Spring Fever

 Hello dear friends!  Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.!  As usual, I will start with the weather report. Ha!  Cold and windy.  But we finally got a few pretty snows.

Isn't it pretty?  Outside and in.

I do love a pretty snowfall!  In spite of the cold, we are thinking of Spring and have started collecting our maple sap.  We've boiled down over a quart of syrup already. Kind of odd weather  this year; a few days above freezing, than a couple days of bitter cold and wind.  Most of our snowfall has been that ugly slushy stuff, but I'm happy to have had a few lovely ones. 

We also started our onion seeds.  Starting seeds is sort of a bone of contention in our home.  In the Fall we purchase our seeds during the Black Friday sale and give great consideration to them, but by the time seed starting starts, Ran has the seed packets squirreled away throughout the  house and garage and mixed with older packets.  By that time all the varieties that I have given so much consideration into are all mixed up and we cannot remember what we bought or why.  So we never really have the garden we envisioned when we were planning.  We just kind of gather up as many packages as we can locate, and decide on the spot what to plant.  It usually isn't until July that I discover those special herb  and rare flower seeds I intended on planting. tucked away in a tin or cubby.  We are usually pretty organized and analytical people when it comes to most things, but when it comes to planning a garden, we tend to fly by the seats of our pants.

One thing I plant every year is gourds.

For some reason, gourds just capture my fancy.  I have them in bowls and crocks and hanging on knobs everywhere.  This year I will probably plant some spinner gourds. So cute.  And I'm going to try my hand at growing broom corn and making a handcrafted broom this year. BTW, Ran made that lovely pie safe for me.  If you can't afford an antique learn to make your own.  He sprayed the tin panels with vinegar and stuck them outside to  be rained and snowed on for several months to give them that authentic rusty, crusty look of the primitives that I love.

Crafting

Whilst we are still in the hibernation period, I've finished two more projects. This blue Scandinavian  sampler:

And this pair of red petticoat socks:

All the materials came from the thrift store including the cross stitch chart.  My word!  Crafting can be expensive!  I love to watch flosstubers  on YouTube and the  money they spend on their hobbies is unbelievable with their special linens, flosses and even cross stitch charts run around ten dollars.  Add in the cost of framing, for very few of them actually frame their work themselves, I bet they have almost a hundred dollars into each work by the time it is finished.  My little sampler cost $1.29 for the linen (it had the original price tag on it for over $14) 59 cents for the chart and 50 cents for the floss.  And I have lots of linen and floss left over.  So what does that add up to? $2.38?  And the frame was 50 cents picked up at a garage sale this Summer. So for less than three dollars and a month's worth of work I got the perfect sampler to fit over a little rosemaled shelf.  Couldn't be happier with it if I had paid a hundred dollars.  

BTW, see that pretty Meissen candleholder?  Paid a quarter for it a thrift store.  Ditto for the soft paste, two-hundred-years-old  blue and white cup next to it.  I have always loved antiques and it took me years to save up for my first "genuine" one, a Victorian mirror (ugh!). Although I couldn't afford any, it didn't keep me from going to antique stores and looking at them and going to the library and reading about them to educate myself, so I would be able to spot them if I ever came across the real McCoy at an unbelievable price.  And it's amazing how often it happened.  The other day I was telling Ran that we have become one of those people that we used to read about when we were younger that had so many antiques their homes were like a living museum.  How we used to read about those people and sigh.  It will never happen to us, we just weren't born to such good fortune. This happened the other day when I was cleaning out my linen cupboard and a pretty stoneware piece that I had forgotten all about fell out between the folds of a runner. How I love antiques!  It's such a thrill for me to see the potter's thumbprint in the glaze and think that two-hundred years ago he was putting it in a kiln. How many generations is that?  Just think of all the people that have loved and valued that simple crock!

Anyways, enough of me waxing on about antiques!  The socks were knit from Rowan felted tweed yarn.  I paid $1.50 for two skeins from my local thrift store.  I checked the other day and the yarn is still available.  It runs around $15 a skein.  $30 for a pair of socks?  Not I, said this cat.  I know many knitters that will only use the yarns called for in a pattern, but I love, love, love, finding some old vintage yarn and making a pattern my own.  And some of those old vintage woolen yarns are so much nicer than the new stuff.  Don't be afraid to try!

The Pantry

Well, we are still eating out of the pantry.  For those that are interested today's meal consisted of chicken and gravy on homemade biscuits, with a side of broccoli and strawberries for dessert. The chicken was  home- canned as was the broth to make the gravy.  The broccoli and strawberries were homegrown and frozen.

Basically, we are just trying to eat through the jars of 2021 and 2022 food to use them up and to make room for the coming canning season.  This isn't about saving money or anything like that.  Just rotating my stock. As space comes available, I'm starting to restock the shelves.  I canned 8 quarts of winter squash the other day.  We still had more, so I gave some to a neighbor and some to our friend Tyler for his chickens. Note to gardeners:  Mooregold squashes are very prolific! And wonderful keepers.  And I prefer them to pumpkin for baking.

Stocking Up

The other day Ran and I were reminiscing, as old people, we do that a lot. Ha!  We were chatting about back in the late 60s and early 70s everyone had spaghetti for dinner on Friday nights in our little village.  Back then Catholics were pretty strict with not eating meat on Fridays and the fixings for spaghetti could be grown quite easily even in a postage sized lot, which was the typical size of a village lot back then.  Just room enough for a fruit tree and a small garden, the kids played at the park or in a vacant lot.  It wasn't uncommon for Catholic families to have eight or more kids, so they ate a lot of spaghetti.  It wasn't long before the Lutherans on the other side of town caught on to spaghetti on Friday nights as a good and thrifty idea. So back when we were kids, if you were invited to dinner at anyone's house on a Friday it was a pretty safe bet you were going to be eating spaghetti. When we were first married we followed with that tradition.  Only I added a side salad and garlic bread made from the week's stale bread.  Often I would buy the sauce, because it made for a speedy meal  that way.  We always bought the cheap sauce that came in the can and was located on the bottom shelf in the grocery store. So the other day I was wondering if you can still buy spaghetti sauce in a can and if it is still so cheap.  Checked our local Meijers store and Hunt's sauce in a can was $1.37, then I went to Save-A-Lot and their store brand was even cheaper.  That with a pound of store brand spaghetti, which is what? about $1.50 a pound?  You have a pretty cheap meal.  So one of the things  if you don't can and want to stock an emergency pantry, is get yourselves some of that cheap spaghetti sauce that comes in a can.  You can always add meat or peppers or mushrooms or whatever you want to it, if you want something fancier and can afford it.

