Osage Bend Fish fry

It is an annual event the first Friday of Lent, for the St. Margaret Parish of Osage Bend to hold their fish fry. Tonight was no exception. We arrived promptly at 5:00. The hall was already half full. The line wound half way through the hall. We waited in line maybe 20 minutes.


The menu included FISH, slaw, french fries. baked potatoes, hush
puppies, baked beans, bread and butter. It was all you could eat.


After our meal we went out to the fry shack. There our son and most of the men of the parish were working. Oh this is a men's club event. I forgot to tell you that.

Frying

Breading fish

Hush puppies waiting to be fried.


Life in the country is good.

33 degrees and 1 to 3 inches of snow by morning is coming. Or so they say!

Making deer sausage. A picture post.

Grinding

More grinding

Cranking

Stuffing

Loading

53 Sausages

SMOKIN'

Outdoor cooler?

Breakfast table

Taste testers

Time to come out

Trimming

Even I have to get involved

Our finished product.

My new coat

Well the coat isn't exactly brand new. I bought it in Branson on my girls shopping trip last fall. It is a Gloria Vanderbilt jean jacket. I love it. So I took it to my embroidery lady. She enlarged our logo and put it on the back. She only charged me $9.00 and even apologized at that. I did get the smaller version on the front lapel.

Okay girls....and you know who you are. Here are the pictures of what I mailed yesterday. Oh and there's even a surprise package. I will reveal the items after they have been received by the two recipients of my Pay it forward give away.

Now's it's off to town, I need to replinish the pantry.

9:28 AM 20 degrees with a wind chill making it 10.

Brrrrrrrr

President's Day

Okay I can hardly wait for tomorrow. I need to go to work and rest up.

My cinnamon rolls with 2 gnome on the range guarding them.

First of all I made these cinnamon rolls last night and they were our breakfast. I found the recipe for overnight sweet rolls at Lori's blog Mountain Woman at heart. I must say they were awesome! Thanks Lori for the recipe. Visit her blog to get the recipe.



By 10:30 BT and I were headed outside to work on our "state park". At least that is what the project is turning into. For two days now we have burned leaves, cut brush, hauled dead trees and cleaned up the woods. It seems the more you clean, the farther you want to go. I knew I should have taken pictures. Maybe I will when it greens up.





During our burning, we had a visitor, BT's sister, Grace and her husband Dan. They were playing Santa! They just returned yesterday evening from visiting BT's Mom in Texas. She sent our Christmas gift rather then mail it. Way to go Mom! What a great gift!

After giving them the 50 cent tour of the park and a dose of puppy love from Bentley they left. We went back to work for several more hours. About 3:30, fires were contained and I went inside. I finished making a pot of chicken noodle soup and set out our lunch.

With a full tummy, I ventured outside one more time to retrieve tools. It was then time for a much needed shower. I also put in two loads of clothes. I finished the two crib sheets I made for the little princess. I cut out the pieces for her dust ruffle. Yesterday I made curtains for her room.

As dark set in BT sharpened all our butcher knives. Tomorrow night starts our 5 day process of making deer sausage. I washed up the big tubs. Tomorrow night my kitchen will be taken over by wanna be butchers.

More on that story later....recliner time now.

Valentine's Day 2009

I got candy! The best part is it's dark chocolate! It's been our tradition for the past 38 years to exchange sweets. He gets his favorite of Maple Nut Goodies and always Burnt Sugar Peanuts. However this year it is different. Why? The Burnt Sugar Peanuts were recalled! So I found Boston Baked Beans. Now tell me just why these weren't recalled? Don't they have peanuts inside too? Maybe it's just because the word peanut is not in the title.

We are enjoying our day. Had a great breakfast of panhaas. Yes I know more pig fat.

BT was in the blacksmith shop by 9:00 AM. He had a customer show up just 10 minutes later, from Washington Mo. That is about an hour and a half away. He came just to have 3 plowshares sharpened. Guess good blacksmiths are few and far between.

I am sewing on my Pay it Forward give away. I've sewn for two days on the two sign ups! I'm excited to mail them.

What are you doing for Valentine's day?

Hope it's something great!

Two baby quilts finished!!

Here is what I've been working on. Both quilts went out of state today. They will be gifts for my daughter to give her friends. The white one goes to South Dakota, but the baby shower is in Wisconsin, after the quilt is delivered tomorrow to Oklahoma! The gold quilt will stay in Oklahoma.

Today a tornado hit in Edmond Oklahoma. That is where the daughter and her meteorologist lives. Needless to say he had a busy day at the TV station. She arrived home via detours about 5 hours after the storm hit. Thank God all is well at their home. It hit about a quarter of a mile from her house.

Now the weather is turning nasty here.

Sinfully delicious

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the whole pie. But as you can see, it's almost all gone. (Shortly after the picture we did eat it all). Why is it sinful? The crust was made with good old fashioned lard. That's right, pig's fat. Nothing better for pie crust.

