Odds & ends

Been a week of trying to get little things done, you know the things that always get put off cause bigger things need done.
We moved a lot of the wood from the trees we cut down, I had to help lift some of the real big ones into the back of the truck and Dave got the rest, well except for a 8 foot log and another odd piece that needs cut up behind the chicken coop.
We haven't even started to cut up the 4 or 5 dead trees up in the woods that Dave cut down before they fell down.

Watching Papa throw wood out of the back of the truck. Till she saw Lizzie Dog.

If you look at the right side of the picture here you can see our old wood truck, it needs a transmission it won't go backwards anymore but it will go forward. We had to take out the battery this last weekend and put it on the battery charger. Then the truck started with no problem and we drove it around the farm to make sure all was alright with everything else. There was a mouse living in the engine compartment, not good.
We checked the upper pond to make sure the water was still fine and it is.
It is now very dry with only having about 1/32 of rain this month. We might get some this afternoon 50% chance.
I got a batch of jam made and used my steam canner to process it, I love this thing. You only need 2 inches of water to process fruits, tomatoes and etc.
Back to Basics 7-Quart Aluminum Home Steam Canner


I made a Vanilla/Chocolate Swirl cake to enjoy this week.

 Chocolate Swirl pound cake
350 deg. oven. Bake 1 hour or till done.
2 & 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup butter or margarine
3 1/2 cups flour 
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup cocoa to be added to half of the batter once mixed.
Grease and flour a tube pan and set aside. Cream butter and sugar as normal add eggs, mix then rest of ingredients. Take out half the batter and put in another bowl. Add cocoa to half in mixing bowl and mix.
Put vanilla batter into your pan then drop chocolate batter by large spoon fulls on top of the vanilla. Take a knife and swirl chocolate around into vanilla and put in oven.
This is also in our cookbook.