Winter Solstice

On this first day of winter, the shortest day of the year, the temperatures set records for warmth but the gloom stayed around all day.

The only thing shiny on the Ponderosa  and at the Visitor House were the Christmas decorations. . .

And all the sparkly,  glittery stuff that I am using to finish the wrapping and bagging and tagging.

We're now ready for Christmas!

An unexpected blessing

Since it was unseasonably warm again today we decided to take advantage of the weather and drive somewhere for lunch! We did this yesterday too, but who is counting?  As we left home our first stop was at the mailbox where we collected today's mail and looked to see who had sent us Christmas cards.  One was from our friends in Frankfort, KY.  I thought about how much fun we had when we visited them a couple of years ago and how much I missed them.
 We had decided to drive to one of our favorite eating places, Bread of Life.  I was driving so, Peanut, could look around.  When we arrived in Russell Springs I started to pull over at the Mighty Dollar Store where we always stop first but today Peanut said, "Let's go eat first, I'm hungry."  We arrived about 15 minutes later, and were seated near the buffet. 
I looked across the table to say something and who did I see, sitting right there in a cafe in the middle of the farmland of Casey County Kentucky?  It was our friends from Frankfort, Cloyd and Judy! They were on their way to Tennessee to visit family.  We probably caused a minor disturbance with our enthusiastic greetings.  We were able to enjoy lunch together and then we all made a stop at a store in the nearby Mennonite community and at the Mighty Dollar.  It's funny how all the little things that happened this morning brought some people together in the right places for an unexpected blessing!

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On another bright note I was able to get some orange slices and chocolate drops at the Mennonite store because everyone knows you can't have Christmas without those in your candy dish.  At least my grandmothers always had them!

Besides candy I also bought some raw peanuts and made this treat tonight.

Candied Peanuts

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups raw peanuts (skin on)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar and water. Place over medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Add peanuts to sugar water and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the peanuts are completely sugar coated and no sugar syrup remains, about thirty minutes.
3. Pour out onto ungreased cookie sheet and spread out a bit. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every ten minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet and then store in sealed container.

And four months went by!

Sometimes life just takes over and keeps you from doing the things you enjoy or you just get lazy and don't make the effort!  I'm not sure what happened with me but I neglected and ignored my blog for four months!  I would use the excuse that I didn't have time, but I just ranted about people on facebook this week making posts about not having time to send Christmas cards.  My rant was if you post about not having time to do something--get off your computer and use that time to complete your task!!  I'm going to try to do better no excuses!!

Let's get right to it!
Here's the best thing that's happened in the missing four months.  This is little Bailee Mae.  Well, she's not very little, when she was born on September 12 she entered the world weighing nine pounds!

This picture came to my phone today.  She is playing with her hanging toys in her Christmas outfit.  She has time for stuff like that!
 Also, on my phone today were these two going to preschool for pj day.

And there was this handsome dude with Santa.

What was I doing while all this cuteness was showing up on my phone?  I was out on this beautiful December day having lunch with the husband in Rugby. We ate at the Harrow Road Cafe and then walked around the church grounds enjoying the warm sunshine today!  Here's some pictures I made today.

Food Preservation

It was food preservation day on the Ponderosa!
It all started with grape jelly.

Then we moved on to green beans

And finally it was peas!

There was also fried chicken supper and all the laundry is clean!  So that means tomorrow will be an adventure day!

From my phone this week:

Will they take these boxes at Goodwill?

First spelling test--100%

Yellow day at school!

Bus Stop Buddies

Look at this mess!

Darn squirrels!!

A Rainy Thursday

It's been a rainy Thursday and we needed to do outside things today like mow and pick peas and beans.  We opted for finishing a painting job we had started at the Visitor House.  It's pretty amazing how a coat of paint can transform a room!  Well, in this case a new sink helped too.

From my phone today:
This morning one Ponderosa Princess sent a picture of her backyard.  It's been raining there today also.

 

The other Ponderosa Princess sent her babies to preschool for the first time today.  They go two days a week for about 4 hour,s but it is help for a busy mom! They had fun and came home with some great work to hang on the fridge!

 

What's for supper?
There is vegetable soup on the stove, not usually a summer meal but for this rainy day it is good.  It also helped to clean out the leftovers in the fridge.

Wednesday on the Ponderosa

We started the day with some garden work, pulling the weeds and planting some squash plants to replace the ones that didn't make it.  We hope they can grow fast enough to provide us some late summer squash.
When lunch arrived we decided to try a new recipe.  I read a blog called The Pioneer Woman.  She also has a cooking show(The Pioneer Woman Cooks) on the food network that through the magic of DVR  I am able to watch.  The other day she made drop biscuits and sausage gravy and since we firmly believe that gravy makes everything better we decided to try it!  The biscuits we had were canned, I will attempt the drop ones later!  I can make biscuits and they are pretty, but not very tasty.  Practice is needed in the homemade biscuit area.  Until today I had trouble with gravy also, but this turned out great.  In this recipe you brown the sausage and then add the flour and mix it into the sausage.  Then the milk goes in.  It seemed less greasy and was easy to make.
Here's the recipe:

• SAUSAGE GRAVY
• 1 pound Breakfast Sausage, Hot Or Mild
• 1/3 cup All-purpose Flour
• 4 cups Whole Milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
• 2 teaspoons Black Pepper, More To Taste

With your finger, tear small pieces of sausage and add them in a single layer to a large heavy skillet. Brown the sausage over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Sprinkle on half the flour and stir so that the sausage soaks it all up, then add a little more until just before the sausage looks too dry. Stir it around and cook it for another minute or so, then pour in the milk, stirring constantly.

Cook the gravy, stirring frequently, until it thickens. (This may take a good 10-12 minutes.) Sprinkle in the seasoned salt and pepper and continue cooking until very thick and luscious. If it gets too thick too soon, just splash in 1/2 cup of milk or more if needed. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Spoon sausage gravy over warm biscuits and serve immediately!

We cut the recipe in half because the Pioneer Woman cooks for a large family and cowboys.  There was only two of us so even after cutting the ingredients in half we had some leftovers. Next time I will cut back just a bit on the black pepper.

What's blooming on the Ponderosa

 And did I mention--It's fashion week on the Ponderosa!

On my phone today

Here's a couple of pics from my phone today

My good friends are in Arizona, look what they did before breakfast today!

This handsome boy is wearing his new shirt to the second day of first grade!

On the Ponderosa Tonight

On this lovely evening, here's what's happening on the Ponderosa. . .

Things are growing

Creatures are everywhere

 Wildflowers are taking over the field

And this Poinsettia believes its Christmas!

First Grade

Pictures from my phone today:

This handsome boy went to the first day of first grade today.  He is a good student and loves school.  It looks like from the photos that he had some work waiting on him when he got there!  A text from his mom this afternoon said he had a great day and could not stop talking about it!  I'm sure he'll have a great year.