Frontier Woman

In the words of my very loving husband, "Oh Lord you're still in the kitchen...I've married a frontier woman."  I love the good old days.  I have a fascination about the 1800's.  I know times were tough, but oh to live the simple live.  I've always loved homemade candles and soaps.  I have since elementary school days when one day while studying the 1800's our teacher had us make dipped candles.  Oh, I loved it.  This may have been the same year I tried octopus in school but that a completely different story. 

Moving on...this summer was the first time ever that I tried canning. It all started when our friends The Neighbors (literally) invited me to come over and pick some plums. I'd already been there earlier in the summer to pick blueberries to eat my fill of and freeze for the winter. Now I was able to pick plums to my hearts desire? Oh, I'm in heaven....wait...what will I do with all of those plums? My friend and owner of the plum tree had canned her plums so I decided to do the very same. Long story short I visited a site called "Pick-your-own" and soaked in all the pages I could before I hibernated in my kitchen for the next couple of weeks. I made various kinds of sugar free jellies to include but not limited to: plum, strawberry, strawberry kiwi, peach, peach pineapple, triple berry, blueberry, and finally blackberry. In fact some of them were so good I made multiple batches. 

 

We also planted a garden again this year. And this year the deer stayed out of it. The Neighbors tilled my ground and we "borrowed" some of Molly and Rose's (their horses) "fertilizer." My garden boomed with produce. I was getting squash and zucchini like crazy at first. Then, tomatoes and spices, and beans and oh time for camp. I did manage to pickle some of the cucumbers into pickles, but I notices I picked the wrong ones. The pickles aren't half bad. I also managed to can some tomatoes too.  And finally I have hang drying in my garage right now...spices from the right side of the screen. 

So today was The Frontier Woman finale.  I clocked in at 8am for my day in the kitchen.  I didn't clock out for another 13 hours and here I sit typing you so I won't loose the fond memory of baking my own sourdough muffins, cinnamon rolls, and three loaves of bread.  Yep, you saw correctly.  I did all that today!  I've been growing my pet "Steve" (get it? Pet Peeve) for a couple of days now. 

 

What got me started was when a lady from another Church brought in loaves and loaves of homemade bread for a function.  Jeff raved about that bread as did everyone who ate a bite of it.  So of course...not to be out done I must take a stab at this bread making adventure too!  I am not a good kneader.  I was in a tangle mess before Jeff came to my rescue. 

 

At the same time today I was also making ANOTHER batch of apple butter because I'd eaten half the first batch from the other week when I was up at 3am canning.  Don't get me started on that story.  Thanks for the apples Neighbors.

So my back hurts, my hands are dry from washing every dish in the house four times, and my eyes are tired.  ...Oh the bread?...FABULOUS!  What makes it even better is dipping it in the fresh piping hot apple butter cooking beside it. Oh if only we had smell-o-vision or 4D blogs.  So this Little House in the Cul de Sac is closing down for the night. Good night John Boy!