Baffled

 Hello dear friends!  Keeping warm?  Ha!  I guess April Fool's Day came early for me this year.  I decided to write  the last blog post because I discovered that more people were reading my blog the past few months then when I was posting regularly.  But you know what?  As soon as I posted the last post my readership flat-lined.  Oh dear!  But I don't care, because it was nice to reconnect with you.  So I will continue to blog, although irregularly if for no other reason that this blog acts as my own personal journal and it is fun to look back and see what I was thinking and doing at different stages of this old journey called life.  

I was going to write about what we were eating during our year of eating out of the pantry, but I don't think it would be helpful to others, because we have a rather unusual lifestyle (we only eat two meals a day), and because some of our pantry meals are not inexpensive unless you have someone in your family is an avid fisherman or you have such a well-stocked pantry that I have, which very few people besides some Amish have. Ha!  But here are some tips for stocking your pantry:

HOW TO HAVE  A WELL-STOCKED PANTRY

1.  GO SHOPPING.  So many people use those shopping services today, but you have to go to an actual store to discover the real bargains.  It really doesn't take that much time.  Ran and I go "bargain hunting" twice a month. We only shop the outer boundaries of the store; the dairy, produce and meat sections.  Things like flour, sugar and spices, we buy in bulk a couple of times a year.  We buy our coffee at the Amish scratch and dent store.  Sometimes we find coffee at the "reduced for quick sale" shelf which is usually tucked away  at a corner in the back of the store. We often find milk that is reaching its expiration date and thus the price is reduced, which we make into yogurt, which is then made into cheese.  Often there are unadvertised sales on meat. (We found a nice lamb roast for $4.99/lb. this past week!)  These bargains would have been missed if we weren't in the store to discover them.

2.  WHEN YOU FIND A BARGAIN, BUY A BUNCH  When you find an amazing bargain calculate how much you will need for a year.  We always reserve between $20-$30 a month for these sorts of purchases.  Most people can afford $20.  It might mean giving up some little luxury, like eating a PBJ instead of stopping at the fast food place because you are too tired to cook, or not buying that bag of chips and pop, or consolidating some errands and saving on a tank of gas, or doing your own nails instead of getting a manicure.  There's all sorts of ways to save $20 a month!

3.  BE OPEN-MINDED  The other day I was standing in the grocery store contemplating whether or not to buy some bags of frozen chicken leg quarters that were 39 cents a pound, when I overheard a woman say "oh gross!".  Now just why frozen leg quarters are gross and fresh aren't, is just not a concept I can grasp.  I guarantee that if I had bought 20 pounds for $7.98 and canned them up and made something and served it to her, she would have been none the wiser to whether they had started out with frozen or fresh meat to begin with.  And I would have had eight lovely pints of canned chicken and several pints of chicken broth in my pantry for a remarkable price.  BTW, if I would have bought forty pounds and canned it, that would have been enough chicken for an entire year and for less than twenty dollars.  A local thrift store gives out fruits and vegetables left over from their food pantry.  I like to leave those things for the truly needy, but the worker implored me to take them because they would just get thrown out at the end of the day otherwise.  You see, people are so privileged in this country that even those that are begging for free food, turn up their noses if it isn't exactly perfect.  So I gladly accepted the free oranges and made some lovely marmalade from it and the brown bananas were made into bread for breakfast, etc.  When eggs were so expensive, our friend Tyler started raising chickens and giving them out to friends and neighbors.  But being busy and a bachelor, he didn't wash them.  I was astounded at how many people complained and rejected his  free eggs just because they didn't look like they came from the grocery store, especially when eggs were were selling for over four dollars a dozen then.

4. LEARN TO COOK  So many of the recipes I see nowadays are not exactly cooking, it's more like assembling ingredients.  A can of this, a package of that. By just knowing a few basic cooking skills, you can eliminate the entire middle and frozen  sections (and most expensive) of the grocery store. Eliminating all those items, you'll have more money to stock up on the basics.  Learn to make a basic white sauce, which herbs and spice to use, with what,  what temperatures to roast, boil and bake at. (all posts I have written about in the past).  Learn how to make your own pasta, bread, baked goods from scratch by learning the ratio of fats, sugars and flours.  As I try to use up every last bit of things in the fridge that have been hanging around since the holidays, I have been baking with some unusual items.  I made oatmeal cookies last week using the last of the maple fudge for some of the sugar, pear sauce and a dab of sour cream  substituted for some of the fats, and diced up dried apricots instead of raisins.  Knowing that fat is fat and sugar is a sugar (except honey which you should use less and bake at lower temperatures), you can use every last drip and dab of food.  We come as close to zero waste as possible. BTW, the cookies were delicious.

