Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: March 29-April 4, 2026

We are blessed enough to have our grandkids close by. They love to stay at our house and we love having them...as much as their parents will allow so about half the time, it's like we are still raising two kids and so I still cook for four about half the time. We prep accordingly. Still I have cut back some.

I'm no longer willing to waste food that gets too old to eat before we can work it into the rotation so my preps look a lot different than they did even a couple years ago. Also, it's a part time job to keep it all inventoried and make sure it's rotated. We still have the long term storage stuff....if it is still fit to eat. The super pails I have opened over the years didn't hold up all that well. I've posted about it before. The ones I did myself are holding up much better than the professionally done pails...go figure.

On the other hand, we have much more home canned stuff than we use to and that is much better than anything else but not portable in case of bugging out suddenly.
 
Wildwood said:
We are blessed enough to have our grandkids close by. They love to stay at our house and we love having them...as much as their parents will allow so about half the time, it's like we are still raising two kids and so I still cook for four about half the time. We prep accordingly. Still I have cut back some.

I'm no longer willing to waste food that gets too old to eat before we can work it into the rotation so my preps look a lot different than they did even a couple years ago. Also, it's a part time job to keep it all inventoried and make sure it's rotated. We still have the long term storage stuff....if it is still fit to eat. The super pails I have opened over the years didn't hold up all that well. I've posted about it before. The ones I did myself are holding up much better than the professionally done pails...go figure.

On the other hand, we have much more home canned stuff than we use to and that is much better than anything else but not portable in case of bugging out suddenly.
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I have to say that there is nothing in my pantry older than 3 years. I keep everything in rotation, and we eat out of the pantry year around. I only store what we already eat. Even when/if I come across a canned item that is expired, I still use it, unless, there is damage to the can or it's bulging. It's still good.

I still have about a year's worth of long term storage foods, too. I haven't had reason to open any of it, but hopefully, if it says it has a 30 year shelf life, I'm hoping it does. I haven't seen any of the cans leaking from the boxes the #10 cans are in. No foul smells, either.
 
It's crazy when you realize that your long term (35 years) storage is approaching that timeframe!! I recently opened freeze dried peaches, apples, blueberries and strawberries to refill the pint jars that I'm using from and all was good. I re-sealed the rest in glass jars so hopefully it will stay good.

HyVee is the only store in this area that offers cents off on gas and the prices there are high enough to make it not worth it. Walmart and Aldi are the stores where I do most of my shopping and the prices are low enough (relatively not actual!) to skip the gas benefit.

It's 87º and I'm too warm dressed in my usual sweatshirt and T neck. I don't want to change because by evening, I'll be comfortable again. Wednesday it's supposed to rain and Thursday and Friday rain/snow. We need the moisture as we are still under a fire advisory although not currently red flag. I went out and picked up garbage from of the hedges including half of a flag. Then I pruned mulberry trees from the honeysuckle hedge on the east and dead out of the lilac hedge on the north. Also, pruned the lilac where it made mowing difficult.

I vacuum sealed the shredded cheese from the pantry box in 1-cup amounts then put all into a gallon bag and into the freezer. I got 10 1-cup bags. Such a blessing, I have a single 1-cup bag left from the previous cheese from the pantry box. I also received a can of cream cheese/cinnamon frosting which expired a couple weeks ago so baked cupcakes and will use that to frost them. I did yellow cupcakes from a mix that expired in 2022 and they turned out perfect. The frosting has to be refrigerated so I was planning to store the frosted cupcakes in the garage overnight ... it is only supposed to go down to 48º, but I think that will be cool enough. I don't have room for 23 cupcakes in the fridge. I plan to take them to Bible study tomorrow afternoon.
 
Harris Teeter offers cents off here but they’re one of the more expensive grocery stores so… I usually get gas at Sam’s Club as they’re the cheapest.

