Hoof 'n Barrel

Dora's Very Bad Day

2012-01-21T08:38:00.000-06:00

You remember Dora, don't you? She's one of the three hens from our first year of keeping chickens. She and Reba and Red literally rule the roost around here ...never letting the three newbies we added last spring forget who is in charge. Well, she had a rather traumatic day last week when a Red Tailed Hawk tried to make her his dinner.

I happened to be home and just happened to look out the back window in time to see the hawk pin her to the ground and to witness her desperate struggle to get free. I was about thirty yards away but slammed the door behind me as I came out of the house, hoping to startle the hawk and scare him away. I yelled and waved my arms as I came out and the hawk finally let go of Dora and took off when I was about halfway down the hill to them.

Feathers were everywhere, it looked like someone busted open a feather pillow in the middle of the yard. Dora was lying where the hawk left her, limp and not moving. Her eyes were closed and I thought she was gone. But when I touched her, she opened her eye a little and made a weak attempt at a cackle. I picked her up and just cradled her for a minute, trying to let her know she was okay now. Her little chicken heart was just a fluttering. I carried her to the little brood coop and set her on top so I could check her over. She couldn't even stand, she was so weak, but I felt her all over and found no puncture wounds at all.

This is the last thing she might have seen or the last thing her feathered friends might have seen before the attack. A bird of prey zeroing in on it's target is an awesome and beautiful sight ...unless you're the prey.

Poor Dora was just scared to death. I'm sure she saw her little chicken life flash before her eyes when she was underneath that big hawk.

Satisfied that she was not physically wounded, I carried her with me and searched the coop and the yard for the other five chickens. I finally found them hiding underneath some equipment in the awning next to the shop. Thinking they were all okay, I left the dog in the chicken yard to make sure the hawk didn't bother them and took Dora into the house.   Our dog is a Boxer and that's not your typical livestock guardian breed, but she's an exceptionally good dog and she's been around the chickens since they were just pullets and she was just a pup. She would never hurt them. If she ever tangled with a hawk, she might be hurt but so might the hawk and I was hoping the hawk would be smart enough to know that.

I fixed Dora a temporary nest in my laundry basket with newspaper lining the bottom.   She still wasn't able to stand, but she seemed more alert and 'talked' if I got out of sight from her. She seemed to want me to stay with her so I carried the basket with me as I worked around the house for the next hour or so. By then, she was starting to stand and though still a little unsteady on her feet, I felt she might be better off down in the coop. I popped a bag of popcorn before I carried her down there ...a treat for her and bait to help me get the other five out of the awning and back into the coop.

When I carried her back down the hill, I set her in one of the nest boxes Yeoldfurt built last summer, thinking she would feel safer in close quarters. I gave her a handful of the popcorn and she went right after it, so I was pretty confident she would make a full recovery in time.

Coaxing the other five hens out of their hiding place in the awning and back into safety of the coop proved to be a bit of a challenge. We originally only had three hens but we bought some new chicks last spring to enlarge the flock and as replacements for when the original three hens were gone. The older hens tolerated the newcomers but just barely. Before the hawk attack that day, you never would have seen the older hens mingling with the younger hens. Though they all share the coop at night, the three older hens would be on the roost and the three younger hens would be wherever they could find a spot. But there was definite segregation going on in there. So to find them all huddled feather to feather, beak to beak in a two-foot square space told me they were traumatized as well. Dora was the one that was attacked, but they witnessed the attack and they were traumatized.

Microwave popcorn is a real treat though and the familiar sound of me shaking a bag was too much for them to resist. I stood at the doorway of the awning shaking the open bag of popcorn and four little heads popped up from behind their refuge. I tossed a handful at my feet and started backing up the hill toward the coop.

Chickens are highly motivated by food and they're also highly competitive about food. All it took was for one of them to make a move toward the scattered popcorn and the others wouldn't be able to resist making a charge themselves. As soon as they were in sight of me, I tossed another handful and they ran toward me ...now halfway to the coop and real safety. I wasn't counting heads at this time. I was just intent on getting them to the coop. Once inside, I scattered several handfuls of the popcorn for them and started counting. I came up one short so I counted again. Still one short. One of the younger reds was missing. Dora was still in the nest box and seemed okay so I locked them in the coop and went back down to the awning. I looked high and low but found nothing. Then I walked the yard, checking every clump of grass, every nook and cranny that could possibly conceal a hen.

I was just about convinced the hawk had made off with the missing hen and that Dora was perhaps the second course that day when I decided to check the awning one more time. There is some lumber stacked vertically in the very back corner and it's right next to the metal piece that the other hens were hiding under so I decided to move a couple of pieces and see if she might be hiding back there. Sure enough, when I moved the first piece, I heard a faint chicken gasp ...a kind of 'yikes, something's found me!' sound. I poked my head back there and shined the little pen light into the darkness and there she was ...wide-eyed and looking very ...well ...chicken!

I would have thought when she saw it was me and not the hawk or some other scary unfamiliar face, she would have come willingly. But she was not willing at all. I had to move several pieces out of the way and make a grab to finally convince her to come out. It was very tight quarters back there and lousy footing, so I missed when I made the grab. She darted out into the open though and I went after her, thinking I could either herd her back to the coop or corner her and catch her. The riding lawnmower is parked smack dab in the middle of that awning though and she used it to her advantage several times to keep me from getting her out of the awning. She was determined not to go out in the daylight where something might swoop down on her like it had swooped down on Dora.

I was finally able to spook her out into the yard and once in the open, she made a beeline for the coop. Chickens are big on personality, not so big on brains ...but they do know where they're safe. Once they were all back in the coop, I topped off their food and water and went back to the house. Twenty minutes later, I looked out the back door and the hawk was back, sitting on a fence post directly across from the coop and not twenty feet from where he attacked Dora. As I watched him, another hawk flew in and settled on a branch a few feet above the fence post. A mated pair ...no wonder they were bold. They probably have a nest in the dense woods that border our property.   I couldn't get close enough to get a picture of them together, but this is one of them sitting on the shed roof next to the chicken yard. I think the Red Tailed Hawk is a magnificent bird ...just not when it's trying to eat one of my chickens!

From now on, if the chickens are in the yard, they will have an MP with them ...Mutt Patrol ...Maggie, guardian of her domain. Hopefully, she'll never see action. I'm hoping her mere presence will be enough to deter the raptors.

Whack a Mole, Anyone?

2012-01-19T14:00:00.000-06:00

You know the old arcade game where, armed with only a mallet, you had to try to whack the mole as he popped up in any one of a dozen places. Okay, it was primitive by today's gaming standards but could be strangely exhilarating if you are the one with the mallet ...and you were halfway good. In the arcade version, the the mole won out in the end more often than not.

Since mid-November, it's been one financial crisis after another. Thousands of dollars in vehicle maintenance and repairs that had to be done to keep the cars running ...so we could both get back and forth to work ...so we could pay the repair bills along with all the regular bills. Lately I feel like I'm trapped in a Whack a Mole game ...and in my real life version, sometimes I'm the mallet and sometimes I'm the mole.

Every one of our vehicles cost us something those last two months of 2011. A couple of weeks ago, the main ride, the '95 Camry with only 130,000 miles, developed a slow intermittent leak at the oil pump which will be another couple of hundred dollars. But the mechanic said as long as the leak doesn't worsen and we make sure there is always oil in it, we can let that slide for a little while. So I'm saving ..hoping to scrounge up the funds by March. Then last Sunday night, I broke a tooth. Great. Now I'M falling apart too!

The tooth didn't hurt when it broke and hasn't hurt since. It doesn't seem to be hot or cold or pressure sensitive so my immediate inclination was to let it slide for a while too. But Yeoldfurt's kind of funny about some things and this is one of those things. He likes his wife to have teeth. So he encouraged me go to the dentist and see what the options might be.

Of course, the dentist is all about people keeping their teeth so she wants me to put a crown on it ...my cost would be over $700 even with insurance. Not happening. It's a back molar and has a huge filling in it from at least 20 years ago, so I asked her how much to pull it. She gave me THE LOOK and started telling me about some fancy 'buildup filling' work she could do. My cost would be $120 with insurance. She said she didn't know if it would last six weeks, six months or six years ...but when it failed, she could pull the tooth then. The only guarantee apparently is that the buildup filling would not last forever. Grumble, grumble.

The full set of xrays, exam and consultation cost me nothing because the insurance considers it preventive, but apparently fixing any problems are going to cost me dearly. I guess I should be grateful she found no other immediate problems. She did say I grind my teeth. I've never had a dentist tell me that before so I guess it's a new habit I've picked up. So she wants me to wear a mouth guard when I sleep ...apparently to protect my teeth from each other.

Great. I think I am officially old. My teeth are at war with each other and both sides are losing. I am still keen on yanking the offending tooth out. I am open to doing it now or postponing the expense until it actually starts being sensitive. But it would be $100 (my cost) and problem solved. It's a back molar so it's not a cosmetic issue and I'm pretty sure I won't starve to death with one less tooth in my head. The dentist and Yeoldfurt want me to go the 'buildup filling' route, then pull it if that method eventually fails. But that would cost me $120 now and at least $100 down the road ....allowing for inflation in case the fancy buildup filling work actually lasted a couple of years.

Hmmm... $120 now with a guaranteed $100+ later or $100 now and be done. Any money I spend now postpones the needed repairs on the car which, as I mentioned, is kind of important because it's our means of getting to and from work so we can pay all the bills.

So. Fix the tooth and postpone fixing the car ...or stay on track with saving for the car repairs and postpone fixing the tooth. No wonder I've started grinding my teeth!

My Version of Tomato Pie

2012-01-09T20:30:00.000-06:00

Yeoldfurt posted on his blog recently about the Tomato Pie recipe and how much he liked it. I had never heard of the dish until a girlfriend mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. When I first described it to Yeoldfurt, he really didn't act too enthused. His hesitation made me a little apprehensive, but I made it anyway and he loved it. He raved about while he was eating and told me I should post the recipe. Then he ate the whole thing before I got a picture of it. I was going to wait until I made it again so I could post a picture with the recipe, but apparently KX59 emailed him the other day and is anxious. So I here it is...

I started with the basic recipe at Simply Recipes website and tweaked it for my own purposes. This is what it looks like when you make it according to the recipe on the website.

Ingredients

1 9-inch pie shell
1/2 yellow or red onion, chopped
3-4 tomatoes, cut in half horizontally, squeezed to remove excess juice, roughly chopped, to yield approximately 3 cups chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup sliced basil (about 8 leaves)*
2 cups grated cheese (combination of sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack, or Gruyere or Mozarella)
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon (or more to taste) of Frank's Hot Sauce (or Tabasco)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place pie shell in oven and cook for 8-10 minutes or longer until lightly golden. If you are starting with a frozen crust, you'll need to cook it a little longer. If you are using a homemade crust, freeze the crust first, then line the crust with aluminum foil and pre-bake it for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes. Squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the chopped tomatoes, using either paper towels, a clean dish towel, or a potato ricer. Sprinkle the bottom of the pre-cooked pie shell with chopped onion. Spread the chopped tomatoes over the onions. Sprinkle the sliced basil over the tomatoes. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated cheese, mayonnaise, Tabasco, a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper. The mixture should be the consistency of a gooey snow ball. Spread the cheese mixture over the tomatoes.

Place in oven and bake until browned and bubbly, anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes.

I'm a tweaker when it comes to recipes. I've been cooking for several decades and been cooking for Yeoldfurt for over 12 years now. I know what I like and I know what Yeoldfurt likes, so I'm not afraid to tweak. When I made this recipe, I used a 6x10-inch pyrex baking dish. Instead of making a pastry pie shell, I sprayed the pan with olive oil cooking spray and layered the bottom with crushed Ritz crackers, about 1/4-inch deep. I doubled the onions (one whole onion) and caramelized it in four tablespoons of butter. I poured the caramelized onions and butter evenly over the crushed crackers. I sprinkled this layer lightly with Parmesan Cheese. I spread my three cups of chopped, drained fresh Roma tomatoes over the onions. Yeoldfurt likes anything hot and spicy so I added a well-drained can of Rotel on top of the fresh tomatoes. Instead of basil, I used dried crushed red peppers (the kind they serve with pizza) on top of the tomatoes. I used about four tablespoons. I followed the crushed red peppers with another light dusting of Parmesan cheese. For the top layer, I mixed one cup shredded Cheddar with one cup shredded Monterrey Jack plus 3/4 cup generic Miracle Whip. I finished with about 1/2 cup crushed Ritz crackers sprinkled on top of the cheese.

I'm sure the dish would be good with a pastry pie crust shell on the bottom too. I was just making it as a side dish and wanted to make it a little lighter.

I'm In ...Are You?

2012-01-06T19:22:00.000-06:00

On January 2nd, my friend, Lamb, of Frippery Farm fame did a great post about setting objectives instead of making resolutions for the New Year. The concept is simply to assign a theme as a goal for each month and focus on achieving that goal before the next month rolls around. In theory, the theme for each separate month will help her achieve "No Waste" which is her main theme for this whole year. January's theme is "Organization" and she plans to tackle every room, every closet, every drawer.

When I read her post, my first thought was, 'Great idea!' My second thought was, 'Yeah, but it'll never happen here.' I'm not a hoarder, but I am very sentimental so I accumulate stuff very quickly. I also tend to multi-task so, in spite of my good intentions and best efforts, there are always several unfinished projects around this house. But my third thought on the subject was, 'Why the heck not?'

So today, I was happy to see Lamb's post about the Declutter Challenge from The Single Saver blog. Signing up for a challenge might be just the motivation I need to achieve some of these goals so count me in! Read about it here and consider joining us. I double dog dare you!

A Few Lessons Learned

2011-12-31T21:17:00.000-06:00

This was a rough year for us as far as homesteading due to the drought and prolonged heatwave in our neck of the woods, but we still managed to maintain in most areas and even slightly improve in others. Experience is such a great teacher and we definitely learned a couple of things this past year.

Expiration Dates They're not set in stone, but there is sometimes a trade-off. When we initially stocked up in December 2010, we were just guesstimating how much of any one item we would need for a year. We had a pretty good start on the food storage but our goal was to beef it up to the point we had at least a 12 month supply of everything. Well, we tended to over buy on a couple of things but so far it hasn't resulted in any waste. The best example this year was store-bought ketchup. I'm the only one that eats it, and I only eat it on certain things ...meat loaf and stuffed bell peppers are all I can think of right now. But Yeoldfurt knows I don't like to eat those things without it, so he set the goal high to ensure I would have it when I wanted it. Well, we apparently way overestimated because a year later, I have three bottles left that are a couple of months out of date. They still smell fine and taste fine but it's no longer that bright 'ketchup red' color ...it's more the color of bottled bbq sauce, kind of reddish brown. It won't go to waste as long as it seems edible, I don't really care what color it is. But I've also noticed the plastic squeeze bottle it is packaged in has started to degrade. It is apparently composed of two layers of plastic and they've sort of started to separate. When you squeeze it and then let go, the outer layer returns to it's originally intended shape but the inner layer is much slower to go back into shape. With three bottles still on the shelf and one in the fridge, I'm thinking I don't need to buy ketchup until possibly 2013!

Repurpose Value of Wood Ash I knew you could make lye from wood ash and I knew it generally wouldn't hurt vegetation so could be spread on a lawn or garden. But I had no idea it was actually very beneficial to compost pile. Apparently, high acidity can be a problem in composting, slowing the decomposition process. Wood ash helps to neutralize the acid, thereby facilitating faster decomposition. I dumped a bucketful on our compost pile a week ago and turned everything over with a pitch fork this evening ...I can already see an improvement and it's only been a few days.

Tweaking the Pantry Inventory List We still use the spreadsheet that Yeoldfurt put together, but added some intermediate steps that make it easier to maintain and (hopefully) more consistently accurate. I used to print it when I went shopping. But being several pages long, that was cumbersome and a waste of paper. Then I started just reviewing it before I went shopping and adding to the shopping list what items I thought we could afford to stock up on. I still do that but now I also keep a small notepad, a pencil, and a Sharpie marker on the shelf in the pantry. When I go down there to get one thing, I invariably come back with one or two other things ...spur of the moment. So now I list what items I'm taking on the notepad as I gather them together so I can take a complete list back to the house with me. Also, for each item I bring back, I do a quick count of how many are still remaining in storage, then write that number in parentheses next to the item on the list. That way when I give the list to Yeoldfurt to update the spreadsheet, he can spot check the 'amount on hand' to make sure it's still accurate. It's not a perfect system, but it's evolving into a pretty good one.

