Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: May 17 - May 23, 2026

feralferret

feralferret

Veteran Member
Just about to go to bed.

Looks like Monday night the weather might get "plum wild" here. As an old weather geek, I will be keeping up with the severe weather forecasted for the next several days. I spent several years as the right hand man for a TV meteorologist during severe weather events. This was at two different TV stations in Amarillo. Working with the amateur (HAM) radio spotters who had an operator in studio to feed information to us is what caused me to get my license over 40 years ago. Sure doesn't seem like it has been that long. I used to chase storms in the late 80s and early 90s, back before the movie "Twister" made it popular. No chaser convergences back then.

One big plus of this was I got to go with the meteorologist on NOAA Media Days each year accompanying the weatherman. I got to attend the seminars and tours. I got to see and talk with the at the time experimental Doppler weather radar in Norman, OK at the SSL (Severe Storm Laboratory). This is the radar that the Nexrad weather radars were based on. One year the event was held in Colorado Springs instead of Norman, OK. It included a tour of the Norad facility inside of Cheyenne Mountain. It was the day before then vice president George HW Bush and his wife were going to be there. Anything that didn't move was either getting cleaned or painted. Supposed the we were receiving the same tour that the second lady would receive. Of course the VP would get to see the classified areas that we didn't get to see.

Have a safe and blessed week.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
Our forecast today calls for sunny skies, 88 degrees, and humid. Starting Tuesday, we have rain moving in for the next 10 days in the forecast. Cary has got to get the yard mowed, tomorrow, and Tuesday is our shopping day. More work on the staining will have to wait a while.

We're just resting, today. I'm still tired from our trip, yesterday. I slept good last night, but got up really stiff all over this morning, especially in my lower back. I'll do my stretches, later, after I've had a few cups of coffee.

A pantry skillet meal using ground beef for supper tonight.

Everyone have a blessed and safe week!
 
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WanderLore

Veteran Member
This is my oldest son Sam and the 5 boys on our hike to the caves yesterday. It was great! But I won't be doing that one again. Very steep hills both ways. Boys were great help. One of them basically pulled me up about 1000 feet up the very steep hill. But there are plenty more we can do.
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WanderLore

Veteran Member
The boys loved being out there and my son took them all over the place in the woods. They got a campfire going, set up the little tent we brought, made some Bushcraft stuff and chopped and cut and sawed wood.
The 13 year old who basically carried my pack and pulled me up the steep Hill while my son got the other kids, gave me one of the best compliments I ever had. I said I'm just an old lady, and he said well you're the coolest old lady I ever met..
Sweet!
 
Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie
Looks like a fun trip! I hope that you'll be able to do more outings like that, maybe with fewer hills! :devilish:

It has been raining off and on all morning. I unloaded the dishwasher and tossed in a load of laundry. That might be the extent of the housework for today. I will take my Sunday drive, check the garden plots, and get in some steps a little later. I exceeded my step goals last week, so I'm not in a hurry to get soaked, LOL.

It's nice not to have to have to hurry to cram in all of the chores before the end of the weekend. I'm starting to build a new schedule. I may move my shopping and cooking day to Monday (start of the specials at Fareway) and/or Thursday, when there are two farmers markets. I may still work in a brief trip to the local Fareway on Saturday evening before they close: the fruit and many perishables are greatly reduced (they are closed on Sundays).

I'll work all that out as I go. I don't want a strict schedule, but I don't want to fall back into trying to cram laundry, cleaning, and shopping into one long 8-hour day because my life has become chaotic and messy. Ugh!
 
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moldy

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Have to admit I'm looking forward to the 3 day weekend next weekend. I'm looking for a watering system I know I bought and didn't use, but now cannot find. Ugh! It's not a prep if you can't find it when you need it.

Using more strawberries and rhubarb to make jam (before the storm gets here) and yogurt drops for the grandgirl. Can't wait to see her again, but we won't be going until July. Laundry is caught up, except for being put away and I have enough ebay items in the que that I can list one a day this week (hopefully more, but I think my sales are better when I list at least one a day).
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Today about mid day we decided to go to get pancakes and waffles. He likes waffles and I like pancakes. We ended up at Huddle House out by interstate 49, which is a good ways from home. DH was feeling okay and I was feeling kinda normal. Dh got fried waffles (yuck) and love them, I got buttermilk pancakes and biscuit with sausage gravy. Those were fine the but the eggs were runny and I didn't eat them, but the bacon was delish. The coffee was bland. But we considered the outing a success. Both of us headed for a nap when we finally got home. Nice to do something normal. God is good.
 
