Monday, January 23, 2012

Being Neighborly

Last week on Wednesday my dear daughter ( who is 4) had to have some eye surgery. It was a relatively routine procedure, but she had to be under general anesthesia for it, she was in a lot of pain and just wanted to cuddle that evening when we got home.

At about 4 pm that evening I receive a call from a dear sweet lady that said she had prepared dinner for us that night and would now be a good time to bring it over. Of course my daughter that had just had the surgery couldn't eat, but I had the rest of the family to think of. I had planned on doing something quick and easy, but this was a huge blessing.

She brought over homeade macaroni and cheese, homeade rolls, green bean casserole, a big tossed salad,and a homeade chocolate cake. WOW! It felt so good just having some comfort food that night. We were all exhausted, and let's just face it, food can make you feel better.

It really was such a sweet gesture and I love that when there is any need in the community that someone is stepping up to help.
I hope that I can be a blessing to someone next time they may need a meal provided, due to illness, a new baby or whatever.

Do you provide meals to those in your community? Have you been blessed with a meal lately?

I'm linking this up to Monday Homesteading Barn Hop

Monday, January 16, 2012

What does 2012 hold?

Last year I did a bunch of very concrete goals, with numbers and dates and all that jazz. Typically those are the best kind of goals at least for me, in order for me to complete things. I like to cross things off my list. Well a few things happened last year that slowed me down a bit.
1) We were blessed with a beautiful son. I was pregnant in January and had him in September so I was very nice and pregnant all throughout the summer and early fall when most of the harvest and canning is happening. With 2 other young children in the house I'll be the first to admit that this pregnancy wore on me more than the other two. I just didn't feel like working as much as I normally do, and being 8 months pregnant in the height of summer probably contributed to that.
2) We just had an awful crop this year. It was un normally hot for such a long time that it literally scorched our tomato and pepper plants. No amount of watering helped. We had plenty of veggies that come off later in the summer an into fall like cabbage, greens, squash etc. But the tomatoes and peppers suffered..... It was very sad.

I did manage to put up strawberries, muscadines, peaches, figs, pickles, okra and such, but my lofty goal of putting up tons of tomatoes, pasta sauce, salsa etc. just didn't happen.

We are planning on staggering our planting this year a bit more and are hoping for a milder summer. I can almost taste the sweet tomatoes right now... It won't be (too) much longer..

Here's to a happy, healthy homestead in 2012!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Is it Winter yet?

So it was 60 degrees today. Yes the first week of January and it was 60 degrees! I'm not sure what that means for the rest of "winter" but today was positively BEUATIFUL!
Me and the hubby did some yard work, cleaning out some honeysuckle bushes that are overrunning my favorite snowball bushes. The girls rode their bikes, we put the baby out in his little stroller and he watched us worked.

It was fantastic. I'm getting antsier and antsier for Spring to get here so we can start being outside even more in nice weather. This year I have high hopes for gardening, canning, freezing etc. We got a lot done last year but with me being pregnant, it being so hot and the harvest not being that good, it left us longing for me. I look forward to a wonderful harvest this year, I can almost taste a fresh tomato now... nice and juicy, just off the vine, slightly warm from the sun beating down on it all day long....

I can't wait!!!!