Welcome, welcome, welcome to another Good Morning Mondays. Where are the weeks going, it is almost mid March and April is fast approaching.
How was your week and how are you going and did you achieve all that you wanted??
We had a short week this week because Monday was a public holiday and our children only came home on Monday morning after spending the weekend with our No 1 daughter and husband. They had a great time with them.
Our corn is going great and we have been eating it now for a couple of weeks and we so enjoy fresh boiled corn with butter, yum. We have picked most of the bigger ones now and I am in the process of canning the smaller cobs. I have two containers in the fridge blanched and ready to go into the jars.
My poor husband has had a terrible toothache this week so on Tuesday I finally got him into a dentist. So we headed down there and they tried to pull it but the infection in it was stopping the pain medication from working. So they put him on antibiotics and sent him home to come back this week to have another go. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good experience.
The children were wonderful waiting for him so we took them to the park for a play and a look at the ocean. It was too cold to go swimming and the tide was in as well.
We had another sewing day with my friend and her daughter and because they were shearing this week and our No 2 son was there shearing for them he took the younger two with him for the day.
They left home at 6:45 am and they had a wonderful time with their friends. I was there by lunch time and had a beautiful lunch and then spent the afternoon with my friend and her mother-in-law. They have such a wonderful relationship and it blesses me to see how well they get on.
We cleaned the house on Friday (as usual) and it was nice to sit and relax in front of a movie and knit on Friday night knowing that the house was clean for another week, although there is always things that need doing during the week.
My husband had been offered some wood for us to burn in our wood stove so he decided that they would do the cutting and loading on Saturday. Our son-in-law and our daughter and girls came down for the day as well and helped chain saw the wood and took home a load as well.
So we had a great time together and our daughters and myself picked a few more bags of apples for our No 1 daughter to take home and bottle for us all. She has offered to do mine as well, she is such a blessing.
![IMG_0933[2]](http://darlingdownsdiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_09332.jpg)
There is more wood to be gotten over the next weeks to see us through the winter but at least we have some to get us started and keep us going for a while.
We have a beautiful wood stove in our kitchen and that keeps us warm all winter. It is the only heating we have and it is great because you can cook with it as well. My husband got on the roof this afternoon and put the cleaning brush down the flue so it is all ready to go now, all nice and cleaned up.
One of my goals for this winter is to do more cooking on it and in it and try and master it a bit better. My daughters’ mother-in-law only has a wood stove for cooking and she is a marvel at using it.
That’s our week done so onto our link up.
Our top three posts this week were…
Spring Checklist by the Farmers Wife at Grace Garden And Homestead
The Better Comes after the Worse by Crystal at Tidbits of Experience
The Jesus Code: Making Wise Decisions by Donna at Soul Survival
and my favourite this week was…
Embracing the Ma’am in Me by Jenny at Living a Faith Filled Life
Once again congratulations ladies and pop over and have a look if you didn’t get a chance to read these ones.
You are all so marvelous, taking the time to come here and link up. I have said it before but I will say it again, thank you all of you, you really bless me abundantly. I am learning so much and it is wonderful to build relationships by learning about each others lives.
I have been so blessed this week by seeing the relationship our No 2 daughter has with her friend (that we go sewing with) and to see how this older girl is teaching (even though she doesn’t mean to) our daughter to be a lovely keeper at home.
It is encouraging me to keep on training her as well as I can so that she may one day encourage others.
My husband has another dentist appointment this week so hopefully his toothache will be sorted. We are going away to a Men’s Fellowship Camp next weekend from Friday night and we are all looking forward to a relaxing time and a wonderful bible study.
So I will need to be really organised this week so I can get everything done before Friday.
What have you got happening in your life this week??
Blessings dear friends and have a wonderful God led week as you raise your children, care and love your grandchildren or just blessing others in any way you can. xxxx
Thank you for mentioning my post. You are so sweet. I love reading your posts.
Thank Jenny, it was my pleasure, blessings to you.
You’ve been busy! Sounds like you are in full swing in preparation for the coming winter months. 🙂
We’re preparing for spring here, the grass is greening up and the first flower bulbs are popping out of the ground. It’s been busy and hectic here in our little corner–our back yard is 2/3 dug up for a broken sewer line and makes for interesting times inside the house–little to no water usage while the line is broken. Then we’ve had constant appointments, housekeeping, our work hours, hubby’s parents’ needs, kids’ needs, and even settled in for a while at night to sew a bit more on a quilt. I haven’t even really had much time to sit at the blog for almost 2 weeks. But, spring break is this week, and that means less appointments and school needs, so should be able to sit down and write. 🙂
We’re getting ready to plant lettuce and spinach, onions, potatoes. I have some herb packets to plant as soon as I prep some pots, and some of the perennial herbs are starting to show green. If you were closer I’d share some of the tons of mint!
You have a great week! Praying for your hubby and the tooth incident–those are rough!
I am so glad to hear from you, I have been concerned and nearly sent you an email to make sure everything was all right. You sound so busy (you probably wouldn’t have had time to answer my email) and I pray that you will get some relief over spring break. The sewer line breakage sounds like fun (not) and I hope it get sorted soon. Yes I have bottlde my first jars of corn and I am just going to pick the green tomatoes and see if I can get them to ripen off the vine, but we’ll see. The aquaponics is going well and the vegetables are growing, we will put plastic on shortly. Hope all your garden planting plans go well and that spring brings new life and growth both inside and outside the home. Blessings to you and thank you for the prayer regarding my husbands tooth, much appreciated.
