Maze And Castle

A visit to a Siemer's pumpkin farm and corn maze was a highlight of our time with ALL 3 0f our grown children and 8 grandchildren. There is a castle to find after one searches for and finds the right path in a vast corn and blueberry bush maze. You can also buy your pumpkins there, along with apples, squashes, gourds, corn~ there are vendors,good food, fiddlers, little train rides, a big slide, a pirate ship... all for the family to enjoy. We came mostly for the fun of going through the maze to find the castle. This picture was taken after a bit of time roaming the corn portion of the maze. We were sure when we got into the blueberry maze we were almost to the castle....we were wrong.You can see the castle easily, but the right path is not so easy to find.

We walked into this .

Here is an overview of a small portion of the maze.

"Here lies Bob, too proud to ask for help." Our youngest granddaughter was very sad for awhile because she thought there really was a Bob buried there.

Which way shall we go? You can see the other grandchildren through the corn.

Oops! Guess this is not the way.

"Look, over there!"

We found it, the castle! We got to climb the stairs to the top. The castle was very interesting and at the top we were able to see all the maze below.We took the train ride around the farm, the children slid down the BIG slide. We had a good time here and hopefully we will be able to visit this farm next year too!

Over The Mountains!

Our daughter A.Joy,her four children and myself drove the 5 to 6 hour drive over the mountains and across the mighty Columbia River to visit her brothers, our sons, and their families in a rural town 40 miles northeast of Spokane. When we drive up the long driveway to their home we are always met first by these two energetic guys (above), Shotgun and Ruger. If they are not outside they are constantly looking out the window. Any respectable Jack Russell Terrier has to be on the lookout for cats, birds,cats, stray tennis balls, children, other dogs,cats.. The 4 cousins from this side of the mountains get to play with the cousins from that side of the mountains, and play they do. They have a lot of fun. There is tether ball to play.

Giggles while Auntie Autumn braids all the girls' hair,

They like their braids, but like being able to be together even more, look at those happy faces.

All 6 of our granddaughters pose for me , facing the sunshine ( sorry girls) showing their braids. Now they all look alike! Sure. I just called them the braidy girls.

There was craft- making at night in front of a warm fire after all the children were in their pajamas. (above and below)

Meeting the new pony the granddaughters who live here get to ride frequently. Bella is a very, very sweet and gentle pony and the girls have been taught how to care for and ride her properly. Uncle Daniel and Aunt Breezy will have nothing less when it comes to owning and caring for horses.

Four~ wheeling with Aunt Breezy over the fields, wheeeeeeeee! Aunt Breezy is very careful and takes it easy when she gives rides too. No taking chances or risks with such precious cargo and this also makes it fun for the more timid of the children.

Tomorrow we go to a pumpkin patch and big corn maze!

It is good to be able to come together with loved ones. It is good to remember we are blessed, and it is good to be thankful for this ! "The blessing of the Lord makes one rich and He adds no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22 " Oh Lord, You are my God, I will exalt You, I will praise Your name." Isaiah 25:1

Too Much Stuff!

I have found myself fascinated by a show called "Hoarders" on TLC and I think I have seen it on A & E also. The amount of stuff, just piles and piles of stuff, from junk, to animals, to rotten food and all the filth that accumulates just because these people cannot get in or around all their STUFF is incredible. What is sad is most of these people are complete slaves to acquiring, hoarding, and coping with stuff. Many of the people in this show have actually sought help through no choice of their own, but because they are facing a final showdown about their stuff. Many are being evicted, or losing their children, or their families have given them an ultimatum, clean up and get rid of most of the stuff so the family can simply move around in the home. One show almost had me vomiting at the sight of all the rotting food a woman has hoarded. How often does one have so much food for so long in freezers that the frozen food is rotten?She had rotten pumpkins sitting around her kitchen. Needless to say, almost all of these people have rodent and pest infestations. I was saddened that with the exception of 2 families, the others finally made the choice to keep the junk and lose their home and children. If you saw these people out and about you would not know their living conditions, they seem as normal as you or I. This show has inspired me to de-clutter even more. I admit, I have a thing about magazines and books. I finally went through our many years of magazines and limited myself to a certain amount of storage space, easily accessible, for the magazines and then edited my collection. Mind you, I do re-read and use the magazines, really!But how many Christmas magazines does one need? Books however, I and my husband love. And hey, you can stack a pile of books and use them as a small table if you run out of shelf room. But we do have a lot of book shelves, and I did end up getting rid of quite a few books too. I would rather fill my home up with family and friends !

