Scratch. Scratch. And Scratch.

This has been quite an "itchy" week for 3 out of 5 of us. :O) But things are looking up now....Katie looks great and it seems out poison ivy patches are beginning to dry up at last....thank the Lord!! Ugh! This has been like a plague! Katie's shown quite an improvement from this past Monday. Within a few hours of taking the steroids, we started noticing the swelling going down slowly. Now you have to look closely to even see a faint outline of where the poison was. She is one happy little girl again. :O)
In between itching episodes, I was able to can another 18 jars of green beans (bringing my total to about 60), and I also tried something new this year...pickled peppers. I put banana pepers, jalapenos, and cayenne peppers in the same jar. Hope they turn out well.
Thanks to all who were concerned about Katie. :O) Hope all is well wherever you are! And now, we're off to do a little fishing in the Nolichucky! I'll be posting again soon!

Another "DUH!" moment in the life of me.

I will readily confess that I've never been "overly" smart...but when I look back at things I do sometimes, I can only slap my forehead and say "What WAS I thinking??" Ugh! What a weekend. In my last post here http://tnfarmandschool.blogspot.com/2008/07/big-tree-singing-dog-o.html you may remember that I wrote about the big tree that fell over the fence and how we worked to clean up the mess and fix the fence. Did I mention that there was poison ivy on this big tree? Actually I probably didn't because, even after seeing the poison ivy, I still didn't think a thing about it! No bells and whistles went off in my head. No memories of days gone by when we'd have Katie at the doctor's office waiting for a prescription of steroids to take care of the poison ivy. So anyway, on with the story...you may also remember that I even (stupidly) took a picture of Katie standing beside the big tree. Katie...my youngest child...the one who is highly allergic to poison ivy. (I confess I even took one of her climbing ON the tree! Now how dumb is that???) The sad part of all this is that it just didn't click. There was no electrifying moment when I gasped and said, "Oh Katie, get away from that tree!" Nope. Sorry to say that I just did not think. Period. And so because of my not thinking....we've had a long weekend. Matt's arms are swollen from poison ivy. I have patches of it all over. But Katie (yes, the one who is highly allergic to poison ivy) is just pitiful. The picture below was taken on Sunday....it was bad...
but Monday morning was even worse!
I feel so terrible! I was never so glad to get to a doctor's office as I was this morning. We were there when they opened up. And so....little Miss Katie is now swallowing 4 prednisone pills at a time for the next 7 days, then we begin to taper her off. *sigh* What's a kid to do with a mama like me? *sigh* The moral of this story? Some poor youngens just have to look out for themselves. Y'all pray for her. (and for me while you're at it.) *sigh*

Big Tree. Singing Dog. :O)

Usually every morning, we ride around on the 4wheelers to check on the cows. We also check the fenceline. Well this morning, it's a good thing we did! There was a really big tree that had fallen and taken part of the fence with it...leaving a nice big hole for the cows to walk through. Thankfully, they hadn't found it before we did, so they were still in the fence. The tree was a really big red oak and it'll give us lots of good firewood for the winter.
So that takes care of the "Big Tree" part of the title. Now onto the "Singing Dog". By now you all know that Rachel plays the violin...quite well, I might add. We're not quite sure if Johann the pup likes it or hates it! Everytime she plays, he starts howling. I really don't know if he means "I'll sing along while you play" or "Stop playing, you're hurting my ears!" Either way, it's quite amusing to watch.

Summer Days

Ah! Summer days...
Pretty flowers (thankful to be getting some good rain lately!)...
Goodies from the garden...
Jars filled with treasures...

And fish :O) Rachel caught this bass (and a bluegill) in our pond today (of course, Katie had to take it off the hook)...

Happy Birthday to Jacob!

Wow, another birthday has come to our house! Jacob turned 17 years old today! It's almost unreal that 17 years have passed. I vividly remember the day that little....I mean, BIG baby boy was born....weighing in at 9 lbs, 13 oz. Ouch. As with all of our youngens, we're very proud of Jacob and look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for him in the days and years ahead. :O) And now for some birthday pics!

In the picture below, Jacob was trying to look "nice" for the picture...we were all singing Happy Birthday to him when, just as I snapped the pic, his Dad burned himself on the match used to light the candles and was yelping in pain. :O)
The birthday cake he picked out this year was a little different. It was some kind of ooey-gooey German chocolate cake-type thingie. It was good but oh-so-sweet! Instead of ice cream, we had ice cream sandwiches.
And for his birthday meal...we grilled ribeye steaks!! Oh yum! I also fixed fried new potatoes with little bits of bacon, and some fresh green beans right out of the garden.

His big birthday gift??? Doesn't every 17 year old want a new cell phone? :O)

Long time, no blog

It's been a few weeks (or more) since I've posted anything. Life has been busy...but life is good, so I won't complain! :O) What have we been up to lately? Well, for starters, we've been doing the typical summertime things like:
boating, fishing, swimming...

then some not-so-typical things like making homemade cinnamon rolls...

We've also been making alot of homemade ice cream (made with fresh milk). Sorry I didn't take any pictures, but trust me, it was GOOD. :O)
Our garden is doing quite well (even though it's getting really dry). Pretty soon, canning season will be in full swing! We're eating fresh squash, a few beans, red taters, onions, cabbage, jalapeno and cayenne peppers....

I got my hands on a bushel of cucumbers this past week. (What was I thinking...a BUSHEL????? Do you know how many cucumbers are in a bushel?? A million...and they multiply as you work them! :O) Ah, but I had good helpers. My girls are professional cucumbers slicers now. After two days of hard work, we had 34 containers of freezer pickles and a run of bread & butter pickles. I'm set for the winter!

Jacob just got back from an exciting trip. He made the 8 hour trip to visit my Mommy and Daddy (well, it's supposed to be 8 hours...he made it in just over 7 hours...hmmmm). Anyway, he had such a good time. They went trolling in the ocean one day while he was there! He and Cousin Zach caught two nice sized King mackerel. And among all of them, they caught the limit in Spanish mackerel. We'll be frying those babies real soon!!

So, things are good here. Enjoying summer and each other...thankful to the Lord for His blessings of home and family. (We miss you Amy!!) Wishing you all a fun, wonderful summer too!! And don't worry...I'll be posting again soon...just think, it's almost time for those wonderful pictures of all my canning endeavors. Remember those from last year? I know you enjoyed them. :O)

Bye for now!

Since Matt has Mondays off, we always get to enjoy a long weekend. This weekend was no exception. Saturdays are normally spent doing farm and garden stuff. Let's see, we got gardens tilled, tomato plants staked (at least some of them...there are about 70 tomato plants out there!), grass mowed, and lots of other hard work stuff. :O) The Lord's Day was spent in church and visiting. (I missed my Sunday nap!) Then Monday was fun day! Matt and I got up early and headed off to Greenville. I was finally able to get my hands on some fresh cow's milk! Yippee! It resulted in some yummy homemade butter and some buttermilk...not to mention just fresh milk! (I'll be making cheese, Lord willing, today. Oh, and in the picture of the butter...you'll notice some cabbage...fresh out of the garden.) While we were in Greenville, we got some very-fresh-still-warm-doughnuts at a local bakery...Matt's favorite! Then, after accomplishing a few of those had-to-be-done chores, we set out for the lake. It was a beautiful day. Didn't fish today, just boating and swimming, and Katie did some innertubing. :O) You'll see in the bottom picture that it can make a kid really hungry. :O)