by Jennifer | May 6, 2010 | Blog
Well, besides the cold, crazy weather, spring is here and the flowers are blooming everywhere. This the tree in our front yard. It doesn’t have quite as many flowers on it right now since we had a crazy wind storm a few days ago, but it sure is beautiful!!
Since Tom has been home so much lately, we finally had time to plant the garden. Unfortunately, we had some very cold weather, including a bunch of hail and wind, so I’m afraid many of our tiny plant starts will not make it and we’ll be headed off to buy a few. But the garden is all divided up, so we’ll see what happens in a few days.
This is the garden area at the beginning of spring last year (after all the trash was picked up). It was a lot of work, but we got it all ready this year instead of just the half we did last year!
by Jennifer | May 6, 2010 | Blog
I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, so I need to get caught up . . . first about the pig . . .
A few weeks ago, Tom and his friend Marcus orered a whole pig from one of their suppliers at work and on their day off, cut it up for us to eat. They did it at our house, which was great, so the girls and I could see the process as well. Tom smoked some of the meat and also cured some. We love having all the meat in the freezer ready to go.
Here’s a few pictures of the process . . .
Sage was out with them the whole time. She was so excited and had so many questions.
All the pieces of meat ready to be packaged or cooked
Some of the pork in the smoker
The bacon after it was cured and smoked
The ham after it was cooked and smoked (and yes, it tastes as good as it looks!!)
by Jennifer | Apr 17, 2010 | Blog
After a week of horrible bedtimes with Sage, we started up a “going to bed” sticker chart again to try and help her stay in her bed. So this morning we had a tea party with one of her friends as her reward for completing the sticker chart. (This past week was much better!) She was so excited. She made all the food and name cards. She set the table and of course chose which dress-up clothes to wear. Molly was pretty excited about it too. 🙂
by Jennifer | Apr 15, 2010 | Blog
I know you’re wondering why I’m taking a picture of this huge barrel . . . but if you would have been at our house for dinner last night you would know by the taste of the YUMMY burgers. Tom built a smoker out of an old storage barrel. Crazy! So far this week we’ve been able to enjoy a smoked chicken, smoked mozarella and smoked burgers. I have a feeling we’ll be using this a lot in the months and years to come! His main motivation for this, besides wanting one for a while now, is that he and a friend are getting a whole pig next week and he wants to be able to smoke some of the meat. Pictures of 2 chefs and a dead pig to come . . .
by Jennifer | Apr 13, 2010 | Blog
The girls and I started some seeds in some egg cartons but were not getting much growth. So Tom set up a little greenhouse in our basement. He bought a few full spectrum light bulbs and some trays and seed starter. He set a little heater to 70 degrees and 6 days later we have a lot of little veggies starting to grow. This picture was taken on Saturday and they are so much bigger today, 2 days later. Now we just need to get outside and finish prepping the garden to plant. The girls are excited to use all their gardening tools and gloves they got for Easter so hopefully we’ll get out there soon!
by Jennifer | Apr 9, 2010 | Blog
Easter morning started off at church – 7 a.m. for me and then I came back and got everone else after I sang in the first service. After church, we came home, had lunch and found Easter Baskets and then rested. We then headed over to Aunt Patti and Uncle Chuck’s house to spend the evening with family. 🙂