Well I suppose this post has rambled on long enough.  We are still in our quiet season and there isn't much excitement going on, not there ever is. I hope you all have wonderful week ahead!

Hugs

Jane

Purging, Prioritizing, and Parsimony: AKA Thrifty Thursday

 Hello dear friends!  Hope you are well and safe.  I used to feel I needed to address each and every tragedy that was happening in the world, but it seems so many horrible things are happening to so many people worldwide, that I can't keep up. My news source doesn't even mention a lot of tragedies that would have been headlines for days just a few short years ago. We are living in crazy times my dear friends!  That is why I just hope that you are well and safe.  Even in my own quiet life, I was thinking nothing happened since my last post and then I remembered we had a trip to the emergency room, a court hearing and a tornado watch in those few weeks!  

Well, we had a few days in the upper 70s and lower 80s, followed by two days of snow. I was watching a little robin outside of my kitchen window while washing dishes and he was just standing there staring at the snow on the ground in disgust.  I think I could read his mind.  He looked pretty perturbed. Ha!  But the warm days made the daffodils bloom.

And we harvested the first of the asparagus.

And a few days in the eighties reminded me that I really hate summer.  I know that the warmer weather is necessary for the garden to grow and that is necessary for our lifestyle, but it only took two days for me to long for the quiet days along the fireside. I've noticed that most people that enjoy summer spend most of their days inside their air-conditioned homes or lazing about beaches and golf courses. To me, summer means days of work, often from sunrise to sunset.  And the noise!  Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, motorcycles, and sirens. Most people have seasonal depression in winter. I would have to be different. Ha!

In order to cut down on some of the work, I been purging and prioritizing my garden. I cut down several rose bushes, they are just too fussy.  And Ran dug up my herb garden.  We will still have an herb garden, but it will just be in practical straight lines in a rectangular plot instead of anything fancy. Sometimes practical has to take priority over pretty. Last fall Ran pruned my hydrangeas, and they don't look like they are coming back to life.  Can't say I'd be heartbroken if they didn't.   If they don't, we will replace them with something practical and evergreen. And easy to care for!

In The House

We are still trying to make room in our freezer, so we've been having some rather unusual meals.  Each day, we just grab something out of the freezer and try to figure out a meal from it combined with what needs using-up in the refrigerator.  We've also been going through our pantry and trying to use all the things that have been sitting there too long, or that were purchased to make a specific meal that we have long forgotten about.  One day we will have Mexican food, the next Asian and the following German. It's a good thing we have cast-iron stomachs!

We did have a wonderful meal for Easter, however.  I bought a leg of lamb for a price I haven't seen in years.  The rest of the meal was typical "Jane" thrifty, however, with the remainder of our root-cellared  potatoes and winter squash roasted and we had banana cake made from bananas that needed using up for dessert.   I had forgotten all about this recipe.  It was the one recipe that people most requested, way back in the olden days before the internet, when people used to swap recipes instead of googling them:

1890 Banana Cake

1/2 C. butter

1 1/4 C. sugar

2 eggs

1/2 C. sour cream

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla 

1 C. mashed bananas

1 1/2 C. flour

1/2 tsp. salt (omit if using salted butter)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 C. chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla and bananas; beat mixture well.

Add flour, salt and baking soda; combine well.  Stir in nuts.

Pour into a lightly greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.   Especially good if frosted with a cream cheese frosting.

It's very important to use very ripe, brown bananas when baking with this cake.  And sometimes, if I have it, I will use a 1/2 tsp of banana extract.  As with all my cake recipes, this makes a very moist "country" cake.

While cleaning out the freezer, I found quite a few bags of cranberries, so I canned six jars of relish and eight jars of cranberry catsup.  We love our homemade grape catsup, so I thought I'd give cranberry a try.  It's a winner.  Weren't cranberries inexpensive this year?  I also had bags and bags of pecans in the freezer, so I canned pecan pie filling.  I love having pie fillings on hand, it makes for a quick and easy dessert.  Just toss the filing into a lightly greased pan and make a quick crumble like the topping in this apple crisp and bake it up while dinner is being served.  Although, I must confess that more than likely I just use the recipe on the side of the Jiffy yellow cake mix for a quick dessert.

Fruit Magic

1 pkg. Jiffy yellow cake mix

1 can pie filling (21 oz.)

1/2 C. chopped nuts (optional)

1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Select your favorite pie filling and spread into an ungreased 8" square pan. Combine cake mix and nuts. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over top of pie filling. Bake 45-50 minutes.  (I think I bake mine less, about a half hour, just until the top is lightly browned and the filling is hot and bubbling.)

Even someone that doesn't know how to bake can handle that recipe! It's a good "starter" recipe for children. Did I ever tell you the story of my first attempt at baking?  I was five-years old.  I had a gotten a cute little recipe booklet from the grocery store for free.  It was a tie-in for the Wizard of Oz, which yearly airing around Easter time, was a big event for us kiddies back in the early 60s. Anyway, I informed my mother that I was going to bake some cookies and back then children were pretty much ignored and unsupervised, my mother just said something like "That's nice".  So off to the kitchen I went!  At five, I could read but I hadn't gotten to fractions in school, so when the recipe called for 3-4ths cups of brown sugar, I figured it meant 3 to 4 cups of brown sugar! Well, you can imagine how the cookies turned out!  They ended up more like peanut brittle and were quite a chore to scrape off the cookie sheets.  But they weren't wasted, my sister's boyfriend ate them all.  After the first batch, my mother finally came into the kitchen and discovered what I was up to and sent me out to play while she tossed the batter. You'd think that first foray into baking would have discouraged me, but after learning fractions (ha!) I became quite the little baker, winning many a blue-ribbon at various fairs.  By the time I was ten, my father preferred my baking to my mother's (not the accomplishment that one might think) and I became the chief baker in the family.

