Great Lunchtime Sammy

Elizabeth and I were trying to figure out what to eat for lunch Wednesday when nothing in particular seemed to tempt us. We decided on a twist on a "normally plain" egg salad sandwich. We started with an organic spelt flour tortilla and then layered the following:

Organic green leaf lettuce

Egg salad

Crisp red bell pepper slices

Balsamic capers


We used the egg salad recipe from The Empress tea book. We especially liked the freshness of the chives in this recipe. The bell pepper kept the sandwich fresh tasting with an added crunchy texture. It also helped keep the egg salad from tasting too rich and bland. We added the capers because, well because we love capers! ;-)

~~ Laura

The Fawn ~~ by Elizabeth

I was looking at the picture that we took of the two fawns and was inspired to write a poetic story:



Under a great masted oak sat a fawn with wistful unflinching eyes,
gazing on the bright beautiful sun that shone upon the masterpiece of God's creation~~nature.

The trees waved gently in the hollow wind
that passed unconsciously through the stillness of the leaves.

The little fawn trembled at the sight of a rabbit
hopping about on the rich brown earth that was firmly implanted below the stems of the green grass.

Then the sun died into a white clear moon
that shone brighter than the stars in the heavens above.

It was night beheld in a suspense of darkness, faded with clouds of dark purple hue.

The fawn lay down in the sweet smelling earth and fell asleep.

~~Elizabeth

Our Growing Animal Family

Here are the two newest additions to our animal family! We saw these to little fawns 3 nights ago after dinner.

Previously we had seen them two different times, one of which was after music lessons driving through our driveway. Muddy stopped the car so that I could sneak in and get the camera. So while I was slowly creeping along, and almost passed the car, they started running away! And no, it wasn't that I had scared them off, oh no, for I was as quiet as a mouse!

It was the welcome committee of our one little Bichon Frise (barking his welcome!) that scared these poor little fawns off!

~~Laura

We're Selling at the Farmers Market!

She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Proverbs 31:24



She rises also while it is still night
And gives food to her household...
Proverbs 31:15

These last couple of weeks have been REALLY busy! We've been participating in a couple of local Farmers Markets! The first one was at 9:00 a.m. so we started baking at 4:00 that morning. This past Friday it didn't begin until 3:00 p.m. so we had a bit more time. It was a much larger market, so we still started baking at 5:00 a.m. to be able to bring many more items. As you will see in the pictures, we baked and baked and baked and baked.

The baked goods included ~

Challah Bread

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

Daddy's Favorite Sticky Buns

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I also had a selection of Aprons and Knitted Baby items. Elizabeth was the one who made those CUTE flip~flops.

We sold out of all of the baked goods within the first couple of hours. (Daddy was sad that there were none left over for him. :-) We had SOOO much fun. We are now getting ready for this Saturday's market.

Here are some of the 'Highlights' of our first two markets:

~~Laura

Growing Garden Toddlers

She considers a field and buys it;
From her earnings she plants a vineyard.
~~Proverbs 31:16

We thought that we would give you an update on the garden. These are the same plants that you saw as baby seedlings on our kitchen table.

The pictures include~
Corn, okra, swiss chard, beets, cucumbers, haricot verts, charentais cantaloupe, a variety of peppers, lots of different tomatoes including heirlooms, and pictures of the whole garden at different angles. Mixed in there are also basil, thyme, chives, carrots, blackberries, and of course compost piles.

Every meal includes something from this mix. The only thing that we have to add is a bit of organic meat for daddy, and some homemade bread. (Beans and rice sometimes find their way to our plates.)

~~Sisters and Muddy

Knitting Bag

Here's a picture of the bag I knitted to keep all my knitting projects in. It was huge when I finished it, but then it hit the washing machine with hot water. When I was choosing the yarn from the different colors, I was immediately attracted to these soft colors. Later, I realized that they coordinated with my bedroom wallpaper.☺ I love to felt items. I made a felted black winter hat for Muddy last fall. We'll post a picture of Elizabeth's knitting bag another time.