I got maybe half of my list done today. I left a hill of dirt to be spread because I have dgd tomorrow morning and we’re going to play in that dirt! My kids used to love it so she should have fun. Then I have some seeds we can plant.

I would’ve gotten more done except for that dang chick! Then of course after I got them all out I had to sit and watch them for a bit to make sure they were gonna be ok. And laugh at them running around. My rooster thinks they’re his babies lol! He’s standing at the fence clucking to them and my momma with two babies about the same size keeps running over to look at them.
 
I've always looked at our long term storage foods as an insurance policy. It's better to have, and not ever need, than to need, and not have. We may never have a need for it, but I wouldn't consider it a waste.

We bought our long term storage foods in 2 batches. One batch still has about 10 years left, before it expires. The other, we just bought last year to add to what we already have. I don't worry too much about them. It's all the 10 year shelf life of all the Keystone meats I have in storage that causes me to worry a bit. I do need to start using them on a rotation basis. A few cases of those are approaching their expiration dates within the next year or two.

83 for our high, today, but cloudy. It looks like it's about to rain, but no rain in our forecast for today. I'm finished with my work outside, until I get more potting soil and my bedding plants.

Tomorrow is shopping day, so I'm finishing up on my lists, today.

Thursday, I have an appointment with my retina specialist. My eyesight is still doing great, so I guess the macular degeneration is still in remission.
 
It was 84 yesterday, and today it's back to the seasonal temperatures, upper 40s. Soil temperatures in the raised beds are at 43-44 degrees. The soil in the ground is 41 degrees. I'm watching for 45 degrees for 3 days in a row in the raised beds and/or a warm spell. That said, most people that plant potatoes around here do so between April 1 - 15, depending on whether there's heavy snow in the forecast.

I may plant a row this weekend, depending on how my back is feeling. I had good luck staggering the planting last year and plan on doing that again.
 
OMG! OMG! :hof:

I was putting laundry in the washing machine from the laundry bin. I came across a dead snake skin in there!!!!!! Cary has looked over and under everything, but can't find the snake! I had to take a nerve pill. I'm about ready to let the snake have the house! Cary said my screaming all over the house probably scared him back out the way he came in. I'm scared to death it's still in the house somewhere.....
 
SouthernBreeze said:
OMG! OMG! :hof:

I was putting laundry in the washing machine from the laundry bin. I came across a dead snake skin in there!!!!!! Cary has looked over and under everything, but can't find the snake! I had to take a nerve pill. I'm about ready to let the snake have the house! Cary said my screaming all over the house probably scared him back out the way he came in. I'm scared to death it's still in the house somewhere.....
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Can you tell what kind of snake by the shed? (I have no idea how dried out they get lol)
 
PrairieWind said:
Can you tell what kind of snake by the shed? (I have no idea how dried out they get lol)
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It was pretty long. Cary said it looked like a chicken snake. It was dried out, but that means the snake was in the house when it shed it's skin. Now, there is no telling where it's at. I was almost at the bottom of the laundry bin when, there it was! Laying across a bath towel. I have no idea how it came in. We've not had any doors open, unless we were going in or out.
 
I'm glad you had a warning before you found it. You may have needed more than a pill had you come across the live snake in the laundry bin.

I probably would've freaked out, too, unless it was one of the baby garter snakes. Those don't bother me because they are small, and I know they are harmless to humans. I see them often when I'm mowing in the spring. But anything bigger . . .
 
I'll share two snakes in the house stories. First, my aunt opened bathroom linen closet to find a large bull snake. She ran out of the house screaming ... then calmed down because she was not afraid of snakes ... then when she went back in it was gone ... when my uncle came home, he found the house in disarray as she was tearing everything apart trying to find it. Never did so assume it went back out the way it came in ... likely around plumbing pipes.

My sister, who is terrified of snakes, was in the basement doing laundry when a snake dropped down in front of her. It came through a hole in the basement wall. Not sure how she got rid of it, probably one of her boys carried it off.

