Beauty Farming Life

What you say?  Chile?  Chocolate?  Yuck?   AU CONTRAIRE! This came from one of our grocery store chains in town, "Central Market" which is owned by HEB.  They go Hatch Chile crazy every season and this year they came out with this chocolate bar.  It's wonderful! Hatch Chile Chocolate Bar This one is dark chocolate.  It's smooth and creamy.  When you eat it, the first taste is sweet and rich and then as it melts in your mouth, the heat comes.  Kind of a spicy, smokey heat that lingers for a bit and then fades away.  Utterly delicious!  Great way to start the weekend!

Texas land and sky This is across the road from our property. It's nice Texas blue sky and green land spreading out.  It's such a nice change of scenery every weekend and my blood pressure goes down the moment we get there.  We're o ff to the farm today to see if I need to mow, and if not, we've still got some good inside projects we're working on that I'll share as soon as they are done.  I've also got another tree to plant, even though it's hot, I really need to get it planted.  We have some pictures to hang up, and I have a really cool project to finish. However,  change is in the air...or to be more specific, in the Gulf of Mexico.   A tropical disturbance is coming up from Mexico and will collide with an area of moisture that is moving from Florida toward this direction. We are at the intersection of those two arrows. They are saying we could have very heavy rains Sunday and Monday.  We need the rain, it's been almost a mon...

For the first time in months, we aren't going to the farm at least one day this weekend.  It's cold, rainy and wet. There is certainly nothing I could do outside and inside it would be cold as well.  You see, we don't have heat in the farmhouse.  We have had a couple of small heaters we've used a few times, but it really wasn't until this year that the house was fully livable inside (just got hot water last Spring).  So we had air conditioning via window units and that got us through the heat. Now the cold has arrived and t herein lies the quandary. What type of space heater to get? I know there are all types, propane, wood, gas, and of course electric.  In reality, at this point in the farm progress, we can't do anything permanent like central heat or a piped gas system.  Can't really do anything that requires any sort of venting out the wall or roof (need a new roof first).  So that really limits us to electric heat ...

Vintage Save Fats for Explosives poster, image courtesy of US National Archives During WWII, they somehow used waste fats in the creation of explosives, something I'm not going to "Google" for obvious reasons, ha. It was a great thing to do to help the troops and war effort.  Since they were already reusing as many things as possible at home, people were urged in this poster to take waste fats in to their meat dealer. The artwork on this one is definitely eye catching. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. We've been spending the weekend getting some projects done at the farm, yesterday, and today we are awaiting what they call "tropical downpours".  We'll see... Hope you are having a great weekend!

Vintage Plan For Winter Now poster, image courtesy of NY Public Library Well, with my post yesterday , and the cold weather encompassing much of the U.S., this one seems appropriate today.  It's a poster from WWII and urged people to conserve fuel that was needed for the war effort by winterizing their homes, and checking their heating systems. Wise words this Winter 2013 as well! Stay warm!

We call it the "Julia Wall". In fact, we have since we bought the farmhouse.  It was this big, blank wall as you walk into the kitchen from the living room.  It was too shallow for a piece of furniture, which would stick out into the path of the doorway.  Shelves would also have to be very shallow and thus not very practical.  The obvious use would be pictures but in a small house, where space is valuable, that just seemed frivolous.  But once the house was painted on the inside and we saw the empty, white kitchen for the first time, we just KNEW we had to have our very own Julia Child inspired wall.   2nd Man and I were huge fans of the late, great, Julia Child .  We've both read her biography and both watched her on television for years while growing up and then into adulthood.  She inspired both of us to cook, create and enjoy time in the kitchen.  And one thing we always noticed in the background of all of her kitchens was her ...

It's the holiday season and time for giving, so we're going to have a giveaway! A couple of weeks back, I blogged HERE about starting our composting adventure for the farm.  I found this book the other day at lunch and since it's geared toward beginners, I bought two so that we could give one away. This is the GREEN GUIDES edition of COMPOST by Rachel Strauss.   It covers 'how to use', 'how to make', 'everyday tips', 'why we should compost', 'what you can and can't put on your heap', 'different types of bins', and more. It's 256 pages long and full of information. So who wants to join us on a composting adventure? As always, and for those new to the blog, the rules are as follows : You need to be a "friend of the farm" (follower) and then leave a comment here on this thread letting me know that you want to be entered, because after all, it might be a book you already have. T...