Summer is on its way!

Are you shocked to see a new post? 

Frankly, I am a little shocked that it took me so long to get on the ball and write a new one. 

It was a long, cold, kind of miserable winter in Pennsylvania, and after shoveling snow, driving on slippery roads, and bundling up, I am so so glad that it's nearly summertime! 

The leaves are on the trees, the pollen is flying through the air, and Loratadine is my bestest friend!  lol

Since posting last, here's what we have been up to...


Hiking

Visiting family

Sight-seeing

 

And naturally, fishing

Most all of these things are possible because...*drumroll, please* we got a new car in February! 

The poor Lumina was having a lot of problems.  We put 900 dollars into the engine in January and I was not confident of it's ability to keep on keeping on like I needed it to.  We decided to use some of the money from our income tax return and purchase a newer vehicle. 

Meet our new (to us) 2013 Impala: 

Uh, clearly this picture was taken in the winter.  We had the snowiest winter on record here...so that was a lot of fun.  We worked literally for a few hours on clearing this space to park the new car once we got it.  lol  The snow was piled in big heaps all around the house! 

I love my new car.  It is comfortable, reliable, and it's got a 3.6 which equals a lot of peppy acceleration.  Not that I'm a fast driver...lol, but still, if I needed it, it's there to use! 


So, that's sort of a quick catch up of what the husband and myself have been up to.  In addition, I've learned to crochet, which is pretty fun.  I'm working on making a blanket to keep us toasty this winter.  

The weekend after Easter, hubby and I were baptized in our church.  It was a wonderful and amazing experience that neither of us will forget.  Praise God!!  :) 

Tomorrow is my hubby's 40th birthday, so I am looking forward to giving him a few little things and spending the day fishing with him on Rose Valley Lake (his birthday request.).

I will try to post with quite a bit more regularity!

Blessings,

Mandy 

Squirreling things away for winter

It's that time of year!  Time to get that pantry stocked up and in order.

Is it a fun task?  Well, it depends on how you look at it. 

While I don't particularly like organizing and cleaning, I do like thinking about all the yummy treats and fun things I'll be baking in the next few months. 

I like to keep a basic stock of things on hand for the chilly and cold autumn and winter months.  I don't keep as much of this around during the summer, because it's too warm to want to use the oven very much. 

Take a look in your cupboards and clean out the foods that are either expired (toss those) or things that you probably won't eat but still have a good date (give to family or a food bank). 

Each family should keep things on hand that they find useful and based on meals that they like to eat.

Here is a partial list of canned/dry items that I like to keep around this time of the year:

Tuna
"Cream of" soups (I try to keep 2 each of mushroom, chicken, celery, and 1 broccoli in the house)
Evaporated Milk
Condensed Milk
Pumpkin
Tomato Soup
Dry Onion Soup Mix
Green beans
Corn
Black Olives
Spaghetti Sauce
Crushed tomatoes
Diced Tomatoes
Tomato Paste
Dried Spaghetti
Rice/Noodle mixes
Mashed potato mix

And then:
Sugar
Flour
Yeast
Vegetable Oil
Olive Oil
Baking Soda
Crisco
Brown Sugar
Powdered Sugar
Chocolate Chips

Again, that is just a partial list.  I think it's nice to keep it in the house during the colder months.  If the roads are bad, I don't like going to the grocery store if  I don't have to.

Another thing that I like to do this time of the year is get rid of the regular sheets and dig out the comfy-cozy flannel sheets!

I learned on a website a few years ago that you can easily fold all your sheets and put them into a pillow case for storage.  It is so much easier to pull a pillowcase off the shelf than it was to try and pull out everything individually.  We have a queen sized mattress and the sheets and pillow cases really do fold up small enough to tuck them right inside.  Give it a try!