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anna43

Veteran Member
Church this morning and then not much else the rest of the day. I'm struggling with vertigo due to my eyes. My right eye wants my glasses, and my left eye definitely does NOT. Mostly I'm not wearing them, but the vertigo brings nausea and headaches. Three more weeks before I can have the eye exam and then another week or two to get the new lenses. Medicare will pay for one pair of glasses, and I will pay for new lenses for my current frames. One is none for things as important as seeing. It seems a small thing, but my schedule and plans are out the window for now.

Currently its 74º/feels like 70º with rain starting again in an hour or so. We haven't had a lot of rain so more will be appreciated if it arrives as rain! We had a lot of wind this afternoon and I could see the top layer of garden was drying out. I forgot to put my plants in the garage outside today and was glad I didn't after the wind came up.

In today's Daily Bread there is a prayer that seems so appropriate for the current world situation. Dear God, as the world seems to burn around me, please remind me to trust in You. I think I really need that reminder, not that I don't trust in the Lord because I do, just that the world seems totally out of control lately.

Just got a reverse 911 call that we are under a tornado watch until 3 a.m. Meemur, it includes you and 23 other Iowa counties.
 
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Wildwood

Veteran Member
We literally have twelve days of rain on the way and it may or may not start tomorrow. DH and I about killed ourselves on the garden this weekend with that thought in mind. If it will give me one more day without the rain, I'll have most of it wrapped up...if not, I'll do what I can.

It's been a big revamp with the new fence but some of the plans may have to wait til next year....if we truly have twelve plus days of rain. I wouldn't mind but I still have four rows and the squash bed completely ready but didn't get the seeds in. Those will be planted this year. Heck, I may plant them in the rain lol. There's so much sand in our soil that I believe I could sew seeds in the rain.

In a way, I'm ready for the rain...my house is a literal wreck and I need to make products for my business but I now have my dream garden. We still have to do something about a few low spots along the fence lines...if we see rabbit signs in the garden, that will be sooner rather than later. It doesn't usually start until the peas are a couple feet tall and they just sprouted.

We had our last decoration this weekend and it's always a bittersweet one. The cemetery ran out of money a year or two ago and it's no longer being mowed. We went yesterday and DH took his big weed eater to clear the area with my family in it and its' a lot. There were other family groups there cleaning their areas and one guy who lived close by stopped and offered to mow part of ours but DH was almost through. You have to love country people...he headed down the road on his mower.
 
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babysteps

babysteps

Veteran Member
We just finished a week of rain... supposed to be mid to upper 70s this week. The garden ought to like that.

Sent a prayer up for you Anna, and also your area Meemur!

Been taking classes since February... I passed my final exam last week and am now certified as a master food preserver with my county extension office. I'm mostly absolutely tickled about getting to hang out with the rest of the folks in the group... decades of hands-on experience in canning, drying, smoking, etc. So many new people to learn from!
 
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hd5574

Veteran Member
Praying for all the storms path....

We are unbelievably dry...but maybe ...fingers crossed we have at least some rain on the way...we expect record heat.was over 90 today...maybe 95 tomorrow..and Tuesday 95 and Wednesday 94....then boom Thursday and Friday in the upper 60s.
This year is crazy...have zucchini to plant..and okra...but not until the end of the week
Green beans, pre sprouted will go into tomorrow..and in a week the butter beans
We are eating from the garden, lettuce, scallions, radishes got tomatoes today from my friend that truck farms ...that smell like to maters..BLTs coming this week...and a big chefs salad...we are eating strawberries..having steamed kale...all sorts of greens are coming...the wild blackberries have been blooming and the thornless are starting..the snow peas are up and climbing...
 
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anna43

Veteran Member
Wildwood said:
We had our last decoration this weekend and it's always a bittersweet one. The cemetery ran out of money a year or two ago and it's no longer being mowed. We went yesterday and DH took his big weed eater to clear the area with my family in it and its' a lot. There were other family groups there cleaning their areas and one guy who lived close by stopped and offered to mow part of ours but DH was almost through. You have to love country people...he headed down the road on his mower...he must have lived close by.
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Most Iowa counties have taken responsibility for heritage cemeteries. They may only mow for Memorial weekend, or they might keep it mowed all season. The riding mowers used these days have seriously damaged or destroyed a lot of the old stones which is sad.

My mom said when she was a child, the weekend before Memorial Day everyone would take picnic lunches and tools and go to the cemetery and take care of their family's graves. Back then there were quite a few graves, but these days, I'd have to spend a month to clear all family graves in just that one cemetery.

All the warnings have ended but it's still thundering, with lots of lightning and raining. It will be interesting tomorrow to hear how much damage there was in the area where a tornado was reported on the ground by law enforcement. All other reports were from radar readings. Severe storms continue in Southern Minnesota, Eastern Iowa and a large portion of Wisconsin.
 
