Tuesday, October 30, 2018

When I loath cooking

Yep, 2005 when I was in Philadelphia  for a convention and got a free photo of me in my chef jacket. Grew my hair back out to my waist as I got tired of fighting it to stay up inside my hat.

It sometimes surprises people when they mention I must love to cook everyday being a chef... as a self employed chef that answer depends... for work , love a good solid 5 days a week which usually ended up at least 10 plus hrs a day..at home, I am always looking for plan overs vs left overs and how to slap a good balanced meal on the table in 30 minutes or even better in the oven where I can do something else, like read a book and drink tea.I never have been much at crock pots  At work I love working with different ingredients (great in Atlanta GA) at home here in Ohio, not going to get that variety unless I travel 3 hrs one way to Jungle Jim's. though there are a few things I could order from Amazon if I really wanted to...I loath to order produce or fresh herbs online.

Right now, I am sitting here fighting bronchitis, as Hubby shared his (GRR) and for the first time in 25 yrs we are both sick at the same time and both are not really wanting to cook, let alone clean up.

Keeping with that theme HA HA...I fall back on old stand by's of when I was a widow with kids... Breads, pizza crusts etc were 98% of the time homemade.It wasn't that I did not want to spend time cooking , I was working 3 part time jobs and being single mom...not a lot of time or energy left.

Sunday Beef roast with root veggies (the next time I served beef roast it would be followed by beef noodles and the time after that would beef veggie soup)

Monday leftover beef roast as stew with dumplings (if some how there was leftover it went in to pot pie or Blue plate special of beef over stuffing with mash potatoes)

Tuesday enchilada casserole (made either the night before or in the morning) with lettuce, tom and onion

Wednesday homemade pizza with salad (crust made night before or that morning and prebaked)

Thursday Tuna noodle(store bought noodles) casserole with veggie tray and dill dip

Friday Grilled cheese(home made bread) and canned soup (store bought unless I canned chili or beef veggie soup)

Saturday mac and cheese with peas or peas and carrots mixed in with hot dogs.

Sunday Roasted turkey (yep all year around),sweet potatoes and green beans (next round of turkey would be white bean chili followed by shredded turkey sandwiches, might be a pot pie or blue plate special)

Monday Turkey noodles(homemade), mashed potatoes and cole slaw with apple sauce.

Tuesday Homemade taco pizza with salad

Wednesday mackerel patties, boiled parsley potatoes and peas or peas and carrots

Thursday Homemade baked beans with corn bread and cole slaw.

Friday Aunt Dolly's oven meal casserole (what ever was left from turkey, a layer of veggies topped with slice potatoes and what ever cream soup.

Saturday Spaghetti with red sauce (sometimes meat  or veggie sauce), homemade garlic toast

Sunday Pork roast with root veggies (next round BBQ pork sandwiches followed by Brunswick stew)

Monday blue plate special AKA sliced pork on stuffing with mashed potatoes drowned in gravy with green beans or corn and cole slaw.

Tuesday fish sticks, loaded baked potato and cole slaw

Wednesday  Hard tacos with refried beans topped with cheese and salsa

Thursday French bread pizza (homemade French bread) veggies tray

Friday Hot dogs and coney sauce, French fries and in season fruit.

Saturday. Breakfast for dinner... each kid took a turn  at choosing what would be served. Waffles, Belgian waffles, pancakes,French toast. sweet rolls, syrup or pie filling, bacon,sausage or ham, fried apples or cobbler, grits, cream of wheat or oatmeal.