Crafts

Whenever someone asks me what I've been up to, I always answer, "cleaning out the freezer or cleaning out the attic" You'd think that one day it would come to an end!  I keep all my crafting items in the attic and my fabric stash is immense.  My problem is that I love fabric, particularity the pretty reproduction fabrics put out by quilting companies. I can't bear to waste a scrap.  So, I began this scrap quilt last winter.

I was thinking of making a quilt for our bed, which is a two-hundred-year-old rope bed and an odd size, but quickly into the project I decided that it was too busy for my taste.  So, I tucked it away and forgot about it. It was a shame, since I only had about five more squares to finish it into a nice lap-sized quilt.  Guilt got the better of me and I had to take it out and finish it.  I am glad to have it behind me, so I can get on to something more enjoyable.   While I was quilting and quilting (did I mention I hate quilting?) Ran kept me company by whittling these two adorable spoons: 

The larger spoon is a coffee measure, the tiger maple came from our firewood pile. And the little spoon is a little scuttle for salt. He used a dye I made from rose galls to stain the tiger maple piece.  I also used the rose galls to dye some cross stitch fabric for this picture on the left:

The little picture to the right is made from a scrap of fabric that was used in some strapping for an antique chair that I had saved.  We never waste anything! I used the oil some fancy olives were packed in to roast our asparagus in this week.  And to sauté some onions and peppers.  Rose gall dye, olive oil from a jar of olives, old upholstery used as cross stitch fabric, may seem like carrying thrift to extremes and some might think it is downright miserly, but to me, it is a fun adventure.  

So that is it for this Thrifty Thursday.  Stay safe and stay thrifty!

Hugs

Jane

Thrifty Thursday

Hello dear friends!   I thought I better hurry up and get a Thrifty Thursday post out before I run out of Thursdays for the month! 

First a picture of the sun shining through the kitchen window, because it has been so long since the sun has shone, I want to remind myself, that it does.  It has certainly been a mild, albeit drab winter so far. 

I've been doing a lot of canning this week.  There's been some really great buys on meat.  I bought hamburger for $2.99 a pound and bacon for $2.50 a pound!  Are prices going back down or is this the calm before the storm?  Are the prices on meat going down because the farmers are culling their herds because they cannot afford to feed them?   Or because there's less demand as fewer people can afford to buy it? Or is it because things aren't as dire as many have predicted?  I have stopped trying to reason why things are the way they are, and just take advantage of the windfall. Whenever you find a bargain, be ready to take advantage of it!  Another thing I bought this week was shortening.  We use a lot of shortening for baking bread and because if I'm going to bake something, it is usually a pie, not to mention we love our pot pies and I bake a lot of biscuits and scones instead of buying store-bought bread (which is getting scary expensive). Anyhow, for the past couple of months the six-pound cannisters were priced at $24!  And that was if I could find them.  That was quite an increase from the $13 I was used to paying.  That's just crazy! Shortening was almost expensive as butter (which is another astounding price).  Then the other day, I was in my Mennonite store and they had it priced at sixteen dollars.  So, I grabbed a couple of cans up, straight away. So, most of my grocery budget went to meat, which I canned, and shortening this month. 

Oh!  A funny thing about shortening.  I been seeing a lot of YouTube videos about making cake-release for greasing your pans.  Basically, it is shortening and flour.  Oh, you mean like greasing and flouring your pans?  What a novel idea! Then it occurred to me that most of the people born after 1980 have never actually greased and floured their pans, since those cooking sprays have been around that long.  I remember when they came out, I thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Ha!  You see, when I was a little girl and I asked to help with the baking, the chore that was eagerly offered to me was to grease and flour the pans.  The job that no one wanted.  That and chop the nuts in one of those spring-loaded contraptions, that never got the nuts all chopped in the same size. So much chopping and jar shaking!  It is a wonder I ever learned to like baking with those two things as my introduction to baking.  

Just as vital as carefully shopping is to use all your resources.  During the winter when our woodstove is burning all day long, we keep a tea kettle atop it and always have instant hot water for tea or cocoa.

I've also become quite adept at cooking atop the stove and even bake things like biscuits and scones. Just place the pans on top, when the bottom is baked, carefully turn them over and bake the tops.  This week I've baked beans, made a stew and some soups.  No electricity or gas needed.  At the moment there's a fruit compote bubbling away. We had some apples and oranges that were becoming wizened in the root cellar, so rather than throw them out, use them up.  I also had some cranberries left over from baking Andrea's orange-cranberry bread (which was delicious, BTW) and some dried fruits also. Here's the recipe, but it's very flexible and you can use whatever fruits you have on hand.

Warm Winter Fruit Compote

1/4 C. butter or margarine

1/2 C. confectioners' sugar

1 tsp. cornstarch

1/2 C. orange juice

2 tsp. grated orange rind

1 C. pineapple chunks, drained

1 C. mandarin oranges, drained

1 C. peach slices, drained

1 C. apples, peeled and chopped

In a large saucepan, combine butter, sugar, orange juice, cornstarch and rind.  Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened.  Stir in the fruit. Simmer until warm. Serve warm with a dollop of cream atop.  

Or you can use it for a topping for your oatmeal.  Use whatever fruits you have at hand and think would make a tasty combination.  Since I was using my home-canned fruits which I can in syrup, I omit the sugar. If you think it would be too sweet, use less sugar.  If you like really sweet things add an additional 1/4 cup of sugar.  

Oh!  While speaking of oranges, kind of, here's a thrifty tip from my friend Matty.  She slices and dries her old oranges and uses them in her tea. Drying fruit is another way to use your fireplace.  Just slice them thinly, string them up and hang on the fireplace fender.

