Back to Summer & It's Fruitcake Making Time-Updated

    Hi Friends,

  Wow we are back to the 90's F here again. Those couple weeks of no humidity and 70's F were just perfect for working outdoors. We got close to the 90 degrees F today but the weekend shows pretty warm and in the 90's.  I am thinking the lake will be packed with boaters-probably the last weekend many will have their boats out til next year May. especially the large ocean boaters who usually hire someone to winterize and store their boats-so we will get a break from those.

 We have been working most every day on the drainage ditch-still. My main job right now is going through the piles of soil and removing all the large rock and some of the smaller as well.  I will end up with much needed garden soil, and the ditch needs the rocks  Quite the job but the pile is growing smaller. 😀 Hope to be able to finish tomorrow.

  Today my back needed a break so last night I filled up my car with several boxes of items. to donate to the animal shelter's resale shop, and  I am in much need of jeans-so decided to shop as well.

   I was able to find a couple pairs that fit pretty well, and I grabbed one a size up bigger for working outdoors-the only pair I have now is pretty thin even with all the patches. I also found some very large well worn and comfy Harley Davidson shirts-great for in the house, and a couple nice tops. I tried on at least a dozen pairs of shorts and found only one that fit.

  There is a church nearby that is open on Thursdays with a thrift shop as well,  but I didn't make it there, as I needed to also stop at the local grocery store for a few items.  Our main meal is at 2 in the afternoon and the animal thrift shop doesn't open til 10 am

  Have you heard of Jello molds made in Japan? They are a china or perhaps ceramic with gorgeous scenes on the bottom. They also are set up for hanging. The animal shelter shop is working on clearing out-all the clothes were a dollar, and these molds were $8.00 each and they announced on sale today for a dollar. I thought they would be fun to make Jello in but once I got them home I could see these are mostly decorative.  So I hung them in my craft/art room to enjoy. They are really beautiful

I was thinking of gifting the one below to a friend, but since they are really made for hanging decided to keep it. Kitchen pieces from Japan are always so lovely

  I think once you mess up your back, and you still need to lift and carry items, and work on projects-it will just give you fits til you take several days off-right now we are fighting the weather clock so that's not going to happen for awhile So we are both struggling through. If it does not rain we hope to get back to the woods house next week one day. I need to check the propane tank, do some grass cutting around the house, and finish packing up the scope shop. Also we have some items to bring back. 

  Larry had picked up this gorgeous solid oak wood working table-if that's what it is called. In his shop he had set up his metal working shop and also a wood working shop.  I have a perfect spot for this piece so I told him I want it.😃 I don't think we will get much from auction sales with the economy the way it is right now. I started a list of things to remember to bring back. Time is running out too for getting an auction done before winter sets in.

  In my title I  mentioned fruitcakes-I know most in the United States make fun of fruitcakes and don't like them. Yes I know this cake is full of sugar and no way really to get around it but the recipe I use is so delicious, this is a treat for Christmas time and through the following year as well.

    I use a 1700's recipe for a dark fruitcake and have been making it most every year since my early 20's. Larry loves this cake as did his father. So last week I  went through my fruitcake ingredient stash and only needed to pick up a few things. I buy what I need at nuts.com as it is always fresh there and available now as well-nothing in the stores yet locally and I like to bake the cakes early October if possible. I also like to dip glazed fruit rinds in dark chocolate-so I made sure I had enough of those too.

  Happy Friday and Weekend!!

    Oh and I think most of our hummingbirds have left today-just saw a couple this morning. Will keep the feeders out for a couple more weeks-for those passing through. The pelicans should be passing through soon and the sea gulls have returned. 

Update: I did a little research online about these Jello molds-these two are part of a fall-winter-spring set by Himark in Japan. considered vintage made in the 1980's From the descriptions these were designed to be hung on the wall but they also can be used for baking cakes or making jellos. They are made of ceramic.

    Here is a photo of the set-found on Ebay   One of mine has the original hanger and the other one was just a thick wire. This set on Ebay was priced at $45.00 plus shipping.  There was also another manufacture in Japan Gailstyn-Dutton. The prices for just one seemed to start at $8.00 and went up plus shipping.   Most listings specified if the manuf. sticker was still in place-mine were.

End of Weekend Post & Catch Up

   Am hoping your first autumn weekend had good weather. It has been a bit cooler, but Saturday the humidity increased and very strong T storms with winds moved in. I don't sleep well during storms like this-I worry too much. We did miss the hail which I am thankful for. Also no damages that I saw.  This morning and through out the day (Sunday) lots of fisherman on the lake-we enjoy seeing them This lake (Lake in the Ozarks) has many fishing tournaments going on every weekend pretty much all year.

   I feed the wild birds year round since we really enjoy them. They are in the habit now that I will put out the seed and hummingbird feeders at first light. Over the deck those feeders must be brought in each night do to the pesky raccoons--they break their way into the feeders or they get tossed over the deck. typical of coons haha  We still have the little hummingbirds visiting. I think now we are getting different groups of families that stay awhile, move on and a new group moves in as they migrate out of our area.. I will be keeping up the nectar feeders til they have all migrated on. Usually in this area though the hummingbirds have left by  mid September-at least they did at our woods home.

