What time is it????

That's the buzz line in High School Musical 2. They only say it about 40x during the show! My darling niece, Faith, was in the show in Merrillville,IN this weekend! She played the hot composer chick, Kelsi!! She sang and danced and played piano for all us screaming fans. SO FUN! She grinned nonstop. So excellent! Back to the real world. The one filled with dogs who poo and wet on carpets if you dare go out of town. The world filled with tons and tons of tomatos and beans to be processed. The one with floors so gross the little dog got stuck in place. The one with Mt Never-rest in the laundry room. Yup, that one. Last week Hillbilly Housewife posted my favorite blog of all times. Something along the lines of "Why every homeowner needs a professional to clean their home at least 2x a year". She's my hero. I sent the link to Grumpy Uncle to memorize... http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/blog/?p=1658

And the beat goes on....

Here's a picture of just what we picked yesterday. Well, Crazy Uncle did most of the picking...but I was there too. I put up some lame salsa from some of those Romas. SOMEBODY send me a good recipe!! We love fresh but it loses so much when it gets cooked. Oy. I have much to do today but here I sit, writing about it instead. I have 0 daycare babies today and I'm really enjoying the little break. No babies the rest of the week, in fact! We are driving tomorrow up north to see my darling niece in a professional production of High School Musical 2. She's the second female lead!! How way cool is that anyway! She's living my dream. I suppose it would help if I had talent. But dreams are not about reality. Here's how helpful son dried the chair he was sanding and washed.

Big clean up/Organize/pitch it/ sell it/goodwill it weekend!!!

My dear oldest son is here on the farm helping me get my act together. He also helps grumpy Dad do heavy work. Son is looking for a job in Indianapolis but in this "downturn" it's not going so well. So, we help him with a little $$ and meals while he's here helping us. The Dad got going on a beautiful and bountiful garden this year and now I'm canning and cooking all the good stuff! Trouble was, where to store it all? Grumpy Dad wants to build a storage room in our garage but re:the downturn, who's got extra funds?? God has given me the BEST kitchen ever and I knew I could store alot more than I was if I'd just get it more organized. My sister was going to help me (she's the organizing Diva and I suck at it) but her life is so crammed full of kid stuff right now she just can't swing a trip down south for any length of time. So, I'm workin the kid! Kid worked in the garage, emptying the storage shelves out there while I rounded up everything I'd canned so far in my beautiful kitchen. I have a 13ft countertop island area and it was FULL!! What a blessing. Then I emptied a couple of cabinets that had my "pretties" I've collected over the years. I put most of them in a Goodwill box, some in a box for my friend who has an antique shop (bless her heart, she's selling them for me!) and pitched the dross. GOSH I had alot of junk. And there's more in my closet! I moved some shelves around to acommodate jars more efficiently and went to work putting them away. I learned this year to leave the rings on if you are going to move jars around much so they don't get bumped open. If it looks like I'm running short later on in the season I'll steal some back off of these. I have one cabinet for tomatos (probably won't be big enough soon), one cabinet for fruit and jam, one for corn, and one BIG one for green beans. I plan on sharing with sister and my kids. This feels GOOD! I've been up since 4:45a and am stewing pears for jam and have FINALLY mopped the horrible, sticky kitchen floor. My feet are sooo beat up at the end of the day I just haven't had the ooomph to keep up. I want to replace the flooring in kitchen and family and computer rooms but can't work up to $pending the moola. I also got my laundry caught up and sorta organized this weekend. I hit the motherloads of Garage Sales too! Son has big ole honkin feet (just like ma n pa) and I found a GS that had bunches of good brand shoes for him! What a blessing! I couldn't wait to show him! And I got a double stroller for my babysitting kidlets, two carseats, a few little toys and outfits, an electric knife for canning corn, a spare BUNN coffeemaker for $5 for when our current one goes to coffemaker heaven, a couple of clothing stuffs and a feather mattress pad! I'm still on the hunt for a pack n play or the likes for my new baby. And will eventually need another high chair. Maybe I can find one of those little ones that attach to the table and don't take up so much space. Today I need to run to town and get our plates renewd. If I get stopped before then I'll get a ticket. Have to hurry before Grumpy gets stopped then becomes SuperGrumpy. I don't need that noise. I think I'd just have to shoot him rather than listen. Also gotta finish the pear jam, babysit and work on the budget...eewwwww. Dear son plans to help me clean the carpet and paint some outside chairs and help his GrumpyDad. Gonna feed this kid GOOOD tonight!

