A Surprise Day

I had lots to do, and was in full swing in cleaning when I got the message from Hubby.  He was getting off work early and wanted to take a short bike ride.  By bike, I mean motorcycle.

You should have seen me trying to get the cold weather ear flaps back into my helmet.  Ha ha!  They zip in, and oh boy it's been a long time, so I had a bit of difficulty.  I managed to get them in.

I was a bit concerned.  When he messaged me, there was still lots of water and ice at the end of the driveway.  The sun was out and it was 50°F by 10am.  

The cleaning and long list of jobs to do was put away for a day.  I was totally surprised.

Happy Homemaker Monday

Today I'm joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.


I discovered that radio is very, very boring at 6am on a Sunday.  I needed noise in the house, but man, I had to turn that radio off and put in a CD.  I had a long day ahead.  Just the thought of cooking dinner and making more dirty dishes....we ate leftovers.

We woke up to a warm 39 degrees.  We had a whopping high of 50!   That meant a big work day for me.  

When these temps go up and down so quickly, it is easy for people to get sick, so I reminded the clan to load up on probiotics.  It's easy to live on comfort food when you are stuck inside and can't do much.

Laundry was way, way behind.   It's was a strange weekend.  Hubby left for work before 6:30am and didn't get home until almost 1am Fri-Sun.  Then Daughter stayed with a friend.  It was very weird to be home alone, but I wasn't bored either.

Then my 19 year-old called and wanted to visit.  Yay!  Let's just say that Sunday wasn't uneventful.  Her car broke down not far from here, but thankfully not on the country highway.  Luckily, help stopped, and gave her a ride here.  Thankfully, Hubby's nephew and friend towed it to our place.  Thankfully, the guy and his kids who picked her up, prevented her from having an "I don't want to be adult" meltdown.

While she was here, I showed her how to make "Full Throttle" spice mix and let her taste the sweet potato in the scramble with it, because she doesn't like sweet potatoes.  Yay!  She liked it so she took the recipe too.  She also took a few more, and is going to start cooking at home vs. fast food.  Double Yay!

Tinctures were strained, teas infused, counters sanitized with homemade "Lysol" wipes and so forth.  I have new recipes to try, there are items I need canned, and seeds need ordered.  Two cupboards under sinks were purged, cleaned and reorganized.

On the breakfast plate. . . 
First, a bowl of organic miso soup.  Just keepin' my body happy.

...then some sweet potato/bacon/kale and egg scramble.  We are still enjoying our garden grown sweet potatoes, but I believe that was the last of the kale in my freezer.  I can't wait to be in the garden again.


The weather outside . . .
Raining with a high of 53°F.  We hit a record high of 56°F yesterday.


On my reading pile . . .
Same book, and a pile of library books I need to flip through (patterns)


On my TV . . .
I just watched a movie on netflix called Deadly Switch.  I love watching a show where I cannot figure out who is doing the bad stuff, but I figured it out too early.  Mostly watching regular channels - cooking, gardening, farming etc.


On the menu . . .
I didn't get meatballs made, so after checking the freezer for space (to pre-freeze them), so that's on the list first
-new recipes

With only 3 of us here, I find leftover night happening often, so I guess we'll see what happens this week.


On the to-do list . . .
(for the week)
-muck coop
-deep clean bedroom
-vacuum, sweep
-dishes
-laundry
-order seeds
-make homemade meatballs
-make homemade sausage
-write
-work out
-shampoo living room carpet (spot clean)
-make lip balm
-make face lotion
-make laundry soap
-make dishwasher detergent
-try new recipes
-split wood
-dust


What I am creating . . .

I'm still working on the panels for a set of red pot holders and hot pad, a dishcloth is on the knitting needles, new patterns to try and more.


Looking around the house. . .
I have a bit of cleaning, but after washing dishes 3 times, the house looks pretty good.


From the camera . . .

I haven't been taking many photos lately, but I sure love this one.  I miss that hot tub.
One of my simple pleasures . . . 
Reading old cookbooks


Praying for . . .
The kids

Just Can't Make it Up

Everything that could go wrong in the last 24 hours has.  I just can't make this stuff up, and I won't dump it on all of you with boredom.  It more likely would make your jaw drop.

I put on my big girl panties and only concentrated on what I could, which wasn't a lot.   Due to Hubby's schedule and major overtime, he has not yet repaired the truck ignition.  We can jump it, but you can't shut it off until you are back home, so a trip to town was not possible, and putting a call out to the kids failed with kid #1, sent a text to #2 - hooray!  A ride.

At this point, I'm thinking I need to go to school to learn about auto mechanics.

On top of that Tiger is now throwing up all over because he keeps eating Aurora's food and I have no way to separate them in the house.  I cannot, I repeat cannot wait for warmer temps to put Aurora back outside.

The one thing I could do, was put new ink in the printer and print my seed list.  

On top of all of that (leaving out all the bad stuff), I have to watch for the mail and it varies.  We may have a mail thief.  Just by chance I caught someone at the mailbox as I went out to get wood.  He left quickly and of course I did not have my phone to get a photo of the plates.  Thankfully, my mail lady put some recent packages in the inside of the truck the other day.  It's good to have people looking out for your deliveries anymore.  I am home 24 hours/day, but it's winter and like I said, delivery varies.  And I may not her her honk when she has a package that won't fit inside the mailbox.

I'm saving all the "bad" stuff for my book.  I was writing again yesterday.  I have a cousin in CA, that has connections, so I am hoping she knows someone with a publisher/editor that would look at it down the road.  I'm seriously jumping in on this.  I have some other ideas brewing as well.  Please cheer me on, because the way I see it, you can't succeed without trying.

Somewhat Back to Normal

I've watched so many cooking shows, that I could have a meal plan for a year now.  I also watched lots of gardening shows, and I am so ready for spring - fresh herbs, fresh veggies, sunlight and hard work.  I also watched a fun show about poultry and poultry shows.  I saw some very unique chickens and ducks.

Speaking of chickens, my chickens are all okay, but I think I will invest in a cheap tent and bring them into my garage if we ever have emergency cold temps down the road.  I had many frozen eggs that didn't make it.  I can live with that.

Thanks to this polar vortex - finished set.

Better Prep ~ Writing Muse ~ Jesse

Hubby couldn't find his thick socks when the cold arrived, so I loaned him my thermal thick socks.  Later I found another pair - note to self - buy a few more pairs for next winter.  I also ground the coffee beans in advance, just in case the power went off.  

Something else I did - filled every bucket and pot with water just in case.  That way I can also hand wash Hubby's long underwear and socks for work - note to self - buy extra pairs of long underwear for the both of us.

We are running electric heat, along with the wood stove to prevent frozen pipes.  If we stay here, we'll be looking into alternatives to electric heat.  I'm not looking forward to getting the electric bill.

Recent breakfast (chocolate chip buttermilk waffles with real butter and real maple syrup, and organic bacon), but lacking eggs and potatoes.  I am conserving those ingredients for other meals during this cold blast, and saving the bacon grease for one of them.

While making breakfast, I suddenly got a surge of inspiration to write again (hasn't happened in a long, long time).  I literally dusted off my dinosaur of a laptop and tapped away.  boy it felt good.  The laptop is missing buttons and the one to open it is broken in half, but she works. and I know there is a book inside of my brain somewhere.  Not sure if the cold weather forcing me to stay in was my muse, or just knowing I can't go anywhere and I can really relax was.  I am grateful it returned.  

I spent most of my day curled up watching TV, crocheting, layered in two pairs of flannel PJ's.

I watched so many cooking shows, I hopped out of bed from my comfy zone and heated up the kitchen by baking coffee cake.  That was before we put a drizzle of whiskey butterscotch sauce on it.

I had heard that the USPS halted service, but not to our area code.  I had to layer up just to fetch it so the wind didn't blow it away.  I feel awful for the USPS people who have to work in this weather.  I can do without my mail for a few days.  And by the way, the only thing in my mailbox was a magazine.  All those layers for a magazine.  Sigh.

