The Hopeful Homesteader

The Hopeful Homesteader

Saturday, November 19, 2011

We will all miss you, Robert!

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
~From a headstone in Ireland

This afternoon my husband's uncle, Robert, passed away. He was a good man, a loving husband, father and grandfather. He has been ill for some time but even though something like this is expected it's still devastating.

Though he is gone, he will not be forgotten. He will live forever in our hearts and memories.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Holidays are coming--Mama's recipes

I come from a very large family and we aren't always able to be together for the holidays. One thing I have always counted on throughout the years in the weeks before Thanksgiving is a call from at least one of my sisters (I have 9 of them!), asking me for several of Mama's recipes, most especially her dressing recipe. (Mama passed away when I was 15. The youngest of her kids was only 6.)

The conversation usually goes something like this:
Various Sister: Do you have Mama's dressing recipe?
Me: Yeah you got a pen?
Various Sister: Okay go ahead.
Me: Get out your iron skillet.
Various Sister: I don't have an iron skillet.
Me: Then ya can't make Mama's dressing.

Of course I would always finish giving them the recipe but Mama was always adamant about making cornbread in an iron skillet. To her it just wasn't cornbread if it wasn't baked in an iron skillet and I must say that I agree with her. The bottom crust is so much better in an iron skillet that it gives a more robust flavor to the entire bread.

So I thought I'd post the recipes that get asked for every year on here as a quick reference that they can find whenever they need it. Maybe someone else might like to give them a try as well. Mama was one heck of a cook!

Mama's Cornbread
Mama's Biscuits
Mama's Dressing
Mama's Divinity
Mama's Butter Cake
Mama's Homemade Chocolate Frosting

Although as I sit here typing this post, I am forced to wonder -- will my holidays be forever changed? I have always loved being the one that everyone called to get Mama's recipes. Hmmm, oh well, I'll post anyway. Surely they will still call anyway!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Front Porch

Well Monday and Tuesday we spent working on the front porch. We've finally gotten it to where I'm satisfied with it. (Not finished but usable at least.)  Taking down the tin was a bit tricky since our ladder wasn't quite tall enough to reach the highest screws. Kevin knew a guy when he was younger that was working with tin and was decapitated by it so of course I was a nervous wreck until it was all down.

The tin is off.
 With the tin down, the view of the side yard is just beautiful. Still have a lot of cleaning up to do around the trees and so forth but that's for another day.

We saved the tin to use on the chicken coop.
 The front of the trailer looks so much better just having the tin down. The way it was with two different colors of tin it was just an eye-sore. I admit this is far from perfect but it's much better than it was.



 We had hoped to be able to save the lattice. I scraped at the foam insulation for over an hour and only had about a 2 foot wide section semi cleared so we decided that it was more trouble than it was worth. We took out all the lattice and used some wood we had from pallets to make some railings.

Gotta love free pallet wood.

Still need a few more rails and we're going to add a sill above them.

Sitting on the porch looking out has a MUCH better view now.
They're predicting rain for the next few days so probably wont get to start on the chicken coop until next week sometime. But we're making progress, its slow, but it's still progress. Although it's not what we want the end product to be, for now it will do.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Upcoming Projects

We've all been sick the last week and haven't really gotten much done since it's been cold and raining, so I thought I'd talk about a few of our upcoming projects to kind of give a sneak peak of whats to come.

Project 1: Front Porch

Since we aren't able to turn the existing "addition" into a dining room we've decided to take it back to a porch. We've already moved the door back into the original place but we still have to remove all the spray insulation and tin from it. I'm not looking forward to that task but it's the next project we'll be tackling, most likely Monday or Tueday.

Front Porch as it is now.




Project 2: Chicken Coop

Since Macy and Buttercup wont stay in the pen and have become porch dogs, quite easily I might add, we have the chain link fence area to be able to use for a chicken run and we plan on building our chicken coop right next to it in the style of the one picture here.

The chain link dog fence area will become the chicken run.


Hubby assures me that we already have all the materials and we will begin building this week!!! Yay!

Project 3: Greenhouse

Awhile back on craigslist I was fortunate enough to find a bunch of free storm windows and we had to store them at my mother-in-laws house until we moved. This week we finally got them moved over here and we plan to start building it very soon.

The makings of a FREE greenhouse!

Through all the moving we've had to do only one window got cracked.
 So there's a small sneak peak of what our next few weeks will be consumed by. We hope to have it all completed before Thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The pool is finally finished!

Yesterday we got out there and finally finished up with the pool. We got it folded up and stored neatly in the shed until spring.
It's GONE. Yay!

 
Now we just gotta get the deck torn down.
All stored away.
Kids "swimming"

For the rest of our day be sure to go to the Our Animal Family page and read the latest post there.