tomotoes

Today we got together two of my sisters, my dad and my own family to have a lunch/dinner. It has been one year today since my mother passed away. It was sad but nice at the same time to be with family and laugh and talk about my wonderful mother. I miss her so much still.

Mary my sister made this pork rib/pototoe dinner and I made the salad, Becky paid for it all. Above is the tomotoes I used from my dads and my garden, they were so good.

News:

Tommy passed his swimming level 1 test with the Red Cross. We are so proud of him I enrolled him right away into the 2 level class. What did I get myself into! hehe Got to be there at 10:30 for two weeks again....sigh.....I want him to be a good swimmer. I had a dream once that he drowned in a friends pool so this is really important to me too. I can still feel the heart ache from that dream still. He loves it. I wouldnt push him if he didnt like the class.

We have had two sheep die on us. Something is killing them. Tom is going out tonight to sit out there for a bit. Bobo was out in the field this morning we are thinking it was either him or something that killed the sheep then Bobo went after them. My neighbors had their sheep killed and I know Bobo can't get into their place so Bobo is still not the top suspect.

Well not much more today, its really late and we have to cull the sheep tomorrow.

Sam

Garden update June 23, 2008

Just wanted to update my garden today the green beans have reached the top and are falling over the other side now looking really good still. The other picture is of my pototoes, its a good thing I read that when they start to die on top they are nearly done otherwise I would have thought they were dieing hahaha. I need more tomotoe stakes I am going to Hondo this week so I can pick me up some if they still got them.

Been a great week can't complain. Family, my farm animals doing ok even in this 90 degree heat but I am not complaining when other people temps are higher or flooding. We are blessed.

Tommy might be sick he is moaning in his sleep I gave him some cough cold meds. He was in his pool all day I told him not to drink the water from the pool but since he was a toddler will he listen? sigh....we still have a week of his swimming lessons left I hope it blows over tonight but I doubt it.

Not being motivated this week I really need to pull myself together to do things around the house its getting messy again. If I can keep the living room/kitchen and dining room clean I am happy. The bathroom needs big time cleaning.

Well the VBS is not happening at our church and when I found another one close in San Antonio its happening at night! Whats with these night classes? Don't they realize the kids need to get to bed early. I am a bit disapointed but in a way its a blessing so we wont be so booked up this week with milk/egg run one two dentist appt and now a doc appt if Tommy dont get well its going to be a rushed busy week.

BREATH!!!!!

Sam

Flowering Vegtable Plants

Okra, squash and green bean blooms

Today just before it got dark I finally had a chance to go look at my garden. I was surprised to not only see my green beans blooming but also little okra already growing and some yellow squash.

Happily I pulled weeds around the garden not minding at all that I was dripping sweat from the humity ugg... it wasnt that bad the heat just very humid. Today I ordered 30 -50lb bags of corn for future use of my animals. Dang if we had the money we should have bought it when it was $5 a bag now its $7.00 just down the road at another feed store it was $8.50.

Tom said that he heard that it will continue going up and that they might even put it on rashion not sure if I spelled that right. I priced out some other stuff too like milo.

I saw some La manchas babys for sale last night and I wrote the person but havent heard from them yet.

Well I am tired not much more to report its been a long day.

Sam

My first jams

Ok so for about a week now I have been trying to make my peach/plum jam that I got from the last veggie/fruit group. It has been one chaotic week though and I haven’t had time I have been so exhausted especially with the heat being around in the 90’s.

So today after I made sure all the animals had water outside I cleaned up the kitchen as much as could with dinner looming close I was determined to get it done even though all I wanted to do was take a nap.

I went into the fridge and there was hardly any peaches left my kids and husband had ate most of them…so sigh I couldn’t make the huge batch like I wanted but I am glad I didn’t because I wouldn’t have had the room.

I also decided I didn’t want to use sugar. It made me upset that I would have too so I took out my honey book and looked. It called for something called tapioca flour. Dang it I don’t have this flour whatever it is I have never even heard of it before. I read I could use some starch. It made it foggy as soon as I put it in I am not sure about this for future we will see when I open one tomorrow.