When we lived in Wyoming, I had a 6' rattler on my backsteps ... outside. It got dispatched but not by me!! An hour earlier there had been 12 kids playing in that area. We had a partial basement then crawl space. A large bull snake moved into that area, and I no longer had any mice in the house, and I never went back to the basement. Nice thing about Iowa is no poisonous snakes except timber rattlers which are primarily in SE Iowa. They are seldom seen and I can't recall ever hearing of anyone being bitten by one.

Gloomy windy day here. It's 52º/feels like 45º and tomorrow's high 49º with rain. I have Bible study at 2:00 and am taking cupcakes. I baked them yesterday to use the frosting that I got in the pantry box. When I opened the frosting container and tasted it, I decided to use chocolate frosting instead. The frosting is not spoiled, it just doesn't taste good to me and the color is not appetizing. Probably why it was donated for the pantry box!!!
 
It's been so wonderfully warm! I put the horses over in the other pasture for a few hours. Trimmed all the rose bushes. Got the lawn mower up and running and moved.
Picked up a bunch of bricks in camp area and moved a large pallet with 4x8 board on it to my cabin front for porch.
Other stuff. I had to put the horses back because the wind was really bad it's still howling, we have severe thunderstorms rolling in.
Tomorrow will only be in the upper 40s after that going back into the 70s.
I have to pick up my daughter's cat and take it to get spayed and while I'm waiting for the day I'll see if I can get some shopping done. I think I'm going to get some potatoes and other stuff to get planted.
So much enjoy reading all you guys updates and stories! Meemur so very happy for you that you can retire!
 
Giant Food here one is of the more expensive stores...I was thinking the same as all of you..they have made some huge changes...orginally all the sales were automatically reduced if you had the store cards..then the changed sometimes you had to go to there website to get the digital coupon for the sale price..

but at holiday times...they have some of the best sales..yesterday..on sale I bought a spiral sliced maked $41 for $7..limit of 2..they had small beef roasts..at a huge mark down...long date vac sealed..about $7- $8 each...nearly half off..large enough that we will get at least one dinner from each...DH will get a snack maybe 2..since these were their brand...so double points...and no limits...I have a freezer...I grabbed several to freeze..so much cheaper than fast food..these were in store sales not in the add..
For the longest time...I thought that I just would get those points
I have to load my points to my card..I can spend as money off of gas or groceries...so I had to go to their website and and do a redeem to my store card by category...
I just recently saw something about offers on their website..they now put up these monthly offers..
For example this month March if you spend $40 in fresh meat at any time during the month..not at one time but over the whole month ...120 extra points over and above the normal points... if you spend $30 in fresh produce .and so forth....then a bunch one item extra points...buy one cream their brand..30 extra points plus the double points...
Then one offer for 1120 pts...if you spent $200 in one order...in this day ...with prices like they are ..and really good sales on lots of in store sales not in the ad..not hard to spend $200..in one trip..I found all this extra stuff about three weeks ago..so I planned...DH and I went yesterday.. we walked out with 1800 points...and they had to call for a manager to approve the sale because we saved over 50% of the total bill...so they turned out to be the least expensive store..even if I paid full price for a few items ...plus $1.80 off a gallon of gas..

..I will need to redeem those points to a category by the end of April then have another month to spend in gas savings....
Those of you who have stores that have gas points get on their website..I had to set up an account and sign in..to do this...but it was well worth it..and start looking deeper..some of them may have offers like this on their sites...I hope they do and you can save more..like we can..frankly I was blown away when I figured this out...Huge savings..
The beginning of April they will have a new set of monthly offers...
 
Wildwood said:
I've had my electric canner for a few years now and love it. I do a fair amount of rebel canning myself...mostly squash, green tomatoes and okra for frying later. I pretty much pressure can everything else. Those are the main garden crops I preserve and grow around a hundred pounds of sweet potatoes every year but I don't can those. My sweet potatoes from last year are still in the same shape they were when we first dug them. They are the ugliest sweet potatoes I've ever grown but the best tasting and longest lasting.

I agree about the ease of use with that canner and it's so easy to get four quarts of anything together. I follow several rebel canning groups on Facebook. Those young girls are fearless. I'm still not as brave as some of them with some of the stuff they waterbath. I know meat would be so much better but I'm not that brave yet.
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When DH and I were first together..he went out and surprised me with a double stack All American canner...when moved here over 25 years ago..the microwave was mounted over the stove..so gave that one to the mother of an Amish friend...and got a smaller one...I have been in her kitchen when she was canning..everything was waterbath..she had one of those rectangle style canners...that sits on two burners...plus 2 pots of water boiling on the other 2 burners..to keep adding to keep the boiling water up to level...no fan no ac...it was sweltering in that kitchen...she was processing that load for 2.5 hours..
The other thing she was using every jar from the store that had a sealing ring in it...no ball jars with 2 piece lids..most of the ones cooling had sealed..
Frankly it broke my heart talking to her and watching her can..don't believe those TV movies
I told DH about it on the way home..he was outside talking our friend and her husband...and told him I wanted to give her my large All American canner....he agreed..so the next time we went to Pennsylvania we took it to her...I have never seen such joy on a person's face..
On a side note: her husband looked at DH and almost snarled.."how much is this going to cost me ?" DH smiled and took great pleasure in telling him ..nothing...it is my wife's canner and she is giving it to your wife...as a present...I have been gifted many jars over the years and sent many to her by way of her son who comes down here hunting in the fall..
Not a very "romantic life" she has..

I love my electric canner but I still have my smaller All American in case I need it one day....
 
DH was totally into snakes when he was younger...he kept them in cages...they were ones he had caught...one day to took a copperhead to high school..in a cage...he had it in the biology classroom...because they are a very common poisonous snake in our area...he wanted the kids to see it so....so they would know what they looked like..if they saw one in the wild..most of the kids would not have known
The office found out and totally freaked out...they were going to kill his snake..he grabbed his snake and went home...he got a weeks suspension...for his good deed..like they say no good deed goes unpunished..

He was in Florida on vacation ..with his family and was hanging out a tourist snake farm...they didn't know that he was learning to milk snakes....and was hit in the hand by a timber rattler..the people who milk snakes..keep all the anti-venoms on hand right where they are working ..he had a shot with in a minute or two..and was fine with no reaction to the snake bite..his parents never found out..

I'm not afraid of snakes...just don't like them..
Garter snakes DO have venom..can give a nasty bite but not enough to cause too much reaction in people..except at the site of the bite...something he taught me years ago..
 
Got kissed by a black snake. Twice. I was asleep and he was trying to figure out what I was. I thought he was a fly and swatted him away at least a couple times. Opened my eyes and I was looking into snake eyes. Screamed the house down then picked him up and showed him to the door.
 
patriotgal said:
Got kissed by a black snake. Twice. I was asleep and he was trying to figure out what I was. I thought he was a fly and swatted him away at least a couple times. Opened my eyes and I was looking into snake eyes. Screamed the house down then picked him up and showed him to the door.
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If that had happened to me, Cary would have been calling 911, because I would be having a heart attack! Not kidding. I can handle just about any kind of bug, but snakes and spiders scare me really bad, especially, if one is in my house.

I told Cary that if I get up in the morning, turn on the kitchen light, and that snake is stretched across my kitchen floor, we would have to do some serious remodeling. He has still been looking for it, but nothing.
 
Today has been a better day. I once found a garter snake in the dirty laundry piled by the washer. The next thing I knew I was standing on the table screaming at my daughter to kill it. She laughed and took it outside.

Yeah - I don't deal with nope noodles well.
 
hd5574 said:
When DH and I were first together..he went out and surprised me with a double stack All American canner...when moved here over 25 years ago..the microwave was mounted over the stove..so gave that one to the mother of an Amish friend...and got a smaller one...I have been in her kitchen when she was canning..everything was waterbath..she had one of those rectangle style canners...that sits on two burners...plus 2 pots of water boiling on the other 2 burners..to keep adding to keep the boiling water up to level...no fan no ac...it was sweltering in that kitchen...she was processing that load for 2.5 hours..
The other thing she was using every jar from the store that had a sealing ring in it...no ball jars with 2 piece lids..most of the ones cooling had sealed..
Frankly it broke my heart talking to her and watching her can..don't believe those TV movies
I told DH about it on the way home..he was outside talking our friend and her husband...and told him I wanted to give her my large All American canner....he agreed..so the next time we went to Pennsylvania we took it to her...I have never seen such joy on a person's face..
On a side note: her husband looked at DH and almost snarled.."how much is this going to cost me ?" DH smiled and took great pleasure in telling him ..nothing...it is my wife's canner and she is giving it to your wife...as a present...I have been gifted many jars over the years and sent many to her by way of her son who comes down here hunting in the fall..
Not a very "romantic life" she has..

I love my electric canner but I still have my smaller All American in case I need it one day....
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That was so sweet of you to gift her that canner. I didn't figure the shows were accurate. I see how overworked some of the local Mennonite women are. I've still got my All Americans but until I get a new stove, mine is in storage.

The stove is a problem. It's one of those Heartland iron stoves but is electric. It's huge and I've worn out every burner and they don't make replacements for that particular model...those particular solid steel burners are no longer made at all and on the rare occasion you find one, they go for unholy prices plus there are three different sizes. I still manage to cook on it but canning would be impossible with the burners like they are. It was my dream and I've loved it but now it's like the 600 pound elephant in the room, only it's a six hundred pound stove...still pretty but barely functional. I will cry like a baby the day we haul it out...if we do. It would be cute on my front porch. We bought it used but like new and still had to get a loan at the bank for it...DH wanted me to have it so bad and we were so poor. Replacement for a new gas one like it would be 8 to 10 thousand and I'm too old to pay that much for a stove. If we were twenty years younger, I'd order one up tomorrow but in all honesty, I'm ready for a commercial gas stove with a big oven, maybe two ovens and six working burners on top.

I've got a healthy fear of snakes...I posted about the black snake getting in my house while DH was in the process of working on the dryer vent...never dreamed that would happen but it was the perfect combination of peeping chicks in a huge plastic tote setting in my claw foot tub about ten feet away from that hole in the laundry room. There was a heavy wood framed screen top of it but he managed to get under it. I screamed like a banshee when I found that huge snake with a chick dead in it's mouth. DH was on the phone with me and within site of the house when I saw it. The grands were there so it upset him a bit when I started yelling at it to leave my baby alone. I don't think he's ever recovered from that one or forgiven me for scaring him so bad lol.
 
What upsets me is in my younger days, I was fearless when it came to snakes. We were on a camping trip with DH's brother and his girlfriend...we were mid thirties. We took them up to Mt. Magazine and we were all walking around the old lodge site along with a ton of other tourists. I had on flip flops and was walking beside DH. I saw a head sticking up above a clump of tall grass right in front of us and as calm as could be, threw my arm out to stop DH...you know like our mother's did when we were riding on the seat beside them without a seatbelt and they had to slam on the brakes...that move, but didn't say a word. He stopped and I pointed.

It was a huge rattler all coiled up to strike. What scared me most was all the little kids running around all over the place. All I've got to say about it is the snake went to heaven that day and that was about the time I quit wearing flip flops outside. I wish I was still that calm, cool and collected woman. It freaks DH out when I scream...real bad. He knows me and he knows it's not going to be good. I've got to work on that but it's hard to suppress that fear response in my old age.
 
