MOUNTAIN VISTAS ~ELKTON, VIRGINIA

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Blue Ridge Mountains, Eastern Rockingham County, Elkton VA, Hollows, MCW Photography, Mitchell C. Webster Photography, mountain scenes. Mountain Farms, Mountain Vistas, photography, Rural Living, Rural Viringina, VA. Virginia

*Much more detail show up when the photos are enlarged by clicking on them

Recently I have started to take short drives around different area of my part of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which happens to be the areas of Harrisonburg, Dayton, Bridgewater & Elkton. These towns and cities, are in the Counties of Rockingham, North Western Augusta, and Shenandoah in Virginia.

Unless you live in these areas, I do believe most people take the quickest route to their destinations, using interestate and quicker routes designed to get you places faster. Unfortunatel to those passing through Virginia, as well as living here, they miss so much, in the way of beauty and relaxation by not getting off the interstates and other four lane highways and making the trip part of the vacation.

While this was just a short trip, close to home within 10 miles, the views in this post were taken about 3 miles from my home, yet views like this are ever present along the Blue Ridge in the eastern counties of Rockingham, Augusta, Shenandoah and Page. If you just get “Off The Beaten Path” and make exploration part of your vacation or Sunday drives. It is amazing how quickly you can become relaxed just driving the countryside, even in just a 10 mile radius. We miss so much by always being in a hurry and taking the fastest route to our destinations.

Alas sometimes from a photographic standpoint in todays world beautiful views are encumbered by telephone and electric poles along the way, sometime the views are in areas where it is impossible to pull off the road enough to get a good shot, that is if you are a photographer, however this does promote exercise in finding the right place to pull off the highway, and walk to find a good location. Each week just take a couple of minutes or an hour or so and explore the area in which you live, find the natural beauty that surrounds you and give yourself a break from the hurried stresses of life. These photos were taken with thirty minutes of where I live in Elkton, VA.

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UPDATING STATIC BLOG PAGES ~ RURAL LIVING

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Dayton VA, Heritage Basket Studio & Chair Caning, Old Order Mennonites, Rockingham County, Rural Living, Updating Static Pages

Once again another page has been updated, re-worked and made a little more colorful. This page basically gives insight into who I am and where I come from, more than anything else. The pages on Basketry & Seat Weaving will be next along with other pages to help you better understand basketry and seat weaving in particular hand caning. However these will both be works in progress as I work on baskets and chairs and take pictures to better illustrate what I do.

APPLE & SPICE SIMMERING POTPOURRI

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Apple Spice Simmering Potpourri, Home Fragrance, Orange Spice Simmering Potpourri, Rural Living

You know the cold crisp days of Autumn is upon us now, no escaping winters gloomy and cold grasp, it is coming whether we want it to or not!

However I find many times during the winter months when the house is all closed up and we tend to stay inside so much, that sometimes simple things like throwing open the windows and doors  (yes even when it is 20 degrees or colder out ) and airing out the house for even 10-15 minutes each week, makes a big difference in our mood.

I grew up with Mom always saying “FRESH AIR HEATS BETTER”  well at least you feel better with fresh air in the house, I can pretty much tell you on cleaning day, the windows would be open, bed linens changed and everything inside and out felt and smelled crisp and fresh, then a nice simmering potpourri to brighten the house.

Then as the house is heating back up I try to get out the crock pot, and make a batch of Apple & Spice Simmering Potpourri. You can also do it on the stove top, or if you have wood heat on top of the wood stove, it seems to be invigorating and refreshing to smell the spiciness wafting through the house.

What I like to do, is here at apple time, when we are peeling and coring so many apples to can, cook, bake and dehydrate for winter. Is to save my peelings, I usually sprinkle with lemon juice to keep from browning so, and place them in the dehydrator for winter use. Simmering potpourri!

The recipe can be as simple as you want or as complex. I also save my orange rinds, tangerine, tangelo peels etc. for this purpose.

In other words many of the things that will go into the trash/compost can be dehydrated for this use. (I have also frozen them when I did not want or have enough to dehydrate)

APPLE  SPICE SIMMERING POTPOURRI

ORANGE  SPICE SIMMERING POTPOURRI

These recipes are adaptable to your personal preferences and the ingredients are not given in specific amounts, some like more citrus, apples, spices, and usually the recipe varies as to what I have on hand at any given time.

