Old Fashion Treat - Snow Cream

Tipper over at Blind Pig & the Acorn got me in the mood for some old fashioned snow cream the other day.

We made this all the time when I was young. I'd go outside in the cold and come back with a pan overflowing with freshly fallen snow.

First, gather up all your ingredients you will need.

milk, sugar, vanilla, measuring  spoons, large bowl and spoon

Bring in your pan full of clean snow. Find a good, undisturbed area to get it from. I used a large pan. Charley filled it full, so I took a little out of it for later use if I needed it.

Put in your sugar ( I used a cup full)

Put in your vanilla ( I used 2 Tablespoons)

Put in your milk ( I used a little over a cup full) I used skim milk, but 2% or whole milk would make a richer snowcream.

Stir it all together.

If it is too thin, add more of the snow that you set aside.

Spoon out into bowls and enjoy. It is very good. My boys were right there at my side waiting for a taste.

It has the consistency somewhat like soft serve ice cream. Put any leftovers into the freezer to eat later. It gets very hard in the freezer, you will have to let it soften a little before you spoon it out.

Do any of you have memories of making snow cream?

Oh No, Another Cookie Jar

I bought a cookie jar a few days ago at Goodwill. Everybody needs a cookie jar. . . right?

But,  I already have this pretty Nestle Toll House Cookie Jar. It is sitting up on top of my cabinet behind the little Snoopy pull dog toy.

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And, I bought this one at my neighbor's yard sale last year.

And, I love this cookie jar. I only paid 10cents for this teddy bear one and it is 'stuffed' all the time with yummy cookies.

 

I love this vintage apple cookie jar with all the crazing on the bottom of it. It goes perfect with my yellow and red kitchen.

These five sit on top of my Hoosier cabinet behind the vintage creamers and salt shakers.

Did I need another cookie jar? Of course!

I couldn't pass up this doughboy cookie jar. Isn't he adorable. He isn't McCoy,  though. It says 'JAPAN' on the bottom of it. I guess it was their version of our Pillsbury Dough Boy. I noticed a few on the internet that look just like him, but they say McCoy on their bottom. The red paint is 'cold paint', which means it was applied to the jar after it was glazed and fired. This means it will come off easily when cleaned, so you have to be careful. I think it is old, but not sure.

Are there any cookie jar lovers out there that know anything about this one?

 

Need a cookie jar, anyone?

Writing Wednesday

I think I am going to start a Writing Wednesday.
I will  blog about writing on Wednesdays, and who knows, maybe on other days as well.
If you like to write, join me on Wednesdays and put up your own blog post about writing, too.

As many of you know, I like to write.
My grammar is not perfect. . .
my rhyme is sometimes off. . .
but as one of my favorite quotes proclaims "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."


I have been dabbling with poetry this morning. I have many poems on my hard drive. These are poems that I thought were good, but when I bring them up on the screen, after they have been out of sight and out of mind for many months, I see lots of room for improvement. That is one thing about writing, if you continue to write, you will improve. Practice makes perfect.  I will never be perfect. . .  but I don't want to be. Perfection takes out the challenge and fun out of writing and improving your craft.

My family sometimes wonder why I continue to change and edit my stories. They think the first draft is the way it should be. They think if you have to keep changing  it, that you must not be a good writer. How wrong that is. In my opinion, a good writer is one who knows how to edit and how to get it right. The first draft is sometimes just getting your idea down on paper, kind of like the appetizer for a meal. Then you go back and add the meat and potatoes and maybe discard the scraps that are not needed. That may sound like a funny way to put it, but I think it kind of tells how it is.

I have been editing my middle grade story this past week. AGAIN. I now have it ready to send out to publishers. AGAIN.

Writing and getting published is a slow process. It is very hard for people to comprehend that from start to finish it can be years before your story is seen by the eyes of the reading public. I am an impatient person and the waiting is the hardest part for me.

AN EMPTY BARN

by Janet F. Smart

An empty barn,  an opened door

Snowflakes scattered upon the floor.

An empty barn from times gone by

Sitting beneath the snowy sky.

If walls could talk, what would they say

Of those who toiled here yesterday,

and tarried in its loft at night,

Lit only by dim lantern light?

I leave you with a writing prompt. Find a favorite picture you have taken and write a short poem about it.

Country Winter Scenes

Everyone has to eat in the winter, even the livestock. This farmer is making sure they get their morning meal.

