So What Was Your Bet?

If you bet he would forget? Well you WON!!!

Yes, very serious.

It wasn't until he was about to leave for work, when he saw a look on my face and asked me what was wrong. I said nothing! He than goes all sappy and says "tell your husband your "friend" what is wrong?" I said "my husband my "friend" would not have forgotten what today was?"

It took him a minute to figure out what today was.

He has it programmed in his phone and on his calendar for the 25Th. What is up with that? My birthday has not changed once since we have been married?

MEN!!!! I would trade him in, but they are so hard to train. Although if he doesn't start pulling his weight again around here I may be calling a lock smith sometime in the near future!!!.

Well stay tuned for next year when we play the game Will He Or Will He Remember?

Taking All Bets Now

So the question is will the husband remember or forget my birthday tomorrow 5-23-09? I have no faith in him as for April and our anniversary half way through the day his phone reminded him!!! And he got caught since he was in paying for gas when his phone went off in the van!

Now my husband does not have to get me anything (we have no money) But hey say Happy Birthday! For 6 years of marriage he has totally forgotten twice. So I don't count those on my age and Hey that means I'm still in my 20's. And I have a lot of fun making him feel guilty.

You know for the past two years his parents have called him to remind him. Well the parents are out of town and who knows if they even remember at this point?

So taking bets now will he or won't he remember my b-day?

Garden Photos

The garden is in. Well kinda of, I need to update these photos. Since taking these I have added more raised boxes and we have taken over our neighbors back yard. So what we have now.

This was what we had last year, minus two of the raised boxes. We added blueberry's around the apple tree in the back right there. We will put strawberry's between the apple tree and the blue berry's. Our strawberry's the second box back there the big bushy green one. Our strawberry's are out of control as you will see as we go.

This is a new box we added, strawberry's around the edges' we were going to put in Tomato's but we have Garbanzo Beans planted instead. They are just now starting to pop.

This box is new for us. Just for Strawberry's.

These are our new pear trees. We won't see fruit this year. The buckets are now for the Tomato's which are in the green house now and will be planting later.

These are Cherry trees, now this year as well. The buckets are also for Tomato's. We have a lot of tomato seeds planted. Last year we tried growing the tomato's upside down and out of eight plants we had NO tomato's. How sad is that. So we are doing buckets this year.

This year we are growing:

Tomato's

Celery

Peppers

Zucchini

Two different cucumbers

Cauliflower

Broccoli

Peas

Green Beans

Carrots

Beet Berry's

Egg Plant

Beets

Squash

Corn

Pumpkins

Apples

Blue Berry's

Raspberry's

Potato's

Onions

Strawberry's

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Sun flowers

Sorghum

Garbanzo Beans

Mustard Seeds

I'm sure I'm missing a few. Stay tuned as we go here? I will have a lot of canning and freezing ahead of me.

They Are Here

Our new herd mates have arrived. And how sweet are they. Although unexpectedly BIG and SMALL. Let me start with Chip and Dale. OMG I swear they are half horse half goat, but so sweet. They are Pack Goats and apparently I didn't know the size of pack goats.

This is Charlie this face says "Mom What the Hell?"

This is Chip, he is triple the size of Charlie.

This is Dale, he is such a love bug. Chip and Dale are twins and are about 9 years old.

Then the babies. 6 week old babies. How sweet are they. I am keeping them in the first fenced in area before mixing them with the other goats. We have about 6 weeks of bottle feeding ahead of us. Which the boys enjoyed doing tonight. They will also be staying in our wash room at nights for a bit as we all get use to each other and to keep them really sweet goats.

Here they are enjoying their own hay. They are also twin weathers. Yep four boys today. So our two girls are really starting to feel outnumbered.

This is Tyrone, but we may re-name him? I don't think Tyrone fits him?

This is Ed. I like the name Ed for him.

So all this happened well Cole was napping, he work up and looked outside and called Chip and Dale horses. He is not so sure about the babies, but he did give them a BIG ole kiss on the lips (so wish I had a photo of that one.) Ethan and Tucker just love all our new goats. Charlie is adjusting and spent the day bossing them around. He would kick them out of the hey bin. Chip and Dale would be pruning our tree and he would go over there and tell them "enough" Charlie has kicked them out of pens. Leo has adapted well as Chip or Dale would bring down a branch for Leo to nibble on. And our little tiny Mighty Max tried once to show them who was boss, well let's just say that didn't last long.

