Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: May 6 ~ 12, 2018

[ReneeT]

Busy - and fun! - weekend here with the grandsons, but I was able to get some work done as well. The boys went fishing with some friends of daughter's prior to coming out to the farm, and were very excited to show us photos and tell us all about it. Of course, fishing led to wading, which lead to swimming - even at 78*F, that water was a bit chilly for that!! Saturday afternoon, I ran two more loads of canning jars through the dishwasher, then finished up with handwashing and boxing them up. Got a text that brightened my day and replied affirmatively regarding a group buy of silver. Once the boys got here, we spent some time in between rain showers on identifying animal tracks and various plants in the yard, talked about the bee hives with the bee keeper, and talked with cousins about where the wild turkeys were roosting. Rain kept us from mowing or working in the gardens, but I was able to get some weeding done in the flower/herb beds at least.

We ran in to town late this afternoon; youngest boy conked out during the drive and ended up sleeping in the shopping buggy all the way through Rural King - I hit the bird feed aisle and then checked out clearance (women's two piece thermal fleece long underwear in my size for $4.50) while Hubby and older boy wandered off to discuss the merits of the various types of weed-whackers that were on display. Then the boys stayed in the car with Hubby while I ran in to pick up some loss leaders at the grocery store - which, conveniently for the boys - who hadn't eaten in HOURS (at least two!) - was located next to a pizza joint I'd won a gift certificate to during a meeting at work, so a couple of pizzas landed in the car before we took them home to daughter.

Tomorrow will be exercise at the pool with the neighbor ladies, a couple more loads of jars through the dishwasher, mowing, weeding, and getting some mulch put down. Back to work Tue, Wed, and Fri; Thursday will be spent getting some root crops planted in the gardens, taking some cuttings - gooseberry, roses, lilac; and hopefully digging up some of the ever expanding daylilly beds and transplanting them on a steep slope I'm trying to keep from having to mow.

Lordy, those boys must have worn me out more than I knew - I'm yawning so big I can barely see the keyboard! Think I'll mosey on up to bed; bet I won't have to count too many sheep before I fall asleep tonight!

Take care all; wishing you all a wonderful week!

 

[moldy]

Spent the day butchering chickens and checking fence. I got tired of the egg-eaters (and they were old), so DH and I just did all of them (about 25 or so). RIght now, they're in the freezer until I have time to can and freeze-dry them. Weed-eated (weed-ate??) the front yard and had a nice long discussion with DD#2 on the phone. This was my last day off for a while - my next day off is the 19th. I am caught up on homework - right now I"ve got about a 98% average. Herb school is just really fun - and I'm learning so much!!

 

[prudentwatcher]

Tax season is over and my visit out to Texas to see my dad is done. I am temporarily "unemployed", and while I wait for the temp agency to get back with me, I've had some free time and some energy. I went through my closet and tried on EVERYTHING. I've lost almost 100 lbs and have been pulling things out to donate as I'be gone along, but now the only things in the closet are things I can actually wear. Everything else in in the donate pile. I need to start on the dresser next and hope to get that done this week as well.

One big office supply cabinet (6 ft tall metal w/2 doors) that I use for storage has been mostly cleared of old canned food. I gathered canning lids from all over and now have them organized and in one place.

The other big office supply cabinet holds medical supplies. I decided to buy some heavy duty storage bins (clear) and take all of the boxes of bandaids out and put all of the bandaids in the containers---regular bandaids in one, the really big ones and odd sizes in another. I have a LOT of bandaids. Some I had to toss--the rubbery ones were no good anymore. Most everything else was fine. I have way more knuckle and finger bandaids than I ever imagined, more of the super big ones than I thought, but probably not as many as I would need, and not nearly as many steri-strips as I need. It certainly helped reduce clutter in the supply cabinet.

I also put away a bunch of stuff that had been sitting in bags on the floor waiting to go into the medical cabinet--ointments, cold meds, alcohol, and the like.

A much taller heavy duty container was bought to store spices, as they were overrunning the basket on the shelving in my office. Now I have more than twice the space using the same shelf space. I also got a good look at what I had. Two bottles of sliced ginger, and I don't even use ginger! Plenty of pepper, cinnamon and the like, but found a couple of areas that could be beefed up a bit.