Making Pennies Squeal I've always been frugal and budget-minded but circumstances the past few years have made me even more so. If you asked me a year ago whether we were getting all the mileage we possibly could out of every dollar, I would have said yes with very little hesitation. But we've found a couple of new ways to significantly stretch those pennies recently that make me wonder if there aren't more ways we just haven't discovered yet. The biggest savings comes from Yeoldfurt and I being able to adjust our schedules so that we can carpool to our jobs 40 miles away. With each of us driving separate vehicles 80 miles/day five days/week to and from our jobs, our fuel bill was equal to our mortgage payment ...it was outrageous! But when the transmission went out in one of the vehicles, we adjusted our schedules for a week while the truck was in the shop and were able to get permission from both our bosses to keep our schedules that way. By doing so, we cut our monthly fuel cost in half. Over a year's time, we'll also save significantly on replacement tires and oil changes for the vehicle that sits in the driveway most days. Conservatively, I estimate of our savings the first year to be approximately $5000. We also started keeping a Walmart gift card with $100 balance on it and using that to buy gasoline. Walmart's price is always the same or lower than any other stations in our area ...sometimes a dime or more lower. By using the Walmart card to pay, we get an additional 10 cent per gallon discount. I paid $2.80/gallon for regular last Friday. I don't know about prices in your area, but around here, that's pretty darn good. Since we use about 1400 gallons per year just driving back and forth to work, 10 cents per gallon is significant. Of course, since we have three geriatric vehicles, all that money saved will probably go into mechanical repairs over the course of that same year ...but at least we'll have the money in savings to take care of those expenses when they come up.

I'm sure there were other little bits of knowledge accumulated this year, but these were the ones that stood out to me when I was contemplating writing this post. It seems to me that the intangible things we gain every year ...the knowledge, the skills, the little tricks that make every day tasks easier ...are the real bounty in homesteading.

I hope the coming year is better all the way around. I hope we have normal temperatures and rainfall so we can have a garden, fewer mechanical crises so we can get a break from diverting so much to vehicle repairs, and a decent man in the White House so we can as least slow the decimation of our economy, our country and our values ...maybe even begin to rebuild some of what the past four years has destroyed. I don't know what the future holds, but I never want to become so discouraged that I no longer believe a bright future is possible. So at the close of this year and hopefully the beginning of a better year, I leave you with this poem that says better than I can what I feel and hope for tomorrow.

Credit Where Credit is Due

2011-12-26T16:27:00.000-06:00

I posted this picture a couple of weeks ago as a lead-in and illustration of the 'cowboy up' attitude I think we could all use a little more of nowadays. If you missed it, click here.

As I said in the post, I got the picture in email from Yeoldfurt and he had received it email but couldn't remember who sent it. Come to find out, CoolChange of Tranquility Lost posted it on his blog the day before my post. So at least in a round about way, it came from him and I want to give credit where credit is due.

If you have not checked out CoolChange's blog, I encourage you to do so. I knew as soon as I saw the badge on his sidebar that reads, 'Invest in precious metal, buy lead ...support the 2nd Amendment' that he shares at least one of our fundamental values. I'm following his blog now and have added him to my blog roll.

They say we all only separated by six degrees ...simply stated, we all know someone who knows someone who knows someone else who knows someone else who knows us. The connectivity of the worldwide web is making that more and more apparent.

Christmas Wishes and a New Recipe

2011-12-24T21:43:00.000-06:00

This will be an especially joyous Christmas for us because we will have all three of our grandchildren here at the same time, for the first time ever. With one more on the way, next Christmas promises to be even more special.

I'm sharing below a poem written in 1976 by Norman Wesley Brooks. A friend posted it on Facebook. Thirty-five years after it was written, it's still a good message.

Let Every Day Be Christmas

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,

for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away

like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.

The good you do for others is good you do yourself.

Let us always remember the reason for the season,

and let us each do our best to let every day be Christmas.

