Moody Monday's: Feeling Blessed

tlpoague

I woke up this morning feeling under the weather. This put a damper on my mood to write...a long with any topics I had thought to write about. All day, while trying to over-come the stomach bug, I tossed ideas about. Nothing sounded up to par.
So...I sit here, sipping a cup of coffee, and thinking about how blessed I have been this last year.
My writing hasn't gone in the direction I had planned when I made my New Year's resolution. Instead, my research for my stories have led me down a different path with different views. I think this will help to enrich some of my stories I have been working on. (This also began the process of un-learning a few things.)
I have been blessed with another grandson earlier this year. It is amazing to see how fast time flies as I watch this young man blossom. Between him and his brother, my days have been full keeping up. (Hence the reason why my online writing has slowed down.)

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It seems like just yesterday my children were babies.

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Now I have two grandchildren. They are such a blessing.

 The reality of how short life is hit hard again this year. I won't go into details about it because I wrote about some of those experiences in my earlier blogs. It also impressed upon me how God works in our lives and in answering prayer. I know some of these experiences deepened my faith in the Lord.

This year we sold our business due to health issues. It is so weird to say we are retired now because I feel like I am working harder now, than when we ran our business.
In its place, I have taken up crafting again to go with my writing. I have never seen myself as being that talented. Just the average Jane learning something new.

Photo by tlpoague
This is a hat that I made with matching earrings
and necklace.

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Here is a toddler bed Mr. P. and I
made. I didn't realize how easy it was
to make a quilt with matching crib sheet.

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This could be used as a child head band
or a choker. 

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This is one of many blankets
with matching caps.

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This is one of the scarves I made
for my mother whom is
battling cancer.

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Since I couldn't stop with just one,
I made a second one to go with it.

Because I didn't think I had enough to do with all of that, I talked my hubby into trying our hand at canning again. Something we haven't done since we were kids. 

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A batch of chili for those cold,
snowy days.

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Our first try at jelly.
It should come with its own
warning label.
Very addictive!

Saving the best for last, to wrap up this rambling, I am blessed not just with my family...but the friends I have met online through the social networks and writing websites. You guys mean more to me than you will ever know. I wouldn't be here trying this online writing thing if it wasn't for all of you. Thank you for your support, prayers, and encouragement. 

To me, this Christmas is more than just the over-rated commercials, last minute gifts, and hoopla. It has been a moment to take a breath, relax, reflect on the times gone by, and enjoy this moment...here and now. People will forget about the gifts five minutes or five years from now. But, they won't forget about the people who touched their lives in so many ways. 

I would like to invite you to join me on TSU. It is a new social website where I am sharing my writings and others. It is by invite only, so I would like to extend this invite to you...https://www.tsu.co/TLPoague

Moody Monday's: Homemade Applesauce for the Holidays

tlpoague

A fragrance of cinnamon and cloves tantalized her taste buds as she closed the kitchen door to the cold, barren world of snow outside. She let the perfume and warmth engulf her, as she discarded her coat at a near-by kitchen chair on her way to the stove. A golden mash bubbled in the pot sending out plumes of smells that made her mouth water. She was giddy with excitement. It was her favorite dish. Her mother's applesauce she had made for the holidays.
I have many fond memories as child gathering around the table in preparation of making or processing food to store for the winter months. (Last week I shared "How To Make Snack Sticks")
Today, I wanted to share the process of making and canning my own applesauce from the apples I had gathered from my sister's apple tree. (I realize I am a day late posting this for a Moody Monday, but a slight injury held me up from writing yesterday and most of today.)
I began with peeling the mountain of apples. (This is where I can hear my great-grandma's voice scolding me for not peeling them the right way.)

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My mini mountain of apples to peel.
The water has fruit fresh in it to keep the apples from turning brown.

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The handy apple peeler/corer for those mountains of apples.
My grandmother would be having a stroke using this.
"Too much waste," she would claim.

Once I had the apples peeled and sliced, I placed them on the stove to cook down. It takes about two hours for the amount I had, which was roughly two gallons.

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The apples sliced and ready for the pot.

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I have roughly two gallons of apples to cook down.