This is for my future use is why I am writing it so I won’t forget.

1. Put in dishwasher jars I am going to use, Tom said I should sterilize them in hot boiling water instead to be extra safe. I will do that next time.

2. I put on some boiling water and put the plums and peaches in the water for a few seconds then take them out and put them in cold water. I noticed the longer I kept in cold ice water the better they peeled.

3. I also put boiling water on and put in a bowl to sterilize the lids.

4. Peeled them I needed Miranda’s help so they wouldn’t go cold on me before I could get to them all. Need to remember to cut them really small next time so they will cook faster.

5. I think I used about 8 cups of peaches and 4 cups plums and two cups of honey. I decided the next time I will put in whatever I have and not really worry about it just make sure it will go together for instance…. I do have to remember that the plums were really sweet and over took the taste out of the peach. I also sliced one lemon I liked this a lot.

6. The recipe had called for 7 cups of sugar goodness! So with honey it said to do half. Well I didn’t thank goodness. I only put in two cups of honey noticing how watering it was and stopped. It took a long time of boiling to take the strong taste of honey out and this was raw honey from SAT not our hard core honey here.

7. I added about 1/3 cup of starch and tried to dissolve it as much as possible but I can see in one of the jars some of the starch that didn’t dissolve dang it again I really need to make sure next time that it does.

8. Poured into jars

9. ****Biggest mistake I made was not putting the boiling water to boil before I started all this as soon as I put the stuff in the jars and closed the lids tight I needed to put them in the boiling water for 10min.

10. They started to pop the lids as soon as I started to pull them out of the hot water bath. The big pan I used only could hold 9 little jars. Guess what I had 9 little jars whooo hoooo

Tomorrow we try the jam I really hope it comes out good.

Farm Trip

Ok so blogger is acting really wierd. On my last post I couldnt get any indents to my writing thats why its all wierd hopefully this one is going to be better.

Long day today, it was my godsons birthday so I really wanted to get him a present which meant driving into San Antonio which meant I didnt get the stuff I wanted done here, but I got hugs from all the kids it was worth it.

Above is my dad with my daughter Miranda behind them is some swimming cows and pigs hahaha. Its at the farm we visited last weekend near Temple. The pig was on a mission, these kids were chasing her piglets and the mom was taking a short cut to get to her piglets before the kids could. Gosh I really dislike people who let their kids run wild and not watch them on farms. I am surprised the pig didnt gore them. Stupid parents.

These kids were also on this little pier in the pond and this thing looked like it was about to fall down any minutue. Where were the parents? I have no idea who belonged too who, probably trying to sit in the shade. I told hubby now I know whey we don't have many farm days, but thank goodness for all the fencing around our place keeps people from trampling all over when picking up the turkeys.

Well I need to wash dishes and I am soooo dehydrated.

Good evening

Sam

Update on garden June 1st week

Well my babys are doing really good but I wish I could get them in the barn
but I need to make a corral for them. I am trying to get my dad to make one for
me. He told me today I should give Barrels a break and let her feed her babys
and not milk her. "Blink, Blink" not milk her then why would I did I even get
her then if not to milk her? Dad just dosent understand. He never really had a
milking goat.

I had to explain to him that I am not going to start milking her right
away, the babys are going to be drinking for awhile now, but when they start to
finally eat and I supplement their feed is when I will start milking Barrels so
her milk production won't be going down since the babys are no longer drinking
as much.

I will be only milking her in the mornings for now and let the babys have
the rest of the milk for the rest of the days till I wean the babys off her.
Some days I wont be able to milk her so it will be really convient to let the
babys have the milk. I did this last year and it worked out really well.

I laugh when I think of the time I was milking her and we had the bats come
in from Mexico and I was trying to milk her with hundreds of bats flying around.
I wasnt worried about them biting me or falling in my hair I was worried about
poop falling on me hahaha.

Well got to go things to do

Sam

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My babies! La Manacha babys

They finally ventured out into the big outdoors. They are so cute I can't help picking them up all the time and kissing them hahaha.