My son has been busy trying out his new toy. The machine is a BCS walk behind tractor we bought this summer. Our old Troy Built, which gave us 30 years of good service, needed replacing. Andrew built the dozer blade attachment. We sent for one of the dozer blades, (they cost over $400), but each one we got delivered to us did not attach right. There was something wrong with every one of them, so we sent them back. Andrew said he could make one better, and he did. His design for attaching it works much better than the manufacturers. We told him he needs to ask the company if they are interested in his design, but he hasn't made a decision.

This is Sycamore Creek Road on Sunday morning.

I love this old  barn that sits along the road.

Looks like this feeder needs filled up again.

This little woodpecker is working hard at one of our suet feeders.

This little titmouse loves peanuts.

So do the blue jays! But one of our blue jays is a little greedy. He will get his first peanut way back in his throat, then put another one in his mouth before he flies off. I don't know how he keeps from choking.

This little bird reminds me of a chipmunk from the side view.  He looks like a sparrow, but his belly is golden. Maybe he is a red-breasted nuthatch. What do you think? (You can click on all my pictures and enlarge them)

Hope everyone is enjoying winter. I'm getting a little cabin fever myself. Our area is supposed to get more snow a few hours from now. How about you, are you snowed in?

Just What I Needed

I picked up this little goodie at Goodwill a few days ago. I know it doesn't look like much, but it was just what I needed!

What did I need it for? To hold my rolling pins, of course.

I love rolling pins. The real old one on top nearest to the camera is one that belonged to my mom. She gave it to me a few years after I got married. She didn't remember where she got it. But it is old and hand carved and I love it. I'm thinking one of my grandpas may have been the maker of it.

The one with the red handle belonged to my Aunt Irma. On one of my last visits to her house, she gave it to me. She said she had it since she was first married in the late 1940s.

The two on the bottom are just a couple I picked up at either a yard sale, a  road  side sale or a thrift store.

The other two, including that beautiful one with the different types of wood, were made by my son, Andrew. He is just about the best woodcrafter  I know! Go here to see the many beautiful things he has made me.

I haven't been feeling up to par the last couple of weeks and that is why I haven't been blogging much.
I was taking some medicine. After being on it for three weeks, my body decided not to tolerate  it. After a week of bad side effects, I stopped taking it and then I went through the next week of having the side effects of coming off the medicine. Thank goodness, I think I am over the hump now and getting close to normal again.

Back To The Grind

I just ate my morning bowl of oatmeal. It is slow moving this morning, I need to wake up and get to work!

I started working on my February article for Two-Lane Livin', it is due on Saturday. My article in December was titled  "Collecting Memories."  You can go here and check out all of my past articles.

 

I need to sharpen my pencils and get back to my writing.

I have many stories, but they are not going to get published sitting inside my hard drive. I am going to get serious and send out my Middle Grade story, The Family Secret to publishers. . . again. I need to get out my Picture Book manuscripts and send a few out. And while I am waiting the loooong wait to hear back about them, I need to start a few new stories. I have been very lazy with my writing lately and someone needs to slap me on my hand with a ruler. That's what the teachers used to do when I was in grade school. They held out your palm and slapped you with a ruler. Now a days, teachers would get in trouble for doing that. It never hurt me, though, it only took one time and I learned my lesson. I never did anything else to get the ruler slap again!


So, I think I am going to spray on some of my Infini perfume my husband gave me for Christmas, look  at my pretty Fenton vase and bird my boys gave me and try to wake up and get to work.

 

I hope all of you had a nice Christmas. 

Is it hard for you to get back to work, too?

Christmas Recipes and Crafts

It has been a busy month. We have celebrated two birthdays in our family. My sons Andrew and David were born on Dec 11th and Dec 13th (different years, of course). We usually celebrate on the 12th with one cake shared by both boys.

I brought our duck in out of the cold and dressed her for the holidays.

We have had a lot of snow and we have been feeding the birds.

I am almost ready for Christmas. How about you.

I have posted recipes before that are very good to make around the holidays.

Hard rock candy. I make this every year and it is very easy to do and makes great gifts, too. I make mine in the microwave. Go here to see my recipe.

Pecan Pie Muffins and Nuts and Bolts. The muffins are delicious and the Nuts and Bolts are a great snack.

Fudge. Everyone loves fudge. I like the old fashioned hard kind. The kind we grew up with. Go here to see this easy and delicious recipe. If you have harvested any black walnuts or hickory nuts this year, they are very good to add to fudge.