   This year the bird parents brought their youngsters to the seed feeders-that was so much fun to view for us. The eagle pair visits again most every day-up in those tall trees. One day last week we saw one of the eagles catch a fish in the lake-pretty cool to see. They have also brought their juvenile too.

  Our check ups and blood test results went very well, as did my dental check up. My lower side and back is finally feeling a bit better, but as soon as I do something physical-so much work outdoors to do-it will act up again. The rain has stopped the progress on the drainage ditch since early Friday.  If no rain I want Larry to go out fishing. We are people that work too much and never take time out for fun things-it's time to do that.

 Early spring I had ordered in water iris's, but I had planted them too close to the waters edge-so with the high waves splashing up over the rocks on to the grass edge all summer, I lost most of those-sigh. We replaced them and this time I planted them further back. They will have the fall months to hopefully get more established. I found yellow ones and also violet blue siberian iris. These multiply so should be pretty in that area in a few years.. We found a really good seller on Ebay for these. here are her photos.

  I am also hoping to dig up some grass in that area along the rocks and start planting the creeping thyme-they have really multiplied since last year and are taking over. I noticed the root system on those must really travel during the winter months-so I must start getting those transplanted.

   I love watching football-always have. I don't like their politics though and stopped watching them for several years-for a football lover Kc Chiefs with Mahomes and team are just too fun to watch. I grew up in Indiana near Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, so I got hooked back them. I was looking around to see if maybe a channel would televise one of their games yesterday-and I found one. I forgot how exciting college football can be. They lost at the last second by one score.

   I guess I have written a long enough post already, so will close with a photo I took a couple weeks ago.

    I still don't have a way to see what my photos look like-as everything is mostly pinks and grey but hoping this is a nice sunrise photo 😀

Happy New Week

Autumn Equinox 2023

   Welcome in autumn!

  This is really my most favorite season of the year. Depending on where you live, the sky can be a deep blue and soon fall leaf colors.  Here in the Ozarks the nut trees are turning to their yellows, some of the bushes that turn red are beginning as well. Living amongst oaks-mostly here- just go brown, not many maples but there are a few

  From the space site I enjoyed their videos and commentary about autumn. find here where they also share the harvest moon which will be another super moon on the 29th  More information here too with Farmer's Almanac

  Enjoy Autumn

Welcome New Week & More This & That

 Good morning, September seems to be moving along too fast for me and it's just mid month.  We got much needed rain last night, but it did mess up a project we are working on. Living on a hill has it's challenges for the flow of water to not end up in the basement. The people before us knew nothing about that so we are trying to fix some things.

   We have been digging a trench on the top of the stairs near the little road Larry uses to get down to the lake. Quite the job as there are lots of large rocks to separate out of the sand and soil we found in there along with gravel, plastic all sorts of stuff. Larry will install drainage pipe to direct the flow of the rain water.

  Some how last week, I pulled a muscle on my left side around my waist down to my hip area, or something got out of whack-no I won't be seeing a chiropractor the ones down here scare me as they are too rough. Instead I have been doing some exercises, laying on the floor etc. a bit better this morning but not by much-so trying to be careful.  Larry needs to be careful too as he is in worse physical shape than I am.  Before this happened, I have been sorting out large rocks from the soil, so when we put the ditch back together Larry will layer it as it should be, this morning solid mud-so not happening on my part. Larry is doing some hand digging though this morning.

  Some of you may remember when a few years after my Mom had passed that I went on a Yellowstone Park trip with my friend in 2017,  I had been reading Peggy Henderson's time travel series books about Yellowstone, so I think to help with the healing from my Mom-I searched online for weeks for vintage sterling charms to represent Peggy's first book Heart Song. I had brought that bracelet along on my trip to show Peggy-she was amazed how many charms I had found. I also made a vintage charm bracelet with wolves-I love wolves- and a start of a second Yellowstone charm bracelet-for the extra charms.  

   A month or so ago I picked up a very cheap charm of a spinning wheel and put it on a necklace chain along with a cheapy wolf charm. This weekend-I decided to look for vintage sterling charms of a sheep and a spinning wheel as an upgrade. Etsy was having a sale for 5 dollars off almost anything on their site. Well the charms I found that I loved were out of my price range or too large. so I hunted for a few days instead on Ebay. 

  Ebay is a good site for sterling vintage charms. I found the sweetest sheep-lamb that had me smiling after hours on the search. I found a spinning wheel charm I really liked and contacted the seller to ask some questions Turns out the seller just turned 70  years old and she found this charm in her late Mom's items that she remembered her wearing 50 years ago. I loved the story and she marked it down for me.

  Most of the sheep charms were very bulky and did not look like sheep to me, this one stole my heart and to me looks like a lamb.  This has me inspired to get out my charm bracelets, and I think I have a couple more charms to put on those.