The black and white is the girl Dixie or Diamond not sure on her name yet.
Dixon is the boy brown and white.

I just can't wait to increase my heard I really wish I could get some more female babys even if I have to bottle feed them. La Mancha are really hard to find and if you do find them you find them bred to something else more likely a nubian.

We just got back from a farm day tour my hubby Tom, kids and my dad, it was ok, nothing new that we didnt already know, it was fun we stopped at a b-q place "Salt Lick" wow talk about being crowded. I was so hungry and my heart fell seeing so many cars and buses there. There was even local police helping people park...talk about popular but within 5min we were called. We had just gotten some home made lemondade from the girls making it outside, then we were seated. The food was also out in 5min min talk about service! Wow and the food was great!!! A must to see if your near the Austin area. They had a band playing too that night, but talk about getting lost, its out in the boonies and there is no signs anywhere advertising it.

Got to goooo I am sooooo tired and sleepy and car sick right now I need a shower and visine for my eyes they burn. It was partly cloudy today but brutaly hot later around 3pm. Nice country out that way towards Temple Texas but not sure I would like to live there.

This got me really motivated about our sheep cheese someday. There is a dairy farm up in Dallas that I would like to go see. I am going to talk to hubby about it another day. Got to go to church tomorrow so I really need to sign off.

Sam

My baby La Mancha Kids

Yes I am a grandmother again, thank you thank you :)

Barrels finally had her babys she had a baby boy first the white and brown one drinking milk already then a few min later Dixie the black and white all covered in after birth still was born. She looks just like her monster father hahaha poor baby hopefully she won't be like him.

I am hoping to trade the girl maybe but I want to keep the boy because I can breed it with the mother but not the sister and boys are harder to find that wont come with previous behavior problems like their father had.

I would need to get the boy young for him not to have those behavior problems.

Good news day also is I found a A-Z grant class I can take via internet locally here. Infact if I like it there is more advance classes I can take on it. I have a business plan in mind for our farm and I would like to find some grants to make a go out of it, not loans, but grants.

Even if my business plan dosent work it will be good experience for me for my library skills if I want to go back and work in a library. I am hoping as Tommy gets older I can start to volunteer more at our local libraries and these skills will come in handy.

Also for good news I finished up my ebook finally! Well at least I finished the rough draft of the rough draft that had followed the rough draft hahaha now its just making it look prettier and get my editor to look it over for me. I am also in the look out for a good graphic artist for my book, they say that the cover is very important and I believe that because I buy books based on covers for romance novels hahaha

Well its a good day and the sun is finally going down a bit I need to make dinner right now meat loaf and do my chores.

Ta ta

Sam :) happy happy happy

Joel Osteen

Joel Osteen

I have been listening to his Sunday Sermons on tv a lot and find them very encouraging. I have found out that the people that do not like him is because they say he is too encouraging that he dosen't say enough about hell and damination and is too eager, too happy, to inspiring.

Can there be such thing as too happy? Can there be too much encouraging? He does encourage everyone to go to a good bible base church. Every time I listen to him I have a tear in my eye, and I am so inspired on what he says its soooo encouraging I just want to hug him.

He's advice is wonderful. Tonight he says I need to have a goal I have been really frustrated recently so this advice is golden to me. I have had goals before thats how we got out of debt but I told hubby the other day that we need to get back on our budget and rework it for other goals. Especially with the gas prices going up its something we really need to do.

Since Tommy hasnt had any speech classes the last few weeks I am sort of lost on what to do on these days off that we used to go into SA. I know longer need to go and its been nice just staying home. I should be catching up on chores but instead I have been catching up on reading and watching movies :) ahhh well this week I do not have that luxury anymore I really need to get moving on goals.

I really need to make some more money too. Something I can do online or on the farm. I know some people think, "Wow the things I can do to make money on a farm" well sure there is lots of things but it cost money to start it.

I don't know I really need to think about it. I am going to do some research right now.

Sam signing off....