Merry Christmas everyone!

I want to wish everyone a blessed Christmas.  I pray the Lord blesses your family and keeps you safe in His care.  May you enjoy the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior.

 I am just going to share some pretty pictures with you I have collected over the years.  Consider it my Christmas card to you.


I am so thankful Jesus came to earth and lived and died for me, that I might have life eternal and spend it with Him.




Isn't this just a pretty scene?



I love snowmen!  And pretty birds created by God.

Audrey and Sally want to go caroling this year.  We will take them around to our neighbors and let them sing for them.

Simple times.  That is what we are doing this year.  Simple, thankful, and joyful time celebrating Jesus' birthday.  We have made our gifts and decorated with what we have.  Baking and listening to our Christmas songs.

What a cute snow family!

What a lovely time! Pretty clothes, elegant furnishings and a tree that might burst into flames at any moment!  LOL!  Seriously it all looks so lovely doesn't it?

Can you tell I really like snowmen/families?  : )

Another pretty Christmas scene.

What a festive mailbox!

Merry Christmas from the Swinson family.

Homemade Christmas gift idea

Here it is December already.  This year has just zipped by! The photo on the top of my blog is a shot I took looking off my front porch down the valley this morning.  It was 20 degrees when we got up.  A bit chilly, but the good thing is the sun shines during the day and it is beautiful and dry.

We are doing  homemade gifts for Christmas this year.  I made something today that is really inexpensive to make.  Made from recycled items we probably all have in our homes.  They are fire starters.  They make some nice gifts for those who have fireplaces or wood stoves, or for camp fires or putting in your emergency kit.

The things you need are:
Cardboard egg cartons
Old candles
Dryer lint



I saved my dryer lint for about a week. Depending on how much laundry you do and how much lint comes off each load determines how long you need to save it.

Take the lint and fill each hole of the egg carton. Isn't it amazing the different colors you get from each load?  LOL!

Take your old candles and chop them up a bit and put them in a double boiler over medium heat. The first ones I used were a purple color and then I added this old white pillar candle.  Make sure to remove the wicks from the candles before putting in the pan to melt down.

Here you can see I have a pan inside of another pan.  I put water in the lower pan to keep the wax from getting too hot.  Be very careful while doing this!  DO NOT WALK AWAY WHILE THE WAX IS MELTING!!   It is flammable and will catch on fire easily.  So use extreme caution while working with the melting wax.  As soon as it has melted, turn off the heat.

Next pour the melted wax over your lint, filling each cup.  I used a small measuring cup to dip the wax out of the larger pot.  Be very careful not to spill it on yourself.  I put the carton in the freezer for about 15 minutes to set the wax. You can just let it sit out at room temperature and it will harden in time.

After they are hardened up, take some shears and cut apart the cups.  To use them put them on the bottom of your fireplace/wood stove and put your kindling on top just like you would build your fire using other fire starters or paper.  I am putting these in tins for gifts.  Simple, frugal and useful! 

Sewing again!

I finally got to spend some time in my sewing room.  I made this valance for the dining room window. I am making another to match in the kitchen window hopefully before Thanksgiving.  Thanks for the idea from my friend Lisa who showed me a photo of one in a different color that she likes.  I got the idea from it.  Thanks again Lisa for the green check fabric, it worked so well with my green toile print.  : )



Close up



Cranberry Season

It is cranberry season again on the Southern Oregon coast.  So we went to visit our friends Marci and Dave down near Bandon.  Remember last years post about the cranberry bog?  We love visiting with Marci and Dave.  We took some of our garden produce and apples and traded for buckets of cranberries.  This is such a blessing to us to have fresh cranberries!  We feel so spoiled.  : )

The girls each got to dip cranberries out of the bog into a bucket with a rake.  They thought that was pretty cool.

