Pray for 1st Man

This is 2nd Man everyone.

I’m not very good at this blogging so I won’t include pictures or anything but I just need to let you all know that 1st Man Suffered two heart attacks earlier this morning. We called 911 they got him to the hospital. They were able to go in quickly and put two stents in his arteries in his heartt.

And they saved him!

He’ll be in the hospital for at least a couple of days and then home for a few days to rest and recover. I’m sure he’ll post all about his, terrible no good adventures that day ha ha. But as the doctor told me this morning, if he hadn’t woken up and told me to call 911,he probably wouldn’t have been here in the morning. 

Send lots of love and prayers and light to us as we navigate this newest unexpected event.

APPLIANCE GARAGE CLOSET

One of the questions we get asked is how we cook so much wonderful food and have a smaller apartment kitchen with limited space.  All of these items would take up a lot of room in cabinets and an apartment kitchen is mall to say the least, ha.  At the house we sold, we had plenty of room and a new house at the farm will have a kitchen of our dreams but at the apartment, we had to get creative.

The unit we have now is a one bedroom but it has a "study" with a large pocket door off the kitchen.  To us, it seemed the perfect extension of the kitchen.  The room is small, but because it is a "study", it had a regular closet and that gave me an idea for storage.  

 There was only a top shelf and a second shelf for hanging clothes.  I had them remove the rod and put in four more shelves all the way down.  I measured them to make sure we had the space for our tallest appliances and told them how far apart to put them.

Behold!  The appliance garage!

Let's take a tour:

Starting at the top:

That very top shelf, since it's a little hard to reach,, holds the lightweight things like cake carriers, cupcake holders, pie carrier, etc up and out of the way until needed.  Below that is the first of the appliances and gadgets.  Sandwich griller, Crockpot, a coffee grinder that we bought to use only as our herb/spice grinder, and a knife sharpener.

Under that are two more shelves.  These had to be a certain distance apart to fit the tallest appliances.  We have a blender and a Vitamix.  We use the blender when we have something simple to mix up like sauces without needing the power of the Vitamix (which we use for soups, nut butters, etc).  Lastly, a four slice toaster and our juicer.  Hanging on the side of the shelf is a folding pasta drying rack.

Below that is our cookie dough mixer.  Yes, we have our Kitchenaid stand mixer as well (out on the baking table) but 2nd Man likes this one with its great design for making cookie doughs.  Then our food processor and a waffle maker.  Those two blender like containers are different types for the Vitamix above.

Below that is another shelf and then the floor of the closet.  On the shelf is the vacuum sealer and it's accessories, our pressure cooker (a hard to find oval which we LOVE) and our halogen infrared countertop oven (the OG air fryer, ha).

On the floor is mostly the canning supplies.  My large pot for the jars (all accessories such as lifter, rack etc are inside it), the "Jam Pan" for jelly/jam making, an induction burner so I can do all this on the counter or away from the kitchen, and then the dehydrator.

Close the doors, and everything is neat and tidy, just waiting to be used!

I did the entire room as a surprise for 2nd Man.  We had said we'd use it as a kitchen extension after we moved in, but he didn't have a clue I was going to finish it one day when he was at work.  I'll get some more before and after pictures when I did it (it's been a couple years now).

So we are creative in our storage and organizing solutions, which will come in handy!

FARM TRUCK HAS A VISITOR

When we go out to the farm, one thing I always do is take the truck for a spin, a few miles down the road and back, just to keep everything working well.

When I walked up this time a couple weeks ago, I didn't see it at first.

Then I saw it.  A large spider.

These have a variety of names.  Banana spider.  Golden Orb spider.  Garden spider. 

The web went from the edge of the window to the mirror and down to the bottom of the door.  As fearsome as they look, they are harmless and eat lots of bugs.  Of course, harmless or not, I don't want one flying into the truck when I lower the window while I'm driving, ha.

So I took a tree branch and relocated her to another spot in the yard.

This past weekend, we had to meet someone at the property to let them look at the site for an upcoming project.  The weather was drizzly and gray but hey...

...at least the yard still looked good from last week's mowing, ha.  The green is hanging in there but definitely not growing.  It will slowly fade until it comes back with a vengeance next Spring.