Photo credit to Dan at

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=587

~~~

I seldom make desserts except at the holidays or on special occasions, so it's fun to try something new once in a while. Yeoldfurt came home with a recipe for Caramel Apple Cheesecake the other day. He got it from a co-worker who just raved about it. Since we will have a full house for Christmas this year, I decided this would be a good time to give it a try. It's in the oven now and smells wonderful.

Graham Cracker Crust

1-1/2 cups graham crackers, finely crushed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup melted butter

The recipe called for regular graham crackers but I used cinnamon grahams. Combine crushed graham cracker crumbs and sugar, add melted butter and blend well. Press evenly into a 9-inch pie pan, using the back of a spoon to press the crumbs up the sides of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside to cool.

Cheesecake Filling & Caramel Topping

1 21-ounce can apple pie filling

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 eggs

1/4 cup caramel topping

Reserve and set aside 3/4 cup of the apple pie filling. Spoon the remaining filling evenly into the cooled pie crust. Combine the softened cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy and smooth. Add eggs one at a time and continue beating until well blended. Pour cream cheese mixture into the pie crust and spread evenly over the apple pie filling. Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees or until center is set. Cool to room temperature.

Mix the reserved apple pie filling with the caramel topping. Next time I make it, I will dice the apple slices to make it easier to spread them evenly over the top. If the mixture is too thick to spread evenly, heat in a saucepan or microwaveable dish for approximately one minute. When smooth and spreadable consistency, pour evenly over the top of the cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

The above is the original recipe, which fills a 9-inch pie pan and supposedly serves eight. Whoever wrote the recipe obviously doesn't know how much my husband and son-in-law like cheesecake. I doubled the ingredients and made it in a 9x13 pan. It still looks yummy, don't you think?

What It Means to Cowboy Up

2011-12-14T00:02:00.000-06:00

Yeoldfurt sent this picture to me in email, I'm not sure where he got it. I had to crop the caption off the bottom of the picture because it was too small to read, but it said, 'Keep smiling big boy ...I got 8 seconds to kill and I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!'

That kind of encapsulates the meaning of the phrase 'cowboy up' that you hear these days. No matter what trials you're facing, no matter what seemingly insurmountable obstacles are in your path, you stand up, square your shoulders and forge ahead. Anything less and you're just guaranteeing your own demise.

There's a lot of doom and gloom in the news and in the blogs lately. Lord knows there's plenty of things to be worried about, but there are plenty of things to be grateful for as well. I think it's wise to keep an eye on the horizon and know what you're next challenge is going to be. I think it's important to prepare yourself and your family to ride out the hard times with as little discomfort as possible. But lets not forget that every day is a gift. When the going gets tough, the tough cowboy up!

Politics as Usual ?

2011-12-05T04:21:00.019-06:00

On Friday, November 4, 1949, a newspaper in Manhattan, New York, The Daily Times, published the following article. Over sixty-two years have passed since it was published. But other than a few intricacies of grammar and punctuation, it doesn't look to me like much has changed in all that time. I don't know whether to be fascinated or frustrated by that realization. Read it yourself and see if you don't agree.

ODE TO THE WELFARE STATE

Mr. Truman's St. Paul, Minn., pie-for-everybody speech last night reminded us that,at the tail-end of the recent session of Congress, Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio) jammed into the congressional record the following poem, describing its author only as "a prominent Democrat of the State of Georgia."

DEMOCRATIC DIALOG
Father, must I go to work?

No, my lucky son.

We're living now on Easy Street

On dough from Washington.

We've left it up to Uncle Sam

So don't get exercised.

Nobody has to give a damn-

We've all been subsidized.

But if Sam treats us all so well

And feeds us milk and honey,

Please, daddy, tell me what the hell

He's going to use for money.

Don't worry, bub, there's not a hitch

In this here noble plan-

He simply soaks the filthy rich

And helps the common man.

But, father, won't there come a time

When they run out of cash

And we have left them not a dime

When things will go all to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,

You nosy little brat;

You do too much damn thinking, son,

To be a Democrat.

Hat tip to my friend at Wildriver Blog for

sending this newspaper article to me in email.

Always Something

2011-12-03T15:44:00.000-06:00

November was a vehicular nightmare for us as far as maintenance and upkeep goes. I already mentioned this is a geriatric fleet we drive. The 'youngest' one of the bunch is a 2001 F250 and the other two are 1998 and 1996 models. Last month we put two new tires and a rebuilt transmission in the 1998 and cv boots (both sides) on the 1996 ...it was a $2000 month. We are only 3 days into 'this month' and we're looking at another mechanical problem.

I had a list of town errands this morning and decided to take the F250 to give it a little exercise. I guess it was jealous of all the attention the other vehicles have been receiving lately ...it stalled on me just going down the road. Fortunately, I was on a little residential side road. It started right back up when I turned the key, but then stalled out again within seconds. It's a big truck, extended cab, and when the engine quits, so do the power brakes and power steering. That's not a problem I wanted to deal with on the highway so I called Yeoldfurt. I was already in town so we decided to have it towed to the shop just a mile or two up the road.

I have the phone number for the wrecker driver saved in my phone. The wrecker driver, Trey, is a local guy and we're on a first name basis. That's one of the perks to driving old vehicles ...you get to be on a first name basis with the wrecker driver ...and the mechanic. I told him where I was and which vehicle it was this time and he said could be there in 20 minutes. I called Yeoldfurt back to let him know and he said he was on his way too.

Trey turned onto the side street where I was stranded and I flashed my lights to let him know where I was. As he was positioning his truck, I tried to start my truck again ...it started right up. I left it running and told Trey what it had been doing. He said if I wanted to try to drive it to the shop, he would follow me. I said, 'Okay, but I'll pay you anyway.' He laughed and said, 'Not if you roll in on your own, you won't ...let's see if it will make it.' Did I mention he's a good guy?

Half a block on this side street, I had to make a left turn at a traffic light onto the state highway. It's only 40mph on that stretch of highway and no more turns except into the shop parking lot, so it was worth a try. I had to wait for the green light before turning onto the highway and only made it about 100 yards before the truck stalled. I had a little momentum and was on a section of the highway with literally NO SHOULDER ...so instead of hitting the brakes, I dropped it in neutral, gave it some gas and turned the key. It fired up right away and I goosed it up the hill. We only made it another 100 yards or so and it stall again. This time, I was right next to a big gravel parking lot on my right and faced with crossing a major highway intersection up ahead. I didn't want to push my luck any further and cranked it into the gravel parking lot. We tried but Trey ended up having to tow me the couple of blocks. He only charged me $30 and said it sounds to him like a clogged fuel filter which is a relatively cheap fix ...I sure hope he's right.

Ladies, It's Time to Winterize

2011-11-29T09:41:00.000-06:00

I'm not talking about your house, or your wardrobe either ...it's time to winterize your vehicles. This post is being written mostly for ladies, from a lady's perspective since that's the only perspective I have. Some of us are blessed with men who take care of all these things for us and some are on their own in this department. Even if your partner takes care of vehicle maintenance, I think you should be knowledgeable enough to do for yourself too. I'm of the opinion that if you drive it, you need to take care of it ...or at least see that it's taken care of.

Yeoldfurt and I have a geriatric fleet decorating our driveway. The odometers on our three vehicles are all well past the 100,000 mile mark and one of them is well over 200,000. Maintenance is important with any vehicle but with older vehicles, it's critical. Two drivers with three vehicles might seem like overkill to some but there's a method to this madness. The big truck, a 2001 F250, is the only one of the three that can pull the stock trailer. When you have livestock, that kind of truck is a necessity. But that diesel engine gets lousy mileage even on the highway, and diesel is $3.75/gallon these days. So other than a short trip to town once a week to keep the juices flowing, we only drive the big truck when we need to pull the trailer.

Diesel powered vehicles are cold sensitive and require a little extra attention when winter rolls around. A fuel additive such as "Amsoil" helps, but it takes a little discipline to keep the ratio right. An optimal 8 ounces of additive for every 25 gallons of fuel is hard to regulate unless you run the tank down before you refuel each time. If you are in the habit of topping off your tank every time it gets down to about half, the ratio gets out of whack pretty fast, potentially causing other problems. So even if that's your normal routine in summer months so you never get caught with an empty tank, it would be better in winter to run the tank down to at least the last quarter before using more additive.

Diesels have two big batteries under the hood and painful as it is, it's probably best to replace them at the same time. One may crap out before the other, but batteries almost never crap out overnight. They weaken over time and as the one battery has been getting weaker and weaker, more strain has been put on the other battery so it's far from equal to the new one you just put next to it. I'm sure I'm on the minority side of that opinion but I'd rather be safe than sorry. A lot depends on how far you drive, how remote your route is and what your options are going to be if you get stranded away from home because the batteries are too weak to start the truck.

One thing you can do to take care of the batteries you have is to use your plug in. Every diesel I've ever owned or known of has had an electrical plug tucked down inside the front grill. The cord runs to a heater on the block of the engine. The block heater provides just enough warmth to keep the fuel from gelling which makes starting so much easier in the morning. You can start it while it's plugged in, but as a safety measure, I always unplug before I start the engine ...cuts down on the risk of driving off while still attached to the garage by the electrical cord. I've seen it happen, though not to me or my truck ...thank goodness. But I decided then and there I was going to take measures to ensure it didn't happen to me.

Check the tire pressure when the temperatures drop too. Tires that looked okay yesterday afternoon when it was in the 70's might look a little on the under-inflated side today when the high was only in the 50's. A vehicle with over or under-inflated tires is far from safe on slick winter roads, so check your pressures when the seasons change and adjust them according to the PSI embossed on the sidewall of the tire. We keep a cheap manual tire gauge in every glove box of every vehicle we own. You're not always going to be at gas station when you think you have a tire pressure problem and I've never trusted the gauges at the 25-cents-for-air stations anyway.

Check your fluids, ladies. It's not rocket science. The reservoirs are marked with a minimum fill line. If they're low or the fluid looks dirty, change it or take it to someone to have it changed. Even your windshield wiper fluid should be topped off before winter. If it's already raining outside, you might need to wash your windows to be able to see the road. Ever had a big 18 wheeler blow by in the lane next to you and spatter mud and sludge all over your windshield? Your wipers won't make much difference without a little boost from washer fluid.

We had our first real norther blow through last Sunday. I guess that's what got me on this subject. The skies were clear and blue but there were gusts of icy wind that felt they went right through your clothes. The horses were all frisky and the chickens only wanted to venture from the coop for a few minutes at a time. While I was out taking care of the animals, I decided to do a little winterizing on the two vehicles that were still in the driveway.

So Much to Do, So Little Time

2011-11-27T10:45:00.000-06:00

First, let me say thank you all for the nice sentiments left in the comments on YOF's post about my birthday. And thank you, Mayberry, for the birthday wishes you left on the last post on my blog. Yes, as KX59 pointed out on YOF's blog, 'a birthday post on HB’s blog (was) noticeably absent.' I don't think one should announce one's own birthday. It seems inappropriate somehow. Maybe that's just me. But I had a very nice birthday, even if I am 'Captain Kangaroo' old now. It started out with YOF letting me sleep in and ended with him taking me out for a burger and back home for a movie on Netflix. In between rolling out of bed two hours late and getting taken out for the evening meal, I had a few cards in the mail, several phone calls and a great many comments and well wishes on Facebook and the blogs. I've always been a little uncomfortable with being the focus of attention so tend to enjoy everyone else's birthdays much more than my own. But this birthday was just nice. It was very quiet which was very nice, so thank you all.

Now, today ...life goes back to normal. Along with the usual laundry and housework that I do on Sundays, I need to devote some serious effort to organizing my office because it will be the center of our little Christmas celebration this year. We found out yesterday that our grandsons that just moved back to Houston will get to spend a few days with us this Christmas. My daughter and her family are driving over Christmas Day also and it will be the first time the grandsons get to meet their cousin, Isabelle. I will have a house full of grandkids at Christmas and I can't think of a better way to spend the holiday. It's been a long time since we had overnight guests and we've never had quite this many at one time. So much to do, so little time. But having all my grands here for the holidays will make it the best Christmas ever for me.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a joyous Christmas with your family and loved ones.

Technical Difficulties ...ugh!

2011-11-13T21:52:00.000-06:00

They say trouble comes in threes. Two weeks ago, the little truck had to have two new tires. The old ones were literally down to the wire. Last week, the transmission went bad in the same truck. Well, technically just two of the five gears went bad ...but it still means a complete rebuild. Since the second problem was astronomically more expensive than the first one, I was dreading the third thing. That proverbial other shoe felt like it was hanging right over my head.

Well, I didn't have to fret about it for long. As soon as I walked in the door from my two days of visiting the granddaughter, I heard this loud annoying hum emanating from my computer. Looks like one of the fans in the CPU is about to crap out on me. It seems to be the one that cools the tower itself and not the CPU fan. But if I ignore it long enough, I'll only end up with a bigger problem. In light of the tire and transmission expenses we've already incurred this month, hauling the computer down to the shop for someone else to fix is out of the question. I'll just have to dust off my 'geek hat' and do it myself.

The inside of a computer is not terribly complicated these days. Plug-n-play is more than just a catchy phrase. Most of the internal components 'plug in' on the inside of your box just like a printer or other external peripheral would plug in on the outside of your box. Usually the hardest part of the operation is figuring out how to open the case. Since my tower has been with me about 10 years, I'm already familiar with how to open it up.

The fans themselves are not expensive so after I get the model number for both fans, I'll probably pick up two of the one that's currently on it's last legs and one of the CPU fans. For all I know they're the same model, but that would be ultra convenient so I'm not counting on it. Whatever the case is, I'll have to replace the bad fan and want to end up with a spare for both of them. About $30 ought to do it if I pick them up in town somewhere and don't have to add shipping to the equation.

Normally, my computer is up and running 24/7 because I'm lazy and impatient. I don't want to have to turn it on and wait the two or three minutes for it to boot up and load everything. Lazy and impatient, I know. But in deference to the loud complaints from the bad fan, I'm going to modify my behavior at least until I get it fixed. The computer will be shut down as soon as I finish this post and will remain shut down for most of the week. Actually changing out the fan is about a 30 minute job and that includes opening the case and chasing out the dust bunnies that are sure to be there. But I'm pretty sure it will be at least Friday before I can pick up the parts and probably next Saturday before I have time to install it.

I'm just grateful that this time it's something I can fix myself and for not too much money. I'll have to limit my email and surfing to the allotted break times at my office. I never take my 15 minute morning and afternoon breaks but I betcha I do this week ...just to get my 'web fix' ...ha! But I only get those two 15 minute breaks and one half-hour lunch break at work, so I probably won't have time to post any comments. I'm a confirmed net-ahlolic so being 'unplugged' at home won't be fun. But who knows what productive things I might accomplish around the house without the Internet to distract me every evening!

Our Boys are Back!

2011-11-05T22:13:00.000-05:00

Our grandsons have moved back to Texas from Arizona ...yeah!!

I think just the boys are here right now,

their momma will be here by next week.

Though they will still be a couple of hours away by car,

we're so thrilled to have them back in Texas.

A couple of hours away is a whole lot better

than a couple of STATES away!

Yesteryear's

2011-10-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

In between cycles of messing up and cleaning up my kitchen on Saturday during the canning project gone awry, I loaded the trunk of my car with merchandise for the booth space I rented at the antique shop. I was supposed to meet the owner there at noon Sunday to set up my space. The plan was to have all of the non-edibles loaded in the car the day before so that all I had to do Sunday was pack the jars and go.    The shop is open from 1:00 to 6:00 on Sundays so arriving at noon would give me about an hour to set up my space.

The reason I only loaded the non-edibles on Saturday was because the recipe ingredients for the Cookies-in-a-Jar were not yet in the jars. Instead, they were all over the work table in my office. Ingredients for a dozen different recipes in unopened packages were all over my work table. Wide-mouth canning jars, still in the shrink wrap cardboard flats they came in, were setting on the floor underneath the table ...ugh!   So I was up early again Sunday morning, determined to take care of all my normal weekend chores and still make my goal of meeting the shop owner at noon.

This whole idea of renting a space to sell things sounded so simple in the beginning. But jumping through all the hoops to get it off the ground has been a little wearing. The first step was a trip to the tax office for a permit. That was a little bit of a hassle as most permitting things tend to be ...but I got it done. Then came what I thought would be the fun part of finding recipes. Most any recipe can be adapted to this form of packaging but the more varied the colors and textures of the dry ingredients are, the better it will look in the jar. Sugar cookies, for instance, would be visually boring ...just flour, sugar, baking soda, salt. Boring.

Finding recipes has been fun but it's been time consuming too. When I found a recipe I wanted to use, I added it to my 'inventory list' and then added the ingredients to my shopping list. I have a document set up in Publisher to create the instruction cards that are attached to each jar. I created a new page for each recipe and set up a theme-appropriate border or a graphic for each different recipe. Four 'instruction cards' fit on a page, then I cut them apart using these fancy little craft scissors designed for the Scrapbooking crowd. It's all fun and appeals to my crafty/creative side ...but right now, it's time consuming.

So far, I have collected a dozen or so cookie recipes with dry ingredients that include oatmeal, M&Ms, chocolate, white or butterscotch chips, raisins, and dried cranberries. I found a couple of fancy brownie recipes too and some flavored hot chocolate recipes. At the suggestion of the owner, I will stock two jars of three different varieties for now. Today I put two jars each of Cowboy Cookies, Cowgirl Cookies and Mississippi Mud Pie Brownies on the shelves. The six jars I put out are all I have made up so far. But the plan is to make them ahead so that restocking will be quick and easy. I'll generally stock the same varieties for one month. When the weather cools down, I'll use pint jars to stock flavored hot chocolate mixes.   These are the three varieties I put on the shelves today.

Mississippi Mud Pie Brownies

Cowboy Cookies

Cowgirl Cookies

The only differences between the CowGIRL Cookies and the CowBOY Cookies are the color of the M&M's, whether I put Chocolate Chips or White Chocolate Chips in the jar, and what color bandana I cut up to put over the top. The lids are vacuum sealed onto the jars to keep the ingredients fresh.

I've seen similar jars with cookie ingredients in specialty shops being sold for $15 and up, but I don't have any real overhead. I've kept careful track of my costs and only have $2-$3 in each jar so I intended to price them at $8 each. The owner talked me into putting $15 on them though. She said she has been in business in the same location for over 9 years. She knows what sells and has a feel for pricing things. According to her, there's already a lot of interest even from the other vendors in the store and she doesn't want me to be afraid of making a profit.

O.K.A.Y. Feels like a lot of profit to me but I guess if they sell at that price, that's the market. I might splurge and fancy up the fabric tops a little if I'm going to be making $12 per jar! Other vendors at the shop that purchase from me get a 10 percent discount. I get a ten percent discount on their merchandise as well. So worst case, I will net $12 per quart. Wow. That still boggles my mind.

