Mmmmmm. . .Pumpkin Muffins!

Mmmmmm, Smells so good. This is definitely the time of year to make pumpkin muffins. Although, as I learned last year, one rarely uses pumpkin for pies and such. Acorn and Butternut squash taste more like pumpkin than pumpkin does. Even if, I will still bake my jack-o-lantern's after Halloween and find uses for them. I do recommend throwing a few chocolate chips in the muffins.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen

Happy Halloween!

Grave yard made with styrofoam and grey paint.

Hands were made using stuff rubber gloves dipped in plaster of paris.

Hanging Jack-O-Lantern made by covering a water or milk jug with paper and painting it orange and the face is glued on. Christmas lights give the jack-o-lantern a night glow. The ghost jars are simply paper mache` using strips of wrapping paper tissue. The jars were also illuminated with white christmas lights.

Block those weeds

A recent tip from a local, organic farmer by trade:

You simply use newspapers under your mulch as a weed blocker. The newspapers will eventually break down and they will add carbon to your soil.

A Very Useful Lid. . .

I cooked up some food in this crock pot recently and as it was cooking, the top edges touching the pot got a little dry. As a result I was given a new cleaning challenge. My solution was to use this handy lid as a scraping device. It was actually more useful than if I had used any other scraping device such as a spatula, knife, or the food scraper end of our kitchen scrubbing brush. I do not use barillo pads since they are infused with cleaning chemicals; and because food particles are trapped on them after their first use.

Homemade Dog Food

The above picture shown are beef livers from our grass-fed cow order. I am not terribly into eating them so they, along with some veggies I've been saving in my freezer (pictured below), are going into the crock to make dog food for my furry friends. I've been collecting veggie parts like the ends of carrots and squash and the mid-base section of broccoli that we were otherwise composting. I use only fresh parts and nothing rotten. I use only the edible parts.

You Deserve Cloth

A few words about waste: "Waste not, want not." The old adage is very useful in times of recession. . .but what about when we prosper? Well if you can imagine that every time you use a cloth napkin, no trees were killed, no waste was sent to landfill, and no bleach from that napkin touched your lips; then you can begin to feel so good about yourself in all these little tiny ways. Herein lies the essence of simply living and no matter what your pocket book holds.

Homemade Graham Crackers

This is my first hand at graham crackers. Most of the recipes do call for white flour, but it just isn't as nutritious so I mixed graham flour with Whole Wheat pastry flour and that turned out pretty good. The girls love them, and that is most important to me. Now I just want to play with neat shapes and edging. I used a combination of recipes, but mostly I followed Nancy Silverton's recipe. She came up all over the search engine when I went on my recipe hunt, so I thought I might want to try her out first.