5. USE IT ALL UP  Ran caught a lovely walleye last week so we had a our usual fish dinner with coleslaw and tartar sauce.  When  we were clearing the table there was about a tablespoon of tartar sauce and a quarter cup of coleslaw left over.  Now most people would probably have just tossed them, but then most people are not as parsimonious as me. Ha! I combined them with a the quarter cup of turkey I had leftover from the previous meal (turkey Reubens  made from canned turkey) and made enough sandwich filling for one sandwich, which I prepared, wrapped in waxed in paper and put in the refrigerator for someone to discover. BTW, aren't sandwiches tastier if they are cut corner to corner and wrapped in waxed paper? Mrs. Rachel Lynde, a character in Anne of Green Gables, always claimed you can tell a good homemaker by her bread management and would always check others breadbox to see if there was any stale bread in there.  Waste not, want not! 

So anyway, that is but a few ways I manage the grocery budget so I can stock my pantries.  Hope it helps!

BAFFLED

Well, we are going through a cold spell lately.  As many of you dear readers know, we live in a very old house, at least one-hundred and fifty years old and probably older than that.  Although we did our best to insulate it, it is still a cold drafty little place.  The upstairs is unheated and the only heat is via little vents in the ceiling  from the room below, basically it works on the theory that hot air rises.  This morning the inside temperature was 52 degrees (Fahrenheit)! But we stay toasty while we sleep because we dress our bed warmly.  I made quilts from scraps of wool, with old down comforters for the batting and flannel sheets for the backing.  I then hand-tied the top to the bottom.  The reason these quilts keep us extra warm as opposed to a regular quilt is because of the baffling.  The layers of top, bottom and batting are not compacted like in a pretty quilted quilt.  This allows air to be trapped between layers or to be more precise, baffled. Here's a link on how to make your own woolen quilt:

 https://hopeandthrift.blogspot.com/2015/03/sweet-briar-journal-lessons-from-my.html

I was too lazy to make all those little squares for the quilt on the bed so I just cut big squares and rectangles for the top and sewed and cut to fit the unusual sized bed.  It's a two-hundred year old rope bed and is shorter and narrower than standard beds.  Anyway, I find that woolen scarves from the thrift store (I wait until they have their winter clearance and buy them for less than ten cents) make quick work of this sort of quilt.  I was going to pretty the quilt up with some lace and hand-embroidery, but never got around to it. It works and gives me that primmy vibe I like.

I also use baffling to dress warmly.  As most of you know, I only wear skirts and people often ask me if I'm cold in winter.  Actually, quite the opposite.  I've tried wearing fleeced-lined pants when walking and frankly they don't work.  What does is wearing tights, a flannel petticoat and a skirt made from a natural material like wool or a heavy cotton. On top I wear a silk undershirt, a flannel or wool blouse and a wool cardigan.  The warmth from my body heat gets trapped within the layers. I'm warm.  Besides baffling, the other key is to use all natural materials.  Those blankets and clothes made from acrylics, won't keep you warm, so if you need to buy blankets, look for woolen ones and fortunately the thrift stores still have affordable ones.  BTW, don't waste your money getting used ones dry-cleaned, just wash as usual, if they shrink, you will have boiled wool, which is even warmer.

SPEAKING OF WOOL

This is my first project I finished for 2024:

A wool work sewing roll. I dislike having clutter about the house and craft projects always create so much clutter, so I made this sewing roll so at the end of the day, I can just roll up my project and tuck it away. And it keeps everything together.

BARGAINS

Besides the lamb I bought at a remarkable price ( I have another roast in the freezer so I might can them both up, we'll see) I spotted the store still had Christmas items for 90% off.  So I bought two packages of Hershey's kisses for 59 cents each, that I will chop up and use in chocolate chunk cookies sometimes in the future (cheaper than a bag of chocolate chips)  and one of those boxed  panetones  for a dollar.  Which I made into Skiers French Toast.

Skiers French Toast

2 tbsp. corn syrup

1/2 C. butter

1 C. brown sugar 

1 loaf of white bread (or in my case, 1 loaf of panentone)

5 eggs

1 1/2 C. milk

1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 tsp. salt

In a small saucepan, combine corn syrup, butter and brown sugar and simmer until syrupy.  Pour mixture over the bottom of a 9" X 13" pan.

Slice the bread in 12-16 slices and place over the sugar-butter mixture.

In a bowl, beat the remaining ingredients together.  Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Uncover and bake for 45 minutes.  Serve hot.

Makes a nice family breakfast for the weekend.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX

Rarely do I use objects for their intended purpose.  Linen tablecloths become skirts and pretty blouse become napkins.  Wool skirts become blankets and rugs and woolen blankets become woolen applique pieces.  So the other day I was perusing the thrift store on our "bargain hunt" excursion when I spotted the prettiest linen blouse (made in Italy. Oh-la-la).  I was asking Ran what I could make with it.  I didn't need any more pillows, and it was too nice to stain up for napkins and I am through with making quilts.  'What can I make with this pretty fabric Ran?'  "Well, you could just wear it as a blouse.' Duh!  Sometimes I'm so busy looking outside of the box, I forget to look at the box. Ha!

