Okay, I don’t consider myself to be very high tech. I haven’t used my ipod in 6 months and I refuse to text message. However, today I felt so cut off from the world it was scary, and I was having major withdrawals. Our internet is only working off and on so if I’m missing for awhile that will be why. We can no longer pick up a good signal and there is nothing the company can do to fix it so we’re looking for a new service provider. Every time I turned around today I couldn’t continue with my plans because I couldn’t get online. Here’s what I mean: I wanted to preserve my garlic scapes but I didn’t remember how they said to do it on that website I looked at the other day. Since my Mom, Brian, and I picked a bunch of strawberries on Saturday I was dying to try Abbie’s Strawberry Shortcake recipe but couldn’t get the page to load. I was planning to browse recipes for this weeks’ menu plan and knew I wanted to make Quick Cheese Bread with dinner tonight. Luckily this thing started working. The bread is in the oven so
Continue readingCategory: questions
A Good Day
I’ve really been enjoying life this week. Here are some of the highlights: I fed the chickens in the rain and felt so proud and content standing in the rain watching them huddle together in the nice dry shelter that Brian and I built. They are getting big! I came in the house and appreciated how each dog stopped on the landing and let me wipe their feet one by one before they went upstairs. I’ve worked up a sweat more than once and feel sooo much better because of it. Since I’ve been working so hard I’ve started out with cold showers and then turned them to hot. This is new to me and very refreshing. The meal plan is so liberating, I want to do it every week. While dinner is cooking I arrange all the supplies for the next night’s meal. Plus, I haven’t been late for work because I’m scrambling to pack my lunch. Now I really enjoy getting good meals on the table every night. I got a letter saying there was a problem with our taxes, got a big refund, got scared that it was a mistake, and almost cried with happiness to find
Continue readingWhat Do You Want To Know?
I have quite a few future posts forming in my head, half of which I’ll probably forget before they are ever typed out. However, I feel like I’m posting about a lot of the same topics lately, especially now that spring is here and I have so many updates about the garden and the animals. Is there a post I promised to write that I’ve forgotten? Is there a question you’d like to ask? Something I do or write about that you want to know more about? Are you sick of hearing about any certain topic? Please don’t hesitate. I’d really love to hear your thoughts. I know there are at least a few lurkers out there as well. Now’s your time! I’m going to call it a night because I just misspelled hear here and there their. Have a good one!
Continue readingSuggestions?
Lately I’m all about keeping things simply and easy to manage. If you read here regularly then you already know that. Despite my normally crafty ways, I am at a loss when it comes to how to store spices. The pic above shows my growing collection. I never had much trouble keeping salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Now that I’m cooking more “real” food I’ve added all kind of things… paprika, celery salt, nutmeg, etc. Right now a lot of them are the inexpensive brand from the grocery. I like it that they come in glass jars (still with plastic tops). Ideally I will move away from store boughts and start to make a lot of my own seasonings. The rest I can buy in baggies at the farmer’s market. So, here’s the question: where do I put them? People joke about spice racks but should I get one? What do you do with yours? In the cupboard I can’t see what they are. On the shelf they still get hidden plus 3 fall off for every 1 I grab. As you can see in the pic I’ve got over a dozen different ones to store. I don’t want to
Continue readingJoining Farm Bureau
This is another post I’ve been putting off just because I wanted to make it worthwhile. I still don’t have a lot of information to offer you but want to share our experience thus far. We went ahead and joined the bureau 2 weeks ago. We do not carry FB insurance and so joined as “Regular Farmer Members”. Actually we only signed Brian up. The dues were $45 for year and as his wife I can attend all the events anyway. We signed up at the kickoff event. A handful of couples that we’re friends with had already joined and encouraged us to check it out. We actually had a lot of fun at the kickoff. It started off with a couple of short presentations from some of the extension staff. They talked for about 20 minutes on the new A.C.R.E. program which Brian is interested in. It is basically a different type of subsidy program from what I understood. It was good to learn about anyway. The organizers had hired a local company, “A Touch Of Vegas” to come in an do some casino games. Each person was given a ticket to get chips equivalent to, I think, $200.
Continue readingHow Do You Start Your Seedlings?
I am happy to be back to blogging after the holiday. I meant to leave a more upbeat post up over Christmas but have been having a lot of trouble with my internet connection and therefore gave up. I have some nice Christmas pics to post and I’d like to share what gifts we gave this year, as well as some nice things we received. Today, though, I would like to discuss something that has been on my mind a lot, and apparently on others too. Let’s talk about garden plans! The latest edition of Hobby Farms is full of tips and tricks for garden planning. Sharon Astyk posted awhile back about signs of a possible seed shortage so I sorted through what was left of last year’s seeds and made my list for this year. I order my seeds almost exclusively through Baker Creek Seed Co. at rareseeds.com. They are a great company to deal with and produce a wonderful catalog chuck full of good information. The real reason I prefer them is because they care so much about seed integrity and I trust them. Frankly, I don’t have to time or the knowledge to sort through other catalogs
Continue readingIf The Economy Is So Bad….?
If the economy is so bad, why is it so incredibly hard to find good service? My husband and I continue to be amazed at the crappy service we receive from businesses. I guess since things are “so bad” I would expect businesses to step it up a notch and do everything they can to keep their customers. Here are three examples of disappointing experiences we’ve had lately. The first one is rather long but the other two are quick:-We received some cash towards new appliances for a wedding gift. After watching sales for awhile I called the Lowe’s about a half hour from here. I asked if they had any black or stainless steel gas stoves in stock with a storage drawer at the bottom. The woman assured me they had two in stock. After driving all the way there we were pointed to only one stove that fit our description and told that the floor model was the only one they had left and we could have it at 10% off if we liked. Of course it was dented and scratched!! When I mentioned my phone call ahead I was told that the girl who answered my call
Continue readingBreaking Bread
Unfortunately I’m not referring to socializing or dining when I say “breaking bread”. I’ve finally turned out two good batches of homemade bread and plan to stop buying the store bought stuff all together. There are a few problems though. First, my hubby noted that the bread, although soft, is very crumbly and therefore is hard to eat while driving or even while sitting and reading a book as I like to do on my lunch break. We both end up with crumbs all over the place.Second, we tried to use this bread in place of a hot dog bun, which we usually do with store bought bread. I’ve found buns usually go stale before we use them. This bread just broke right in half instead of folding nicely around the hot dog. Now I’m sure I could come up with a recipe for homemade hot dog buns but unless they freeze well, we would never use them in time. The final problem, again related to the bread’s form, was found this morning when I pulled a couple pieces out of the bread bag I had reused. They broke in half just from that. What a mess!As I said, this
Continue reading