My, my, my, lots has happened on the Homestead since my last post, (most of which I don't remember!), the most recent being our trip into town yesterday to see the orthopedic surgeon. Yup, my husband wrenched his ankle and took a dive down the stairs at work last week. After an initial inconclusive x-ray at the walk-in clinic, the final prognosis from the orthopedic surgeon is another week off of work and six weeks in an orthopedic boot while the tendons and ligaments heal.
Other fun stuff we've done in the past two weeks include:
*Taking down the fish filtration system to allow access to the Pineapple House / Seedling Room
* Built a new water system in the greenhouse
* Took Dixie to the vet
* Made bullets
* Fed honeybees (an ongoing task through the winter)
* Began making holiday gifts
My plan today was to post pictures and a recipe for Crockpot Candy - what I'd REALLY like to do is to post a gift idea each day for the next 10 days or so, but understanding that I have completely overbooked myself, we'll just have to see how that goes. The other glitch, aside from realistic time constraints, is that I have used up all my alotted free web space. Because I am as far from a computer geek as they come, it may take a day or so before I can get this worked out, so today, no pictures. Yesterday I fought with it, spending more time on the computer than was reasonable. Did you know that if you delete photos (trying to free up space to be able to post blog pictures) from Picasa, an on-line photo editing and storage service, not only are the photos deleted from the service, but also from external hard drives connected to your computer? Right now I'm quietly freaking out.
Oh, another really cool thing we've done here at Homestead Life is to create a new group on Facebook. It's called HOMEMADE HOMESTEAD LIFE, - a place to showcase items, crafts, products and services to redirect a portion of our spending from giant corporations and overseas companies to local artists, tradesmen and craftsman. Do you bake? Make quilts, clean houses? weld? We all give gifts and need things from time to time - especially during this season. I encourage you to come join us to help support and promote one another and finance friends and neighbors. Look us up and see what you think!
OK, Pictures are back (had to buy extra google space) so without further adieu...
CROCKPOT CANDY
1 16 oz container unsalted dry roasted peanuts
1 16 oz container salted peanuts (can also be dry roasted)
4 oz German Chocolate squares *
12 oz (2 cups) semi sweet chocolate chips
24 oz white chocolate bar *
Place ingredients in crockpot in order listed
Set on low for 2 hours
Stir and spoon onto wax paper
Let cool
* German Chocolate Squares substitute: 1/4 cup cocoa, 1/3 cup sugar, 3 TBS vegetable shortening
* I only use one white chocolate bar
* This year I made the mistake of cooking on high instead of low. To help the chocolate melt I added about 1/2 cup peanut butter to the mix. OMG'sh it was wonderful!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