EATING OUT OF THE PANTRY

Well, this has not been a hardship for us at all and I now have room in my pantry for some of my jars of home canned goods that have been sitting under the tea table in the living room.  Hurray!  Just to settle your curiosity,  today for lunch we had grilled baked  bean and cheese sandwiches and canned asparagus.  The beans were made from our own dried Hopi Indian beans, home-canned bacon,  homemade cranberry catsup and I used some home-canned apple syrup to sweeten them.  The cheese was purchased earlier this year when our Amish bulk store was selling the ends and pieces of deli cheese for $1.89 a pound.  We bought about twenty pounds, made them into packages and vacuum  sealed the packages and froze them.  I have also canned cheese, but it's an awfully fiddly process and it's a chore to clean the jars.  I wouldn't recommend it to you canners. So that is that for this week's life at the old Zempel boarding house.  Hope you all have a lovely week and stay warm!

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

Small Scale Maple Sugaring and Other Thrifty Doings

 Hello dear friends!  Happy Springtime!  Several of you have written and told me that you have had problems with subscribing and commenting on my blog.  I'm sorry about that, unfortunately, I am the least techie person on the planet, bordering on full-on Luddite status, so I cannot fix those problems, but I do appreciate you making an effort to let me know. I truly do appreciate all feedback, even the negative as long as it doesn't get abusive.  Anyway, with that out of the way, here's what springtime looks like in my neck of the woods:

Not the prettiest season.  No forsythias, no daffodils, no green grass, those things won't come until May, just mud and the remainder of the snow. It always looks so bad this time of year.  So that is the reality of living "up North".  But on a happier note, the robins have returned, and the morning was greeted with a cheerful chorus of birdsong.  They are surviving on the wild grapes and crabapples left on the trees until the ground thaws and they can get at their worms. 

Small-scale Maple Sugaring

I just read a news article that this year has been one of the best maple sugaring seasons Michigan has had in a long time.  We are gathering a gallon of sap a day from the one tap on the maple tree in our front yard the past few days. We already boiled down enough to make a quart and a half of syrup. This year was just an experiment to see how we could do this efficiently, but next year we will tap more trees and put more than a single tap in each.  Here's how our tap looks:

We inserted some tubing into the tap and then into a pop bottle, then Ran rigged up some wire to attach the bottle to the tap. Then when the bottle is three-quarters full, we put the sap in an enamel-lined pot and put it atop our woodstove, where it evaporates down to one-tenth of its volume. This way we are not wasting any energy, as the stove is being used to heat the house anyway.  After that, Ran takes the evaporated sap out and finishes the evaporating process on our rocket stove.

You can get all fancy-schmancy and measure the temperature of the sap to see if it is at the syrup stage, but we just eyeball it.  When it is the right consistency to run off of a spoon slowly and it's that maple-syrupy color, we bottle it.  I will probably "can" the syrup for long-term storage in pint jars.  I use the term "can" but it more like bottling the jars.  Sterilize you jars in a 275-degree oven for ten minutes, .  (Normally I do not recommend sterilizing jars this way, but you want the jars to be dry inside, so that the syrup doesn't mold.)  Heat you syrup to the boiling point, pour the hot syrup into the hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace.  Place a lid that has been simmered and then wiped dry atop each jar and the screw the band on tightly, none of this fingertip tight business here, really jam the rings on.  Place the jars upside down on a soft dishtowel.  This should seal the jars. After the jars have cooled, turn them upright and check to see if the jars have sealed.  Any that haven't should be stored in the refrigerator for up to six months. I'm sure there's many articles on exactly how to do this out on the internet, if you want to do a bit of research, but it really isn't rocket science. Speaking of rockets, these rocket stoves are a wonder.  They take very little energy to get a large pot of water up to the boiling point.  We just use twigs we find in the yard and scrap lumber.  We've used our countless times when we have lost electricity for the umpteenth time every year. This is a purchased one, but again, there's lot of information on the internet on how to make one.  They are definitely a valuable tool to have on hand.

Taking Stock

March is the month that we take stock here at Sweetbriar Cottage.  We go through all our canned goods and see what we need to grow and preserve for the coming year.  More tomatoes for catsup and salsa but we are good on beets and carrots. (I'm still having nightmares about having the flu while canning those bushels and bushels of carrots.) And we definitely need to make more sauerkraut this year.  All the oddball canned goods and those that are reaching their expiration dates are put into a basket to be used for meals this month.  It makes for some interesting meals; I can vouch for that.  And we try to eat down our freezer, in anticipation of the coming fishing season.  My goal is to use only the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and not even use the small upright freezer we have (a goal I have yet to achieve). 

