It's Cold Outside

While I am very eager to get my hands in the dirt next spring, I am quite content to sit by the fireplace today and make this post.  This week we celebrated the 5th Birthday of Little Lyss by taking her to Papadeaux a favorite nearby seafood restaurant.  She loves to go there for the "red lobsters" in the tank.  She had a great time and her little one was very well behaved as well.

The Birthday Girl and her baby out to eat with Mom and Dad for her birthday dinner.

 Since it has been cold we also enjoyed a favorite warm, wintry dessert with Sunday dinner this week.  We grabbed some of the peaches we canned from this summer and had this delicious Peach Cobbler with some vanilla bean ice cream on the side.  I'm already anticipating peach season here in the South next summer.  I hope you'll try the recipe, it's a good one!

Yummy Peach Cobbler for my Sweet Georgia Peach!

Scratch-made Peach Cobbler

• 1 quart home canned peaches , peeled, cored and sliced (about 4 cups)
• 3/4 cup pure cane sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

For the topping

• 6 Tablespoons butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup pure cane sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• ground cinnamon for sprinkling

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Slice butter into pieces and add to a 9x13 baking dish. Allow the butter to melt in pan in oven as it preheats.  Remove the pan from the oven before the butter gets browned.
2. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt. Gently add the milk until barely combined. Pour the mixture into the pan, over the melted butter and smooth it into an even layer. 
3. Ladle the peaches and juice on top of the batter. With a heavy hand, sprinkle the cinnamon over the top.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 38-40 minutes. Serve warm, with a scoop of ice cream, if that's what y'all like.

See y'all around the homestead!

Melissa

What Happened to the Water??

Well, it finally happened this week...we ran completely out. of. water.  As in, I'm standing in the shower mid-rinse and drip, drab, it's gone!  There have been two other times this has happened and we normally just switch over to the other well.  This time that did not work.  Eight people living in one house use quite a bit of water, not to mention our animals needs as well.  We will be sure to have a deep well when we build our next homestead.  There was a lightning strike a day ago that took out our router, computer monitor, and our Vonage device.  We are beginning to suspect it may have affected the well pump also.  In the meantime we are continuing to pray for rain since we are officially in a drought situation here with the average rainfall between 4 and 7 inches below average for this time of year.

Our sweet Muscovy Nellie Olson sitting on our Ancona eggs.  These Muscovy are great mothers!

Two day old fuzzy Ancona duckling with Little Lyss.  They already love the water!

Getting some sweet snuggles with the other duckling before he's eagerly back in the  pond!

Last week we were celebrating the arrival of our 4 sweet Ancona ducklings that hatched.  Sadly, only two of the little yellow fuzzies made it to this week.  We fear something came up from the woods behind the duckhouse and got them as there has been no sign of them.  The remaining two are getting huge in just one week's time.  They grow much more rapidly than baby chicks and the sight of them out in their little pond swimming around is the absolute cutest!


We'll see you 'round the homestead,
Melissa