Tuesday, August 25, 2015

This week's goals or sort of

The sort of part is because we are moving our one son to his new home he bought (first time home owner) and gathering his stuff that I've been using the last 2 yrs that he didn't have room for and finish refinishing the desk I am doing for him by Thursday night is the priority. Moving days is Friday and Saturday.

I have extra work as I have found the ants I thought were gone were in hiding and the field mice are starting to come in earlier than normal...that's usually mid September and I don't have that prevention in place. My dogs actually hunt the mice out but don't try to catch them.

I need to go back to rise and shining at 4:30. I have started new meds due to not sleeping due to pain and it's made me into a zombie and it's been closer to 7:30. My doctor advised me to cut it in half and see if that makes it better with the reminder that I have been exhausted and that it will take awhile to recover from that.

TO DO list

Create a workable schedule that reflects my health issues.

Deal with ants .

Deal with mice prevention.

Finish refinishing son's desk.

Finish packing son's stuff and place in loading area as it's packed.

Finish cleaning the shelves in the butler's pantry.

Update pantry needs list. (I was checking Clark Howard's site about a store cheaper than Amazon and instead found Livingsocial having a sale of Sam's club membership so I got one as we wanted one but couldn't afford the price of the one we wanted. We will be stopping there Friday or Saturday as our son's is only 15 min from a Sam's club).

GARDEN

Harvest peppers.

Harvest tomatoes.

Harvest assorted herbs.Weed this area.

Harvest Armenian cucumbers.

Harvest dry soup beans.

Harvest seeds for next yrs gardens.

Plant fall/winter crops.

Plant onions bulbs and  kalettes and lettuce that is ready for transplants.

Clear the pots that I did container gardening in and the flower pots that have annual flowers that have died.

PERSONAL

Get out of bed at 4:30 instead of 7:30.

Ride stationary bike daily for at least 15 minutes.

Walk perimeter (which is 1/3 of mile) with dogs 9 times a day. I do this 3 times a day now.

ERRANDS

Move son.

Check out Sam's club.

Go to store for non-food(dog food and some household stuff) and milk,eggs and cheese.

FOOD

Harvest daily for fresh food for the table at dinner time.

Make pasta sauce with tomatoes from garden and can.

Make zucchini bread pancakes for freezer.

Dry peppers,herbs and cherry tomatoes that won't get ate.

Pickle Chinese cabbage and can. Possible freeze some also.

I cooked a turkey and pork roast yesterday since I was in the house anyways most the day. We had turkey for dinner last night. I will cut the rest off the bone and process it for meals and vacuum pack it for the freezer and then toss the carcass in the stock pot to make broth for noodles and dumplings.  I will have the pork roast for tonight and divide the rest to make BBQ pork for this weekend and Brunswick stew for later this fall.

Have a blessed week!



Monday, August 24, 2015

what I have done in the frugal dept. this week.


Armenian Cucumbers from the garden. These two made 9 pints of dill pickles.

I also harvested and canned red noodle beans, KY wonder beans, and lazy wife beans.

I canned, froze and dried 34 lbs of peaches. Made peach jelly out of the peels and pits.

I froze cherry tomatoes for tomato cobbler this winter and oven roasted several pans of cherry tomatoes and then froze them.

I canned 6 quarts of pasta sauce that was cooked down from fresh tomatoes from the garden. This year it's taking 1 gallon of juice to make a quart of sauce. I don't need any more juice . I have a year's worth of juice, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes, and tomato sauce already done. Think 52 jars of each for the year.

I froze cantaloupe that I cut into chunks and asparagus beans . I will use the asparagus beans for stirfries this winter.

I froze 37 quarts of corn. Made corn cob syrup and corn cob jelly from the corn cobs.

I have pulled the onions and have them curing. Some are small but that's the ones I will use in roasts or when I don't need much onion.

I harvested and dried from my gardens, rosemary, cilantro, basil, oregano, thyme, dill, lemon balm, flat parsley, curled parsley,sage,garlic chives and cayenne peppers.

I harvested,pickled and canned beets.

I froze another batch of strawberries.

I canned peperoncini peppers.

I froze bell peppers.

I harvested cannellini dried beans and dried pinto beans for soups this winter.

I harvest buttercrunch lettuce seeds.

I harvested Scarlet runner, Moonlight runner, Sunset runner beans that I let dry on the vine for seeds for next yr.

I have used the clothes line as much as possible even when it meant that the clothes was only partially dried when the rain started in the afternoon. Several times was able to finish drying on the drying rack instead of using the dryer.

Our hand truck (2 wheel cart for hauling appliances and boxes) broke and we are moving our son this weekend. I found one on sale and had a coupon at that store so we were able to save 55% of the normal price.


What have you done?