All in all, made a list of things I needed to get, and had less than a dozen items on the list. Felt pretty good knowing I was as prepared as I thought I was.

 

[SAPPHIRE]

congratulations of health improvement, prudentwatcher..........we're struggling to maintain status quo...........wow..........quite an accomplishment, yeah for you........

 

[summerthyme]

Ginger is valuable to treat nausea. A cup of ginger tea, sweetened with a bit of honey, will help nausea from morning sickness, medications, motion sickness, and sometimes even chemo. It might be better kept in your medical herbs...

Congratulations on your weight loss! I'll bet you feel so much better! My spine is really acting up, and it's provided the motivation to lose the extra 15# I put on starting last summer when I had a bunch of teeth pulled in the process of getting dentures. I almost never have a weight problem, but I was very limited on what i could eat... my normal diet of lots of organic meat and cheese wasn't possible. And boy, do carbs pack the weight on for me, esoecially in the belly, which is the worst place for a bad spine.

But I know I often think when I'm carrying something heavy up the stairs, or a couple of 5 gallon pails, and feeling the stress in my spine, "boy, I feel bad for people who are really overweight, and are carrying this extra weight around all the time! It has to be so difficult, and very hard on the knees, hips and spine!"

Your future health and mobility will be so much better thanks to your self discipline! Great job!

I need to get back to the organizing jobs... this winter we did most of the basement, building heavy shelves to hold 5 gall9n pails (the lids break down if they are stacked more than 2 high)... the end result means I now cand find and access some of the food storage that was so frustrating before! I kept saying, "that's where that was!" LOL! And now, when i want to open a new pail of wheat for bread baking, I don't have to dig through a pile of heavy pails!

Hubby moved a shelf unit ftom the machine shed to the cellar, and organized all the screws, nails, paint and other "fix it" necessities. We still have to restock the cupboards with the various home canned goods, and then should have room to move the stack of soups and stews I canned up last fall and winter onto the shelves we built a few years back to hold cases of canning jars.

I really have too many jars, but i know that if we ever can't freeze stuff for some reason, I'll need them all. And my daughter cans some, but the daughter-in-law who will be moving to the farm in the next couple of years is an avid homesteader, so I'm sure it all will get used. My son wants to build a separate building for canning, herb projects, honey processing and all the messy projects homesteading and self sufficiency involve. I dont know if it will ever happen, but its nice to dream!

Summerthyme

 

[ReneeT]

Too many jars?!? Oh Summerthyme, can there possibly be such a thing?!

Woke up late - chaos the last two hours of the shift + getting off work over an hour late + stopping to pick up a gift card + driving home through a miserable thunder/lightning/hail storm had me wired for hours after I finally got home, so I was way late - like 0400 late - getting to sleep. On the plus side for yesterday, the group silver order came in, and I may be able to pick up a bit more than I'd ordered

I'm still on my first cup of coffee, but the hummingbird feeders are filled and a half gallon of feed is made for when I look through the shed for a couple more feeders later today. Also later today, I'm going to see if I can find a heavy piece of cardboard in the shed that I can con Hubs into cutting for me so I can use it to make an oriole feeder so that the silly things will leave the hummingbird feeders alone! We had a free lunch as work yesterday for Nurses' Week - and we actually got not just lunch but also supper since they had lots of extra food - woo-hoo!! - so I took an orange as my fruit serving each time; this morning, I cut one in half and rigged up a feeder using a short piece of chain, a couple of chopsticks and some zip ties It isn't what you'd call pretty by any means, but they are already checking it out, so hopefully it will save on the hummingbird feed until I can get a better feeder put together.

Got the first load of laundry in for the day - I'd love to pull my wringer washer out on to the shed porch and use it, but we only ended up with a few inches of water in the big tank from last night's storm, and since we'd poured some bleach into the tank, I think I'd better wait for a few more rain storms - should be one coming in tonight from the looks of things. I've got two more loads to do today, the first and second ones will go out on the line but I'll hang my work clothes inside to dry as I don't want them to sun fade. I need to make up a double batch of sweet roll dough; the father of one of our neighbors passed away so I want to take some cinnamon rolls over to the house later today - I've already been tagged me to go to the pool this afternoon by the usual crew so I'll hopefully be able to set them done before I go to the pool, and take them to the house when I get home.

The gardens are pretty wet from the rains the past few days so I won't be getting much done out there except for possibly cleaning up the raspberry bed. I also need to finish weeding under the elderberries - cutting or using the hoe to get out the grass that's growing up around the new shoots so that I can get some mulch put down. Other than the rain showers, we're supposed to have some pretty warm weather for this area in May - temps in the high 80's are forecast. I'll be putting plants in the ground in the evening and rigging up shade until they are well established.

I lucked on to some nail buckets - square, 2 gallon - but need to see how many lids I have for them; I know where I can buy new lids, but don't know what quantity of the buckets I can get vs how many lids come in an order. I would like to use these to hold gallon vac sealed mylar bags of heavy items like beans and rice - it's about time I faced the fact that I'm gettin' pretty wimpy as I get older, and 2 gallon buckets are a heck of a lot easier to lift and tote than five gallon ones - I can easily carry a full one in each hand and walk up a flight of stairs without stopping, whereas with a 5 gallon bucket I have to lift it up a step, then step up on the step, lift it up another step, rinse and repeat!

Well, that laundry isn't going to hang itself, and I can see the bottom of my coffee cup, so I reckon I'd better get up and get to work!

Take care, all; hoping you all have a good week!

 

[moldy]

School yesterday was a 3 mile hike with an increase of 1500 feet or so in elevation---- it kicked my butt! Today, though, I made a tea of solomon's seal, nettle, boneset, and horsetail. Not too bad, kinda bland. I was really hurting when I got up this morning. But after a 12 hour shift and a quart of tea - I feel great! No knee pain, and very little foot pain. Herbs truly are amazing!! On my summer break, I plan on typing out a list of really great herb books. Not the coffee-table type, but ones with Latin names, preparations, indications and dosages.

Talked to our local mental health person - they are starting to do more and more alternative treatments. She was so excited to hear about my herbal education..... Hopefully, I will see God's plans enough to follow where He leads.

 

[ReneeT]

Moldy, after 20 years working in mental health, I trust very few psych meds - I am hopeful the alternative treatments take hold and expand! Of course, first you have to convince people to try them... (The farther away you stay from big pharma, the better off you are!)

Up late again - only until 0300 this time though (if I'm going to keep this not sleeping nonsense up, I might as well go back to night shift and get the extra $3/hour!!) so got a REALLY late start to the day. So far, all I've managed to do is drink most of a pot of coffee, run two loads of laundry though the washer, sort out a load of jars to go in to the dishwasher, and run to town to use my $5 off $25 Dollar General coupon I got last night when I stopped by after work to pick up Mother's Day cards for Mother-in-Law and Daughter. I bought:

12 - boxes of Golden Harvest regular mouth canning jar lids @ $1.75 box = $21
1 - toilet brush (to be used only on canning jars) @ $2.25
1 - jug of dishwasher detergent (also for canning jars) @ $2.50

Total: $25.75 - $5 off $25 coupon = $22.25 after tax applied; and I received another $5 off $25 coupon good for next Saturday on my receipt - I'll use it to pick up more jar lids.

I am still working on regular mouth pint jars - found more of them when I moved some boxes around, so it looks like I have at least 4 more dishwasher loads of them to do - not counting the decorated ones. I have a bread tray (like used by the guys who fill the shelves) where I've set aside the pint jars I've found that have hard water deposits on the outside of the jars, so while the load of jars in the dishwasher is running, I will put the hard water ones in the gravel driveway and apply 'The Works' toilet bowl cleaner to the outside areas that have the deposits - it usually takes them right off.

Well, my coffee cup is empty and my belly is growling to let me know it would like something a little more solid than coffee today; guess I'd better go slap together a peanut butter 'n jelly sammich to hold me until suppertime!

Take care all; wishing you a blessed weekend!