This is what my space looked like when I left the shop today.

It's just a bookcase, not a whole booth space but it's a good start. I am in a good location in the shop and now that the preliminary legwork is done, I think it will be fun. Especially if she's right about how much those jars will sell for ...wouldn't that be a nice little bonus!

One of Those Days...

2011-10-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

The day started out good. We were both up early. Yeoldfurt had some things he wanted to do in the shop and he was down there at first light. I wanted to do some pressure canning today. I made a spicy chicken soup for our supper last night and purposely made extra so I could process a couple of quarts for the pantry. Not wanting to process just two jars in my big seven quart pressure canner, I went down to the food storage this morning and brought up three of the vacuum sealed jars of red beans and rice. Last July, I had the bright idea to vacuum seal my dried beans and rice in quart and pint jars. I didn't think it would take long so decided to make canning the first project this morning.

Thinking I had it all figured out, 'I only filled each jar half full of whatever I was putting in it because when I cook them this fall and winter, the amount that's in the jar now will still fit in the jar after it's cooked.' Oh how naive I was ...never underestimate the swelling potential of beans or rice!

So I bring up three of my vacuum sealed quarts and dump them in my big soup pot. They are about three inches deep in the bottom of the pot and the pot is 11 inches deep, so I thought I was fine. I add water until it's two inches deeper than the beans/rice, bring it to a rolling boil for ten minutes and then take it off the burner to let it soak for an hour. Of course I had a lid on it while it was soaking so I had no idea what was going on in the pot. When the hour had passed and I went to drain and rinse, I was amazed to see the contents had swollen to a height just two or three inches below the top of the pot. There was no way I was going to able to add enough water to boil them for another hour, so I had to find a bigger pot.

The only pot bigger than the one the beans/rice were already in was my seven quart water bath canner ... a bit of overkill for the job, but it was my only available option. So I transfer the swollen beans/rice to the water bath canner and start adding water. It took eight quarts of water to bring the level up to the prescribed two inches above the beans/rise. Sigh. I start running the math in my head and quickly realize I'm going to end up with a minimum of eight quarts of beans/rice to process. My pressure canner only holds seven quarts so that means at least two batches. Sigh. Ninety minutes processing time plus the heat up and cool down on both ends makes for a long day in the kitchen. That's fine if that's the original plan. But tomorrow is the big 'move in' at the antique shop and I still have some loose ends to tie up. THOSE were on the agenda for this afternoon. Canning in the morning, loose ends in the afternoon. That was the plan but that's not how it went.

Well, as sunset approaches, the first batch is cooling on the counter and the second batch is about halfway done processing on the stove. My second batch ended up being one quart of the beans/rice and two quarts of the soup. I prefer not to run the canner at half capacity. It just seems wasteful to me but sometimes it can't be helped. Today was one of those days. Everything I tried to do ended up two or three times harder or taking two or three times longer or making two or three times as much mess. I'm tired, a lot more tired than I expected to be this evening. But I guess putting ten meals on the shelf is a decent accomplishment for the day. It was a long day in the kitchen. I'm glad I at least have something to show for it.

Fall Vegetable Garden Class

2011-10-17T03:52:00.003-05:00

The free class on Fall Vegetable Gardening I attended last Saturday was outstanding. I loosely adhere to the old adage 'you get what you pay for' so I was not expecting all that much from a 'free' class, especially one offered by a retail business. At most, I expected to get a few pointers and maybe hear about the latest gardening tool or product for this area. Even though Producers is an ag co-op, they are still a retailer ...in the business of selling their wares to the public. I half expected coupons to be handed out for discounts on those tools or products which, of course, would be available for purchase from the store hosting the 'free' class. The skeptic in me always looks for a catch when something is offered for free. I was pleasantly surprised on all fronts.

I have been to Producers dozens of times in the five plus years we've lived in this area but this is the first time I was there on a Saturday when the free classes are offered. I was surprised to find out I was only one of about a hundred people attending yesterday's class. I had no idea attendance would be that high and I was amazed to see the lengths the store went to accommodate the attendees. Large display racks were temporarily moved off to one side to make room for the rows of folding chairs. Two tables were set up where you entered the area ...one with registration sign in sheets and a nine-page handout of the material that would be covered in the class and the other with several carafes of coffee and trays of cookies. The store apparently goes to a lot of effort and expense to host these classes every week and I really didn't come away with the impression I had been to a sales pitch.

One of the things I learned that we will be implementing this coming year is that it's far more beneficial to rest and improve your soil during July and August than to push for production during the two hottest months. This part of Texas has relatively mild winters and it's entirely feasible most of the time to keep a garden going for nine to ten months out of the year. But just because we can doesn't mean we should. Gardens need time to rest, organic matter needs to be worked in to replenish depleted minerals and restore balance to the soil. The speaker recommended cleaning out the garden at the end of June. Remove the old crop, clear weeds and grasses and add approximately three inches of well-composted material. Work the compost in by hand or with a tiller, then saturate the garden with water to a depth of at least four inches. Let the water soak in, then saturate the ground again the next day and the day after that. By the third day, you should be able to dig down 8 or 9 inches and still have very damp soil. If the soil is not damp to that depth by the third day, you are not watering enough. When it is damp to that depth, flood it one more time to the point you have standing water, then cover it with clear plastic and leave it covered until the first week in August. The hot summer sun on the clear plastic will sterilize the saturated soil, killing any seeds, fungi or bugs that may be in it. Even in a normal summer, the temperatures under the plastic will reach at least 160 degrees during the day. That heat will help speed up the decomposition of the compost you just added.

The first week September, remove the plastic and 'fluff' the soil by hand or with a tiller. Additional store-bought compost may be added at this time if necessary. This is not the ideal time to add material from your home compost because you need to transplant seedlings to your fall garden by the middle of September and two weeks is just not enough time for typical home composted material to break down in the soil. It is also not good to work horse or cow manure into the soil because it adds too much phosphorous and will stress your seedlings.

Mid- to late-September is the ideal time to transplant seedlings into the garden. Most of us keep our thermostats set so that temperatures in our homes fluctuate very little between daytime and nighttime during the summer. So if you started your seedlings yourself in an air-conditioned setting, it's best to move them to a shaded area in the yard for a few days before you transplant them into the garden so they can become acclimated to the more extreme outdoor temperature fluctuations between daytime and nighttime.

If you purchase seedlings for your vegetable garden, look for boxy, full-leaved specimens, rather than the tallest or the one that already shows flowers. Height that is disproportionate to fullness is a plant's response to tight quarters and having to compete for sunlight. Early flowering is not a sign a vigor, it's a sign of stress ...literally according to Dr Masabni, the plant is saying, 'OMG, I'm going to die soon ...I must reproduce!' That generated some chuckles, as you can imagine, but he's right. The base instinct of all life is to survive and reproduce. Plants are no exception.

If these kinds of classes are offered through your local ag co-op or the county extension office, I urge you to take advantage of them. All of the classes won't be relevant to your situation, but take advantage of the ones that are. Knowledge is something we need to stock up on occasionally too.

Continuing Ed Tomorrow

2011-10-14T20:37:00.000-05:00

Producers is the name of the big feed co-op store in Bryan. Their advertising slogan is 'Everything Ag' and that's a pretty fitting description of what you can find there. In addition to all the normal things you'd expect at a feed store, they offer free one hour seminars on Saturdays, covering a variety of subjects that would interest most any farmer, rancher or homesteader. The seminars are held at 11:00 on Saturday mornings in a small section of the store that's set up like a casual den ...complete with fireplace and big comfy chairs. The subject this weekend is Fall Vegetable Gardening and the speaker is Professor Joe Masahni, an Extension Vegetable Specialist from Texas A&M.

I don't know if I'll learn anything new in the class, but I'm pretty sure it won't be a waste of my time. I happen to think that adding to your own store of knowledge is an essential part of being prepared. The timing for this class is great and the price is perfect. We were just talking last week about whether to plant a fall garden this year and what we should grow and since the class is free ...well, you just can't beat free!

There is always a list of errands that need to be done on Saturdays and this weekend is no different. The oil needs changing in the little truck, a trash run has to be made to the local collection station and now I have this class I want to attend in Bryan. Yeoldfurt will be tied up at the the Appleseed shoot in Millican all day tomorrow and again on Sunday, so I'll take care of whatever needs to be done this weekend. He'll load up tonight and leave bright and early for the shoot in the morning. I'll be leaving an hour or so behind him so I can be first in line at the Kwik Kar in Caldwell when they open. I should be back home by 9:00, giving me plenty of time to make the trash run and start the weekend laundry before I need to leave for the class in Bryan.

After the class, I'll gas up at the HEB in Bryan because it's always 10-15 cents cheaper than the stations in Caldwell. Then I have a short list of items to pick up while I'm at HEB and I should be back home by 2:00. Yeoldfurt will call me when he's heading home after the shoot, but I don't expect to hear from him until at least 5:00. That gives me three or four hours to finish the laundry and have a nice dinner for him when he gets home. I've told him he's off the roster as far as feeding the critters or any other chores this weekend. He's managed to finagle a day off work on Sunday so that he can attend both days of the shoot and I just want him to enjoy himself. There are plenty of weekends that he has shouldered all the responsibilities for me so I could go visit the granddaughter in San Antonio. This is my opportunity to return the favor.

New Ventures

2011-10-04T22:39:00.000-05:00

Purging was pretty high on the list of goals for this year and I think I may have found a fun way to go about it. Some friends of mine own a little antique store called Yesteryears located just off the town square. It's one of my favorite stops when we have errands to run ...kind of like H&H Guns is Yeoldfurt's favorite stop. We are usually together when we go either place, but I can be entertained at Yesteryears a lot longer than he can ...just as he can be entertained at H&H a lot longer than I can. Possibly, the Venus/Mars phenomenon again.

A couple of years ago, Yeoldfurt and I discussed the possibility of consigning some of the things we want to sell to Yesteryears. But we found out the owner doesn't do consignment, just rents booths to vendors with part of the 'rent' being a few hours a week of minding the store. That was not an option for us because of our 40-week jobs so we didn't pursue it. But recently I found out that the owner is now renting shelf space by the unit. One unit is a bookcase, approximately 3' x 6' with up to six adjustable shelves. The rent is $35/month, no requirement to put in hours at the store ...just a simple lease outlining acceptable items for sale and the terms of payment for sales made. Very little is required of the seller other than to keep the shelves reasonably well-stocked. Most of the things we want to purge around here are suitable to being displaying on a shelf so I think it's a win-win.

After I got home with the vendor agreement, I started wondering how hard it was going to be to keep the shelves stocked. I only have an hour or so of 'free time' in the evenings and Saturdays are already pretty full with odd chores and projects around here. I wanted to come up with something I could make ahead and keep in quantity to fill space in between things I was purging. I will be making some Cookie-in-a-Jar type recipes to give as gifts this Christmas and wondered if the owner of Yesteryears would consider letting me sell them on my shelf. I sent her an email with a picture to show her what would be on the shelf and she loved the idea. Oh, boy! Cheap, easy, and fun to make ...I can get creative with the recipes and decorating the jars according to the season.

I'm on vacation (I know ...again ...right?) on Friday this week so that Yeoldfurt can give me a ride to the paint shop to pick up my car. He's on vacation until Sunday and I think he plans to head back home after he drops me off at the shop. But while I'm out and about and have time on my hands, I think I'll go to the hobby store and maybe the fabric store for ideas and supplies. I really think this is going to be fun. If it turns out to be profitable too, all the better!

Sobering Moments

2011-10-01T01:19:00.000-05:00

I dropped my car off at the paint shop this afternoon and needed to kill two hours until Yeoldfurt got off work to come get me. I walked across the street to a little antique shop and was thoroughly enjoying myself, just browsing the merchandise when my cell phone rang. The caller ID said it was my friend, Anne, from Colorado. She and I were neighbors when I lived in Colorado in the late 80's and early 90's. She was a few years younger than me but it was one of those friendships that just happens in an instant. Colorado is an hour behind Texas, timewise, so I was surprised to hear from her when it should have only be 4pm, her time. But I'm always happy to hear from her, so I answered cheerfully and said, 'What are YOU up to ..playing hookie?'

The voice on the other end wasn't my friend, Anne. It was her husband, Craig. I knew something was wrong. He said, 'It's not who you think it is, I knew you would think it was Anne.' He asked me where I was and if I was sitting down. I sat in a big chair the store had for sale and held my breath. He asked me if I was alone and I told him there were people around but I was at an antique store. Then he told me that Anne was gone. She passed away the night before.

You hear people talk about having a brush with death and in that moment when they feel they are truly in mortal danger, they see 'their life pass before their eyes.' When Craig told me she was gone, moments from our twenty year friendship passed through my mind. We were in PTA together, we served on a community advisory council together, we took classes at Mesa State College together. We took care of each other's kids, we cooked for each other's families when one of us had to be out of town for a few days. Anne was energetic, goal-oriented and adventurous. She was incredibly organized and knew how to motivate people. She was an amazing person and now she's gone. She and Craig just celebrated their 30 year anniversary and now he's a widow. They have three grown children, two that live close by and one that works for the State Department and is currently on assignment overseas. I'm sure he'll be home to support his dad

I'm not making much sense, even to post about something like this. But it's what's on my mind so there it is. I wonder if this incredibly wonderful person that was my friend knew how much she meant to me. I wonder if I was as good a friend to her as she has been to me.

For Me, It's Saddle Time

2011-09-25T17:59:00.000-05:00

Most people have one thing that makes them relax and rejuvenates them from the daily stresses of life. For some, it's a place. For some it's an activity. For me, it's saddle time.

Horses are a lot of work to take care of every day, whether you ride or not. With the demands of a full time job and the chores that come with our homesteader lifestyle, finding time to just have fun can be a challenge. Most of the big chores have to be done on the weekend and somehow the To Do List always ends with more things than can be accomplished in one weekend. So you learn to prioritize. You learn to pick ONE THING that has to happen on any given weekend. When it's done, you do as many of the other things on the list as time allows. Having things still left on the list at the end of the weekend just means next weekend's list is already started.

Yeoldfurt works on Sundays, so that's generally my day for housework. Domestic drudgery like laundry and scrubbing floors. Those things that are hardly ever noticed ...unless they're not done. But I try to accomplish at least one non-housework project every Sunday too. Today it was riding. I had not been on my horse since the grandsons were here in July. It was too hot most of July and August and I have been out of town for two weekends in September already. But the mornings lately have been downright pleasant and the evenings are starting to get bearable. So I was up before the sun this morning and was saddled up as soon as it was light outside.

I was only in the saddle for an hour, only rode in the round pen and the front paddock, but it sure felt good. When we were done, I let my mare 'mow' the grass in the chicken yard for an hour before I turned her out with the others. There are four fruit trees that we keep watered in the chicken yard so it's the place we have any grass right now. My mare enjoyed it.

That hour I spent in the saddle must have done me good because I've accomplished everything I normally accomplish on Sundays and then some. The sheets are changed on the bed, the laundry is washed, dried, folded and put away, the bathrooms have been scrubbed and the rugs are washed and hanging outside to dry. I also made a batch of liquid laundry soap (four months worth) and raked the leaves in one of the four flower beds. The horse blankets we cleaned up last week are folded and bagged up to be stored until cold weather comes. Yeoldfurt's dinner is in the oven (slow roasted pork ribs) and I have five pints of homemade split pea soup processing on the stove. Yeoldfurt won't eat it, but I was cleaning out cupboards and found a pound of dried split peas I needed to use up. In pint jars, it's just enough for me for supper on a cold winter day with enough left over to take to work for lunch the next day.

So even though I took an hour to just play with my horse this morning, I got a lot accomplished today. Yup, for me, it's saddle time!

How Are We Doing?

2011-09-23T04:16:00.001-05:00

On December 31st last year, I posted a list of goals for myself for the coming year ...a few things I wanted to accumulate or accomplish, and a few new skills I wanted to acquire. Now with a little over three months left in the year, I look back at that list and think I had better pick up my pace if I want to be able to check everything off at the end of this year.

First on my list were the Challenge Goals ...those things that I hoped to accomplish, believed I could accomplish, but knew I would have to dog myself to get them done. I would say I'm at about 50 percent on that list. That's kind of disappointing when you consider there were only three items on that list ...purging some of the stuff that is just laying around and not being useful to anybody, organizing our food storage, and minimizing ME ...as in dropping some weight.

Purging might be one of those things like housework that never really gets DONE. You have to do a certain amount of it on a regular basis and do a whole lot of it once in a while, but you never really get done. I've made serious progress though. In general, there's a lot less 'stuff' laying around and, in the process of sorting and purging, I now have a much better idea of what's actually here. That's the big bonus!

On getting organized in the food storage, I have to say we have exceeded the expectations I had when we set the goal. Yeoldfurt built me some shelving, I bought some new storage containers, we've improved the methods of labeling we use and streamlined our process for maintaining the inventory spreadsheet. I'm now much more confident in the amount we have stored, how long it would last us and the accuracy of our record-keeping. We've made a lot of improvement in organization this year.

As for the goal of minimizing ME, I didn't set a specific goal weight but I'm halfway to where I'd like to be. I wish I could say I am all the way there now ...but halfway is encouraging. It's enough of a difference that people who haven't seen me in a while notice, and enough that I can feel the difference in the clothes I wear. Best of all, my ankle bothers me much less these days ...less often and less severely when it does.

The second part of my list was the Standard Goals ...those things that pretty much stay on the list year after year in one form or another because we are preppers. It's more than a philosophy, it's a lifestyle. There were five items on the list of Standard Goals ...Reconfiguring the raised bed, Improving the chicken coop, Debt elimination, Increasing our supply of non-food items, and learning New Skills.

I am pleased to say we can check that first item off the list. Yeoldfurt single-handedly reconfigured our 16x16 raised bed garden into several smaller beds. He accomplished that goal on a couple of Tuesdays when he was off and I was at work and he did a great job. He even built me a deluxe compost bin conveniently located just a few feet from the raised beds. He is making plans and scavenging lumber to add additional beds and I'm making plans for some cold frames to set over the smaller beds and hopefully lengthen our growing season. One thing always leads to another!

He has also made some real improvements to the chicken coop, building new nest boxes and further snake-proofing the structure. I still want to build an off the ground brood box in the smaller room but there is no rush since we only buy new chicks every other year and the next time we will need a brood box will be 2013.

