$5.00 a POUND!!!!!

I've been trying to be more domestic, (what ME!!!) so I've been baking cookies and cakes. My hips love it. So, I went to Saint Johns to get the mail, some water and stopped by the little IGA grocery store to buy milk and eggs and butter. They wanted over $5.00 for a pound for butter!!!! Even for the generic stuff! NO way am I paying that much for a pound of butter. There are basically no jobs in Saint Johns, so how on earth do they think someone could afford $5.00 for a pound of butter? Pa won't eat margarine and the last time I bought butter at Walmart, I accidentally bought unsalted butter. Can't he just sprinkle some salt on his toast to make it taste ok? Poor man will just have to wait till I go to Show Low for my monthly shopping trip which won't happen till the 12th of October. It's so fun having to wait for those Social Security checks to come in. My Vegas daughter is coming for a visit and will be here this afternoon for a couple of days. I asked her to stop at Sam's Club to buy me some butter so I hope she remembered. She was also instructed to stop at Smart and Final to get Pa some Golden Griddle syrup. Nothing like being picky!
I've been working on some Christmas projects, mostly decorations and will post pictures of them after my daughter's visit. So stay tuned!

I'm so domesticated!

 Those of you who know me well, know how much I hate to cook. See these cookies? I made them from scratch! Two batches of them, no less. I had promised one of the guys who hooked up our propane so many months ago that I would bake him some cookies. Months went by and went by. So I was feeling guilty and decided to make him a carrot bundt cake. Both Pa and I thought it tasted awful. Thankfully Tom thought it was delicious and thought our taste buds were off. Poor Kenny at the propane company was left out so I made some Chewy Oatmeal cookies from a recipe my dear friend, Becky, in Illinois gave me 40 years ago. I think I made two batches of them. Pa likes to have cookies with his morning coffee so I saved some for him and took a big bag to Show Low and left them at the propane office for Kenny. The cookies are so delicious that these will be my go to recipe. I put cranberries in half the batch.

 Here are the cookies for Pa's morning coffee.

 To carry on with my new domestic personality, I made these dill pickles this week using my kid's great grandmother's recipe. There is a grape leaf on the top and bottom of every jar. I have no idea why but I love these pickles and since it is a tried and true recipe, I stuck with it. Does anyone out there know why grape leaves would be added to pickles? For flavor? To keep them crisp?

 Aren't these beautiful?

Our Oklahoma watermelons are getting so big. That is a gallon bleach bottle next to them so you can get some idea of the size.

 These are the sunflowers I dug up beside the road to town and transplanted. Out of four, three are still alive.

 One of our huge heirloom tomatoes.

 Here are some Early Girls. I thought they were so named because they came on early but I read that they are called Early because they will produce in cooler weather. Who knew?

 My mystery plants which I later discovered were from the basket of petunias who went to seed.

 Nothing like a bright spot of color to make your day special. Thank you Petunias for making babies!

 Here is a close up of the Oklahoma watermelon. We sure hope they ripen before winter arrives.

Hello baby Petunia! I'm just amazed at this because I didn't realize they would reseed themselves. I went for a stroll around the property yesterday and found a single plant with delicate purple and white flowers on it. I looked everywhere and didn't find another one so stripped off some flowers, came home and picked the dried seeds off of them and planted some in the house and some outside. I used to have a very green thumb but it dried up and turned brown in Vegas. Now it's back!
Pa has the huge generator running in it's new shed. Good thing since his other generator died. He will have to take it into Show Low to get it fixed. Something always needs attention when you are living off the grid.
The weather is absolutely breathtaking. Since the weather has turned cooler, my allergies are starting up. I didn't have a problem all summer, even with the junipers blooming. Even Pa is having issues. We can't figure out what is going on to cause allergies. But that's ok. We both love it out here and a few sniffles are worth it.

Where Have all The Hummers Gone?

