Pages

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

It's Official - And We Are So Proud of Her!!!

It's official -- I am now the proud mother of a licensed massage therapist.  It hasn't been an easy row to hoe for Stephanie, that's for sure.  She has struggled, learned and grown hugely over the past few years.  But now she has her reward -- her license to practice massage therapy legally!!!  Hey, Stef -- what are you going to do now that you've earned the prize???  I feel safe in assuming she's NOT going to Disneyworld...  :-)

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Weekend --- .......

I love the weekend.  I live for the weekend.  It means I'm not at my desk doing tasks for my employer.  But at this time of year there is an even harsher taskmaster.  It is the harvest.  It cries "put away food"!!!!!  There is no ignoring this master.  You must only comply.  This past weekend, we got three lovely heads of celery from the deli-madhouse and promptly processed and dried said celery.  We took a trip to the orchard today and picked up a ton of new Ida-Red's to process (a proper amount having been made into a pie tonight -- the rest shall be dried).  Big Steve picked a babka bow full of tomatoes for drying.  If you've never seen our babka bowl, please imagine five loaves of babka rising together in one place -- that's how large our babka bowl is!!!

So tonight, after a trip to Price Rite, I've done a ton of french toast breakfasts for the freezer.  It has been a long weekend indeed.  But a good one.  So in the am, it's back to "work" for us.  At least most of my paid work is seated!!!!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Well I'll Be Dang Burned - This is a New One - Even for Me!

I was awakened at around 2:30 am this morning by a strange sound.  Something I had never heard before.  I asked Big Steve "Did you hear a sound?"  "Yes," he said "I coughed".  "No!  Something different!!!"  We were silent.  I heard it again!  We immediately got up to investigate.  In the dark, Elsa tore out of the dining room, through the kitchen and back to her bed, nearly knocking me over.  What greeted us is below -- that dog had actually been digging up the rug!!!

DSC00905

I'm still scratching my head on this one.  What would possess a dog to get up in the night like a thief and start digging up a rug?  It's just a good thing we haven't started the renovations on the downstairs yet, and our rugs are still of the, um, let's just call them the easily replaceable variety.

Kids these days!  They will somehow always find a new way to get in trouble!!!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Apples and Soldiers and Mail, Oh My!

I'm not sure how many apples we've processed and dried so far this fall, but we've only just begun.  I heard this years apple crop was a doozie, and I quite agree.  We've been buying the "utilities" -- those that don't "quite" meet the retail standard.  Frankly, they are beautiful and delicious just the same.  I'll keep the dryer running, loaded with apples, as long as I can get my hands on these babies.  We've been getting them from Golden Harvest Farms in Valatie, NY.  These are some of the nicest folks and the loveliest products you will find around here.  So friends, if you are in the area, stop by and say "hi" and have some of their wonderful apples, peaches, pears, pies, cider donuts, etc.  It's a real treat!!  http://goldenharvestfarms.com/

At any rate, we'll dry just as many apples as we can for soldier packages.  We've only just begun!  It's times like these I love my Excalibur dryer and understand why some folks have 2 or 3.  Someday!


Anyway, PLEASE ask me how you can be a blessing to a deployed soldier today.  I don't care how you feel about the war, and it doesn't really matter.  We're not talking about politics here, we're talking about the men and women who have given up their freedom so that you can enjoy all of your freedoms.  Just go here -- http://soldiersangels.org/.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Slightly Rescheduled First Annual Get Together at The Haney Place

Turned out to be very low-key and a lot of fun.  We thank those of our friends who showed up.  The weather was glorious, the food was plentiful and good (everyone contributed something), the music was great, but the company was the BEST!  Now, I must be getting old, because it's just 7:30, everyone has had a good time and gone already, the mess has been cleared away, and I'm just so glad to be sitting here listening to Big Steve on his guitar and enjoying a peaceful evening.

A few items of note:
  • Bob had to leave early because his suspenders were getting too tight, and we were all afraid for our personal safety;
  • Only a banjo player would forego the warm, fresh cornbread on the dining room table and head straight for the day old biscuits on the kitchen counter (LOL!);
  • Some banjo players can pick with one hand and pet a dog with the other -- you can't teach that -- that's a gift!
  • I had a chance to chat with Tom today for the first time, and he's just about the nicest guy you want to meet;
  • We had a semi-celebration of my sweet little Lekya's birthday (she turned six yesterday), complete with Easy Bake Oven, EBO expansion kit, and some awesome crafty type little girl gifts;
  • Small children can amuse themselves for hours in Big Steve's garden;
  • My man Ryan pulled himself away from his wolf pack and showed up hung over from his last party (shhh!!!);
  • Downtown Linda Brown has some serious 'splainin' to to!!!
Other than that, it was a low key, easy and happy day.  We will do this again.  And again.  And again!!!

