjoy your weather and quilting time.

Kim, I have posted a NOT WANTED sign too!! I happen to find one of those slithering friends last weekend while I was mowing! I hope yours keeps on moving to find a new home.

Rhonda, sounds like you had a busy, but productive day.

We have had a nice, but very, very hot day here. DH went and picked up the paper while I made breakfast this morning.

After washing the breakfast dishes, the boys decided they wanted to go to town with me. I "wanted" to buy some new shoes for myself. I had some birthday money to spend.

I had them give me their opinions. I also exchanged a pair of pants we had purchased for Chris before school started that he never wore and now he can't.

At least it was a simple process.

I have been doing laundry on and off all day long. When I am home it has been non-stop. I think I really got behind somewhere.

Yesterday we finally finished laying all the laminate, hard-wood flooring in the living room and hall. It looks really good. I am so glad that the hard part is over....the expensive part too. We have to still purchase and install the molding around the floor. Then we will be completing finished. I wanted to finish before it started getting cold, which may be forever here. But with the way the weather has been lately, I am not taken chances.

We were one of the lucky ones who didn't get any damage from Rita. When she started turning more to the east, we were removed from her path. I hope and pray everyone in her path was and is ok.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

**baxjul** · 09-25-2005, 09:09 PM

Good evening!

It was 94 degrees here today, dd had her first playdate in FL. Twins live next door, and one of them came over to play. Next Sat. both of them will be spending the night. They had alot of fun. They are one year older than Eleni.

I cleaned the house and got ready for the week. Ordered new cell phones for dh and I. I will check in tomorrow evening.

Good night.

**homesteadmamma** · 09-26-2005, 09:20 AM

Good morning everyone.

Kim, please take it easy okay. We don't want any early surprises.

Michelle, glad you got your floor all finished.

Baxjul, its nice to see your dd has met some kids. That will make the transition for her so much easier. Hope the sleepover goes well.

Rhonda, I'm wishing I could be changing my flowers. Here they finally froze!!!

Last night, dh and I made a couple huge decisions. I'm so happy he agreed with me and he was really happy about it.

Today I need to:

~do laundry
~straighten up the kitchen now that I'm finished canning
~declutter our bedroom
~clean the po
~get the kids school started

Were looking at nice warm temps. during the day for this whole week, so I also want to get outside and work on the flowerbeds sometime this week. I may get a chance to do that today. I'm wanting to move some perennials along with some timbers we have around one flowerbed.

Hope everyone has a nice Monday.

**QuilterMom** · 09-26-2005, 09:52 AM

Rhonda - Are you freezing the actual lemonade that's leftover or just the lemon juice? We have 2 lemons on our tree (not quite ready yet) and that's all we'll get from it this year since we've just had it a year.

Michelle - We're putting in laminate hardwood floors as well and I love the one we chose. So much more comfy to stand on than the tile and much prettier, too! We still only have one room done though (we're doing the entire house with the exception of the bathrooms).

Julie - The heat here just continues! Welcome to FL! LOL

CJ - Oh, new decisions! I suspect something exciting is on the horizon!!!

We're about to get school underway. I have a couple of loads of laundry to put away, need to wash another load and get it hung to dry, and I *might* make some waffles depending on how tired I am. I need to dig out a quilting project I was working on earlier in the summer and try to get started on it again. I'm still having a hard time adjusting to the lower light put out by the fluorescent bulbs we put in (and we don't have lamps because we don't have end tables to sit any on LOL) so it will be interesting trying to work on that at night. We also *might* be going to get blinds for all our windows tonight. Dh is supposed to let me know. There is one particular man he wants to cut them and we don't know when he's working today.

**forestdale** · 09-26-2005, 03:21 PM

G'day homesteaders.

It might rain today. I doubt it will but the weater forecast is for rain. If it looks ok when the sun comes up, I'll do some laundry. I have most of my week's chores done so today I'll concentrate on drawing some new patterns and writing.