With the apple potpourri, I do try to put cider vinegar in the water, we have always done this as it will help keep the potpourri fresher longer as you add more water to the mix as it evaporates, for some reason also vinegar seems to help spread the aroma through the air faster!.

Dried Apple Peelings/cores

Water and Or  fresh cider in the fall, apple juice will work also

Cider Vinegar

Brown sugar

Cinnamon sticks

Ginger

Whole Cloves

Whole Allspice Berries

Star Anise  (nice just a few if you have them on hand)

Whole Bay Leaves

Orange Peel is good in the mix also

Mix all together in a pan or crock pot (an old crockpot you don’t use any longer but do not want to part with make a nice use for this purpose) Mix and let simmer on low.

If you have been in the house for a while and do not smell it, just go outside and get the mail and come back inside and you will be able to smell it, company will smell it for sure and you will to, I find when you are cooped up in the house for a long time it is harder to smell at first.

ORANGE  SPICE SIMMERING POTPOURRI

Much the same as above, I use either brown or white sugar, and the same spices

I have also had some Orange Juice and put that in with the water as well.

It should also be noted that you can easily toss fresh peelings of apple and citrus into the pot and add spices also, however if you have a lot of peelings it is nice to have the dried on hand, whenever you need them and also you have not wasted anything.

LEMON POUND CAKE–CLEAR LEMON GLAZE

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baking, butter, citrus, Clear Lemon Glaze, cookbook, Country Kitchen, Daffodils, dense, eggs, flour, Forsythias, fresh, lemon juice, Lemon Pound Cake, lemon zest, Lemons, light, Mennonite, recipes, Rural Living, Spring Day, sugar, yellow, zest

It is spring now, finally and I felt like something bright and yellow like the Forsythia’s and Daffodils, so a nice Lemon Pound Cake was in order.

This recipe of course is made from scratch, with fresh lemon juice and butter, since the weather is warmer and you feel like being outside more and walking more you can eat this and work it off  outside now!! Better yet, make it and share it with friends, then the total burden will not fall on you to work it off.

I will add here like all things made from scratch that, at home we don’t always follow a recipe exactly, this time I did not feel like a tube cake, so I divided the batter into two loaf pans. (you may want to check your cake for doneness after about an hour, since it is in two pans) for me it was done in about 1 1/4 hours.

Also, I did not have lemon extract, so put a quarter cup lemon juice in, which I did reduce the milk by 1/4 cup.

I also love to use zests of citrus when I am cooking. so I added finely chopped lemon zest to the sugar about an hour or so before making the cake, (the sugar helps draw out the oils from the zest)

This recipe was NOT from a Mennonite cookbook which I rely on heavily, I found it online and used it basically because it had oil in it which I have never seen before (I am assuming they did this to make a less heavy or dense cake) which I prefer the heavier pound cake. However I feel that the recipe came out nice kind of middle of the road, not dense and not light. I was pleased with it.

I will also add here that the cake would have been just fine WITHOUT the lemon glaze. However I just wanted to  see what difference it made.

Pound Cake

1 cup Butter, softened

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 cups Sugar

5 Eggs

3 cups All Purpose Flour

1 cup  Milk

1 tsp Lemon Extract (I used 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice)

Zest from 2 lemons, chopped fine and mixed with the sugar

Glaze

1/2 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Water

1 tsp grated Lemon Rind

1/4 cup Lemon Juice

Preparation

Cream butter in mixing bowl., at medium speed.

Gradually add oil. beating until well blended.

Gradually add sugar beating well.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add flour to mixture alternately with milk, starting with flour and ending with flour.

Mix just until blended after each addition.

Stir in lemon extract (1/4 cup fresh lemon juice in my case)

Pour batter into greased and floured 10 inch tube pan (I used 2 loaf pans)

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour & 30 minutes, or until a wooden tooth pick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool cake on wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove cake to wire rack to finish cooling.

Glaze

Combine all ingredients (I used warm water) and stir until sugar dissolves,

Brush over top and sides of cake a little at a time.

Let cake cool completely.

Enjoy