Good Intentions

 Hello dear friends!  Well, I had every intention to write several posts this month, but well, we all know where the road of good intentions lead, don't we?  The month started out with a bit of excitement.  We had a tree removed from our property, well actually the neighbor's property, but that's a tale for another day. My word!  Modern technology is amazing!  The entire process is done by computer.  The operators stand well away from the tree and operate a machine that looks like a giant Transformer.  A giant arm with a claw on it grasps the branches and a saw comes out and cuts it, carrying the big tree trunks over the roofs.  It took about an hour to cut and remove a twenty-five foot tree.  I must say, I was impressed.  

It was a busy month bringing in the garden.  When the final tally was taken, we were so blessed to discover how much food our little garden produced.  More than enough to get us through the cold months until we start the process all over again  in early Spring with the maple sugaring.

We still found time to do some fun things.  The Autumn church rummage sales were amazing!  I noticed that there were a lot more attendees than usual.  I think people are finally learning how to be thrifty out of necessity.  The scratch and dent store has more customers  lately, also.

Been doing a lot of organizing.  In desperation to get my ginormous yarn stash organized, I begged Ran to make me some tall shelves with lots of cubicles for the upstairs landing.  He made them by cutting two old doors lengthwise and using scrap lumber for the shelves and backing.  The were made from old doors that we had made into a screen for the back of our property for privacy.  The trees have grown up so much we no longer needed them for that purpose.  They turned out great.  I wish I had a picture to show you, but for some reason the pictures just don't do them justice.  Anyway, we had one more door left, so we made it into a mantle for the little electric fireplace in the dining room. 

We also made a scarecrow that looks like a plague doctor for our garden.  Unfortunately it didn't keep the critters from eating our corn. 

Ran fooled around with AI and made the picture into a Haloween postcard.  Just silly things that we do to keep ourselves amused.  Cheaper than going on vacation!

Lest you think it is all play and no work around here, I canned and canned and canned.  We really tried hard not to waste anything.  Once I finished up with the garden produce, I started in on canning up the dried beans.  About every three months, I go on a big bean canning spree and can a dozen jars of several different varieties of beans; pintos, turtle, kidney, great northern and garbanzos. We eat a lot of beans becasuse we try to eat at least three meatless meals a week.  Once I finished those up, I vowed that unless an amazing deal on meat came up, I was finished with canning until Thanksgiving turkeys went on sale.  You guessed it!  The very next day I received an e-mail from the Mennonite store announcing they had purchased ground turkey that had to be sold now.  Our Mennonite store works by purchasing  some things close to the expiration date and  passing on the savings to the customers.  At ninety-nine cents a pound, how could I resist?  So a day later, I had ten pounds of turkey taco filling canned and on the shelves.

And yes Esther, I did finish my hat.  I don't know why I dragged along knitting it.  It was just a boring knit.  The little vest for the teddy bear, turned into a sweater.

I just made up the pattern as I went along.  It was a fun and only took about an hour.  I liked knitting with this vintage yarn so much that I decided to knit myself a vest from it.  Just have to do the neckline and armholes and that will be finished.  Then it will be on to crafting for Christmas.  Can you believe that November is right around the corner? I was inspired by a couple English ladies that I watch regularily on YouTube that were making up their Christmas cakes.  A good Christmas cake takes time to age.  There's stories of people making them in batches every five years.  Well, I don't think I want mine to age that long! But anyway, I had all these little containers of dried fruits and  such cluttering up my cupboards, so I decided no time like the present to bake my cake and clean out the cupboards.  Like killing two birds with one stone.  So now I have a lovely cake in a vintage tin monopolizing the bottom shelf of my refrigerator.  It hasn't gotten cold enough yet to use my outdoor fridge, aka the mud room , for storing food.  Strange weather this year.  We've only had a few fires and only in the morning so far.  Oh well!  I guess it saves on the firewood.  Although I do miss a good crisp frosty day.  

Well, it appears the world has gone cracker dogs.  I managed the stress by just staying in my zone and keeping putting one foot in front of the other.  Rose asked me how do I manage to see the bright side of things.  I'm not an overly optimistic  person, but this I do know, everything will eventually pass.  I ask myself, "Is there something you can do about it?".  If there is, then do it.  But a lot of what is going on in the world is out of our hands.  Will there be another Great Depression?  Perhaps.  What I can do about it is to grow as much food as I can and preserve it for my family and whomever needs a helping hand. I can stockpile some necessities in case I won't be able to afford them down the road.  (I'll certainly have enough yarn to knit everyone socks and mittens that  may need them. Ha!)  Will there be another world war?  Possibly But there is not much I can do about that.  All the letter-writing to Congressmen, voting, protesting has never stopped the wheels of politics from rolling where they want to roll.  What I can do   is make my little patch of earth peaceful. Life goes by so very quickly.  I often try to remember the things that I worried about in my younger days.  Some things never happened. And some happened and we dealt with them.  I remember thinking as many young people think today, that I would never be able to afford a home.  When I was starting out, inflation was a lot higher than it is now, interest on mortgages was 16 1/2%! Credit card interest was 25%. There was an oil embargo going on and gas prices rose by 50% in a matter of few months.  Unemployment was high.  And that was just after going through all the drama about worrying about being drafted.  The draft ended the very month Ran turned 18, so we had the worry hanging over us while trying to make plans for the future.  So yes, I understand what you are going through.  People have gone through far worse in history than my generation. Or your generation, whatever it is. It will always be this way until the Lord returns. So take the lessons from this time as a gift.  A time to learn how to be frugal, to learn to lower your expectations, to learn the difference between a want and and a need. Learning those lessons will bless you far beyond measure. 

