Oo!-Oo!-Oo! Lookin' Out My Back Door

 

My age is showing with the title of this post.  I have to show a few fall pics.  Our back yard here. 

Lots of leaves coming down now.

 

 

 The trees will be bare soon.

 

Lookin' out our front door, here. 

 

 

 

On another note,we made beans and rice for supper the other night.  I brought the beans to boil on our new rocket stove, then pulled out the sticks for the quick soak method.  Waited an hour, then started another fire, and brought it to a boil for 15 minutes.

 

Without lifting the lid, I put it into my mock wonder oven below.

 I lined this large tote with blankets and beach towels.  I lined the sunken part in the middle with a brown-black towel so the soot on the pot wouldn't get on my blankets.  I wrapped the brown towel around the pot and added the last quilt, put the lid on and took it into the house.  When we got back from evening church I cooked some rice on the stove, then pulled the beans out of the wonder oven, and they were done!!  We had beans and rice for supper with some salsa---m-m-good.  I just wanted to see if in an emergency I would be able to cook some beans without using much wood if we were without power.
I have plans on making a wonder oven that I got the plans for off of Pinterest, (now that I know it works).



Our Grandsons Basketball Games

 

Our grandsons, Cyle and Cole, started off their Basketball season with games with other home school teams in a multi state region here.  How cool is that?!  They both play for Omaha Lightning Teams from Omaha.  The number 3 with the ball here is our grandson Cole.  It was our first time to watch him play although he's been playing for a couple of years.   

 

This is him with his buddies waiting for his game to start 

 

 Our daughter, Jen, is helping keep score at the desk on the left, and Cole is on the right.

 

Our granddaughter Brittany, their sister (standing), supports them going to a lot of their games in Omaha.

There are 6 of our grand kids in this pic, along with our daughter Celeste (mother of 5 of them).  Hubby is standing--those benches get hard after a while.

 

Here is Cyle at the free throw line.  

 

...playing (#2) here... 

 

...and another shot of him shooting the ball. 

I am so proud of our grand sons, and I am so blessed to get to watch them play.

 

My sisters got to come to a few of the games.  It was a three day spree of games.  I can't remember how many games there were, but I think there were about ten that we watched....SO. MUCH. FUN!!!

 

My son-in-law, brother-in-laws, nieces, and nephews got to come to some of them also, many great nieces, and nephews too.  I didn't get a pic of them all.  Many of these pics are from our family photographer, Erin, our baby daughter, who is in none of the pics--sorry bout that.

 



Birthday Boy

 

Here's our Birthday Boy.  Hubby had a B-day, and we celebrated with our kids and grand kids.  I made: Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green beans, and Carrots.  The kids brought Homemade Rolls, Baked Beans, Trifle, and Pumpkin Cupcakes.  Yummy! 

I had Erin carry the cake to him so there would be no tripping by me this time, he-he.

Look what we received---a Rocket Stove.  It came yesterday afternoon.  We ordered it less than a week ago.  It's for emergency situations.  A few sticks is all it takes to boil a little water, which is what we were doing here, and today I plan on making some stew in the Cast Iron Dutch Oven that was my mom and dad's.

That little stove blackened up the bottom and sides of one of my good pots, so I will be using cast iron from now on.

I plan on making a wonder oven, and I think that will be a great combination if we should have another ice storm this winter--We had a terrible one in 2007, and were without power for 12 days.  That taught me a lot.  We had another one the very next year, and were without power for 4 or 5 days if I remember right.  It wasn't nearly as traumatic.  We had a propane camper burner for one pot, and I have propane, but this rocket stove just uses twigs and small scraps of lumber.  Kind of fun.  We also have a self-pruning-tree, as my hubby calls it.  It's a silver maple that drops a lot of small limbs, ALL. THE. TIME!  That will be a great way to get rid of them.  This stove even burns up the smoke after it gets going good--look, no smoke coming out of the top.

We had the sweetest little visitor last night when we were handing out candy--my great niece Arianna--isn't she the cutest thing.  My niece made her costume out of a used suede garment.  How cute is that?