SIGNS

Hello dear friends!  This week there have been signs everywhere to remind me what season I am in.  The Amish neighbor's hayfield, stacked so lovely tells me that summer is waning.

That's something you don't see every day!  Much more romantic than those big ugly round bales that the commercial farmers use.  And if that's not all, the late summer flowers; coneflowers, phlox and brown-eyed Susans, are beginning to bloom.

We harvested about fifty pounds of onions this week and more soon to come. Our stored onions last until late March or early April.  I explained how to root cellar vegetables here.  We also harvested garlic.

HOW TO BRAID GARLIC

Harvest your garlic when the stalks start to yellow and are falling over.  This year it was early.
Step 1:  Cut a piece of twine twice as long as you want your braid to be.
Step 2:  Place a clove of garlic in the center of the loop.  On top of the twine.

Step 3:  Bring the stalk to the back of the loop, behind the right side, back up and over that side and under the twine on the opposite side.  (Like making a figure eight).

Step 4:  Now repeat on the opposite side.

Step 5:  Continue alternating sides until you reach the length you desire. Pushing the stalks downward.

Step 6:  Hang in a cool dry place to allow the cloves to cure and the stalks turn brown.  You can trim the stalks once they are dry, if desired.

We also harvested some blueberries, but we won't have enough to freeze so we bought some locally at $3/ lb and froze them. When we were purchasing them, the clerk waiting on  us  wanted to know what we were going to do with them.  She  never heard of freezing them.  Can you believe it?  How far we have come from the agrarian society we used to be!  

I canned  blueberry-cranberry juice with some of the berries.  I had the cranberries in the freezer from last winter, that I purchased when they were on sale after the holidays.

HOW TO CAN CRANBERRY-BLUEBERRY JUICE

Wash and stem berries.
Put 2/3 C. cranberries and 1/3 C. blueberries into 1 quart sterilized  jars.
Add 3/4 C. sugar.
Fill jars with boiling water. leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
Place pre-simmered lids on jars. Adjust caps.
Process 15 minutes in boiling water bath.

To use, strain the berries and enjoy.  This juice is quite strong, so I usually add extra water, after opening.   The strained berries can  be used for baking. You  can use this recipe for straight cranberries also, just use 1 cup of cranberries instead of 2/3 C..  I also make grape juice this way, using 1 C. Concord grapes and 1/2 C. sugar.   Easy-peasy!

We also collected the seeds from our lupines and these pretty white hollyhocks: 

I think they look particularly winsome against the gray siding.  I have a spot scoped out right behind my Apothecary Rose for them.  Hopefully, they will be white when they bloom.  You never can tell with hand gathered seeds.

WHAAAAT?!!!

Ran and I were driving out in the country between home and Port Hope, when we spotted some crop circles.

There were two different fields of them, and I'm sure that the farmer is none to pleased with that.  One field is almost completely destroyed.  I would love to see what they look like from above.  What this is a sign of, I don't know!  

ANOTHER SIGN

Earlier this week, I thought I received a sign that I should stop blogging.  I'm very sensitive and some might say thin-skinned, when it comes to this blog.  I try to make it helpful and hopefully a little amusing at times, so when I lose a follower, it saddens me greatly. I'm always second guessing myself; did I do something wrong? Did I offend someone?  I would hate to think I did.  Losing a follower (I have so few, although I know many more read this blog regularly) was one sign, but I had several others.  But instead of having a knee jerk reaction and pulling my blog, as I have done in the past, I gave myself some time to contemplate what I should do.  I decided, since I have nothing to lose, I should throw caution to the wind and  write what I really think needs to be written, without worrying about whom I may offend, although I know once this is posted, I'll fret over it for the rest of the week!

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I am Christian, and that is what leads my life,  however, I have no desire to convert others, at least not in the traditional way. I figure you all are adults and have heard the Gospel, and have either rejected it or accepted it. Some of my best friends are non-believing New Age philosophizers. I also have Hindu, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, and even a witch, as friends and relatives.    When it comes to evangelizing, I follow the quote by Madeline L'Engle that is  ever-present on my sideboard:

"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

I pray that one day they will come to the Lord, but I know judging and badgering them, is not going to make it happen. So I just try to set a good example of what I feel a follower of Christ should be; compassionate, generous, joyful and loving.  From time to time, I'll make a comment about my faith that sometimes leads to a discussion,sowing tiny mustard seeds of faith, but I don't hit them over the head with it. It wouldn't work anyway, sometimes I think the judgmental, overbearing, fire-and-brimstone types do more harm than good.  One thing  I do tell them, is that the day that you need to have a RFID chip inserted into your right hand or forehead to access your money, you will know that the Bible is true, as it was predicted over two thousand years ago.   Amazing Kreskin, or Sylvia Browne couldn't make a predication like that!