A fellow blogger at We Love it, Don't we? showed pies she made. Oh to have some of her black raspberries! Wonder if I could trade her Missouri black Walnuts for raspberries?

I spent most of the weekend sewing. I almost have 2 baby quilts finished. Pictures should be coming tomorrow.

Saturday night we went out for my birthday dinner. We tried to go to Aris' Pizza but the line was out the door. So my jeep knew the way to LaBamba and away it went. there I celebrated with my usual frozen Margarita!

Sunday we had company for noon lunch. I made pot roast, dressed green beans with diced tomatoes, which include the holy trinity. Of course the peach pie was the dessert!

Wow did the weekend fly by~~~~

57

Today according to the baby counter on the side of my blog, it's 57 days until the princess is due to arrive.

What else is 57 today? Let's see the temperature? No it got to 65 today. Could it be the price of gas? No, that's $1.79, a loaf of bread? Ha, that was many moons ago. Speaking of many moons, I was born 57 years ago tonight. At 6:16 if I remember correctly! guess I will have to dust off the birth certificate to prove that one.

I had a great birthday. I treated myself to a french manicure this morning. It really threw the little Vietnamese girl off when she took my polish off . I'm pretty sure she told her partner in their own language. "This chick has her own nails, no fake ones here".

I met Kathy for lunch at a new eatery in town called A slice of pie. I had chicken mushroom pot pie, Kathy had creme of broccoli soup and a huge homemade yeast roll. We split a slice of the pie of the month, cherry chocolate cheesecake. Yumo! Thanks Kathy for the lunch.

With an hour or two to kill before my hair appointment I went shopping. I found a pair of jeans at Penney's for $7.49 and even a Liz Claiborn shirt for $7.49. The jeans at TJ Maxx, my favorite store cost 4 times what the ones at Penney's did. At Kohl's I picked up a Valentine present for the daughter. Don't you just love their household department?

At the hair appointment I became a partial redhead again. I had red highlights for close to a year and lost them last fall. It was time to get them back.




When I arrived home, there was a package on my door step. It was a Quilting book, "Quilts for Rosie, Paper piecing patterns from the 40's. A gift from Sarah and Rusty. It was a long day in town, so the hubby grilled dinner for me. I then got in about 2 hours of quilting before retiring in the recliner.

Yesterday there was a package too on my door step. It was from Mel at Mel's own Place. It is some awesome black and white fabric and a pair of fuzzy black slippers! What a win it was for me, from her giveaway thanks Mel!

Hope you all have a great weekend! BT and I will be all alone, the son and family went to Oklahoma City to visit his sister and maybe some day son in law?!! Right Rusty?

Super bowl weekend

Grandson's helping













Friday night BT and I went to a fur buying event. I was completely amazed at all the hides there. . . beautiful furs. It made me think of what this would have been like many, many years ago, when people depended on the money for a living.


It was all so professionally done. Mr. Miller, the buyer is especially kind to the young boys who bring in hides. He is a great teacher to them. Shows them how to improve their take. He has patience with them, a very gentle and kind man. The buyer records every animal, takes numbers from all the sellers hunting license and records it for the Missouri Department of Conservation. There were minks, raccoons, beavers, squirrel tails, foxes, opossums, muskrats, bob cats, coyotes and even some otters.


The hide market value is down considerably from last year. It's all a supply and demand thing. Most all of the furs end up in Russia and some in China.





Baby Log Cabin Little Princess Imagine my day earlier in the week when I went fabric shopping at Hobby Lobby. I think at one point I had 18 bolts of fabric in my cart. The fabric on the left will be for a baby quilt for my daughter's friend. They are 60% sure it's a girl, but we don't want to go pink or blue. I am staying neutral with a yellow and green theme. It will be a log cabin with 5 inch blocks.


The pink and black fabric on the right is for the little princess's bedroom. The DIL has asked me to make a dust ruffle, diaper stacker, dresser scarf, curtains, a wall hanging, sheets and of course a quilt for her. I ordered two patterns from Silver Linings Originals today. I love her paper pieced patterns. In fact the butterfly and the dragon fly make make 3 patterns this week I ordered from Linda. Check her site out. I have also done the border collie, black lab, and a Pomeranian.




*Silver Linings Orginials

Saturday night I went with 7 girl friends to a dinner play "Grease". It was awesome.


Sunday after breakfast, I did three loads of laundry and baked a carrot cake to take to a super bowl party. We drove the 3/4 of a mile to the neighbors. (It was too cold to walk there at 45 degrees.) Lots of good food, potato/sausage soup. chili, hot wings, teryaki wings, shrimp and dip, chips, chips and more chips. We left at half time. It was fun visiting with everyone. I even brought a quilt home with me to bind. I had pieced it for Roseann. She had it machine quilted and now I will finish it up for her.

I know a lot of you have heard about the terrible ice storm in Southern Missouri, Arkansas and Kentucky. I work for an Electric Cooperative and today I came across this blog. Check it out for some unbelievable ice pictures.


Time for the recliner now. Busy weekend. How was your weekend?