Making Bread w/ Debbie

Debbie is little Miss Domestic and she was kind enough to give me a bread making lesson.  She shared a recipe that her mom invented.  It is so yummy and so healthy.  There is NO white flour in it, 1/3 cup of honey instead of sugar, and it even has sunflower seeds.  I discovered that I love sunflower seeds in my bread.  For being so small they add such a nice flavor and a nice crunch.  So now I am well on my way to my own domestic title.  All in the same week,  I have canned 18 pints of cherries and made 4 loaves of bread.  Wow!  Look at me go! :)

Canning Cherries

Before you can 'CAN' cherries you need to pick them!  How fun is that.  I am always talking to Jake about finding wild berries and picking them.  Doesn't that seem so Anne of Green Gables.   Alas, these cherries weren't wild, but they were FREE and we still had loads of fun.  The Bishop offered us some of the surplus from his cherry tree.  Once again we are reaping the benefits of Mani's hard work.Next came the canning part.  I must admit I was a bit nervous to can all by myself.  I looked online forever and found this great youtube video on canning.  The Bishop also lent me a cherry pitter.  (See below)  So much fun!  Cherries may be my favorite thing to can.  It is so easy and fast.  Just wash, pit, and can.  No blanching, no removing skin, and no slicing.   Piece of cake, man.  And so yummy!

However, the bad thing about cherries, I have learned, is that they stain counters (at least mine) really bad.  I tried everything to get the pinkish purple stains to go away.  I tried the normal cleaners like Fantastic and then Baking Powder paste.  But they didn't make a bit of difference.  Great, now that we are about to sell our house, I go and ruin our counters. :( Finally, online I discovered a story about George Washington making a cherry pie and being embarrassed about having dyed fingers afterward and how he used lemon juice to remove the stain.  I figured I would give it a shot.  This remedy worked the best so far, but I still had some faint stains.  What really got rid of everything easily was...da ta da da ta da...Mr. Clean white erasers.  These things are a miracle worker.  And it came off so easy with it.  I didn't even have to scrub.  Just a quick wipe with the miracle eraser and it was all gone.  I am so sold on this product I could do a commercial for them.

My dirty cherry stained counters

Father's Day / Fishing

Candid pictures are the best: Jake has his face stuffed and my mom looks Chinese. :)

The man of the hour, my father.  Doing what he does best, or at least what he is dang good at.  I caught one fish, Jacob caught two, and dad caught 20!

Home Improvements

This is what our front flower area used to look like.

Jake and I took a Saturday morning and ....

Voila!  It looks so much better.  I can't believe the difference.  We got the bark chips at the city recycle area for $15!

Jakes 29th B-Day

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I love Free Things!

"I saw a moose, I saw a moose, I saw a moose, hey, hey, hey, hey!"

So this is what it looks like right across the street from our house, moose and all.  I love the location of this house because I still enjoy all of the conveniences of living in the city, yet with all this across the street I feel like I am living in the country.