I get teased a lot about my constant rearranging of my furniture.  I even make rooms into entirely different rooms.  Sometimes our dining room becomes our sitting room, and the living room becomes our dining room to suit our needs.   You might not think of this as a money-saving thing, but the reason I do it because it keeps me from becoming bored with my surroundings.  It's a lot cheaper to stay home and rearrange the furniture than it is to go out and spend money.  I rarely have the urge to go on expensive vacations just because I need a change of view. Ha!  This week I rearranged my kitchen cupboard:

Another good thing is by putting all my collections in one place, in this example it's my redware collection, I can see that I have enough.  No need to collect any more. That is, unless I find an amazing piece, say from the 1700s, for an unbelievable price.  I have purchased all   these pieces from garage sales and thrift stores.  When I do find a better piece, I gladly donate a lesser piece to the thrift store, so that someone else can have the thrill of finding something they wanted. And it keeps my collections from becoming too much.  We simply do not have the space in our tiny home for large collections.

Another thing I do to keep from climbing the walls during the winter is to have lots of projects going. This week I made a small quilted piece and knitted this tam;

We've been watching the Road to Avonlea series in the evenings, and I always admired those floppy big tams the children wear, so I knitted this one up from two skeins of thrifted wool and mohair yarn.  Total cost, one dollar.  

How to Knit a Victorian-Style Tam

With size 7 16-inch circular needles cast on 80 stitches.  Work K1, P1 ribbing for 10 rounds. 

Next round increase stitches by: * knitting three stitches, then knitting into the front and back of the next stitch, repeat from *until the end. 100 stitches.

Knit 32 rounds plain.

Crown: K 18, K 2 together. repeat to end. 

Knit next round.

K 17, K2 together. repeat to the end.

Knit next round.

Continue in this pattern, decreasing 1 stitch between the K2 togethers, until you have 10 stitches remaining, changing to double-point needles when the stitches can no longer be worked on circular needles. 

K 2 together, repeat to end.

Break off yarn and thread the remaining five needles through the needle.  Pull tight and tie off.

Block your tam over a dinner plate to give it that classic tam shape.

Thrift stores are an amazing source for crafting items.  When Ran and I make our big day out, we always stop at a few. Here's my thrift haul for this month:

Sorry about the lighting.  As I wrote earlier, it has been dark, dark, dark here lately.  I spent a total of just a little over $15 and here's what I got:

A woolen scarf made on Wales.

Over 1 yard of a pretty plum corduroy fabric, that it will be enough for a simple skirt.

2 skirts for summer.  Always be thinking ahead.

A Kim Diehl quilting book (sells for $24 in the quilt shop)

A gray t-shirt for Ran

2 stacks of vintage Workbasket magazines for ten-cents each.

Several cross stitch leaflets, including a nice one that is just alphabets for making up my own samplers.

A package of elastic. 10 cents.

An antique tracing wheel

2 earthenware plates

A purple wool blazer for using the wool for crafts

A little vintage device that guarantees making buttonholes "as easy as sewing on a button" (the instructions are twenty pages long, I think not)

2 pairs of silver earrings for 75cents each.  Must have more than 75-cents of silver in them.

A little woolwork pillow for Spring

And this pretty vintage wool tartan blanket made in Scotland:

Blackie loves it.

So that has been the past couple of weeks in thrift.  Always look for sales and ways to reuse and use less. Rejoice in the little things.  And find ways to creatively make your dreams come true.  It's not the things you have or don't have it's the ways you use and enjoy what you do have!

Hugs

Jane

It's Not What you Don't Have

It's not what you don't have, it's what you do with what you do have.
~Kitty Bartholomew~

Hello dear friends!  Today I thought I'd take you on a little tour of  the outside of my home.  About fifteen years ago my husband bought Sweetbriar cottage for me.   At the time I was really suffering badly from asthma and he had noticed how my health always improved when I was visiting family by the lake in Michigan. At the turn of the century wealthy families from Chicago kept homes along the western side of the Michigan shoreline for this very reason.  We were on a very tight budget, not being a wealthy family from Chicago 😄.  The grand  total for the 15 year mortgage, including property taxes and home-owner's insurance was $432 a month, which was less than the many car loans back then.  (We applied any "found" money to the mortgage and paid it off in five years) As you can imagine, we had to make a lot of compromises to our "dream" at that price.  This house was ugly.  Here's a picture to prove it:

Not exactly anyone's dream house is it?  But there was something about this little house that spoke to me.  I call it the "magical" light.  The way the sunlight hits the walls and makes it glow throughout the day.  It also helped that this little hovel was located within a cute little village and only a few blocks from lake Huron.  

The very first thing we did was replace the front door with Dutch door that I had purchased at an estate sale years ago for $45 and had been dragging around from with us from house to house, waiting for the perfect spot for it.  The next thing we did was replace the ugly drafty windows.  Windows are so important to the looks of a house.  We bought replacement windows one or two at a time as we could afford them (we had children in college at the time). As soon as Spring arrived I started planting roses.  As a child I always dreamed of living in a rose covered cottage.

These roses were grown from a slip that I took from an overgrown hedge located at the edge of the property. Ran made the trellises.   I also planted lots of delphiniums and hollyhocks  that we started from seeds.  I think that tall flowers give a place a sense of whimsy.

When we first looked at this house, it was in the middle of the Winter and we were not dressed properly to go out and explore the yard.  I asked the realtor how  big was the backyard and she gestured that it ended somewhere around "that tree".  Which I understood to mean a  honeysuckle bush that was about 60 feet out.  Imagine my delight when I later discovered that the backyard was actually 300 feet deep.  The size of an average football field!  However, it was completely devoid of any trees, bushes or plants of any kind except for the honeysuckle bush (I still haven't figured out what tree she was talking about).  It barely had grass!   One side of the yard faced the back of a lumberyard. So we planted pine trees along the entire perimeter of the back yard.  They were barely more than twigs when we planted them a decade ago, but now they are well  over twelve feet tall and give us all the privacy we could want.  I say "we" planted but it was I that planted all 100 of them, as the weather was so terrible when they arrived via the mail ($1 a tree) that Ran was unable to commute here to help, so I planted them in the middle of major rainstorm.  I thought I'd never dry out after that day, but it sure made digging the holes easy.  And it must have been good planting weather because they all survived!   