I really wanted a nice soft cotton blanket to add a layer of warmth to the bed this year.  Our blankets are an older felt-style and although they are okay, I love how much warmth those cotton blankets hold in.  I went to Walmart and wasn't able to find anything but fleece there.  At Kmart, however, I found exactly what I was looking for.  It's not time for the heavy quilt my mom made us yet, but it does get chilly some nights and I love the cozy warmth that comes from a combination of flannel sheets and soft cotton blankets.  :)  

I think that's about all for now, friends. 

  Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalms 37:11

Autumn tidings of cheer

Hello and a happy day to you, reader!

I hope you are enjoying the autumn season so far.

Fall leaves along Route 6, McKean County, PA

Up until today, we've recently been having some very summer-like weather.  For the past week and a half it has been in the low 80's and rather humid.  

I love fall and I've been kind disappointed with the reluctance of summer to give up its hold on our area.  A cold front blew through today with some much needed rain, and we're going to be in the mid 60's for the rest of the week.  Woohoo! 

I've been enjoying Orange and Spice tea (Bigelow brand) lately, just because it's the right time of the year to start enjoying it.  I haven't always been a tea drinker, but I do enjoy many of the herbal varieties.  I love iced tea, as well, but I consider that more of a spring/summer beverage, so come fall/winter, I start breaking out the tea. 

We went on a vacation last week and enjoyed our time in Western Pennsylvania.  I didn't take a ton of photos, but here are a few that we did take.  

Chapman State Park was our first stop.  While there, we came across (and hiked) a rail trail.

I wish we could have watched the old puffing, chuffing locomotives roll through the area!

 

The mist of the early morning greeted us on our hike! 

 

Sadly, when these were railroads, it meant that the timber from the land was taken- typically stripped till there were no trees left at all.  Thankfully, responsible forestry has been integrated so that logging no longer entails stripping the land down to nothing.  

We stayed in a cute little camping cottage.  

Camping Cottage 3

 Chapman State Park had some really nice hikes.  We went on a few, but I wished we could have gone on more.  The scenery was beautiful.  

Nature Trail

A few days later, we took the boat out to Lake Erie and went fishing on Presque Isle bay.  

On our way out, we saw these turtles hanging out on a log!   

 Map turtles

 

We putted out into Misery Bay where we saw the Perry Monument

 There's a boat tour company that is right in Misery Bay, too.  You can pay to take a ride on the Lady Kate and see scenic Lake Erie and learn about the history of the area.  Since we were here in mid-September, the tours were done for the year.  

The Lady Kate

 

Scott heard that the steel head were running up from the lake.  I believe they are a cross between a trout and a salmon.  They stay in Lake Erie until fall, and then migrate up into the tributary steams and spawn in the springtime.  These fish are a huge draw to the area.  In the late fall and winter, you'll see men lined up elbow to elbow trying to take one of these trophies home.  

Steel Head Trout in Walnut Creek

 Sometimes I feel like all we ever do on our vacations is fish, but then I remember how much my hubby loves it.  It really relaxes him and puts him in a great mood- whether he catches fish or not.  (And he usually does catch fish.) 

We were at Pymatuning later on that night and I captured this photo that I really liked. 

 

 It was dark enough that my camera couldn't quite capture anything but the outline of these plants.  I thought it was kind of pretty. 

We took a tour of Ohio Amish country and stopped at Heini's Cheese Chalet.  That place was huge.  They had around 50 different kinds of cheese that you could sample and purchase.  It was an interesting place, to say the least.  

 Heini's Cheese Chalet

We drove past this display, which I thought was really amazing!  

Someone had taken the time to fill the entire bed of this pick up truck with pumpkins and gourds!  I was on the wrong side of the bus to get a good picture- this is the best out of the 3 that I took, and it's still a little blurry, but you can kind of get the idea.  

 

After a long day of shopping and sampling, we stopped at Der Dutchman for supper.  No joke, I ate the best chicken I've ever had in my life there.  It was superb.  