I used to be terrified of even garter snakes but dealing with that huge rattler gave me some needed perspective. I still startle when I see a garter snake, but I leave them alone and continue on my way. I do not kill them as I understand they are environmentally positive. That is major progress for me. Now if it got into my house or into my laundry, all bets would be off.

When I was a teen mowing the lawn with a riding mower, I saw a huge bull snake, bailed off the mower and ran for the house. The mower continued to the fence where it sat spinning its tires. I thought my dad would beat me, but he just went out and rescued the mower. Shortly after that my sister and I found out that the city boys we were dating enjoyed mowing with a rider, so we did much less mowing!!
 
One day there were two neighborhood kids playing in the yard next door. My wife was outside in the backyard working in the garden. The kids found a grass snake and decided to throw it over the fence at her. She saw what it was, picked it up, and threw it back at them. They freaked out big time. That didn't quite work like they expected.
 
had both kids yesterday and they wore me out lol! I ended up meeting dd halfway between us because she was running late, then her client wasn't going to make it and then they were. Wishy washy people! They didn't want her bringing dgs because he's been sick so to Granny's it was. He's 9 months now and does NOT want a bottle but he was an angel yesterday! We played outside all morning in the dirt, fed the chickens, and played in the dirt some more. The only time he cried was when I sat him on my bed so I could change into "play" clothes and the cat jumped up beside him. He turned and saw her and screamed! He about climbed over me getting away lol. He ate great for lunch too! Yogurt, salmon, and peas. Dgd I think has a hollow leg like her momma did. Before we even got home she was telling me she needed a snack. Now she ate a whole packet of oatmeal and an apple at home. She had an apple, a bowl of yogurt, a smoothie, salmon, half a bag of peas, and a pbj sandwich and I made her another pbj for the ride home and she was eating it as soon as she got buckled in her carseat! And all of this was before 2pm lol!
Now dgd did do some screaming.....she was digging in the dirt "mountain" and uncovered a frog. It was cold so it just sat there. She was so scared she was shaking. I had brother so I got her walk away then as soon as I could quit laughing I got up off the ground and moved it. She'd been telling me all morning she was a tough girl so I asked her where that tough girl went? When they left I took a nice long nap sitting outside in the sun!

Today I'm up super early thanks to that nap and working on my Bible study and laundry and cleaning the bedroom. I may work on the dirt "mountain" some more later but I have inside chores I must get done first. Its supposed to be 82 here today.
 
The steroid shot Hubby got in his back caught up with him Sunday. His blood pressure was to the roof.He has been taking his rescue blood pressure medication each day since. But yesterday was only 1/2 a pill at a time. The blood pressure highs are getting lower. The shot seems to have helped his back. He said the throbbing pain is gone, but he is not pain free.

Monday I went to town and ran errands. Then went to stay with the grandkids till our daughter got home from work. I was ready to see them since we had missed the last 2 Mondays. I was sick the first week and their dad missed work because he was sick the next Monday. I don't drive enough anymore, so it was good practice for me. I went to Kroger and found some pretty good deals. Besides 2 baking potatoes, I only bought sale items. The main thing I went after was Land of Lakes butter at $2.49 with digital coupon, limit 5. I bought the limit. I also picked up feed at 2 different places. I took 4 bales of hay to our daughter's since I was driving the truck. I was worn out when I got home. We had leftover spaghetti, so supper was easy.

I got all my strawberries weeded and mulched with leaves. And I got part if that garden started breaking up. It has an electric fence around it. I plant my beans, tomatoes, peppers, melons, okra, cucumbers, and peas in the electric fence. The deer eat them up if they are in the other gardens. We had the first of the asparagus with supper last night. It was so good! It wasn't much, but I look forward to it each spring.

I have 2 incubators with turkey eggs in them. One is my old incubator. I hope it still works well enough to hatch them. There are only 5 eggs in it. But they show development. The other has about a dozen and 6 Guineafowl eggs. Our son is taking some Turkey eggs home when he comes later this week. I also have a hen Turkey setting on eggs. I moved 2 of my chickens that were sitting to another pen. I hope they settle back on the eggs. One had 5 eggs and the other had 8. I really need some new young girls for my flock.

