Life on the Farm

I am furious to say the least. I started planting my seedlings yesterday. I had half of everything planted that I am planting and I went out this morning to turn the heat down under the seedlings and to my surprise the dirt was half way remove almost out of every plug and the seed was gone. Mice had got into the tray during the night and took the seed out and had eaten it. It had never dawned on me that the mice would do that. Years ago I had left some seed out after planting my garden and they ate that seed but I didn't know they would dig in dirt for seed. What is really interesting, I had another seed tray sitting next to this one and I hadn't put seed into it yet and that tray was not disturbed. Can mice smell seed? Who knows. The mice are history now, the Decon will be going out today. I had not put out Decon because I was concerned that one of my cats would slip in the building and get a mouse that had eaten the Decon but I will have to be careful with my cats because the Decon is going out!


There were eight different varieties in those plantings. I guess I'm going to have to decide now what I want to reorder.

Well, I've vented now so I'll go on with my day.

Another Sunday Dinner

We celebrated my sister's birthday yesterday. She requested a fried chicken dinner. There are several things I wanted to share with you. One, As I was making fried corn yesterday I thought this might be something that my readers might enjoy. This is something simple and easy, yet it taste somewhat like fresh corn off the cob. It goes well with a lot of different meals. As my husband would say, "it's a good filler" and it's a favorite with our family.

We had coconut cream pie for dessert and I made my sister an egg custard cream pie for my sister to take home. It's one of her favorites. My paternal grandmother loved egg custard cream pie and when she came to visit our family she always made it for our family. This is her recipe.

Egg Custard Cream Pie

4 slightly beaten eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
2 1/2 cups milk, scalded
1-9 inch pie shell (unbaked)

Blend eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla. Gradually stir in scalded milk. Pour into pastry shell, sprinkle with nutmeg.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.


Coconut Cream Pie

1 1/2 cups scalded milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 t. salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 t. vanilla
1 cup shredded coconut

Put milk on low heat to scald. Beat egg yolks lightly; add sugar, cornstarch and salt to eggs. Pour this mixture into scalded milk; stir until mixture thickens. Add butter, 1/2 cup of coconut and vanilla. Pour into baked pie shell. Cover with meringue, and brown.

Meringue

3 egg whites
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla

Beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. Fold in sugar and vanilla. Cover top of pie and sprinkle remainder of coconut over meringue. Bake at 350 until lightly browned.

If you make this for a 9 inch pie shell I would double this recipe. I have a really big nice pie plate and I tripled this recipe.

Fried Corn

When I make this for our family I buy the big bag of frozen corn. I don't know the ounces off hand. I have a cast iron skillet but you can use any skillet. This recipe would be for 6 people.

1 large bag of frozen corn
4 tablespoons of butter
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups milk

Melt butter in skillet. Pour in frozen corn and stir until corn starts to soften. Then add salt and pepper to taste. Stir a several more times then add your milk. Lower heat a little and stir occasionally until the milk cooks down. The corn is finished when the milk cooks down.

Happy Friday

Just checking in. I have thoroughly enjoyed the snow days. It has been beautiful. It's so nice just to have soft falling snow flakes without the ice. Our trees were terribly damaged by the ice storm last year, so I was praying for just snow. I wasn't sure we would have any trees left if we had another storm like last year.

Well, I have been decluttering. Our oldest son just moved out into an apartment so I have been cleaning out his room and closet and attacked the closet in the spare bedroom too. I also went through a lot of books in our school room that I wanted to get rid of. I took down all of our winter decorations and now I really need to clean house. :( But the nice warm weather that is predicted is calling me outside. I can't wait!

I've been working on some projects that I'm excited to show you. A new garden gate for my herb garden, huge concert pot that I am turning to a mosaic for my flower garden, some potting benches. I will be posting pictures as I get these things completed.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Champagne Vinagrette

I love Walt's Champagne Salad at Charleston's. It has chunks of fresh pineapple, fresh strawberries, dried figs, sugared pecans, sunflower seeds, feta cheese, sliced roasted chicken, small slivers of carrot and several types of lettuces and their wonderful champagne salad dressing. This salad is wonderful and I almost always order it whenever I go to Charleston's.

I came up with this salad dressing and it is pretty close to the one that Charleston's serves on Walt's salad.

1 shallot, minced
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
dash of pepper
1/2 cup Champagne vinegar
1 1/2 cups of canola oil or olive oil

Add first 7 ingredients into a blender. Start blender and slowly add canola oil.

I would also like to suggest Charleston's glazed carrots. They are the best glazed carrots I have ever eaten.

Hello February!

Enjoying the beautiful weather!

It's been a busy week for me. I've been gone from my home almost every day this week. All the beautiful weather has been passing me by. :( I hadn't been able to get in my garden until yesterday. It was such a beautiful day and the warm weather felt so good. I think I'm ready for spring. Got some things accomplished in the garden that I was wanting to do.

My husband and I have been working on an area behind our barn. We want to make a place behind the barn that would be a retreat. Maybe a little outdoor room without walls. There is a beautiful view from behind the barn and there is always a nice breeze plus it is shaded in the evening from the sun. We also think it will be a great place for star gazing in the summer.

Speaking of star gazing, Thursday evening we were outside after the sun had gone done and it was a beautiful evening. No wind, it wasn't to chilly and not a cloud in site.....the night sky was beautiful. My husband and I pulled the picnic table out from under the tree and laid on the picnic table and enjoyed the beauty of the night sky. It was awesome! No, not awesome...Magnificent. I like winter star gazing almost as much as summer because you do not have to contend with bugs.

It looks like winter is about to give us another blast. I'm hoping for lots of snow...no ice!

Memory Clutter

We recently signed up to get the OWN Network on our cable channels and we are really enjoying it. OWN is Oprah's new network. She has a lot of interesting programs. I recently watched one that was really good. It was about people who acquire lots things, "clutter", they don't really use any of it but it is hard for them to part with it. The host of the show goes into their homes and teaches them how to evaluate things and get rid of what they really won't ever use.

One of the categories that he dealt with that applied to me was memory clutter. I don't have a lot but that is one thing that is hard for me to get rid of. The host of the show would ask the person he was working with, "can you remember the memory that is attached to this, if you can it needs to go." There are items that are sentimental that you do want to keep but you can't keep everything that has a memory attached to it. I laughed when I was watching this because when we were cleaning out our shop last month we came across a good size box that was full of things from my mom. It was the contents of her desk. Some of it was business papers that we needed to keep several years for legal reasons but she has been dead for 27 years now. There were lots of hand written notes and there was a folder of all her gardening info. Her hand drawn lay out of her last garden and all the flowers and bushes she was planting and where and clippings from seed catalogs of the flowers she wanted to purchase. I still haven't thrown away the garden folder yet but I know I need too.

The host of the show said,"everyone can get rid of 80% of what they have" and I know that is true. I have two drawers of old T-shirts to work in and when I go to those drawers there are always 3 shirts that I choose from. So why do I keep all of the other shirts? They need to go!

When they finished clearing out the room, getting rid of their junk, and then rearranging what was left the room looked great. The clutter was gone, it was an organized peaceful room. A place you wanted to be.

Well, dig a little deeper and get more organized. That's what I plan on doing! :)