 

It was a very fun (and long) day.  We both had a wonderful time.  

We drove home after staying at my parent's house for a few days, and then a couple days at the camp.  

 After a quick stop at the Kinzua Dam to use the facilities and check out the visitor center, we were on our way home.  

Kinzua Dam

 

We were treated to beautiful (early) leaf foliage while driving across Route 6.  

That was our vacation.  It wasn't a thrill a minute, but it was relaxing and fun!  :)  

Upon coming home, I've finally cleaned and decorated the place for autumn.  We bought a couple beautiful mums and some festive pumpkins and gourds to set on the front porch.  I'll have to post a picture of those some other day, since it is pitch dark outside right now.  

I bought a kit earlier this year to make 2 gallons of root beer.  I finally made it tonight.  It needs to ferment for a few days and then we can drink it!  I'm excited to see how it turned out.  Here's a picture of the finished bottles!

I'll be sure and let you know how it turned out.  :) 

I think that's about all for tonight, folks.  I pray that you have a great week and are enjoying the weather wherever you are.  Keep the home fires burning!  

Blessing to you my friend,

Mandy

 

Summer photos

Hello reader!

In my last post, I mentioned a few of the things we did this summer.  I thought maybe you'd like to see a few photographs of our adventures!


First up, our trip to Philadelphia!

Here is a picture of the Christ Church.  This place of worship hasn't missed a Sunday service since 1695, when it was founded! 

 

 Next up, we visited the famed Liberty Bell.  Let freedom ring! 

 

Here is a shot of the mall area, from the Constitution center.  Independence Hall looks sort of dinky compared to the buildings that now surround it!   

 Here is a picture inside Independence Hall.  In this very room, the Constitution was written and signed. 

 

 The Bourse Building- we ate lunch here.  There are many neat shops and eateries inside this beautiful old building. (It's the brown one in the middle!)

Here we are in the Constitution center 

 

Just across the street is the United States mint.  If you have coins in your pocket at this moment, chances are some of them were minted in this very building. 

A few weeks after we visited historic Philadelphia, we were on our way to Virginia to visit with Scott's cousins!

Our first stop was at Colonial Williamsburg.  We fearlessly hoofed through the streets in the hot and muggy 98 degree weather!

Here is a photo of the Governer's Mansion:

Here is a shot looking down the main street.  It was so quaint and lovely.  I'd be happy to go back, although I would prefer the weather be a tad cooler!  

 

We stopped at beautiful Yorktown Beach and had our picture taken here.  You can see the boat "The Alliance" in the background.  You can pay a fee and take a trip on this old fashioned sailing ship.  

The next day, we stopped and took a tour of the Yorktown Battlefield.  Here is a photograph of the Victory Monument.  It is HUGE!  It's also on a beautiful spot- you can see the York river just on the other side of those trees. 

 

We took a side trip to Virginia Beach on our last evening there. 

 

I thought this photo of the pier in the fading daylight was beautiful.  It was nice to dip our toes in the ocean 

 

before we returned home!

After our trip to Virginia, we went out to my parents to celebrate!  My brother Mike, and his fiancee, Barb, were recently married!  They had a reception at my parent's home.  

My Aunt Kathy surprised me with these:

 

It's an old set of Fire King dishes!  We had these in our family camp when I was growing up and we always called them "The camp-y dishes" as kids.  I love these bowls and mugs and was thrilled that she found them for me.  What a wonderful surprise!  :)

Anywhoo....


Back to the festivities! 


My niece Kendall was all tired out from drinking a delicious bottle, so I watched her and helped my mom inside while everyone was busy setting up the tables and chairs outdoors.  Isn't she a cutie pie? 

Here are the Mr. and Mrs.!  Congratulations, Mike and Barb!  

When we have parties, my dad typically cooks chickens on a spit- this time was no exception.  Don't they look delicious?  This is just before they were taken off and chopped up.  Yum yum! 

