I kept forgetting to post these and I have a lull at work right now waiting for something to get fixed... so here they are:

Miss Meghan helped me plant flowers around our quarter trees a couple of weeks ago and last weekend cherittfn pulled weeds and mulched - everything looks so pretty now!


This is our West Quarter - Pan there looks right out to the road as you enter the campground.


This is our North Quarter - I just love that little gnome!


This is not the 'official' East quarter but I had an extra Fairy and she likes it here.


This is the East Quarter - We were cutting trees last fall and Bill just happen to cut one like that and it looked like a chair - se we put in in the East for the Fey.


And finally the South Quarter - I should have gotten a pic of the other dragon we have close by - it's all curled up.

This weekend is Bill's son's Graduation at Rolla so we won't be doing much if any work on the land - but I do plan to go out Saturday night and do full moon!

I love Cornbread. I've always loved cornbread. You would think that something you love so much should be easy to bake - right? Hmmmm. Well, I seem to be the only one in the family that loves cornbread. Even Bill doesn't like it. Hrumph! So I don't get to make it often.

I've been having a hankering for cornbread for weeks now and I finally made some this past weekend at Bill's house. The first batch didn't rise at all and I attributed that to the yucky mix I was forced to use - I could have sworn I saw cornmeal in his cabinet! We thru out that batch.

Not to give up so quickly, I tried again the next day - adding Baking powder to try to get it to rise. It tasted funny. (That may also have been the yucky mix.) So that batch got thrown out.

So, I dug out my trusty old cookbook of Amish recipes (out of print) and made another batch on Monday with Whole Wheat White flour. It's too dry (and not sweet enough). The sweet I can fix but I'm afraid the dry is beyond me. I used buttermilk as that always makes my pancakes light and fluffy (and the recipe said I could). The recipe called for brown sugar and I doubled it but it still wasn't sweet enough.

Do you think I should try honey? Maybe that would give it the sweet and moist I'm looking for? Oh, and I didn't even bake it as long as it said because it was getting rather dark on top so 400 at 25 min is too long.

HELP! I want to make some good old fashioned corn bread that tastes good - sweet but not too sweet and moist... oh and good for you ( like whole wheat flour if possible)... any ideas?

Weighed in last night – have lost another 1.8 pounds for a total loss of 66.8 – Woo Hoo! Slow and steady – my doctor was very happy with me at my last checkup. Health screenings are tomorrow here at work – all they are doing is drawing blood but they are going to do a massive amount of tests on it. This is how I found out last year that I was border line diabetic. My doc had told me to loose weight or this year I would be on diabetic meds. I saw my mother do that and wanted no part of it – so here I am 66.8 pounds later. My sugar levels are normal!

The kids are great – they encourage me. Last night Aubri made homemade whole wheat pizza dough and I topped my pizza with mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, garlic and oregano – was yummy! Tonight we are having Weight Watchers Chicken Carbonara with Fettuccini – out of one of the new WW cookbooks. Good stuff – I made it at Bills a few weeks ago and it tastes like I’m cheating! I told Bill at the time – the kids are going to love this stuff!

Got a call from Tom last week – he has double tapped in one of his classes so they are rolling him back to another class to retake it. He called last night very frustrated. Seems the stuff he needs to study isn’t available in the ‘out of training training’ class they have him in temporarily until he can get rolled back into another class. And his class was the last to use a specific computer program and now he will need to use the new one – but they only have 4 computers for 40 students so he only got 30 minutes to try to learn the new program. Poor boy, they won’t even let him help some of the guys from classes behind his that he has already passed the stuff on. The teacher in him is sitting there on his hands with nothing to do.

We won’t know what his new graduation date is until he rolls into his new class – and passes the next test. I imagine sometime in July – probably right around Bill’s birthday - so much for plans for a birthday Pig Roast at the property.

Plans for the weekend include checking out excavator rentals for digging the septic tank at the property, having a couple of friends out, and just general work around the place. Bill says he has the floor almost ready for the hardwood upstairs in the shop. Once we get the hardwood floor down up there, we can start working on the walls – insulating is first on the agenda then the plumbing – we have water inside now but only a tap in the utility room. Have to get that septic in before we can put drains in and really get the plumbing squared away. Will be nice to have a toilet in the shop so we don’t have to keep running back to the outhouse or back to Bill’s house!

The package of black beans says to soak the beans overnight and then cook for 2 hours until tender... it takes at least 8 hours to soak and then another day and a half of cooking to get them tender.... just sayin.