Oct
26
Pumpkin Serving Dishes
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It’s a great time of the year to have pumpkins, so what else can you do with a pumpkin besides carve it?
Pumpkins make great serving dishes for harvest or Halloween parties. Just cut off the top, like you were going to carve the pumpkin. If you’re creative carve a fancy scallop, or decorative pattern along the top. Scoop out the seeds and pulp. Don’t forget to bake the seeds!
Coat the inside of the shell lightly with cooking oil and bake the pumpkin at 350` until the flesh of the pumpkin is tender. It makes a great serving container for sweet potatoes, pumpkin soup, cranberry dishes, and more. If you use the shell right out of the oven, the warmth of the shell will keep your dishes warm for up to a half an hour, especially if you put the lid on.
You can also do this with miniature pumpkins to make adorable individual serving dishes for soups, or fall deserts. 
Oct
20
Fall Flowers
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What are the best flowers for fall arrangements? Mums, sunflowers, bittersweet, viburnum (fall berries), late season miniature roses are all still easy to find this time of year.
Farmers markets are a great place to find fall flowers or end of season vegetables such as pumpkins, winter squash, potatoes, and more.
Now is also a great time to start forcing bulbs indoors if you’d like to have beautiful blooms to brighten those cold winter days. Check out this article for more information on forcing bulbs indoors. Visit BloomingBulb.com for a great selection of bulbs for forcing, and bulbs to plant this fall for spring blooms.
Oct
15
What Are You Doing to Help Improve the Environment?
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As an avid gardener preserving the earth and the environment is something I try hard to do. When I garden I only use organic fertilizers and pest control methods. I also try hard to leave the soil better at the end of the gardening season than it was in the Spring.
How do I do this? I compost everything I can, create habitats that encourage beneficial insects like the Praying Mantis pictured above. I also create a habitat around my home to encourage birds, rabbits, deer, squirrels, and other creatures to thrive. They may munch a little on my garden, but if they have other food available to them they tend to leave it alone.
We help encourage these creatures by planting plenty of trees and shrubs, we also have several nut and berry trees on our property to help provide food long into the fall months. Through the winter we have bird feeders, and even drop food out for some of the other animals if the winter is unusually harsh.
We try to conserve water, electricity, and gasoline whenever possible to save some of these resources for future generations. I love nothing more than sitting outside on a sunny day, or starry night and enjoying the world around me. I want my son to be able to do the same when he’s my age. That’s a huge motivation to do whatever I can to help improve our environment.
Oct
15
I Won!
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As part of my pact to interact more with other bloggers this month, I’ve been commenting on the b5media Family and Relationships Channel. They’re having a Blogtoberfest and giving away fun prizes for commenting on the blogs in the channel.
I commented on several of the blogs last week, and Gayla from www.supernannyrules.com e-mailed me to let me know I won! I won a gift from the Your Child Can Read collection.
The contest is still on through this week, so head on over there and see if you can win a prize.
Here are the rules according to Super Nanny Rules.
1. Watch for sponsored prize winning posts wearing the official Blogtoberfest button shown above.
2. Leave a comment on that exact post. Your comment IS your entry.
3. Check back with that post within a week and see what the prize is and if you’re the lucky winner.
Good luck!
Thank you B5 Media
Oct
13
Great Holiday Recipes
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I was browsing through my Google reader this morning, and I came across a couple recipes I think I might have to try. I thought I’d share them with all my readers.
Sandy at Aromatherapy, Bath and Body Recipes posted a recipe for Scented Pinecones for the Holiday, she also has some Pumpkin Spa Recipes that look heavenly.
Preschool Rock has a Halloween recipe for Ghost Sticks (I wrote that one let me know if you give it a try)
Elise at Simply Recipes has Pumpkin Ginger Nut Muffins, the photo itself will make your mouth water! They also have a Pumpkin Biscotti recipe that I’d like to try out.
Yumsugar has a recipe for Thin Mint Cookies, not exactly a Fall recipe, but MMMmmmm!
Lynn’s Recipes has Cranberry Nut Bread, I love cranberries, and it’s hard to find cranberry recipes.
I may have to try some of these recipes this weekend.
Oct
13
Blog Action Day
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I will be participating in Blog Action Day on October 15th. What is Blog Action Day? On October 15th bloggers from around the world will unite and post about the environment. Want to learn more check out this Youtube video about Blog Action Day 2007.
Oct
13
The Pumpkin Festival
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I live near Bradford Ohio, and right now that means the Pumpkin Festival.
Here are some really cute entries to the pumpkin decorating contest this year. My favorite is the M&M’s(tm) guy. He’s toooo cute!
Maybe one of these will give you inspiration for your pumpkin decorating project this year.
The second photo is a football player in his helmet, theres also a Shrek and a really cute elephant with big floppy ears.
Oct
10
Adopt A Dog Month
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October is American Humane Association’s Adopt-A-Dog Month®, to help get the word out, Affurmation is having a blog carnival. The topic is stories about adopted dogs, or pets.
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. About two years ago we had to say goodbye to our beloved Australian Shepherd who we adopted about 14 years earlier. She was a wonderful member of our family, and I was never sorry she came to live with us.
A year and a half ago we adopted Emily, a beautiful Border Collie from Buckeye Border Collie Rescue. Emily is a wonderful dog, and tries very hard to please us. She doesn’t like to be scolded. You usually only have to tell her she’s doing something wrong once, and she won’t do it again. Her only vice is her fear of thunderstorms. She knows when one is coming before you can see it or hear it. She’s a very good weather dog.
I can’t imagine why anyone would give her up. But I want to say thank you to whoever did. She is a wonderful member of our family and we feel blessed to have her.
Our latest family addition is a Shih-tzu named Lilly, we adopted her this summer from a relative. She is barely a year old, and very ornery, but we love her fun attitude. Nothing upsets her she’s always happy (unfortunately even after you scold her for doing something wrong)!
I have to say puppies are overrated, adopting an older dog has many great perks.
1. Most are already house trained.
2. Many puppies go through a destructive chewing stage (this is when many cute little puppies lose their home). If you adopt an older dog, it will save your furniture.
3. They sleep through the night without accidents.
4. There are many older dogs out there who desperately need a home.
Instead of encouraging people to breed their dogs and have more puppies, adopt an older dog. They’ll be glad you did, and so will you.
Oct
10
Paying Kindness Forward
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My philosophy in life is to always try to be as kind (or kinder) to others as I would want them to be to me. I’m a firm believer in karma, and I believe you receive what you give. I was bloghopping this morning ( a really bad habit of mine), and I saw a post on this very subject. The post is called The Power of Nice Challenge.
So I am planning to make an extra effort to be nice in the next few weeks. I have my moments where irritation gets to me, and I’m not as nice as I could be. I’m going to make myself stop, take a step back, put a smile on my face and say a kind word wherever possible. Even if I’ve been on hold with the phone company (etc.) for an hour, I will be as polite as possible to the poor soul who finally takes the call.
My other goal this month is to interact with other blogs, and bloggers as much as possible, so I will be posting several posts this month for blog carnivals, and linking to posts and blogs I enjoy. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do.
Are you up for the Nice Challenge? If we all join in just think how much kinder the world could be.
Oct
7
Fall Leaves
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Leaves are great for the fall garden. There are many ways you can incorporate them into your soil. The simplest and most direct is to rake them up and spread them out on the garden. Work them slightly into the soil now to keep them from blowing away, then let them rot until spring.
You can also add leaves to your compost pile, just make sure you add the right combination of “green” items to balance the pile out and keep it heated up through these cooler fall days. Check out my earlier post on composting.
If you have finished compost available now is a great time to spread it on the garden, let the freezing and thawing of winter work the finished compost and nutrients into the soil.
You can also pile your leaves up and let them sit. The leaves will mold and rot by themselves, and by spring you will have a great additive for your flower beds.