Debt elimination is another one of those almost never done goals. We still have no debt other than our mortgage and make additional payments on the principle every month, but we're a long way from paying off the mortgage. We did speak to a locally owned bank about refinancing a few months ago, but the interest rate they offered was only one-quarter percent lower than we have now and they would only consider a fifteen year note ...our monthly obligation would have increased by nearly 40 percent. The amount of the payment on their terms would have been equal to what we normally pay, so certainly feasible. But the amount we pay now includes our additional payment toward the principle and if we have a tight month, we always have the option of paying only the amount due. We didn't think refinancing made sense on those terms. But we have made significant progress in eliminating our mortgage so I consider that goal met as well.

Yeoldfurt has had fun with the next goal on that list which was increasing our nonfood supplies. He has acquired some additional ammunition as well as some of the tools he needs to do a lot more reloading of his own again. He used to do quite a bit of reloading and I think he's enjoying picking it up again ....kind of like me and sewing. We also accumulated a lot more in the way of canning supplies and a second (backup) Foodsaver.

Finally, there are the new skills and knowledge we hoped to acquire. Specifically, I said that I wanted to learn to make shampoo, conditioner and body wash. I can't claim to have even investigated any of those processes, so I need to get busy in that regard. I know Humblewife makes all those things and many more useful things from scratch so that's probably where I will start my research. She is an amazing source of information and inspiration, but true to her blog name, she is also one of the most truly humble people I have the privilege of knowing. If you have not ever visited her blog, I hope you will do so. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I hope to learn to make dishwasher soap this year as well. As long as I am working a full time job and commuting two hours a day, I will be using a dishwasher so I will be using dishwasher soap. I might as well learn to make it. And finally, felling trees is the other 'new skill' I had hoped to acquire this year. We have about ten dead pines along the driveway and in the sideyard that need to come down but need to land a certain way in order to miss the fenceline or keep from blocking the driveway. I'm waiting for cooler weather to tackle that one though.

So I set thirteen goals for myself, am somewhat lacking on two of them, and totally lacking on the last one. Not a horrible score, but nothing to brag about either. Guess I better pick up the pace!

You Can't Control the Weather

2011-09-19T22:13:00.010-05:00

When I logged off the computer last Friday night, the weather forecast predicted a 20 to 40 percent chance of rain for four days, Sunday through Wednesday. I woke up to thunder and lightning and a soft steady rain on Sunday morning. The front paddock which is a high spot on our property had an inch or two of standing water on it. What a beautiful sight it was, a great way to start the day. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.

By 9:00am, the rain had stopped, the sun was shining and temperatures were creeping up. I think the high on Sunday was only 90 degrees. It was hot, but not nearly as hot as we had become accustomed to these past few months. We only got half an inch according to the rain gauge. We are grateful but it's not nearly enough.

I ran across an interesting article on weather.com about what it would take for us to catch up on rainfall for this year. The first map below divides the state into four regions according to how severe the drought has been in that region. The legend indicates how many inches of rainfall each region would need to receive in just one month in order to recover from the drought. Where we live straddles the line between the yellow and light green regions on this map. So for us, it would take 12-18 inches of rainfall in a one month period to break even for the year. Like that's going to happen.

What has made this situation even worse is that on top of the severe drought, we've had incredibly long stretches of 100+ temperatures. We lost a dozen trees since last year. These weren't young, barely established trees that were unaccustomed to or unsuited for this area either. They were mature oaks, pines and cedars. It's a sad thing to watch. But besides the devastation to local vegetation, wildfires like the ones we saw in Bastrop, Walker, Grimes, Waller and Robertson counties earlier this month are a constant threat. That's a list of just five major wildfires that were within 50 miles of our place. There were other wildfires all over the state at the same time. Resources are stretched very thin.

According to this next map, we will need approximately 24 to 28 inches of rainfall in the next six months to end this drought. That's an average of over 4-1/2 inches per month. I don't think the odds are in our favor.

No rain means no hay. No hay means ranchers cull their herds or sell out. Smaller herds mean less meat supply and eventually higher prices. If you can't grow hay, you can't grow any other crops either. Minimal crops mean less supply and higher prices on those things too.

No, you can't control the weather. No one can. But pray for rain, people. Even if your livelihood is not somehow tied to the land, even if the only livestock you own are a cat and a dog, a drought this widespread and this severe impacts the entire economy. Pray for rain.

Holy Guacamole!

2011-09-17T20:31:00.000-05:00

I've had flower and vegetable gardens most of my adult life, so I'm not exactly a newbie when it comes to growing things. But I have never grown an avocado tree. There is a first time for everything though and thank goodness for the Internet where practically anything you want to research is right there at your fingertips!

When I was on vacation last week, my friend, Teresa, gave me a tiny avocado seedling. She said it came from an avocado plucked from a tree on her brother's dairy farm in California. It was well started in rich potting soil when she gave it to me and seemed to be thriving. Teresa promised she would come up for a visit one day soon so I'm just hoping I can keep this little seedling happy and thriving at least until she gets up here!

Yeoldfurt loves guacamole so it would be nice to be able to grow our own. But everything I've read so far says that trees started from seed produce rarely fruit. It seems the best fruit-producing avocado trees are grafted as seedlings. That's a very tedious process with only about a 50 percent success rate even for professional growers. So this little seedling, if it matures into a tree, will most likely just have to be appreciated for it's beauty and not so much it's fruit. If I am successful in growing it though, I might look into buying a grafted seedling so Yeoldfurt could have his home grown avocados.

Any advice from those of you who have grown avocados from seed would be most welcome!

Worth Every Stitch

2011-09-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

Keebler was a big hit with the granddaughter
so I guess maybe my first sewing project in 30 years came out okay!

As you can see, they are already best of buds!

I was gone for four days and three nights and Yeoldfurt did an outstanding job of taking care of himself and the homestead. He did a fine job today of spoiling me rotten too. This was his regular day off and my last day of vacation and we took full advantage of the opportunity to spend time together.

We went into the Big City to pick up a few things he needed for his shop and he treated me to both lunch and dinner. Lunch was a sit down meal, but dinner tonight is a box of spicy fried chicken and dirty rice from Pop-eyes. If you have never had Pop-eyes chicken, you will just have to trust me ...it's good!

While we were in town, we got an estimate on painting my little car and were pleasantly surprised at the quote. Looks like it's only going to cost a little over half what I thought it would, so my overtime money
will take care of painting the car and buy us that deep freeze we've been wanting.
Ahh, life is good!

Keebler, the Lion

2011-09-06T20:53:00.000-05:00

I did not know when I started this project quite how challenging this pattern would be or quite how rusty my sewing skills have become. It has been thirty-something years since I really did anything more complex than a hem. But perseverance won out in the end and I finished the project. This is Keebler who I hope will end up being one of my little granddaughter's favorite cuddle buddies.

My granddaughter may come up with her own name for him and whatever she wants to call him is fine with me. But he will always be KEEBLER to me. I will explain why later.

The nose gave me fits from the beginning and I'm not sure I understand what I did to make it work well enough to explain. But I was finally able to fashion a nose out of the odd shaped bit of fabric and get it sewn in place so that it actually looks like a lion's nose. It even looks like the nose on the on the front of the pattern envelope. I would have settled for it just being recognizable as a nose. To have it end up looking like the one on the picture is unexpected bonus. I did have to deviate from the instructions quite a bit as they said to baste the nose in place on one side of the center of the muzzle and then stitch the two sides of the muzzle together with the nose sandwiched between them. I have a fairly nice sewing machine but it's not industrial strength. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be able to handle two layers of fleece (the two sides of the muzzle) plus four more layers of fleece made up by the folds in the nose. So I used the machine to make the seam up to the nose, then finished it by hand. I used heavy coat thread for the hand work, so hopefully it will hold up to the rigors of a toddler. Handwork is my comfort zone, so it was fun to include some of that.

The day I finally conquered the nose, I also lost my head ...for a while anyway. I got the nose firmly attached to the muzzle and started looking for the pattern piece labeled 'head' ...but it was nowhere to be found. I always pin all the pattern pieces before I cut to make sure I will have enough fabric. Then I always cut all the pattern pieces at once and leave them pinned to their piece of the pattern until I'm ready for them. But I searched through all my cut pieces three times and NO HEAD. Each pattern piece has a number and the head was number four. I even took all the unused pattern pieces out of the envelope and made sure I had not just failed to cut that piece. But there was no number four in the envelope. Ugh!

I knew the pattern company had not shorted me. Pattern pieces come all printed on one or two big sheets of tissue paper. You have to cut them apart to make individual pieces so you can arrange them on the fabric. I knew the missing pattern piece for the head had to be around here somewhere but I was running out of time to get this project done. I have my sewing machine setting on my grandmother's old writing desk which is tucked into a shallow alcove in my office. I thought the missing piece might have slipped off the desk while I was wrestling with the nose so I got out the flashlight and looked behind, under and on both sides of the desk. I didn't find it. I did find my cloth measuring tape though ...so the effort wasn't totally wasted.

Frustrated and baffled, I went back to the instructions to see if I could improvise. This pattern has four variations ...a lion, a monkey, a dog, and a cat. The lion is the only one that calls for the number four pattern piece for the head. The other three variations have a similarly shaped head, with only a minor difference on one end. I figured that, in a pinch, I could substitute the pattern piece for the head that the other variations called for and just 'eyeball' the minor difference to make it work. My only concern was that though the two 'head' pieces might be shaped very similar, I would have no way of knowing until I tried to attach it to the muzzle if the scale was the same. But I was running out of options so I got set up to cut a 'head' from the other pattern piece.

I have a 75 watt halogen bulb in a floor lamp beside the cutting table and wanted to turn it on so I could see better while I was cutting. I had to walk around to the back of the table to reach the switch on the floor lamp and as I stepped behind the table, I heard the familiar rustle of tissue paper. My missing pattern piece ...the number 4 head piece!   It had apparently slipped off the table when I was laying the pieces out on the fabric. I didn't notice it was missing when I was cutting out the other pieces because there are 13 different pieces to this variation of the pattern and they are not consecutively numbered. The carpet in my office is circa 1985 which was smack dab in the middle of the 'earth tones' era in home decor. Typical of the 1980's, the carpet is a deep sculpture in a sandy tan, almost taupe color ...very similar in color to the pale tissue paper pattern piece. So I was able to cut the head from the correct piece of pattern after all.

In retrospect, the only parts of this lion that I made by following the instructions exactly were the legs. I modified the tail to make the fuzzy end more 3-D and fashioned furrowed 'eyebrows' from remnant fabric rather than just embroidering them as the pattern suggested. I did embroider the eyes and used the same brown embroidery floss to fashion the toes on the end of his floppy legs. Thinking back on the process, he's about 50 percent 'by the book' and fifty percent me figuring a way to make it work or a way to make it work (look) better. And that brings us to the story of how he got his name.

A friend of mine left a comment on my first post about this project, suggesting that if I ran into problems with the pattern, I should just 'Fudge, fudge a lot, you're a big girl now, you can fudge the pattern, the girl will never know!!'

Well, fudge I did. First with the nose, then the tail, and almost had to fudge the entire head. I fudged on the assembly process, stitching by hand almost as much as on the machine. I even fudged to create a 'suspended' stiff interfacing in the mane so that I could stuff on both sides of the interfacing and it would feel soft all the way around, but would have an inner support that would keep it from being floppy.   Yes, this lion is the product of a whole lot of fudging. Get it? Keebler Fudge? I know, I know ...I have a warped sense of humor.

I am pleased at how he turned out and even more pleased that I got him finished with a whole day to spare before I leave for my weekend with my granddaughter. I work all day tomorrow but then I'm on vacation until next Wednesday. It will take me most of the morning Thursday to clean up my sewing room and turn it back into my office ... and the rest of the day to pack and put some meals in the freezer for Yeoldfurt to have while I'm gone. Assuming the threat of fires has lessened by Friday, I will leave early that morning and be back Monday before Yeoldfurt gets home from work.   I will miss him but I'll make sure he has plenty of clean laundry and plenty of meals in the freezer until I get back. I'll have a nice supper ready for him when he gets home Monday evening and we'll be able to spend Tuesday together since that's his regular day off and I'll still be on vacation. By Tuesday, we will have been apart just long enough to miss each other's company and we can spend the day spoiling each other rotten. Life is good.

Cute Little Devils, Aren't They?

2011-09-01T14:23:00.000-05:00

At least two of the four new hens are beginning to lay eggs now. When a hen first starts to lay, her eggs are smaller than they eventually will be ...possibly nature's way of easing her into called purpose in life. As she matures, her eggs will gradually get larger until they are full-sized.

This is only our second batch of hens. We bought our first hens as day old chicks in 2009 and when they first started laying eggs, we had nothing except store-bought eggs to compare them to. So the size difference didn't seem that noticeable. One of those three hens lays HUGE eggs that will only comfortably fit into a Jumbo size egg carton. They will fit into a Large or Extra Large carton, but forget being able to close the lid. At least two of those three original hens are still laying, including Dora who lays the HUGE eggs. But production is way down, partly due to their age and partly due to this oppressive heat, I'm sure.

This spring, we bought some new chicks. Hens don't lay eggs forever and we figured we needed to start phasing in replacements for the older birds. We started out with five Barred Rock chicks, but lost three to chicken snakes. It was the Last Supper for all but one of those chicken snakes. The third one was sporting a couple of 22 caliber holes when it slithered away ...hopefully it didn't survive the trauma. A few weeks later, we found a guy down the road that was selling some two month old Production Reds and we brought two of those home as well. Now we have seven chickens in the coop. That's really more than we need for eggs for just the two of us. It's also possibly more than we want unless we pick up a couple more egg customers. We're not really (and don't want to be) officially in the egg business. But for now, the seven hens are producing three to four eggs per day.

Since the new hens are so young and have only been laying for a week or two, their eggs are still really small. I used a carton marked 'Grade A Large' because it was the biggest I happened to have on hand today. The HUGE eggs that Dora lays barely fit into a carton marked Jumbo. If I put what I refer to as our 'normal' eggs from our other two mature hens in a carton marked Extra Large, I can close the lid but it's tight. They will fit into a carton marked Large, but forget closing the lid. All this is for reference so you know what you're looking at here. I put six of the little bitty eggs in one side and six of the normal eggs on the other side. I laid two of the HUGE eggs and two more of the little bitty eggs on the open lid as a visual reference for size. Aren't the little bitty eggs cute?!

Sweet red bell peppers were on sale for 50 cents each at the grocery store last week so I bought six. We love bell peppers. Sometimes I stuff them and sometimes I slice them up to steam with kielbasa or grilled chicken tenders. I bought six peppers and made stuffed peppers that night. I make the filling with one pound of ground beef, one egg for binder, about 1/3 cup fine seasoned bread crumbs, some spices and a bit of tomato sauce. The one pound of ground beef is enough to generously stuff six halved bell peppers. I slice them the long way and Yeoldfurt eats two halves for his supper and takes two halves for his lunch the next day. I eat half a pepper for supper and take the other half for my lunch the next day. Normally when I make these, I use one of the normal sized eggs. That time, I used two of the little bitty eggs. I was curious to see the quality of the egg itself since it was so tiny. But they were excellent quality. The yolks were dark yellow and, if anything, disproportionately larger than the whites. The two little eggs were perfect to replace the one normal sized egg I usually used to make this recipe.
Tonight we're having a chef salad for dinner and I decided to make some deviled eggs to go with it. I usually use two of the HUGE eggs when I make deviled eggs but decided today to use the little bitty eggs.

Now who would have thought you could fit a dozen deviled eggs on one 6-inch dessert plate? Tell me these aren't the cutest 'little devils' you've ever seen!

Sewing is Not Like Riding a Bike

2011-08-27T09:48:00.000-05:00

About the time all my overtime started at work, I had the bright idea I would start sewing again and make something for my granddaughter's first birthday in September. It seemed like a good idea at the time and her birthday was still three months off so it didn't feel like pressure. Now her birthday is just two weeks away and I'm a long way from finished with her birthday gift. What was I thinking?!

The pattern is Simplicity 5310. Don't let the company name fool you ...there is nothing 'simple' about this project! I've got about 10 years of experience crafts and sewing. Mostly I've done handwork ...crewel work, embroidery, crocheting, even tried tatting for a while. I learned how to make clothing from patterns when I was in high school. Our mother was an excellent seamstress and she taught all three of us girls how to sew from a pattern. I made my own pinch-pleat lined draperies when I was a newlywed in my 20's. I know how to use a sewing machine. I didn't think it mattered that all of my experience was 25 or 30 years ago. I figured, 'it's like riding a bike, right?' Umm ...maybe not.

This is the pattern. Cute, huh? Looks simple enough, right? By step 3 on the pattern, I knew I was in trouble.

It's the nose that's giving me fits. The pattern piece is only about 3 inches wide and 2 inches tall. How could such a small swatch of fabric be so uncooperative! I struggled with it twice, two separate days for about an hour. The confidence and enthusiasm I'd been feeling for the project was eroding at an alarming rate. But this morning I decided to see if I could find some reviews for the pattern ...maybe some pointers from other people who had made this pattern. I found this website, http://sewing.patternreview.com, and joined with a free membership. There were eight reviews posted for this pattern. A free membership only entitles me to read reviews less than six months old, so I could only read five of them. Three of them were exactly as I would have posted if I were to review this pattern ...'NOT simple!' 'Diagrams do not match up with the pattern pieces!' 'Terrible instructions!' 'Worst pattern I've ever worked with!' The ladies that left these reviews claimed to have 20-30 years of experience. One lady said she was a professional seamstress with 35 years of experience and she still had to start over with this pattern two or three times. Whew ...that made me feel better. Maybe it wasn't just me. Misery loves company and looming defeat craves it!

Two of the reviews were very positive and said they would definitely make this pattern again. But even those writers admitted to making 'minor adjustments' to the pattern and the assembly process. Granted, there were three reviews that I couldn't access with my free membership. But judging from the five reviews I could access, I'm definitely not in the minority in having difficulty with this pattern.

Now I figure I can look at this two ways. My granddaughter's birthday is just two weeks from tomorrow. I have this weekend and next weekend to pass or fail in my attempt to make this for her. Based on those negative reviews, I could convince myself I would be justified in scrapping the whole idea of making her something and just go out and buy her a gift. But instead I've decided that I'm going to take heart from the fact that at least two people claim they were successful in making this project. I will have to dig up a little more determination but I'm going to give it a whirl. I guarantee there will be adjustments to the process and possibly to the end product. If I'm happy with the result, I'll do a follow-up post and show you how it turned out. If I'm not happy with the result, there may be a follow-up post, but no pictures. At that point, I will be out of time and will have to go buy my granddaughter a gift. But at least I will know I gave it my best shot.