Have a blessed day everyone.
 
Still waiting for spring to break here. Believe it or not another winter storm watch out today and tomorrow. Speaking of laundry I do have a combo washer/dryer in the RV and over the off season I have to trudge to the laundromat so really am looking forward to de-winterizing the RV and putting the machine to work. Also yesterday dropped about 6K (that I didn’t want to spend) on some 590 watt solar panels, a few more lithium iron phosphate batteries, racking etc.

Energy is going to be an issue going forward and you know with everything going on power is going to be jacked and I can forsee the co-op having to reduce their crews in the future as we go further down the road of fiat currency implosion. In addition shipping is going to be vastly more expensive starting this month with diesel prices and especially for heavy freight. Right now I wrangled free shipping and considering those solar panels are #70 a piece and the batteries #100 each shipping would cost a small fortune.
 
Oh I don't do snakes either! OK with all other critters. Even scorpions that invaded everyones house after a prolonged drought about 10 years ago. I think it may come from fear of rattlesnakes when visiting uncles ranch in central TX when I was a child. My daughter found a garter snake in her house once and told her husband "Well my mom will never visit me again!"
 
Yep we got a little bit of cold but not bad. 40s.
It stormed all day and night. Little bit this morning but supposed to be 78 tomorrow?

Got all pallets and stuff out of cabin yard so grass can grow. I know it's only April 1 but so ready for the spring!

Just getting more coffee and see what has to get done today. Just got the burner on stove on. Put on some warm clothes.

Hfcomms, I hear you. Our washer that is only like 2 years old, has quit. So I've been taking laundry to town. Son and I don't have much so it's like $5 to wash and dry one load a week and that's sheets and a blanket or two.

Morels should be up soon, maybe tomorrow? Due to rain and then heat. Might go have a look.
 
Well, we still haven't found the snake. I made Cary go through the house last night, before we went to bed, one more time. Hopefully, like he said, it went back out the way it came in. Looking for mice, I guess. I saw a few mouse droppings in the laundry room the other day. Cary put out mouse bait, so no more mice.

83 degrees and sunny, today. That makes for an ideal day to go shopping. We're only going to one town, today. No need for the other 2 towns. Bank, Walmart, and Wine Shop. Cary hooked up the trailer to our SUV, so I can haul back all the gardening items I want to get today. Cow manure, potting soil, mulch, and bedding plants for all my empty planters. We also need a new garden sprayer.
 
true story here....the house my in-laws lived in for years had a full basement. The ceiling was just the beams and the insulation. The freezers were down there along with fil's tools and other storage stuff. My mil went to get something out of the freezer one day and a snake dropped down on her back. It was a black snake but she about had a heart attack that day. Fil had to go around the whole house and seal up any place a snake could possibly get in and I don't think she EVER went to get something out of the freezer again....he did lol.
 
ginnie6 said:
true story here....the house my in-laws lived in for years had a full basement. The ceiling was just the beams and the insulation. The freezers were down there along with fil's tools and other storage stuff. My mil went to get something out of the freezer one day and a snake dropped down on her back. It was a black snake but she about had a heart attack that day. Fil had to go around the whole house and seal up any place a snake could possibly get in and I don't think she EVER went to get something out of the freezer again....he did lol.
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Rest assured, I won't ever look at my laundry room the same ever again. If I go back in there, it will be with a flashlight and the broom. There are all kinds of places for a snake to hide in there. What makes it so bad is that I can't close the laundry room off from the rest of my house. There is a large opening in my kitchen that goes down 3 steps into the laundry room. The snake could have been in any part of my house.

I wanted to add this. One of my great aunts was bitten by a copperhead that was hidden in one of her kitchen cabinets. When she reached her hand in to get something from the cabinet, it got her right on her hand. She was allergic to the anti-venom and almost died.
 
