Around home – Page 28 – Halle's Hobbies

Around home - Blog - Creativity

T Tuesday: in the ‘hood edition

October 25, 2016 - By halleday

Neighborhood that is. Over the weekend one of our neighbors hosted a chili cook off. Eight years ago the same family hosted a similar get together but our numbers have drastically changed in that time period. The majority of the kids are either gone off to college or working now…although we have added to the adult total with new families.

My white turkey chili was not the winner but I’m not at all sad. It was a fun day!

A couple days previous to the party I returned a scoring plate that I had borrowed form my crafty next door neighbor. One of these days I actually finish the card I started using the board. Anyway…I never come away empty handed from her house. She has a vast network of folk that are always looking out for each other and trading this and that.

She had a huge bag of stamps for me to look through, bottle caps from a former co-worker that saves them for me and some tea her DIL didn’t want. Look at the awesome stamps! Can’t wait to play in an art journal with them. The Passion tea by Tazo is a favorite of mine. The Calm I’ll likely use for tea dyeing as I don’t care for chamomile but I do enjoy lemon!!

I’ve also been working on a couple…well, three, oh maybe four projects over the past couple of days. As soon as they come together I’ll be sure to share. To my T Tuesday gals…sorry I never made it around last week…Tuesday got away from me with numerous things including these….

Mini-me’s first season of competitive volleyball is done with the exception of the end of season banquet. Choir concert season has just begun for J. The concert was wonderful. Did I mention they will be traveling to Manhattan in the spring to sing at Carnegie Hall!?! So excited for them.

Today’s schedule has yet to be determined for me. It’s kind of nice to have a fairly blank slate for a change.

What are you doing today?

Continue Reading
Around home - Blog - Kitchen

T Tuesday: apple days edition

September 20, 2016 - By halleday

Happy Tuesday everyone! This past weekend is one I both love and hate each year. It’s the weekend we help pick apples at our neighbors house. They have 5 trees that are HUGE!! As in you need an extension ladder huge.

(This is just a 6 foot ladder…)

Some of their family comes over as well as several of us neighbors. We spend the morning picking then bring our bags of apples home and usually the afternoon or next day processing.

This year we didn’t make time for processing over the weekend. Everyone was going here and there it seemed. Sleepover, Manhattan choir fundraiser, fabricating and 3D printing in the garage and of course, leaving time to watch our Vikings play the Packers (the big border battle) in the inaugural game in the new stadium…SKOL Vikings! Our Vikings won-BTW!!!

On to Monday…this was my morning view complete with coffee as fuel for the day ahead….

Normally I process in the garage for more room but since I was doing it solo I brought the garage can inside.

After hours of peeling I had every extra large container I own full of sliced apples.

As well as a stock pot full cooking down to sauce. And the dehydrator with 6 trays loaded.

I ended up with 7 quarts that I canned…

The rest went into gallon freezer bags to be made into sauce at a later date.

As you can see by this photo it was now after 3pm and I was exhausted,

I also managed to get two loads of laundry washed during that time.

So my grand total for the day was: 7 quarts apple sauce canned, 2 quarts in fridge, 4 gallon bags of prepped apples in freezer, and a quart bag of dehydrated slices.

So like I said when I started…apple days…I have a love/hate relationship with them.

Today I’m going to have coffee with some friends then likely come home and can a few pints of diced tomatoes…or else pull up the garden and do the tomatoes tomorrow before the next round of rain.

What are you doing today?

Continue Reading
Around home - Outdoors

T Tuesday: cats edition

August 29, 2016 - By halleday

Last week for T stands for Tuesday I had wanted to share a video with you. I am 99% sure it will work but first I want to give you a little back story.

We have a stray cat that keeps coming around. It’s really friendly to a point…such as it rubs itself all over you but if you pet it “improperly to its standards” it will spit at you. I have yet to figure out if its a boy or girl or if it still has front claws. Close inspection is definitely not allowed with this one.

Look at it’s funny tail. It’s curly like a pug dog. So weird and cute at the same time. We’ve taken to calling it Pumpkin for the gender neutral name. We do feed and water Pumpkin when he visits usually once a week. It comes when I call to it so it makes me think that it has a home but for goodness sake…keep it inside then.

Marvin is an inside only cat so these two have only met through the window screen. I think Pumpkin wants to be friends….

[KGVID]http://www.halleshobbies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/catmeeting.mp4[/KGVID]

We’re thinking about building some sort of shelter for it as we are not sure if this cat has a safe and warm place to overwinter. Since Pumpkin is quite feral and possibly belongs to someone we hesitate to bring him in as well as the fact that we know nothing about his health.

We are in search of another kitten though. We’ve visited a few and fell in love more than once. Who can resist a fluffy, playful kitten?!?

I’m battling a sore throat currently…more tea with honey and lemon is in order.

What are you doing today?

Continue Reading