Yeoldfurt is off on a mission of his own today. He left for the gun range about thirty minutes ago to test out his latest batch of reloads. I'm sure he'll be doing a post to report the results. He looked five or ten years younger when he waved as he drove off this morning. He had the same kind of 'happy' you'd see on a kid's face if you announced, 'we're going to Disneyworld!' Yup, doing something you love definitely has a rejuvenating effect.

Maultaschen, a Family Tradition

2011-08-21T07:08:00.001-05:00

On my mother's side, our roots are English, German and Russian. On my dad's side, we were mostly Irish. On both sides, we were all about family traditions. My mother loved to cook and she loved most of all to make the traditional dishes that had already been handed down from generation to generation in her family before her. My grandmother learned to make a couple of traditional dishes from her mother-in-law who immigrated to this country with her parents when she was still a small child. One of these dishes is what we grew up calling 'Maldasha' and it was a springtime favorite. It is a simple dish but works best if made in an assembly line with a couple of helpers.

It is basically large strawberry dumplings, swimming in warm cream and garnished with cubed bread that has been sauteed and toasted in butter. Don't let the description fool you. This is a meal, not a dessert. It is a traditional dish in parts of Russia and Germany. Even my dad who was almost pure Irish and strictly a meat-n-potatoes kinda guy loved it. Since it is only made with fresh strawberries, it was a springtime tradition and occasionally again in the summer if we could talk Mom into it.

I recently learned that our name for the dish is a horrible mispronunciation of the word 'maultaschen' which is Volga German. Loosely translated, it means pocket ...which, loosely interpreted, would be a dumpling. In other parts of Germany, it was known as Eben Gläce or Eben Kloese, which means strawberry dumplings. Volga is a part of Russia that was settled by Germans and that's where my great grandmother's parents were when she was a small child. So she grew up calling it Maultaschen. By the time my sisters and I were born and the recipe had been passed down through several generations, the name had been Americanized to Maldasha. If you love strawberries and have an adventurous pallet, please try this. You'll love it!

You will need the following:
Deep kettle to boil water (a water bath canner is perfect)
A large cast iron skillet
A long-handled slotted spoon
Two large serving bowls

4 cups of flour
2 eggs plus 6 egg yolks
1/2 to 2/3 cup hot water.
4 tsp salt (*if using self-rising flour, omit salt)
6-8 cups of strawberries, stemmed and sliced
1/4 cup of sugar
1 cube butter (not margarine or butter substitute)
2 cups of stale bread, cut into cubes
2 pints whole cream

Wash, stem and slice the fresh strawberries. If they are very large, cut them into quarters. Mom used to add a teaspoon of sugar to each dumpling as she made them, but I sweeten the berries before I assemble the dumplings. Just sprinkle about a quarter cup of sugar on top of the strawberries after they're cleaned and toss lightly.

When the berries have been prepared and before you start making the noodle dough, begin heating the water in the kettle. You will need a deep kettle such as your water bath canner. The water should be at least 6-8 inches deep so the dumplings have room to cook and float up, but no closer than 3 inches from the top so the water doesn't spill over as you add and remove dumplings. While the water is heating up, make your noodle dough. My mother doubled the Noodle Dough in her Betty Crocker Cookbook. The ingredients (already doubled) and directions are below.

4 cups of flour
2 eggs plus 6 egg yolks
1/2 to 2/3 cup hot water.
4 tsp salt (*if using self-rising flour, omit salt)

Sift the flour into a large bowl and use the back of a large serving spoon to form a shallow well in the top. Combine the eggs, egg yolks and salt and whip with a fork until just blended. Add the egg/salt mixture to the flour and mix well. Add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all flour is incorporated. Dough should be stiff but easy to roll. It will look very yellow because of all the yolks. Cover with a dishtowel and let it rest for 10 minutes.

After the dough has rested, divide it into four equal parts. Flour your hands, rolling pin and surface generously and roll each of the four parts into a rectangle. You want each rolled out piece to be slightly thicker than a pie crust. If it is too thin, the dumplings will break open during boiling. Too thick and it throws the ratio off ...too much dough, not enough strawberry. The four rolled out rectangles can be laid on a floured surface and covered with a dishtowel to keep from drying out. Take one of the rolled out pieces and cut it into four inch squares.    Use a spoon to put strawberries in the middle of square. Try not to handle the strawberries with your fingers ...if your fingers are damp, you won't be able to pinch the dough together to form a dumpling. Each dumpling should hold two or three tablespoons of strawberries.

Check on your water. It needs to be at a full rolling boil when you put the dumplings in, so adjust the heat up or down as necessary. Put the cube of butter in your cast iron skillet on another burner. Don't turn on the burner yet, you're just getting everything ready before you start cooking the dumplings. Set the stale bread that has been cut into cubes next to the skillet.

By the time you have all the dumplings made from one section of the noodle dough, the water should be ready. Use a slotted spoon to lower five or six of the filled dumpling into the boiling water, one at a time. The dumplings will sink when you put them in the water and float to the top when they are done, usually 5 or 6 minutes. Sometimes, a dumpling will float immediately but I leave it in the water for at least 3 or 4 minutes. As the dumplings come out of the kettle, they are placed in one of the large serving bowls.

When half of the dumplings are done, begin melting a cube of butter in a large cast iron skillet over low heat. While the butter is melting, cut the last two pieces of dough into four inch squares and continue making dumplings.

After the butter is completely melted, put the cubed bread into the skillet and toss to coat each piece. Turn the heat up slightly and toast the bread cubes in the butter. Stir them frequently so they will brown evenly. After the bread cubes are done, put them back in the bowl they came from and set them aside. Turn the heat back down to low on the burner and pour the two pints of whole cream into the hot skillet. Stir frequently to prevent scorching. If the cream is warm and steaming before the last of the dumplings are done, remove the skillet from the burner and put a lid on it to keep the cream warm.

When all of the dumplings are ready, pour the warm cream over the top and garnish with the toasted bread cubes.

Making this dish was a family affair when I was growing up. Mom would set us three girls up in a sort of assembly line to help her in the process. She would make the noodle dough and cut it into squares, then have one of us in charge of adding the sweetened strawberries. Another of us would be pulling the dough over the berries and pinching the edges together to form the dumpling. Mom would lower the dumplings into the boiling water, but one of us girls got the cool job of standing on the wooden three step stool waiting for dumplings to float to the top. Once we had a little momentum going, Mom would melt the butter, brown the stale bread cubes and start warming the cream. The whole process took about an hour but it was so worth the wait.

Our mom passed away in 1989 and, as far as I know, I am the only one in our family who has made this dish since she's been gone. My sisters love it too and have helped me make it once or twice when they were visiting. But I don't think either of them has tried it on their own. All of our children and grandchildren love it too, so I hope one of them will learn to make it and carry on the tradition.

Date Night

2011-08-16T21:28:00.000-05:00

Celebrating the fact that I finally finished my overtime, Yeoldfurt and I had a dinner date in the big city today. He's off on Tuesdays but had an errand in town this afternoon, so he hung around until I got off work and we had a long overdue date.

A good friend of mine owns a used bookstore about a mile from my office, so we met at her store when I got off work. I used to stop by my friend's store once a week for an hour or so but we haven't been able to do that since May because of the overtime. So while she and I sat at the table and caught each other up on all the news and solved all the world's problems, Yeoldfurt meandered around the shelves looking for new reading material. He's a voracious reader. If he wasn't so willing to read used paperbacks, I'm not sure I could afford to keep him in books! My friend and I ran out of things to tell each other after a couple of hours, so we paid for Yeoldfurt's books and went a few miles up the road to The Cracker Barrel.

I love the Cracker Barrel. It's like the restaurant version of a chick flick. There's home-style cooking with everything from manly meat and potato dishes to dainty quiches, an assortment of breads and rolls served gratis with every entree and a great dessert menu. Before and after you eat, you get to wander through a country style mercantile that offers everything from old fashioned candies to beautiful handmade crafts items. It's good food and great shopping all under one roof ...and mama didn't have to cook tonight. Now that's what I'M talkin' about!

Besides splurging on dinner out, it was nice just to spend time with Yeoldfurt when we could both relax. We spend so much of our at home time working on one project or another or running errands these days. With his work schedule and my overtime hours for the past two months, we haven't had very much quality time together. Yup, this was my idea of a great date night.

Passing Judgment

2011-08-04T04:31:00.005-05:00

A friend put up a post several months back on 'armchair preppers' which, when I first read it, struck me as a little judgmental. Who are we to know the true reality of another's circumstances, or their means, or even their actions? But she made some valid observations which I've been pondering ever since. Yeah, sometimes I think things to death and, depending on how deep the subject is, that can take a while.

One thing I've noticed is there are a whole lot of another type of prepper out there ...the loud and proud but standing in the back type. They have a soapbox and they're not afraid to use it. I call them the Loud and Proud Crowd, or LPCs for short. They usually have quite a few followers. Not sure if it's because they all agree with all the viewpoints, or just enjoy the show when the LPC gets wound up.

You know the ones. They have all the answers. They have it all figured out and if everyone would just do what THEY say, this whole runaway train that's in Washington DC would get back on track and we'd be America again. Their own hands always seem to be tied, of course. They are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place ...powerless to follow their own advice because of this or that in their personal circumstance. But I thought the very basic premise of prepping was having a proactive, take-the-bull-by-the-horns approach to life. It's the goose-gander conundrum. What's good for the one seems only to be good for the other if it's convenient to be so.

I know the world is full of all kinds of people and every one of them has their own set of circumstances and their own set of options and limitations based on their abilities or finances or even their geographic location. I know that what Yeoldfurt and I consider a problem might be a total non-issue for others. I know that how we decide to solve a particular problem might be the absolute last route someone else would take in our circumstances. To each his own. No one knows our needs, our abilities, our resources and our limitations better than we do. I try to only offer advice if it's asked and I make a concerted effort not to be offended if the advice is declined or ignored. I firmly believe we are each in charge of our destiny and, as such, we each own full responsibility for our lives and well-being, which brings me to a tangent line of thought ...welfare mentality.

There is an entitlement mentality in this country that started with food stamps and medicaid and has morphed into Earned Income Credit (tax-free cash grants to households under certain income levels), housing assistance (HUD) and daycare assistance (CCMS). A lot of the households taking advantage of these programs are two-income households that are simply living above their means. They use food stamps to buy their food so they can use more of their paycheck to buy what they want ...booze, cigarettes, in some cases illicit drugs. They jump through hoops every three months with government paperwork so they can get subsidies on their rent and, again, have more money to spend on things they want like acrylic nails or fancy cell phones or a new tattoo.

In my opinion, all of this gimme-gimme-gimme-you-owe-me attitude for decades is one of the main reasons we're having government-mandated healthcare shoved down our throats today. Enough of the general population is finally indoctrinated to believe government welfare is the norm. Instead of only applying for assistance where there is real need, many people are applying simply because it's available and they know how. Word gets around, you know?

It's sad for our country because, contrary to popular belief, there is no magical money tree ...the government can only dole out what it first extracts from our pockets. And it's even sadder for the children growing up in homes where welfare has been the norm for several generations. What lofty aspirations can they possibly have?

I am grateful to have grown up in a home where my parents worked hard to provide for our needs, took good care of what we had, and saved for the things the family wanted. We lived within our means every day and when the family could afford to have or do something special, it was that much more special and memorable. I hope Yeoldfurt and I are neither 'armshair preppers' nor fall in with the 'LPC' types. I hope we are just one household doing the best we can to better ourselves and our circumstances with what resources we have available. I hope that if the priorities we set and the decisions we make about how to handle different things differ from those of our readers, that they won't interpret the differences as judgment on our part. It's not my intention to pass judgment on anyone. You do what works for you, we'll do what works for us and we'll both accept full responsibility for the outcome.

More Overtime but Maybe Not This Week

2011-08-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

I was figuring on working the last of my overtime hours this week but that might not be possible. When I got to work on Monday, I only had 9-1/2 hours of overtime left to work and planned on knocking 7-1/2 of them out the first three days this week, then working the final 2 hours on Friday from 3:30 - 5:30. But then about noon on Monday, management sent around an email saying there were 25 hours of overtime up for grabs and asking who might be interested.

I know, I know ...I was whining just last week about how exhausted I was and how much I was looking forward to not working overtime anymore. But time and a half, you know? There are still a lot of things on our wish lists and this opportunity only comes around once a year at the agency. So I'm thinking I should take advantage of it.

I replied to the email that I was willing to work up to 12 additional hours of overtime. All of the overtime hours have to be completed by Friday, August 19th. Since my original 67 hour allotment would be completed by this Friday, that would give me two full weeks to work the additional 12 hours. Working only 6 hours each of those two weeks, it would only be half as grueling as it has been and the extra extra money sure would be nice. I know at least two other people were willing to work additional hours and unless they set very small limits on how much they wanted, I will probably not get the full 12. But extra is extra and I am sure I can find a good use for the money.

That was the plan and it seemed like a good plan until about 2:50 this afternoon when the power went off. Not just in our office but in the whole business complex and we later found out, for several blocks around us. It seems an apartment complex about a quarter mile northeast of us had a fire. It wasn't just a kitchen fire either ...four alarms and seven buildings damaged or destroyed before it was under control. Thankfully, there were only minor injuries, mostly firemen due to heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation, but the property damage is quite extensive. I think the fire had been burning about 30 minutes when the decision was made to cut the power to homes and businesses within a certain radius of the blaze. When the lights were still off at 3:30 and the news was saying the blaze was still out of control, management made the decision to close the office and send everyone home.

The only downside to getting sent home early in the afternoon is that the agency doesn't let you work overtime if there are any 'anomalies' in the regular work schedule that week ...i.e., a holiday, sick time ...or, in this case office shut down due to neighborhood fire and blackout. I already put in 2-1/2 hours of overtime yesterday. If overtime is not approved for this week, that means I'll have to count yesterday's 2-1/2 hours of overtime toward my regular 40 hours and I'll have to go home early Friday. Oh darn. I hope they make an exception and let us put in a little more overtime this week, especially since I just signed up for 12 more hours.

The weather forecast was 107 degrees for a high today with a heat index of 112. I am here to tell you that it was every bit of that at 3:30 this afternoon when I had crawl into my car. I have one of those windshield shade things and I use it faithfully every morning. I also crack all the windows a half inch or so to let as much heat as possible escape during the daytime. But it was still well over 100 degrees in there when I got in. You could see smoke on the horizon behind our building and smell charred wood on the breeze. I'm sure the recent extreme temperatures and the almost constant breeze we've had for the past several weeks were negative factors in how quickly the fire spread. Fires are always devastating to the people whose homes are involved. I hope the reports tomorrow will confirm only minor injuries.

The True Blessings in Life

2011-08-01T04:27:00.005-05:00

Sometimes the child that remains in all of us wants to look around at what we have and where we live and what we're able to do based on our finances, and then use those things to measure whether or not we feel blessed. But the older I get and the more 'stuff' I manage to accumulate, the more I realize things don't matter nearly as much as the people God puts in our lives. Sometimes they are our friends, sometimes they are our relatives but people are the true blessings in life.

Granted, everyone you meet and everyone you happen to be related to won't exactly make your life more enjoyable. At times it's a test of patience just to remain civil to some of these folks. But every once in a while someone comes into your life, and you just can't help but count them a blessing. No, I'm not talking about Yeoldfurt this time, although he is my best friend and an enormous blessing to me. But in this case, I'm talking about my son-in-law, Marc.

He is a very gifted musician who recognizes the true source of his gift and, in turn, uses it in the ministry at their church. He is extremely intelligent but very quiet most of the time and totally unassuming. Then when you least expect it, he says something outlandishly witty. Marc is very protective of his own. He is a caretaker by nature which is a wonderful trait in a husband and father. But he also has a keen sense of humor and a flair for adventure and spontaneity ...a fabulous combination of traits in a soul mate.

Marc is a blessing to my daughter and granddaughter as a husband and father and, in turn, he is a blessing to Yeoldfurt and me who want nothing more than to see them happy and thriving as a family

Today is Marc's 30th birthday ...
the 'BIG THREE OH' as the younger set says ...
as if 30 is a big number.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARC ...
please know that you are a blessing to this family ...
we love you!

Pictures from the beach vacation they took last month in celebration of their third wedding anniversary.

Daddy and Bella... not sure who has who
wrapped tighter around the other's finger.

Mommy and Bella ...
shopping, shopping, shopping!

Bella, just chillin' on the sand.

Let There Be LIGHT

2011-07-31T15:08:00.001-05:00

The house we live in was built in the mid-80's and has a very 80's style galley kitchen with a double bulb fluorescent light fixture centered overhead. For the past several months ...okay, maybe the past year or so ...the kitchen light has been 'moody.' One of three things would happen when you flipped the switch ...bright light immediately flooded the kitchen from the overhead fixture which was ideal, or semi-bright light immediately flooded the kitchen because one of the bulbs seemed to be functioning at about half-capacity, or a dull candle-like glow immediately flooded the kitchen because both bulbs seemed to be functioning at half-capacity. If either of the last two things happened, I learned that just leaving it alone for long enough, the bulbs would suddenly come to life and things would be bright again. As time wore on, the occurrence of the first thing where flipping the switch resulted in immediate bright light from both bulbs became more and more rare. But since it still worked sometimes, and there were always things on my list that were not working at all, I have just lived with it all this time. I've always believed in the rule you don't fix what ain't broke. And in the interest of stretching a dollar, I've tweaked it in recent years to you don't fix what ain't completely broke.

That finally happened a few weeks ago with the kitchen lights. Both bulbs just gave up the ghost completely. With the hours we've both been working and other more pressing commitments on the weekends, it took me a while to get around to replacing them. Honestly, I kind of thought Yeoldfurt would fix them. He's gotten after me from time to time for fixing things or devising a plan to fix things that he's already got on his list. For whatever reason, I just thought replacing the bulbs was on his list somewhere. So several weeks went by with me cooking with just the hood light over the stove and ambient light from the adjacent rooms. It was working okay but I did miss having good lighting. So I decided to drop a hint by taking the plastic light diffuser cover down and washing it one Sunday while he was at work. It's four feet long so I took it outside to clean it up and left it laying across the wheelbarrow by the back door to dry. I thought it would serve as a subtle hint to Yeoldfurt that the kitchen light was ready for new bulbs.