Much as I hated to, I took the hummingbird feeders down on Wednesday. Otherwise they had no interest in migrating to warmer climes. Honestly, they took off like a shot out of a cannon and didn't even bother to wave goodby. Or to say thanks for the many pounds of sugar I bought for them. Think of how much money I'll save on sugar alone!!!! I sure do miss them tho. Gone are the hours of entertainment right outside the window. I'll have to take up knitting or something.
With the nights getting cooler, the garden has really slowed down. I'm letting the green beans go to seed so I'll have some to plant next year. The majority of the garden was from heirloom seeds so I could harvest seeds for the next year. The way our government is going, harvesting our own seeds are the way to go. The way the farm,safe food bill is worded, the government can interpret a garden as a farm and put all sorts of controls on what we plant and what we eat. I SAY LESS GOVERNMENT IN OUR LIVES!!! On some web sites, heirloom seeds are hard to come by and some sites will only let  you buy in packages, making you buy things you wouldn't normally plant. One of our local stores was advertising metal shelves for sale and twice they didn't have them in stock so I wrote an email  to their headquarters and complained. I had planned to use the shelf to start next years garden in the spare bedroom come spring time and since it was on sale, may as well get the shelf now, right?  Anyway, a couple of days later, I got an email in response and they offered to send me the shelf for free. I was dumfounded! What great customer service. So we shall see if they deliver. It pays to be the squeaky wheel from time to time.
Yesterday, Pa and I went to the Navajo County Fair in Holbrook. It's a bit larger than the one in Apache County where we live. My friend Katie had some crafts entered and she won ribbons for every single piece she entered!!! I was really proud of her. We looked at all the pigs, (stinky!) and the goats and sheep, rabbits and chickens. Since we have so many cows running around the ranch, I didn't want to look at the cattle. They stink as much as the pigs do. No one had horses entered, I wonder why? Of course I had to nosh on a Navajo Taco. They are so yummy and soooo fattening. Both Pa and I were to full to have a Funnel Cake. As we walked by that booth, the smell of the grease just about made me sick. Pa thought it smelled wonderful.
Sometime this week, we got 1 1/4 inch of rain. Then another day we got some rain and hail. Fortunately the hail didn't harm the garden. We got the beautiful rainbow (double if you look closely) posted at the begining of all this blabbering.
OH, gotta run. Pa needs help with something.

A note to Pam

Pam, I seem to have lost your email address. Can you send it to me?

Nature's Bounty

 All the following pictures are from our garden. The carrots are a little stubby but they sure do taste good!

 I dug up a couple of potatoes to see what they looked like. After scrubbing them, they still tasted like dirt and the skins were bitter. After cooking them, they tasted fine. I think the next batch will be dug up and left to cure in the garden for a couple of days.

 Our first cantelope! It was so yummy. The largest watermelon wasn't quite ripe. The smaller one was tho and was quite delicious.  The three above pictures were picked at the beginning of the week.

 One of our neighbors made this lovely afghan as a housewarming present. It goes perfectly with my new sofa. That was so sweet of her. 

 The following pictures of produce were picked this morning. I am so proud of my lettuce. It has produced time after time. It is a romaine type but I just plucked the leaves off and it kept growing.

 Another great producer is Nobel Spinach. I'm planting twice as much next year and will can some. That is if I can keep myself from eating it. Pa doesn't like spinach unless I hide it in salad. I love it.

 My first lima beans! Pa doesn't like lima's all that much but I will still plant them next year, twice as much.

 The last of the corn. I pulled up all the corn plants. It's not worth all the work and water that goes into it. Every ear had cornworms, some just loaded with them. I'm not sure how to combat cornworms. When I grew corn in Illinois, I very seldom saw a cornworm. Any suggestions besides having a biplane fly over and dumping spray over every one and every thing?

 I grew Golden Bell and Green Bell peppers. We never wait long enough for the golden ones to turn golden. They are producing much better than the green ones. Cukes, not enough to do anything with. Next year, 10 times more!!!!
We've been having rain off and on. The weather is so beautiful, cool at night, not to hot during the day. One morning, I had to wear a sweater and socks, of all things. I rarely wear shoes so if I have to wear socks, you know it is chilly. Last night after we went to bed, Pa said we had a very loud thunderstorm. It was so loud, the dogs got scared. Maggie, was running around the bed whining for someone to put her up on the bed. Guess what? I slept thru the entire thing and didn't hear a single thunder boom. Pa is always amazed at how soundly I sleep. It's like I'm dead or deaf when I'm sleeping.