In true Jane fashion, there's a story to the picket fence that is a major feature of our backyard.  We always wanted that proverbial "white picket fence" but couldn't find any real wooden pickets.  I hate  plastic fencing.  One day we stopped in a garage sale and a man had a huge stack of them.  I thought I'd buy only one bundle and make some little accents, but the price kept coming down for the more I'd buy, so I ended up getting enough for this fence and maybe  for another someday for $25!  The green color came about because it was on the sale bin at the local hardware store.  I can't imagine it being white now, the green has become sort of a signature.  

Another signature of our backyard is my beehive. We waited all day at an auction for the item we wanted to come up and when it finally did, there were few bidders so the auctioneer threw a bunch of things in a pile and the bee boxes were included in the item we wanted (a Hitchcock chair) so I got the chair and the boxes and several other things for $1.  Well, we couldn't just throw them out could we? So Ran built a little roof for them and we now  have a beehive. 

The main focus of our backyard is food production.  And everyone that has read this blog knows we have a huge vegetable garden.  It's important to us that it looks neat and orderly like Farmer MacGregor's garden in  Peter Rabbit.  

Beyond the little shed that Ran and Jamie built, we have fruit trees planted.  This year we decided that instead having grass back there , we'd start filling it in with ferns and whatever planting we can get for free or on really reduced prices at the end of the gardening year to make a sort of woodland back there.  Under the apple trees it is so pleasant during the hottest days of summer, we will make some sort of sitting area.  There's always projects.  

After the boys had finished college, we finally could afford to reside the house in the gray shakes it has now. I had to fight the contractor every step of the way because what I envisioned wasn't done, you know? Boy! He thought I was crazy when I wanted to rip off that ugly little covered porch on the front of the house.  But now, when the the roses are in bloom and little Sweetbriar is looking all cute and fairytale-esque, strangers stop and take pictures of our house.  Can't tell you how many times I've had to duck out of the way of a photographer. And people that are remodeling stop by to consult me.  This little house has launched at least a dozen other little gray shake cottages.  Kind of amazing seeing where this house had started out.

We had planned to put a deck on the south side of our house, but when we had a contractor come out he discovered that all that was holding up our enclosed porch was lathing strips!  Yikes.  So we pulled off the entire thing and had an open porch there for several years, but when Ran retired we discovered we needed more room, so we had the porched enclosed again.  It was a wonderful opportunity to use some diamond-paned leaded windows installed  that I had been dragging around from house to house for years.  One of my most favorite things about this house  is this bow-front window on the porch.

The way it distorts the light and the way the roses grow around it is pure fantasy.  It makes me happy every time I look at it.  Unfortunately, our porch is usually full of junk.  But some day!

So that it's the story of how a a lot of inspiration, very little money and a lot of elbow grease can make a dream come true.    

Foraging and Weekly Happenings

Hello dear friends!  How are you this lovely Spring day?  We had a few days of warm(er) weather so I've been enjoying some outdoor activities.  It was so nice to go outside without having to put on my big bulky, my name for my down-filled winter coat.  Rejoice in the little things! It was warm enough for the dandelions to pop out.

FORAGING

Dandelions must be the easiest to recognize and most abundant food to forage that ever existed.  When foraging, make sure to pick only in areas you know that haven't been sprayed with herbicides or fertilizers or where pets like to do their business.  This year we tried something different, dandelion fritters:

They were quite good, although a little piddley to make"

Dandelion Fritters

1/2 C, flour
1/2 C. cornmeal
1 tsp. your favorite seasoning (we used Cajun)
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
the heads of clean dandelions


Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl.  Whip together the egg and milk. dip the heads in the egg mixture then into the flour/cornmeal mixture.  Fry in hot oil until the coating is browned.  Salt and pepper to taste.

We also had dandelion salad with this using some of the dandelion leaves and some of our lettuce that we are growing in our cold frames:

This recipe is just your basic wilted lettuce salad but with dandelion leaves in lieu of lettuce, you can use spinach too.

Wilted Lettuce

a few rashers of bacon
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
2 tsp. sugar
lettuce

Fry the bacon until crisp. Drain off all but a tablespoon of the bacon grease.  Add the vinegar and sugar to the frying pan along with the bacon grease.  Stir until  the sugar is dissolved.  Put the lettuce into the hot frying pan and spoon the grease over the top, until the lettuce begins to wilt,  Sprinkle the bacon over top.  Serve immediately.

This was a doubly foraged meal for us as the vinegar I used was made from some foraged crab  apples.  Spring is a wonderful time to forage.  We went out morel mushroom hunting Sunday afternoon, or as we call it "a nice stroll in the woods". We rarely find any.  And when I think of the grocery bags full that we used to pick as children. Ah! The good old days!

There's also lambs quarters and purslane to be found at this time of the year. And our friend Jason told us his young son made dandelion chips (like kale chips).  Pretty clever!  Caleb is parsimonious person in training. You're never going to hear me complain about free food.  It's like money  in the bank!

WHAT'S  GOING ON

Ran and Jamie swept our chimney.  That saves us about $150 and a lot of frustration, because dealing with independent small business people around here, particularly in anything that is home-related is like banging your head against the wall a lot of  the time.  Anyway,  somehow, the chimney brush came off  midway up the chimney.  Thoughts of how embarrassing it was going to be to call the chimney sweep  to have him retrieve the brush quickly popped into my head.  So I was standing there fretting , when Ran turned to me and said "You standing there worrying isn't helping anything." Ha!  So true!  How many times have I stayed up all night worrying about things, only to have nothing come of the problem?  How many times has what I worried about came to fruition only to discover that I could handle it and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined?  And yes, it is true, worrying never helped anything. So whatever situation you are going through right now, don't worry, instead put on your thinking cap and come up with a solution.

I've had many discussion with family and friends over the past few weeks about what may or may not happen to the economy.  Some experts say we'll be in the next depression soon, others say we'll bounce back. Some say there will be food shortages, some say not.  I don't know and I'm through trying to make any predictions.  But I do know that putting aside some things has never hurt anyone.  Remember when everyone was predicting a major catastrophe for Y2K?  I didn't really believe the hype, but I bought a big bag of pinto beans, just in case.  Nothing ever happened, but we used the beans anyway.  It certainly didn't hurt.  And that's the beauty of prepping, if nothing comes of whatever the headlines of the day are, you still can use the food.  So to that end, when I went grocery shopping this week, I took notice that there was very little meat on stock at Aldis and what they had they were limiting to two packages a person., so I went to a smaller independent grocer and purchased some pork and canned it up.  I also noticed that  our Mennonite butcher's (he raises, butchers, and sell his own meat) parking lot was full.  Usually, we are the only people in his store. Let's just say he doesn't normally do such high volume business. All this to say in my long-winded way, "what would it hurt?" to stock up a little?

We order our firewood this past week.  Our local supplier is a very nice  man and always quickly fills our order and is very generous.  We order 10 cords but he always brings between 13-15 cords.  And never charges extra! As a matter of fact, he gave us a discount because we are loyal customers.  Makes a person happy to support a small businessman like that.  If only they all could be so dependable!   So Ran and Jamie spent the week splitting and stacking wood.  Ran splits wood, with an axe ( no log splitter for him), like he was thirty years old.  All this fresh garden produce must be doing his body good, because he'll turn 63 in a couple of weeks.  My thirty-something year old son, says Ran can run circles around him. Just goes to show you, that yes, good organic produce and plenty of it, plus regular exercise keeps you young.  We never think about our age, occasionally we will overhear someone state theirs and we'll look at each other and say, "That old person over there, is younger than us!" Ha!  We never realized that we had gotten old, been too busy I guess.  So anyway, we are ready for winter, although spring has barely arrived.  Up here we only have two seasons, winter and getting ready for winter.  Tonight it is supposed to snow. Ugh! But I guess it just makes the warm days sweeter. And I hope that you have a sweet days ahead of you!

Hugs
Jane

An Old-Fashioned Sweet Briar Journal

Hello dear friends!  Happy last Sunday in April!  Today I thought I'd show you some of the things that we've been doing around here for the last couple of months and some garden talk, kitchen talk and all those things that this blog is known for. So here it goes!

GARDENING

Friday it finally warmed up enough for me to get out and do some weeding.  Ran has been tilling and planting for the past month.  Since we weren't able to buy seeds locally when we needed to get them started, we relied on what we could find, what we purchased last year and what we saved.  In the end, it probably saved us quite a bit of money because many plants that we normally buy, such as; broccoli, cauliflower, celery and leeks we started from seed. Those free sample packets the seed companies sent us with our orders really came in handy!  We used last years potatoes for seed, which is fine.  The only thing we weren't able to buy was onion sets because the vegetable market we buy them from is closed.  Ran is very particular about his onions and always hand-picks them from the bin.  It must be a good strategy because last year's  crop has lasted us until just last week.  Those were some nice onions!  Anyway, we did manage to find some onion sets in the garden decor area of a dollar store.  They've been planted and are sending out little green shoots, so hopefully they will be nice wintering onions.  BTW, I'd like to acknowledge Rhonda of If You Do Stuff, Stuff Gets Done for her very kind  offer to send me whatever I needed for my garden and also for all her support and encouragement  over the last couple weeks.  Getting to "meet"  people like Rhonda is one of the main reasons I blog, so if you haven't visited her blog yet, wander over there and say "hi"!   On another note, our governor has now allowed garden centers to reopen!  She crumbled under all the pressure, so there is an example of protesting, accomplishing something. She also opened up bike repair shops and golf courses (although you must walk the course and not ride a golf cart (?!), and I won't say anything more political here but leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The plot I was weeding is a good example of  the old proverb "a job worth doing, is worth doing well".  This plot was just put together in a slap-dash method to get some plants in the ground before the frost.  That was years ago and since then, I must have clocked hundred of hours weeding out all the purslane and binderweed and still pulling grass clumps from it to this day.  On the other hand,  the first plot I painstakingly hand dug, took the time to shake all the grass from the clumps, turned by a spade and hand tilled every square inch of, rarely needs to have much attention.  Just a quick hoeing.  So that is why I always tell novice gardeners to start small and do it it right the first time.  Your back will thank you in end!

Is it possible to love a plant?

This herb plant has been with me since I started herb gardening almost forty years ago.  Slips of it have been carried as I moved three times.  It has sired many plants that were the start of many friends' and acquaintance's gardens. It has been a loyal friend to me and I almost love it like a pet.  Last year, after a particularly brutal  winter, I thought I had lost it and was just sick about it, but I cut it almost back to the ground and gave it extra attention and it has come back bigger and better than ever.  I'm not one of those mother earth, new-agey  sort of people, but I do love this sage plant!  After all, we've weathered almost a half century together and that is more than I can say for a lot of people!

HOMEMAKING

You know the old saying "make do our do without"?  Well, my home is the ultimate "make-do".  Several times we've seriously considered selling it because it is just too small.  But as always, we realize that the problem isn't that the house is too small, it's that we have too much stuff!  One of the problems has been that it is a very old house and storage is a major problem.  Everyone that has read this blog for any amount of time, knows that I can about five-hundred to six-hundred jars of food a year.  When we first moved here, I made a back bedroom into a walk-in pantry, but one winter  a storm knocked out our electricity for five very long and very cold days.  It was then that I decided that a woodstove was a must.  Sadly the only place to put it that didn't have the chimney going up through the middle of a room or in front of a window or doorway was the corner of my lovely pantry.  And heat and canned goods don't play well together so that was the end of my dream pantry.  We tried putting long shelves on the upstairs landing.  But this is a very old house, built long before indoor plumbing, central heating or building codes, and I worried about all that weight on the joists and expected the whole thing to coming crashing through the ceiling any day.  In the fall when the shelves were at full capacity, I think I could hear the poor joists groaning.  So we finally came up with our final  and I think best solution.  Our living room is square and the doorway into it is about one foot from the wall. I could never figure out how to arrange furniture because the natural pathway is right along that wall so any furniture placed along there was always getting bumped into or moved. That is when we came up with idea to make a huge cupboard along that entire wall  built to the ceiling.  It would only take a foot of floor space and that wall was pretty useless anyway.  If it was made of nice paneling and painted, we could still hang artwork on the doors.  So Ran and Jamie built me the mother-of-all- mother cupboards this winter.

It can easily hold all my canning jars.  And because we live in a cold climate, we love that it makes the living room  even cozier.  Plus I don't have to worry about my poor joists because the downstairs one are actual tree trunks spaced about twelve inches apart notched into a sill that is made back in the days of virgin forests.  In other words, you could probably sit two elephants on the floor over there and the floor wouldn't sag a bit. As some of you might remember this was the wall that held all of Ran's guitars.  They have now been moved to where the old canning cupboard on the landing was.

We are forever moving things around to make this home work.  It was a cheap little house and it will probably never have any real value except to us, but of all the homes I've lived in, this is the one that has made me the happiest.  It really is an artistic expression of us; all  of the furniture is either made by Ran or things we picked up second hand and remade,  the artwork on the walls is our own or something that has a personal meaning to us, the things that make it a home are things that have memories. For instance, I think of my knitting as artwork, so up on the landing, I use an old orchard ladder to display some of my handknit shawls.

And I like to have skeins of yarn, old embroidery hoops, my little doll sized quilts hanging here and there.  Just so people know that a craftsperson and a musician live here.

CRAFTS

We've been basically shut in since November, almost all our neighbors and friends went south for the winter and is was so blustery we didn't travel much, so I had plenty of time to knit.  Over the past several months I've knitted, three shawls, two pairs of mittens, a hat, a Estonian style scarf, a Miss Marple scarf, a pillow, two pairs of socks, and the back and left side of a vest for Ran (this year's Christmas present) and various littles.  Here's a picture of the edging of one of the shawls:

I love the fern-like edge.  This was a quick knit and the pattern comes from Knitpicks, I believe the book was titled Under 100.  The project I'm currently working on is Spring Bloom Mitts and the free pattern can be found here.

One thing that I realized during all this shut-in time is that I need to be prepared with more sewing supplies.  When or if my local Ben Franklin reopens, I intend on laying-in a good supply of things such as sewing machine needles, snaps and fasteners, various sizes of elastic, etc.   Last week I had a bit of  a frustrating day when I wanted to sew something, broke my sewing machine needle, didn't have another one. And that was after I had to unwind a bobbin by hand because I didn't have a spare one.  So then I decided to  hand sew one of the snood-type headcoverings that I like, but couldn't find any elastic. A very long time ago I read a book about a women that had lived in either the Ukraine of Albania, I can't remember which, during WWII and afterward the Soviet occupation.  She said that the one thing she did was sew clothes for children because, hard times or not, children do outgrow their clothes.  And I had also heard many stories growing up about the Depression and how people had so few clothes, so I have been collecting nice pieces of fabric whenever I find them at garage sales and thrift stores, for "just in case".  But I never thought about zippers, snaps, bobbins, etc.  So I'll be on a mission, once the stores reopen!

IN THE KITCHEN

You hanging in there?  Ha!  We've been endeavoring to clean out our freezer in anticipation of the new gardening and fishing season.  We had a ham in there bought during the holidays at something like 68 cents a pound, and plenty of bacon because our oldest son raises his own hogs and gives us a cooler full of meat for Christmas.  We used to buy a holiday ham sausage from a Polish butcher at Easter time, but he had gone out of business long ago so we decided to make our own, all we had to buy was a inexpensive pork butt roast ($1.18/ lb.).  As the pork was the most expensive ingredient, this sausage cost us less than a dollar a pound.  And it is so good!  

Ham Sausage

4 lbs. pork

3 lbs. ham

1 lb. bacon

1 tbsp. sage

2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

2  tsp. thyme

4 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tbsp. dry mustard

Combine all the seasoning in a small bowl.  Cut the meat in chunks that fit into your meat grinder.  Toss the seasoning with the meat.  Grind through the meat grinder.  Form into patties and thoroughly cook to temperature for pork.

I brown my sausage and can it, which make it easy for me to get breakfast on the table, but this sausage can be frozen either cooked or uncooked.  (The obvious things a person must write these days!)

If you haven't ever tried making your own sausages, you might want to give it a try.  It's almost always cheaper than those tubes of it you get at  the grocers.  And you control what is goes into it.  No pig snouts, no msg, no artificial colorings or flavors.  You can often find meat grinders at estate sales and thrift stores. It's a pretty fun thing to try out old  heirloom recipes of varieties that you can no longer buy.  So give it a try! Maybe you'll invent the next hot dog!

So that's about it from the old Zempel boarding house.  Hope you have a wonderful week.  Now get out there and be thrifty!

Hugs

Jane

The Joy of Ordinary

Hello dear friends!  Hope this post finds you all safe and sound.  First, I 'd like to thank Leslie and Ran for filling in for me last week, March has been a difficult month for me and truth be told, I'm not sad to show it the door. My thyroid has been bothering me for the last several months.  Although the tests come back normal (with medication) I was feeling like a zombie.  My get-up-and-go got up and went!  Plus I was starting to gain weight in spite of only eating 900 calories a day and walking between 3-6 miles daily. To say I was not a happy camper would be an understatement.  Well, no help from the doctors, they just look at the numbers and assume you are not telling them the truth, so Ran and I had to do our own research on the matter.  It pays to have a scientist for a husband, because my brain was so foggy I couldn't comprehend what I was reading, but since Ran has been doing research for his entire life, it was a piece of cake for him.  After doing research, he set me up on a regime of various vitamins and minerals and almost immediately I began to feel better and I started losing weight (five pounds this week).  But the best thing is that I now feel alive again!  There's so much joy in just waking up and feeling rested.  Once I felt more with-it, I did further research and discovered that many of the vegetables that I love and eat daily, such as broccoli, cabbage and kale are all big no-nos for people with thyroid conditions; they inhibit the thyroid.  Who would have thought such healthy things would be so bad for you?