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

~Eclesiastes 3~

Hugs

Jane

A More Detailed Post on Saving on Groceries

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

 1.Treat saving on groceries is a serious business.

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

2. Use every last bit.

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

3.  Learn how to make everything from scratch.

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

How to make vinegar

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

4. Be flexible.

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

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

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

Basic stir-fry sauce

1/2 C. water

1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 C. soy sauce

1/4 C. catsup

2 Tbls. brown sugar

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. black pepper

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

6. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

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

7. Don't turn up your nose.

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

8. Pay attention to the price per unit.

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

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

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

10. Learn how to preserve what you buy.

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

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

Hugs

Jane

 

Peace and Plenty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hugs

Jane

Hello!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I also made this teapot mat:

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

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

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

Hugs

Jane

 

Living Below Our Means

 Hello dear friends!  Firstly, I want to thank all of you that sent me get-well wishes.  I am getting better, but it is going a lot slower than I had hoped.  I am one of those sorts of people that thinks I can by  force of will to get better.  Nope. Ha! BTW, I went to the emergency room with an extreme pain in my side and thought perhaps it was my gallbladder or appendix.  I was concerned because my son had appendicitis and   his pain wasn't in the usual place. By the time the doctors figured it out, it started to turn to gangrene. So I thought I should get it checked out.  So off to the hospital I went.  After blood tests and a CT scan, they couldn't find anything wrong with me, and since they didn't have any diagnosis, they couldn't give me anything for the pain.  So I came home and while I was getting undressed I noticed a rash. Yep, shingles!  My mother told me I never had the chickenpox so I thought I was immune to them and came as quite a surprise.  The pain I was experiencing was nerve pain. If they only would have given me a physical exam they might have discovered it, but modern medicine is quick to use all their diagnostics instead of doing good old-fashioned doctoring.  A month later I'm still suffering from nerve pain, but it is lessening and I have my good days and my bad days.  I don't intend on letting the pain stop me from getting what I need and want to get done. Just have to work through it.   Anyhow....

Still, I managed to get some things done.  I managed to meet my goal of finishing the bottom half of a Beidermeier-style sampler I'm stitching.

The top should go much more quickly than the bottom half and I hope to finish it by the beginning of summer.  Just in time to hunt down a frame for it at a garage sale.  What sort of frame do you think would look good with it?

I also finished knitting this fischu.  

BTW, that is not a cobweb on the bottom left-hand corner, it's just some strands of my hair when I bent over to take the picture.  Some people are so critical!  My hair gets into everything and I'm sure I have knitted quite a few strands into my work over the years.    

Late Winter Jobs

February is a big month for canning here.  Foods that are root cellared must be canned before they spoil, so we canned potatoes and winter squashes.  We grew a lot of potatoes this past year.  I also canned all the organic grass-fed beef that I wrote about in an earlier post.  And we canned some dried beans.  Annieh asked if I would explain how to can, but really there isn't more than I can add to what is already written in a good canning book, such as Ball's Blue book, and by studying the manual that comes with your pressure canner.  For canning beans, I can them exactly (except I can mine at 10 pounds of pressure) as this lady does on YouTube.  She is very knowledgeable about canning and I would recommend her channel to anyone that wants to learn how to can. Always check the information you are given on any blog or channel with the Blue Book or a canning book written by an extension office.  There's a lot of very bad advice out there.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are attracted to slick looking blogs and channels, rather than those that are written by actual knowledgeable  and experienced people.  BTW, Ran and Jamie were a major help to me in canning.  They really could have done it themselves, but lack the confidence, I guess.  Ran even made up a batch of cranberry catsup (recipe in the Ball Blue Book) and all I needed to do was to fill the jars.   More things cleaned out of my freezer!  We are getting ready for the fishing season.

The snow is melting quickly and we have begun maple sugaring.  I wrote about how we do small-scale processing here.

Since I didn't feel much like leaving home this past month and the weather wasn't cooperating anyhow, Jamie spent his down-time organizing and inventorying our pantry.  Such a big job!  I can truly say that we are well-stocked.  Taking inventory is a major aid in keeping a budget.  Ran is one for always wanting to buy more, but when he saw our stock list, he was finally convinced we didn't need to buy any more.  We really only need to spend a few dollars a month on groceries.  We prefer to eat our own fruits and vegetables that we either root cellar, freeze, dehydrate or can, rather than eat fresh fruits and vegetables from the stores during the winter.  We keep a jar of seeds sprouting during the winter to get our green leafies, as well as our frozen spinach, broccoli and nettles. We start lettuce in cold frames and we collect dandelion greens and nettles as soon as they show up on the lawn.  Lettuce, kale and spinach can grow late into the fall, so really there's only a few months when we don't have "fresh" fruits and vegetables.  My ancestors have lived like this for centuries and they were a long-lived bunch, most living into their late 80s and 90s and quite a few  centenarians.  So I guess it works for us.  

Ran has also started our onion seeds and sweet potato slips.  It is too early to start any other seeds, as our last frost date is in late May. 

Live Well Below Your Means

Ran and I sat down and made a bare bones budget.  We really don't enjoy spending money just for the fun of it.  It is just the way we are.  Some people might look askance at some of the things we do, such as we only have the minimal Medicare (no cost to us that you are required to take when you turn 65) that only covers hospitalization and hospice.  We simply do not believe in running to the doctor for every little thing.  Last month I made a trip to the emergency room (why does every emergency happen on the weekend?) Anyway, I had a CT scan and blood work.  The bill ended up being less than a few months of the "extra" supplements.  We have a fund for those sorts of things.  And the hospital and labs always give us a discount because we pay promptly and they don't have to file all the paperwork.  If we don't use the funds, which we rarely do, the money is put into savings.  When the doctor told us we needed to start coming in twice a year, because of our age, we told him no.  Ditto for the dentist.  When I see the sackful of medications the average oldster is using, I really question modern medicine.  A long time ago, the doctor said my cholesterol was getting up into the danger zone and suggested I might need medication.  I went home and started exercising more and eating more vegan meals.  Never had a problem with cholesterol since. Good food from the good earth grown by ourselves benefits our bodies, much more than anything the doctor has ever prescribed.  Our philosophy is to eat what the Good Lord has provided for us.  

We don't spend money on trips, dining out, or expensive hobbies  I am content to sew, knit  and embroider from supplies I find at thrift stores and not to be boastful, I think I make as nice of things as people that spend hundreds of dollars on their hobbies.  As a matter of fact, I find it a fun challenge to use "found" supplies rather than go out and buy precisely what the project calls for.  We are content to travel only within our county and the surrounding ones.  Our entertainment is going to church rummage and bake sales and an occasional church supper.  In the summer we like to stop at garage sales on our monthly trip to do our grocery shopping.  If an estate sale is nearby, we like to go just to poke about, but we do not feel the need to buy anything. We are content to garden and sit outside and listen to the birds.  We buy DVDs from the thrift store and have our favorite series that we watch sometimes for entertainment. There are some interesting channels on YouTube also.  No need for cable TV. 

We save on heating by using our wood stove.  We do have a natural gas fired boiler for our hot water and it supplements our wood heat also.  The highest bill we have ever had is $75, but in the warmer months it usually runs us $25.  Every three years we buy a truckload of wood which runs around $1000.  Our electric bill averages about $65 a month.  We do not have a lot of electronics.  We don't keep our house lit up like a Christmas tree at night.  

Our water bill is $100 a month, but includes sewer and trash pick-up. Our property taxes are low because our home is small and not grand.  It's about $1200 a year, but we just got a tax assessment and it is going up 20% this year.  And then there's house insurance and car insurance (Michigan has the highest car insurance rates in the country) and license plates and all those other little taxes that they tax us to death for, (sigh), no one is ever truly free are they?  Groceries and medical funds, etc. Anyway this is a long-winded way of saying that we figured that our bare-bones budget adds up to $950 a month that we could live on.  And that is what we intend to live on this year.  We intend to live well, well beneath our means.  If all this seems like misery to you, I can assure you that we are truly content We live such a blessed life!

11 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;12 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.

1Thessalonians 4: 11-12

I'm sharing this with you to be an encouragement.  Don't let others tell you how to run your life.  If you like spending money and can afford it, do it.  If you enjoy extreme thriftiness ( someone once commented that they thought that term was an insult) enjoy it.  Why do people feel the need to follow the crowd?  Wouldn't it be a boring world if everyone thought the same?  BTW, sorry about the font!  Professional blogger, I am not.  If these sorts of things bother you, please feel free to go elsewhere.  Well, I hope this long post makes up for my absences in February.   So as we bid adieu  to winter and March toward spring, I hope your days are pleasant and filled with contentment and joy.  It really was a beautiful winter.

Hope to see you soon!

Hugs

Jane