Pam's Pride

In some games there are only losers!!

2011-11-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

Deer: 0 (Dead kind of makes it an automatic loser!)
Bill's Car: -10 (Probably totaled!)

Bill was on his way to work this morning and hit a deer on 422W. So he called me at 5:40AM to come get him. This first picture is of his car when I got there, it is already hooked up to the tow truck.

Here is the deer in the back seat!! He actually hit it so hard that it messed up the front end, deployed the air bags, and then flew up in the air, went through the back window and landed on the back seat!!

It looks worse in the daylight!!

There is not even a smudge on the roof from the deer! She really did fly up and come right down through the window!

View from the broken back window looking in.

It even cracked the front windshield...you can kind of see the cracks on the right hand side above the air bag thing.

Clearly the car and the deer were losers in this cruel game!!

I guess car shopping is on the agenda for this week! Sigh...........

Another set of TWINS!! Amber's Goatie Babies!

2011-07-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Amber had her babies yesterday evening! A boy and a girl! They are doing very good! They are both nursing and Amber is doing great too! These are purebred Nubians.

This is the little buckling!

Here is the doeling! She has more white on her face.

They are both very strong and active!

It is with great sadness that I must say that one of Lily's bucklings passed away earlier this week. The other bucklings is doing great and Lily is doing much better!

My first Goatie Babies!!!

2011-07-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

This morning the kids went out to feed and water and found TWO GOATIE BABIES!!!I This is Lily's first kidding and she had TWINS! (With proud papa Cloud!) Lily was not due for another 10 days so they are premature. We are bottle feeding them now and they are doing really good. They are still very wobbly though. We have two little bucklings! They are so adorable and soft! Lily seems to be in good spirits but she did not want much to do with them once we found them. They were clean and dry when we found them this morning so we are assuming she did take care of them and clean them all off. But now they are in the house and the kids are just loving it!

The pictures with them on the hay are when we first found them and they were still out in the goat house.

The colostrum from Lily was so think that they had a hard time swallowing it. So once we watered it down some they have been able to eat about 2 oz every two hours. They are both taking to the bottle very nicely.

Oh! These long ears are just so stinking cute!!!

Customer Spotlight!

2011-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

I have been chosen as the MyPatriotSupply Customer Spotlight featured family! I got to do a little write up about my family's journey to become more self sufficient!! Check it out!
Customer Spotlight!

GIVEAWAY on my Recommendation's blog!

2011-07-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am having a GIVEAWAY on my Pam's Pride Recommendations blog! Go check it out!
http://pamspriderecommendations.blogspot.com/2011/07/friday-giveaway.html

Deer Farm!

2011-06-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last week was VBS and a friend from church had a baby also so she asked me to bring her other kiddos home a couple days so she could enjoy some extra quiet time with her new baby. When I dropped her kiddos off we got to see their deer and all of their other animals!

Here is one of the baby fawns that my 6 yo DD got to bottle feed! CUTE!

Baby girl was playing peek-a-boo with it around this wooden box!

DD bottle feeding the fawns!

Their horses!

Their fryer chickens!

This little menace to society.... I got to bottle feed him while we were there and as soon as his bottle was gone he head butted right between the legs!!! If I was a guy I would have been laying on the ground unable to breathe or see..I am telling you he got me good! I had calf snot from my knees to my crouch and my pants were wet! I was laughing so hard I nearly peed my pants! LOL! It really was funny! He kept trying to head butt me to get his bottle, even though it was empty. So I had to get out of his area quick so he could not do it again!

A few of the Does are so tame that they will come right up to you and let you pet them and feed them right out of your hands! The kids especially loved that! My oldest was itching to line one up in the site of his gun though!

Changing the Brakes!

2011-06-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

The brakes on the ban needed to be done. So my 13 and 15 yo changed them with the help of a gentlemen from our church. I love the fact that my boys are learning this stuff while they are young so they can do the maintenance on their own vehicles when they are older. They have been working with the 'Damsels in Distress' program at our church and changing oil for singles and widows once every three months and they have gotten pretty good at changing oil from all of the cars they have done there. Since my oldest is literally days away from getting his permit he will need all of these skills!