After the reception, we spent the night at my parent's home and caught up with my family.  We had a great time hanging out and getting to see Kendall was a fun bonus, too!

The weekend after that, my mother-in-law came out to stay with us for a few days and visit.  Here we all are at R B Winter State park.  My 2 year old niece, Abigail, is having a fun time playing in the chilly waters of Halfway dam.  I tried taking a few pictures of her, but she is always on the go and wasn't really in the mood for pictures!  lol  

 

Scott and Maggie (his mom) at the overlook in RB Winter State Park.  

Whew!  We've been busy this summer- running here and there.  When we finally had a weekend where we didn't need to do anything special, we decided we wanted to go to Briar Creek park and grill up some burgers.

Here is Scott manning the grill.  (This is just after we lit the charcoal, he doesn't really burn our food!  lol!) 

After eating, we took a walk around the park and posed for a picture. 

 

My husband managed to paint our back back to a nice glossy red this past month.  Doesn't it look spiffy?  He got some retro "Starcraft" stickers to put on the side of it, which made him a super happy fella.  I doubt you can see them in this photo, but they have the arrow running behind "Starcraft".  I would guess it was their logo in the 60's or early 70's.  

Here is the boat and truck right before launching at Rickett's Glenn State Park. 

 

It was the best fishing we've ever had at Lake Jean!  (Inside Rickett's Glenn SP).  

Here is Scott with a really nice perch. 

 

This was perch number two- he was a tad smaller than perch number 1, but we measured him anyway.

He also caught two chain pickerel while we were out there.  Unfortunately, due to the sunny weather and the bimini top on the boat, most of the pictures came out kind of like this one- 

 

rather shadow-y.  

All fishies were safely released back into the water.  They took off in a big hurry!  

So, there you have it, reader.  Just a glimpse into what I've been up to since June.  

As you can see, we weren't spending a lot of time at home- we were out running around like nobody's business!  

I hope that you liked my little photo tour.  I had a fun time putting it together, although it took a long, long, long time for my internet connection to upload all these photos.  Slow and steady wins the race!  lol 

Have a wonderful day and thank you so much for stopping by.  

Feel free to comment or ask any questions.  

May God bless you!  :) 

Country apple blessings

Hello again,

I'm so sorry that I've not posted anything for quite some time.  This summer has gotten away from me.

I'm ashamed to admit that most of July was spent in worry/anxiety.  I got notice for jury duty up in Scranton.  I wouldn't mind serving jury duty, except that I would have to drive into Scranton by myself.  I feel as though I must have mentioned it before, but driving sort of terrifies me.  If I never had to drive a car again, I would be okay with that.  At any rate, I mostly laid low...well, I felt as though I did, although we had tons going on! 

In fact, this has been one of the busiest summers I remember. 
My parents came out to visit 4th of July weekend, and my mother in law was in that weekend, too.  Two weeks later, we were off to visit my hubby's cousins in Virginia Beach.  Whew!  That place is crowded!  (We had a great time, though!!)  We had a week or two off again before more visitors came our way, my company picnic, my brother and new sister-in-law's wedding reception, and plenty of picnics, family get togethers, and lots of warm weather in between! 

Whew!  It's nice to have had two weekends in a row where we didn't have any plans.  In two weeks, we will be leaving to go on our vacation- which is really just a trip home to my mom and dad's house.  We'll be stopping at Chapman State Park first.  We'll stay two nights there in a camping cottage and hopefully catch up with a friend we haven't seen for a couple years. 

Next, we're heading down my parent's home, where we are planning on visiting with my family, and as a special treat, we booked a 1 day Anderson Bus trip.  It's called "Brown Bag Amish tour" and we'll be touring all sorts of Amish homes and businesses in Holmes County, Ohio.  At each stop, we get another free goodie for our brown bags!  Doesn't that sound like fun?  I know I am looking forward to it.  In addition to this, we're dragging the boat behind us and I'm sure my husband will be thrilled to fish Pymatuning, Conneaut Lake, and Presque Isle. 

