Fun With Spam

Ok, so everyday I get these spam comments. The person sends a generic comment and includes their website. It's a way of trying to get more people to their website.

I usually just mark them as spam and go about my day. But today I got this one along with two others. This one is so funny that I had to share it with you. Here it is.

I enjoy, result in I found exactly what I used to be having a look
for. You've ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
 

WOW! He really spent some time looking around my blog, didn't he? That first sentence is a doozy! I left out the website he included.

Fun with spam on a weekend. What could be better.

Single-Use Soaps For Fall

I came across a neat soap project when I was ordering supplies for my big soap order. Yesterday I had the time and energy to try it.

Now back to the show.

First, I had to download and copy a sheet of fall leaves onto water disolvable paper.

Then, I had to meticulously cut out each leaf. I would get about three done a day as my arthritis wouldn't allow me to do more at a time. When I cut them out, I needed to leave a "tag" or "handle" on it. You'll see why in a moment.

Next, I melted some melt and pour soap base and put scent in it. I chose Orange Spice. Such an uplifting, fresh, fall scent. The scent also added a bit of color to the clear soap base.

 

Now for the fun. I took a leaf and held it by the "handle" and dipped both sides into the melted soap. Then I just laid it onto a piece of wax paper to dry. 

After it dried, I peeled it off the wax paper and cut away the handle and any extra soap from around the leaf. Peeling it off the wax paper gave each leaf a bit of curling that looked so natural. I also had a bit of soap base left over so I poured it into a pumpkin cupcake mold.

I think the combination of the pumpkin and the leaves would make a really pretty set of soaps in a guest bathroom.

Days Of Their Lives

The other day I told you about the hens getting their freedom for the day while we cleaned their coop. I wanted to share some photos of them out playing, pecking, exploring, and...

.....

And THIS

In photo 3 you can see my hugely overgrown sweet potato vine. This hen decided to dive right in, scratch out a nest, and lay an egg. I really had to pull back a lot of vine to even be able to see her under there. It was quite a nice place she had found. She decorated it all up with pictures of family and ruffles and ribbons. I don't know where she finds the time!

Here are a few photos of the clean coop and the girls enjoying it. They LOVE fresh hay!

And now, if I can do this right, here is a video of the girls.

They rarely leave any hay in the nest boxes and now I know why. One will be in there on the nest. Another jumps in and thinks she will oust the first one. When that proves impossible, she then proceeds to try and scratch out another nest right next to the first one. This empties the nest box of most of the hay.

Before anyone suggests we make more boxes you need to know that no matter how many boxes you have, the hens will always try and nest in the same box. They like a ready-made nest, complete with eggs.

Two Green Things

Today was a breezy, but glorious day to work outside. After neglecting my slowly fading gardens for weeks now, we decided it was time to prepare them for winter.

This meant that the tomatoes needed to be pulled out. The tomatoes in the gardens by the house were not really producing anything over a cherry size anyway. So we went to work and in a little bit we had them cleared. 

Another reason I wanted to pull these particular plants was that we needed to clean out the chicken coop. This is made much easier if some or all of the girls are outside. These chickens had never been loose before, but ran out rather quickly when the doors were thrown open. The kids went to work at the cleaning while we continued to work on the gardens. I didn't want the girls to get into the gardens while I had pesticide-laced tomatoes in them.

Once the house gardens were cleaned, we noticed these pesky buggers.

That leads me to the shop garden. Down there the plants were completely stripped clean of any and all leaves. I ran out of sevin dust (yes, I use it!) and the hornworms had their way with my tomatoes. They were actually eating my tomatoes at this point. I pulled off all the huge green tomatoes before we threw everything in the compost pile.

I couldn't believe how big some of them were. We will be having some fried green tomatoes in the days to come.

The only garden remaining is the vine garden and that is still growing and producing, yet. I left a bit of lettuce growing up in the house gardens to see if I can still get some yet this fall. I'm not optimistic, but maybe.

It feels good to have some of our fall chores done. I still have all my flower beds to do, but I choose to dwell on what I have done.

I'm Going To Vent

I'm going to vent. I try to keep my posts upbeat and about something others may have interest in, but not today.

What could have me so upset?

Did the kids use my favorite lipstick to color the dog's nose? Nope.

Did the chickens stage a "coup", trampling me when I went out to feed them this morning, and digging up all my flower beds? Nope.

I received an email. From a jerk. Regarding an ad we placed on Craigslist on Monday (five days ago). We are trying to sell our older mower conditioner because we got a really good deal on a newer one and we no longer need the old one. We have owned it for about a year and used it this summer.

So, you ask, what kind of email would someone send about such an ad that would upset me?

Here is what he wrote.

Now if you would of taken care of your equipment that hay conditioner would have already been sold. I personally have never seen more of a run down piece of equipment, It looks like you use it as a planter lol.

What?! Does this person know that we bought it used in this very condition? Does he know that we shed ALL of our equipment and do routine maintenance on ALL of our equipment? Well, he does now. Here was my response.

We bought it used a year ago and the condition is unchanged from when we bought it. We keep our equipment shedded and properly cared for. It runs and is in good working order. I have seen plenty of equipment in worse condition. Not everyone can afford new equipment and this is a good place to start. Old equipment is old. This ad is less than a week old. I find your email quite nasty and unkind and you can’t sugar-coat it with a “lol”. I would be careful how you respond to craigslist ads as I have flagged your email with craigslist as “unwanted/ inappropriate”. Too many and you may be banned.

 

I hope I was not stooping to his level. I'm not sure I could have gotten back up if I'd gotten that low. LOL! Now that is how you properly use "lol". After something funny. Not after something rude, unkind, and not at all humorous.

 

Hey! I turned this post around to something useful--" How to properly make use of LOL".

 

Thanks for listening and have a great weekend, everyone! 

Sick And Tired

Of being sick and tired!

I am still struggling with some kind of illness. It has morphed over the past couple of months. What was once allergies, turned into a sinus infection.Which then turned into a cold.

Today I'm going to the doctor to see if I possibly have strep. I am having a hard time swallowing, strep is going around our church, and I seem to be getting worse.

I'm sure I still have allergy issues and probably a cold, too. I haven't slept through the night in 2 weeks! I am tired!

On the plus side. The coughing has been working out my ab muscles. Another plus, according to Mr Farmer, is that my voice comes and goes. He and the kids like it when it goes. I like it too, as they have to listen to me in order to hear what I'm saying.

I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive and busy, just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

A Girls' Day

Today I decided to take the day off, sort of. I made 33 pounds of soap this week, plus six loaves of bread. I'm pooped!

So the girls and I decided to do our nails. The excitement was evident as the girls picked out their colors. 

Then they had a fun time choosing which stickers to put on. 

Then they changed their minds on color so it would match their stickers.

Finally we finished up.

It's a beautiful day here today. And it's Friday! This weekend we plan to work on getting things ready for a garage sale.

A Very Busy Weekend

Thia past weekend was so busy! It started Friday morning with teaching the kids. We worked quickly to get as much done as possible before we left for an auction.

The auction was a farm machinery auction and we were there for several items. As is often the case, a lot of things went very low, but the things we wanted went higher than we wanted to pay. So we walked away with nothing and went home to finish up school.

We finished school, did chores, and got supper ready. Mr Farmer came home a bit early to eat and change clothes and then we were off to the Nebraska Bush tractor pull in a nearby county fair.

The tractor pull was fun but we froze, even with two blankets and sweatshirts. We left at 11:00 pm, after 5 hours of watching. We were told it lasted until 12:30!

Saturday we got up around nine, quickly got ready, and headed to a whole farm auction. The auction sold land, home, machinery, and all kinds of tools and housewares. It lasted all day. We bought all kinds of cool stuff. I'll post photos later of some of what we got.

We loaded up our new toys and headed home for a quick supper before we headed down to the fair for the demolition derby. It was fun, but our favorite heet was a new one--lawn mower demolition. It was quite interesting.

We left early again at 11:00 as Baby fell asleep on Mr Farmer's lap, and the Boy asked if would could go home to bed. You know they're tired when they ask to go to bed!  During a derby!

We instructed the kids that they were not to get up before 9:00. They all slept in good. I, however, woke up several times during the night with this stupid cold and got up at 7 to come out to the couch so I wouldn't wake Mr Farmer. I fell asleep on the couch until almost 11! I am not usually a late sleeper, but this cold is killing me. I have yet to find a medicine, cough drop, throat spray, or anything else that helps. I have been without a full night's uninterrupted sleep in weeks! Last night I even agreed to try Mr Farmer's go-to medicine--Nyquil. I have stayed away from it for many, many years because of the medications I take. Last night I didn't care if I died. I needed to sleep! Unfortunately, it didn't help at all. I was up even more. If anyone has any tried and true methods for stopping a throat tickle/ cough, please let me know.

When I finally got up, Mr Farmer had unloaded the trailer of  auctions buys and was organizing his workshop. He stayed busy all day. I pretty much watched him, in a miserable stupor.

And that was our weekend. I'd like to just take it easy and clean the house a bit today, but I have to make ten batches of soap this week for an order. I may be dead at the end of this week. If so, thanks for visiting my blog and be sure to send money to my family. Oh, why wait for me to die, just send in your donations now so I can know who my favorite blog followers are before I go.

Using Your Noodle

I told you yesterday that I'd show you how to make homemade noodles.

But first, is this font size easier to read? I think the other size seems so small. Tell me which is easier.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

There are a couple of parts to my noodle maker. There is the roller on the left. It has a knob that changes the thickness of your noodle sheet. Then there is the cutter. It has a section for spaghetti noodles and one for regular noodles. And, of course, the handle.

The cast of characters: ingredients, bowl, tools, and recipe.

I don't let my noodles dry. I have before but don't notice any difference. Except that the fresh ones cook up quicker. I also add pepper to my recipe.

After mixing your recipe up, run it through the roller on thickest setting. Then fold in half length-wise and run through again. And again. And a few more times, repeating the fold in half and run through procedures.

If it is sticky, dust with flour before running it through the rollers.

After about six times of folding and rolling, change setting to the next thinner setting and repeat. Keep changing settings until you have your desired thickness.
 

Now just run through the cutter.

I use a pizza cutter to cut the noodles to length.

Now it's time to cleanup the equipment.

Here is the meat we got from the rooster.

My noodles cooking in the chicken broth.

All served up over mashed potatoes, with a salad.