Continuing to get things in order after house fire.

The Amish Cook

By Lov­ina Eicher

This past week we did a lot of paint­ing as we con­tinue to get things in order after the house fire last month. All four bed­rooms upstairs are painted and one needs another coat. Things are begin­ning to look a lot better.

We would like to go get some floor­ing to put in the bed­rooms that don’t have any yet. My hus­band Joe and the boys can work on that while he is off work.

He will be hav­ing some days off due to wait­ing on some lum­ber to come in at the fac­tory. We are excited to put the rest of the floors in so that all the fur­ni­ture can be put back in place.

Then we will move every­one back to their bed­rooms. We can always wait to work on the trim and clos­ets until they are back in their rooms.

After we get fin­ished with that, our next project will be to paint our walls and ceil­ings. Busy time of the year try­ing to keep both gar­dens weeded and watered. It has been really dry and not much rain in the past week.

Yes­ter­day, though, we had a wel­come rain. Our rain gauge showed only two tenths of an inch but every lit­tle bit helps. It sure gave the gar­den a good boost.

We are still enjoy­ing radishes, let­tuce, and green onions and our peas are almost ready. We are look­ing for­ward to toma­toes, sweet corn, and all the other gar­den good­ies in the months ahead.

The first batch of corn to be put out is look­ing very nice but the sec­ond batch came up very spotty. A lot of the women in our church have been say­ing that they have had things not come up as well as usual.

I am won­der­ing if it could be from the heat and not enough rain. My let­tuce is doing good but some have said that theirs is wilted from the heat.

Daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth had her 18th birth­day on Thurs­day, June 14. It is hard to believe she is that old, the years sure went fast! Her friend Tim­o­thy invited her friends over and sur­prised her for her birth­day. He had pizza here for every­one and gave her a big ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

Mean­while, Joe and the three boys spent the day on Sat­ur­day on the lake fish­ing. Kevin, 6, caught quite a few which excited him.

They left early in the morn­ing The boys sure were out of bed pretty fast when Joe asked them if they wanted to go fish­ing Sat­ur­day morn­ing. This is the first time they have gone fish­ing this year.

There was some­thing not work­ing right with Joe’s boat motor, so last week Joe and Tim­o­thy went out on the lake to try it out. Tim­o­thy fig­ured out what was wrong with it so Joe is glad to be able to use his boat again.

The rest of us stayed busy at home. Eliz­a­beth did the laun­dry, Susan, her friend Mose and I painted her bed­room and Ver­ena and Loretta did the weekly house-cleaning.

Lov­ina seems to be doing well since her appen­dix surgery. I took her to the doc­tor for a check-up and he said she is doing fine. She asked if she could ride her bike and Min­nie, the minia­ture pony again.

The doc­tor said it would be okay and she asked if she could run again and take a shower. She was all excited that she could do that again.

When one of the girls asked if she could wipe off the dishes she asked “well, do you think they weigh more than 5 pounds?” The doc­tor had told her not to lift more than 5 pounds so she was try­ing to get out of doing dishes. It is funny how the other things were a lot more excit­ing to be able to do again.

Last week we also made straw­berry freezer jam out of 16 quarts of straw­ber­ries. I want to make rhubarb jam this week. I don’t like to use my rhubarb after June, this makes the plants stay nice and hardy for the next year. This week I will share a recipe for some home­made “energy bars.”

Energy Bars

1 /3 cup butter

1 /2 cup quick cook­ing rolled oats

1 /3 cup whole-wheat flour

2 slightly beaten eggs

1 /2 cup sliced almonds

1 /4 cup raisins

1 /2 cup packed brown sugar

1 /3 cup all-purpose flour

2 table­spoons toasted wheat germ

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 /2 cup flaked coconut

For the crust, beat but­ter and brown sugar until thor­oughly com­bined. Then stir in oats, both flours, and wheat germ until thor­oughly mixed. Pat the mix­ture into a lightly greased 9 X 9 X 2 inch bak­ing pan.

Bake at 350 for 10 min­utes. Mean­while stir together eggs, 1 cup brown sugar, and stir in almonds, coconut, and raisins. Remove the crust from the oven and pour the mix­ture onto crust, spread­ing evenly. Bake in 350 oven until cen­ter appears thick, about 20 minutes.

Posted by kpotts on Jun 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.