First Fire of the Season

By no means is it cold here in TN right now.  By the temps dipped a few weeks ago in the evening and we got to have our first fire of the Season.  I'm sure my MA family and friends are thinking that 60 degrees is not cold by any standards but going from 75-80 degree weather down to 60 in a few days does make it feel chilly.

 

We decided to have it in the fireplace we have in the living room.  This fireplace gives off some nice heat but its not overpowering like the wood stove we have that we use to heat the house.  We were sure the weather was going to warm back up so we only wanted to warm the house for the evening.

 

The house was warm and the fire is so relaxing, we ALL enjoyed.  Even Jamie.

 

 

Lou & Bryce enjoying the first fire of the season



Can't Always Have What You Want.

It's funny how in different parts of the United States there are different foods and types of foods.

Since moving to TN there are many foods that we can't get here that we used to have in MA.

Drew's favorite is Ellio's

Yummy pizza

Ellio's is just frozen pizza but it is something that Jamie & I had when we were growing up and of course our kids love it too.

I looked every where for it when we moved to TN and not finding it I looked it up on the computer.  I found out that it is manufactured in MA only and sold only in New England.  Can't even have it shipped to us.  When we went back to MA in January we actually had a cooler with us and stocked up on it, bringing back 12 boxes with us.  We are down to our last box.

Another food we love is Yasou dressing.

Salad dressing

This dressing is an oil based dressing with seasonings.  It is the BEST dressing to use when you are making greek salads.  Jamie & I eat alot of salads and used to love this dressing.  It's another product only manufactured in MA and sold only in MA.  Of course we stocked up on this too bringing home 15 bottles.  This went fast though and we haven't had any in weeks.

The last thing we brought home with us was Ah-So Sauce.

Ah-So sauce

This sauce is what is used to make Chinese spareribs like you get at Chinese food restaurants.  We like to make Chinese style pork chops with it.  We also cut the pork chops up small and cook with the sauce and put it in pork fried rice.

We don't have this often, so we still have some in the cabinet. We had brought home 4 bottles with us.

These are just some of the foods we love and can't have anymore all the time.

We also miss the restaurant the 99.  That's not down here in TN either. Also the restaurant Christo's which was one of our favorite when we lived on the south shore.  I haven't seen Chinese Sausage here either. We still haven't been able to find a pizza place that makes pizza like you get on the south shore in MA but we are used to that because we never found a great pizza place in western MA.

We will always stock up when we visit MA.  If anyone is coming to visit we would LOVE for you to bring any of this to us.  We would appreciate it very much.



BUSY!!!

Just a quick note.  It's been crazy here for the last 2 weeks and have a bunch of updates to do.

I am going to post them in order.  I know you all want to read about Priscilla and the babies but we have had other things going on too and before the babies came.

I've been trying really hard to post things as they happen, even trying to get them on the day that they happen but it just hasn't gone that way lately.

I WILL try harder.



Busy Weekend

Thought I would do a quick post about what's been happening.  It's been a very busy 3 days here.  Friday we did our normal food shopping and chores and cleaned the house.  I also had a delivery of regular grass hay for the the boy goats,  I stacked it all myself.  This will get us through to the next haying season, late spring.  I picked about 18 lbs of beans from the garden and some zucchini, squash, pickling cucumbers and red onions.

Saturday morning we all got up and took a drive to get Alfalfa Hay,  this is the type of hay the girls eat, it helps with the milking.  We got 25 bales and will be picking up another 25 in a few weeks.  The 50 bales should get us through to next haying season, late spring. I'll be happy once we have the rest of the hay as alfalfa is hard to find around here.  Then we won't have to worry about feeding the girls hay for another year.  Hailey and Jamie helped me with cleaning all the beans and getting them ready for canning.  We ended up with 4 quarts and 10 pints of beans.  Jamie also did all the mowing today and got the hedges trimmed up again.

Today, Sunday we have been hanging around and doing chores here and there.  Our great friends the Royalty's are coming in 1 week, we are all so excited to have them visit, so we have been doing lots of preparing for them to come. Jamie got some firewood cut down this morning and I mowed inside and outside the pasture today. Hailey & I also picked some veggies from the garden again.  We got 3 large zucchini's, 3 large yellow squash, 5 red onions and 2 more pickling cucumbers.  The cucumbers don't last though, the kids eat them as soon as they are washed.

All the animals are doing well.  Matilda is getting bigger and will be going to the vet for a checkup this week.  All the girl goats are doing well too.  Priscilla's girls, Abby & Maddie got the CD&T booster on Friday. So thankfully we are all done with vaccinations/shots till next spring.  Brady & Bruschi are doing good too.  All the chickens are growing.  Layer hens are just growing and we are waiting for them to finally lay eggs, still about 2 months to go.  The meat chickens are now 11 weeks old.  They have 1 more week till butcher time.  Hoping to do some with the Royalty's so they can experience where their food comes from.  I just got an email for my new set of meat chicks, they will be here within a day or 2 and of course Lou & Bryce are the spoiled ones living in the house and doing just fine.