Grandpa's Pizza Birthday Party

It is tradition to celebrate Grandpa Ron's birthday with a pizza party. Even when he is not here, and even when it is one month past his birthday. This year it took a while to have Grandpa's birthday party, but it was worth the wait. Hillary was able to be a part too because she was here.

Getting everything set up... I only wish Grandpa could have been able to see it in person.

This is for you Grandpa! Your birthday pizza party supper!

This is John's "Happy Birthday, Grandpa" grin. The only thing missing was the birthday boy himself

Candid Summertime

As the last days of summer come to a close the Hipps are canning, mowing, partying and pretty much trying not to think about school starting really soon. Below are a few snapshots from the last week here at the farm. Enjoy!

In the process of cutting and splitting wood for this winter, Dad and the kids made a nice little burn pile at the top of the driveway. One wiff of woodsmoke on a hot summer day at lunch time was all it took to turn the burn pile into an inspiration for a hotdog lunch. We cook our hotdogs one welding rods which are just long enough to keep out of the fire. Rosie is attempting to cook her's from the farthest distance possible...

When it is time for a break, there is always youtube. Taylor Swift music video anyone?

What is it about summertime and food? This dish was made with almost all home grown food, with a little help from our neighbors. Thank you, Laura for the squash!

Everyone pitches in and helps with the canning. Rebecca is the official tomato squisher. She, Leah, and Timothy are making quite the tomato canning team.


Early July's hay crop. We sold 200 bales last week which Dad and the girls loaded up. Check out that amazing hay stack! The board in the foreground is a bridge to the hayrack.

Trina!! Not only is she milking two cows, being a right hand helper with the canning and cooking, but also getting up at 4:30 am three days a week and going to her English 1010 class. You go girl! Oh and did I mention she made a difference yesterday, donating blood for the first time? Next time you see her, just give her a hug and tell her you read how amazing she is... :D

Running Water

I love running water. If I had to live without some of our common luxuries I would go without electricity and telephone before I would give up running water. Maybe that is because there have been times in my life when our running water did not work so well, and I have grown to deeply appreciate it. One of those times happened on Tuesday. Dad went to Omaha for massage clinicals and to pick up the kids from the airport leaving Trina, Leah and myself home for the day. No big deal, we had stuff to do and were enjoying our last quiet day. First thing I started cleaning up the canning stuff left over from the peach jam, including dumping the old canner water down the drain. I came back a few minutes later and it was still in the sink. Strange. I noticed the other side of the sink also had water in it. Hmmm... sometimes they do this airlock thing to each other, maybe I just needed to get a little air going on. Plunging the sink usually does the trick in this situation, so I went to fetch the plunger. On my way I noticed the bathtub in the old bathroom also had water in it. Wow, it must be the day for plugged up drains!

Sure enough, plunging did the trick, although it took alot of work. I literally felt like I was plunging all the water down, not just letting in some air. Oh well, at least that is taken care of. I plunged on the tub a little too, without as much success. I decided to come back to it later, a little water in the tub is no emergency. I finished the dishes and walked past the tub again. Now there is more water in it. Those girls, why didn't they notice it was not draining before they used it!! Some people....
Oddly, those girls had not used the tub. And the water in the tub strangely resembled the stuff that just went down the sink. Hmmm... Sure enough, the tests confirmed what was slowing dawning on my slow little mind. We had running water still, it just was running right down the sink and up the bathtub. It is a big tub but sooner or later... Trina bailed out the tub and we called Dad. He said he knew how to fix it, but he was not going to tell us over the phone (much to my relief) and to just avoid using it as much as possible. We soon discovered that it is easier to bail out the tub every once in a while than use the bathroom sink for everything.
When Benjamin came home, we all gave him big hugs and told him how much we missed him, and took him directly to the plugged drain. He is really quite the handyman. I am not sure what he did, but he started in straight away.
I guess the problem was actually somewhere in the basement. Trina assisted and ended up with a first hand look at what was clogging the drain. Or rather, she did not get out of the way fast enough when it all came out of the pipe... From this picture I would wager to guess a lot of it did not make it into the bucket.

Benjamin fixed the pipe and got it all put back together for us before lunch time. I love having a handyman around!! Oh, and he said there was, well, alot of hair and canning junk and other stuff that was causing the problem. I did not post a picture of it just in case anyone reads my blog on their lunch break...

They're Back!!

And ready to roll!! After a fun packed month with Mom in Washington, the kids made it home in the wee hours of the moring this morning. They hit the ground running though, look for more posts about some of the stuff they did on the first day home coming soon.

Now, to get this all unpacked in some orderly fashion...

