Country Cabin Living

When's the last time you Painted your COW...

{ Posted by Rob }
{ 07:59, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Now, the Bible says there is a time for everythin', a season fer'all

Well, that day came when my friend Doug asked me over to his 50 acre hobby farm to paint his cow. Yes, I said time to PAINT his cow. \

No, not time to milk it.

No, not time to butcher it.

Just get to work and paint it for him and his wife, Ruth.

You know how these hobby farmers are…

It took about 20 hours, bein’ kind of darkish in the barn,

And only certain times of the day the tractor was in the way…

And all that stretchin' up 6 or 7 feet (big cow)

So this is what I came up with….

Now Doug and Ruth can sit in the garden and gaze up at the shed at their 8 foot x 7 foot

cow paintin' feedin from the trough,

or look at the back 40 where the real famer cuts their rented out field of hay.

Lady Gracie

{ Posted by m j }
{ 04:25, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { Posted in Gracie } { 0 comments } { Link }

Lady Gracie is a wonderful girl. She was a suprise gift for our daughter Kristi after she lost her best friend beauty her horse of 10 years. Gracie is also part of our breeding progam.

Gracie picked out Kristi. We love that becuase she was able to pick on Kristi's breathing problems right away. She wakes Kristi up in the middle of the night if her breathing is off. Kristi will know then to go wake me up and get on her breathing machine right away.

Gracie is a wonderful blessing to our home. She loves to smile and be spoiled. She was raised with one of our rescue kittens Blue, that some one threw away because she has deformed leg. Watching them play is funny. Blue does not seem to understand why his playmate grew so big.

Here are a few pictures of Gracie:

I will post more on her when I down load more pictures.

Oh, That Delectable Fungi!

{ Posted by shycountrygal }
{ 03:38, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Good day friends and family! I pray that you are all having a wonderful day in the Lord! The weather has grown chilly in my neck of the woods. But it is still a beautiful and sunny day.

I thought today I would share some interesting fact I found on one of my favorite foods, the mushroom! Yes, that delectable fungus. I love 'em! Hope you enjoy reading these facts.

*France was the first country to cultivate mushrooms, in the mid-17th century. From there, the practice spread to England and made its way to the United States in the 19th century.

*In 1891, New Yorker William Falconer published Mushrooms: How to Grow Them--A Practical Treatise on Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure, the first book on the subject.

*In North America alone, there are an estimated 10,000 species of mushrooms, only 250 of which are known to be edible.
*A mushroom is a fungus (from the Greek word sphongos, meaning "sponge"). A fungus differs from a plant in that it has no chlorophyll, produces spores instead of seeds, and survives by feeding off other organic matter.
*Mushrooms are related to yeast, mold, and mildew, which are also members of the "fungus" class. There are approximately 1.5 million species of fungi, compared with 250,000 species of flowering plants.
*An expert in mushrooms and other fungi is called a mycologist--from the Greek word mykes, meaning "fungus." A mycophile is someone whose hobby is to hunt edible wild mushrooms.

*Ancient Egyptians believed mushrooms were the plant of immortality. Pharaohs decreed them a royal food and forbade commoners to even touch them.

*White agaricus (aka "button") mushrooms are by far the most popular, accounting for more than 90 percent of mushrooms bought in the United States each year.*Cultivated mushrooms are agaricus mushrooms grown on farms. Exotics are any farmed mushroom other than agaricus (think shiitake, maitake, oyster). Wild mushrooms are harvested wherever they grow naturally--in forests, near riverbanks, even in your backyard.

*Many edible mushrooms have poisonous look-alikes in the wild. For example, the dangerous "yellow stainer" closely resembles the popular white agaricus mushroom.

*Toadstool is the term often used to refer to poisonous fungi.

*In the wild, mushroom spores are spread by wind. On mushroom farms, spores are collected in a laboratory and then used to inoculate grains to create "spawn," a mushroom farmer's equivalent of seeds.

*A mature mushroom will drop as many as 16 billion spores.

*Mushroom spores are so tiny that 2,500 arranged end-to-end would measure only an inch in length.

*Mushroom farmers plant the spawn in trays of pasteurized compost, a growing medium consisting of straw, corncobs, nitrogen supplements, and other organic matter.

*The process of cultivating mushrooms--from preparing the compost in which they grow to shipping the crop to markets--takes about four months.

*The small town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, calls itself the Mushroom Capital of the World--producing more than 51 percent of the nation's supply.

*September is National Mushroom Month.

*One serving of button mushrooms (about 5) has only 20 calories and no fat. Mushrooms provide such key nutrients as B vitamins, copper, selenium, and potassium.

*Some experts say the taste of mushrooms belongs to a "fifth flavor"--beyond sweet, sour, salty, and bitter--known as umami, from the Japanese word meaning "delicious."

