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Fall Slow Cooker Recipe Potluck | A CHRISTMAS HOME by Marta Perry + Giveaway!
Author Guest , Potluck / October 11, 2019

It’s the final day of our Fall Slow Cooker Recipe Potluck! We’ve enjoyed following along with all of these great authors, their new books, and delicious slow cooker recipes. Comment below for a chance to win yet another book! And be sure to take a look back at all of the fun we’ve had all week:  Day 1 with Elizabeth Goddard  Day 2 with Soraya Lane Day 3 with Laura Lee Guhrke Day 4 with Jenn Burke  *** Autumn: Time for Comfort Food The mornings are crisp now in central Pennsylvania, and the mist hangs in the valleys for an hour or so after the sun makes its way over the mountain ridges. Leaves have begun to turn, orange pumpkins fill the roadside stands, and we bring in the last few tomatoes and winter squash from the garden. At a time like this, with winter not far off, my thoughts turn to comfort food. And for comfort food, what could be better than a slow cooker? Comfort food forms a large part of any collection of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. The farmers, both Amish and English, who settled in these fertile valleys felt the need for plenty of carbohydrates to keep…

Cindy Woodsmall | Clearing a Little Space
Author Guest / October 1, 2019

Against the odds, the oak sapling took root in our backyard that was filled with scrub pine trees and overrun with bramble. Despite the strong growth of the underbrush, the oak sapling, with its tiny trunk and even tinier branches, pushed upward, reaching for sunlight from high above. It was a decent height, maybe five feet, but scraggly and skinny. A canopy of other trees and thicket kept the sapling in the shade and depleted its soil of nutrients. Vines of various kinds wrapped around it, using it to gain a height of its own. But it didn’t die. It also didn’t thrive. It reminded me of a vine of poison oak more than an oak tree. Its sickly trunk bent and twisted, always jetting out and then reaching up, clearly trying to find a way to reach life-sustaining sunlight. At the time our backyard had a blind fence enclosing a half-acre of mostly scrub pines and thicket. We’d left it that way for over ten years because our youngest son asked us to. He loved being outdoors as well as the feel of “deep woods.” It seems he spent half of his childhood in that space. As children do,…