OOOh believe it or not there is a blessing out of all of it–hubby was able to share the gospel with one of the workers! And they dug up enough yard, I have plenty of ready space to plant and spread out irises and tiger lilies and maybe even some seed stuff. They are done with what they have to do and tomorrow the city comes to do their part at the very back part of the yard and alley, but we are able to use now what we need to….and now I can plant too!
You are going to have to put up pics of those awesome looking jars full of goodies! And you know, there are lots of people out there who are still learning or interesting in starting to bottle (or “can” as we say it here), maybe you can show your process and teach others about how you do your preserving. 🙂
Lots of hugs!!!
Praise God! Way to share the News 😉 .
Thanks and blessings xxxx
I am glad that you backyard problems turned out to be a blessing in disguise and what a wonderful opportunity for your husband. I think it is all about us being ready to be used by God at the right time. I am glad that you can start planting now and get ready for your spring garden.
My biggest problem is not having the confidence to actually think that I might have any useful information for others :-), but my daughter has been telling me I should do something about showing my preserving to others, maybe I will start with a preserving series here first. Thank you for your encouragement and friendship.
Blessings and hugs to you too. xxx
Hello Terri, beautiful picture , your daughter and grand daughter.
Thank you for sharing your exciting family moments with us.
God Bless and have a blessed week.
Thanks Ifeoma, you are right it was a beautiful picture and they are both such a blessing. Thank you for stopping by and for your comment. Blessings
Terri–what a week you’ve had! Your corn looks delicious–but from the picture it looks short–do you know what variety it is?
And all those apples–that’s a lot of bottling! I can’t believe she’s volunteered to do it all for you–she’s a keeper! What all do you bottle with your apples? Just plain, or do you do sauce and pie filling too?
I’m always looking for more wood-stove recipes, so I’ll keep my eyes alert to see what you’re making. (How cold does it get there in the winter?)
Thank you for sharing all your goodies with us.
Blessings,
Hey there Deborah, every week just seems to pass so quickly and even though it sounds a lot I don’t feel like I get much done.
We plant sweet corn here which is different to the corn you grow for your stock, we call that corn maize and it is grown here in Australia but not much around here. That said there is a farmer about 30 kms away who has a big crop every year (except this one). So ours is a hybrid corn and the big cobs can reach 12 inches but on average they are about 9 inches. There are some smaller ones as well and these are usually the bottom ones on the stalk.
I now have 17 bottles of corn on my bench and hopefully I will get 3 times that, but we will see. More to do this week.
Yes my daughter is definitely a keeper but I think she might be thinking that was a stupid idea :-). We usually just stew down our apples (not peeled or anything – we usually just cut them in halves or quarters) and then when they are soft I use the same tool that I did with the tomatoes. It puts the stewed apple out one side and the peel and seeds the other. We wait until this cools and then we bottle it and run it through what you would call a water bath. My daughter can probably do a bit more than a bag a day if she gets into it. (which she is). We are going to pick more apples this week and I am going to juice them and bottle that, we haven’t done that before so it will be interesting to see how that goes. Last year I bottled some apples with rhubarb and then did some with sugar and cinnamon for pie filling, but we don’t usually make a specific apple sauce.
I usually only cook on the top of the stove but this year is the one for the inner cooking. I don’t think it should be too hard for casseroles and such, its the cakes and biscuits that might be harder, but we’ll give it a go.
Our winter weather usually is between 0 and 10 degrees. We don’t get snow here but on the mountains about an hour away they get some occasionally. It can be quite wet here in winter and we are waiting for our autumn break now.
Hope that isn’t too long winded dear friend. Blessings xxx
Hmm… I don’t really know much about the corn grown for stock 🙁 . I’m going to have to read-up on that. I always know with our short season that I only have a 1 in 3 chance of the corn making it to harvest before the freezes, but I plant it anyway. It’s one of our favorites and a blessing the years we get it.
So…dumb question…That 0-10 degrees is Celsius, yes? I’m going to have to do some math. (Look out everyone! 🙂 ) It is like mystical rain? Or like a winter of mud rain?
I love corn! Hopefully next year, my garden will be organised enough for lots of corn.
Hope hubby’s tooth is fixed and not causing him any more pain.
Have a lovely week – sounds like you will be very busy!
I hope you can get it all organised for next year, it sounds exciting. The pain has subsided a bit since last week, we think the antibiotics are kicking in now. Only another day to go and back to the dentist. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week yourself. Blessings
Thank you for sharing the link up! Thank you for hosting!
Thanks Debbie, blessings.
Sorry to hear about your husband, but glad to hear about your daughter’s good relationship. Relationships are so important.
Thanks Betty for your kind comment and for stopping by and you are so right relationships are so important in our lives. Blessings
The corn and apples look wonderful! thanks for another party. It’s always a pleasure to come to your nice blog.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Blessings
oh, the corn and the sea look heavenly! I love your everyday sharing, and it’s especially interesting to see how someone lives over on the other side of our wonderful Earth.
Thanks Mary for your kind comment and I agree I really enjoy seeing what happens on your side of the world too. Blessings
Hello cute lady! I love stopping by your party each week, it’s amazing! I hope you get a chance to stop by our party that starts tonight at 7 pm. That would be fabulous! Lou Lou Girls
Thanks, I’ll be there. Blessings
Thank you for hosting! God bless!
Definitely my pleasure Letetia, blessings.
Sorry about your husband’so dental issues. Hope he is on the mend soon!
Thank you so much Kim for your thoughtful comment. Tooth has been removed but it is still painful, but getting better. Blessings
Your are always so busy! Thanks for sharing on the (mis)Adventures Mondays Blog Hop! And thanks for hosting!
Sometimes Mindie it seems busy but not productive!! Thanks for stopping by. Blessings