I'll leave you with some of my horrible videograhic skills -- If this looks like fun to you and you weren't here -- so sorry.  I enjoyed your portion!



Friday, September 10, 2010

Apples...and Apples...and Apples...

We went to the orchard yesterday and picked up a ton of the loveliest "utility" apples.  I'm not exactly sure what qualified them as utilities, but I ate a few and they were first rate, as far as I was concerned. 



So today we had apple crisp for starters...


Needless to say, that's just about gone already tonight. 

Then I sliced up about a ton of them (9 sheets, or 15 square feet) and popped them into the awesome Excalibur to dry for the winter.



Tomorrow I'll do anther ton of them with cinnamon, for those who prefer it that way.  And we'll tackle some applesauce to put up in jars, as well.

Big Steve and Elsa would have rather been outdoors today, bless their hearts.


Wednesday, September 8, 2010

"Burp..."

So sorry...I didn't mean to burp like that.  But I just polished off a pint of Haney preserved beets, and they were scrumptious.  I remember back in the day, when I got my fresh beets from a farmer named Pearly Tooker, up in Gansevoort, NY.  I believe I bought those beets for $5/bushel.  I would put them up as quickly as I could, and go back for more.  That was back in the day when I had to count the servings per jar, and the folks in the family who would eat them, the number of times/week I could reasonably serve beets, and prepare enough for the year at mere pennies per jar.  Ah...the good old days.


Well, anyway, so now we're well-to-do, and we can eat an entire jar of pickled beets for a snack if we darned well please.  Life is so very good.  And it is a delight to plan tomorrow's evening meal - chicken fried steak.  Yummy!  Not gluten free, and I don't even care.  The cube steaks are already defrosting:



I'm going to try and post a shot of the freshly prepared chicken fried steak tomorrow pm.  We are going to visit family in Poughkeepsie early in the day.  If I have time to post after we feed the troops tomorrow evening, I shall post a picture.  Otherwise, we'll be heading out to hear the Dyer Switch Band at LT's Grill tomorrow night.  I hope to see many of you there!!!


In the meantime...we leave you with this:



Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A night off!

So Big Steve and I went to Emack & Bolio's tonight for the twice monthly bluegrass thingy that Steve likes to go to.  Normally, I'm too busy with the goings on here at The Haney Place, but tonight I was on staycation, remember?  Well, typically there are, at the very least, most of the crew from the Dyer Switch Band at the first and third Tuesday night thingy, and you can see them here:



Tonight, however, all I saw was this:



and this:


Oh dear....I would more typically expect something like this. 


Well, it just goes to show you, you never know.  Especially on staycation!!!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

They're Not Called Death Dogs for Nothing

If you are of the "Faint of Heart" variety, for whatever reason, the death dogs are not for you.  We've had them before here at the Haney Place.  We mostly save them for the dead of the summer, just like we did when I was a little girl having meals at our camp on the Sacandaga.  I only call them death dogs because they involve white bread buns, wrapped around frankfurters and slathered in butter, with a slab of bacon on top.  Put it all under the broiler until it's a heart attack on a plate.  Add some homemade potato salad...just sayin...

Hard to Post when You're Being Lazy

I don't think we had any idea how exhausted and stressed out we were.  The only thing we were capable of yesterday was to make 27 breakfast burrito's.  Browned breakfast sausage, scrambled eggs, shredded mixed cheese, all wrapped up into 27 flour tortillas...



Just brown your breakfast sausage and mix it with 1 lb. of shredded cheese and 24 eggs, scrambled.  Then scoop a goodly portion to the top of each 8" flour tortilla, then roll and wrap.  The result looks something like this:




And dozens in the freezer equals breakfast peace.  It's WELL worth the little bit of work.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Staycation - Haney Place Style

It's the end of the summer numbness, alongside the overwhelming reality of the garden coming in IN SPADES.  So Big Steve and I are taking a NINE DAY staycation.  Thank you Lord!!!  We'll blog daily about the goings on here -- Fall cleaning along with bringing in the garden.  It seems like just yesterday that we were putting those dear little seeds into yogurt cups of dirt...you plant, you sow.

At any rate, we'll leave you with this tonight.  This dog looks EXACTLY like our little Miss Elsa Magee!!  It is absolutely incredible.  This dog featured here, however, allows her owner to "dip" her.  If you have met our Miss Elsa Magee, you would know right away it was not our dog.  Anyway, put it on full screen, turn your volume way up, and enjoy!!!