 It is finally warm enough to go up into the attic and straighten things up.  I can truthfully say, I needn't buy another skein of yarn or scrap of fabric for the rest of my life.  I will need to live to be a hundred just to use what I have, and that is after donating bags and boxes of yarn and bolts of fabric to the local thrift store.  I also go through my winter wardrobe and donate all the clothes that I have never worn all season and the ones that do not suit my lifestyle any longer.  There's no point in having pretty clothes that are not practical, I never go anywhere to get dressed up.  They are just taking up space and in a small home space is more valued than hanging onto things for sentimental value.  My thoughts on the whole matter are that it is better to pass on these pretties on to someone who might enjoy them, then it is to have them sitting in drawers going to waste.  Taking stock from time to time is a thrifty thing to do. After seeing all that I have, I can honestly say "enough is enough"!

But yet....

I say all that, but yet, it didn't keep me from taking a jog through the thrift store yesterday when I dropped off some donations. Ha!  I had this beautiful piece of an old overshot coverlet that I wanted to frame, so I was looking for a frame to cut down to fit the piece. And there it was!  For $5, less than what I'd pay just to have the glass cut.  I was going to paint the frame, but I thought the color brought out the golden browns in the fabric.  It took less than a quarter hour, for Ran to have it framed and hung.  

Even the mat worked out (it appears more bluish here than it actually is).  The only other thing I bought was a twiggy wreath for my door.  I toss my wreaths at the end of the seasons.  Usually, they look the worst for wear after a couple of months being battered about by the wind and the thrift stores always have more.  The one I bought cost 75 cents.  Speaking of twiggy wreaths, here's a woolen candle mat I made from some of my big box of wool scraps:

That was a fun one-day project.  And here's a penny rug I finished this month:

I am through with making those woolen tongues for a long while.  In March I decorate in a lamb and lion theme.  I don't decorate for Easter; all those bunnies and chicks are too cutesy for me. And I am not fond of pastels.  Besides, the lion and lamb have a Biblical connotation. Or so I thought.  I had a real Mandela-effect experience when I discovered that the Bible actually says, "The wolf will lie down with the lamb".  I thought it might be some modern interpretation, but I checked my grandmother's Bible that was published in 1911, and yep, it says wolf there too.

March Sales

March is a wonderful time to stock up on some items.  They've had great buys on corned beef.  At Aldi's I bought the cheaper cut for $2.99 a pound.  I would have bought some to can, when you can your meat it tenderizes the cheaper cuts, so don't be afraid to buy them for this purpose, but I still had plenty in my pantry from the previous year, so I didn't.  But I did buy two roasts, one we ate on St. Patrick's Day, and the other I roasted and cut into slice for sandwiches.  I still see corned beef on sale at Walmart.  

I saw lamb for less than $4 a pound at Meijers.  Unheard of price for lamb!  If I weren't being so lazy, I would buy some to can for stew.  Lamb is a rarity in this house.  I used to grind it and make gyro meat which I sliced and froze.  So nice when the cucumbers and dill are ripe for tzatziki sauce.  Oh, oh!  I'm talking myself into a chore!

And of course, ham and eggs are usually on sale this time of year.  I haven't checked the prices, but just a quick glance, I have noticed that the prices on eggs are going down. You can really make a ham stretch.  One of our favorite ways is with this ham and egg pie. Then there's always ways to use it in soups and omelets. Take all the little scraps and grind them up add some onion, mayo, and dill relish and make a sandwich spread.  And when you get down to the soup bone there's always a nice old-fashioned boiled dinner (with lots of cabbage which is on sale this month).  Goodness!  A family could survive an entire month on one bargain Easter ham!

A Question Posed

Recently, someone posed the question is self-sufficiency and preparedness Biblical?   This is usually followed by the verse about the lilies of the field.  I'd say, yes, while we depend on God to provide for us, He also give us knowledge and discernment.  I can point to just as many verses and parables about preparedness. We all read the news about bank closures and interest rate hikes; they should be telling you something about where the economy is heading.  It would be foolhardy to not watch your pennies a little more closely, in my opinion.  My attitude is not to go at preparing for hard times in a fearful manner, by going to grocery store and hoarding up enough food and making your home into a bunker, but it won't hurt to have some extra things put aside.  These days, no one can be truly self-sufficient.  Even centuries back, people were still dependent on others; millers to help grind the grain, neighbors to help shuck the corn, threshing teams at harvest time, not to mention most had large families that pulled together.  I dare say that a lot of those "preppers" I see on YouTube will find that all their well-laid plans are just that, when they have to grow enough feed for all that livestock and harvest it with a scythe because fuel and parts are not available for their tractors. Or if they have to haul buckets of water from a stream for that herd of cows.  They'll be downsizing their gardens when they have to turn over the soil with a shovel and till it by hand.  And what does one do when a drought occurs?  Or a flood wipes out your crops?  Then I dare say, we are not as self-sufficient as we thought, so we needn't be so smug about it.  Self-sufficiency is a goal, but I'd say we still need to have God's blessings to ever achieve any facsimile of it. Yet, I still say it is better to at least try attempt to live as independently as possible, rather than to rely on the good graces of others, or worse yet, the government, to provide for you, realizing that every tomato you pick, every piece of firewood you stack, every drop of water you drink, is a blessing and should be treasured and not wasted. What say you on the subject?