This might be the last of the green beans. I think I will let them go to seed for next year. I'm growing an entire 6 x 6 ft box of them next year. Honestly, I have so many plans for the garden next year besides making it bigger. One of them is to keep better notes of what is planted/replanted where. I planted winter squash, crooked neck squash and where the heck are they?  Blown away in the spring winds , I guess. Mother Earth News has this program that you buy and you can map out your garden and do all sorts of wonderful things with it.
Ok, that's it for now. On Sept. 15th, I'm taking down the hummingbird feeders so they will migrate. I'll sure miss them but just think of how much money I'll save on sugar!!!

Exploring part two

 My sun flower. Isn't it pretty? It just makes me happy to look at it. I planted more than one but this is the only one that survived.

 One of our resident snakes shed his skin.

 Miss Kitty didn't quite know what to make of it.

 Here's the sunflower poking his head above the corn. Speaking of corn, we harvested 5 ears and had them for dinner the other night. I have corn worms so I cut out the part they munched on and we munched on the rest. I don't know whether to just let the corn grow or pull it all up to get rid of the corn worms.

 I found these yellow wild daises in the wash and transplanted them in front of our house. They have very shallow roots and didn't even realize they had been transplanted. I may get more of them. I kind of wanted to put in some kind of flower bed before putting in flowers but that idea got put on hold.

 On Sunday we grabbed Tom and took him exploring. This is on the north side of the ranch. Actually we were in Sierra Highlands which is the next big ranch next to Woodland Valley Ranch where we live.

 "On a Clear Day" you can see forever. We were up on a mesa looking down.

 This is Max, Tom's dog. He is part Lab and maybe Australian Shepherd? His coloring is so unusual. When he was a puppy, I kept threatening to steal him because he was so darned cute. Tom had done a wonderful job training him to obey. Maybe I should send my dogs over so he can train them.

 I love rock formations of any kind.

 Isn't it amazing how flowers can grow just about anywhere? Look at how cracked the ground is from being so dry.

 We took Tom over to where there is a bunch of black petrified wood. It is only at one place in the area and only concentrated around a red hill. Very unusual.

 The wood is so well petrified that you can see the bark pattern and where the knots are from branches.

 From the formation, you can tell that this is petrified juniper. It looks just like some of the live juniper growing on our property.

 This is a tree stump. It has been polished by wind and rain for centuries.

 Is it possible that this live tree is related to the petrified tree sitting next to it?  A great, great, great, great, great, great grandchild?

 Love this cloud formation. Ok, so I love rocks and clouds, get over it.

 An old cattle chute leading nowhere. I bet is it at least 100 years old.

 Tom had to climb over to get a closer look at the cattle chute. Be careful there Tom! Lives are at stake!

 Well look! There's an old bull peaking at us. Maybe that chute isn't as old as we thought.,

 This beautiful home has been sitting here for years. It has never been finished and no one has ever lived in it. A lady, her mother and daughter were going to live here. She bought a log cabin kit and hired someone to put it together. The idiot put it together wrong. Apparently, he couldn't read directions. We don't know the entire story but it is for sale now. The views are wonderful, the septic tank is in so all it needs is some TLC and some finishing inside and it could be a beautiful home for someone. It isn't far from the main road so it would be easy to get to in bad weather.

This big guy was sitting in the road on the way home from exploring. We didn't want anyone to run over him so Tom got the shovel and moved him into the brush , off the road. Oh mercy, as we were driving down the road towards home, some city slicker had pitched his tent not 10 feet off the road. I was so worried someone would swerve off the road at night and take the whole family out. I don't know what they could have been thinking! We thought they had broken down or something but they said they were fine.
Daisy Mae had a bunch of us over for dinner last night. I made my famous baked beans which were a hit. Daisy Mae made homemade chocolate lava cake. Words can't describe how delicious it was. Just thinking of it right now makes my mouth water like I'm a slobbering dog. We are so blessed to have made such good friends out here. Daisy Mae, Lil Abner, Tom, Don and Nancy. We all look out for each other and know that help is only phone call away. Don said he would give me shooting lessons so I am more familiar with my gun in case of an emergency. He's a retired LA cop so he knows his guns. He says I need to practice enough to have muscle memory and everything will come to me automatically. I'm really looking forward to that. I love to shoot.
That catches us up for now! Hey, where are all you people who promised to come for a visit when we got settled? We are settled so call now and make your reservations for the guest bedroom. We'll keep a light on!