   A busy week ahead for us: a couple of dr's appts-check ups, get this ditch completed, go to the woods house, food shopping-we will see how all this goes or not  😀

  I am a football fan-always have been-so will be recording the KC Chiefs game so I can later buzz out all the commercials and commentary-when you do that it is surprising how short the actual game is.  

  I also wanted to share a movie that my husband had recorded, I think I read this came out around 2018. I watched it last night.

   This takes place 20,000 years ago in Europe towards the end of the ice age.  I loved this movie-there was a couple rough scenes but knew about this technique that the Native Americans used to kill numerous bison for food for the tribe over winter, and it's about wolves, of course I held back tears in spots too will watch it again. The special effects were amazing

Have an awesome week

Remembering 9/11

 

This and That

  Good morning Sunday,

     Hello Friends, our area of the lake (on Lake in the Ozarks) is finally more peaceful this weekend. There are vacation type boats still but mostly fisherman. We watched a sailboat fight some strong winds-he was good, a long distance swimmer, and this morning a kayak. and surprising no squirrels for a few weeks-what a blessing that is 😀 they eat soooo much of the bird seed if we don't chase them off early mornings. The black walnuts are starting to drop from the trees now so I am thinking they are busy gathering for winter.

  I love hummingbirds and I have fed hundreds of them at the woods house, but here I have only attracted a couple pairs. I gave up with the nectar feeders this summer, as it was just going to waste. However the last couple of weeks they are here in numbers so I have three feeders out now. They usually begin to migrate mid September so I am thinking we are getting travelers. They are such a joy to see at the feeders.

   This summer we have seen many of the bird's offspring-blue jays, the various woodpeckers, cardinals, and many of the smaller birds-so fun to see them

   I have been able to get out to cut grass with the weed eater, I need to get back out there again though. So much to do in the flower gardens and other outdoor projects, I seem to be lacking the energy for it all-sigh  Thinking from the extreme heat and humidity this summer.  We did make a trip to the woods house too, still packing up Larry's scope repair shop-just a little more to do. A trip is needed for Larry to get the last of his shop machines and tools. Sadly not much room here for those at this home.  Hopefully an auction can happen soon.  Soooo much clean up needs to be accomplished there-grass cutting etc.

   Last week I grabbed a bag of fiber to spin-I know I had put it all away for a bit but I had run into another rare breed Karakul that I had bought around 2017 and wanted to check it out.  This one is used mostly for outer wear or rugs, the sheep's hide were used in the past as well. An interesting read about this sheep find here and here  and here too  The sheep that have been raised here in America are a bit different and have evolved into the American karakul breed

They have several different colors Most of the photos wouldn't let me copy and share, the horns are curved on these sheep

  

The fiber is coarse but very fluffy-bouncy

  I made us up our last root beer floats for the summer the other day. Finished up a batch of my homemade vanilla ice cream, added a little Hersheys no sugar chocolate syrup (sorry about the clutter in the background)

Happy New week everyone-Fall will be in the air all next week too here in the Ozarks -mid 70's F

Happy September

 I am happy to see August behind us this year, but this new month has more hot weather days in the forecast too. We have had a nice break though from those extreme high temperatures and high humidity

 I have done allot of cutting very tall grass with the weed eater this week, and I pulled allot of weeds in one area. We went to the woods house to work one day this week too. The grass is waist high there. Somehow I ended up with huge bug bites or welts from poison ivy possibly on the underneath side of my right arm-not sure what it is, as I have nothing on my hands. It showed up like large bug bites yesterday, today it is horrible with the constant burning. and Here I thought I made it through this summer with no poison ivy etc ugh.

  Were you able to view the huge blue harvest moon? It was soooo amazing here in the Ozarks-Missouri. As it peeked through the trees behind the lake as it was rising-it was huge, orange and spectacular. I did try to get a photo. I will post it here, but now I can't see what my photos look like any more as the little lap top quit working now-sigh  Let me know how the photos turned out-thanks

  For the last couple of weeks, we also have seen a very bright star low in the sky over the lake-it even has it's reflection in the lake too-so it's really bright. Anyone know what this could be? It is by itself.

I have been trying to think of dishes to cook for us that are not the same foods I am usually making.  I have gotten into a rut of making the same things. We no longer go out to eat any more do to our health concerns-it is pretty hard to get really gluten free foods at a regular restaurant especially.  So this week I bought gluten free lasagna noodles, fresh mozzarella cheese and ricotta cheese and made us a pan of lasagna-soooo delicious. I made garlic bread with gluten free bread I found in the freezer

   This past week, I packed up my spinning fibers. I need to concentrate on outdoor work, trips to the woods house, and I need a deep house cleaning before winter settles in.  I did grab a couple boxes of my colored pencils (not the watercolor ones) and a couple coloring books and started coloring pages while watching tv shows. These pages  make really nice slow mail letters to my friends.  I have missed not writing to my friends this summer so will start doing that in earnest soon. 

    Here in the States we will be celebrating Labor Day weekend. The boaters started coming in late today. This should be the last super busy weekend at the lake. I am happy about getting "our" lake back to just fisherman enjoying a peaceful lake.

  Happy September everyone