Monday Meandering

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Besides nearly catching up on my blogging, I had an awesome weekend of riding the Harley, remodeling, hunting and gardening. Since I don't have much time to post these days, I'm trying to combine some topics I would have otherwise split out into several posts. The first picture is of Hailey and her first braid. She was begging me to braid her hair (I don't know how to French braid) and this was the best I could do. I think it can technically be called a braid, LOL! She is wearing the pink ballerina tutu that I wore when I was a little girl for ballet. I can't believe I still have three of my dance costumes in the dress up box after all these years.  The remodeling continues. We finally got smart and rented a drywall jack to get our beadboard ceiling up. We had to rip out the first three that we put up because we did such a terrible job on them. There was no way caulking and paint could cover our mistakes.  There goes $60, urgghh! Live and learn. The "praline and cream" board you see in the middle is what the entire ceiling both in the dining room and living room will be painted. Eventually, we'll trim out the edges.The biggest accomplishment this weekend was that  I got my garden planted the rest of the way (minus tomatoes). I'm hoping and praying everything will come up.  Here is a picture of my lettuce that I planted directly into the garden about a month ago from seed. I can tell I'm going to need to plant more.Same thing with my peas....and turnips and radishes. I need a bigger garden already, LOL! My carrots and onions are starting to germinate as well. I planted three rows of pickling cukes (44 plants in all), so I'm really hoping we'll have enough to do 50 lbs of pickles this year. To plant, I simply ripped a "x" in the plastic or landscape mat (definitely like the landscape mat better) and planted a seed or seedling. I really hate weeding, so hopefully this method will cut down on weeding time significantly.Today, I had enough milk leftover to make cheese. This is a small batch of queso fresco brining just before I put it into the cheese press. If you'd like the recipe, click on this link. 

After church, while Michael was putting up beadboard, I escaped to go for a fun motorcycle ride with my mom, step-dad and some friends. Michael is going to regret ever having encouraged me to learn to ride his bike, hee hee! We made a big loop through the mountains. It was gorgeous! Still lots of snow up high, but it wasn't too cold and none of it on the roads. I forgot my camera, so no pictures :(

In exchange for letting me ride all afternoon, Michael took us all up to the mountains where he has been turkey/bear hunting. I'm not into hunting, so this was my sacrifice of love to my hubby. We walked around and looked at the amazing view of our valley from the top of the mountain, saw wildflowers and had a P & J picnic as the sun went down. We didn't see any bears or turkeys, but we did see a big bull elk at a distance, and Hailey came home with a tick on her tummy (we got it out before it really started to dig in -yuck!). Again, I forgot my camera. I sure wish I would have taken a picture of the view. It was absolutely stunning. Have to go up again with him sometime and get some pics.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Thanks for your comments on the homeschool field trip!

Blessings,

Jackie