Why we haven't been posting

Sorry, we haven't been posting lately. Our mother and little brother were in a bad car accident. Fortunately, our little brother wasn't hurt but our mother was life-flighted to Asheville. She is back home now and is doing much better. We've been staying with Grand for the last two weeks, and she has been doing all the cooking. That's been the best part, eating Grand's cooking every day. Daddy has been taking good care of mama. Daddy is going back to work and we will be taking good care of Mama with Grand. Thanks for bearing with us.

Grand's Scrumptious Cheese Bread

This is a fantastic little bread recipe that grand has been making for years.The ingredients are something you'd have on hand in the kitchen. It can be from mixing bowl to oven to table in less than one hour. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Ingredients

3¼ cups of All-Purpose Flour

¼ of a cup of white sugar

5 teaspoons of baking powder

1½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon of garlic powder 

2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

2 beaten eggs

2 cups of milk

2/3 of a cup of vegetable oil

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 400°
2. Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans
3. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder
4. In a second large bowl beat togeather eggs, milk, and oil
5. Stir the wet ingredients (eggs, milk, and oil) into the large bowl of dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder)
6. After mixing well stir in the two cups of cheese. If you would like, you may save 1/4 cup of cheese to sprinkle on top of the loaves before baking. However, we like to top the loaves with nuts and seeds, Poppy seeds, Sunflower seed (Used in photos), Sesame seed, and, of course, chopped pecans.
7. Pour the batter into the greased pan
8. Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean

Remember this recipe makes two loaves

Hints From Grand

1. It's a good idea to line the loaf pan with parchment paper
2. If you would like, this bread can be baked in a 9x13 pan instead of two loaf pans.
3. We think this bread is very good topped with pepper jelly
4. Chopped green onions are also very good in this recipe
5. Grand's favorite hint for this recipe is...divide the batter in half adding the garlic powder to only half of the batter. That way you have one loaf with garlic and one without. The way you remember which has garlic is to put different topping like poppy seeds on the garlic one and chopped pecans on the one with no garlic. This way you have one for supper (with garlic) and one for breakfast (no garlic). The loaf with pecans (no garlic) in great toasted with butter and served with strawberry preserves.

Chicks are growing up!

       Remember the chicks we ordered in the mail? They are growing into beautiful birds. We got exactly what we were hoping for, one rooster and six hens. Our chicks are growing up so fast. Our rooster is already growing his iridescent tail feathers and Cock-a-doodle-dooing. His comb and waddle are reddening up too. He is turning out to be a Fantastic Feathered Fellow. Now on to our hens, they are turning into gorgeous birds. They look like they are covered in beautiful black and white lace hence the name Silver Lace Wyandottes. Our hens haven't started laying yet but we have the nest boxes ready for when they do. Now we're just waiting for the eggs to start rolling in. If you would like to see our Fantastic Feathered Friends the pictures are down below.

Say Cheese!

The beautiful black and white lace pattern 

Standing Guard

Patrolling the Grounds

Our Fantastic Feathered Fellow

Chickens and Polkadot barn boots. What could be better!

Happy New Year!

     To celebrate 2016, we decided to tell you all the things we would like to do in the new year.

• When we put in our circular driveway, it created a half circle of vacant space. That we would like to landscape with flowers and our farm sign. First, we need a low retaining wall because it is starting to wash.
• We would like to powerwash the house including the front porch to brighten it up and paint the back porch.
• We also want to clean out the barn so we can put that space to use.
• Tomatoes and potatoes are items we buy a lot at the grocery store so we want to plant enough of these to be self-sufficient.
• We also want to fence in the farm and keep the deer away from our crops.
• We'd like to clean the bank of the creek and build a bridge so we can have better access to the woods
• We want to plant more blueberries and raspberries and eventually have separate beds for both. 
• We need to till more beds to plant peas, carrots, lettuce,  onions.
• We use a lot of honey and are planning to get bees this year.

And that is what we would like to finish in 2016. Happy New Year!