Celebrating 5 Generations of Mom's on Mother's Day

Ettabella Frost Allen

Audrey Allen Condon

Marie Condon Gray

Ellen Gray Crall

Brenda Crall Van Wie

In honor of Mother's Day and since I am working on family photo projects, I decided to post five generations of mothers starting with my Great-Great-Grandmother Ettabella Frost and ending with me.  I have been involved in tracing my family history for years and I am lucky enough to have access to old family photos to add interest to my information. Thanks to these mom's, I was able to have a beautiful son and be a mom myself!

Fort Edward Building

I live in a small town in upstate NY.  I love this preserved advertisement on the side of one of the buildings in the town.  The local architecture is full of great buildings that I may take pictures of soon.  I just love seeing this every day and hope they continue to preserve this bit of the town's history.

Sweet Sausage Stuffed Zucchini

I had an abundant zucchini crop last year and I tried many new things with it.  This was a sausage stuffed baked zucchini dish.  My husband's Aunt Pearl suggested it and it was delicions.  Ingredients were a zucchini, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, sweet sausage, marinara sauce and bread crumbs. The first thing I did was to cook up the sweet sausage patties and crumble them up.  The links do not work unless you remove the sausage from the casing.

                                    

The next step it to slice the zucchini down the middle and scoop out the seeds.  Place it in a casserole dish.

I had already cut the end off which, I took some slices from for the top of the zucchini. 

                                 

Use a large mixing bowl and mix the marinara sauce, sausage, grated parmesan cheese and some bread crumbs.  I have no idea how much of each ingredient I used....I use the eyeball measuring method for most things. It always seems to work out.

                                   

Fill the zucchini with the sausage mixture and place some sliced zucchini pieces on the top.

Slice some thick pieces of mozarella cheese and cover the top of the zucchini. Put a small amount of water in the bottom of the casserole dish to help keep it from drying out.  Cover with foil and bake in a 350 oven for 30-45 min.  Test the tenderness of the squash with a fork. 

                                      

When the zucchini is done, take the foil off and put it back in to oven under the broiler to melt the cheese and give it a toasty brown color.

                                    

After it cools enough to cut, go ahead and take a nice sized portion.  Makes a nice lunch or dinner.  Perfect for low carb diets!

AJ's Modified Lawn Mower

Ed decided that it would be more fun if he and AJ could ride around the fields together.  He took another old lawn mower and made this for AJ.  He now has plans to add an axle to the back and make tracks for the back two axles.  This should be interesting!

Homemade Doodlebug Snow Plow

We got about 6-8 inches of snow yesterday and last night.  Eddie took his homemade doodlebug out to plow this morning.  This plow is 8 years old and is made from a variety of old parts.  He made it out of Dodge, Ford and Chevy parts.  There is a 300 6 cyl. Ford motor with an automatic transmission and a truck 4 speed  transmission behind it. There are two transmissions in it that go into a 3/4 ton rear end.  He operates the plow with a winch since that was cheaper than replacing the hydrolics when they broke two years ago. This has worked well for our heavy snow storms over the past several years.  It goes along with his life philosophy of scrounging parts and  making things himself to save money and use his creative mind.

One Day's Finds

My husband went to scrounge things from a garage full of things left over from an estate sale. He was told to take anything he wanted from the house and garage. They will be demolishing both. He got many windows, wood for a picket fence, cast iron sink, stainless steel sink,chairs, bottles, old garden tools, sewing machine stand, boxes of tiles and much, much more. We will be doing several projects over the winter and next spring!

Homemade Utility Vehicle

Eddie started with a lawn mower that he didn't use anymore and finished with a homemade utility vehicle! He lengthened the frame, added some big back tires, customized the seat so two can ride, and added a bed so it can be a useful scrounging vehicle. Now he has something to play on in the snow too! We had a snow day and he played in the snow!

John Deere Christmas Village

Eddie has always loved John Deere Tractors. He would love to get an old one to restore. He has a Ford Tractor right now, but still hopes to someday own a Deere. When the John Deere Christmas Village came out I decided it was a perfect collection to start. It is an adorable village setting. The pictures are a little dark, but it is supposed to be night after all.

First Snow of the Season

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted anything here. Today was our first snow of the season. We are only supposed to get maybe an inch or two and it's not expected to stick. It's funny that two days ago we had a record warm temperature of 63 degrees. The previous record was in 1998 and it was 53 degrees. So, I think we are due for the snow. I was shopping this morning and it started snowing while I was in a mall. It sort of puts you more in the holiday spirit.

Fall Hot Air Balloons

Today was a beautiful fall day in upstate New York. It was in the 60's and sunny. Around 3:00 this afternoon we were outside doing some yard work and winterizing. My husband noticed the first balloon over our pasture and we soon saw two more. We stopped our work and just relaxed as we watched them slowly float through the sky. We live in an area that is familiar with balloons. Check out the Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival. It is an annual event that is usually held the third week of September.

Bottle Display

My husband and I love old bottles. We have collected them since we first got married. This summer he made a small shelf that fits nicely on our bedroom wall to display just a small number from our collection. We have hundreds boxed up in the garage that we would love to display. A project for next year is to get them all out and cleaned up and displayed. I love seeing this every day! Collecting something and storing it away is senseless. We want to see what we have and enjoy it all the time!

Scrounging on an old Farm

We have friends that own a large old farm. There are several old dump areas way in the back over their long stone wall. They were nice enough to let me and Eddie look for bottles and other interesting things. We went for a little while this weekend, and this is what we hauled out. These items were very close to the surface so we know there is much more to be found. We love old bottles and already have hundreds of them at home. We have an open invitation to come back and look for more. They asked that we do let them know if we find a big treasure like a can of gold coins! We had so much fun and a relaxing time together.