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,and where theives break in and steal." Matthew 6 : 19

"Happiness is a place between too little and too much. " Finnish Proverb

Jamie Oliver friday~Sweet Cherry Tomato & Sausage Bake~

Our garden is still going gangbusters with tomatoes and cucumbers, so of course I chose another Jamie Oliver tomato recipe. This Friday's recipe is Jamie Oliver's Sweet Cherry Tomato & Sausage Bake and it is very, very easy to make AND eat. You will need:

• 4 1/4 pounds lovely ripe cherry tomatoes, mixed colors if you can find them ( I used our garden cherry and Roma tomatoes , I chopped the Romas up into quarters)
• 2 sprigs each of fresh thyme, rosemary and bay ( from our garden)
• 1 Tablespoon dried oregano ( from our garden)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 12 good-quality coarse Italian pork sausages
• extra virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

"Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Get yourself an appropriately sized roasting pan, large enough to take the tomatoes in one snug- fitting layer. Put in all your tomatoes, the herb sprigs, oregano, garlic and sausages. Drizzle well with extra virgin olive oil and the balsamic vinegar and season with the salt and pepper. Toss together then make sure the sausages are on top and pop the pan into the oven for half an hour. After this time, give it a sake and turn the sausages over. Put back into the oven for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how golden and sticky you like your sausages." "Once it's cooked, you'll have an intense tomatoey sauce. If it's a little too thin, lift out the sausages and place the pan on the stove to cook it down to the consistency you like-I tend to make mine quite thick- then put the sausages back in. Check the seasoning and then serve either with a good quality loaf of bread warmed through in a low oven for 10 minutes, great for mopping up the sauce~ or with mashed potato, rice or polenta, a green slald and a nice glass of wine." Jamie Oliver

This ( above) is what it looked like before I put it into the oven, and below I dished it up and put it on top of mashed potatoes. Our garden also has produced a LOT of potatoes . The sweet corn, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes and herbs all came from our garden.

I did not cook the sauce down until thick because I like it thinner, however, my husband said he prefers the sauce cooked down, and next time he would like this served over rice or noodles. So I baked the remaining sausages and tomatoes for another hour on low heat and it is perfect! Hunting season is drawing near for my husband and Jamie has a few game recipes I think we need to try. I am really enjoying this cook book because he does cook with what is in season in his garden and in his area of the world, England. Amazingly, his garden and game opportunities are very similar to ours which makes this a very practical cook book for us. Plus, Jamie's book, JAMIE AT HOME is a beautiful book, real eye candy!

Horns Aplenty!

This is Cedar Pond's Valkyrie. Valkyrie has 5 horns. Click on the picture and the enlargement will confirm this. She is a very average Jacob sheep. Jacob sheep have anywhere from 2 to 6 horns. They do not naturally lose their horns. The horns grow throughout the life of the sheep. This is Cedar Pond Naomi's daughter, as of yet un-named. She too has 5 horns but it is hard to tell. Her horns on the right side of her face ( your left ) number 3. Her far right horn is really 2 horns that have fused together as she and her horns have grown. This little lamb was a late spring lamb. She is tiny, plump, but tiny. I have not decided on a name for her yet . She has 6 horns. It is hard to see, but each side of her head there are 3 horns squished together. I am curious as to how the horns will fuse and finally appear. Maybe 'Medusa' would be a good name for her? Goth is the father of all the lambs I pictured above. His 4 horns are pretty impressive and he seems to be handing down his impressive and many horned attributes to his offspring. His mother had 5 very big strong horns too.

"The Jacob, being a polycerate ( many horned ) breed can carry any number of horns." Ingrid Painter~ Jacob Sheep In America

Jamie Olivers Summer Tomato Pasta

It's my Jamie Oliver Friday! He has some tasty dishes in his book that require fresh from the garden tomatoes, and boy do we have those, in abundance. This is the first year ever we have had so many tomatoes ripen. The Pacific Northwest summers in our neck of the woods don't usually lend themselves to ripe tomatoes and corn this time of the year so Hubby and I are tummy tickling grateful . My recipe for this Friday is Jamie Oliver's Summer Tomato Pasta. This recipe is EASY!