Homemade Salsa!! YUM!!!

2011-06-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

My friend, Vicki, passed this salsa recipe on to me last year and I swear it is the best salsa EVER!! You can make it as hot (or not) as you want it! I made around 24 pints last year and I have sworn to myself that I will make at least twice as much this fall!! I can sit down and eat a whole pint of it by myself!! If I am forced to share with the kids then one pint just is not enough! LOL!

Homemade Salsa Recipe:

4 qts tomatoes

6 big onions

4 large bell peppers

6-10 hot yellow peppers

1 to 2 Jalapenos (I use 6 or 7!)

2 1/2 cups white vinegar

1 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons canning salt

1 Tablespoon black pepper

1 bunch of CILANTRO, chopped (Just the leaves)

Cook 4-5 hours, can in boiling water canner. I usually get about 8 pints.

It is totally the CILANTRO that makes this salsa!

I know this is a great fall recipe and is perfect for canning but I just popped open a jar and thought I would share it with you because now is the perfect time to get your Cilantro Seeds and get them planted! According to the My Patriot Supply website the plants are ready to harvest in just 40 days! So there is still plenty of time to get your seeds and get them planted and ready for harvest in time for canning! There are also harvesting and seed saving tips on their website!

If you are going to buy your Cilantro from the store be sure to get CILANTRO and not Parsley! They are near always displayed together in the produce section and they look VERY similar! I would highly suggest getting some seeds now though because last fall I had to go to several stores just to find fresh Cilantro!! You can always harvest the Cilantro multiple times and dehydrate it and store it for fall if your plant is producing to much then you are always sure to have some on hand!

My Patriot Supply also offers a Culinary Herb Garden with 8 different herbs that are popular to cook with!

This is the Dehydrator I have:

And it says to set it to 95F for drying herbs.

And yes we did eat the whole jar of salsa in LESS time than it took me to make this post! LOL!!

Homemade shaved ice!

2011-06-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

We LOVE homemade shaved ice in the summer! I swear this stuff is addicting...maybe it is the sugar that is in it! LOL! This recipe is SOOOO EASY and with over 70 Kool-Aid flavors to choose from you will never get bored with this cheap and easy treat! If you are worried about stains or you just want to make a surprise flavor you could use the Watermelon, or any other flavor, of clear Kool-Aid!

First I mix equal parts of sugar and water. I usually do about 2 cups sugar with 2 cups water. Then I add in 2 packs of my favorite Kool-Aid flavors! The top pan is orange and the bottom is Lemon-lime.

I bring the syrupy stuff to a boil for about 2 minutes. Then I let cool.

The top one in this picture is Berry Blue! The kids LOVE the Berry Blue and Lemon-Lime!

The bottom one is Cherry! Cherry, Black Cherry, and Orange are my favorites!!!! I also made up a batch of grape!

After I made the syrup flavorings I put the hot syrup in my jelly jars! This was a great way for me to reuse some of my canning lids!! They actually all resealed too!! After they cooled a bit I sat them in the fridge. But as long as they sealed properly you could set these in your pantry until you are ready to use them. (I would boil my jars and lids if I were going to keep it in the pantry though.)

I LOVE looking at filled canning jars! Aren't these just beautiful??

I make my shaved ice by putting a cup of ice in the food processor for just a few seconds!

Then I scoop it into coffee or tea cups and add the flavorings (to taste) on top! We then use a spoon to scoop it out and eat it! My 9 yo is having a Berry Blue and Orange icee here!

Once I am ready to use my flavoring I like to use the condiment bottles. I just store the leftover flavoring in the fridge in the condiment bottle. It is so easy to use then! I have a bunch of bottles...somewhere.... I got them when they were on sale at Christmas time...for candy making. I can never have to many of these bottles! LOL!

Cherry!! YUM!!

Hyssop Seeds from My Patriot Supply!