Sunday Lasagna. homemade garlic bread and salad and broccoli (followed by stuffed shells followed by manicotti)

Monday  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn and green beans because there was NEVER leftover pasta LOL. (I will add here Daughter 2 makes meatloaf first and uses the leftovers either in spaghettie with meat sauce or in chili)

Tuesday.bean and cheese burritos, Spanish rice and custard

Wednesday  Grilled cheese and soup of choice, veggie and fruit tray

Thursday  Calzones ( choice of ingredients) with salad

Friday Mackerel patties, mashed potatoes and cole slaw

Saturday eggs , fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy(gravy was made from what ever fat I had saved and be milk gravy if I had extra milk, in good times it was sausage or bacon gravy)

Sunday Roasted chicken, baked potatoes and corn (followed by chicken dumplings and then chicken and noodles the next round)

Monday chicken and rice and broccoli casserole

Tuesday mac and cheese , peas or peas and carrots and smoked sausage

Wed, chuck wagon beans (hamburger or sausage in homemade baked beans) corn bread

Thursday Homemade pizza with salad

Friday Grilled lunch meat sandwiches with veggie tray

Saturday Appetizers...might be pigs in blanket, cheese and pepperoni and crackers, sweet and sour or bbq meatballs... Kids choice.

Sunday  Baked ham, sweet potatoes and cauliflower/broccoli/carrots (followed by scalloped potatoes and ham then hot ham and cheese sandwiches)

Monday Soup beans with ham, cornbread and baked apples.

Tuesday...leftover soup has mixed veggies and rice(or small pasta)added to it and served over homemade bread.

Wednesday ground pork patties, grits and salad

Thursday chili with cornbread and salad

Friday poor man stroganoff ..(hamburger with horseradish in cream sauce over pasta) carrots  and beets

Saturday Cincy Chili (chili over spaghetti) and a salad

I used to rotate through these every 6 weeks with the change of what was served on Monday's. Sunday was when I had time and didn't mind as much the clean up as much so that's when the meal that took time was. I also baked bread on Mondays, Wednesday and Saturday...3 loaves every time. 





Monday, October 29, 2018

Still sick... 209 update

The only place we have went is the doctor's office. We have ate from the pantry that is full which is a really really good thing since neither of us wanted let alone needed to be out and about in the store.

We have finally got to the point of actually eating something like beef stew,spaghetti with meat veggie sauce and chili instead of just drinking broth and pureed veggie soup. I fixed baked pumpkin oatmeal (Pioneer woman) that was good also.

I have gotten the kitchen together completely (if you don't count curtains not being sewn and hung).  I brought my wind chimes in from the porches and hung most of them at the kitchen sink window.
I won't put a curtain up at this window as I watch the sunrise a lot through it .It also lets me see who is pulling in the drive before they get to the house.



It's nice to have everything in it's place and able to actually find what I need.

I think the next place is the bedroom and my desk area as I am starting National Novel Writing month Nov 1st.

Neighbor came over to borrow some yeast as it was Saturday morning as she didn't think she had enough bread to make it to Monday afternoon (Amish keep Sunday as the day of rest, her Hubby was away at an auction so no one to take the buggy to store for her) I asked for a loaf back in return of the yeast since we were down to 2 slices... BOY was it better than mine. Since she doesn't use a recipe she said she would have to think about it but she thinks the big difference is she uses sorghum and I use sugar. The bread was a lot moister and it is definitely GONE. So tomorrow (Tuesday) I will be baking bread.


Sunday, October 21, 2018

Frugal mid month

Tuesday, I put the last of the green tomatoes in the freezer. Cleaned the pantry and moved some things around so it makes better sense... also will allow me to focus on what needs used up first and what we are low on. I had 10 jars of green beans. Forgot we lost 16 jars to bad lids, daughter 4 still has some of her's here and offered for us to keep them and use them as she has enough to go a few months. Her pantry is only 6 months. I caught the laundry up as I usually do that on Mondays and we went to visit parents instead. All loads were on the clothes line to dry even though they forecasted a freeze this morning we got nothings. I took leftover beef roast and broth and mixed it with leftover chicken and noodles my cousin made that I had shoved in the freezer and had plenty for dinner and enough for my lunch tomorrow.

Wednesday
Hubby is working today for a neighbor. He packed his lunch and we both mentioned at the same time it was weird for him to pack a cold lunch instead of leftovers that could be reheated. He was working outside with no place to to warm anything. He did take a thermos of hot coffee as he does drink it black. Said it wasn't bad even with the winds though the temp never got above 55. 
I ate the leftover noodles for my lunch and spent the day washing the fall bedding and blankets . All loads were dried on the line except the last , it's a heavy blanket but is still damp. I'm okay with the dryer running for one load as I turned off the furnace when I started the laundry since I have realized every time I open the kitchen door the furnace was kicking on. House never dropped below 64 but it will warm up quick enough between the dryer, furnace back and the oven when I bake biscuits after Hubby comes in from mowing the pasture and around the pond that he plans to finish tomorrow. I pulled pork chops (cut from the pork loin I bought at the beginning of the month) to go with pears (on sale with coupon). I will also make a salad with a pear and walnuts (from freezer that was a gift from a friend) and sweet potato (gift from neighbor for going after kerosene for them) to go with the biscuits. I have homemade strawberry pie filling (neighbor again) to go with vanilla ice cream if we decided we want a sweet.

AND THEN IT WAS A SLIDE DOWN HILL

we got the frost THURSDAY  morning so Hubby didn't want to cut anymore around pond , wasn't sure what was weeds and what was flowers since the frost killed the blooms.

I went to make waffles with the new waffle maker and it just kept ripping it apart(on line reviews say use thick batter with 2 eggs so I'll try that the next time.) I didn't want to waste the batter so I made funnel cakes
Friday we decided to hit the produce auction as I was still looking for onions,potatoes and sweet potatoes...
Wasn't advertised as butternut squash auction but that was pretty much all there was. I got some onions, a pie, candy for Hubby, maple syrup and a angel food cake in the area off the auction. SO since we didn't stay for the actual auction we went to Wapakonta to Walters Meats and SCORED. They had my sausages I had on my list, plus we got, hamburger patties, pizza burger patties, cube steak (for less than $3/lb) minute steak, round steak (that isn't paper thin), 10 lbs of hamburger, potato hash brown patties ,shoe string French fries and candy for Hubby. Adding 49 meals to the freezers. Cost is about $2 each meal.

We get the turkeys and hams in Nov and will have a total of 369 meals plus in the pantry. Then it's just milk etc to be bought during the year.

Feeling GREAT with that and then....Hubby GOT SICK. He very seldom gets sick but when he does it's BAD... dealt with that and then Saturday morning at 7 am I woke up in a Crohn's attack...
At least I can see the hospital pond out my window and Hubby is home (not visiting me ) with his crud. We now have some more answers of why I keep getting blockage. I have scar tissue from my appendix exploding and it stops my intestines from working correctly.

We will see when I get to go home... but at least Hubby is home with the babies

Rascal is pretty much laying at Hubby's feet most of the time and Wilbur and Charlotte are sharing the love seat behind Hubby. Usually Charlotte is laying on Wilbur

Blessed Be



Monday, October 15, 2018

a BUSY week

It's only Monday, I keep repeating that to myself,it's only Monday.

I did laundry today using the clothes line Hubby put up out in the yard and like he feared the deadman in concrete came up and started letting the support  post lean in causing the lines to sag in the middle. I stepped on the concrete and it sank back in some. Hubby was going to go look for something to weigh it down and I told him to get the Ford...the car that is suppose to have went to the junk yard weeks ago... Well, today it was parked with the front tire on the concrete holding the clothes line up so my bedding didn't drag on the ground.

Regretfully even after drying everything on the line I had to run the last 3 loads through  the dryer to kill the gnats that decided my bedding looked comfy. At least it wasn't a long time , just a hot dryer.

We don't have a power washer for the parts that are vinyl siding on the house so I hand washed the part that is on the front porch with blue Dawn and rinsed with vinegar. Looks better than what it did. Hubby didn't realize how dirty it was until I was about half way through.Took me a couple hours but well worth the time.

I froze enough green tomatoes for  6 meals of fried green tomatoes, I might get more before the rest of them turn red.

I cooked about 10 lbs of red tomatoes to make juice with tomorrow ( I have juice ready to can tomorrow in the frig)as I needed to make bread after dinner since Hubby ate the last of the bread this morning and wants an egg sandwich with his oatmeal in the morning. I made 2 loaves of oatmeal bread (Owlhaven.net) and made extra oatmeal for breakfast.

I weeded the flower garden,definitely will have to move the hosta next spring as they have outgrown the area and you can't even see the sidewalk.

I fixed leftovers for lunch and then we had a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato on the side. We had potato chips as our even snack.

Hubby mowed all the property but decided to not trim as we know we will be mowing at least one more time and want to do the trimming then.

He also went to a local place we were told carried weed barrier that we are looking for,they were out but offered to order it for us and then told Hubby where they order from. The place is 15 min from a place we have been wanting to go (Lehman's in Eastern OH that provides items for Amish and like).So we decided we would go there this Thursday as part of Hubby's birthday as he turns 60 tomorrow.

I did 2 orders to Joann fabrics using coupons both times. We decided to make curtains for the French doors for night time or during the hotter months.  I need to stop at thrift shops to see if I can find something to back the flannel for the curtains in the front room as Hubby said the front room got pretty chilly when the temperature dropped last week.

Tuesday,
It's Hubby's 60th birthday and we have in recent year's went to Lock 16 in Lima OH for him to have steak. I always make sure to tell them it's his birthday and they bring him a cake.The server remembered us from last year as we paid for an elderly couple that was having their anniversary and we left the server a big tip as she went out of her way to make sure the couple had a wonderful meal which was apparent they were sharing a meal and picked the lowest costing meal. We did some errands first and got some needed items on sale.Then did a pit stop at the produce farm to pick up the winter squash for the pantry. I worked more tomatoes when we got home,should have enough juice to have a full canner in the morning.

Wednesday
Slept with the windows open as it didn't drop below 68 last night. Won't be do that again for a long while as the high for the next 9 days isn't even that high.

Hubby finished painting the house and I canned 12 qrts of tomato juice and cooked 2 more pans of tomatoes. It's drizzling now but the wind is high so I won't be going out to the barn to can tonight.

Storms are suppose to be running through in a few hours, they said that this afternoon and it came in 3 hrs early.

I went through 15 boxes and put them away.I find some old curtains of Son2 that he gave to me to keep for anyone that needed them. I had lined them with blankets several years back and decided to take the backing off and use it to line the curtains I am making for the front room. I remember I didn't spend over $3 for the blankets at the thrift shop so this is just the icing on the cake to reuse it.

I washed laundry and hung our clothes on the kitchen clothesline and the winter bedding and curtains on the yard clothesline.

We had leftovers from Lock 16 for lunch and dinner.

Thursday,
We went to Holmes county for the day. We needed weed barrier for the gardens and the local green house told us where they order it from and offered to order it but since we have been wanting to go to Lehman's in Holmes co. and the place was only 7 miles away it made sense to just pick it up ourselves. We drove the car instead of the truck and hoped it would be a negative of bringing everything home.

 Turned out to be a good choice as the gentleman gave us a price comparison of getting 4 of the 300 ft lengths instead of 5 of the 100 ft length actually saved us the price of the 4 th roll. PLUS we got more weed barrier.He also got us a deal on barrier staples that got us twice as much for the same price and the popcorn plate that fits my seed planter was half the price we found it at Johnny's seeds.

We then went to Lehman's and got wicks, lamp oil and 6 lamp chimneys so when I do the fall cleaning I can put out the oil lamps also. Those items were on sale. I picked up some hand soaps for the mudroom and kitchen sinks. I forgot I now have 4 sinks. I will just refill the bottles with the hand soap I have in the pantry.We got a cast iron waffle iron you put directly on your stove. It was marked down to $17 from the $45. Waffles will be on the menu.

We went to a grocery store that had an restaurant attached to it and had a late lunch. We chose to just have sandwiches instead of the special because it was cheaper and after seeing the specials served we could have bought 1 and split it and still had leftovers. Even with what we bought it was less and healthier than the local Mc D's .

We talked about where to cut the budget on the ride over and back. Batted thoughts of how to bring in money or save money. I will be back to growing my own plants or getting them at the produce auction of course. Hubby is going to get a hold of his brother in law about buying some stuff from him for welding.

 Friday
Last night Amish neighbor asked if we would stop by his house this morning and get his kerosene container and pick some up for him as they were almost out and it's what they use for their lamps. We were running errands today so it wasn't out of the way.

We paid some bills, Hubby got tags for the trailer and motorcycle that are in his name. Hubby filled the truck up using the Kroger points.He got a flu shot,
made a deposit at the bank, dropped off a tax paper that will give us 2.5% deduction on our taxes next year.I went in to the  newspaper and found that they had gave my delivery person the wrong address so that is straightened out. Stopped at the library and then we went to the store.

Kroger's.... wasn't busy for a Friday morning and it was stocked well. I am still adjusting to the how much smaller it is and the layout seems to be random , might be so you walk through the entire store to pick up a can of veggies and a can of fruit.

 Couple things I had coupons for they don't carry so if I am closer to a different Kroger's before they expire I will check else where. I saved over $200 and the manager had to over ride the system to get me checked out. Hubby did ask why I got more pasta with what we have.... it was on sale and the coupon I had made it 40 cents for a pound of pasta... So we will get 6 meals for $1.20....SMILE
Total meals added to pantry is 74. I was going to drop a ham and a turkey off the buy list but Hubby wants me to keep it on. We have the room in the freezers and he is just feeling it would be better if we didn't change plans at this point.

He took the kerosene to the neighbor and I sent a list with him that I keep extra flour, oil, yeast etc so if they ran out or low to come borrow instead of trying to get to the store especially as early as it's getting dark and being in a buggy. Hubby said she was excited as they haven't had time to go to town (it's an hour buggy ride one way) and she was out of oil and had been for awhile. So Hubby took her a gallon of oil and made her day. She asked what we wanted for it and he told her he would have to think about it... DUH... I said when he told me...BAKED GOODS.. He laughed because it hadn't crossed his mind even though he just bought a pie at the local store made by her cousin LOL.

I still need to find some containers to put stuff in that is now in the basement since we don't have a butler's pantry. I'm waiting as I definitely don't have everything put away let alone a place to put everything.

Saturday 
I did all the dishes up including some that had been packed, canned tomato juice, washed the outside of the front room windows and the storm windows before Hubby put them on. Did 2 loads of laundry using the yard clothes line.Hubby put together 2 more shelving units for the pantry in the basement.I searched the barn for milk crates to wash on Monday for the root veggies for the basement. I closed the ceiling vent that allows warm air to rise from the front room to the guest room. I fixed pizza from the pantry.

Sunday
I slept 12 hrs straight, definitely don't feel good so hope it's a passing thing as several of friends and family have commented that they have the stomach bug. I already got my flu shot so maybe I won't get what ever is going around. Hubby also just got his flu shot.

Hubby put up the "closet rod" I asked for in the staircase at the front room and I put a heavy curtain on it to help stop so much of the warm air going up the staircase.  I really need to finish the fall cleaning up there and get the sewing room put together so I can sew the winter curtains.

I went down to change things around in the pantry since Hubby added a couple more units. He put 2 of the shelf braces on upside down and the shelves collapsed when I had them LOADED... lost 3 pints of pickled beets and have a messed up thumb and pulled bicep as I tried to stop the shelves. Got that mess cleaned up and Hubby kept telling me he was sorry... decided to just call it a day ...both of us and start again tomorrow. Good thing as I am having troubles hold things in my hand due to the swelling and bruise of the thumb and definitely don't want to lift anything heavy with the arm.

I pulled ground beef to make tacos for dinner. We had odds and ends from the frig for lunch.

I put the budget on an excel sheet and paid the bills that are not automatic. We have decided we want to put down at least 20 % on the new truck for Hubby.I transferred what we set that amount to be to Ally bank. We don't touch the savings there unless it's an emergency plus it makes more in interest than our local bank.









Saturday, October 6, 2018

Filling the pantry for a year FRUGAL

Living around farmers you get to hear how the price of corn is down, how it's too wet for the beans to be harvests and the price of meat is going to go up.

We already have a good pantry but when the man who used to own this house offered us free tomatoes because they had fell off the vines (he called them seconds) and he doesn't sell them at the auction , we went to glean them...
110 lbs of tomatoes with a possibility of more when he cleans his hot house if his helper doesn't take all of what is left.

Hubby on his tractor with the new tiller preparing the south garden (the one that will have seasonal plants) He already did the north garden which is perennials and the garlic.



After we was done gleaning the tomatoes Hubby mentioned the freezers are pretty low on meat. I told him Kroger's had a sale of roasting chickens (7-8 lbs) for 69 cents a pound. Don't see it lower than that anywhere around here. So we decided to go to Kroger's before home.

We had decided the other week over our morning coffee to have 730 meals in the pantry. That is lunch and dinner for a year.

We save 1/3rd of what we bought... they had other meat on sale but it wasn't listed in the weekly ad. I now have an additional 75 meals of meat (not meat, I list things by how many meals it will make us to make sure we have enough food to go a solid year)

We got 10 dozen eggs (for less than $1/dozen) which is not counted in the meals as I will use part of them to make noodles,2 pork butts, 1 boneless rib roast (for Christmas as the price was cheaper than I have ever paid at Christmas) 2 racks of ribs (one for New Year's),3 roasting chickens, 2 pkgs of rib eye steaks (for when Hubby craves a steak after so many casseroles and soups)2 bags of frozen thin chicken breast, 2 pkgs of fresh chicken breast,3 pkgs of ground pork,12 lbs of ground beef, 2 pkgs of chicken thighs, and 2 pkgs of chicken wings (for when we miss our favorite wing place)  I cut the wings in 3 pieces and bagged the tips for broth. I broke the pkgs down to meal size and vacuumed them. What is already in the freezers is 4 prime rib roasts(from Christmas) a pork tenderloin, a pork loin, 10 meals of pork chops, 2 roasting chickens, 2 hams, 40 meals of pepperoni, 1 rack of ribs, 1 qrt of beef cubes for stew or noodles, a bottom round roast, 1 pkg of thin chicken breast, bacon, bulk sausage, and smoked sausage. Total meals in freezers are now at 117.

I then checked the pantry.
Dried beans : cranberry , navy, black, red, great northern, lima, garbanzo, cannelline, and blackeye peas.

Canned beans: refried, baked, lt kideny, dark kidney, chili beans, blackeye peas, garbanzo, pinto, cannellini and black.

I have red lentils and green lentils

Soups: chili(mild and zesty), beef veggie, asparagus,tomato,and beef stew, turkey white bean chili.

Canned meat: corned beef hash, corned beef, tuna, mackerel, salmon, pork, spam,dried beef and turkey pot pie.

Potatoes: canned sweet potatoes, canned whole white potatoes, canned sliced white potatoes,dried hash browns, dried diced potatoes, and dried sliced potatoes.

Grains: Rice-Jasmine, parboil,long grain, basmatic,arborio,brown, black, and minute. Grits, quinoa,barley, farro,millet,polenta, corn meal, oats and cream of wheat.

I have 28 varieties of pasta all bought on sale

My to buy list is now

1 roll of G&R bologna (8 meals as it is 1 inch thick)
4 Aldi's hams (20 meals)
6 turkeys(use carcass for broth) (36 meals plus broth)
1 case of Walter's dinner sausage (12 meals) or more hamburger.
12 winter squash
50 lbs of white potatoes
20 lbs of sweet potatoes
20 lbs of onions
10 lbs carrots
4 bunches of celery.

We figured out after buying what is on this list we would be short 213 meals... that we decided to have them be vegetarian. So we listed 54 meals we enjoy that have no meat/beans(though might have scraps of what ever meat was leftover aka ham bone, or eggs) so we can rotate through those meals. Hubby doesn't care much for soup but I added 7 soups (ThePrudenthomemaker.com has several) so we can rotate through the soups 4 times in a year. He will do better not eating the same one a lot.

I baked 2 loaves of bread and froze one for when I don't have time to bake. Hubby didn't realize that baking bread takes about 4 hrs. Told me I needed to buy another bread pan so I could do 3 loaves at a time. Considering he already ate half the loaf I might agree with him though I know he won't eat the same bread all the time, something both of us don't care for. I baked Amish white bread this time. I plan to make oatmeal bread (Owlhaven.net) then a potato bread (simplyrecipes.com), and my favorite English muffin toasting bread (Kingarthurflour.com).

Back to canning tomatoes
Blessed Be



Monday, October 1, 2018

The start of a frugal month

Yep...saving big time...how... we didn't have to pay Oct rent for the old place along with the mortgage here, a savings of $700 PLUS the landlord said since we weren't actually living there through Sept we wouldn't be paying the electric bill for that month, especially since we had turned off the AC before we moved here at beginning of Sept.That's another $125.  We won't be driving every day the truck with trailer and the car 120 miles round trip spending $160 a week in gas....for a savings of $640.
We won't be eating out 3 times a week at $15 a meal to split between us saving us $60 a month. That's $1525 a month savings.  JUST FYI, we came in at $10 over what we budgeted for 209 including gas and eating out.

That will be split between, savings, mortgage principal (goal it so have 20 % paid off in 3 yrs) and a new truck payment for Hubby(which we have already figured out how much he can pay down and what he can carry as a loan and the interest rate he can afford.

I harvested the last of the ripe tomatoes and the last of the green ones. I will be saving the seeds for next year.

I harvested the last of the hot peppers. I won't save these seeds as we didn't like the peppers all that well.

I harvested the last 3 heads of cabbage.

I harvested the last 2 green onions that got missed when I thought we had them pulled a couple months ago.

I harvested rhubarb by cutting it back to get ready to transplant it to the north garden.

I harvested grapes, there are some not ripe so we will eat those fresh if the birds don't get them . Buying a net for the grape vines is on the buy for gardens list.

I found a source for eggs  and a couple suggestions for bulk goods . I will be checking out the bulk goods to see if it has what I need and if it does I won't be renewing our membership to Sam's club that is almost an hour from us now.

I cut the pork loin in half and vacuum bagged it for 2 roasts for this winter. I cut the second one I bought into 20 pork chops and froze them on cookie sheets so I can vacuum them 2 to a bag for our meals.

I sliced the 2 sticks of pepperoni I got (that I was given a discount on due to moving away and being a regular buyer) and now have 20 months of pepperoni unless we eat more of it than we regularly do.

We found a tiller for the tractor for about half the price of what we were seeing. We were able to till our north garden today without paying for it to be done.
I will be transplanting the strawberries and rhubarb to this garden and planting the garlic, hopefully if the rain holds off...I'll do that tomorrow.

The Amish neighbor stopped by and asked what we were planning on doing with the 3 acres we let him plant corn in (for free), He had a look of surprise when we told him we were planning on him planting it with what ever he decided on with no rent . He said he felt better if he paid us rent and told us what he rents other properties for. I did qualify before he offered money that he had to find me an bulk store for flour and sugar and where I could buy 2 to 4 dozen eggs a month.
Hubby added someone to buy straw from... he laughed and said he could do the eggs and straw and when his hens weren't laying there was a couple others that sold eggs. He told us where the bulk stores were at and then offered to pay rent for the property. It would cost us more to maintain it so letting him do it for free
 actually saved us money. Hubby said the rent would go in the savings for what we needed for the gardens. I think I will put it in savings for when we are short on $$$.

I sewed my skort twice before I realized it kept ripping because it's too big on me and rides lower that normal so when I walk it pulls the old tear back apart.

We went to our grandson's wedding... tempted to buy a new outfit but chose to wear my little black dress that I've only had 40 years. Yes 40 years, I paid $100 for it and it's averaged out to $2.50 a year and it looks good enough to go another 5 yrs at least. I got several complements on it and my grandson remembered the dress from his childhood and mentioned it to his mom, my daughter2 and she remembered me  having it during her childhood so they decided to ask how long I had it. They were surprised it looked so good being that old... I was surprised I could still fit in it. LOL

Blessed Be