Also, if anyone out there grows their own mushrooms, I would love to hear about it. My family has been looking into starting our own mushroom farm. So we would be appreciative of any information.

Have a great day in the Lord!

Shycountrygal

Science Fair Project- Solar cookers

{ Posted by Under the Oaks }
{ 01:11, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Our homeschool group has decided to do a science fair for our group only this year. We will not be competing to go on to other levels. So I thought it would be a great family project to do a project on solar cooking. We are all going to design and build solar cookers to see who's cooker can cook a hot dog. We thought this would be an interesting project not only for the fair, but for our own personal use. I am quite intrigued by the whole idea of solar cooking and I want to build mine that I could actually cook in.

I will update you all on this on how it worked. Science Fair is next week. So we have a lot to do.

Have a great day,
Karen

A 2009 GOAL

{ Posted by melaniedawn }
{ 01:01, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { 3 comments } { Link }

For all of my life, I have been behind (I was due on Christmas and born January 7). But, other than the timing of my birth, it has all been my own fault. I go to bed too late, I get up later than I intended, I wait until it is too late to take action on things that need done,etc. I am not a go-getter, I am too laid-back, and I need to change this way of behaving. So, it being the new year, I think my 2009 goal will be to END THE PROCRASTINATION. I think it will be wonderful if I can accomplish it.

Melanie

Friday on the Homestead

{ Posted by countryheart }
{ 09:56, Friday, January 9, 2009 } { 0 comments } { Link }

We woke up to a chilly 25 degrees this morning. At least the sun was shinning though. We don't take the sun for granted anymore around here. The girls are glad it's Friday. They are so glad to be done with school for the week. I can't say that I blame them. Yesterday I made beef stew in the crockpot. It was very good. Today I will make sourdough bread and probably some type of casserole. I'm not sure which one yet.
Chad and Lauren are coming home from Texas on Monday. We are glad. We sure miss them. I'm praying for good driving weather. They don't have to be back at school for another week after that. They have had a very long break.
Well I better get going and get off the computer if I'm going to get anything done today. I hope everyone has a great day and that it's productive.
Love, Tina

Hope

{ Posted by m j }
{ 09:28, Thursday, January 8, 2009 } { Posted in Hope } { 0 comments } { Link }

Hope is Marty's daughter. She was born 11-01-1999. She takes after him in the being able to warn me before I go into anaphylaxis shock. Hope was trained, but did not become a registered service dog for a few years. She worked at home but Marty went out every where. as Marty got older Hope started sharing his out side of the home work. Marty still went out he loved to go to crowded places, while Hope does not do as well in crowds. She is over protective.

Hope is the only dog working for me at this time. Hope has only one litter of puppies before I fixed her. It was to hard on me to watch her give birth. Alex will be taking over some of her work when he is done training. Medical alert dogs never stop working until they are called home to God.

Here are some pictures of hope:

I will share more pictures of her when I load more.

Not Feeling Well...

{ Posted by ~Melissa }
{ 9:24 PM, January 8, 2009 } { 3 comments } { Link }

I will get back to posting in a day or two. I'm not feeling well enough to compose a full length post.

Warmly, ~Melissa

hello

{ Posted by Samantha }
{ 09:01, Thursday, January 8, 2009 } { 1 comments } { Link }

I decided to share some pictures of our pasture. The first two picture are of our pasture two summers ago.

From the house

neighbors yard
This picture is of this summer. Can you see how much it has changed?

So here are the pictures of the pasture. I hope you like them.
Samantha

Marty

{ Posted by m j }
{ 08:47, Thursday, January 8, 2009 } { Posted in Marty } { 1 comments } { Link }

Marty was born 1-17-1995 he past away on 11-07-2008.

Marty was a service dog for anaphylaxis for my self. He also warned my daughter before her asthma got to bad. Marty was 12 weeks old by the time I figured out what he was trying to tell me. after I did I trained him to be a service dog. He passed his test at 11 months old. Marty fathered over 100 puppies in his life time. Our top breeding dam had very large litters. Her biggest was 17 puppies. We also studded Marty out to approved females. They had to have at least 4 generations of no health problems and have the right type of owner. We were going to freeze Marty's sperm , but we then decide against it. We ended Marty's line. There will be no more dogs from his line unless we decide to breed his granddaughter.

Marty was a well love dog by many. His favorite place to go was Disneyland. He love to go on the rides and see his favorite workers. The employees at Disneyland gave him treats , always had to come see him. When there was a ride he could not go on he went with the employees to be spoiled while we rode at ride.

Marty has been on t.v. and in a few magazines and made the front page of the paper. He saved my life many times and our daughters also. He made the front page by fighting a German shepherd who jumped our 5 foot fence and held our youngest daughter by the neck and would not let go. Our daughter was 4 at the time. Marty was not even 2 years old.

Here is pictures of Marty: