Tis the Season

 Hello dear friends!  You know in all those Regency novels they speak of the "season"?  A time when all the garden parties, soirees and balls begin?  Well, we have our "season" here, also, the end of spring until Labor day when all the church rummage sales, garage sales and estate sales begin.  The Grand Finale is the Blue Water garage sale trail that runs along the shoreline of Lake Huron in the Thumb area of Michigan. Ran and I look forward to it every year.  We carry a list of things we hope to find and usually do.  This year our list included garden twine, sandpaper, art supplies, and winter reading material.  Of course we make allowances for a few pretties to make our home more homier.  This year we spent less than what it would cost for the two of us to go out to a nice dinner and that included our gas money.  We pack a lunch because there are no fast food joints along that stretch of road and only a handful of diners (and we don't like to waste our valuable hunting time being waited upon and served.)  Besides we ate our meal along the shoreline and watched a bald eagle fishing in the lake.  How's that for tableside entertainment?   Sales are getting sparser and sparser each passing year, unfortunately.  Perhaps because of the economy people are holding onto their treasures?  Or maybe it is the older generation is getting too old and the younger generation cannot be bothered?  But still, we had a wonderful time and everyone was so friendly and even the weather was agreeable.  

The End of an Era

Sadly, one of my favorite sellers told me this would be her last year.  I've been stopping by her place for the past twenty years.  She used to be and antique dealer in the 1970s and when I first started buying from her the things I found!  Almost all my English pink lusterware has come from her shop and quite a few pieces of pearlware circa 1820s and earlier.  I've picked over the pieces I really admired over the years, but couldn't resist buying a few last pieces of some chinoiserie for old times sake.  I do love a bit of chinoiserie, but only if it comes from England. Ha!  But what I really come to see is her home.  I've informed Ran that if that house ever comes up for sale, I'm selling everything I own and buying it.  It's not the house so much, it's a pleasant enough little white cottage, but the location.  It's at the end of a country lane on a cliff overlooking the lake with a white picket fence with rambling roses.  Oh my!  Be still my beating heart! Anyway, I see in the picture that the front cup has a small chip in it, so I won't be using it for my morning coffee.  Oh well, it's still pretty and she only charged me fifty cents.  I have quite a collection of teacups and Ran brings me coffee every morning in a different one.  One of life's little luxuries.  I would love to have a huge Welsh cupboard to display it all, but our tiny house doesn't have enough wall space for such a thing.  One of the few drawbacks to living in a tiny cottage. 

Another Seasonal Event

Another seasonal event in Port Austin is the annual cleaning out of the summer homes.  Every summer  the summertime residents clean out their homes and, having enjoyed them during the warm months, put them up for sale during the cold months.  So they drag their possessions out to the curb and put a "free" sign on the piles, hoping everything will be gone before the garbage man cometh. Hunting through the piles is one of Jamie's favorite sports.  He's found some pretty good treasures too; like the colonial punched tin chandelier that hangs in our back room, a 100% wool oriental carpet, a Victorian birdcage and some really nice old baskets.  There's always some nice furniture too, but we haven't room for any. I always say that a person could furnish a home quite nicely on what people toss away here.  This year he found this lovely art pottery vase and a picture frame.

The flowers come from our "meadow".  Ran tilled up a piece of ground and we throw all of our seedpods from the garden back there and the birds do their part also.  There's also a lot of what some people call weeds (we call them medicinal plants) like chicory, plaintain, mullein, etc. in that plot.  It's really amazing what is right under our noses if we care to look, isn't it?

Speaking of Free Stuff

It's been a boon for summer squashes and zucchinis this year.  In one week we ate a casserole of summer squash, another casserole comprised of zucchinis, Italian sausage, onions, peppers and spaghetti sauce topped with mozzarella cheese, zucchini crab cakes, and I baked a zucchini-caramel poke cake for our weekly dessert.  That's a lot of zucchini for one week!  But we are firm believers in eating and being grateful for what the good Lord provides.  We also gave a way several  pounds to the neighbors and, although I swore I'd never do it, I shredded up a couple quart bagfuls and froze it.  Then we set a few dozen out on the street with a free sign on it, but no one took them. Evidently times might be hard but not that hard.  I was never so glad when the vines stopped setting fruit and we could pull them from the garden.  

The pagan religions have a celebration towards the end of summer when you they start harvest their gardens and pulling out there spent plants and start preparing the soil for its winter rest.  I can certainly relate to this,   the happiest days for a gardener are the first plantings and the last harvest.  It's a nice time to reflect on what you have been provided with and to express gratitude.  