HOMEMAKING

Anyhow, in the meantime, we've been working on making our home function better.  Once again, I rearranged the living room to make it work for us.  You see, this room must serve many purposes; sitting room, guitar studio, sewing room, dressing room and on occasions a guest room.  That's a lot to ask a little 12 X 14 room!  We figured out a way to have a sitting area and a place for the guitars, plus enough open space  for one of those air beds for guests.

We brought furniture down from upstairs and took some from downstairs up.  At the end of the day, there wasn't a room that  hadn't been untouched.  To me, making a house a home is such a joy!  BTW, the pretty hyacinths are a gift from our dear friend Mary.  She stopped by last weekend, just as I was finishing up a big baking spree.  We love to "take tea" in the evening, it's one of our little rituals of our marriage that  we enjoy.  In the evening having a cup of tea or coffee and perhaps if we aren't being to stringent on our diet, some little treat, we sit and discuss the day, politics and plans.  No TVs going, no outside distractions.  Do you know that the average married couple only talks to each other 17 minutes per day?   I think a lot of marriages could benefit from taking tea!

BAKING

So I had the idea to bake up a lot of tea goodies and freeze them in tins, then when someone stops by it would just be a matter of popping a few things out and defrosting them in the toaster oven (we don't have a microwave). 

I baked lemon tea breads, Spanish bar cake (without the frosting), fruit squares, and a lovely almond tea cake.  The plan was put to an immediate test, as I just took the last loaf from the oven, Mary stopped in, and we all tested out the new seating arrangement and goodies. It was so nice to have something to offer, as I try not to keep too many sweets in the house (and when I do, they don't last long).  Keeping tins of teatime treats in the freezer is something I will definitely continue to do.

 Almond Tea Cake

1 C. butter

3/4 C. sugar

1 egg, separated

half of one of those 8 oz. packages almond paste (found by the pie filling in the baking aisle)

1 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. butter extract

2 C. flour

handful of slivered almonds

Cream the butter, almond paste and sugar together,  (you'll need a mixer for this).  Add the egg yolk and extracts.  Add the flour and mix until just blended.

Spread the mixture (it will be very thick) into a lightly greased 8" round cake pan.

Beat the remaining egg white until frothy.  Spread over the cake batter and sprinkle with the almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool and cut into wedges.

This is a very heavy substantial cake, but oh boy!  does it ever taste like almonds.  Would be good served with some fresh fruit. Maybe for Easter brunch?

Our little tea and coffee repasts are so important to us, that we even have a little coffee station set up in our kitchen to make it easy to prepare a cup of coffee or a pot of tea.

Everything we need is located in that one spot.  Makes for simple impromptu tea parties.

GARDENING

Well, we have our first sign of Spring, the rhubarb is starting to come up!

Good old rhubarb, if ever there was a dependable plant, this is it.  I think it was put on Earth just to make us gardeners feel good about ourselves.  And here's a peek at how the lettuce in the cold frame is coming along:

As   you can see, we just slit the bags and planted the seeds.  Now anyone can do that!  And when the lettuce is through, we'll just pull it and throw the soil into the compost bin.  It never ceases to astound me that these little seeds  sprout and flourish in the cold weather.  Today is the first day the temperature has climbed over the fourty degree mark!  Feels so good, we've been outside without a jacket on.  Ran and Jamie are working on cleaning up the flower beds while I write this.  Inside, we transplanted most of our tomatoes and cauliflowers to bigger pots and soon some of the perennial flowers will need repotting.

CRAFTING

I spotted this cute craft on YouTube.  I wish I knew where, to give them credit, but you know how it is when you're clicking on one thing and soon you wonder how you arrived at the channel you are on.  Macrame is popular again.  Who would think that fad would ever make a comeback?  But apparently young hipsters haven't lived through the 70s so they don't have the hindsight to know that the 70s were really an ugly era,  they think it's groovy (we actually never used the term "groovy" in the 70s, we said beaucoup).  Anyhow, I thought it was a pretty way to display yet another doily.

You simply take a doily and attach it to a branch, then add tassels of cotton crochet thread.  Decorate the branch with sprigs of greenery.  I have mine hanging a my very dark sewing cupboard to give it some lightness.  I'm conflicted with what to do with this cupboard.  It's an antique and made of quarter-sawn oak, which is not my bag, baby. Ha!  It has pretty Art Nouveau carvings on it, and as I wrote it is antique, but it's so dark.  I've thought of painting it, I only paid $50 for it at a garage sale, but on the other hand, you don't see too many pieces from this period, so maybe I shouldn't.  For now, I guess I'll just leave it alone.  When in doubt, do nothing, is my credo!

THRIFTY THINGS WE DID THIS WEEK

Ran fixed my medical problems by doing research on the internet.  A few dollars in vitamins and some red meat, and I'm feeling a million times better!

Ran sold two of his guitars that he never played on Craigs list.

Made a decoration from a doily I had and a stick from the yard.

Continued to eat from our pantry and freezer, except for fresh vegetables and the red meat, we haven't shopped for groceries in months.

Knitted some more on my temperature blanket using up more of my yarn stash.

Cleaned out my closets and gave four bags of clothes to charity.

Tonight we'll put some things up for sale on Ebay.

Used our points to get a free sub from Subway.

Entertained ourselves by visiting with neighbors (the snowbirds are coming back)

Basically, just stayed home, ate what we had and made do or went without. There is joy in ordinary days.

Well, that's it for another week here at the old Zempel boarding house.  I hope that all your days are sunny and filled with joy!

Hugs

Jane