florida bobsled

Ok, maybe not a bobsled but still something you usually dont get to do in Florida, Sliding on the ice. Its been below freezing for a few nights and while at work cleaning the planes I realized that all of the water and ice I had been dumping from the galley had frozen onto the beltloader. Last night my coworker and i got the brilliant idea of letting the belt freeze up and then using trash bags to slide down the belt.

belt frozen and ready to go.

Jamie decided to go headfirst and pull a superman move.

I went feet first just in case I wasnt going to be able to stop when I got to the bottom.

I got a little braver on the second run.















and managed to crash into a big pile of ice at the bottom. Short lived but we had a blast!!

If I Knew You Were Coming Id Have Made Waffles

Hello weekend breakfast

There are waffles and then there are WAFFLES. Prepare the batter and let it sits overnight for a rich crispy waffle. Yeasted pecan waffles will make all other waffles seem like cardboard toaster eggos. You can just let them go, no problem-o.

Yeasted Pecan Waffles

1/4 cup warm water (105–115°F)
1 (2 1/4 tsp) package active dry yeast
2 tblsp sugar
6 large eggs
1 qt well-shaken buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil plus some to grease the waffle iron
3 cups flour
1/4 cup corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toasted pecans, coarsley chopped

Run the tap until water is warm. Water should be to the touch when dripped on your wrist. Combind yeast and water in a bowl. Let sit until foamy about 5 minutes. This is called proofing your yeast. If the yeast doesnt foam up throw it out. The yeast is either expired or the water was too warm. Mix sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and oil into yeast. In a seperate bowl add flour, corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and stir to combine. Add wet yeast mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until combind but a little lumpy. Chill overnight or at least 5 hours.

Puffy and bubbly yeasted batter

When its waffle time brush griddle with oil and heat on high. Fold 3/4 cup of pecans into batter, reserving some to sprinkle on top.

Grandmas waffle iron, preheating and still cookin for over 30 years

Pour batter in cupfuls over the waffle iron, so it spreads evenly. Close and let cook for 8-10 minutes until waffles are medium brown. Cooking times vary per iron, so expect the first waffle to be a "test waffle," or your first waffle before your household catches a whiff of heavenly waffle smell. Serve waffles with maple syrup and extra pecans.

Almost waffle time, expect a crowd

Twittering while cooking

...or eating while reading. Follow me on Twitter.

Beginning Homesteaders part 2

Moving right along. After about a year of dating, my neighbor she decide she really needed to go back to school and become a nurse like she has always wanted too. To make things easier on all of us financially she and her daughter moved in with me. She concentrated on her nursing school and graduated a little over a year later.

We had been talking about getting a house for quite awhile but neither of us had good credit and didnt think there was any chance we could get a mortgage, we couldnt even get a credit card approval let alone a mortgage. I started working on fixing her credit report, mine is hopeless especially with a bankruptcy on it. After a few months of getting her report cleaned up we saw her credit score start getting better and better.

Eventually it was high enough to get an approval on a home loan. We decided that we were tired of living in the ghetto neighborhood, if you seen the movie "Friday" that the only way I can describe it.

I couldnt believe I was saying it but I actually missed the very lifestyle that I couldnt wait to get away from years ago. We talked about getting a house in the country, growing our own foods, raising chickens and pigs, setting up a solar system and doing as much as we can to be self sufficient.

Another reason for my decision to get away from the city was my daughter, I wanted her to be able to experience things that I did when i was a kid and not being so concerned about her playing outside alone.

We searched and searched for the right place. We found a few that we wanted but they fell through and then one day we were just driving along and spotted a for sale sign in front of a home and we both knew that was the place we wanted.

It was only and acre but laid out like a football field, zoned open rural, right up the road from the inlet to the ocean, close to the beach, totally fenced in and gated and on a dead end street. The home itself, a small 8 yr old but very well cared for singlewide mobile home.






Im Happy to say that we closed on the house last week and life is good.

The intent of this blog is to chronicle the evolution of our small homestead.
Ill be adding a list of our short and long term plans and add photos as we go.

thats all for now.

an added note: the way the blogger is set up it publishes new posts to the top of the blog, to keep it in order I have to change the dates so new posts are dated earlier than old posts

Go Jags!!

Slightly off topic but I just had to toss in my support for the hometown team. Great game against Pit as always, total nailbiter but they pulled it off.

Tomorrow we learn whos next. Will it be New England or Indy? either way its going to be an uphill battle. Ill still root for the underdogs!