I've been busy canning potatoes this week.  It was a very good year for them.  I'd say we dug more than 150 pounds out of our small plot. (No, I don't can all of them. Only the little peanut-sized ones and those that are pierced by the potato fork.)  So don't let anyone lead you to believe you need acres and acres of land to be self-sustainable.  We also harvested about 30 pounds of onions.  These won't last that long because use a lot of onions and I hate that we are already dipping into the baskets.  Our freezer is packed with broccoli and cauliflowers.  Little by little we are restocking the pantry.  Tomatoes are coming in by dribs and drabs, but we are getting enough to can the things we wanted to; catsup, salsa, and spaghettia sauce.  Temperatures are dipping into the 50s at night, so I'm not sure if we'll get enough to can plain tomatoes, but it doesn't matter, we'll manage with what we already have.  That is why it is so important to preserve more than what you think you'll need. You never know when you'll have a bad year.  Thanks to Ran and Jamie rescuing the peach and pear tree by covering them with a tarp during an exceptionally late hard frost, we are one of the few people in our area  that has peaches.  But the are just starting to ripen.  Usually by now they would have been harvested weeks ago.  

Let's see.  We harvested all of our cabbages because slugs were starting to get to them and I started the process of making sauerkraut.  A stinky proposition if there ever was one.  We'll dig the beets this week.  One of my least favorite canning duties, stains everything.  We are trying to beat the racoons to get a few meals of corn on the cob.  How do you know when the corn is ready to eat?  When the racoons get into it. And I'll make another batch of our favorite tomato-apple catsup this week.

Tomato-Apple Catsup

8# tomatoes

2 green sweet peppers

2 red sweet peppers

4 onions

3 C. apple cider vinegar (5% solution)

3 C. sugar

3 Tbs. canning salt

3 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. ground red pepper

1/2 tsp. ground allspice

1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 C. applesauce (I use my home canned, but store-bought works too)

Quarter tomatoes. Add peppers and onions.  Emulsify with an immersion blender or use a food processor.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the applesauce.  Cook down to one-half the volume. Add the applesauce Heat   and can in water-bath for 15 minutes.  Leave a 1/2 inch headspace in the jars.

Other Outdoor Activities

Ran has been repairing and repainting the birdhouses. And he's been installing solar lights into various lanterns and antique porch lights we've picked up over the years.

Gives a bit of fairyland atmosphere to the old place. I used to be able to find old porch lights like this everywhere way back in the day.  Made  some money selling them to people renovating old houses.  One of the ways I managed to be a stay-at-home mom and put our children through college.  I rarely find any like this any longer, sadly.

Wardrobe

A few of you dear lovelies asked to see some of my wardrobe.  I'm afraid it's not very exciting this time of the year.  In summer,  I'm just happy to find something that keeps me cool enough to keep my eyes from melting out of their sockets.  Did I mention that I'm not a fan of hot weather?  Oh yeah.  About a billion times.  Anywho, my summer wardrobe consists of something like this:

A 100% cotton skirt (me-made) and a cream or ivory blouse made from the thinnest cotton I can find.  I find that  a very full skirt allows air to flow up, thus keeping me cool.  And although I'm covered from my collarbone to almost my ankles, I'm often the only one not suffering when I'm with others that are wearing more traditional summertime fare. The skirt is homemade from the thrifted fabric and blouse comes from a garage sale for $1, so I don't have too much invested in this outfit. So when it gets stained up, as all my summer clothes do, it is not such a hardship to toss them in the trash at the end of August.

Crafting

While my summer wardrobe is expendible, my cold weather clothes are another story.  I often spend months knitting just one sweater or weeks on a pair of fairl isle gloves for it.  Just finished the ginormous intarsia  knit shawl.

I don't really enjoy knitting intarsia knitting or knitting with circular needles, but I wanted a giant shawl with a fern on it and no one was going to knit one for me.  The pattern is from Tiny Owl Knits. I would have preferred a dark brown background, but I'm trying to knit down my yarn stash.  Fortunately I had a lot of fern green yarn for some odd reason.  But you know what guys?  As soon as I finished it, I found some beautiful baby alpaca yarn and a couple of skeins of linen/silk yarn at the garage sales, so much for knitting down my stash!

Lest you think all I do is knit, I managed to sew a few aprons.

This one was inspired by the aprons Mrs. Hall wears in All Creatures Great and Small.  I made it from a duvet cover that I purchased at a thrift store.  Still have yards of fabric left over.  King-sized sheets give you lots of fabric to play with.  Anyhow, I discovered that this style of apron is more suitable for more straight  up and down figures and doesn't do a curvy figure any favors  Oh well!  It is only an apron.

Then when I was cleaning out the attic I happened upon a generous cut of plaid fabric. So another apron was in order.  This time an Edwardian one with princess seams.  Much better fitting.