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Wildwood

Veteran Member
I wish they mowed them here. You are so right about the head stones. My third great grandfather is buried in a different section of the cemetery than my grandparents but he passed years before they did. I found his head stone when I was a little girl and was intrigued because it has his initials and last name. They are the same as mine so since that day I found it, I've always decorated his grave.

When I got there yesterday, it had been hit by a mower or something and was turned halfway around. It's not that big but we couldn't budge it. We are going to go out there with a couple more of the boys and see what we can do. I can't leave it like that. Whoever did that must have been drinking...or had a grudge.
 
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SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
Meemur said:
Maybe limit the driving each day? I limit myself to six hours, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, like when I was moving to Iowa. I break that up with sight-seeing. I will also take a longer trip to cut down on long daily drives.
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I'm glad that you and Anna made it through the storms ok!

Our trip this fall will be a 8-9 hour drive. Cary plans to make a straight run, but we will make a couple of short stops along the way. Restroom stops to stretch our legs, so to speak. I plan to take food with us, so we won't have to stop for food. Cheaper that way.

We are hoping that the price of gas comes down, before our trip. I sure hope it doesn't go any higher!
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
High of 90 degrees with sunny skies and very humid, today. Cary will be mowing/ weed eating. I'll be changing out bedsheets, washing 2 loads of laundry, and I'll hang them on the line to dry. Also, sweeping the whole house, and cooking.

Tomorrow is shopping day. It's supposed to be nice, until later in the afternoon when rain and possible bad weather moves in. Rain and thunderstorms for the next 10 days. The farmers around here are happy for the rain we're supposed to get. It seems all their crops are doing really well. From our house to Florence, AL, all the fields were planted in corn, a few fields of soy beans, and winter wheat. It looks like corn is the main crop everyone went with this year. We didn't see a single cotton field. More cotton might have been planted south of us, though. This is just what we saw on our normal route to Florence.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
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Anna... when I had two serious vitreal bleeds in my left eye 5 years ago, I was completely blind in that eye for several months, and then spent most of the next 2 years slowly regaining the vision. It was like trying to see through eyeglasses someone had coated with vaseline! I had almost constant nausea and vertigo, and truly spectacular headaches from trying to focus!

I ended up painting the left lens on my glasses with watercolor paint. It stopped the constant eye strain from trying to look through "clouds", and solved the vertigo problem. It also washed right off when the eye improved enough to see and focus.

Instead of paint, you might try cutting a piece of dark construction paper (or whatever you have around) and use water soluble glue to glue it to the lens. Your "bad" eye will have to do all the work...but it is, anyway when you have glasses on, and it will be much less stress on your brain without trying to adapt to seeing through too strong of a lens.

Or, you could remove the one lens from the glasses for now...

Summerthyme
 
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WanderLore

Veteran Member
That's a neat idea Summertyme.
Got the chores done and went and got more crimped oats. Amish buddy coming out to do horses today. Have to run up and get some more butte.
We're supposed to have a bad storm about 6:00 so I hope it holds out because Amish buddy coming at 5:00.
Got my little garden tractor tire on the way supposedly tomorrow. Also have an oil change scheduled for my truck, my son set that up bless his heart it was a Mother's Day gift.
I think it was 88 yesterday and like that today and tomorrow also. I'll have to get this mower fixed soon so I can get this grass mowed again.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
WanderLore said:
That's a neat idea Summertyme.
Got the chores done and went and got more crimped oats. Amish buddy coming out to do horses today. Have to run up and get some more butte.
We're supposed to have a bad storm about 6:00 so I hope it holds out because Amish buddy coming at 5:00.
Got my little garden tractor tire on the way supposedly tomorrow. Also have an oil change scheduled for my truck, my son set that up bless his heart it was a Mother's Day gift.
I think it was 88 yesterday and like that today and tomorrow also. I'll have to get this mower fixed soon so I can get this grass mowed again.
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Cary has been mowing our yard for over a month, already. He's been working on the house, so it's been over a week, since it was mowed last. It looks rough, and if he doesn't get it mowed, today, it will be at least 10 more days, before he gets to mow. We will have lost it by then.
 
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anna43

Veteran Member
Currently 57º with 8 mph wind which for our area equals no wind! High today only 67º with low 48º which is why I still have winter clothes out as well as summer clothes. It is supposed to be clear until around 5 p.m. when it starts raining again with that continuing until 3 a.m. or so. When I expanded the weather map, there is a huge front stretching from Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska which is likely what will be arriving here later today.

