Sorry I haven't been updating much.

Will try to post pictures soon.
We've been a little busy. Not just working on the house but trying to enjoy retirement.
I don't have the online time I had when hubby worked a paying job out of the home. I usually only get an hour or three in the evening before bed and I use that time to read and comment on your blogs. ;o)
The rest of my time is spent with the hubby.

So, sorry about that.

We've had the kitchen measured for counters.
Gotten a plywood floor on one of the bathrooms.
Kept the place mowed.
Replaced the main water line due to a leak that couldn't be found in the one we put in two or so years ago.
Gone fishing several times.
Played with mending clothes.
And are now into picking up pecans.

Watched a humming bird today.
And a Pileated Woodpecker.
And a hawk flew over my head to land in an oak tree in the pasture.
No pictures of the hawk though, I was picking pecans at the time.

Maybe I have a picture I haven't posted yet.

Oh. I know. We have a pecan tree that we are trying to get the local electric company, or Department of Public Safety, to trim for us because we don't have $2000 to do it ourselves -- and they would have to be there for it to be done anyway!

Both of them have been contacted by us several times to try and mitigate our liability if something should happen and the 'branch' come down by an act of God. I use branch loosely because the trunk is actually divided somewhere above the fence line and one half is what goes over the power lines and half of the roadway.

Oh well.
God bless! ♥

Well, Murphy takes no weekends off.

I think some of you may know what this means without my telling you. And no, it has not rained for 4 or 5 days now.

Suffice it to say that this is an area near the pump house where several lines meet.
So, hubby dug it up with his tractor. He's got a new furrow making thing of some sort. I am so eloquent, aren't I?

Anyway, while digging the trench for the new line, we found some interesting things.

More red bricks. What makes these bricks different? They were cemented together, or whatever they called it then. Three layers deep. Hubby did not know of anything there, so they may have been there before the 'cow bowl' was installed. He doesn't know if his dad put the 'cow bowl' there for their dairy or not.

As for 'trench treasures'...

I did the finding as I was trying to help get the brick pieces and rocks out of the bottom of the trench.
I thought this was some sort of double ended something; but as we cleaned it up, hubby recognized it as something that was probably associated with his satellite dish installation work when we were here in 1994.

Then there was this.

The hook obviously is supposed to go in the little... detent of the ring, but it can't because of rust. At first I thought it might be a stirrup from a saddle. Then I thought possibly something to tie a horse to, because it was by the side entrance to the house.
But then I thought maybe something as simple as a swinging ring from a swingset. Who knows? ;o)

I also found this hand made spike nail thing.

And lastly, I found this.

Hopefully we get the water line finished tomorrow.

You all take care and have a wonderful week! ♥

We are a turning point

For the farm land across the street, and the farm land behind us.
So this is often what we see.

I tried to get a picture of the plane going over the house, but of course, he would have to fill up at those times and I'd get tired of waiting. Probably some other time.
There were other shots showing how close he comes, but you probably wouldn't be able to see the plane behind the trees, so I didn't post most of them. You can just barely make out the plane over the field across the street.

Have a great weekend!

Paradise not quite lost

So. I was going to do a post and tell you what a beautiful day we had today. I was going to show you the nice mess of crappie, 1 blue gill, and one bass out of a dozen we caught; that we kept.

But instead, I will tell you about the neighbor across the street. She came over this evening and talked to hubby while I was in the pasture collecting a few pecans. I don't know if they are last year's or this year's pecans, but I was collecting them.

Anyway, came to find out that when we were robbed, they were robbed too. Someone broke into their house and their tool shed.
Looking back over my posts, it was Friday the 13th that we got here and found things had been stolen.

Anyway, turns out it was the neighbors just up the road from us that had broken in. The house on the other side of the empty field.
Apparently there were about 20 cop cars out there yesterday and the couple was arrested.
For cooking Meth in their house.
And maybe for the thefts, too.
Apparently the wife had just gotten out of prison for drug related stuff...

We were in Shreveport having a great day off, haha!
But the ignorant people label?

Someone poisoned the neighbor's golden lab. We just saw the dog yesterday morning so it happened sometime in the last 24 hours.
She doesn't think her dog will live. :o(
It may not help, but please pray for her dog.