He noticed it when he came home and we talked a little about whether we had any spare bulbs stashed in the garage or one of the shops, but it turns out we didn't so the conversation really didn't go anywhere. I had to run errands today ...get the car inspected, pick up cat/dog/chicken food in town and go to the bank so I decided to stop at the local hardware store and pick up a couple of bulbs. It took me all of ten minutes to snap the old ones out and snap the new ones in. I put the light diffuser cover back on the fixture and flipped the switch. IMMEDIATE BRIGHT LIGHT flooded the kitchen ...oh, it was grand! Such a simple thing but you sure do miss it when it's gone.

I went down the hall to Yeoldfurt's office and said, "High five me, honey ...we have LIGHT in the kitchen again!" Made him laugh. He was in the kitchen a few minutes later and said, "You know ...I would have done that for you weeks ago, but you mentioned you were going to do it and I didn't want to take over your project. You told me once that I have a tendency to take over your projects sometimes and I'm trying to be better." Ugh! Then I laughed and told him I had taken so long to get it done because I thought it was on his project list and didn't want to get in his way ...but that I had gotten tired of cooking in the dark.

Guess we need to work on communication. Subtle hints might work in some scenarios but sometimes a simple question ...'is this on my list or yours?' ...might be the better way to go!

Home Stretch

2011-07-30T12:57:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm embarrassed to admit this but I miscalculated the balance of my remaining allotment of overtime hours. I'm embarrassed because math is not something I usually get tangled up in, especially if the numbers I'm crunching are remotely related to finances. Since I'm getting time-and-a-half for the overtime hours, those numbers are definitely related to my finances!

The only bright spot is that the mistake I made was in my favor. I thought I would finish this week with a balance of 13 hours of overtime left to work and since 12-1/2 is the maximum number they will allow me to work in one week, I thought it would take me another two weeks to finish. But, now that I found my mistake, I realize I have less than 10 hours remaining. That means I can easily finish up next week! I can't tell you what a weight that lifts off my shoulders, just to feel like the end is in sight. I realized my mistake about 9pm Thursday night and confirmed it with the timesheets when I got to work on Friday. Ahhh ...it made my day!

I don't think I'll end up with quite enough in overtime money to paint my little car but it's still a respectable little pile of extra cash we didn't have before. I will be careful, and hopefully wise, in deciding what to spend it on. I could keep saving a few more months and paint the car next spring ...or I could buy one or two of the things off of our wish list. I don't know what I'll do with it yet but I have at least a month to think about because the overtime is paid separately on the first of the month after it's worked. The remaining 9-1/2 hours to be worked are in August, so I won't have the last of my overtime pay until the first of September. Hopefully the extra time to think about it will ensure I make a wise decision.

Though the money will take a while to roll in, the immediate benefit and the one I think I'm most looking forward to is having my afternoons back. On a normal (no overtime, minimal errands) day, I get home about 4:30 in the afternoon. Yeoldfurt leaves for work almost three hours later than I do so he doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7:00. He always sets the thermostat up to 80 degrees when he leaves for work. Since I get home a couple of hours before he does, I have time to cool the house off for him. It also gives me time to take care of a few domestic chores and time to plan and start supper. He normally doesn't want to eat until an hour or so after he's home, but I like to have it ready so he can eat when he wants. He usually calls me when he leaves work to let me know he'll be home in 30-40 minutes. I wait until about 15 minutes before he's due and put a frappacino (his favorite beverage) on ice for him in the fridge. We spend a few minutes catching up with each other and then he goes to his computer for some unwind time before supper.

That life may sound totally boring to some, but we both miss it. The past two months, we've been more like but ships that pass in the night. Communication is minimal and sometimes strained, not by mood but by too many hours apart, too many outside demands, both of us frustrated by feeling stretched too thin. I want to go back to having everything ready for him when he gets home and having enough of a handle on the house and the chores that I'm not embarrassed if someone drops by. In a perfect world, we'd both be at home full-time, just doing what we enjoy and enjoying each other's company. But nothing like two months of long extended hours to make your 'normal' schedule feel like a vacation.

Keeping Up with the Little Things

2011-07-25T19:00:00.008-05:00

Lately, one of the hardest things for me to keep up with seems to be the Inventory List. We've been keeping a list for over a year and you'd think I'd have it down pat by now. Apparently, that's not the case. For the third time this year, I did an all out count this afternoon of what we have in storage. I printed the three page list, went down to storage and physically counted every item on the list. There are 106 line items on the list (excel spreadsheet) and I had to correct the totals on 18 of them. That's roughly a B- for accuracy ...totally unacceptable to me for something as important as food storage. Somehow I need to make the list (and the process of keeping it current and accurate) more user-friendly.

The current format consists of five columns ...a description of the item including the increments of measure for quantity, the goal amount for one year's supply, the amount currently on hand, the amount needed to meet goal, and the date updated. I'm not sure the 'date updated' matters since once it's entered on the list, it doesn't tell you if the date refers to when you added to storage or removed from storage ...why does it matter? It seems to me the amount you have versus the amount you need is what's critical. I also get hung up on quantities because there are so many ways to measure things ...quarts, pints, gallons, pounds, cans (in varying sizes), etc. Coffee, for instance, doesn't seem to be packaged in even pound cans anymore. It's always 2 lbs xx ozs or 3 lbs xx ozs. If you're OCD about accurate numbers like me, you'll make yourself crazy trying to convert all the odd ounces to figure out exactly how much coffee you have on hand. I am tempted to change the line item label from 'Coffee (pounds)' to 'Coffee (BIG cans)' and leave it at that. A 'BIG can' of coffee lasts us almost two months so seven 'BIG cans' is definitely a year's worth or better.

Do those of you who maintain several months to a year's worth of food storage keep an inventory list? If so, how is your list organized and how hard is it to keep current? Do you keep it on computer or hard copy or both and do you keep a duplicate copy as a backup?

I'm looking for a better way and welcome any suggestions.

Twenty Three Doesn't Seem Like Much

2011-07-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

It's not a huge number, depending on what it references. In this case, it's the number of my approved overtime hours I have yet to work. Government jobs are not like public sector jobs in that overtime is not driven by the amount of work that needs to be done. Overtime in a government job is purely budget driven, at least that is the case in Texas where a balanced budget is a requirement of the state constitution.

In the last half of the fiscal year, the state legislature examines the amount of revenue remaining in the current year budget and doles out overtime allotments according to the needs of the various state agencies. It's then up to the individual agencies to dole out the hours to each office according to specific needs projects proposed by their managers. I'm not sure if it works this way with all state agencies, but in the branch I work for, a total number of overtime hours are alloted to each office and workers who are at all interested in working overtime sign up for the hours. Some workers sign up for a limited number of hours and others, like myself, sign up for as many as they will give me. After all the 'limited hours' requests are subtracted, the remaining hours are divided among the 'as many as you'll give me' group. I was initially authorized for 55 hours to be worked between June 6th and August 19th. You could work up to 12-1/2 hours of overtime per week and up to 6 hours on certain Saturdays but you had to complete whatever hours you signed up for by August 19th. If you took any sick leave or vacation time or there was a holiday in any week, you could not earn overtime that week. So you had to pay attention to how many hours you committed to and you had to be serious about that commitment or risk not being allowed to work overtime the next year.

Two weeks ago, a few workers dropped out and reneged on their overtime commitments and the hours they reneged on were up for grabs. Again, some of my co-workers opted for a limited number of the newly available hours and some of us opted for as many as they would give us. I ended up with 12 more hours. So instead of winding down and looking forward to a regular 40-hour week beginning in August, I had to step up the pace a bit to insure I got all my hours worked by the August 19th deadline. I worked 10-1/2 hours last week, which leaves me a balance of 23 hours yet to be worked and four weeks in which to work them. I could push hard for the next two weeks and have only a few hours to work the third week but I'm tired. I'm tired physically from the extra hours, I'm drained mentally from the long days and I'm worn out emotionally from seeing everything else in my life falling off schedule, either slightly or drastically.

I could relax a little, back my schedule down to just six hours of overtime per week and take the whole four weeks to finish. But if something came up during one of those weeks ...like missing a day due to illness or a personal emergency of some kind causing me to take a day of leave ...I would lose the opportunity to work overtime that week and might not be able to finish all my hours. I'm a procrastinator about some things, but never about work so I will probably keep up the current pace and just get it done as soon as possible.

Yeoldfurt has been a good sport through all this. He is patient and uncomplaining about whatever falls off schedule at home and has pitched in more than once to take up the slack on some chores that are usually mine to take care of. In appreciation, the one thing I make sure doesn't fall off schedule is meals. Neither he nor the critters have missed any and we've only been out to eat three times since I started the overtime. He'll come home from work this evening to a clean house, a cold Frappacino on ice and a dinner of barbecued pork ribs, potato pancakes and green beans. I even managed to catch up the laundry. It's been a productive day.

Oh Boy, a Blog Meet!

2011-07-13T05:03:00.000-05:00

There were only four of us, with three blogs represented, but it's a start, right?

Redneck's oldest daughter will be a freshman at TAMU this fall and, she and her folks made the first of many trips out this way getting her set up and settled in for the fall semester. Their trip happened to fall on one of Yeoldfurt's days off, so we met them for dinner yesterday at Boondock's in Somerville. The guys both ordered the all-you-can-eat catfish and kept the waitress hopping. Mrs Redneck went for the shrimp and I had my usual chicken fried steak. She and I both ended up with to-go boxes which, for me, just means my lunch today will be extra enjoyable.

We parted ways about 8:30 and headed home to feed the horses and bed down the chickens. It was dark-thirty by the time we rolled into the driveway and Yeoldfurt headed down to the chicken coop while I went up to the house to start feeding horses. The old adage about 'going to bed with the chickens' has some truth to it ...Yeoldfurt found the hens all gathered around the cedar tree outside the coop, having already bedded themselves down for the night. Like sleepy-eyed toddlers, the four younger pullets trundled off to their private quarters at the back of the coop and promptly tucked themselves in their usual corner for the night. But two of the three older hens had to be picked up and put in the coop. They were roosting on some cinderblocks at the base of the tree only two feet or so from the coop. But as far as they were concerned, they had roosted for the night and they weren't moving a feather on their own. Like typical adolescents though, once wakened from their sleep, they were ravenous and went straight to the feeders.

I finished with the horses just a few minutes after Yeoldfurt finished with the chickens. We were done with chores and in the house by 9:45. We both work the rest of the week and I start back on overtime, so it didn't take long for us to call it a night either.

We had a good time yesterday, I'm glad we got the opportunity to meet these folks. When you've been following someone's blog for a year or so, you start to feel like you know them. You get to know their opinions and attitudes when you read their own posts and I think reading their comments gives you a glimpse of their character. What a person chooses to post gives you an idea of what's important to them, what they think about from day to day. But how they respond to what's said to them, especially in regard to one of their posts, gives you an idea about their character. My impression just from being a follower of Modern Day Redneck has been that they are a salt-of-the-earth family. Now that I've met them, I know I was right. It's too bad they live four hours away, but with their daughter just starting as a Freshman at TAMU this fall, I know they'll be down this way fairly often for at least the next four years. I don't think you have too many friends. And when you meet people for the first time and end up just talking for three hours, you can be pretty sure you have some common ground.

Update on Vacuum Sealing

2011-07-10T22:05:00.002-05:00

I brought all my beans and rice up from food storage this afternoon, divided them into meal-sized portions and vacuum sealed them in clean canning jars. It was a little work washing and drying all the jars but it was worth it because now instead of knowing I have so many pounds of whatever kind of dried beans or so many pounds of rice in storage, I now know how many meals I have of those things in storage.

Whether quarts or pints, I only filled each jar half full of whatever I was putting in it because when I cook them this fall and winter, the amount that's in the jar now will still fit in the jar after it's cooked. It was suggested to me to fill the jars completely before sealing to minimize how many jars I had to wash and dry and make more efficient use of the storage space in the jar. But right now it's more important to me to know how many meals I can get out of what I have stored. Filling the jars with only as much as they would hold after the contents are cooked gives me a better idea of whether my stores are adequate.

I lost a whole 8-pound bag of pinto beans in this process. A good number of the beans in the bag were visibly moldy and they smelled 'off' ...so they all went to the compost pile. Losing 8 pounds of anything is a shame, but it just convinces me all the more that vacuum sealed in glass containers is the way to go.

It's just the two of us here most of the time, so a quart jar of red beans & rice is a meal. Filling the quart jar only half-full, each one ended up with 1-1/3 cups of Red Beans and 2/3 cup of rice. I ended up with 19 quarts which translates to 19 meals for us. Fresh chopped onion and Cajun spices will be added when I cook the red beans and rice so that when I pressure can them, they will be ready to eat. When I serve one for dinner, I'll only need to cook a little sausage and cornbread and Yeoldfurt will be happy.

Pintos and great northern beans were sealed in pint jars because they will be consumed as side dishes more than full meals. I ended up with 24 pints of those or 24 meals worth. Once all the beans were in jars, I filled quart and pint jars all the way to the top with what was left of the rice. I ended up with 7 quarts and 16 pints. Served as a side dish, that much rice translates to 60 meals worth for us.

The vacuum sealer attachment to the Foodsaver worked very well with the wide-mouth jars ...a success every time. When I ran out of clean wide-mouth jars and tried to seal the regular-mouth jars, I had a little trouble at first but not that much. I had one jar that seemed to seal but then 'popped' a few minutes later and was a failure. When I removed the loose lid, I could see rice powder residue on the gasket ...so it was my own fault. I got a clean lid and it sealed, no problem. I did have to double-load when doing the regular-mouth jars. I put one lid on the jar and then set a second lid on top of it, then put the vacuum sealer over the jar. Double-loaded like that, when I removed the vacuum sealer, the bottom lid stayed with the jar and the second lid was still in the vacuum sealer. Not a big deal.

This method of storage won't be for everyone but considering the 8 pounds of Pinto Beans I had to throw in the compost pile today, I would say it's an improvement for us. It was worth the effort as far as I'm concerned. When I'm ready to start pressure canning again this fall, I can bring up only as many jars as I want to do that day. My pressure canner will hold 7 quarts, so if I only want to process one batch, that's all I will be bringing up from storage.

Improving the Process

2011-07-06T06:11:00.000-05:00

Spare time is as hard to come by as spare change, so whenever I figure out a way to make a necessary chore more efficient, I get happy. Since I'm very much a rookie at most of this food preservation stuff, just about everything is 'new to me' so I tend to get happy a lot these days.

We have had issues in the past with things 'hatching' in our rice and I know the same thing can happen with beans. The bug larvae are already present in the rice and beans before it's harvested and, unless you do something to prevent it, they hatch later. You can freeze the product for several days when you first bring it home but we don't have a separate freezer so finding space to do that would be an issue. Storing the product in an oxygen-free container is a way to suffocate the larvae but since we store much more than we can use at one time, we would have to constantly re-seal and remove the oxygen. So I have been searching for an easy and efficient way to overcome the problem.

I was reading a post recently at my friend, Frugal Faulein's blog where she was talking about processing just one or two jars at a time of a new recipe to make sure it's a winner with your family. Her suggestion was to also process some dried beans at the same time to make good use the extra space in the canner. That got me to thinking about all the dried beans and rice down in storage that I need to process. Right now, we have about 30 pounds of dried beans and at least 15 pounds of rice in storage that I want to process in pint and quart jars for ready to eat meals. Then I thought about how hot it is and started dreading heating up the kitchen with a 90-minute batch of canned food in the processor. I haven't pulled the pressure canner off the shelf yet this year. There's just something about triple digit heat that makes me not want to think about canning.

That's when I remembered the gadget we bought from Foodsaver to vacuum seal canning jars.

This weekend, I will be filling dry sterilized jars half full with beans, rice, or a combination of beans and rice, then vacuum seal them for processing this fall when the weather is cooler. Sealed in clean glass jars, the food will be safe from varmints of any kind and with all of the oxygen removed, they will stay fresh for much longer ...and, as an added bonus ...nothing will be able to hatch!

When I am ready to pressure can them in a few months, I will open however many jars I want to process, then rinse, soak and pre-boil the contents in one big batch. The last fifteen minutes that the beans are boiling, the lids and rings will be boiling in a separate pot of water. That process will take about an hour and a half which is just enough time for me to run the jars through the sterilization cycle on my dishwasher. By the time the beans have boiled for one hour, the sterilized jars will be just cool enough to handle.

I can move the pot of beans off to a cool burner and put the pressure canner on the hot burner to start heating up. The lid will be off and the rack and four inches of water will be in the bottom. While the water in the canner is heating up, I would place a couple of rings of fresh onion and whatever seasonings I want to use in the bottom of each jar, and then add hot beans, leaving the recommended one inch of headspace. Each rim will be wiped carefully, the lids and rings placed on the jars, then the jars go into the canner.

Following the specific directions for my canner, the pint jars will be processed for 75 minutes and quart jars will be processed for 90 minutes. Start to finish, it should take about three hours to prepare, pre-boil, pack and process the beans ...a little less if I'm processing pints, a little more if I'm processing quarts. But during the hour the beans are pre-boiling and the 75 to 90 minutes that they're processing, I will be free to go do other things.

This may not be a new idea at all to you canning experts out there. But as I said, I'm still a rookie at food preservation and time is one of the scarcest commodities of all around here. Efficient ways to store both food and canning jars is another issue I wrestle with from time to time. So having figured out a way to improve in both areas, I am already getting happy.

Few Things ...

2011-07-04T13:10:00.000-05:00

...can dishevel a house quicker or more thoroughly than two grandsons descending for a whirlwind weekend visit. They were only here three days and two nights but the only room that looks good this morning is the room they slept in because ...GOOD BOYS that they are, they made their beds and picked up their room every morning before wandering out to the kitchen for breakfast. They rode the horses several times, made a serious dent in Yeoldfurt's stash of 22 cartridges, and ate just about everything that wasn't nailed down. If we are able to arrange for a week long visit in the future, I can see we're going to have to stock up a lot more than we did for this short visit!

The oldest is a natural with a rifle, nailing almost every target he went after. He has outgrown the Cricket 22 we bought a couple of years ago and was shooting my singleshot bolt action that I inherited from my dad. That rifle has been through three generations so far and is now in the hands of the fourth.

The youngest is eager to learn and will be as good as his brother with a little practice. Both boys are right-handed but left-eye dominant. The oldest has figured this out and shoots left-handed to give himself a better aim through the sights. The youngest still insists he has to shoot right-handed which means he throws his head way to the right trying to get his left eye lined up with the sights. He'll figure it out and when he does, he'll be a crack shot like his brother.