2011-06-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

I got these Hyssop seeds from My Patriot Supply! I love the packaging! All of their seeds come in resealable mylar bags! Since we have spilled milk and water (twice!!) on this seed package that is a VERY good thing! If it was any other seed package it would have been ruined and then my seeds possibly scattered and lost before I could even get them planted! (Don't forget about their Genesis Survival Seed Garden! Right now they are running a special: if you buy 3 you save $9! This is a great way to get one for yourself and some for your loved ones.)

From the My Patriot Supply website about Hyssop:
Anise hyssop makes a delightful addition to mixed herbal teas and a fine tea all to itself. It has a delicate anise or licorice flavor. The tea is naturally sweet, so extra sweetener is not necessary. In fact the tea is so sweet that it can be used to sweeten other foods. Folklore medicine employed anise hyssop herbal tea to treat colds, coughs and fevers, and to strengthen a weak heart.
They also have a Herbal Tea Garden that you can get with a mix of different seeds to grow your own backyard teas!

Our first swim outing of the summer!

2011-06-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

The weather was finally warm enough...and we had a free day...to go swimming!!

Baby girl got sunscreen in her eyes so she had red watery eyes the whole time...poor thing!

But it did not stop her from enjoying herself! She is a total water baby just like the rest of my kids!

The kids especially like the diving board!!

The best part of having so many kids is that they always have a bunch of 'friends' to play with! LOL!
That is an alligator in the water with them. LOL!

Baby girl loved going out as far as the boys would take her!! She even got her face dunked a couple of times! She coughed and then went right back to playing!

The younger ones loved it when my oldest threw them off the diving board!

Attempting to start the garden!

2011-05-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

We attempted to get the garden tilled up....and when I say 'we' I really mean my oldest! I just took pictures! LOL! Anyways last week he tried to start getting it ready to plant but it was to muddy to do more than the highest level.

My 11 yo is mowing behind the garden so we can try and extend it to plant some more potatoes and some mangels.

The bees are very active in and out of the top bar hive!

This was just a scrub tree my DH pulled from somewhere else and planted so my 9 and 11 yo dug it up because it is where I wan to extend the garden.

Baby girl LOVES swinging on the swing!

She was even try to stand up on while she was swinging! Sigh....she is to brave for her britches for sure!!

9 yo was doing sit ups on the monkey bars!

Happy 9th Birthday!

2011-05-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday was my little man's birthday! It is hard to believe that 9 years has gone by so fast!

We celebrated by having a cookout at my MIL's house and then we had an ice cream cake!

My mom and I went together and got him one these Wilton Cake Decorating kits.

He wants to open up his own bakery some day. He LOVES to make cupcakes and cakes and decorate them.

Survival Seed Bank!

2011-05-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

My Patriot Supply offers the coolest thing for the person who is into gardening, being self sufficient, or for the person who just wants to be prepared! It is the Survival Seed Bank: Genesis Garden!!

Genesis Garden

The Genesis Garden is priced so that you can afford to buy two! One to plant this year and one for long term storage for that just in case situation and keep one in storage or to share with a friend!

Convenient resealable storage container
E-Z Lock resealable, reusable triple-layered foil packets
20 Jumbo size seed packets with easy to grow garden vegetables
Seeds are open pollinated and can be grown, harvested, and replanted endlessly
Dried & sealed airtight for long-term storage
Varieties selected are zone-friendly to most all areas!
Planting instructions and seed harvesting guide included!

Your Genesis Garden® seed order comes with:

Blue Lake Bean 110+ seeds

California Wonder Pepper 70+ seeds

Scarlet Nantes Carrot 800+ seeds

Marketmore Cucumber 150+ seeds

Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce 900+ seeds

Golden Acre Cabbage 530+ seeds

Detroit Dark Red Beet 260+ seeds

Lincoln Shell Pea 100+ seeds

Lucullus Swiss Chard 160+ seeds

Beefsteak Tomato 180+ seeds

Champion Radish 320+ seeds

Green Sprouting Broccoli 270+ seeds

Waltham Butternut Winter Squash 100+ seeds

Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach 260+ seeds

Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion 145+ seeds

Golden Bantam Sweet Corn 130+ seeds

Iroquois Cantaloupe 70+ seeds

Snowball Self-blanching Cauliflower 285+ seeds

Black Beauty Zucchini 50+ seeds

Crimson Sweet Watermelon 60+ seeds

But if those seeds are not for you they also offer a customizable option!!! The best part is the free shipping!