Party Cheese Ball. My family loves cheese balls, especially my husband. I used to make these only on the holidays, but now I make them all the time.

Pumpkin Muffins.

I have also posted a lot of Christmas crafts.

Click on the ones below that you are interested in and take a look. My scrabble ornaments are very popular, I used to make them and sell them at craft shows, I would personalize them with their name or whatever else they would want on them. They are good to put on the outside of presents as name tags. The gumdrops are also very pretty! I love them and they are very easy to make.

First Christmas Ornament, Natural Christmas Ornaments, Birdhouse ornaments,
Christmas Ornaments, Cinnamon Dough Ornaments,Gumdrop Ornaments, Scrabble Ornaments

 Have a very Merry Christmas and I hope you give some of my crafts and recipes a try.

Christmas Frogs

I have a friend who loves frogs. She has frogs all over her house. But I don't think she has a Christmas frog, so I decided to make her one. I came up with the idea for the Christmas frog, but I got the template for it here.

I made the template bigger. I did it small first, 

but found it very hard to turn and get the frog's legs pushed out and filled. 

Making it larger made it much easier to do.

I like easy!

I used a Christmas pattern material for the top of the frog 

and used green felt for the bottom.

Pin right sides together and sew around the edges, leaving it open between the hind legs. 

Be sure and stitch backwards to reinforce the starting and ending stitches. Turn. 

I used a writing pen and pushed out the form of the frog.

I stuffed mine with fiberfill, you could make it into a beanie frog by filling with rice or plastic beanie pellets. Hand stitch together the opening.

I cut out small circles from the green felt and glued them onto the frogs face. 

I then glued google eyes in the middle of the felt circles.

You could do your eyes differently, if you wish.

I wanted mine to be a girl Christmas frog, so I tied a small bow with thin red ribbon and glued and stitched it on her head. I think she turned out cute.

You can use your imagination and make yours a little different. I did mine different than the other website did theirs. That is what I like about crafting, every item is unique. 

If you make these for a small child, I would leave out the eyes and ribbon. They would be cute plain. Experiment and use different patterns of material. If you like frogs give it a try, it was quick and easy.

Getting Out The Decorations

I have slowly been decorating my house for the Christmas season. I got down my box of tree ornaments from the closet shelf this morning.

I found out that I like angels. . .

snowmen. . . 

and birds.

Did I mention that I liked snowmen?

I think  I  like snowmen. . .

The little vintage houses were sold with a string of lights. There is a hole in the back of them where the light was inserted and they were strung on a tree. I found these in a ziploc bag at a yard sale. I know they were a light set, because a few years back I found another set of these at a thrift store in the box they were sold in. Its like a little lighted Christmas village. I think  they are very neat.

Can you tell that I recycled a lot of items in making the ornaments and decorations? Some of the things I used were old vinyl records, cds, plastic film boxes, pencils, Styrofoam cups, old quilts,  pine cones, juice lids, different sizes of light bulbs, spoons, blocks, golf balls, pages from a songbook and clothes pins.

I love re using items.

Labor of Love

We decided to put up our Nativity this year. 

The wooden pieces for the manger, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus,

a cow, a donkey, a camel and a shepherd and three sheep came out of our building.

It was a cold blustery day. 

Charley scratched his head while he tried to remember how it went together.

After a few false starts, we finally figured it out.

We brought down the figurines from the rafters of our building. We will remember this year to put them in trash bags before they go up in the rafters again. There was quite an accumulation of dirt and saw dust on them.

But, everything came out in the wash. Charley did most of the work. He washed all of them. Even though he is in short sleeves, it was very cold outside. He said he didn't want to get the sleeves of his coat wet.

Baby Jesus' cradle had broken, so my son made a new and sturdier one. The one that came with the figures was a flimsy plastic one. Andrew made this one out of some cedar he had in the building (another name for his workshop).

Our neighbor gave us some hay. We finished putting it together just before the rains came. I think it looks real nice. We hadn't put it up in quite a few years. We bought Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in 1991. In 1992 we bought the donkey and cow. In 1993 we got a lamb. In 1994 we bought the shepherd and two sheep and a camel. So you see, we have accumulated our Nativity piece by piece over the years. I guess we now need to get the wise men. I haven't seen these in the stores lately, though, I don't know if they still sell them or not.

The rains turned to a dusting of snow.