Good News! ~ Finished!

Good News:
Doctor gave me the thumbs up.  Spider bites should heal on their own.  No skin graphs or specialty doctors.  He was very impressed with my progress, and I even told him I did some dancing over the weekend (and no swelling).  It will be a few more weeks for healing, buying a semi truck load of gauze and roll gauze, but it will heal.  I will have a nasty scar, but I am very happy.  I really like my new doctor too. Once again, nurses came to see the updated larger bite, ha ha!  I'm like a hot topic there when I arrive.  Trust me, if you saw a photo of what it looked like when I first went to the second doctor, you'd be "sweatin' bullets" too.  He and I both were concerned.


Bad News:
The heat is drawing the spiders into the house and I have yet to spray inside.  As they crawl in to escape the heat, however, the outside spraying should keep them from living too long if they do get all the way in.  I had to swat at jumping spiders all yesterday afternoon.


Mediocre News:

Habanero-Apricot Jelly

Preserving continues....

 

I started the early morning (yesterday) by canning one batch of habanero-apricot jelly with some of the habanero peppers.  

We enjoy this jam on biscuits, rolls, crackers with cream cheese, on meats etc. It comes in handy for family/friend gatherings for appetizers and snacks.

Heat Returns ~ Spiced Pickled Beets ~ Finished Project ~ Tidbits

Morning sunrise this morning.

It will be in the 80's (almost 90's one day) for the next 7 days here.  The humidity for today is forecasted at 92%.  It's too wet to work in the garden today, so I'm inside again, working on all that garden goodness I brought in recently.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

Yesterday I preserved 6 lbs of those delicious beets. 8 pints restocked now.  I have about 2 more pounds to put up yet.

 One daughter was not happy to hear that "the canner pot" was coming back to the kitchen.  It's only temporary, but needs done.  Either way I preserve the beets, they are boiled, peeled and put into an ice bath (canned or frozen) first. 

Although the recipe I use calls for "baby beets" I used the smallest of my Cylindra beets recently picked.  They sliced up in nice small circles for canning.

I tasted these, and oh my gosh, they taste better than the last beets I canned this way.  We may be planting Cylindra beets again next year.  Yum!!!  A bit more on the sweet side I think.

Small Project Finished List:

Spider Proofing ~ Fall Garden Harvest ~ Black Dakota Popcorn

I may have "hit" the garden a little too hard yesterday.  I woke up 1 hour later than normal, and woke up moanin' and a groanin'.
 
The waterproof/bug proof storage bags arrived.  These are not vacuum seal  type bags (never had good luck with them in the past). I am now washing every bed sheet, pillow case and blanket (that is stored in the utility room drawers). 

The weather was perfect to dry it outside early (before the rain) and immediately fold and seal into bags - spider proofing it. Oh, I'm not done with this chore either.  I filled all 3 clotheslines, and have more to wash up and store yet.

I'm tackling more projects, and continue to deep clean the kitchen.  I'm making up for taking the weekend off.

Small projects:

Blog Hiatus?

I'm suffering from blog-brain.  I can't think to write much of anything lately.  It seems to be the same ol' same ol' gardening stuff.  

I can tell you that Hubby and I decided to take an invitation to an overnight bike ride over the weekend.  We left Saturday and came home Sunday. There were 10 motorcycles I think, and the location was a bike fest.  Lots of bikes, lots of people, but small "fest."  A large band was "banned" by the town mayor (or the mayor's husband from what locals told us, saying the music was not appropriate for "family"), and many people didn't go, there were no vendors at the Harley store, and only one downtown - disappointment to those of us who went.  We were lucky to time it right, to hear one good band downtown.  According to locals, it was a pathetic festival turnout.  

We still enjoyed our time away.

When we arrived home, I felt we hadn't been "riding" long enough, we took over for a ride along the river.

We also felt it was our mini-vacation, so we stretched it out as far into the evening as we could.  

Up early today - back to work.  

No photos for this post, which is odd for me.

There has been a lot on my mind lately, and my "to-do" list is a bit overwhelming this morning. What to start first, where to start first....my mind is racing at 6:30am.

I'm gonna need another cup of coffee I think. The school today, has a scheduled 2 hour delay, so I get the pot of coffee all to myself.

Flower Bed Resident (s)

In between all my other work, I am reclaiming the flower beds, and each time I make my weed piles a bit higher (or more of them).

One day I decided to go rake them into one large pile and guess who greeted me under one of them?

Tidbits ~ Muscle Rub Updates

I'm up bright and early, and even have my all day nutrient packed tea infusion brewing.  I do however, have to go dig through the garage to find myself a new 5 gallon bucket.  

I started to make a bucket of homemade laundry detergent (saves us a ton of money and saves us from chemicals), but the old bucket gave way.  After about 7-8 years of using it, it cracked in the bottom.  So that's first thing on my list to-do list, so I can get some laundry done.

Recipe I use is on my blog: here

Christmas mojo has returned early.  Don't worry, I just put up some fall-ish decor on the cover of my bread box.  That's about it for fall for me though.  Other than pumpkins on the porch soon.

 I'm working on a new ornament right now (in the few free seconds I have).  I've already ordered a new item for my master bath too.  Two years have gone by, and I've not gotten my white tree up.  Even after Hubby went out of his way last winter to buy a new color of ornaments for me.

Hubby and I took off on a motorcycle ride last night to clear our heads of any stress/worry/tension.  We checked out the gauze at the dollar store.  I wasn't impressed - sold by the roll, smaller and less on the roll.    I'm hoping I can downsize my bandage and not have to use an entire roll of gauze (day and night) soon.

Here's the scoop on the muscle rub....

There are many muscle rub recipes out there - in books, online, forums, etc.

I have arnica making a slow and pitiful attempt at growing in a pot, and so far, the seedlings I put outside have been drowned by the recent rain.  Not sure I'll get arnica this season.  Is arnica a "finicky" herb to grow?  Maybe it just doesn't like our climate this year? 

Feverfew, on the other hand is flourishing, even though I just planted it outdoors not long ago.  It definitely likes it's new pot.

Anyway, I made a muscle rub with what I had, and adapted a recipe.  So far it works great, but I do feel that arnica to a muscle rub would be a huge benefit.

Here is how I made mine (using all organic ingredients):