Slippers to the Garden and other Tidbits

 The other day I came inside to do something, and realized on my way back out I still had my slippers on.  I take my muck boots off at the door.  So funny.  My brain is on overdrive I swear.

My living room is a mess and now the bathroom door is in there getting primed.  I painted one side yesterday.  Half of the bathroom floor is in, but they had 4 layers of flooring, so it's lower than the kitchen floor.  There is more work to do, and more supplies, to get the floor even with the kitchen.

I've taken care of the peaches now.  I canned 8 half-pints of reduced sugar jam, and baked a peach crumble.  I left the rest for us to snack on.  Not sure if I will get any into the freezer or not.

I started water-glassing eggs.  I figured if I fill that bucket up, I can start dehydrating, but this will reduce using canning jars right now.

We are going on more than two weeks of zero rain.  We had thunderstorms in the forecast for today, but those left just disappeared off the radar.

I've been doing pretty well keeping up with weeding the garden, but not the flower beds.  I got the green beans weeded finally.

Daughter E never made it out to help clean the upstairs.  She took her car in for a new tire at Midas and they told her that her wheel bearing was so bad that her car was not safe to drive.  I got on my phone and with the help of my husband, (our go-to man is doing our bathroom) he found a friend to change it. Cost of part was $104, he asked for $70 for the labor, and she paid him $100.  Midas wanted $500.00 for the job, and it's a fairly easy job to do.

Random Tidbits

Monday, while Hubby and daughter were scrambling around getting ready at 5:45am, I was mumbling.  

"I have to work out, can jam, clean the coop, make a scramble for the week, do the dishes, do the laundry...."

Hubby said, "what'ya gonna do after 9am?"  

I laughed, and laughed.  That is true.  There is an advantage of being up early.  Sparta was giving me heck while cleaning the coop.  He kept getting out of the door, and out into the open garden area.  I had to keep chasing him back into the run.  I think he's getting old or his broken leg from years ago is giving him trouble.  He's having a bit of trouble walking and climbing the ramp now.

Speaking of scramble - this weeks breakfast for a few days.  It's made with some swiss chard, jalapeno, home grown potatoes, onions, green pepper and bacon.

Tuesday, I was up at 4:26 am precisely.  Work called Hubby in, and the thunder and pouring rain kept me from going back to sleep.

I hope we are well stocked now with Cowboy Candy, but if I can get more jalapenos, I'll can it one more time.  We love it!  I canned blackberry-red raspberry (our berries) jam and more peach jam.  I just wish I could find some hot banana peppers now. The purchase of our organic hot banana pepper plants were a fail.

The garden. . .popcorn may be a fail this year too.  The last storm we had, brought very strong winds, and my patch has been somewhat flattened.  Now with more heavy rain, thunderstorms, wind...who knows what'll happen.

Sadly, the 2# of tomatoes I had brought in, starting rotting in a few days.  

Although Hubby is against it, I'm back to considering working again.  We have to buy almost everything our garden didn't provide to stock up, and our cost to put the garden in has set us back.   Not sure what we'll do just yet.  I was so busy Monday, dinner time crept up on me quickly, so I'm struggling to figure out how to even hold a job and keep this place afloat.  There are many things we'll do without I believe too.

One dinner this week was smoked turkey bone soup.  I don't normally like soup in summer, but it was delicious.  I just added whatever I had, but the smoked carcass from my younger brother was worth keeping.  Yum.

I also made a new side dish - a cheesy jalapeno corn mix.  I used the frozen off the cob corn and it was very good!

Oh, and here is the latest new recipe I tried in my dehydrator. . .

Peanut butter cookies.  They were much easier to flatten than the oatmeal.  The only con to this, is it uses 1/2 cup organic coconut oil.  Same with the oatmeal.  I will however, keep this recipe for group meals and holidays.  I think they'd freeze okay, and if I triple the recipe I can fill my entire large dehydrator and save me time and ingredients.

Busy Kitchen

I hit it hard Monday morning with canning.  Well sort of.  I ran out of sugar so it continued into Tuesday too.  There has been no weeding, as the rain keeps coming, but just enough to keep me indoors.   Last night it poured and we are due for more today.

I brought in one 5 oz dinky serving of green beans, and two dinky hot banana peppers.  No yellow squash yet.   Our harvesting days are pretty pathetic lately.

Peach jam got canned., along with sweet pickle relish, cinnamon-blueberry jam and corn relish.  Whew!

A few zucchini's made it sliced, blanched and into the freezer, but the blackberries are still red.  Also, so far of what we've tasted, the blackberries are sour this year.  I'm not sure what I will do with them if they are all sour

More blueberries made it to the freezer.

We have run into a small sna-foo with the camper.  Once we hooked it up, only the turn signals work.  Brake lights and hazard lights are not working for some reason.  I'm sure my smart husband can figure it out before we do go camping.

I lied.  Our peach tree gave us one very nice looking peach this year.

I finally got around to making stuffed shells again, and some went into the freezer for an easy meal on a future busy day.

As you can see no more greens have made their way into the freezer. I am hoping this rain provides us some.

My back was pretty sore and my entire body pretty tired, so after washing a boat load of dishes and putting them away, I took my handiwork to the porch.