Sunday Cooking

Here we go again! Another busy Sunday.  You – the Martha Stewart one in the back – sit down!  Every other very busy MOMYS feel free to pay attention!  You, busy mom, have gotten your children to church, looking very decent, and yet you have NOT had time to brush your hair, or your teeth, or the spit-up off your shirt.  What happens the minute church is done, you will be stampeded by your children who are dying of starvation (no offense to the millions in Africa who can go longer than 2.5 hours and who maybe actually cannot remember their last meal…  )

THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS FOR LUNCH!

So, here is my plan.  When I walk out the door to church, we already have lunch plans ready to go.

1st sunday – potluck at church

2nd Sunday – roasted chickens

3rd Sunday – roast beef

4th Sunday – Turkey

5th Sunday – Hams or pork loin

When we get home, we work on side dishes, either putting out biscuits and a vegetable, etc. 

Other tips, we don’t do dessert on Sunday noons. We do it on Sunday nights, after we eat the leftover related to the meal.   For our chicken, I have a casserole I make.  Recipe to follow.  Turkey is turkey noodle soup.  Roast beef might end up as pulled meat sandwiches.  Ham ends up as some sort of casserole and my favorite – pork loin ends up inside potato soup. yum!

This way, we save lots of money on not eating out and come home to a great smelling house. 

Maybe anchoring one part of your meal planning will make your Lord’s Day run a little smoother.

Momma

P.S. we do stray off the plan, did a lovely grill out tonight with a local homeschooling family.

Dexter Cow Show

We went to the Dexter Show in Fort Dodge IA this weekend.  We watched a milking exhibition

The Dexter’s are a consideration for us because of their multi-purpose and also due to their size.   We saw beautiful exhibits. 

Mowing and cleaning

Does anybody else notice that the more we actually DO on the homestead, the LESS we have time to write?

Amanda

-And the chickens moved too!-

We have a chicken building.  It is 3 parts.  On the East side, are our layer chickens.  In the middle, is our storage area and brooders.  On the West side, is the NEW and IMPROVED meat bird side.  Once moved out of their brooder, we had to wait until it stopped raining, and we were home to get them into their new yard.  (Our daughter had a car accident last weekend and we were at the hospital the entire Saturday – figures… it was gorgeous weather!)   Well, this weekend, their accomodations became deluxe.   We added a door to their pen and moved their fencing to the back of the chicken coop.  Their new fence home is probably 20*40 and they LOVE it!

Here we are adding the door to the back of the building.  Brian is introducing the chickens to the yard.   

He needed help from the inside, so as we are blessed with helpers… they shoved them out the door.

They were outside here while we built that new door.  They have lots of space to grow now.

Amanda

What we did this weekend ->

Saturday we had an amazing day. We searched online for skoolie buses for  a long time.  We knew another large homeschooling family with one and so have been trying to find one that “meets OUR unique needs”.  We drove about 2 hours Saturday over to drive one.  I’m not sure that it was THE ONE, but it was a start.

We then went to Chuck  E. Cheese.  There isn’t one close to us at all so when we get that close, we make it an event! I do have some photos for this but not able to get those off yet.

It was raining so it was not a good farm day.

Sunday, we spent at Worship and again, watching the outside —> rain. Late Sunday night, I took the big kids to see Night at the Museum 2.  Wow! Not for littles but very entertaining.

Monday, the sun shone, so to work we went!   We had a huge to do list, and we didn’t accomplish all of it, but we sure did work hard. 

First, the Turkeys… They were originally in a brooder.  (Maybe Brian can add a pic of this).  Then they went to a tiny room we have in our big barn and yesterday they moved to their new home with a huge new yard.    This yard was completely closed with trees and debris.  It is rather large, probably 20*30 or so.   The fence itself didn’t need much work as the Turkeys won’t be there forever *Grin*

Here is Keisa moving the turkeys…

We have 13 of our original tureys left.  Here they are – exploring the new yard.

 

This was just our first task for the day… stay tuned for more updates.

Amanda

New Header

bye bye SNOW pictures! Hello Spring Pictures!!!

Amanda

Horse pictures (as promised)

This is our Arabian on the right, her name is Mona (that isn’t her registered name).  She is wonderful.

Also in the picture are the 3 steeple horses we board. They are Spartacus, Ellie May and Amber.  Children pictured are Cody on left, Keisa, Mariah and Lea on right.

Here is a closer pic of Mona and Lea.

New Raised Beds

Thanks to my dear hubby for the hard work! I’m excited to fill them. We will be doing the 2 raised beds following the square foot garden method and tilling out for the rest of our plans.

Amanda

Potatos!

Well, we are a little late, but is that to be expected with a housefull of blessings and neither time, nor money. (can all things be done with either enough time or enough money? I digress… )
These are our potato rings. They house reds, goldens and kennebec potatos. / We found this handy tutorial on http://www.youtube.com

I don’t know how they will produce but they were easy to build, took up less space than I thought and hopefully, out of the garden space – won’t FLOOD! Welcome to Iowa!! 

Busy Weekend!

I’m sure Brian is going to post with all that we have accomplished (Ed. to add, we were too busy to post!)  but we’re still alive and working hard.

Amanda