After that, we're traveling to Tionesta, where we'll be meeting up with my Mother-in-law and we'll stay at my family's camp to celebrate her birthday.  I hope that we'll have a fun time and I know we're both looking forward to the trip! 

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately!

So, here's the focus of my blog post today...

Do you have a park nearby?  Have you looked around at all?  Some of the parks in our area are loaded with apple trees that produce quite nice fruit.  They are tall and it's not like you can just climb up and pick the apples, but I do walk around and pick up the "drops" to make applesauce with. 

I'm sure not every place is the same, but our park has almost 12 old apple trees.  Some produce a lot of fruit and some produce...well, not very much.  At any rate, it's been a blessing to have a little early applesauce.

I would recommend checking with the park before you just go ahead and start picking apples in case they use them for some sort of demonstration (cider pressing, etc) but ours told us it was okay to just go ahead and pick up whatever we wanted. 

This was a wonderful find and a great free resource. 

I hope that you'll be able to find something similar where you live.

Have a wonderful day and may God Bless you, reader!  :)

Howdy reader! 

I hope that you're enjoying a lovely day.  It's a bit rainy here in Pennsylvania at the moment, but by the weekend, things are supposed to be sunny and nice.  Woohoo! 

We have a trip to Philadelphia this weekend, which both of us are looking forward to.  I will be sure to post some pictures after we get back.  Neither of us is really comfortable driving in the city, so we've opted to take a tour bus trip.  All the fun of the city without putting the miles on your car, getting lost, or (yikes) getting into a bad neighborhood by accident. 

This past weekend, we stayed at hubby's family cabin.  It is two miles off the main road, up a windy and steep dirt lane.  The property borders with a State Game Lands, so it's very quiet.

These past few weeks have been tough, with Beverly passing away, traveling, and trying to keep caught up with everything.  We all needed a bit of time to rest and recharge.  The cabin is a perfect place to do just that.

Scott and Wayne (my father-in-law) fished in the pond.  Actually, they are trying to catch as many fish as they can, because my hubby's great uncle, who owns the place, is draining the pond and is going to dig it out.  In the meantime, they've dug another smaller pond, right behind the old one.  Eventually, they will connect the two, but right now they're trying to get all the fish they can out of the big pond and into the small one! 

As you can see in the photo above, it's pretty filled in and the lily pads and cattails have kind of gone haywire!  These will all be dug out and the area with the cattails will actually be turned into a beach area so we can all swim in the pond again. 


Here are a few of the critters we spotted-

This lovely butterfly was outside of the cabin Saturday morning.  There were a whole bunch of them, but this one's picture seemed to come out the nicest.

And this cute little 5-lined skink.  He was pretty small.  This picture makes him look a lot bigger than he really was! 

We had to get a family shot before we left.  Here we are, refreshed and ready to head back to civilization.  (Okay, none of us really wanted to leave, but being responsible adults, we realized we had to come home. lol) 

Before we left, I made a few baked goods to take along with us.  My favorite was strawberry coffee cake.  It was delicious and very easy to make- it took hardly any time at all to mix it up and have it popped into the oven to bake.  Here is the recipe:

Strawberry Coffeecake

½ cup milk 

1½ cups sliced fresh strawberries

½ cup sugar

½ cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons  butter, softened

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

½ teaspoon salt 

 

Crumble Topping:

 ¼ cup cold butter

1 cup all-purpose flour 

½ cup sugar 

 

In a mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; stir to mix. In another bowl, add the egg, milk, and butter; stir; add to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Pour mixture into a greased 8-inch square baking dish.Place strawberries evenly over the top of batter.With a pastry blender, cut in the butter until consistency of coarse crumbs.Sprinkle mixture evenly over the strawberries.Bake at 375° for 30-35 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean.