I haven’t blog much lately. It has been so incredibly hot and humid that most things around here have been at a stand still. We do just as much as we have to. Yesterday all of the hot days caught up to me and I spent most of the day feeling headachey and nauseous. Last night storm clouds were building to the west and they were spectacular! I drug myself out of the chair to go out and ogle them with the rest of the family. We were especially captivated by a window in the clouds that kept changing shape. Before I came out it was a bird. By the time I got outside, it was a bunny.
Then it became a goat.
Soon it was a leaping dancer.
Directly overhead we had some clouds that looked like they had been painted in the sky.
To the east, a huge thunderhead was building. We could actually see it growing taller and taller. Very cool.
And yes, we were all watching the clouds. Except Jasmine who spent the night at Allison’s.
This morning the sky had a pretty spectacular moment just as I was sitting down to write this. You can tell it has been hot and humid because there is a dense fog this morning. Couple that fog with some amazing pink morning light and this is what you get.
Today I am feeling much better and the temperature is supposed to be just in the mid-80’s. Hopefully I will be able to make some pickles today. Yum!
Its hard to believe that in just about a month all 4 of my kids will be in school! I made my list of school supplies for the coming year. It won’t be long and everyone will be braving the crush of back to school shoppers trying to find all of the school supplies on their lists. I really hate doing that. But now I know I have a new option for shopping for school supplies. EZSchoolSupplies is the answer to many back to school shoppers’ prayers. They make shopping for school supplies as easy as clicking your mouse. No, really. You can buy name brand school supplies at EZSchoolSupplies from crayons to backpacks and avoid the whole rat race. If you are lucky, your school will be registered and they will receive 10% back from your purchase. Of course, if they aren’t, you still can get brand name school supplies at a decent price without leaving the comfort of your home.
*Please note that some of the following pictures may be disturbing to some of you*
Saturday was an interesting conglomeration of many things. We started off butchering chickens at around 8am. Allison and Deb were on hand to help along with several of their kids and a couple boys from church. We made pretty good time and whipped through all 17 of the roosters by 1pm. We then broke until about 6pm because Tom had to go to work for a while and Allison had a few errands to do. We butchered 11 hens by 8pm. That leaves us with 12 good hens and 1 little junk hen left to butcher next Saturday.
The whole butchering process went sort of like this:
Tom would holler for a chicken. There was always a kid or 2 or 3 that were willing to go catch another one.
Then he would do the deed. Usually one of the kids would hold the head still for him. I have done this job in the past and I am glad to have someone else do the holding now.
Then Allison and Tom would pluck the feathers after they scalded the chicken. This can be tedious but once you get a system it isn’t so bad. Some people skin their chickens and avoid plucking all together. I prefer the skin on for various reasons.
Next, the chicken was brought in to me to be processed. I would remove the feet, neck and entrails. I save the livers. Yummy! Then I give them a thorough rinse in cold water and put it in an ice bath to cool.
Lastly, Deb puts the chicken in a plastic bag and then wraps them in freezer paper. She does a great job wrapping and has no investment in the chickens at all. I think she comes just for the good company. We like her to come because she does a great job and she puts funny sayings on every chicken she wraps. Well, we really like her, too.
The evening ended with an impromptu cook out with Tom’s brother, his brother’s girlfriend and his nephew. It was a good ending to a very long day. I will be happy to get the remaining chickens in the freezer next weekend!
Tomorrow we are butchering chickens. So, there will be some butchering photos on here in the next few days. I thought that I should issue a warning before hand. I won’t show anything too graphic.
Anyway, today I have spent a good part of the day getting the kitchen really clean and gathering supplies. We plan on butchering half of them tomorrow. All of the roosters and the biggest hens will find themselves in a freezer by tomorrow afternoon. We have more hens than roosters this time around. All together there are 38 or 39 left out of the 42 we started with. So tomorrow I will find my hand inside about 18 birds. I don’t relish it until we cook them! In a few weeks, those chickens will start looking good again.
Jasmine’s glasses broke today. Broke as in not fixable. I am thinking about ordering her a pair from ZenniOptical.com. They have glasses starting from $8. You know that’s a pretty good deal if you have bought a pair of glasses recently. You many have seen Zenni on Fox news recently. This company is for real. They cut out the expense of the middleman by offering their own manufactured direct. If you are looking for some basic frames, be sure to check them out. I know that I will be even if it is just for a pair that Jasmine can wear during sports.
Today was more time spent in the garden. I know that is just such an amazing fact! We uncovered 6 more tomato plants and Tom was able to get the cages put around them. Clint borrowed the neighbor’s lawn sweep and spent the afternoon mowing and sweeping up the grass. The girls then put the grass down in the garden where we had pulled weeds. Whew! I feel a whole lot better about the garden today. There is still plenty to do….Like the strawberries need to be found again. But today eased my mind about the state of the garden. Tomorrow we will tackle the strawberries and the rest of the green beans. Today….today I picked the first zucchini and it was delicious and my tomatoes are happy.
There have been a couple of times that we have rented a car when we drive back home for a stay. That was a long time ago and we really haven’t had the need to rent a car since. However, I know that with so many people going on vacation during the summer months that there are many cars being rented on a daily basis. So with that in mind, I wanted to pass on to you some great deals on car rentals from Advantage. Not only do they have 50% off on rentals of luxury cars and convertibles…Okay, so maybe that is enough of a deal that I don’t need to go on. Cause that is a really good deal! But they do have a lot of different summer deals for Austin, Kansas City, Maui and various other cities. Be sure to check out Advantage for your summer car rental. Rent a convertible for me, would you?
I am back from out long weekend. And as I suspected things in the garden took off while we were gone. And I don’t just mean the veggies! The weeds were taking over the garden. See what happens when you turn your back on those weeds for a few days. Karly and I spent some time pulling weeds this morning. We made a good dent and 4 of the tomato plants are living a better life. I also picked our first mess of green beans of the season. There was just enough for all of us to have a serving. Oh, but were they good!
I am looking forward to beets and zucchini in the next few days followed by cukes and potatoes. My taste buds are getting antsy! It will be several weeks yet before we have tomatoes but I will have plenty to do before they are ripe.
We are getting ready to leave on our annual vacation. Unfortunately we do not get to take a cruise or spend time viewing historical places or even have the fun of lounging on a sun-soaked beach. We are going back to our hometown for a long holiday weekend. While we will have a blast visiting family and friends, it would be fun to be planning for a cruise. Cruiselocators.com allows you to book your whole cruise vacation through their site. One stop shopping. I love that! You can choose from cruise lines like Disney Cruises, Carnival Cruises, Crystal Cruises and Princess Cruises among a long list of others. And don’t deal in just Caribbean cruises. Oh, no. You can chose from cruises all around the world. Really, if you need to know anything at all about cruising, cruiselocators.com is a pretty good resource. We don’t need them this year but maybe by next year we will be booking a family cruise! Until then, have a great July 4th weekend. I’ll see you on the flip side!
We finally made it to the bottoms earlier this week. Wow. I saw the devastation and the amount of water back in ‘93. But I was still unprepared for the emotions that seeing it all again would create. These pictures were taken about a week after the levee break. I don’t even have the heart to describe these photos. I think that the heartbreak is apparent in all of them without my words.
