Down on the Farm

We just got home from a wonderful weekend at our friends family farm. (Can you tell we enjoy the country life?) Maybe someday we'll get to be out a little farther and own more than a half acre place, but until then we'll make due with getaways to the countryside. Usually we're crazy enough to camp this time of year and have faired pretty well, but I have to admit with the temperatures so far this summer I am sooo glad for the AC and indoor plumbing we got to enjoy this weekend.

We enjoyed great food since everyone shares in the meal preparation. We ate watermelon non-stop, which Baby T probably enjoyed the watermelon the most, so cute! Each family served one meal the whole weekend. I spent the last couple of weeks getting ready for the trip in advance, because it's no fun to be stuck in the kitchen all day when you're on vacation. This time I decided to be budget friendly and shop from my pantry trying to use what I already had on hand. The meal I prepared was vension BBQ, homemade buns, slaw with creamy homemade dressing and with fresh pickles and carrot sticks.

I really like to make our own bread because really it's pretty easy, far less extra stuff in there and it taste's pretty good too, if I say so myself. Here is a pic from Bowman Bakery the day O made the buns. I threw these in the freezer for safe keeping until the we would make the trip down.

When these come out of the oven it is so hard not to eat at least one!

The meal I planned was little bit bold since I don't usually spring venison on people without warning but, I figured this group was adventurous enough to handle it. After all we had 6 families consisting of 12 adults and 5 children into this cute old farmhouse. I think the venison BBQ went over pretty well. I know it's definitely a different taste on the pallette and it's taken me getting used to it, but I have to say that I'm enjoying the venison more now and I'm glad for the lean meat option as well as the budgetary benefit of using it.

Front of the house.

Check out the tree!

During the weekend we enjoyed fishing at the pond sprinkled with a few fire ants otherwise I think that there might have been a bit more fishing going on. The men fired off several rounds of shot with clays and completely killing a stack of wild boxes sitting at the edge of the soybean rows. They did their best to keep the women and children safe. Even a few of ladies fired the shotguns, but not me. I'm interested to maybe try a handgun sometime, but no more shotguns unless well, hopefully I'll never need it. The ladies made a trip the town junk shop. We looked around and were hard pressed to find many deals because the prices were a bit steep for our frugal minded group. However, I think we were all jealous of the vintage Liberty of London silk scarf for $1.50 that J got. I guess I didn't take a pic because I was too jealous. Oh well! I did however make up for the lack of bargains by picking over 10 cups of blueberries, fresh, ripe beautiful blueberries! We all scored big on that one. I can't believe how loaded the bushes were! We also came away with a far greater appreciation for the price of blueberries since we had to climb all up in the bush to score those beauties. I will baking a bit this week and will have to share some pictures of the results!

Later in the evening the kids got to do a tractor ride. As usual the kids were great.

The kids having fun in the wagon.

My buddy for the weekend, little J.

Ah well, the weekend is coming to a close and we've got to get back to work here at home. Hopefully, we'll get this room together this week and be able to move on to our bedroom finally! All this while living on a budget. We've almost survived a whole month living by the budget. I'm feeling pretty accomplished. We've got to keep it up though.

Painting in progress.

Have a great week!