Home & Homestead Living
It’s been a week! We’ve had a bit of snow, a lot of rain and the sun was able to break through the clouds once or twice but never for very long. This photo taken off the back porch, looking toward the upper pasture and Morris Knob in the distance. The Knob is the tallest mountain in our county and…
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Mandie, Life in the Craft Lane, has the above, free, on her site. She’s a talented gal and seeing how it’s April 1st, this seems to be appropriate! One Prim Girl is having a fabulous giveaway and you’ve got until 15 April to enter and, hopefully, win.You Can Make This is giving away a Janome Marie Osmond Quilter’s Companion sewing…
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Intuit has a Share Your Story contest and I’ve entered. Please, would you go there and comment on my story, “You Ain’t From Around Here, Are Ya?” ? If I’m a finalist, I intend to use the money for two things: – hosting of a summer quilting class, teaching people how to make a basic, beautiful quilt. At the end…
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Recently, it’s been my pleasure to find new blogs that are heart touching in their emotional rawness and beauty. In the midst of pain and sorrow, many find they can still love even while they are healing. I love people who “put it all out there”, who lay themselves on the line, who aren’t afraid…or even if they are afraid…they…
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The two hand dyed skeins of yarn are farm spun while the naturally colored yarn is mill spun. I bought the naturally colored yarn from someone, now retired, in Pocahontas County, WV. As you may know, that’s the home of Pearl S. Buck, 1932 Pulitzer Prize winner and 1938 Nobel Prize winner for her book The Good Earth. The Stulting…
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This is the molasses, yes, it is homemade, in the enamel saucepan on stove top. I think enamel makes for a better end product and I know for sure it’s easier to clean!I learned how to cook and bake by watching the women in my family. From the time I was old enough to eat, I was old enough, almost,…
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How many hundreds of times have I watched my Grandmothers, Aunts and Mother’s hands deftly turn raw flour, shortening and buttermilk into biscuits? With the addition of a little sugar and vanilla that same mixture would turn into melt in my mouth sugar cookies. In my earliest memories of Grandmother Hattie Gay’s kitchen I am seated on the 6’ long…
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We’ve had a couple of warm, sunny days and that means farm chores. This week the farm chores are getting done in bits and spurts due to a photographer following me around for Country Magazine. Country Magazine has asked me to keep a farm diary and it will be in their June July 09 issue. This has been a different…
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For most of the past twenty-five years, Aunt Esther and I have been going to the Pickens, WV Pancake Breakfast which is also the WV Maple Syrup Festival. Time has lost the beginnings of our tradition and that’s okay, what matters is we made it another year! Aunt Esther turned 91 in January and is still spritely, spry and full…
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I’m on my way out of town, taking Aunt Esther to the annual Pickens Pancake Breakfast. This is the 25th year of the WV Maple Syrup Festival and Aunt Esther and I have been to most of them. She’s 91 this year and full of spunk and refuses to say, “No, dear, I don’t think I’ll go this year.” The…
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Oh My. Why is it the day comes earlier when you get to bed later the evening before? Dave and I went to a new Japanese restaurant in Princeton last night; we met some business associates who have now become friends. Nelson and Diana are smart, funny people who have raised some fabulous children. Their son has been trading in…
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