The most frustrating part of this weather is not so much dripping the faucets, it's taking the dog outside.  I don't know how any of you do this in colder temps.  It takes me so long to get Jesse's booties on, sweater, coat and scarf.  Without the booties, he'd get frostbite.  I keep praying they stay on until he's ready to come in, and so far so good, and thankful I have the booties.  They have rubber bottoms, so they are completely waterproof, but he slides all around on the ice.  Poor guy.

Friday we woke up to a windchill of -20 (temp -8) degrees.  We were lucky on Wednesday to only reach -28°F, considering predictions of possible -50°.  Windchill Thursday was -27°F. 

School is delayed today, as of now.  We are getting a bit of snow now.  Rain later in the week.  

Crock-pot Beef Burgundy with Homemade Noodles

Although we love Beef Stroganoff, we love beef burgundy with homemade noodles and mashed potatoes as well.  Here is my recipe (all organic ingredients or home grown and homemade ingredients):

First:  Thaw a quart of homemade onion soup from the freezer.  To make the soup, see the blue ball book for the recipe.  I make this when onions are harvested, and I use a mandolin to slice all of my onions.  This soup comes in handy to use for a soup start as well, for corn chowder and other dishes.

Add the quart of soup to the crock pot, and add the following:

2 lbs. of stewing beef, cubed and tossed with 1 Tbsp or so of flour
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced*
1 tsp. salt*
1/2 tsp. marjoram, dried
1/2 tsp. thyme, dried
black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups burgundy wine
*(Salt if your soup hasn't been salted)

Cover.  Cook 8-10 hours on low.

I like to thicken this a bit with arrowroot powder, but it's up to you really.

I boil my homemade noodles, drain them and simply toss them into the crock-pot just before serving.   I have also found non-gmo/organic noodles at our grocery store.

We serve it over mashed potatoes (3 lb. of organic white, with 1/2 cup homemade yogurt, 1-2 minced cloves of fresh garlic, and salt).

*for mushrooms, if you don't have fresh on hand, you could use 2-3 cans of organic mushrooms, drained, or re-hydrate some dehydrated mushrooms as well.

Our beef was very tender.  The photo is store bought noodles for this meal.  I use homemade noodles more often than not, but Non-GMO/organic noodles are available in most stores now.  I really need to restock my noodles.

Hannah Sweet Potatoes ~ Polar Vortex ~ New Scarf

Not the best picture, but I never got sweet potatoes made with our sloppy joes, so I made them with the spinach/parsley pesto pasta.  I wanted beets to go with this dish, but you all know we had a terrible garden year.  Anyway, those are sweet potatoes in the photo.  Strangely, I was able to buy organic "hannah" sweet potatoes - a creamy potato that turns yellow when baked.  They were so good too.  I made them on a baking sheet with olive oil, brown sugar and cinnamon.

I also made the Beef Burgundy, so a post will be written soon to share. 

As for the weather?  Nasty.  Surprisingly, the car started, so Hubby is off to work.  I was hoping he would be home, but there are many cars on the road today.  So many businesses, schools etc. are closed today.  Including restaurants, the postal service, Amazon delivery trucks and more.  But no, my husband is essential to where he works, so I am praying the guys and gals there are not outside today.

I crocheted Jesse a new scarf, since his Mom lost his first one.  It's essential to keep him covered today, and it won't be a fun day.  I have to wait for daylight so I can make sure his booties stay on.  It's pitch dark out there and our pole light is not on (too cold). 

My only job today is to keep the pipes following and the fire going.  Stay warm and safe, for those experiencing the same weather as us.  We will have wind chills at a record breaking low.  Right now at 6:45am, our wind chill is at -22°F.

I keep hearing noises outside, but like I said, it's pitch dark.  I will try to look around on my way to the barn later.  The barn door froze shut yesterday, but I squeezed into another door.  I'm praying I can get in there today.  It's gonna be a very rough day here today.  And tomorrow.

It cracks me up when family, who lives in the city gives me advice (living in a farm house out in the middle of no where) on how to prep for this weather....bwahahahahahaha!  If they only knew.....like to bring in the barn cat and advice on burning wood in the wood stove when they don't even have one. Oh my land...ha ha ha ha!