You will need:

• 1 pound dried fusilli ( pasta)
• sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons butter, cubed
• 2 tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
• 2 large bunches of mixed soft herbs ( like green and purple basil, marjoram,flat-leaf parsley,thyme tips and oregano) leaves picked , a few baby leaves reserved, the rest roughly chopped. ( we got this from our garden)
• 1 and 1/2 pounds mixed cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped ( we got these from our garden)
• extra virgin olive oil
• a block of Parmesan cheese for grating

"Pour some boiling water from the kettle into a pan over the heat and add the pasta and some salt. Place a large metal or earthenware bowl on top of the pan. Put the butter, balsamic vinegar and chopped herbs in the bowl and warm until the butter has melted. Now squeeze in the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, then remove the bowl ( from the top of boiling pasta pan) and put to one side. Give the pasta a stir." "With clean hands ( I hope this is standard procedure for you while cooking) really scrunch the tomatoes and all the flavors in the bowl together. Have a little taste and decide whether they need some more seasoning or vinegar." "When the pasta is cooked according to the package instructions, drain it in a colander, reserving some of the cooking water. Tip the pasta into the bowl with your tomatoes and stir the sauce into the pasta. Drizzle with a good glug of extra virgin olive oil , loosen with some of the reserved cooking water if need be, and sprinkle over the reserved baby herb leaves. Serve with a block of Parmesan cheese for grating over. Lovely with some olives thrown in." Delicious, and as I said above, easy! This weekend is going to be a busy one. The Harvest Fest is tomorrow, and there is a farm tour in Pierce County that has our little community center on the tour. It is also supposed to rain, of course! I think I will be bringing my little propane heater to warm my feet while I spin wool. Maybe I will be wearing one of my wool rugs on my lap too. Immediately after the Harvest Fest we have an event to be part of that will be life-changing for some of the participants... God is gracious and He is kind. Maybe I will write about this event later, for now we are hopeful and excited about the future . Praise God! "And may you have the power to understand ...how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is....then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God." Ephesians 3:18-19

Two Glorious Days With KN

Two glorious days with grandchildren, a wonderful time! Tuesday I babysat our daughters' four children then in the afternoon brought KN, our #2 Granddaughter ( as in birth order of granddaughters) home after we went shopping at Michael's for crafting supplies. KN got to pick out whatever she wanted at Michael's and we would spend the rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday crafting to our hearts' delight. She had only a simple request, clay. Yes, self-hardening clay. She told me I already had everything else she needed and" could we go home and start making things?" Above you can see her in my craft room with some of her painted pictures and the bakery box she is crafting to hold her cake, her beautiful cake. Look at this cake! Isn't it beautiful? KN made it for her Barbie's wedding. She fashioned it out of the self-hardening clay. She did it by herself, from design, crafting, painting..everything! Look at the detail! I worked on some of my own projects while she made this cake. All I had to do was help her find the needed materials. Look at the little bride and groom at the top, I can't do detail like that!She fashioned everything on the cake except the roses below it, they came out of my floral craft drawer. I asked her what she wanted for dinner. Could I take her to McDonald's, or a teriyaki place? Nope," I want spaghetti". But I said, " I wasn't planning on spaghetti and don't feel like making it, I have a lot of homemade chicken and broccoli soup in the fridge." She told me. "Well, I have been having a lot of chicken and broccoli, so I really want spaghetti." We went to the supermarket and picked up the ingredients for spaghetti and guess who made it? Yup, she did. Several times she tested it, made me taste it and then she decided to add a little more of this or that. Finally she was satisfied. She ate a LOT of spaghetti. Who knew such a tiny girl could pack so much pasta away? In fact, the next day she requested spaghetti for breakfast, and why not? Wheat, meat, fruit ( tomatoes). I like spaghetti for breakfast too. We also made dog biscuits at her request.Yes, for the dogs. KN said the dough was way too smelly to even think about tasting it. KN made bridal bouquets for her dolls too ( below). All in all, we both had 2 very productive days. 2 very fun days! I like spending days at home with her, and she is very easy to spend time with. Thank-you KN for giving your old grandma such a good time, I love you.