So anyway, that's it for this month's Thrift Thursday at the old Zempel boarding house.  Dear Regina, I hope this helps, and thank you for urging me to write a post!

Hugs

Jane

 

Colorful

Hello dear friends!  Hope you all are doing well.  We're still spending a good portion of our days watering, trying to keep our garden alive.  My! It's been hot!  But the today we finally had a break from the heat and are having the Picture-perfect summer day.  So many flowers are blooming right now.

This is a garden on the south side of our home.  It's a true cottage garden, in that every plant is either something that someone has given us, or a volunteer plant growing elsewhere in the yard.  It's been thrown together with no forethought on what "goes" but just planted by sticking whatever we found,  wherever there was an empty space.  And you no what?  It's one of the prettiest gardens  that ever existed.  (Sometimes I wish I were a better photographer so I could capture the true beauty of this place, but it is what it is, and if people desire an "artful" blog, I'm afraid they will have to go elsewhere.)  Oh!  And the birds do their part also. Many of the flowers have been reseeded courtesy of the birds. I'm a firm believer in not coddling  plants and letting them live where they want to, no hybrid roses for me!

Here's an area of the yard we will be working on this fall:

This is the back quarter of our property where our apple trees grow.  We plan to plant "something" to make this area completely secluded and have a little sitting area. Even on the hottest days, this shady area is cool.  We've already earmarked some ferns and hostas to go back here.  Any ideas?   I'd love your input. This year we decided not to mow the grass back here and there's all sorts of wildflowers  and herbs growing;   Fleabane, Self-heal, Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Lettuce, Mullein  and Red Clover to name a few.  It's so enjoyable to learn of all the herbs and their many uses. You are never too old to learn something new!

IN THE KITCHEN

This recipe is something new I learned  last year.  For years I've looked at this recipe in one of Mary Mason Campbell's recipe books and ignored it because it seemed too "ordinary".  But last year I had such a glut of summer squashes that I was willing to try anything to use some up. Hence, this recipe, which has become a staple summer meal for us:

 Casserole of Summer Squash

2 tbs. olive oil
2 lbs. summer squash washed and cut into cubes (I use a mixture of summer squash, zucchini and eggplant)
1 white onion, chopped
3 large tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. salt (scant)
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp. oregano
1 C. breadcrumbs
1 C. cheddar cheese
2 tbsp. butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Parboil the squash for 5 minutes, Drain.
Put the oil in a 3quart casserole. Put in vegetables.
Mix together dry ingredients and half the cheese. Spread over top of the vegetables.
Dot with butter.
Cover and bake 50 minutes. Uncover and scatter the remaining cheese over top.  Return to oven until the cheese is melted.

Isn't it colorful?  We substituted some cheese crackers for the breadcrumbs, just because we had some and they needed using up.  Makes it even more colorful.  Happy days when the garden starts producing!

And look! Canning season has begun! One commenter expressed skepticism that I truly canned as much as what I said I did, but this is just the result of one day's canning session, and my true canning season doesn't really begin until the beans and the tomatoes ripen.  Then it's not unusual for me to can 30 jars a day.  Anyway, I know I should let these comments pass, but it does get tiresome some times. 

And speaking of gardens, with all this dry hot weather, now is the time to be drying your herbs in your car. Something I wrote about way  back in 2012.  Good advice never goes out of style.

This was a dandy year for cherries.  Usually the birds have them eaten before they are ready to be picked, but this year there were even  too many  for them!  I ended up with a dozen jars of cherry preserves.  We will treasure those!  And we had enough cucumbers for a dozen jars of relish. We go through a lot of relish. There'll be more on the way, not to mention pickles.  And I got an amazing deal at WalMart.  They must be getting rid of a brand because they had cans and cans of corn and beans on the sale rack. The expiration date on the cans was 2023 so it wasn't because they were expiring.  Anyway, I bought two  six pound cans of corn for $1.50 each (that's 25 cents/lb!). So I recanned the corn into smaller pint jars.  We never have any luck with corn, between the deer and the raccoons, it just isn't worth our while to grow.  And what they don't eat, the crows will finish off.  Oh! speaking of deer, we spotted twin fawns standing in the street in front of our house.  Gosh, they're cute, but such pests! They know they have it made, with a stream and grazing land behind our house, and apple orchards and our garden, plus the fact that there's no hunting in the village, I'd say they are the smartest little deer!

SEWING

During  the "big lockdown" I took up sewing again.  I haven't done any for years, and it was fun to rediscover the craft.  But not being able to avail myself to any stores, I had to "make-do" with what I had.  Using an old linen tablecloth and substituting some woolen goods for the interfacing I fashioned this old-timey vest.  It has a cute peplum in the back.

Sorry about how awful these pictures are.  I am not a model and the one thing I hate most in the world is having my picture taken.  The photographer gets one chance with me and that's what I go with. ANd I wouldn't know where to begin with photoshopping.  It must be tiresome to be a model, or one of those influencers you see on Instagram.  And I hadn't given any thought about how stupid this vest would look with a t-shirt, (I just put it on to take the picture). Or how I had the back all twisted about. Or that maybe the back would look smoother if I hadn't had a big bulky belt on underneath it.  Oh well!  You get the picture.  

Currently I'm knitting a shawl from some yarn that I picked up at the local thrift shop for 50 cents a skein.  It's just a simple shawl, but the variegated yarn intrigued me. It 's not the best yarn, but I'm not a yarn snob and the entire project will cost me $1.  Not like I'm giving it as a gift or anything, just something to do. Truly a mindless project for the times I'm monitoring the pressure canner.  

Well, the world keeps getting crazier, but life is as good as you care to make it.  I hope you all have a glorious week ahead of you. And that's this week at the old Zempel boarding house.

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.    

Another Jumbled Post

Hello dear friends!  Did you have a fun St. Patrick's Day?  About all we did to celebrate was to eat some Irish cheese that I had purchased at Aldis and I wore a green sweater, but I wear a lot of green, so I'm not sure that counts. Oh! and McDonald's Groceries handed out free root beer floats in honor of the day. Is anyone else having a hard time adjusting to the time change?  It seems like it is always 7:00 pm!  Well, at least it is still daylight out at that time.  Call me crazy, since we haven't had Spring or Summer yet, but the thought occurred to me that in six more months it will be Fall.  I know, I know; I'm nuts.  But I already lost one week this month.  When I went to write out the check at the dentist's office, I was informed that it was the 15th not the 8th.  How did that happen?  It reminds me of these two old farmers I overheard while on a ferry years ago, they were talking and one said, "What is it? The nineteen-eighties?" It was the nineteen-nineties. At the time I thought how on Earth could someone lose track of an entire decade , but now I can see this happening.  Still haven't gotten used to writing 2017 on my checks!

GARDENING

We started our seeds this week.   I once heard a  a so-called frugal expert on a podcast say that gardening didn't pay because by the time you buy the plants and all the soil amendments, you could have just bought the vegetables anyhow.  Well, I don't know how this lady gardens, but I beg to differ. Firstly, you don't buy plants, you start them from seed, many of which are saved from last year's fruits.  Even if you have to buy seeds, a packet can be had for as little as 25 cents at the dollar store. How many vegetables can you buy for 25 cents?  Plus there's the added pleasure of discovering truly old-fashioned goodness.  Fresh vegetables are the best.  And when you start your own plants you can experiment with the heirloom varieties, which I've found to have much better flavor then the commercial varieties.  People that say they don't like vegetables probably have never tasted an heirloom tomato; such as German Strawberry or Opalka (my two favorites) or a nice heirloom squash such as Mooregold.  

I don't know what soil amendments the expert was speaking of, but the only additions we make to our garden soil is good old-fashioned compost from leaves, peels, ashes from the wood stove, and garden debris. It costs nothing to make, just patience.  For the sake of your health, I'd caution anyone from using commercial compost or manure, many of it has pesticides  and herbicides in it from what the cows ingest.  I've even heard of people's gardens being ruined from it.  I do put compost on my flower gardens that I get from the village, they compost the leaves in the Fall, but I don't like to use it on my vegetable plots.  I always say error on the side of caution.  If you don't know what's in it, don't use it. You can plant a cover crop in late Fall and till it under in the Spring, also. Start small with just a little plot, big enough for a couple tomato and pepper plants, a couple of rows of lettuce.  Amend the soil with your own compost and extend the plot as you become more experienced,  a bit at a time. What you are working for, is nice dark soil that is friable;  you should be able to stick your arm into the soil up to your elbow.  If you have a lot of clay in your soil, you can add sand to make it less dense. In a way, we were very fortunate, because our area has some of the richest soil around.  But on the other hand, I wouldn't buy a piece of land without looking into the soil first, which is why I would never own beachfront property.  Too sandy!  But I suppose if you own beachfront property, you can afford to buy your fruits and veggies from the farmer's market.

NEEDLEWORK

I never can resist buying those cute little embroidered doilies that I find at garage sales.  I'm always thinking about how much time and love someone put into them.  Unfortunately, most have either stains or holes in them.  But for a dime or quarter, who can resist?  The other problem is that I live  and have always lived with a household of men and boys.  Men and boys and doilies don't mix.  So I cut the good parts out of the ones I had and made them into the vintage-looking  banner.

Here's a closer look at it:

Tied up and across the window, they lend a cheerful look to the bleakness that lies outside, plus no one can lay their tools on them up there.  I think I might sew some rick-rack around the edges, if I work up enough ambition.  I also found this very pretty knit fabric at the St. Vincent's thrift store this week.