~~ Laura

Blackberry Cobbler

While in Seattle (one of our favorite places on our vacation), we went frequently to a really great seafood restaurant. One day at lunch, we decided to try their wild blackberry cobbler for dessert. It tasted DELICIOUS! My dad especially liked it! So seeing the outrageous uproar that it caused, Elizabeth, Laura and Muddy, decided to make a Blackberry Cobbler for dessert on Father's day.
Elizabeth and Muddy gathered the berries and Laura made the cobbler. The first picture below is of our own blackberries from our garden! YUMMY!!
(Just to mention, our dad was really surprised, and ate every bite!! )
~~ Sisters

We Need Your Help

A friend of ours is in Korea on a mission trip with her family.  They will have been there six months when they return in August.   She has informed us that she is in need of Bible verses relating to autumn and leaves (they are working with a homeschool coop).  She also would like to know people's favorite verses.

Please leave any ideas on the autumn/leaves verses on comments.  And if you have a particular Bible verse you go to frequently, please let us know that also.  We'll send this information to her by next week.

Thanks for the help!

~~Sisters 

Window Treatment Ideas

Here's some fun window treatment ideas.
They are very inexpensive and use unique materials.
~~Laura

The first one is in our laundry room. I spend sooooo much time in there, it's like my second bedroom~~Elizabeth and I are the home laundresses.



Muddy bought a black curtain rod and hung a table runner on it's side from clips. She found this table runner on sale at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. Since she likes to decorate with roosters, she knew she could find a place for it.

This next one is the door that leads from the breakfast room to the backyard.

Muddy had seen a picture in a French Country decorating book that used a piano scarf as a window treatment. She found this shawl in a tea section of an antique store (the shawl was new). When she brought it home, we thought we were going to use it for dress up, but she had another idea. It is held up with brass head pins.

High Tea At Home

Whew!!! What a busy week we've had. It's not finished yet, but we wanted to share some of what we've been doing lately. You'll be seeing the end of our bird story soon as well as another canning session and more handwork. So, on with some more posts.

We decided to have high tea at home, just the same as the one we had at The Empress. We pulled out our china that we've been collecting from antique stores over the years. It doesn't all match, Muddy just buys pieces here and there when she finds something she likes~~it makes it more fun. We used dessert glasses from World Market for the fruit, and our background music was a CD that The Empress sells in their tea shop. It is variations on Pachelbel's Canon with ocean sounds from their island.

We started out with the healthy part again. Ours was a fruit mixture of raspberries, strawberries and grapes~~all organic, of course.☺

Next, we had three types of tea sandwiches. We made ours from recipes in the tea book from The Empress, except we used whole wheat bread instead of white.


Here are the carrot, ginger, cream cheese sandwiches.

Next are the cucumber, horseradish, cream cheese.

Finally, our favorites~~egg salad on toasted baguette slices.
Laura doesn't like egg salad at all, but these turned out to be her favorite sandwiches ever! (Muddy's too)

These are the scones. We used their recipe instead of ours since it was Empress day. These were quite yummy, but ohhhhhh so rich and fattening. You could really taste all the heavy cream and butter that was used. Well, at least we used all organic ingredients? Does that count?

This is what happens when one gets talking and forgets she is whipping cream in a mixer. Butter anyone? Oops. Thankfully, we had extra cream from the scones to make more. Fresh Butter was served to the head of the household for dinner☺

Here's the finished product. Scones made even more decadent by adding homemade whipped cream and home canned strawberry preserves. Our father dove into these when he got home.

Of course, what's a tea party without tea?

Two types of tea was way too much, but really gooooood~~
Organic decaf--Earl Grey and China Green. Wonder why we drank so much at The Empress, but couldn't finish ours at home? It made great iced tea for Daddy at dinnertime.

Yummy!!

Oops! We told you we weren't professional photographers.
We'll have to learn how to rotate our pictures on this sight.

That's all folks! Giggles
~~Sisters

Part 5 of Precious Things

O how wonderful and precious are Thy thoughts to us, O God!

Outlined in Creation, blazoned on Redemption's banner broad;

Infinite and deep and dazzling as the noontide heavens above;

Yet more wonderful to usward are Thy thoughts of peace and love.