Peach jam, for the masses

The peaches were a special answer to prayer for me. While picking the raspberries I realized there were not going to be as many this year as usual, and I started wondering what would be a good substitute for jam this winter. By this late in August the peaches in the store are usually all sold or overripe, but when Leah mentioned she had seen someone with good peaches as recent as a week ago, I gave the store a call. What do you know but they had 3 lugs left! I only wanted 2, which strangely enough came up to almost exactly as much money as we had in the jar from milk. Turning our milk into jam I think you could say. :D I was still worried that the peaches were going to be overripe, or so close to ripe that after sitting in the box over Sunday I would lose a bunch of them. I figured it was worth a try anyway, and, just like God is apt to do it seems, they were a tad green yet. By Monday they were perfect! We do serve a God who cares about the little things, even jam! I really enjoyed making the jam this year, the peaches were so beautiful and in spite of spreading my operation all over the house I was able to get them all done by 7 pm. Please find below an illustrated guide to making peach jam, a lot of peach jam...

Step 1: Prepare peaches for their trip into hot water (which makes the skins slip off). This constitutes putting some in a wire basket, putting others on the table, and trying to get a nice picture. This step also makes you wish Hillary were here to take the good picture...
Step 2: Dunk the peaches. In this step it is vital to not only be extremely careful not to dump/splash/spill hot water or peaches on oneself, but also to loudly announce the level of danger you are about to encounter and make sure everyone takes one last look at your beautiful face, just in case. Oh, and making concentrating faces helps too.

Step 3: Put the peaches in cold water and remove the skins. If you happen to be lucky enough to get a helper for this part, try to avoid any peach skin fights at this stage. It is way to early on to start throwing food at each other...

Step 4 (aka the first snitching stage): Dice the peaches. This is best time to start tasting the peaches, just to make sure they are going to make good jam. I forgot to mention back during step 1 that waiting for the water to boil is a great time to get a little school done. Seeing Linus in the background of this picture reminded me to always keep your homework handy when canning, because there might come a chance to do a few quick things here and there.

Step 5: Put in the magic, very sour, white powder. It is very important to avoid tasting at this step, unless you REALLY like sour stuff. Side note, even though the pectin instructions insist that your jam will implode and your computer will get a virus if you even slightly deviate from their exact recipe, using a little less pectin than is called for makes a jam of slightly more spreadable consistency we really like. Just a side note.

Step 6: After the jam comes to a boil with just the pectin, add the sugar. I am really rethinking putting this picture up here, since it shows just how much sugar I put in there. And I did not even put in as much as it called for...

Step 7: Call in backup to stir the jam (now sugared) until it boils again. Leah very cheerfully stirred for at least 45 minutes, all the while listening to her Hebrew CD. She followed along in her English Bible, as you can see. In the mean time I washed jars, evaluated a teaching situation for school, and got the lids and rings ready. It is almost done!!

Step 8 (which oddly resembles step 2): Fill the jars. This is also the best tasting step. After the jars are full, put on the lids and rings and boiling water bath for 10 minutes. And, tada, you have jam!!

There is something really beautiful about peach jam. Especially when I know I have it because my Father cares enough to provide even peaches. Anyone up for a taste? Stop by and visit sometime and we will make you some famous biscuits to go with it...

Random Favorites

A couple of random pictures from my new camera.

I finally ran across my dream version of my dream car, in a HyVee parking lot no less. Thanks to my trusty camera being right there in my purse, I can now post a picture of in on my blog so all my readers can see it too. I love technology!

This is my current favorite fortune. It came in my Chinese food I got at the aforementioned HyVee... So much more interesting than, "Kindness is a virtue" or "Your lucky numbers this week are 4 and 7.5" On another note, Leah and I canned peaches today, so stay tuned for a complete pictoral guide to making massive amounts of peach jam!

Really in Business

I have been thoroughly enjoying my mini vacation in the lovely state of Washington. What with great company, awesome food, frigid waters of the Puget Sound, Emerald City Smoothies, rollerskating, and a whole day at the water park to touch up my tan, it has been an amazingly fun few days. And, I am bringing home one of the best souvenirs I have ever brought home from a vacation, something I have been wanting for quite some time. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so pretty much, you all should be getting less text and more "painted words" in blogposts from now on! Thank you so much to Mom and Richard for my new toy!!

The lovely mess I made, getting it out of the original packaging. Here is everyone's chance to cast your votes on a name. So far I was entertaining the idea of naming it Dilbert, but somehow it just does not feel right...

Good company

Yesterday I spent the day with Hillary and Solomon. He has only gotten cuter since I saw him in May! What a cutie!!

An awesome way to start off a quick trip to Washington! :D

Visiting Naomi

I had a lovely time with my long-time friend Naomi last week. Naomi works two part-time jobs, cleaning houses and as an assistant librarian. I did not think to take any pictures of the house cleaning part, which is a real shame since I am sure the sight of yours truly scrubbing tile in knee-pads all jazzed up from an early morning stop at Scooters would have been a sensation on the blog, but I guess you all will have to just imagine it instead. :D Naomi's family faithfully gets up early every morning to study Proverbs together, and by the time we had finished Bible study and eaten some quick breakfast it was out the door to clean for a few hours. After lunch it was off the the library until 7 where Naomi worked and I, well, I spent the majority of my time doing school. I will admit to having frittered away time on a few other things (swagbucks, People magazine, the first and last chapters of a few books), but for the most part we worked hard!

Naomi, solving computer problems. Doesn't that cheerful smile just make you want to go to the library? It makes me want to...

Me, hard at work. I set up camp behind the main desk which gave me opportunity to answer questions from unsuspecting patrons who did not realize I was not really working at the library. I do know the hours, and how to sign up to use the computers, but I had to refer questions about the history of the library and people wanting to check out books to Naomi. Maybe next time... When work at the library was done we headed home for some fellowship, relaxation and continuing on the quest to show Emily all the good episodes from the first 4 seasons of Psych. We are making progress! :D

Thank you, Naomi for a wonderful week!! I can't wait for next time!

Not Posting...

There will be a lack of posting for a few days due to me being in one of my favorite "home away from home's" meaning I am visiting Naomi! Currently I am sitting in the Madison County Library, where one of the world's best assistant librarians works. In addition to cleaning houses, I am also getting a lot of school done during Naomi's library shifts.
The last few days I have seen God working and answering prayers over and over, even in the smallest things. Just to list a few of my blessings since Tuesday...
1. Getting my Praxis I scores and not only passing but being either above average or the very top of average on all three tests!
2. My financial aid finally going through. School is paid for for the next year.
3. Finding 24 hour anti-histamine at Wal-Mart for less then $3. It seems to be helping my sudden allergy attack/germ attack...
4. Being able to upload the papers I have been working on for the last month. Nail biting starts now, to be concluded when the grades come back...
5. Finding a sandwhich at Subway which actually is big enough to feed me for two meals. Amazing!
6. My computer plays DVD's again! And all I did was pray, clean it with compressed air and drop it on the floor once...
7. Getting to see the smiling faces of my brother and sister-in-law now that they are reunited after 6.5 months apart (correct me if I am wrong there, Katie). Even if their smiling faces were just on my computer, it totally made my day!
Praise the Lord for all His goodness! This morning I read a verse which really sums up counting my blessings.
Psalm 34:10 "The lions may go weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack not good thing."

Nebraskans are creative!!

I normally don't applaud graffiti, but this was just too clever. On our way to church on Thursday night we saw this first road sign and were very amused. We decided that on Sunday we would try to get a picture. On the way home Thursday night, we saw more than just one sign had been, um, decorated. This one makes me think of Elizabeth, because she suggested just such a meaning for the sign back in October...

Sunday morning we came armed with the phone camera and advance notice, ready to get pictures of the new and improved signs. It took a few u-turns and a great deal of collaboration (Leah, you snap the picture, Benjamin, you hold the eggs so I don't break them on this turn, and I will get us close...), but we eventually got what we were after. And even made it to church on time. I think I am going to be chuckling on the way to church for a while now. :D

Pickles

This year Leah took over my job as official pickler. Last year she was my trainee (admittedly, a trainee who did most of the work, but a trainee all the same), but this year she does it all. After cutting herself, as described in the previous post, Leah kept on pickling, singlehandedly. Here she puts dill seed, mustard seed and dill heads into the clean jars. Note the injured left hand keeping out of the way...

Leah did not actually do this batch all by herself, I just like using the term singlehandedly because I think it is such a clever pun. She was supposed to keep the cut dry, so I washed the jars and the cucumbers. I thought about Hillary as I made arrangements with the cucumbers on the counter. It turned out to be a good idea, as it made packing the jars very easy with everything separated by size.

This is an overhead view of the jars before we packed them. Leah peeled the garlic cloves singlehandedly as well.

Here Leah demonstrates how to pack a jar of pickles, that the little cucumbers go on the top, and the current state of her injury. It is on its way to recovery I see...

The finished product. They really do look a lot nicer in the right lighting... Six weeks from now they will be ready to eat as pickles! Good work, Leah!