Yesterday I thought a snake had taken one of my chickens. I heard the dogs barking and they were looking at something. When I went outside the new chooks were grazing outside the boundry fence, near where that big snake was recently. They came running in when they saw me and after a quick search for the others I got them all in the coop, except for one red hen. I called and called but didn't want to go down to the creek, in case the snake was still in the ferns down there. I thought I'd better check my cat Hettie, because she was what the snake had been after when it was here. I went over to the shed, thinking that the snake has taken the hen, called Hettie and found them both - Hettie and the red hen, sitting in the shed side by side. lol I wanted to take a photo of them but they both followed me outside.

Kim, I'm freezing lemon juice in ice block trays and then storing them in ziplock bags until needed. We had about 100 lemons this year and already next year's crop is growing as tiny green buds. What other fruit trees do you have?

I hope everyone is well and happy.

**Michele Annette** · 09-26-2005, 03:36 PM

Hi Everyone!

Doing good here. Busy and that's okay. Focusing on my stockpile, Fall cleaning and prep for Winter. Working on Christmas projects.

It's very cloudy and rainy here. It warmed up a bit, but not enough to opent the windows.

I hope you are all having a great day!

**Mom23boys** · 09-26-2005, 06:40 PM

Hello to all!

Very, very hot day here!!

No real plans except:
~work
~cooking and cleaning
~laundry
~taking Dakota to football practice

I hope everyone has a great day!

**psjkmom** · 09-26-2005, 10:04 PM

Hello to all! You all sound so busy. I'm so tired at the end of the day, but couldn't really tell 'ya what I've accomplished.

My dh is out of town, so our routine here at home is off

. OK too many frownies - on to better news. It rained today

We need rain so badly.

I'm working on stockpiling. My dks needed to take toiletry items to school last week to donate to Katrina relief and all I did was check my closet and found lots of extra shampoo, deodorant, and soap to give. All of it was bought on sale using a coupon. It was wonderful to have it there and not have to run to the store and buy something full-price. I learned this from you smart women of the village. Thank you!

Have a happy day!

**forestdale** · 09-27-2005, 02:55 PM

Good morning homesteaders.

I'll be ironing this morning as I have to work the next two days at our store. I hope to spend the rest of the day in my sewing room. We had a tiny bit of rain last night - the dam that supplies our capital city is down to just below 35% capacity - so it's pretty grim. We definately need more

Emily, it's good to hear you had goods on hand to donate to the relief fund. Stockpiling works on many levels.

Michelle, I hope the temperate has fallen.

**QuilterMom** · 09-27-2005, 03:28 PM

I wish I could send you some rain, Rhonda! We just got an unexpected downpour. You asked about other fruit trees. We have a valencia orange tree (just planted a year ago). We had 8 oranges growing on it, but 4 were knocked off from heavy rains.

I've been working on getting a 5lb. bag of organic potatoes made into twice baked potatoes to go into the freezer. I worked on piecing almost all yesterday afternoon and again last night. I ran out of fabric that I already had cut so that's what I've been doing today in between dealing with the potatoes and homeschool. Cutting is by far my least favorite thing to do.

**Michele Annette** · 09-27-2005, 04:49 PM

Hi All!

It has cleared up here with wonderful cool Fall weather. The leaves are changing and I forget how fast it happens. I can't believe it's almost October! I have so much to do!

Today I was able to put the turkey frame on for broth. So tonight's dinner will be Turkey vegetable stew with dumplings. The rest of the broth I will freeze. I'm also freezing the rest of the stuffing (about 4 cups) for making spinach ball appitizers during the holiday season.

I washed a load of luandry on lunch and will hang on the line when I get home. I also will be able to work on my Fall skirt after the dinner dishes. Haven't been able to in a few days.

I hope you all have a good day!

**homesteadmamma** · 09-27-2005, 06:55 PM

Its been another one of those days. I've was on the road from 7:50 a.m. until 3 p.m. I took dh to work on the farm, then I drove to 2 different libraries, took dd to music lessons, picked dh up and then came home. Then I took a number of packages over to the post office to mail.

I still need to finish last night's dishes (almost done), make supper, clean the post office, do some quilting and then finish a book I'm reading. I'm going to get ds#1 to do tonight's supper dishes.

Hopefully tomorrow won't be quite so busy.

Have a nice evening everyone.