Well onto the making of the barn, we have it all drawn out now to get it up this spring and summer so look for that to come. We want a hay feeder big enough for a whole bale of hay. A place for all of them to sleep if they wish to. A place for the water so it won't freeze in the winter.

My Goats

Life on the farm. From time to time you all hear me talking about my Goats. And because tomorrow is a BIG day in Goat Land I thought it was time to share with all of you.

Well 6 years ago my husband and I were house hunting and after a few months we found this house. The only catch was there was this Goat in the back yard. The sellers had long gone and the neighbors were feeding her. So when we bought the house we made sure the contract included the goat. Which we named Riley. So about a year or so into things we thought she might be lonely as goats do better in groups. We had also found out from the neighbors there had been two goats for a long time but the other had passed before we bought the house. I'll save you the details there. It wasn't pretty.

So one day we went down South to a Goat show and found Luna and fell in love and bought her home. We've had a few other goats since then, but Riley left us at age 15 and Luna just left us a few months ago. But along the way we collected Charlie, he is the biggest goat I think I have ever seen, but so lovable. We was in the flood of 07 and just could not go back home. He was staying with someone but he is a sneaker and can sneak out if you give him half a chance. So we got him. And yes once in awhile sneaks out here, but we are double fenced so he has not made it that far.

We also collected four babies. They just could not go home after the flood. So many people lost animals and hay. So we took in these four babies. They are on the shy end of things, but I am slowly winning them over.

Well so we just lost Luna and Luna and Charlie were really good friends, the babies annoy this 10 year old. So seeing how down Charlie has been I have been on the hunt for another older goat and today I found them, not one but two. Two weathers (fixed boys) the are twins and about nine years old they are being delivered tomorrow. Along with 4 week old babies. How did the guy talk us into that? So our current count today is 5, tomorrow 9...YIKES.

Here is a photo of Bella, almost 2 years old.

These are my boys, Leo (the more black one) and Mighty Max (on the right). We didn't think Max would make it when he came to us, so we tried hard and here he is today, we now call him mighty Max. They are almost 2 years old. All four babies are the same age. I still call them my babies. Soon to be called my toddlers as I have babies coming.

I will have to post a photo of Becca and Charlie later as my camera only loaded half the photos.

Tomorrow I will try and post photos of the new herd mates. I'm excited. I hope this really perks up Charlie. But this means we have a LOT of new building to do this summer. We are putting in a new barn to house everyone through the next winter. Where we can fed them inside and water inside that won't freeze. Of course I will try and post photos as we go.

MARCIE

Did you hear that? That is my cannier calling me. It has been screaming my name for days and since today was a no work day. I gave in and canned a recipe that I found. I will be expanding my canning this year. I am looking to do sides and soups/stews and such. Along with the usually jams and such. We didn't get one Tomato last year so we are hoping for the best this year to do spag. sauce, and pizza sauce and such. So keep checking back as I find the time to can and try new things.


The funny thing is well I was canning this my parents called, they are happy to be guinea pigs for this recipe. Well OK than go for it. I need a few guinea pigs as I don't want to can bad recipes?




So this is Coleslaw, this is the before photo as the after photo just did not come out. Way too dark. Now doesn't this look good? I have to be honest I have never made Coleslaw before in my life. Let alone eat it or can it. So I have no idea what I'm doing. But it looks so good, my son could barely keep his hands out of this. If this is good we will be adding Cabbage to our to grow list. Poor hubby that list gets longer and longer everyday?



Coleslaw

1 head cabbage
1 carrot
1 green or red bell pepper
1 small onion

Shed everything and mix all the vegetables together, and toss with 1 heaping teaspoon of salt. Let stand for 1 hour. Drain any accumulated liquid. Make up a syrup out of the following;

1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed

Bring syrup to a boil, then boil for 1 minute. Let cool. Mix syrup with shredded vegetables. Pack the veggies mix tightly into jars and than pour the cooled liquid over the veggies. BWB for 15 minutes.



