A cowboy….
…and his cow:)
Last night, we helped at a harvest party at the church. It was especially nice that the grandsons could come. I think the girls did a great job dressing them up. We signed up to help with whatever Miss Carol needed at the event, so along with set up and clean up. Rob and I were assigned the “treat walk.” We used piles and piles of cookies and treats many church ladies made and donated. We played the music, stopped it, drew numbers….and what do you know? Every single person won! :). :). There were so many treats, so why not? We had a ball. I was surprised at how many children did not know what a cakewalk was or how to play. So I ended up leading them around and around the circle. Since we had several hundred children come to the event, and the ones who chose to play this game could do it as many times as they wanted, I ended up with over 12,000 steps by the end of the evening when they were added to the walk and the lawn mowing I had done earlier in the day. It was a double bonus to me! Rob figured some of them were young enough that with things being cancelled for Covid, they likely had never played the kinds of games that were there (cakewalk, ring toss, etc.). There was also a super cool blown-up slide no one had to tell them how to play, and a parking lot full of trunk-or-treat cars, each with a game inside.
Although much of the week was filled with babysitting, I slipped out to the garden one day and was delighted to find some good lettuce and snow peas. I also kept pulling up old tomato plants and other spent bushes. There’s a lot of outside work left to do, but I’m cleaning out the old plants whenever I get a chance, between rain showers. While cleaning out one raised bed, I found some small onions. I thought I had planted some green onions there, but…small, round onions there were. So I pulled them and we are eating them fresh.
Although we do have a bin full of baby toys that were given to us, Malcolm has decided a partially emptied water jug is a really good toy. He carries it up and down the hall, in and out of the rooms……for quite a while.
He also has his own style when it comes to hats….although I’m sure the rain won’t stay out of that hat! (It’s a colander)
I continue cooking from the freezers and pantries. This crisp was made from lots of odds and ends of frozen fruit. It’s mostly blackberries, with a few raspberries, blueberries and peaches thrown in. Ice cream was 77c/carton this week, so we got some. We also got cheese for $5/brick, 67c/lb whole chickens, 97c frozen pizzas, cream cheese for $1/pkg and some other basic cooking things.
Of course, we used our pantry, home-canned and frozen food, and made lots of tasty meals. We cooked the last older chicken left in the freezers, boiled the bones and made chicken-noodle soup, chicken salads, and just plain roasted chicken. I got 2 new packages of ground turkey, so used an older one to make meatballs. I saved the last bit of spinach in a bag by using them in the meatballs, even though they had been placed in a bad spot in the fridge and were starting to freeze a bit. All this rotation, and constantly using things that are coming to the end of their days is a bit of work, but it’s what keeps us eating food that is not freezer burned or old, purchased at the lowest possible prices.
Peanut butter was $1 a jar, so I bought 10 and used 1 to make peanut-butter/chocolate chip cookies. Most were frozen. I only have to make these every 2-3 months, as we don’t eat many cookies, but I like to have some frozen for times when we want them for one reason or another.
I’ve had the pleasure of watching babies, mostly Malcolm, for the past 9 days, for at least a little while each day and one overnight, as his mama and auntie are packing. I mostly did that during the evenings, as Jake and Michaela were here for their usual times, plus Jake stayed over one night. Rob, Patsy, and a couple of friends’ kids are over there today, helping them actually move it over to the new place. They’ve been dropping in for meals at unexpected moments, so I’ve been cooking extra. I’m glad they are finally actually moving now, although I think it will take a few days for them to get settled and the old place cleaned all the way. With the housing market the way it is around here, we are more than thrilled that they finally found a place to move into. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t cheap. But, they have another roommate so they can split the cost, and that helps, so they were able to get a 3-bedroom house. I’m happy for them. I’m itching to get my fingers into their boxes and help them unpack, but they were convinced that it would be more help for me to watch the baby today, so….I’m having a pretty relaxing day after all.
Those pictures are so cute. I know you are enjoying those grandbabies.
I am enjoying them so much.
Love the pictures of the two boys – the cowboy with his “Howdy, ma’am” look and his cow sidekick. Can’t get much cuter than those two!
The crisp looks really delicious. But then again, anything that you cook looks and sounds good.
Thank you. I have to say it’s hard to stay faithful to eating right when I cook stuff like that! Good thing so many grown kids, etc., keep dropping by to eat. I try to make things like crisp when I know some big kids will come by or I’ll eat it ALL myself If I can get away with it:)
Really cute cowboy and cow! 😀 They are growing up so fast!
Those are really good grocery prices! You got some good deals!
Thank you. The deals are fabulous right now. Overall, prices seem higher, though, so thank goodness for those loss leaders!
The cutest cowboy and cow, I ever saw! So precious!
The harvest party sounds like a lot of fun, and I’m glad the little ones were able to celebrate this year.
Glad your girls were able to find a house. Moving is a lot of work though.
Crisp is one of my most favorite desserts, and yours looks delicious. Hope you have a good week.
Thank you. It is shaping up to be a good week. I’ve had one of our sons over a couple of times, Jake an extra day, various ones popped in for this meal or that…I plan to do some more cooking tomorrow, just to get caught up in the food department! Good thing I love to cook.
It looks like you all had a wonderful time at the church harvest party! And those matching outfits on the boys are precious! Such cuties! So wonderful you can just take care of them while the girls do the moving 🙂
I have helped a little, but for the most part, let them do their thing while baby and I hung out. It was nice.
We have great sales here also and I am loving it. I am trying to load up on everything I can get but many things are already gone when I get there. I keep leaving earlier and earlier.
I tried something new. I bought two Boston Butts for $1.29, (the old sale price used to be $.99) cooked them in the crockpot overnight, then pulled the fat off and canned them as pulled pork. It is something I have never done because there is always so much fat it would be hard to remove it. This worked great. My plan is to open the jars and put the meat in the oven to heat up since Bill likes it crispy.
This coming week Aldi has butter for $1.99, limit of six and I plan on getting them and canning a few of those also.
Love those loss leaders also!
Jeannie@GetMeToTheCountry
I’ve never canned butter! You are always treating me to new canning ideas:)
I’ll join the chorus on commenting how sweet those babies look as well. 😀
I had to google what a cake walk was, I’d never heard of one before. Is this a fairly widespread American game?
A cakewalk is an old-fashioned game that is often played at schools, churches, and other gatherings. Sometimes, when I was a child, they would have a carnival at school to raise a little money for something and there were quite a few games played, each of which cost a dime. In recent years, where I have seen cakewalks is usually at a harvest party, or other large party at a church and it has always been free–just for fun. (I’ve seen it at more than one church). Each time I’ve been involved, we have taped 8 x 11 numbers to the carpet in a large circle. A CD player is on a chair or table and there is a basket or bowl with numbers in it. The person who runs the CD player just randomly clicks it on–then off–and the kids scramble to find a number. Then a number (or in this case many numbers) are drawn. Sometimes, I’ve seen whole cakes given away to the winner–the person whose number is drawn when the music stops. In that case, there is usually only one winner per round. In this case, ladies donated lots of cookies, rice cereal bars, brownies, etc. and so everyone who played could win since they were so generous. It’s kind of like musical chairs, only with numbers and desserts:). The kids were so excited when they were the winner. It still warms my heart to remember how happy they were. It didn’t seem to diminish their enjoyment at all when Rob kept calling out numbers until they all got a treat–they were still excited.