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It's in the lower 50s and overcast here. No complaints! It could be snowing and might snow if Thursday's storm shifts tracks. At least any snow won't stick around at this point. I didn't have to shovel after the last storm: it was melted by noon. I want to save my back for planting a row or two of potatoes soon. Soil temps have reached 44 - 45 degrees in the raised beds today. Soil temps outside of the beds are still 41 - 43. I think I'll be able to plant the raised beds this weekend, if we don't get snow.

In any case, the onions I started inside are getting hardened off and will go in soon. I will also do some direct sowing of onion sets and peas into the containers (soil temps are 46+ in those). Lettuce goes in next week.

I started some red onions from seed back in February, mostly to use them -- they were two years old -- but I don't mind a bumper crop of onions! There are several families who will put them good use. I've got a new onion patch, so there will be plenty of room. That's one of the few crops that grows whether I pay attention to it or not. I wish the squash were that hardy. The Hubbard squash does well, but I don't like the taste nearly as well as the slightly sweeter acorn squash, and the borers like it, too, although not nearly as much as spaghetti squash, which has just been an lost cause. If I grow any this year, it'll be as a trap crop. I may just buy 3 - 4 of them when they're ready, eat those, and call it good. They aren't *that* expensive. (They don't keep well, either, so not worth the expensive or time . . .)

And, lastly, the loofa seeds didn't make it. I'm trying, again. The new ones are in a gallon milk jug with the top cut off and plastic wrap with some holes in it. They got cold, I think. They probably need to be in a portable greenhouse with a light, which I just didn't do, nor am I going to do this year. I put all the starts in or near the kitchen window. The marigolds are growing like gangbusters, so I'm happy. I didn't want to buy any this year.

If the loofa doesn't make it, no great loss! It's a "trading crop" for things I don't grow, like corn. Cash works, too!
 
hd5574 said:
Wildwood...if you have a gas outside grill with a burner plate on the side you could use your All American if you can keep the wind off..
Click to expand...
I use a two burner propane camp stove..run two All-American canners at once.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T try "outlaw canning"! I'm not talking about pressure canning pumpkin puree or other "previously recognized as safe" (using land grant university test kitchens) techniques. Some of those have been revised due to the *very large" margin of error USDA insists on...given the average intelligence of humans these days, I can't say they are wrong!

But water bath canning meat or low acid veggies simply isn't ever going to be safe. It can be "safer" if you are extremely OCD about cleanliness but all it takes is a small smear of garden soil (that just happens to contain a couple botulism spores), and you’ve got a jar full of one of the most dangerous toxins on Earth. Even better, it will look, smell and taste identical to the non-contaminated jars.

But even if you've done it for years, NEVER can potatoes or any root vegetables (carrots, beets, turnips, etc) unless you use a pressure canner. I'm surprised it doesn't make the National News, but every couple of years, the Amish will have a bunch of people in the ICU (usually one or two die) after they serve a cold potato salad made from home-canned potatoes, at a wedding or funeral dinner.

It requires a minimum of 30 minutes at 250° Fahrenheit to kill botulism spores. You simply can't reach that temperature in a boiling water bath. Canning any low acid food that *ever* touched, or was contaminated by, the soil, in a water bath is like playing Russian Roulette with several bullets...

And for those who "break the NEW rukes" and can pumpkin puree or other products, using "official" times from backing the 1970s...just be a stickler for detail. Make sure your canner has fully vented for the required 15 minutes before putting the weight on to start building pressure. (This makes sure that ALL the food in the jars is fully heated to 212° at the center of the jar, or the center of each chunk of meat)

Start timing when the gauge reaches 11# pressure (and if you are above 1000 feet above sea level, set it at 15#), and DON'T let the pressure drop below the minimum for the entire required time.

It's not difficult, but there are valid scientific reasons behind the rules. Be safe!

Summerthyme
 
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