Birds

This was the view out my office window while I was happily eating my lunch one day last week.

I immediately stopped enjoying my lunch because I knew my bird feeders were hanging empty, for about two days. First thing I did was fill them up when I got home. Yes, I had my camera with me. I pretty much bring it with me where ever I go.

Wedding Photographer Attempt

Decorating with Squash

I've begun to put out the fall decorations around the house.  I think this will be my favorite this year.

The scale sits on the kitchen counter and I bought it at a thrift store in Syracuse for $3.99. Yeah, $3.99. I guess even thrift stores want you to believe you are getting a better value when establishing their prices. Now if I could just find an old scale in an antique store.

I have an update on the pumpkin storage. Go read the comment from Maggie on yesterday's post. There is a link explaining the current situation. Thanks Maggie!

OpPS

This is what happened when I didn't follow my own recipe for Pumpkin Bread.

Not to worry we ate very bit of the bread on the outside of the cans.

Did you know there is a canned pumpkin shortage? Amie went to three stores in LA before she found any and Mom didn't have any in her hometown store. The manager of my grocery store told me the bakery wouldn't be having any pies this fall season. Better buy your canned pumpkin now, you might not find any when everyone else is trying to buy it when the season really kicks in.

Portrait Photography

This was the first of my hopefully, many attempts at portraits with my new Canon T2i. I've also started taking all my photos manually focusing. Manually focusing has been very difficult for me to get right. It does make for much better photographs and I'm getting better at it.

                                                         My son has been busy learning to use my old Canon Rebel XT. He prefers nature shots. He sent me a couple of his first photographs. He seems to have gotten down the manual focusing.

I wouldn't have stayed around long enough to even attempt snake photographs. National Geographic here he comes.

First Day of Fall

This photo was taken on September 11th. We have had many more leaves turn color over the last 13 days. I LOVE fall.

Wordless Wednesday

Lawn Mower

Remember our Craftsman mower that lasted for 19 years? Remember our new Craftsman that was featured one day during my August break? I loved mowing the lawn. It was great exercise. Well, apparently I'm terrible at mowing. So very, very, very bad at mowing.

I ran over a little, maybe not so little tree stump. That stump was big enough to cause my mower to take up smoking and stop running.
I can't remember what we paid for the mower & I don't even want to pull out the owner's manual with the receipt attached. Darn, darn and darn.

Arts in the Park

The 21st annual Arts in the Park was Saturday. It's a benefit for our library. The library also sells used books which looked to be very popular.

Mom and Donna came up for the day. I think it may be the fourth or fifth time they've come up for Arts in the Park. It was a beautiful sunny day!
I served a lunch of field green's salad and Ham/Cheese/Broccoli Rolls.

The rolls look really nice after baking and tasted great. Although, they were a lot of work and I'm not sure if I would make again.

Hunting Camp

Last Saturday Amie & I went to a "Fall Party" at a members only hunting camp.

Above is the bridge that we walked over to get to the beautiful woods pictured below.
Amie spotted the huge pile of animal droppings. What are they litter box trained?
I loved the bench. Although I don't think it's sound enough for an adult to sit on.

Only 35 minutes from our house & in all my years I've never been to this town before.

A few of the trophies mounted on the front of one of the cabins.

It was a great day in the woods. I want to go camping now! Camping, not hunting.

Morning Fog

Yesterday morning, on my drive to work, I pulled over to attempt a photo of the beautiful morning fog.

I took six photos on three different settings. I have so much to learn with this new camera. I had no idea the learning curve would be so large. Also, I started uploading the photos onto the blog in smaller files, the original photo file is very large. Hope the quality is not diminished.

Wordless Wednesday

Hot Banana Peppers Canned

From start to clean-up finish, three hours.

My eyes were burning, I must have sneezed 20 times.

Working with peppers inside is no easy deal.

Mick thanked me.

I won't eat anything even remotely hot.

I made pints and ended up with 13.

Per quart jar

- 1/2 teaspoon of Oregano (I used fresh from my garden.)

- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

- 4 cloves of garlic

- 2 teaspoons of salt

- 4 tablespoons of olive oil

- 1/2 & 1/2 water vinegar solution to fill jars

Let sit two weeks prior to eating.

High School Graduation Party

This party happened in late June. It was a hot Friday evening. Sean had a ball at the party, pun intended.

Kelsey, now a Cornell student with her proud parents.
The "this is your life" photo display. This was not the trend when our kids graduated.

Ke, she traveled the farthest to attend the party, with Dan.

Loved the cupcakes!

I bought the chicken cage at an Antique Show last month. It reminded me of the lobster cages from the New England states. I bought it at the start of the sale and the dealer held it for me until I left, two hours later. He told me he could have sold it three times over within that time. I brought it home and tried to hide it from Mick, with NO success. I'm sure he wishes I wasn't at the sale so early. Anyway, we are going to look for four old iron wheels for the bottom, put glass on the top and use if for a coffee table. I may have to sell it once it's transformed or change out one of our two current tables.

DownWind Outdoors

This poor little guy had a injured leg. The only animal at the farm, we think, that was hurt. Eric took a liking to him. Eric LOVES animals. He always has. You wouldn't know he has such a liking to animals by his new website and hunting endeavors.
Take a few minutes actually, several minutes are required to look over his website.
DownWind Outdoors
Don't worry about losing the link because I will continue to have it listed on the left sidebar of the blog. Make sure you "Sign the Guestbook" and turn your speakers on prior to going to
DownWind Outdoors.

Wordless Wednesday

I dug out from my herb garden one of each herb to keep thru the winter in the house. I've had good luck in the past with a very, very sunny kitchen window. We don't have a sunny kitchen window in our current house so the pot will end up in the guest room.

There is nothing better than using fresh herbs in your recipes!!

Happy Birthday.

You will never guess how old I am today! : )

It's been two years since we've made spaghetti sauce. We love homemade spaghetti sauce!

I boiled it down for about four hours. When using Roma tomatoes there is not much boil away.

The fun part, pouring into the jars.

We ended up with nine quarters and two pints using half a bushel.

Wish I had taken a before photo. You can see on the ground how much was cut off. I love the new shape of the tree.

Wordless Wednesday