I probably should have ironed it.  Anyway, it's a cute red and green plaid.  Years ago I started making little presents for the house for Christmas, like potholders, samplers, napkins, table runners and aprons.  I often find new candles and fancy soaps, tea towels, etc at garage sales and especially at estate sales.  I guess people are given these things and put them away for  a special occasion and never use them.  Anyway, I tuck away all my treasures like this apron and some time in December bring them out to make the holiday special. It really is like Christmas morning because half the time I forget what I've squirreled away.  

Books

Anything else? Oh yes. Books! Thank you all for your book suggestions.  Right now, I'm reading zilch.  Just too tired at the end of the day.  And I think I'm wasting too much time on Pintrest looking up recipes for garden produce.  Amazing site, that Pintrest, but you really can fall down a rabbit hole with it.  

So, if you've stuck with me thus far, I thank you kindly.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to do so.  Hope you all have a restful Labor Day.  Can you believe summer is coming to an end?  Hopefully, we'll meet again soon!  Bless you all!

Hugs

Jane

Please Bear With Me

 Hello dear friends!  Long time, no see!  Ran asked me to download some pictures of our garden, as this blog acts as a sort of journal of our life, so please bear with me.

This summer has been very good for the garden, although Spring was almost completely non-existant.  We were still wearing our winter coats into the first week of June.  Seeds were slow to germinate and had to be replanted several times.  (That's why it's important to save your seeds from season to season.) Anyway, after a cold start, the weather cooperated and we've had the perfect amount of rain and warmth to make a lush vegetable plot.  Even that dreadful heat wave that plagued many only lasted a few days here. 

The birds have completely transformed my flower gardens.  It is so strange, plants appear in different spots than where they were originally planted.  Some fade away and others appear.   

  

Notice the milk weed on the right hand corner?  For years I have been trying to get some to reseed itself in my yard to no avail, but this year it showed up on its own.  The Monarch butterflies are loving it.

Where I've Been

Liberosis:The desire to care less about things, to let things go. Having a sense of liberating indifference to other people's opinions. A longing for playfulness and lightness in life.

A few years back I started thinking about my life.  Not to sound morbid, but realistically I only have about a decade or so of it left.  And time flies so quickly!   I just want to enjoy what ever time I have left.  One day Ran and I were driving down the road and I noticed that the sky was so blue.  When was the last time I really looked at the sky?  So the past year, I've been really "looking" at everything.  The wonder of it all!

While I'm taking in all the experiences I can, I've also been letting go of a lot of things.  Not only downsizing and clearing physical clutter, but a lot of baggage that comes from growing up in an abusive home.  One day I was having a conversation with Ran and I told him, "I can't figure out if (a certain friend) is being passive-aggressive or just thoughtless."  and he said something so simple, yet so insightful that I feel as if it has changed my life forever.  He said, "Does it really matter? "  No it doesn't, hurtful is still hurtful, isn't it?  So out went the people that bring drama or negativity into my life.  My circle is very small, just my immediate family and a few neighbors that I chat with over the fence and some folks I deal with on a weekly basis, like my little Amish friend at the scratch-and-dent store and the gentleman that regularily checks us out at the Mennonite store.  And you know what?  I have never had such contentment in my entire almost seventy years of life.

Right now, the garden dictates my life.  The weeding, the watering, the picking and the  preserving take hours out of each day.  Someone, rather snarkily, I might add, told me that they wish they had such a quiet life and could lie about all day in their pajamas and read all day.  Ouch!  Did I have flashbacks to the days as a stay-at-home mother when people used to say that old, tired phrase "I wish I could stay at home and lie on the couch eating bon-bons all day."!  For the record, I don't think I've ever eaten a bon-bon in my life. Ha!

In between garden chores, I snatch a few hours to do something creative.  At the moment, I'm knitting a rather complicated intarsia patterned shawl and doing some Jacobean crewel-work (a kit I picked up at a church rummage sale for a quarter).  I've narrowed down what I read to books that are  either informative or are in my wheelhouse (set in the period between the mid-1600s to the early 1800s in the country with lot of country folklore and customs). Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm also trying very hard to keep to a consistent exercise regime (and hating every minute of it). Ha!  Well, at least it is keeping me from becoming a complete marshmallow during the winter's slower months, so there's that.

As for this blog, I really don't know what its future holds.  Ran does like to come on here and see how our little home has changed throughout the years, so I suppose I will post from time to time.  I think I've said all that I can say about being thrifty.  I've learned that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.  Experience and necessity are really the only two ways anyone will ever learn to be truly thrifty.  I realize most of my advice goes in one ear and right out the other.  So what is left to write about? The weather?  Even I would be bored with that and I am easily amused. Ha! Well anyway, I'm just rambling here, so if you have stuck with me thus far, I thank you kindly.  Have a blessed August!