" He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of beast or the number of his name.  This calls for wisdom.  If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number.  His number is 666."
~Revelation 13 16-18 ~

We are already becoming a cashless society and  some countries, such as Sweden, are already moving away from paper money in lieu of government issued debit cards. It isn't such a stretch of the imagination to envision that one day people will readily accept an RFID chip inserted into their hand to eliminate the problems  of stolen debit cards and to make it easy to access financial and health information.  I've already seen advertisements for it. How hard would it be for the powers-that-shouldn't-be to just switch off access to, or erase the history of those that they deem dissidents? Think it would never happen?   You haven't read much history.  If you're interested in learning more about the Revelation of John or eschatology, John Shorey has written a book  that explains it in easy-to-understand language. Anyways, I'll step down from my pulpit now! Ha!

STILL MORE SIGNS

Well, there's  Martin Armstrong's "Cycles", the economists' Hindenburg Omen,  Mark Biltz's Blood Moon prophecy and Johnathon Cahn's Mystery of the Shemitah, to name a few of the many predicting financial collapse and war by this fall.  Some, such as Johnathon Cahn make very compelling arguments.  I guess we will soon find out if they are right.  Personally, I'd prefer to be in the ready just "in case" league, rather than be the proverbial ostrich with my head stuck in the sand league.  In this blog, I have many articles on canning and drying foods, how to garden, setting up a basic pantry and recipes for those staples. There's been tips on staying warm and conserving water. among many other practical and thrifty ideas (and some silly articles, too). There's many blogs that deal with other "hard times" issues, such as, herbal remedies and survival tools.  What I do, is copy the articles and make my own survival handbook.  Make sure you have a hard copy because if times get really rough, you might not have access to a computer, or who knows, it might be censored.  I also own many books that deal with subjects such as natural remedies, canning, trapping,  cooking and preparing wildlife, shelter building, etc.  Yes, I'm a prepper!  Personally, I've gone through too many hard times in my own life, not to be.  I'd rather be prepared and be made fun of, than be unprepared and a burden to someone else.

 Also, and perhaps more importantly, prepare yourself spiritually and mentally for what might come.  However you want to do it, get down to the essence of who you are, then the loss of a job, money, or home will not be such a shock.  Those things do not define you! I really did not mean for this post to be such a "doom and gloom" one, but what kind of friend would I be if I saw trouble coming towards you, and did not give warning?   I could have made veiled hints and daintily danced about the subject, but it's more important that you receive  the information, than it is that I don't look foolish.  But there is hope!  As Anne Frank wrote, ".....in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.". Get to know your neighbors, form a community of like-minded people.  Whatever you do, don't isolate yourself and fret and worry. Do what you can and have faith that it will all work out.

NOW FOR THE THRIFTY THINGS WE DID THIS WEEK (FINALLY!)

Harvested the last of the cauliflower and froze it.

Harvested summer squash and broccoli.

Picked blueberries from our garden.

Froze 5 lbs. of blueberries that we purchased at $3/lb.

Harvested some onions and the garlic.

Canned 13 quarts of cranberry-blueberry juice.

Parked the car and didn't drive it for the last couple of days.

Attended three estate sales for amusement.  Bought some neat toasting forks for the campfire for a quarter.

Bought several items of clothing from garage sales for the winter months.

Collected rainwater and used it to water the plants.

Hung the laundry on the line several times.

Ate from the pantry and the garden.

Slept in our shed/guest cottage to stay cool.  Nights are always cool here.

Well, that's it for this week!  I do treasure every comment.  Even you Mr. Spammer.  What you had to say was very interesting.  Maybe next time, if you can fit it in better to the subject at hand, I'll publish it!  Until the next time, may all your days be pleasant!

Jane