My Patriot Supply

http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=GENGARD&Click=240

Want a kiss???

2011-05-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

Baby Girl was covered in peanut butter....and then she decided she wanted a kiss and started coming after to get some smoochies!!!

Cry Me a River!!

2011-05-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

UGH! It has rained here so much that the chicken pen is nothing but mud. Even where there was some grass left in the pen it is nothing but mud!
Here are our two new ducks Alaina gave us. I think they are probably the only ones that like all of this rain.

This is the water flowing on the back side of my chicken pen! Sigh... Hopefully the sun comes out SOON and this rain lets up some!

This is part of my garden!

This is the water hole in my garden! So it does not look like we are getting in there anytime soon!

Setting the Bees! Top Bar Hive Part 3

2011-05-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

We bought our bees yesterday but we had to wait until this morning to set them....after the rain. The gentlemen we bought our bees off of also sold us a nice hat at a super good price.

He also gave us some waxy comb for them to get started with so that the bees would be able to get a jump start on their comb and to make sure that they start the comb the right direction.

Here is our box of bees! We had to pry the top off and then we were supposed to take the queen out and the food jar that was in there. Yeah, things don't always go like they should! LOL!

Then my fearless 11 yo dumped the bees down into our top bar hive.

You can see in this picture that the bees have already found the main three holes for the entrance and a bunch of them were swarmed around it.

The Queen is in her own little box. We had to remove the cork from the bottom of the queen box. Then she has cork candy that surrounds that. She has to eat it from one direction and the workers bees eat at that from the other direction to let her out of her little box. It is supposed to take a day or so for them to get her out so that she is acclimated to the hive and does not take off and take all of the worker bees with her. She has a little metal piece on the top of her box and we wedged it between the slats. She is there on the back right opening. Then we placed the lid back on top.

Right now we are letting the bees settle in and calm down. We are going to go back out in a couple hours and put a feeder in the bottom of the hive. We do not want the bees to die from lack of food with all of this rain and cold icky weather.

Turkey Babies!

2011-05-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Alaina hatched some of my turkey eggs. She had a 100% hatch rate! YAY! 5 out of the 6 turkey poults have the Bourbon Red markings and one has the Narragansett coloring. It is hard to see all of the turkey babies in the top picture because they are mixed in with her pheasant peeps. The three light colored ones against the back wall are some of the light colored (red) turkeys and the second baby against the side wall is the darker turkey baby.

Here is a close up picture of a light colored turkey baby.

Right now she has 6 more eggs in the 'bator and they still have a few more days before they are due to hatch.

Apple Mixed Berry JAM!!

2011-05-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

I won a jar of homemade Jam from Arrows Flight Farm's blog: http://arrowsflightfarm.blogspot.com/ They live on a 10 acre homestead with their two kiddos in Arkansas.

I got it in the mail yesterday and I could not wait to pop open the lid and try some on toast. Well, of course you know that I have to share!! The jam is super good! The baby really loved it and when 6 yo DD tried to take a bite of her bread she screamed!! She did not want to share! I guess sharing only applies to the parents! LOL!

Recipe:

2 cups mixed berry applesauce (one strip of the single serve cups, unless you can find it in a jar)
4 cups of apple cider
3 cups of sugar
low/no sugar pectin
Thank you Arrows Flight Farm for the wonderful jam and the recipe!!

Budding Artist????

2011-05-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Her favorite canvas??? Why her belly of course would be her favorite!!

I got a little dry erase board for notes for Mother's Day from church....well Baby Girl got a hold of the marker and started writing on herself!

Her second favorite place to color on?? Her arm!