Now I did 5 small jars. BIG mistake I should have crammed into two small jars. Next time I know.



The recipe says when ready to serve drain all the liquid and do a very fast rinse and add a few tablespoons of mayo and mix. So play with it. Enjoy. Marcie

Happy Easter

My boys woke up to Easter Baskets and eggs everywhere. After about an hour after that it was time for breakfast. I scored the day before at a garage sale and got a bunny and duck pancake mold. So here I am using them. The boys got to pick out their animal. Ethan was a Duck, Tucker was a Monkey (Bunny) and Cole wanted a Bunny. These turned out pretty well. I used Carrie's pancake mix the only one in my opinion to use. Check her out at www.gingerlemongirl.com I used her master mix, 1 egg and I add rice milk until I get it to the liquid I like. These always bake well. Although the secret You Must Use A Cast Iron Pan a griddle will not do.

Marcie

Bread Challenge

So I did a bread challenge tonight. Stephanie on my gfcf board posted her bread and it looked really weird so I just had to try it right? I saw her recipe and thought I could help the recipe. So I thought I would do both recipes, kinda flying by my pants as I went on my recipe. So the first bread is Stephanie's recipe, and this is what her recipe looked like when I took it out of the oven, I will tell ya it looks nothin like her photo.


2 cups White Rice Flour
1 cup Brown Rice Flour
1/4 cup dry milk powder (I had to use Tapioca Flour)
3 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp yeast

Wet
3 eggs
3 tbs oil
1 3/4 c water (warm)

Mix dry together and than add wet to it slowly. Blend Slowly on low for 1-2 mins. Bake at 375 degrees for 60 minutes. Oops let rise for 30 minutes, before baking.


And so this one is my bread, using the recipe above and changing around a few things. I have to say I think mine looks and smells so much better, but that could just be me?

Here is my recipe:

3 1/4 cups better batter mock flour mix

2 tbs sugar

1 tsp gelatin

1 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp yeast

Wet

3 eggs

3 tbs oil (olive)

1 3/4 cups water (warm)

Mix dry together and than add wet to it slowly. Blend slowly on low for 1-2 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 60 minutes. Oops let rise for 30 minutes.

So here are the breads side by side. Mine is on the left and Steph's is on the right, I noticed the coloring right away, mine was more brown. When I did the dough Steph's was like cake batter which is what gf bread should be like, but mine I felt if I added a bit more flour you can mold and use your hands. So I think I will take my recipe and try some rolls and such. Keep you all posted as we play with our recipe in motion. The recipe is still in the works.

I just had my boys try it, they really can't tell the difference with the bread. Of course I have three under 5 when hubby comes home I will have him try and update the blog.

Enjoy.

**Hubby update. Mine won and hubby said if I added garlic it would make a Great Garlic Bread. I see more time in the kitchen. I'll keep tweaking. Thanks Stephanie....

Is This My Child?

So for this past week we have been noticing how well Ethan has been doing. No time outs, I have not had to yell, nothing! We took Ethan off of Supplements for the week to give us all a break and kinda by oopsy I realized he has been corn free all week long?

So I'm thinking x*%$ and *^)* and %@#& he does better corn free. Well Fudge-o-la do I sound thrilled NO. So here is what will have to be happening. (I think) all corn gone, which isn't really hard as I have been moving that way anyway. Organic corn in small doses looks to be good for him right now? I guess we wait and see?

But the difference has been amazing. No attitude what so ever, so nice to brothers. Listening a lot better. Just a whole different kid. So here is hoping it can only get better from here? I'll tell ya it has been a very nice week to be around him. It has not been like this in a long time.

Although the OCD cleaning, OH Boy! it has gone down if you all have heard me complain. Now he asks maybe once a day what can I clean?

I'm hoping this is his final diet change? Please God let this be the final diet change!

Banana Monkey Bread

3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar (I only did 1/2 cup sugar)
4 eggs
4 bananas, mashed
3 cups Mock Better Batter mix
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional) (we always do chocolate chips here)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 1 large bread pan. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and bananas. Add in flour, soda and salt, mixing well. Mix in vanilla. Pour into pans and bake for 60 to 75 mins. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans.