This morning I woke up a little late and was getting ready for church when I realized it was the 5th Sunday. Now, I guess to most folks that wouldn't make any difference if they were going to church. But to me that means we are not having preaching at my church today.

I'm not sure if this is the correct term today, but my preacher is what used to be called a circuit preacher. That means he preaches at 3 different churches every Sunday. He has a total of 4 churches. He goes to the two biggest churches every Sunday and the other 2 every other Sunday. But, on the fifth Sunday, he gets to rest and only goes to one church, which alternates. He's a very busy man! His first service is at 9 a.m. then 10 and finally 11 is his last.

Today wasn't our turn, so there were was no preaching at our church. Since I had forgotten he was going somewhere else, I didn't have time to make it to the services at the other church in the next town. So, instead I read the Bible and a devotion and we had our own discussion.

What about y'all? Do you have a circuit preacher, or have you even heard of them?

That's what my husband told me after we ate tonight. He said it was the best! We had meatloaf, stewed cabbage, fried zucchini, and fried squash. I didn't even tell y'all the best part, my little one ate the squash and zucchini! That is so awesome! Some of you asked if he helped plant the garden yesterday. He's only 21 months old, so he didn't really help. He does try to pick stuff with us. Today he got a bucket and picked some mushrooms out of the yard, lol!



The squash and zucchini are the first picks from our garden. I am so excited to be able to go out there and pick some food for supper! The cabbage was given to me by my cousin who picked it out of their garden. Everything was locally grown, except the hamburger.

Today while my son and I were outside, we decided to pick our lunch from the garden. The lettuce was looking really full, so we cut some out. It's supposed to grow more once you cut it, but since it's getting warmer, I don't know if it will or not.


My salad was really great! It's the first thing we have got out of the garden this year, so I think that makes it even better! My son loved it too! If only my little one would eat something like this. Have y'all got anything from your garden yet?

Some of my hens have been loved just a little too much by my roosters. I have one hen who we call baldy. She is looking pretty naked lately. Actually, quite a few have lost feathers on their backs. While I was looking at Danni's blog about a month ago, I saw something that would help-chicken saddles.


Chicken saddles are made to protect the hen's backs from the roosters claws. I ordered them from someone on Backyard Chickens.


Mine came last week and I put them on the hens with the worst feather loss. Now they are very fashionable and hopefully this will help protect their backs. I always wanted cows, now some of my chickens have cow print saddles. So, I guess in a way, I have cows now, lol!

When we went to the farm last week to pick strawberries, I took home some recipe cards. One of the recipes was for peach enchiladas. It sounded kinda strange to me, but one of the other moms tried it while we were there and said it was really good.


I tried it this weekend and it was awesome. It tasted kinda like a peach cobbler, only with more breading, and the breading is my favorite part. We ate half of it when I first made it. Later we had the rest of it with vanilla ice cream. I think it might have been even better with the ice cream. Yummy! If you'd like to try the recipe go here, and scroll down, you'll find it under peaches and click on peach enchiladas. They have a lot of recipes for different fruits they sell. Go take a look, you might find something else you like.

Today I am posting this song in honor of Memorial Day. 
I am thankful for everyone who has served our country!

America The Beautiful

1. O beautiful for spacious skies,
for amber waves of grain;
for purple mountain majesties
above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.

2. O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
till all success be nobleness,
and every gain divine.

3. O beautiful for patriot dream
that sees beyond the years
thine alabaster cities gleam,
undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self-control,
thy liberty in law.

Our homeschool group had a field trip to a farm to pick strawberries the other day. You are probably wondering why we went to pick strawberries somewhere else when we have them in our own yard. Well, my son likes to go with the group and have fun with his friends.


We went to a farm about 30 minutes away that grows peaches, pumpkins, and strawberries, along with smaller crops of other vegetables and fruits. They read a story for the younger children, then we all got to eat a strawberry and have some strawberry ice cream. My little one doesn't like strawberries, but loves any kind of ice cream.


After our ice cream we took a hay ride out to the strawberry field to do some picking. They said because of the weather being cold lately and rainy the strawberries weren't as plentiful as past years. My son filled up his container pretty quickly anyway. After that we had a picnic lunch.


The strawberries from there were good, but ours in our yard are way juicer!