Once the apples were cooked to a mush, I separated the juice from the pulp. The juice I stored in a pitcher to place in jars later and placed it in the refrigerator. I, then, mashed the pulp through a colander to create the creamy sauce. (For a faster process, the pulp can be ran through a food processor.)

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The apples and juice that I have separated.
The steam is still rolling off them.

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The apples have been pureed and are ready for the sugar and spices.

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The juice is ready to be drank or also canned.
For now it is going to the fridge.

     Once I had the applesauce pureed. It was ready to add the sugar and spices. (I like a zip to my applesauce, so I added cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and ginger, with my sugar. Then it was time to add them to the sterile jars. (This can either be hot or cold packed. I used hot jars since my sauce was still hot.)

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Applesauce is packed in sterile jars and ready to be processed.

I then gave my jars a water bath for thirty minutes after the water came to a rolling boil. (Be sure to check and see what your canning is for your area. Each area varies.)

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The jars are packed in a hot water bath.

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The end product...homemade applesauce for the holidays!

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Here are two jars of the apple juice that I canned.
Later it can be drank, or made into jelly.

Thanks again for stopping by this Moody Monday. Sorry for the delay. A kink in my neck prevented me from being able to write and have this posted on time. (It much be all that crocheting I was doing...) But...I couldn't wait another week to share this wonderful treat.
*With Christmas just around the corner, these would make great gifts to add to a basket of homemade goodies.*

Moody Monday's: How To Make A Snack Stick

Photo by tlpoague

The shift of warm to cool air burrowed into the folds of her coat. She slightly adjusted the scope attached to her favorite .243 semi-automatic, Belgium Browning rife. Her target...a meager 400 yards away. It was going to be a gamble, but, one she was willing to take to keep from loosing her game.
Taking a deep breath, she applied pressure to the trigger. Recoil from her weapon nearly scoped her. Her shoulder ached from the impact. Her ears rang from the percussion of the shot. Still, the bullet held true to its target. It was a clean shot, hitting its mark.
When I was a child, I had many memories of going out to harvest our own meat. Sure, we could have bought it as easily as our neighbors, but Dad always claimed there was a lesson to be learned when providing for yourself. As a child, I thought everyone knew this and it was normal. Little did I know then, as I do now, that not everyone has an opportunity to learn the things as I did.
Harvesting the meat was fairly easy, as long as you had a strong stomach. It was the process that was time consuming and often messy. But, in the end, well worth it.
This year, the hubby and I decided we would break out the meat grinder to make jerky sticks again. It had been a couple of years since the last time we did it, so we had to prep the machine, clean the parts, and make sure everything was in working order. While he did that, I prepped the work space. Living in a small house made it a bit more difficult to have room to work in, so we turned the dinning room table into our processing center.

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Hubby is making sure the machine is ready to go. 

Instead of going out to harvest our own meat, we used what we had from the freezer. We began by de-boning those that needed it.

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Here is the chicken that needed to be de-boned.

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I'm hard at work trying not to cut a finger.

Next we needed to run the meat through the meat grinder. (We used the largest steel hopper plate to grind it the first time.)

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This is the first grind with the large blade.

Once that task was done, we changed the blades to a smaller setting and ran the meat through it again. (If you look closely to the right of the bowl of meat, you will see the hopper blades I am talking about.)

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This is the second grind with a smaller blade.

Once the meat was ground to the texture we want it, it was time to add the water and seasonings. (Here you will need to follow the directions on the box of seasoning you are using.)

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Hubby is making sure that he has the right measurements of spices and water.

Then it was time to run it through the meat grinder again to make sure everything was mixed evenly. (We ran it through twice on the small blade.) The next step is to start loading the casings with the meat mixture.

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Filling the casings with the meat mixture.

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The finished product before cutting them down.

After they are filled, we cut them down to the size we wanted. 

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These are now cut down to size and ready to cook.

We let our sticks cure over night in the fridge before we baked them according to the direction on the seasoning box.

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These treats are ready to eat.

We ended up with a total of 23 pounds of snack sticks after all the work was done.

tlpoague 2014