Her third favorite place to color??? The TV! Yep! She wrote on the TV too! That was all in the matter of like two minutes and I was sitting right there but did not realize what she was doing right away! LOL!

Happy Birthday Bill!

2011-05-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Thursday was Bill's birthday. We had a dinner and cake and ice cream at his mom's house to celebrate.

The weather was warm but it down poured rain! So the spots you see in the pictures are the mist of rain that was in the air. We were under her covered porch but it was raining and blowing so hard we ended up going into the house. I made a chocolate cake with homemade peanutbutter buttercream frosting! YUM! But the cake sort of had an accident on the way over to his mom's house. Sigh....so part of it had to be cut off. I need to do a blog post on how to make this peanut butter frosting because it is SO GOOD!

Easy Homemade Pizza Rolls!!

2011-05-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

My family absolutely love these Pepperoni Rolls! My oldest is going off to FCF Camp for the weekend and he has to take all of his own food. So, he requested that he get to take Pepperoni Rolls. These are so easy to make! I don't actually think they qualify as acceptable food because all of their food is supposed to be what people ate BEFORE the Civil War and I honestly have no idea what food is acceptable other than meat. They had bread and cheese...and maybe pepperoni...and a tomato sauce back then right???? We just combined them all! LOL!

I use Rhode's frozen white bread, turkey pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and pizza sauce for dipping. I sat the bread dough out last night so that it had plenty of time to raise and was ready first thing this morning. I cut eat loaf into 4 or 5 pieces.

Then I added 4-5 pepperoni and a handful of cheese into each piece and then close it up. I put them on a baking sheet and then I bake at 350F until they are nicely browned on the top.

Check out how big these are!! You could make them smaller....but these are teenage boy size! LOL!

I love the cheese that comes out the side and is nicely browned! YUM!!

Then we dip them in pizza sauce and enjoy!!
Of course SOMEDAY I would like to be good at making my own homemade bread and homemade cheese (from my goats milk), and home canned pizza sauce......but I am just not there yet! Oh well....someday!! LOL!

View from my front porch!

2011-05-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

DH was out mowing the yard with an old push mower that he got from his mom because our yard was to wet to mow with the riding mower. My MIL said the mower is over 35 years old! He was whining the next day because he was so sore.

13 yo was playing with Baby Girl and was chasing her over the ditch. She just loved it!!

6 yo DD was climbing the pine tree that is right next to the porch. On the branch just above her hand WAS a nest with eggs in it. Yeah, well about a half an hour later the eggs and nest got dumped....somehow! Sigh...

Mother Daughter Banquet!

2011-05-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

Every year at my Mom and MIL's church they have a Mother Daughter Banquet. My mom always has to work but I still get the privileged of going with my wonderful MIL.

Baby girl was just ornery! Once she was done eating she was ready to get down and RUN!! Well, let me tell you this fancy dress is slippery! So if you are holding her and she decides to wiggle it is near impossible to keep a grip on her!

It was a covered dish dinner and all of the food was so good! Then 6 yo DD won a flower. She was so excited! The ladies in charge put an X under the candy dishes on the table and the people that had one got a beautiful red geranium.

The entertainment for the evening was "Heaven's Ground Crew" (They can be found on facebook.) Their leader has a wonderful baritone voice that is just perfect for the old gospel hymns! He sang a song called the "Rumor Mill" that I heard for the first time and it is a good one!

The youth group did a skit called "The grocery line". It was about witnessing to people while standing in line at the grocery store and passing out tracks.

Then they did some dramas to music. They are very gifted with their dowel rods that they are able to form into MANY different objects that illustrate the songs. When they were doing hand motions for their dramas Baby Girl was copying them. I was able to get a picture of them miming for the word Strong and a picture of Baby Girl copying them. She was so cute! It ALMOST made up for all of the noise she made through the ENTIRE program!! I had to take her out of the sanctuary and into a little side room. Sigh...

Here is a beautiful stain glass window that was above the door in the little room I was in. I believe it was designed by Rev. Gordon Densmore. A former Pastor at the church, who was also the Pastor that married me and my DH.