Two and one-half yards for $1.  There's so many possibilities with that much fabric, I'm not sure what to do with it.  I work better when I have to make-do than when I have too many choices.  Another project I'm working on, is a temperature blanket. My dear friend Matty introduced me to the idea. In a nutshell, you knit a row  (I'm knitting two rows) each day, a different color me each ten degree increment in temperature.  By the end of the year, you should have in interesting patterned blanket.  I'm using the knitting pattern I gave here for the dishcloths, except on a much larger scale, of course. It sounds like a fun way to use up some of my yarn stash.  I might have to figure out a color for fifty degrees by the end of the week!

CHEAP EATS

Cabbage is cheap, cheap, cheap this time of year.  I've seen it as low as twenty cents a pound and three pounds for a dollar is common around here, any time of the year.  One of the ways, I learned to make it, growing up was in Polish cabbage.  I grew up in a community that consisted of mainly Poles and Germans, two very thrifty ethnicities. It was where I learned how to make a penny stretch. 

Polish Cabbage

4 C. cabbage, chopped
8 oz. egg noodles, boiled
1 large onion, preferably yellow, chopped
1/4 C. butter
1 tbsp. caraway seeds
1/2 C. sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions in a skillet with the butter until brown and translucent.  Add the cabbage and continue cooking until the cabbage is limp and cooked through.  Stir in the egg noodles, caraway seeds and sour cream.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Add more sour cream if desired (and who doesn't desire that?)

This reminds me, the other day,  I had purchased some sour cream from the reduced-for-quick-sale bin at the grocery store and it was the best sour cream I ever tasted.  Now, I can hear some of you saying, "sour cream. big whoop." but if you can delight in the little things like tasty sour cream or pretty thrifted fabric, then you don't need to go searching for the next big thrill.  It is the little things in life that bring me joy.  You'll never see me jumping out of an airplane or rappelling down a mountainside!

THRIFTY THINGS WE DID THIS WEEK

Started a knitted blanket form my yarn stash.

Started our plants, many from saved seeds.

Sewed a banner from stained and torn doilies.

Watched  some Yukon TV on YouTube.  Finally!  Some people that end their questions with "eh?" as much as I do!

Made a huge pot of refried beans .  They are so tasty.  Much better than the ones that come out of a can.  And thrifty too!

Bought two and one-half yards of fabric for $1.

Found some more pop and beer bottles to return for the deposit.  So far about $7 this month.  That's enough for seven pounds of bean or rice for the pantry, for those that say they can't afford to stock up their pantries.  And I live in a little village of of 200 people in Winter.  Imagine how much more I could find if I lived in a more populated place.

Well, Ran is waiting for me to make some chocolate pudding (from milk I found in the reduced-for-quick-sale bin, intended for the cats).  So there you have another week at the old Zempel boarding house.   I hope that your week will be peaceful!

Hugs

Jane

LOVE YOUR LIFE

Hello dear friends!  Happy Valentine's Day a few days early!   Mother Nature is sending us a lacy valentine today, in the way of big fluffy snowflakes.

No gardening for a while! Since we hadn't  much snow this year, the snowplowers were out early to make a few dollars.  This is a view down our street.  Quiet isn't it? 

Oh, I love Valentines day!  Although I'm too long in the tooth for romance, I like to recollect about the "olden" days, when the day was met with much anticipation.  Would the cute boy that sat behind me, give me a valentine?  The delight in finding a trinket wrapped in pink tissue paper, placed in my locker from a secret admirer, or when I was older dozens of red roses delivered to my home. I like to think of the thrill of the young and hopeful love Ran and I shared in those days, and hope that somewhere in this vast world, another young couple are meeting and falling in love just as we did and  someday they will be looking back at forty plus years of love and devotion.  If you are interested in knowing how Ran and I met, here's the story. When people ask me what is the secret to our happy marriage, I always answer, "Choose wisely.".  But how could I not help but choose wisely when I had the Greatest Helper helping me make that choice?  My other great (and this one truly is great) bit of advice on marriage comes directly from the Bible:

  ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 1 Corinthians  13:4-7

If you follow those guidelines, you marriage will be a happy one.

Love Your Life

OK, enough of the mushy stuff!  As many of you may have surmised from reading this blog, I am a tad bit peculiar.  If you think it's hard being thrifty and self-sufficient now days, you have no idea how much harder it was in the conspicuous consumption era of the early 80s.  It was really hard to be a stay-at-home mom when society was telling you you were of no value unless you had a career.  Phil Donahue, a popular talk show host back then, referred to us as "little Mary swinging on the garden gate", as if all we had to do was wait around all day for our husbands to get home from work.  His wife, Marlo Thomas, touted "free to be you and me" but that only applied to those that wanted to work outside the home.  And we had TV shows like Maud and All in the Family  preaching the feminist agenda, it's nice to see young woman are finally able to make choices these days without all the backlash,  life was hard back then!

But what I discovered from all that discouragement and belittling that went on, is that if you really want joy in your life, you just have to  follow your heart and don't look back and second-guess your decisions. I'm still peculiar.  Most people I come in contact with don't think like me.  I still draw a lot of attention  for the way I dress, even though most of it's complimentary, I'd really rather not have any attention at all,  but it is an expression of who I am, and I refuse to wear  what others are  just to fit in.  Those days are long gone.  I only wish I had the courage to be the "real" me sooner.  Unfortunately, I grew up in a very conformist era.  My mother was always saying, "What will the neighbors think?"  It was her mantra that she lived by, it guided her in everything in life; from the church she attended to the way she wore her hair.  Now as I reflect on her life, I have such pity for her, how horrible it must have been to be so rigid and confined all her ninety plus years.  Even on her deathbed, she was still concerned about what people were thinking of her.

And one more thing, I hate that expression "Bloom where you are planted".  Sometimes no matter how hard you try, where you are at, just isn't where you need to be.  I lived in two rather urban areas for two decades of my life, and even though I tried very hard to make the best of it, I never truly was happy there.  It takes courage make a move from a comfortable life to where you need to be, but boy! is it worth it!  To me, it was two decades of my life just surviving.  Thank goodness longevity runs in my family, so I might get those two decades back. Ha! Don't live your life just-getting-by, imagine what you want your life to be and go out and get it.

Urban Foraging

I love to watch YouTube videos of fellow thrift, simple life, prepper types.  Some of them are pure geniuses on how they figure out ways to make almost free energy.  One gal I happened upon recently, said she never buys clothes.  She lives in an urban area and people are always leaving their backpacks on benches and she takes them home and washes the clothes and wears them.  Would I do that?  Probably not.  It would be pretty poor pickings in my neck of the woods, but why not if you were needy enough?  I imagine if you lived in a more urbane upscale area, you might be able to find some pretty nice things. She looked well dressed, I never would have guessed.  She also said she never buys garden gloves because she's always finding lost ones on her walk.  It doesn't matter if they don't match for gardening.  Now that certainly is something I could do around here.  

We had a family friend that knew where the kids held their "parties" in the town we grew up in.  He would go the next morning and pick up all the beer and pop bottles and return them for the deposits.  He said he made around $20 a week that way.  Back in the 70s when he did it, that was enough to buy a week's worth of groceries.  Heck, you can still buy a week's  worth of groceries for that amount if you know how to shop. 

So this had me thinking all week, that I should keep my eyes more open while out for our walks.  Sure enough! I found a nice heavy-duty tarp that had blown into the vacant field behind our house, several pop bottles, and nice 1/2" socket. And let's not forget the nice haul of free lumber that we found last Christmas.  I'm enjoying my cozy mixed wood wall as I write this in front of a fire from tree fallen tree limbs and free pallets.  To quote Dr. Seuss "Oh the places you'll go and the things you will see, if you keep one eye open!"

Crafting

The local thrift store is starting to have their big winter sell-off.  Everything was 75% off, so clothes were around $1.30.  It was time for me to start hunting for more wool for my quilts.  I found a garbage bag full for just over $8.  Here's the quilt so far:

I have six more rows to go, but need to find more green wool.  This time I'm using big 6-inch squares, but prefer the smaller squares as in this quilt, but this one will be nice and useful.  I'm also cutting some squares to make smaller stadium blanket sized ones for  Christmas presents.  They are nice to have in the car just in case you have an emergency. I also have a nice selection of wooden and leather buttons from all those tweed blazers.

I also purchased several garments made from stretch velour to make some Garlands of Grace type headcoverings.  They are simple enough to do, just cut out a six inch wide piece of fabric about 8 inches long.  Hem the long sides then gather the short ends and sew ties to the end.

Thrifty Things We Did This Week

Made a huge batch of refried beans.  Ate some and froze some.  We bought a 20 lb. bag of pinto beans a while back for 30 cents/ lb.  Lots of good meals have come from that bag!

Bought a garbage bag full of wool from the thrift store for $8.

Finished a pair of mittens for Christmas.

Sewed a velour headcovering from thrifted sale fabric.

Found a tarp, socket, firewood and returnable bottles on our walks.

 Got a rebate check from Ebates from the curtains we bought in December.

Watched several movies on YouTube and a really interesting documentary on Nantucket and whaling  for entertainment.

Bought $20 worth of groceries at the grocery outlet store.  They didn't have as many great buys as they usually do, but it was still worth the trip.

Cooked and baked entirely from the pantry this week. Although I will have to buy come cheese soon.

Well that's it for this week at the old Zempel boarding house.  I hope your Valentines Day will be filled with many hugs and great affection, and the other days of the week also! Here's one to get you started:

Hugs
Jane