OYYYY!! This is alot like work!!!

Crazy Uncle has outdone himself in the garden this year. He worked nonstop all spring and early summer prepping for our stock up project! And now it's MY turn. Don't get me wrong, he helps some too. But my feet are KILLING me! The estimated totals so far are: 30 pts corn (from friends corn) 10 qts corn 20 pts "just ok" tomato sauce 30 pts "kick butt THICK" tomato sauce 18 pts pears (ours!!!) 7 qts green beans 4 qts dried peas 10 pts blackberry jam 5 pts pear jam and some frozen blackberries I should spend today making more pear jam. But I think I've really messed up my feet and will take today off to do "brain work" while sitting. Did you know you can save all those peels and cores from apples/pears and make jam or jelly? I just learned that! How cool is that? I got almost as much jam from a batch of pears as I did actual fruit!! The chickens get enough leftovers from the other stuff we can. I've found the best way to make Tomato Sauce ever. Run whole, washed Roma's through a food processor. Then through the tomato press 2 or 3 times (takes out skins and seeds). Pour into large old fashioned electric roaster. Leave lid off and cook overnight on 150. The next day, Voila! Tomato sauce! I'm glad I bought the roaster cause I can use it for Turkey Day and have the oven free for other goodies. Also anxious to make stuffed cabbage in it!

Beautiful whole wheat bread!! Recipe from mmpaints at Self Sustained Living. THANKS! I need to make some tonight as our baby ate half the loaf last night. My kinda girl. It was good cold but GREAT while still warm from the oven. And this time we made a big ole mess and ground some of our wheat for it. We didn't grow it ourselves but bought about 40 billion pounds from locals. Unk also ground some corn we bought the same way for co We need to order some more buckets and some mylar bags to store it properly. Fun learning new ways to eat right and save money and be less dependant on the world. I have to put up tomatos and corn sometime very, very soon. I had a house full of babies today and just ran out of time. I think I can skin and cut up and slow cook the tomatos tonight tho. sigh...I need more energy!! I wanna do it all but, sheesh, I'm just not full of zip like I'd love to be. I did get a few pints of pretty good Italian sauce canned. I haven't found a recipe that the flavor of the tomatos is mellow like other sauces. I don't want store bought flavor but good homemade sauce. Any body have a good recipe?? I've Google'd the snots out of it, no luck. It's just so zingy. Don't know how to describe it well. Poor Unk broke his fan$y lawn mower. Plus its stuck in the field. I'd better go make him some supper to keep him from slitting his wrists or at least from crying buckets into his beer.

Loooong Coupla Weeks...

Stress laiden too. My new kitty friend (see earlier post) died Friday morning. This is a pic of her on Thursday am. She was helping me surf the net. She showed up 2 weeks ago, after a short vanishing act, with a badly broken back leg. I took her to our most special vet in beautiful downtown Beanblossom, Indiana. He first set and splinted her leg but it got horribly infected due to an open wound. I took her back after a week, the leg had to come off. I brought her home and dropper fed her gruel and water and antibiotics but...she was very dehydrated and thin and just couldn't make it through all the trauma. She was such a sweet spirit. She let our little baby carry her by the neck without a complaint. While in the waiting room of the vet she kissed a HUGE pitbull who was curious about her. And even right after surgery she was purring. And on the drive home she pulled herself out of her box and rested her head on my leg. sigh. This was a tough one. Seems not fair since she worked so hard and with such a good attitude at living. R.I.P. Mama 2.0