GOOD FOOD TIMES TWO AND HOBART SUNDAY

It's another weekend and now we're in December!  Yesterday was a yucky weather day, but today is a bit nicer.  My office is moving its location starting tomorrow, so it's been busy.

Time for some good food and some Hobart (as if you haven't had enough of him after his birthday post, ha).

Woke up this morning to a wonderful breakfast, eggs scrambled with hashbrowns and cheese and some bacon on the side.  Life is good and so is breakfast, ha!

And for some bonus food, Friday was December 1st and that meant...

...it was time to break open our Bonne Maman Advent sampler calendar and, well, sample!

2nd Man made a couple loaves of wheat bread and we tried the first two.  The first was "white nectarine-peach-lemon verbena".  It was good, the lemon verbena added wonderful note to the peachy flavor.  Might have to remember that for future canning.  The other was "strawberry-linden blossom". We really tasted mostly strawberry, not sure what linden blossom would taste like anyway, ha. But it was good.

And here is Hobart, photo taken mere minutes ago, he is on the table on his quilt sleeping the day away.  I was taking pictures and he woke up briefly and looked at me, as you can see above.  He was not happy that I had interrupted his slumber so I stopped.  Because...

#notspoiled

HOBART HAS A BIRTHDAY

 Our only kitty, Hobart, just had his birthday a few days ago.  We don't know the date for sure...but we celebrate it as November 27th.  We know he has a lot of fans here on the blog, and we understand, he's quite handsome.  We only have THREE kitten photos.  Sigh.  Smartphones weren't around and the phone pictures we did take were lost in upgrading phones.  The three we could find are posted here for the first time.

Here is his story (along with some pics then and now).

In January of 2006, we had go to visit my Mom who had just gotten home from the hospital.  We visited with her and then stopped for dinner on the way home.  We got up to leave when we finished but 2nd Man's cousin called to chat.  Since we were not yet in the car, we figured it was a good time to visit.  After spending about 30 minutes on the phone, we left the restaurant and decided to stop at a grocery store to pick up a few things.  As we were walking in, I passed a woman who I overheard asking someone else "how long has he been stuck in there? He's so cute".  

I stopped and asked and turned out, a little black kitten had been stuck inside a propane exchange rack outside the front of the store.  We went over and the guy said they were waiting on someone with a key but they weren't sure when they would get there.

We looked and there was a cute little face meowing and looking up at us.  I pulled on the door/gate thing and held it away from the bottom as best as I could and 2nd Man got down on the ground and stuck his arm in the space I created and he pulled out a little furry black kitten.

He held him up and said "now what?"

We already had two cats at home Sydney and Brisbane but of course we decided to bring him home and decide what to do later.  

I drove and 2nd Man held him on his lap and he sat there purring and looking around.  We got home and gave him a bath in the sink.  For a bit, we thought he might have been white since so much black was coming off, ha.  No telling how long he had been roaming the streets.  We got him all fluffy and kept him in the guest room with a small litter pan and some wet food to keep him separate from the other two.  

They were curious.  

It didn't take long...after spending most of the night playing with him, the next morning we decided he would be part of the family.  What's three if you already have two?  Right?  Ha!

This is the first picture ever taken after he got home.  I mean, come on, look at that face!  He was certainly comfortable on that blanket, making himself right at home the moment he got in.

We took him to the vet, he was healthy and got his shots.  We asked his age and they said he was about 7 weeks old so we counted backwards and that put him being born around Thanksgiving.  We chose the 27th since it was after the holiday.

With his clean bill of health, we introduced him to the other two.  It went well.

 

Sydney was like "another kitten?  Seriously?  I already went through this with Brisbane a few years back!"

It didn't take long before they were a band of brothers...especially when it was cold, ha!

Drinking water is something he's always enjoyed.  He LOVES his water.  Here's a funny picture, see the bowl above?  We have two of them the same style, same size, a yellow one and an orange one...above is the yellow one and below is the orange one.

He's definitely all grown up!

So that's how Hobart came to live with us.  We think about that phone call with 2nd Man's cousin.  If we had said we'd talk later, or didn't talk as long, we wouldn't have been walking in the store at the exact moment someone mentioned the kitten stuck in the machine and we would not have this wonderful kitty.

He is 18 now!

In human years, that's 88 to 90. He moves a little slower now, but really, he looks great for his age. The picture above was taken a few weeks ago. We think he's a pretty good looking 'old man', ha.

We have been asking Hobart, now that he's 18, where he wants to go to college, if he's going to move out on his own, has he registered to vote, etc, LOL!

We laugh but also understand that he has entered the twilight of his life.  As much as we all want them to live forever, we know that we must enjoy all the time we have with him and so we give him the best life we can.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOBART!

#notspoiled

LAST MOW OF THE YEAR

It was a long weekend but a bit cool.  Better than the weekend before of course.  Cloudy but nice.  It was time to mow one last time.  

I probably could have skipped it but thankfully, it was an easy mow...

...and it looks so much neater and cleaner, just in time for Winter, ha. We also have someone coming by this weekend to check out some things and we want it to look a little neater.

It was a fairly normal mow, distance wise and was a bit quicker, mainly because the grass was not very tall. It was more those stray long blades of grass and Winter weeds.  Better to just be done with it for the year.

Since the weather was nice and I had a wild hair, I went ahead and cleaned up the orchard area.  One of those things you put off till you just finally need to to it.  So I edged, used the electric mower between the beds and then rode the Zen Machine through to blow/chop/clean up the clippings from the first part.  Nice and neat and ready to go to sleep for Winter.

This is probably a boring post but tomorrow will be a fun one for all you Hobart fans, ha.

Update: Had some connection problems so post will be tomorrow.

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

Thanksgiving has come and gone and so have the leftovers, ha.

Turkey was roasted...

The dressing was made...

The Brussels sprouts were done...

Add cranberry sauce and serve!  (Brussels sprouts were on the side, not enough room on the plate, ha).

Oh, and of course 2nd Man made a pecan pie.

It was a good meal, just the two of us, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Well, the THREE of us...

...because Hobart makes three!!  Here he is laying in the middle of the kitchen floor with heat coming out from under the fridge AND the oven.  He is warm and happy and we just step around him.  Because...

#notspoiled

#wearegrateful

CRANBERRY CONUNDRUM AND SERVING DISH

Oh the great debate every Thanksgiving:

CANNED or FRESH?

Personally, we LOVE canned.  There is just something comforting and reminiscent of our childhoods and it's just darn good (Ocean Spray of course).  Perhaps it's simply nostalgic.  This year, there was something that went viral online and we just had to find one.  It took me some online shopping to find it and there are probably more available now or will be since Thanksgiving it over.  I ordered it a month ago hoping it would make it in time and it did...it's SO fun.

I finally found it at an online store, since sold out, that had 25% off if you signed up as a new customer and they had free shipping.  Win/win!

It is this special dish JUST for canned cranberry sauce, or as they call it "can-berry".

It is white ceramic (which makes the deep color of the cranberry stand out), it's shaped like a large, open can and even comes with a nice serving utensil as well to slice it and serve it.

Here it is in our own kitchen.  It's our new favorite Thanksgiving tradition!

THANKSGIVING 2023

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF YOU!

It's a quiet day for us.  Just staying in and doing our own thing.  There will be some good food for sure.  2nd Man made a pecan pie, some fresh yeast rolls are baking in the oven, the cornbread dressing is ready, the turkey meat is ready and we're going to have a Thanksgiving casserole.  Oh and we're already snacking on sausage balls I made last night.

It's cold here (for us) 40's and gray and overcast, should be nicer by the weekend.  For now, we will enjoy the day with some warm fuzzy socks on and watch movies.

We are thankful for each and every one of you who visit every day!

#lifeisgood

THANKSGIVING EVE

Twas the day before Thanksgiving and all through the house...oh wait, that's for a different holiday.

We're staying in and having a Thanksgiving for two, and we're 100% OK with that.  We had thought about having it at the farm, but the weather has turned cold and without heat out there, it might not be that enjoyable 'post meal' to sit around in the cold, ha.

Today, I have to work but 2nd Man is off and he is doing some pre-cooking.  A pecan pie and yeast rolls and probably the cornbread for the dressing.  When I get home tonight, I'll make one of our favorites, sausage balls, for us to snack on over the coming days.

Saw this and it made us laugh:

Poor turkey.

But he sure is good!

We hope you all have gotten everything you need and are preparing to have a great holiday tomorrow.

Any big plans or others with quiet plans?