Hugs

Jane

Merry Christmas

 Hello dear friends!  Just wanted to jump on here to wish you all a very merry Christmas.  And to thank all of you that sent warm wishes my way.  Such lovely notes!  My heart truly overflows!

Ran, Jamie and I are spending the day in quiet contemplation. Our celebration is very simple.  Just a meal of New England boiled dinner and homemade bread and soft conversation.  And it is perfect.  And  if you look close enough, there  even remains a bit of snow in the shady areas of the yard, so I have my white Christmas (sort of)! See you in the new year!

Hugs

Jane

Wintering

 Hello dear friends!  Did those of you in the U.S. have a nice Thanksgiving?  As usual, we held our "feast"  when the turkey defrosted, about mid-November.  And can you believe it?! I didn't can any turkey this year, although my conscience bothered me greatly that I was passing up meat at forty-nine cents a pound. Ha! I did however take advantage of cranberries being on sale and canned several jars of relish, so we are good on the cranberry relish for for the next couple of years.  And I bought twelve pounds of butter at $2.49/lb., enough for a year. (I restrict our butter consumption to one pound per month.) Well, anyway, enough about bargain shopping!

We went from very autumnal landscape:

To winter:

In a matter of twenty-four hours.  How I love living where I can experience four distinctive seasons! I would hate to live somewhere that is perpetually summer and have no desire garden all year round.  I need my wintering time, a time to be creative.

November has been a very creative month.  I finished my cardigan from The Country Diary Crafts book, that I felt I was endlessly knitting. 

I know, it is not the best picture, and I hadn't blocked it when before photographing it.

Well, this picture wasn't supposed to happen. Ha!  Guess we're just stuck with it, as I can't seem to delete it.  Anyway, it's a nice cozy sweater and if you are looking for a practical shawl-collared cardigan to knit, it's a fairly easy and straightforward pattern. After I finished it, I was determined not to start any long-term projects, so I busied myself with what I call mindless knitting; little things such as  scarves and mittens and caps, things that can be made while holding conversations.  I quickly got bored with that! So I cross-stitched this holly sampler:

It was an awkward size and I couldn't find a frame for it, so I made it into a wall pocket to hold Christmas cards, not that I receive any. Ah well, I get too nostalgic this time of year and start longing for how things "used to be".  A sign of being old is when you start yearning for the past.

Speaking of old, this old dog was taught a new trick! I'm learning the old Germany craft of making spun-cotton ornaments.

I learned how to make the mushrooms from a tutorial on YouTube. It's a rather fun, albeit messy craft.  As if I need any new hobbies!  I had almost all the supplies on hand, so I figured I might as well give it a go.  

Whilst I was "creating" Ran caught the creative bug and made a cupboard for the top of our pot cupboard from an old window we picked up off the street.

I display some of my more prized antiques in it. It's a pretty good representation of the things I collect: mochaware, stoneware, redware, Bennington Pottery and treen. I was born in the wrong era.

My Christmas cactus is telling me it's winter.

Don't you ever wonder how they know when to bloom?  It's like clockwork. One of those wonderful mysteries of how the world was created, that I really don't care to hear the scientific explanation of, it's more fun just to be in awe of it all. Oh!  That reminds me!  A few days ago, I looked out the window just in time to catch a glimpse of a red globe, streaking across the sky.  Well, it wasn't exactly streaking like falling star, somewhat slower.  The next day, it was the talk of town about the meteor that fell into Lake Huron in my hometown.  I cannot believe I captured a sight of it!  

Well, that is where I've been this November; sitting by the fire knitting and sewing.  I do not lead an exciting life, there isn't much to say.  I love it.  It is peaceful.  I have a relative that complained that I do not share enough about my life with her.  She's convinced I'm holding out. But how many times can I say I worked in the garden and canned, made meals, cleaned and sat down to a few hours of knitting.  Went to bed and got up and did it all over again.  The most exciting thing in my life is finding a bargain. Ha! I had enough drama in my youth.  Now I work to make my home the most serene place this side of Heaven.  I don't even like to decorate in bright colors!

Everyday, sometime between two and three, we gather around the dining room table and have coffee and maybe a snack.  Today I made pumpkin donuts holes.  Warm donuts and a cup of coffee after being out in the cold shoveling seems just so New England-ly old-fashioned to me.  Just need a pot belly stove to warm our feet on and some old radio Christmas music in the background.  Do you try to recreate scenarios like that in your home?  Or is it just some more of my romantical nonsense?  

Pumpkin Donut Drops

1 1/2 C. flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 C. sugar

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ginger

1 egg

1/2 C. pumpkin

1/4 C. milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

oil for frying

Combine the dry ingredients

Combine the egg, pumpkin, milk and vanilla. 

Pour into the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened.