All this got me to thinking of something that happened a little earlier when I went out to check the laundry.
A smaller blue pickup truck slowed down by the driveway. I thought it might be one of the two people I've been waiting to call or come by for various reasons.
But they didn't pull in. Just sort of off the shoulder, in the driveway. Then they drove to the empty field and pulled into that driveway and just sat there for a bit while I was taking my laundry down.
(I have my clothesline strung on my porch until we can sink posts for clotheslines.)
Not sure why this person stopped there, since the neighbor up the road has equipment there right now. They were out harvesting the corn in the back field.
After 4 or 5 minutes, the person drove off.

After what the lady across the street told my husband, it definitely left me feeling unsettled.
We have actually locked the house doors, even though we are here.
And tonight, Mr. Kimber will be sleeping with us, too, I think. Not sure about 5/7, but you never know.

I don't like people who are mean to animals. I hope God has a special place for them.

God bless you all. Have a wonderful Tuesday. ♥

I believe we have two types of clover in our pasture

but I'm not sure.

These shots look like clover. A pretty pale purple that may not show up right; but the leaves are like tiny ferns.

While these have the typical clover leaves, but not the flower I expect with clover. They are a pretty purple also. :o)

At any rate, we were happy to see them.
Hope you all have a blessed week! ♥

Thursdays Things in a row

a day early.
Because I don't do it every week, and because we are getting a late start today.

Bricks in the back yard. There used to be a brick patio, but rain and flooding has sunk most of them.

It would be nice to be able to salvage them, but after all these years and weather, they mostly just crumble if moved. Not sure what, if anything we'll do about them.

And like my friend Gail, Isaac's rain brought the spider lilies out in force.

Have a blessed day! ♥

First batch of jerky

In the little Master Forge smoker from the box Home Improvement store.

We've been looking on and off for a smoker. I read Cowgirl's Country Life. She has one amazing blog. It can make me hungry even if I've just eaten.

You've been warned. ;o)

She has to be a master smoker, and a very accomplished cook as well. If I'd had the sense to ask her, instead of us just making a spur of the moment purchase, we probably would not have bought this smoker. But we did.
One of the first things I learned about it? The temp gauge on the front does not read right.

But, in getting it ready to smoke the jerky, I was surprised to see it read pretty close to the same as the 2 oven thermometers I placed inside it. Why 2? I didn't remember I had bought one when we tried to make jerky in the itty bitty trailer oven, haha. And we bought one. So, I put one on the top smoker rack, and the other on the near bottom smoker rack. They were identical in their readings.

Yes, I am confused.

But, using thermometers is cheaper than a digital reader thingy for me; and simple enough for me to use, too.

Anyway, here is the jerky and some things I have learned:

It is extremely hard to get the temp low enough for jerky. It needs to be in the 165F-170F range. I thought when I went to bed last night, that I had it about 175F, which should have worked; but this morning it was closer to 200F.
So the jerky is... crunchy, haha! But I've done that before in my most used method - a regular oven.

The jerky is salty. That's my fault. I've never marinated such a small batch of meat before. And it has been about a year since I've made any. I should have known to rinse the meat after taking it out of the marinade. I only marinated it about 4 hours though. I didn't think it was that long when I have marinated meat over night. That, I always rinse.

Next time, I'll make it during the day. Night time has always been the time I made it before. Once I get the temperature set, pop it in, go to sleep, by morning, it's usually done. (If I got it in about 6 PM.)

I miss the smell of the jerky drying. It always made the house smell fantastic!

Next batch, I'll play around with ways to keep it a little cooler. No picture, but I used an old rake head this time. I'll try to remember to take a picture next time.

That's it for tonight. Have a blessed week!

P.S. the picture of the smoker came from an about dot com post I had read when I first realized the smoker heat gauge was waaaaaay off.

P.P.S. If you need a jerky recipe, or another jerky recipe, just email me and I'll happily share mine with you. It's not spicy, we don't like a lot of heat, but you can always make yours spicy. ;o)
I've used my recipe with deer and moose; and with salmon too when we lived in Alaska, but salmon is too oily to dry properly.

Almost need a gas mask

There are so many of these around. There are clouds of them.

Around here, as far as I know, they are called love bugs.

I just call them annoying. ;o)

Second day of September already! Where is the time going?

I'm going to try making jerky in our little smoker. *fingers crossed*

Have a wonderful week!