Mrs Turkey

Thank you for your comment, I see no blog for you or any way to email you.  I was wrong, they are yellow eye beans. Your way sounds wonderful. I'm not sure how I will prepare them yet.

A Christmas Gathering

Friday I went with 3 girl friends to Stover Missouri for a Christmas Gathering. It was two floors of Quilt shop vendors, and other vendors offering pottery, jewelry, stained glass, baskets, and western decor.

This was one of the first booths we came too.

Another view.

What's missing in this picture?  Katie.  I hope the girls told you I was there!

It was a fun day.  We stopped at the Amish market in Excelsior, where we all left with a bag of goodies. Bread flour, yellow eye beans, cracked pecans and two Christmas gifts were in my bag.

We found at least 3 quilt shops along the way. Lunch was at a little diner in Stover where we found the best freshly made hamburgers. After that we made our way to the Outlet mall at Lake of the Ozarks.  Thanks Carolyn for driving. The funny of the day, was the hand blow dryer in the bathroom. Who knew we all had loose skin on our hands!!!


And then came Saturday, The blacksmith and I went to Excelsior, Missouri just as I had done the day before.

It was Blacksmith Association of Missouri meeting. My other blog has a few more details.

Once again I was lucky enough to join a group of ladies for shopping. We found the scratch and dent store, and two Amish fabric and quilt shops. Thanks, Carla, Margie, Nancy, and Ester for a couple fun hours of shopping. In two days I was in more then a half dozen fabric stores. What a good girl I was, I only bought two pieces of fabric totalling less than 2 yards!

I love a good Barter

Barter: to trade by exchanging one commodity for another.

See what I got?  A pizza peel.

Earlier this year the Blacksmith did a show where I met a wood worker.  I casually asked him if he had ever made a pizza peel. He told me no, but he was up to a challenge. Fast forward about 6 months.  We received a call from someone wanting some custom work by the blacksmith. 

When the gentlemen brought the item to duplicate, he told us he was the wood worker. He asked if I ever found a peel.   I told him no and I ordered a peel.  When he came to pick up his order, little money was exchanged as we bartered!!!

I love a good deal. This one was especially sweet since I did no work, it was all up to the blacksmith.

Winter's a comin'

My friend Stephanie at Stephanie's Stuff talked about predicting the winter with persimmons. So the blacksmith and I had to check out our crop too.

We cut open many seeds, and found most with spoons, a knife or two, but no forks. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac a spoon indicates lots of heavy wet snow will fall.

Should I tell you that snow flurries are now in our Thursday of this week's forecast??????????

Do you think it makes any difference that he had to go 2 miles to get these persimmons??????

The son's 2nd annual Halloween party

Here's the crew. The Star Wars family is the son and his family. Of course the pirate is the blacksmith in disguise, complete with hand forged sword and hook.

 Mike, Eileen, and girls.

The Cat in the hat and son.

My great-nieces!

My neighbors, she won first place in the adult costumes division! Emily you did great making that costume.

First place in the children's division.

A craft table was set up for the kids.

The children line up  for trick or treating.

An Osage Bluff couple!  Uhmm . . .  wonder who they are?

Candy, candy, and more candy!

The daughter in law ( Princess Leia),  her oldest sister and her family.

A really cute family!

My niece and her family!

Some even tricked out their means of transportation. I just wished I had gotten a picture of Scooby Doo and the rest of the crew in it!

Two tourists headed for the beach! 

And a great time was had by all!  Good food, good friends, and great weather!

The Garden's end

It's a bittersweet day. The garden got a killer frost last night. I guess all good things must come to an end.

On yesterday's post I talked about the green tomato pickles. Since we knew the killer frost was imminent, we decided to try our hand at making some.

We picked all that was left which came to about 11 or 12 pounds.

We cut them up along with some onions and sprinkled them down with canning salt. They sat overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, they were drained and a pickling solution was made.

The end results was 5 quarts and one pint. Now the waiting starts, 3 weeks before they can be sampled.

Here is the recipe we used for sweet and tangy green tomato pickles.

We also canned the last of our turnip kraut. 42 pints. We've done this before and here is a link to previous post on making turnip kraut.

And so we close another canning season with the shelves stocked full. 228 pints, 53 quarts jars, plus 27 qt bags in the freezer full of corn, not to mention the 15 gallons of blackberries. Now if the blacksmith bags a deer, we will be set for awhile!

Mammoth Spring, Arkansas

We pulled out of Mountain View, Arkansas at 8:30 and 106 miles later we were in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas.

It took us one stop at the visitor center to find the only RV park in the area. It happened to be across the bridge, a block away. It was $18 per night for water and electricity.

$2 was added if you wanted wifi.

 This would be the wifi . . . a walk up the hill to the picnic table in 50 degree temps!

After setting up camp and grabbing a bite of lunch we headed about 16 miles away to Hardy, Arkansas.

We found this junk shop. Well I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. There was too much "new" things and too high prices on what old stuff that was there.

In Hardy, one of the first shops we walked into had the most kitchen cupboards we had ever seen. I quit counting at 22.

We were told at this corner shop we could find some weights we were looking for. If they were there, we never uncovered them.

Both sides of the streets are lined with antique shops, craft shops, one tattoo parlor and an ice cream shop. We stayed a couple of hours and then headed back to the Casita.

Later in the afternoon, in Mammoth Spring we walked Main street and found a few antique shops too. Our neighbors at the campground recommended Fred's Fish House for dinner. It was one good recommendation. The blacksmith had fried walleye and I had shrimp. We both were served pickled green tomatoes. They were very tasty.

 (More on that in another post).

We slept in until about 8 on Friday morning. We loaded up and headed for home, our 8 day trip was winding down. We drove across the bridge and stop at the spring. The morning fog was slowing floating off.

After a stop at McDonald's for coffee it was homeward bound.

It was a great trip.

We traveled about 1250 miles.