I thought about having the lense removed from the surgery eye except the bifocal and trifocal parts still are okay. Mostly I'm not wearing my glasses at all which means long vision is blurry in non-surgery eye. I have two friends who have lost most of their eyesight and will likely be totally blind within the next year or two which gives me perspective. I need to have patience and give thanks I can see, and that this is temporary. Most frustrating is not getting much done, but so far I'm managing to feed myself, do laundry and occasional cleaning. It's too wet for the garden anyway and self-discipline might be what's needed for the rest.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
Oh man, I'm tired, already. I still have 2 loads of laundry to put away, but I have the whole house swept and mopped. I mopped while Cary is mowing, so the floors would have time to dry, before he comes in. He hasn't finished, yet, but the floors are dry. I turned on the floor fan to blow through the house. They dried pretty quick. I also raised some windows to let the house cool off and air out. It's breezy outside, but a bit warm. 89 degrees, atm.

Taking a break right now. I think we'll have breakfast food for supper, tonight. Biscuits, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and grits.
 
Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie
No major damage here, but my area has gotten over an inch of rain so far, with more to come. The potatoes should be OK because I added more sand last fall, and the bed looks like it's draining well. I will add more mulch to it later in the season when it starts staying near the 90s.

Everything else is doing fine so far. There hasn't been any hail, but there's one more set of storms to get through tonight.

Anna, I'm sorry that the stone was hit. If there's a sexton/manager, I'd complain about that.

I don't have anyone buried in our little cemetery, but I usually help haul mulch for the pathways (I just haul -- others do the heavy lifting) and sometimes pick up flags after the 4th of July, depending on how my back is doing.

SB, take it easy! Breakfast for dinner sounds great. I'm going to do something really easy, too. It's not hot but the humidity is awful, August weather.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
I just finished watering all of my houseplants on the front porch, too. Going to take a long break, before doing anything else. Cary just finished mowing and weed eating.

I'm cheating on supper, tonight. I always keep frozen biscuits on hand for when I'm too tired to make them from scratch. I also, already have the bacon cooked and in the freezer. Just thaw and heat in the microwave. Scrambled eggs, frozen hash browns, and grits are no brainers. I use instant grits.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

TB Fanatic
I'm finished for the day. We ate early, because Cary was hungry. I just got the dishes and kitchen cleaned up. I'm give out. Gotta get rested up, so I can get up in the morning to get started all over again. I'm still hoping that the rain holds off, until we get back from shopping. Then again, they might miss our forecast, entirely. It happens quite often.
 
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WanderLore

Veteran Member
My Amish guy got here and got the horses done with sons help. While he was here, he told me the woman who bought my old grange hall years ago, is having it torn down. He gets to have the new metal roof we paid to have put on.
I have prayed for years to keep it safe and get someone in there to love her. So many memories. She was a living thing to me and I hated having to sell her. The buyer promised me she would love her and take care of her and I was welcome to come visit anytime. A week after the sale, she tole me her plans to tear it down.
A few years postponed it. They didn't love her. When I would drive by sometimes, she looked so sad and I feel like I abandoned her. I can't explain it better. I'm so angry. Its the first time I've cried since I lost my precious husband.
I'm going to go over and put some of Scots ashes by the apple trees he helped me plant there. And ask the guy who is doing the demolition if he will save me a small piece of wood.
The grange is nearly 200 hundred years old and built like a fort. It was our home before we bought this place. It was one of the first places built in the county.
Nobody cares because they are all making money off of this.
I'm sorry to dump this on you all. My heart is broken. I kept hoping the woman would leave and I could maybe get it back. She put a ugly modular in the back. She isn't from here. No ties. It wouldn't have taken much to do a little maintenance and keep it up. I took good care of the place when I lived there.
 
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Wildwood

Veteran Member
Mission accomplished and I just finished...the rain has held back and I've sewn every single seed left to sew in this garden, tied and trimmed the tomatoes plus many other little chores. It may all be for nothing if we truly get two whole weeks of rain. The only thing left to do is plant my okra starts and do the front raised bed and plant my sweet potato starts. The front bed is mostly starts and they are happy where they are for now. I started this morning had a quick protein shake at lunch and headed straight back out here.

I'm doing the happy dance because this garden is almost finished...now I just have to enjoy it and you can count on that. It truly is my happy place. I'm sitting out here trying to get the energy to head in the house and feed DH and DGS. They took off on their dirt bikes and I can hear them way off in the distance but coming closer.
 
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moldy

Has No Life - Lives on TB
It's been a day. One of my co-workers has to be the most negative person I have ever been around. And everything is an insult aimed at her. It is exhausting trying to deal with it almost every day. I'm tired.

It has been raining today, so that is amazing and good. Best part of the day was grandgirl trying to 'blow me a kiss' over the phone!
 
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WanderLore

Veteran Member
Moldy, my daughter had to work the last year with someone like that. Very toxic. That person is not there anymore.
Meemur thank you, you are always so caring about others.
Talked to my daughter about all this. She is going to take the ashes over and sprinkle them. I'm going to go talk to my neighbor who is doing the demolition, ask him for the post downstairs that has all my grandkids and sons height and weight recorded on it. So I can keep it.
 
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