Pour oil to depth of 2 inches into a heavy cast iron skillet.  Heat to 375 degrees.

Carefully drop batter by spoonfuls into oil. Fry until golden brown, turning once.

Drain well.  Roll in cinnamon sugar while still warm.

Or make a glaze of confectioners' sugar and milk and dip in that.

I made this with a wheat flour substitute and they turned out fine, but I had to add more milk to the batter.  The batter should be somewhat like a muffin batter. 

So that's it for November!  Hope this post finds you all safe and well!

Hugs

Jane

A More Detailed Post on Saving on Groceries

On my last post someone requested that I be more specific about how I save money on groceries.  Hope this helps!

 1.Treat saving on groceries is a serious business.

Not only do you need to go to the store and actually hunt for the bargains, you have to work hard to preserve the groceries once you get them home. I treat it like a serious business This week I found some amazing deals on meat, because I got myself up early and got dressed and went to the store.  We were about the only one in the store at that hour.  Guys, I bought ground chuck that was $7.99 a pound for $2.66 a pound!  I bought 6 pounds and brought it home and canned it up immediately. It was out of the canner before 10 AM.  We also bought a roast that was marked 65% off.  Ran cut it into strips and made a marinade for it while I was canning. The next day he made it into jerky.

2. Use every last bit.

That hamburger I canned?  Well, when I can hamburger I put it into a roaster without water and into a 350 degree oven. to brown it.  That way it remains nice and chunky.  When I take the roaster from the oven I drain the meat through a sieve, catching all the grease and broth into a bowl.  Once that is cooled, I scrape all the tallow off the top and use the grease for sauteing  and greasing pans, etc.  The broth was made into a gravy with an addition of the remaining meat that didn't fit into the jars.  Along with some carrots, onions, parsnips and potatoes from the garden, this was made into a pot pie. Our meals are never based upon what do we want to eat, but upon what's in the fridge that we need to use up. Back here I wrote about using every bit of a turkey except the quack.

3.  Learn how to make everything from scratch.

We do not buy anything that is made for convenience.  This week we made bread, granola, pie crusts, tortillas, noodles, crumpets and  all from just what is basic pantry items; flour, some sort of fat, and some sort of leavening.  We never buy cream of soups but make a basic white sauce.  We make our own salad dressings from vinegar that we make from peels of fruit while canning and yogurt. Never buy canned beans, but buy them in dried form and can them ourselves. We make our own catsups, barbecue sauces,  spaghetti sauce, salsas, jams, pickles, chutneys, herbal teas, etc.

How to make vinegar

Put you peels and cores from you apples or pears (or both) into a bowl and cover with unfiltered water.  I also add a bit of the mother from last years vinegar.  Let it set out uncover for a week.  Warning: you'll have fruit flies.  After a week, cover the bowl loosely with a cheesecloth and let it set another week. On the third week, strain the vinegar and put into a jar. Loosely screw on the lid and let set like that for a couple of weeks.  After that, your vinegar should be ready to use.

4. Be flexible.

Maybe you went to the store thinking you were going to make tacos for dinner, but when you got to the store hamburger was too expensive, but they had chicken drumsticks for 99 cents a pound.  So, skip the hamburger and make shredded chicken for the tacos.  And when you're done, throw the bones and skin into a pot and boil them up for stock for a pot of chicken soup.Just because a recipe calls for one thing, doesn't mean you have to use it. Personally, when it comes to any sort of Mexican food, I actually prefer to skip the meat all together and use beans.  Spicy foods really don't need the added flavor of meat. I never go to the store with a specific menu in mind.  I find the deals first and knowing that I have basic pantry items and basic recipes, make up the menu as I shop.

5. Eat at least three of your main meals, meatless each week.

There's so many good meatless meals this shouldn't be a problem. Here's a list of some easy quick meals that most families like: vegetable pizza, grilled cheese and tomato soup, spaghetti without meatballs, cheese omelettes or quiche, a vegetable chowder, bean burittos,  black bean burgers, Welsh rarebit,and my favorite, a vegetable stir-fry.  These are especially nice in the summer when the vegetables are in the garden.  I just take a variety of vegetables and onions and garlic and sometimes I add a jar of drained chickpeas, and stir fry them and here's a very easy sauce that goes well with any vegetables:

Basic stir-fry sauce

1/2 C. water

1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 C. soy sauce

1/4 C. catsup

2 Tbls. brown sugar

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. black pepper

Just combine the ingredients and pour over the vegetables after the have been sauteed to tender crisp. Heat until boiling and let boil, stirring, until the sauce is desired thickness.

6. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

The other day we were in our favorite thrift store and the cashier asked if we wanted a bunch of bananas that were left over from the food pantry.  No one wanted them because the were not picture perfect.  I took them home and put them in the freezer.  One of these days they will make a lovely loaf  or two of banana bread.  We were driving down a back road when we saw black walnuts covering the road.  We stopped and picked up a bagful along the roadside.  Ended up with about two pounds of walnuts once they were hulled and shelled.  We might go back and get some more.  I just picked some ripe tomatoes that had grown in the compost bin yesterday and earlier this year I picked a bunch of button mushrooms that had sprouted there.  Ran gave our neighbor some walleye he caught and he told me that next time he catches a pike, he will send it down my way.  Which I will gladly take and can.  Canned, pike taste like the finest abelcore tuna to me.  

7. Don't turn up your nose.

Let me tell you about the bargain I got this week.  I bought a four pound wheel of Guggisberg Baby Swiss cheese from the Amish scratch and dent store for ten dollars!  On Amazon they sell a two pound wheel for $64.99. People turn up their noses at the good old scratch and dent stores, but it is like everything else, you have to be a savvy shopper.  Last month I bought wild-caught tuna for seventy-nine cents a can with an expiration date of 2028 there.  Not everything is out of date there.  Sometimes the stores are just getting rid of the oddball items to make room for more popular items. I always buy my dried beans there because the sell them for fifty cents a pound. Dried beans are selling for almost two dollars a pound at the bulk food store. We always buy our coffee there. Just to let you know, that there's more to the scratch and dent than  junk  and processed food and expired goods, so don't be afraid to venture into them. I see some pretty fancy cars parked outside of them.  Just saying!

8. Pay attention to the price per unit.

This is self-explanitory. They are posted under every shelf so it isn't difficult to do.

9.  When you find a deal, buy as much as you can.

Groceries are never going to get cheaper, so when you find a deal on a pantry essential, buy as much as you can. Even if it means you have to eat more meatless meals for the month or have to go without some of the little niceties  that you might want.  It is better to suffer a little now than to suffer a lot later.

10. Learn how to preserve what you buy.

You might not care to can as I do, but you can still preserve your bargains.  Remember last year when I was telling you about the deer carrots (which now is the time to be looking into them)? Well, if you didn't want to can those carrots. you could still cut them up parboil and freeze them.  In November when turkeys are cheap, cheap, cheap, you can still cook up the turkey, remove all the meat, and make the broth, save the schmaltz and freeze it all.  I can because our electricity is not reliable over here in ice storm country.   

So, I hope that helps.  It is hard to write about being thrifty.  It's one of those things you just learn from experience.  Sometimes when I'm out in the stores shopping and I overhear someone grumbling about the sky rocketing prices, I wish that I could take them by the hand and show them all the tricks.  Can someone explain Uncrustables to me?  Why on earth would anyone pay  so much for what is essentially pbj on toast?  Or instant oatmeal, when you can microwave quick oats just as easily and add your own sugar and cinnamon.And don't get me started on Lunchables. Ha! Feel free to add you own tips in the comments.

Hugs

Jane

 

Peace and Plenty

Hello dear friends!  Well, I guess it is autumn now, although the temperatures would tell a different tale.  I was hopeful when we had that spate of cool weather in August, that this year summer wouldn't infringe upon fall too much, but nope, not going to happen.  Well, at least it is beginning to look like my beloved season.

This is a picture of our little dooryard garden, landscaping compliments of the birds.  The birds, bees and butterflies do a lot of landscaping in my yard and I am happy to let them do it.  The other day we watched a goldfinch scattering the seeds of milk thistle everywhere.  I wonder how many of those prickly plants I'l have next year.  And you should see all the wild roses I have thanks be to the birds!  They have such pretty rosehips.  It should be a very lovely sight against the snowy landscape this winter.  Little by little the birds are shaping our yard into their own little sanctuary.  

This little area used to be all white plants, now nary a white flower exists.  Oh well, I'm a firm believer in letting gardens be what they want to be. It's a lot less work that way. 

Speaking of gardens, we have been busy getting the last of it harvested and preserved.  All that is left in the plots now are some parsnips and the beans drying on the vines.  We picked a few of the beans to see what they looked like.

Aren't they pretty?  They are an heirloom variety called "Succotash" and I think they would make a lovely dish with some yellow corn in a traditional succotash.  Every year we plant some sort of dried bean.  As a lover of history, it excites me to grow a variety that people ate over two-hundred years ago.  One of the reasons we garden is so we can have the true flavor of vegetables.  It makes no sense to me to grow the same varieties of vegetables that you can purchase in the stores.  We gave our neighbor some of our extra German Strawberry tomato plants that we had started and she told us that she never realized how good a tomato could taste until she ate one of those.  Yep, there's a difference.  We grow antique apples in our little orchard, too.  It is so much fun to taste an apple the was Thomas Jefferson's favorite (Esopus Spitzenburg) as opposed to a Red Delicious that you  can buy at a store.

Anyway, enough of that prattle.  Someone once left a comment that they wished that I would write less about gardening and canning. Well, they landed upon the wrong blog, if that is what they were looking for, as gardening and canning consume most of the hours of my days from May until October. Ha! But I must remember that the name of my blog is Hope and Thrift and sometimes I neglect the thrift part.  After examing the statistics, I noticed that this old blog has been getting a lot of traffic on the posts about thrift lately.  It is so hard to write about thrift, I can give hints, but at the end of the day, everyone knows it is just a matter of cutting back on spending and making the most of what you have.

The other day I was in the grocery store and they had a display of Sander's Bumpy Cakes.  Now I adore those cakes, but it has been years since I've purchased one. maybe even decades.  I was astounded by the price, $15 for a little eight-inch square cake!  I said something to Ran about it and a lady nearby, that was looking at the cakes also, came up to me and said something about how unaffordable food was becoming and was almost in tears.  She kept saying "what's a person to do?".  Well, I didn't say it, but I was thinking, "You can start by not buying a fifteen dollar cake."  The store was having a sale on roasting chickens for ninety-nine cents a pound, which is what I came in after.  For four or five dollars, she could have gotten an entire week's worth of meals from one  of those chicken. And at that, price, she could have stocked her freezer for the same amount as that one little cake cost. 

The point I'm getting at, is people need to learn how to shop.  That means you have to actually go to the stores, look for the bargains, examine the fruit and vegetables and keep track of your budget.  The excuse I always get is that "I'm too busy to shop".  What could be more important than shopping for the food that nurtures your family?  The cost of food is right up there with mortgages and rent in a family's budget, so isn't it worthwhile to take your time and do it properly? Rather than having a "date night" Ran and I go grocery shopping twice a month.  We always have,from the beginning of our marriage.. We even get spiffed up for it.  Through observations we've learned that one of our local stores always mark down their meats early in the morning midweek.  Just yesterday, we bought three pound of steak for less than three dollars a pound and a pound of wagyu ground beef for $4.64.  We also bought a pint of buttermilk for twenty cents and  two packages of corn tortillas that had some broken tortillas for twenty cents each.  Do I care that the tortillas were broken?  No, because I was going to use them in King Ranch casserole anyway.  The meat was still fresh, you can tell by looking at it and smelling it.  And I froze it in vacuum sealed bags as soon as I got home, except for three of the steaks that are marinating in the fridge as I write this. The buttermilk was made into pancake batter that was then cooked into a large batch that went into the freezer for quick breakfasts for days when we tire of oatmeal.  And I know, I'll get those that will say "Eww, I'd never eat marked-down meat, etc.".  I always get those sort of comments.  I will tell you a favorite saying of one of my uncles, "you hold your nose, I'll hold my pocketbook".

And another comment I often get, is the old my-husband-won't-eat and my-husband-insists-on-meat-at-every-meal.  I get so tired of hearing those excuses.  How I really want to respond is "tell your husband to grow up", but of course that would be rude.  Some women treat their husband's as if he were child.  He should be an adult enough to understand what things cost and what your family can afford. I strongly suggest family's have a  family meeting once month where you discuss the costs of things, the expenditures for the month, and where cut-backs can be made.  I'd include older children in on the discussions too.  Run your family's finances like a good business.  

So what I'm getting at here, is part of being thrifty is take your responsibility for your actions.   Stop looking for someone to blame.  Benjamin Franklin said the kindest thing you can do for the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty.  I see evidence of this every time I go to the grocery store.  People filling their carts with all sorts of junk and then paying with an EBT card.  People complaining about the quality of the food at free food pantries instead of being grateful.  People refusing the offer of free fruits and vegetables from the garden because it's too much work, while moments later complaining about the cost of food.  No matter how much you give, it is never enough or good enough, they always want more and better.  If they were truly improvished and starving (BTW, most of these people do not look like they are starving), they would be thankful for a bag of beans and rice. Well, I have to stop ranting here, or you will think I've gone completely mad. Ha!  I know that many come here for pleasant conversations.  It's been a trying month.

So on that note, one of the most pleasant things to me is take a fifty-cent skein of yarn from the thrift store and make it into a pretty and useful garment. Like these socks I recently finished:

I'm almost finished with a cardigan, that I will show you next month.  I'm quite pleased with it.  Recently, I discovered old knitting magazines from the 1980s. If you can look past the models with the frizzy hair, flippy bangs, hot pink and cobalt eyeshadow and the shoulder-padded color-blocked neon sweaters, they offer a lot of good basic patterns, written in a no-nonsense manner.  And for the price of a few dollars at an antique shop for a magazine  with a half a dozen or more usable patterns, it's a lot cheaper than paying $8 for just one pattern on Etsy or Ravelry.

For me, autumn is always a hopeful month.  I do not celebrate any holidays, Christian or pagan, but I can see some of the logic in the old pagan holidays; rejoicing when the last of the garden has been harvested, observing that the days are now getting shorter and preparing for the long winter ahead.  These things just make sense to me as a person that lives close to the land. After all isn't it God who has provided the bounty and hasn't He created the seasons?  Always have a grateful heart for what blessings He has bestowed upon you.  When a crop fails or doesn't yield as  much as we had hoped for, we always think,yes, but it is sufficient for our needs.  If we go through hardships, and we all do, we always think, yes, but He has brought us through it and now we are stronger because of it.  Life may get difficult, life may seem unfair at times, but He has promised to never forsake you.

Hugs

Jane

Hello!

 Hello dear friends!  I thought I'd jump on here and say hello.  So many of you have written lately to tell me how your summer is going. Thank you very much!  I love it! It's been a rough one, hasn't it?  But we can't always expect things to be perfect, can we?  My garden is confused.  Some things that should be done and over with are still producing. Some, such as potatoes and onions, have finished early and tomatoes and corn are late.  Like I said, it's confused.  Yesterday we went nutting, as the squirrels were getting into our hazelnuts.  It's much more romantic to gather nuts on a blustery fall day that makes your cheeks pink and preferably wearing a nice woolen red sweater, than on a hot August day, but that's the way it goes when squirrels are involved.  We have black squirrels around here  and they look just like the little imps that they are. Not only do they steal my nice hazelnuts, the plant lots of the neighbor's heartnuts in our garden that I'm forever pulling out.  When we become too old to garden this place will quickly revert to a nut forest. 

 Because I decorate in a primitive-colonial style with lots of natural elements, I'm always in an autumnal state of mind.

I hope the heat doesn't infringe too much into the fall months.  I'm hoping to get lots of bittersweet berries on my vines this year.  Last year I only had one small cluster.  They looked promising earlier this summer, but since this heat, I'm not so sure.  Some acquaintances of mine have a split rail fence covered in the vine and in autumn it is about the prettiest sight I ever beheld.  

Haven't been doing as much as canning as I used to do.  Mostly our garden has provided just enough for us to eat from  for the summer, but not a lot of extras.  I always say that The Father provides for our needs and evidently He feels we need lots of cabbage and broccoli this year and not too many onions and lima beans. Ha! Can you believe we only got a few zucchinis? Who has ever had a failure with zucchinis?  Strange weather patterns this year.  

Other than that, I've been working on all sorts of projects that have been on my bucket lists for years, maybe even decades.  One thing I always wanted to do was to knit a fair isle vest from my many balls of scrap yarn, using a pattern I made up.  Here's the results:

It was a fun knit, but it barely made a dent in my yarn stash.  You can knit a lot of vests with very little yarn.  No wonder they were popular during hard times.

I also made this teapot mat:

I sort of copied the idea from a Tasha Tudor book and borrowed the kettle and teapot motif from a couple of cross stitch charts I had and changed the T and B to an old English script.  Such a quick little project and it only took a few days, yet it took me a few decades to get around to making it. Right now I'm knitting a cardigan from one of the Country Diary craft books.  I've really felt time ticking this year and am enjoying creating all the things I've always wanted to make but put off to later. Sometimes for more than four decades.

Do any of you feel time is moving too quickly?  When people ask me "What did you do today?" I have no answer.  It feels as though I am busy from dawn to dusk, but with what, I cannot say. Meals are dictated by what is ripe in the garden.  There's the daily chores  and traditions that give a sort of rhythm  to life.  It's a simple life, but it's a pleasant one. We don't feel the need to travel abroad for adventure.  The other day, Ran and I spent a good twenty minutes watching a flock of turkeys in our back yard.  They were so funny.  They mama and the papa were trying to herd their little ones into the back yard, but they were all afraid to cross the threshold of the garden gate.  The papa would march bravely up to it then back off.  He finally mustered up enough courage to cross the threshold and skittered across it as though he was being chased by a red hot poker.  Then seeing that lightening didn't strike him down, he came back for the young ones,  chest puffed out like he was the hero of the day, but they too,  were fearful of crossing to the other side.  He finally got the kids across, but the mama didn't want to go.  She finally reluctantly crossed over because her chicks were on the other side.  It was quite comical.  I wonder what made them so afraid of the garden gate threshold.  Did you ever wish you could talk to the animals and find out what they are thinking?  Well, I guess that explains where time goes for me, doesn't it?

So there's a little update on life here.  I wish I had something exciting to tell you, but such is my life.  Won't you please write and tell me how you are doing?

Hugs

Jane