We also learned something new about cranberries.  Last year we got to pick some cranberries from Marci and Dave's baby bog.  That is where they grow the plants for making a new bog.  This year they planted a new bog.  I had envisioned them hand planting every little vine.  Well Marci told me that Dave mows the dry baby bog.  Then they take the clippings and scatter them on the prepared bog area and then they get tilled in.  The amazing thing is those clippings take root and start new plants.  How cool is that? 

So we came home with three buckets of cranberries.  They need to be cleaned because they have cranberry leaves and other little twigs and grass and such in them.  Anyone ever picked wild huckleberries?  Then you will have an idea of what I am talking about cleaning the berries.

Ed, on the way home comes up with an ingenious plan of how to clean them fast.  I am so blessed to have a husband that God has gifted in figuring out ways to do things easier!  Take a look at the process in the photos below.







Bucket of uncleaned cranberries. See all the leaves and grass?





Ed took half inch square wire and made a ramp.




Then we used the hose to wash the leaves and other debris off the berries.




We slowly let them roll down the wire ramp and picked out any big stuff.




Then they went into a clean tote!

  We only lost about a quart of small berries that fell through the holes.  They didn't go to waste as the chickens loved them!


Here are some of the cleaned berries in the jelly kettle.





Here they have been made into whole cranberry sauce.  Ready for any meal.

 I will post another time about making juice and fruit leather from some of the other berries.

Just popping in to say hi!

I have had computer problems and so have not been able to blog.  I miss it!  I am going to try and update everything.  Lots has been happening here.  We have new kittens, the gardens are all planted again for another year, we have been eating mandarin oranges off our citrus trees, we have a new pool, we are building another pantry, we are back in the upholstery business.  Yep!  Lots happening around here.  I promise to get some posting done and put up the dozens of photos I have been taking to share with all of you.  Thanks for your patience. 

Farewell to our dear Hercules

Here is Hercules at age 15.  He was attacked by a stray dog and wasn't strong enough to survive surgery.  So we had to put him to sleep.  That was a sad day for us all.  He was a really good cat.  Never got into trouble about anything.  He was always so loving and patient.  We will miss him.

Hercules was born in our home in Alaska.  Our oldest son Jeremy brought home a female stray cat in the middle of winter.  She was pregnant and had 4 kittens.  Jared wanted to keep a kitten and Hercules was the one he chose to keep.  (I had wanted to name him Pierre.)  He had many adventures in Alaska and then made the trip down here to Oregon when we moved in 2004.  He enjoyed another 7 years here.

After taking him to the vet to be put down, we had a funeral and buried him next to our dear Toby.  The vet said he was the equivalent of 112 human years.

Good bye Herc, we will miss you.

More lambs!

Bountiful Acres has two new lambs.  Lilah gave birth to twin ewe lambs.  One looks like her dad and one looks like her mother.  So we now have two ram lambs and two ewe lambs.  This is what we saw when we went out to the barn the other night.  I was afraid the little brown lamb had something wrong with it.  But she was just tired from being born first!

As you can see she was a big baby!  And she is up and walking around the next morning, along with her little sister who is a black sheep like their mama.



And here is Ginger and her two ram lambs that are now a month and half old.  It is amazing how fast they grow!

And then we have two ducks and three hens setting on eggs.  One hen has crowded into the duck nest box and is sitting on her eggs in front of the duck!  A bit crowded, but neither of them will give up the space.  At least the chicken will be finished  nesting in 21 days and she will leave with her chicks.  That will give the duck the additional time she needs to hatch out her batch.  Muscovy ducks take 35 days to hatch.  We also have a hen in the main chicken house sitting and one of our Dark Cornish hens sitting in their barn.

Yes it is Spring time here.  The trees are in bloom in the orchard.  Now for some sunny weather and no more rain would be really good!

Happy blessed Easter to all!  I am so thankful the Jesus came and made himself flesh and paid for our sins.  That He rose from the grave and now I am forgiven and adopted into the family of God.