I get to do a project!

Hello my readers!  I know it's been a while, but that's how it goes when you have a baby!  She's growing like crazy and changing every day!

If you have followed my blog at all over the last few years you are familiar with my pup Fergus, and his penchant for barking at EVERYTHING.  So much to the point that I've had to put in a window covering to block his view, and unfortunately mine.

DIY heaven!

Pinterest is full of DIY clothes and other cute things for little girls.  So I decided to drag out my fabric stash and try one!  I will link to the sites where the tutorials or instructions are, so I'm just going to post the finished garment!  Let's have some fun!!

Melted Bead Suncatchers

It's still raining, and looks like it's going to rain all day long, what to do with two kids?  Especially when one HATES staying inside?  Pinterest has tons of ideas, and one that I have been dying to try is melted bead sun-catchers!  I found a great informative blog post about it on The Artful Parent.

Luckily I have a large plastic bead collection...

Memorial Day projects!

A beautiful Monday, Memorial Day, and instead of doing a BBQ we have been working on projects around the house.  My DH found a lot of 2x boards in the garage so instead of buying some to make a bunkey board for our antique bed we just used what we had!

Lessons Learned

Oh so many things that I am still learning....

1. DIY is always more satisfying than purchasing...cause you can tweak something so it fits into your home exactly the way you want it to! You can go from what were they thinking to something even better!!!! But always take before photos!!!! I didn't and now all I have left to "remember" this set is the photo you see below, with the lovely jewel tones...

It's deer season, and yes this post has pictures!

Image from buckmanager.com

I got my hunter safety permit years ago, but unfortunately my first season out, didn't get a deer.  In fact I haven't been out since that first season.  I don't have a proper deer rifle!!  My husband has one, and I used it that first year.  Maybe soon I can get one, then I too can go hunting!  I love venison, it's hormone free, free range, and very lean!  Not to mention very versatile. I cannot wait to start making yummy things with this beautiful deer.

With the temperatures bottoming out this past weekend I was not sure if my husband would be successful getting a deer.  He went out Sunday late morning to his hunting spot, and didn't see anything.  Then got up super early Monday morning (like 3am) to head back out so he could be in place when the sun came up.  By noon he hadn't seen anything except a bobcat...and he was coooooold!  Fortunately just a while later (like three hours later) a gunshot on another property spooked a doe out of her hidey hole and into his range.

After taking the requisite picture to send to me, he did the field dressing, don't worry, no pictures of that, and loaded her up for the hour and a half trip back home.  Now I have to say, we have the BEST neighbors ever, we borrowed a cherry picker (engine hoist) from one neighbor, and another came down to help us process it!  I'm not gonna post a ton of pictures, cause honestly my hands were icky because I was helping process...  But after skinning we started removing the meat.

And then all of the meat went into a cooler overnight.

The next day we started removing all of the fat and silverskin...

...and chunking it...

...to so we could grind it into burger...

...which is now sitting in the fridge, we still need to add some beef fat, not a lot, and then I will be making jerky, summer sausage, and a bunch of yummy things!  Hopefully he will get another deer either next weekend, if the weather cooperates, or during the antler-less portion that is the first week of December. 

Until then...Happy Eating!