We have been blessed with a lot of rain lately. The garden is loving it! The potatoes have grown a lot! We keep having to stack more bricks. It's now about 2 1/2 feet tall. Here lately we have been adding dirt every few days.


The squash also have grown so big! They are starting to flower with little squash!


The okra is growing too, although a little slower.


Apparently we bought the wrong kind of green beans. Instead of bush beans, we bought pole beans. So, we have been improvising so they will have something to climb up.


The cucumber plants are starting to spread out.


While not quite as big as the squash, the zucchini are growing too.


Most of the canteloupe we planted came up.


We planted almost a whole row of watermelon, but only 4 plants came up. This should be plenty, though.


We also planted carrots, onions, and peppers, but none of them came up. Well, some of the carrots may have came up, but when we weeded my son may have pulled them up by accident. Also, remember all that lettuce that looked really good early on. Well, I only have 1 plant that grew up. This is it below.


I also tried growing tomato plants from seeds, but they are taking forever. They just kinda seemed to stop growing, so I gave up and bought this plant.


Do you have a garden? How is it doing?

Since we way over-planted our garden with a lot of squash and zucchini, we had been thinking about getting a freezer. But, our funds are kind of tight right now. The cheapest new freezer we could find was around $180. We did not have that kind of money, so I thought about looking for a used freezer. They are really hard to find around here at appliance stores and I was kind of leery of buying one from someone I didn't know. Just because I wasn't sure if it would really work or not.


While searching on craigslist the other day, I found an ad for a huge freezer. Problem was, I didn't really have the room for something that big. But, the ad was from a guy who sells appliances and it said to call if you needed something. So we called, and he had a couple more smaller freezers. We went and looked at them all and decided on the mid-size one. It was only $75 and still 15.5 cubic feet big. A little bigger than we wanted, but it still fits. Now, I just need those vegetables to mature, and I am good to go!

Do you remember the strawberry plants we planted on March 25? The picture above is a strawberry I picked off of them. If you don't remember how small they were when we planted them, they looked like this.


The plants were so tiny, we weren't sure if they would live or not. But look how big they have gotten in just seven weeks. They have grown by leaps and bounds.


I was told they wouldn't bear fruit the first year, but they have -lots of beautiful red strawberries! They are so much juicer than the strawberries from the store! I am so happy to have fresh strawberries in my yard.

I was playing around taking quiz after quiz when I came upon this one, and thought I'd share it with y'all.

What state should you live in?

You Should Live in South Carolina

If you don't want to live in South Carolina, you might also consider: Alabama Kentucky Oklahoma Kansas Mississippi

It's nice to know I'm living where I'm supposed to, lol! How about you, are you living in the right state?

I would like to thank everyone for entering my Blogoversary giveaway! I appreciate each and every one of your visits and comments!

The winner as drawn by random.org is:

Result: 13 - Barb J.

Thanks for playing!

I received The Read and Share DVD Bible Volume 1 from Thomas Nelson Publishers to review. This DVD is a collection of 13 stories from the Bible. It's aimed at young children. These stories are told through 3 minute animated clips with mostly narration. Some of the stories included are Adam & Eve, The Flood, and the birth of Jesus.

I sat down to watch it with my 21 month old and my 12 year old. I thought this would be great for my toddler since he loves Veggie Tales. But, he got bored very quickly. Every once in a while he would come back to look at it, but mostly he played with something else. The animation is fairly simple and it's not really exciting. It has a musical underscore, but nothing to sing and dance to like the stuff he is used to. My older son watched the whole thing and thought it was boring.

I realize my older son is really too old for this kind of DVD and maybe my youngest is too young. I think a good way to use this would be in addition to a Bible reading on that particular story. After reading the Bible story aloud, the story could be played on DVD. I may try this when my son is a little older and can understand better.

The other day while looking at grocery store sales papers, I saw an ad that caught my eye. It was for a free crockpot at Bi-Lo. Y'all remember what happened to my last crockpot, right? If not, read this.

In order to get the crockpot you had to buy $50 in fresh meat. That was pretty easy for me to do since my husband is a really big meat eater. I got lucky, apparently they didn't have very many crockpots and it was only while supplies last. Now I have a brand new crockpot and it matches my kitchen!