The youngest is my can't-get-enough-saddle-time-cowboy right now. Even the triple digit temperatures didn't keep him from wanting to ride at least once every day. He's fearless regardless of the size of the horse he's on and I can see I'm going to have to watch what I let him see me do on the horses. We were riding separate horses the first evening and he saw me kick my feet out of the stirrups and jump off when I wanted to get down. He figured that's the way it's done so off he jumped. I turned around just in time to see him land on his feet and grin at me. He's barely three feet tall and the saddle he was sitting was five feet off the ground. He must have noticed the panicked look on my face and said, 'What?' Silly boy ...I'll have to watch what I do when he's looking.

The youngest is still lightweight enough for our kid-horse, Katie, to pack around. I am right there with him for moral support and to get the horse saddled up but Katie is the one teaching the youngun to ride. She has a bum knee now so we don't let anyone over 50 pounds on her back. Katie is in hog heaven with a kid on her back. That horse would positively have her feelings hurt if kids are around she didn't get ridden and, believe me, there's nothing more pitiful than watching a 1000-pound horse pout! The oldest grandson and our grand niece both learned to ride on Katie and we still have the 9 month old granddaughter coming up through the ranks. But after all the grandkids are too heavy for her, we may have to borrow some pint-size neighbor kids to keep Katie feeling useful.

And this is how I found the boys every morning. Worn out from the activities the day before, resting up for whatever the new day would bring. Short visit, but good times.

Back to the Real World Tomorrow

2011-06-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Vacation is over after today, it's back to the grindstone tomorrow morning. I accomplished most of what I hoped to over the past few days. Several small indoor projects are complete, I got the raised bed weeded and the yard mowed today and ran the last of the errands for the week. In retrospect, I've been pretty darn busy these three 'vacation' days. Spending a mere eight hours at my desk job tomorrow might actually feel like a walk in the park by comparison. That feeling may wear off after the first day though. Good thing for me there are only two work days left this week and then it's a three-day holiday weekend.

I added a couple of new sites to my blog roll recently. There's Stephen at Standing Outside Looking In and BlueEyedBaby at I Wish On Shooting Stars who just happens to be Redneck's daughter. For a young lady just out of high school, this girl has got a real good head on her shoulders. These are all good folks, worth checking out. We all tend to collect like-minded people on our blog rolls. Maybe on some level, we're all seeking confirmation for our own views. But new folks bring new perspectives even if they hold the same or similar opinions as our own. I hope you'll check them out.

In Our Backyard

2011-06-28T21:48:00.001-05:00

We spend a lot of time on the patio in the evening during the spring and summer. It faces northwest and offers a great view of some spectacular sunsets. There is a small Crepe Myrtle tree next to the patio that is a favorite nesting site for a pair of cardinals. We noticed babies in the nest in May of this year, then only a week or two later, they just disappeared. We didn't see the parents around either and were afraid they had abandoned the nest because something got the babies. But a week or two later, we noticed the parents were back. So I decided to do some research on cardinals.

I found out they raise two or three sets of babies every year and always nest within a mile of where they themselves had been born. The babies leave the nest at only 14 days old, but have very poor flying skills at that age. They usually fly from the nest to the ground or a low shrub and rest for several hours before trying again. Within a few days, they gain their strength and skill to fly back up to the tree tops. Until then, their parents watch over them, providing food and encouragement and as much protection as possible.

Yesterday when I walked past the little tree by the patio, I noticed the male cardinal flitting nervously from the tree to the roof to the ground and back again. Cardinals have a very distinct call, a sharp chirp. The male was on the roof, chirping away and I was sure I heard a chirp on the ground too. I looked and on one of the lowest branches of a volunteer under the little tree was this tiny little baby cardinal. When Yeoldfurt came over to see what I was looking at, we found the other one on the ground under the tree. Though they are both more fuzz than feathers at this stage, I was pretty sure one was a male and one was a female. The one that was on the branch had fuzz on top of his head that was distinctly pointy on top, like a male cardinal. The other baby just had smooth fuzz on top, probably a female.

We worried about them being out of the nest overnight, but I told Yeoldfurt what I had read about the parents watching over them and we decided to let nature take its course. This morning, I went out to check and found both of the babies up on a low branch about a foot off the ground. Our fifteen year old cat, Charley, hangs out in the backyard but her hunting instincts have never been keen. This cat used to roll over on her back, look at you upside down and beg for food if she liked what you had. But chasing food had never been in her repertoire. She would barely chase a toy, even when she was a kitten. Too much work. Now that she's older, she's more lazy than ever, so we didn't think she would be a threat to the babies.

Charley was sitting on a plastic step this morning about fifteen feet from where the babies sat on the low branches. As I stood there admiring the babies, the female suddenly took off and flew toward the yard. Her trajectory took her inches from Charley's nose and she landed on the ground about fifteen feet beyond Charley. I was startled and amazed and happy to see the little fuzzball take flight, but then I saw the look on Charley's face. Apparently, her hunting instincts were aroused, possibly for the first time in her life. Her eyes were huge, her ears were pricked and she was crouched in front with her butt slightly elevated. Her tail whipped once to the right, then once to the left and just as I yelled, "Charley, NO!!!" she launched.

I launched a split second behind her but before I could reach her, she was on top of the little fuzzball. Fortunately for the baby bird, Charley had been an indoor cat the first ten years of her life and due to a disagreement she and I had about her using my pool table for a scratching post, she no longer has front claws. That fact didn't do much to reduce the terror the little fuzzball was feeling though. As I grabbed Charley by the scruff, I was aware of the baby's frantic chirps from below me and the parent's angry chirps behind me.

PETA might be after me for this but all I was thinking of was the baby bird. I grabbed Charley by the scruff of the neck with my left hand and by the scruff of her butt with my right hand and tossed her to the side. It was a gentle toss, it really was ...more of a lob, really. My only motive was to save the baby bird, not hurt the cat ...I swear.

As soon as I lifted Charley off the ground, the little baby bird was free but didn't move. I wasn't sure if it was hurt or just scared but I didn't have time to investigate because Charley, being a cat, had landed on her feet about ten feet away and was making a beeline back. I intercepted her in the same double scruff fashion and carried her across the yard to the garage. I deposited her inside and shut the door. I knew and she knew that she wasn't trapped in the garage. We keep one of the overhead doors open about six inches so the cats can come and go, but I knew it would take her some time to think of the other door and make her way to the backyard again.

As soon as I shut the door behind Charley, I looked back to check on the baby bird and was relieved to see it half-fluttering, half-hopping across the yard in the opposite direction. Its two parents were doing their best to herd it to safety. One of them would land a few feet in front of the baby as if to show it the way, and the other was diving and chirping from behind, as if trying to hurry it up.

Charley made her way to the backyard again sooner than I expected, but by then both babies were safely perched on the chain link fence, a good ways from where all the drama had started. Charley being new to the role of predator seemed fixated on the spot where she landed on the baby bird the first time. She seemed to know she had missed out on something, but she wasn't quite sure what ...and she sure didn't seem to have any idea where that something might be now.

Mini-Vacation

2011-06-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

I'm off today, tomorrow and Wednesday but the 'To Do List' is long. There are only two projects on the agenda today ...really only one project but it needs to be done in two different rooms. The guestroom and my office are in desperate need of a complete overhaul. De-junking, deep-cleaning and reorganizing. None of that sounds like fun to me, but it has to be done.

The guestroom hasn't been occupied by an actual guest in a long time, so the two beds have slowly accumulated 'stuff' that just needs to find a home. When I re-vamped our bedroom a couple of months ago, the guestroom became a handy place to move things while I painted. Somehow after the painting project was done, there were still a lot of things laying around the guestroom. Exhaustion or my lazy streak won out and I just closed the door and forgot about it ...until recently. Now our grandsons are coming to visit 4th of July weekend and the guestroom is in a shambles! I pick them up Friday after work, so this project is a priority.

The other room to be overhauled is my office. Just another catch-all space in the house. We refer to it as my office, but it's also my sewing machine and where we set up the dehydrator. It was originally intended as a formal dining room by the couple that built this house and there is a wonderful walk-in pantry in one corner. It's wonderful in that it's 5 feet deep by 6 feet wide, with four 12-inch deep shelves on three of the walls. Great for storing all kinds of things ...a nightmare if the shelves are full but disorganized. Unfortunately, that's how I would have to describe it right now ...a disorganized nightmare.   My hope is to designate each of the three walls for a specific function. One wall would hold all of my equipment such as the two canners, the Foodsaver, canning jars/lids, and various empty plastics that I can use for food storage. Another wall would would hold all of my sewing and craft materials. The third wall would become the short term food storage.

Right now, we keep a only few days worth of staples in the kitchen cupboards because space is limited in the kitchen. The rest is kept in the food storage area we built in the shed down the hill. I make an average of three trips to retrieve this or that from food storage during the week. That doesn't sound like a lot of hassle but there are days when my feet are screaming and one more trip down the hill would just do me in. So my hope is to designate about a third of this walk-in pantry for it's intended purpose ...a pantry. I would stock these shelves with enough of our most commonly used staples to last about a month. What gets put on the pantry shelves would come from what's already in storage in the shed. I would restock it about once a month, again pulling from the food storage in the shed. New groceries brought into the house would get date marked and put in storage in the shed so we would be able to keep everything rotated. It will sure make things easier on me for those days when I just can't make it down the hill but it will also ultimately make more space in storage so we could possibly expand our current 12-month by at least an extra month.

Tomorrow ...Day Two of this Mini-Vacation ...I'll be gone all day. I need to get the oil changed in two vehicles and get an inspection on one of them. That may not seem like a lot but it will pretty much take the whole day because of logistics. When Yeoldfurt leaves for work tomorrow morning, I'll follow him in another vehicle. We'll leave one of them off at the shop when they open at 8:00 and I'll use the other one to drive Yeoldfurt the rest of the way in to his job. It's another 20 miles so it will take me an hour or so to drop him off and get back to the shop. Hopefully by then, the first vehicle will be done and I can leave them the second vehicle. The second one will take longer because there's a burned out tail light to be replaced and then the inspection. The shop, like anywhere else, tends to get busier as the day wears on. By the time I drop the second vehicle off, half a dozen other customers may already be ahead of me in line. So I'll a few hours hanging out at the courthouse with my old work buddies until the second one is done.

In other words, I will be totally not productive, just goofing off and killing time as far as projects around the house go. When the second vehicle is ready, I'll go pay the bill and pick up both sets of keys, then head off in the direction of Yeoldfurt's job. It will probably be two or three hours before he gets off, but I there are plenty of places to kill time in that neck of the woods too.

Yard work is the big project for Wednesday.  The three inches of rain we got last week has really transformed things. Our yard has been brown and crunchy for weeks but is now green and growing. I hope to get the yard mowed, the raised bed weeded and the shed branches down to the burn pile. I much prefer yard work to house work, which is why I have to save the yard work for last. One thing would lead to another and I would never get around to the house work. So I don't dare start the yard work unless and until both of my indoor projects are done.

So far, it's not sounding much like a vacation, is it? But I had my 'play time' earlier this weekend. While Yeoldfurt was off at the blog shoot in Lockhart, I was driving to San Antonio for an overnight with my daughter. First things first, I spent some serious cuddle time with my little granddaughter, Bella, Saturday morning. She and her mom had a commitment that afternoon and I had a wedding to attend so it was only a few hours, but delightful for me. The bride at the wedding I attended is the daughter of one of my best friends. Her mom and I have known each other for more than 30 years and I was glad I was able to share that moment with her. It was a lot of 'special' to fit into one day.

My daughter is in the choir and her husband plays bass in the Praise Band at their church, so they always go early and attend both services on Sundays. I went to the early service and kept Bella with me instead of putting her in the nursery ...a little extra cuddle time for Grandma. I passed Bella back to her parents and said my goodbyes after the early service, then drove 30 miles out to Boerne to visit another dear friend. I've only known this lady for a few years, but it seems like we were friends as soon as we met. She happens to be my son-in-law's grandmother which is how we met. That makes us 'family' now too, a double blessing for me.

My desk at work will be knee-deep when I get back on Thursday but I'm glad I took this time off. Even if I only spend two of the five days playing, getting a few things is its own reward.

Making Popcorn Chicken

2011-06-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

Sorry, this is not a recipe post for that delectable bits of fried chicken. This is about training chickens.

Can you really 'train' a chicken? Probably not. That would require a bit more brain power than the little peckers have at their disposal. But it's pretty easy to condition them because they have one big driving motivation in life ...FOOD. If they're awake and not laying an egg or 'making more chickens' they're scratching around for food. They will taste test anything. Since you have probably been scattering food for them since they were fluffy yellow chicks, they long ago figured out that whatever drops from your hand is probably food.

With the shortened daylight hours during winter, our hens didn't get as much yard time as they had become accustomed to, certainly not as much as they wanted. Most days, Yeoldfurt let them out mid- to late-morning before he left for work and I was home in time to put them back up before dark. On days when I knew I would be getting home after dark, they had to stay cooped up all day and they didn't like it. They must have some brain power because they always remembered being cooped up for the day and were always twice as hard to run back into the coop for a day or two afterward.

Herding chickens is probably easier than herding cats, but not by much. We only had three hens last winter. Two of them hang together and they're usually fairly easy. But one of them is a rebel and always makes a break at the last minute. Then the trick becomes can you time the opening of the door just right so that the wayward hen goes IN and the other two STAY in. Not always easy. After a full day at work, a long commute and plenty of other chores on the list, chasing chickens is not my idea of fun. So I came up with a plan.

I happen to a have a 28 count box of microwave popcorn that we bought at Sam's Club years ago. It's so far out of date, I am surprised it still pops ...but it does. My microwave usually does a very good job on the microwaveable popcorn but every once in a while a bag gets scorched. I am pretty sure it's because the popcorn is out of date and stale, parts of it are probably dried out. But the hens didn't care. If you shook a bag of popcorn, all three of them came running. This year, we added four new pullets. Herding seven hens is probably a little more challenging than herding three ...so the popcorn trick should come in handy this winter.

For Simplicity Sake

2011-06-11T20:42:00.003-05:00

The picture you see at the top of this blog is of a refrigerator magnet that Yeoldfurt brought me after one of his business trips. It's a cartoon caricature of a horse 'exiting Stage Left' as it were, with a female holding on for dear life at the end of the lead rope. She looks surprisingly calm, even happy, considering the predicament she seems to be in. The words overlaying the picture are 'Woman Who Runs With Horses.' Yeoldfurt brought it home to me and said he thought of me when he saw it. When I made those words the name on my blog, I did not realize they would be my 'handle' every time I left a comment anywhere. I know it's a mouthful. Occasionally, people who respond to my comments address me as 'Woman' but most go with "WWRWH.' Believe me, I know it's a mouthful.

So tonight, I decided to simplify things ...for all of us. I have made many blog friends in the two years I've been blogging and in those circles, I am known as HossBoss, or simply HB. I'm not sure when that happened or who gave me the name ...heck, it might even have been me! Maybe it was when we started going into chat in the early days and I used it as a handle ...even I find WomanWhoRunsWithHorses a bit cumbersome to type out! But the name 'HossBoss' stuck. Tonight, I decided to make it official and have changed it on my blogger account. So if any of you see 'HossBoss' leaving comments on your posts ...it's just me, WWRWH!

Road Weary

2011-05-22T21:10:00.000-05:00

I've been lagging worse than usual about posting lately. But it's been a little rough the past couple of weeks, emotionally and physically. I drove over 500 extra miles so far this month. I took a day off work to attend a funeral out of town which accounted for 320 miles roundtrip. Ten days later, I drove 240 miles roundtrip to attend a wedding out of town. You could say there have been some real ups and some real downs this month. But the road trips along with my regular 80 mile round-trip commute to work have rendered me and my little car a bit road weary.

The funeral was for the son of a friend of mine. I didn't know him well, but he was my son-in-law's uncle and I am good friends with his mother ...so I wanted to pay my respects. I only met him once about a year ago, but he was one of those people that puts everyone at ease. He was quiet and unassuming but his smile was warm and genuine and when he laughed, you couldn't help but laugh with him. He was a good man and, judging from the crowd of people at his memorial service, he will be sorely missed.

The wedding was for my nephew who has sometimes taken the scenic route through life and who is personally responsible for many of the gray hairs on his mother's head ...and mine! When you have known someone all their life, literally from birth, it's hard to notice sometimes when you stop seeing them as a child and, for the first time, see them as grown. When my nephew and his beautiful bride exchanged their vows this afternoon, I realized what a fine man he had grown to be. She brings three children to the marriage and my nephew brings one, but if you could see these six people together ...you would never know they were a blended family. It was a beautiful ceremony.

I had a surprise visit from one of my nieces this afternoon and we had a little drama involving a snake, a pistol and some popcorn which I fully intended to post about ...but I'm too tired tonight. I'll start a draft so I don't forget and fill you in on the details in a day or two. Just suffice to say that, after today, my niece probably sees me in a little different light. LOL

Manisagna is Born!

2011-05-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

Yeoldfurt has been under the weather since Saturday and has mostly had just chicken noodle soup for supper these past few days. He's finally on the mend and ready for some real food again, so I asked him this morning if he'd like me to make manicotti. He loves manicotti so I got an enthusiastic thumbs up at the suggestion. After all, it's comprised of his three all time favorite food groups ...meat, cheese and pasta!

When I got home this afternoon, I started digging through the kitchen. Other than angel hair, spaghetti, flat noodles and elbow macaroni, we don't stock a twelve-month supply of pastas. I could have sworn I bought a box of manicotti pasta last week but it was nowhere to be found. All I had were four manicotti shells. What to do??

While I was digging for the missing box of manicotti, I came across a few extra lasagna noodles in a ziploc bag. Then I had an idea. Manicotti (the way I make it) and lasagna are SO similar ...why not combine them into one dish? And that's how Manisagna came to be ....

I put a layer of meat sauce in the bottom of a 7 x 12 rectangular baking dish. At one end, I put my four little manicotti shells stuffed with the soft cheese, parmesan and egg mixture. At the other end, I layered lasagna noodles over the sauce, followed by the soft cheese/egg mixture, followed by shredded mozzarella. It took three layers on the lasagna side to make it the same height as the manicotti side. Then I poured the remaining sauce evenly over the top and covered the whole thing with a final layer of shredded mozzarella. It's been in the oven at 350 degrees for about ten minutes now and it's already smelling good. I'll make a tossed salad and in another hour or so, we'll sit down to a nice supper.

While we're on the subject of baked pasta dishes, I never boil my pasta before assembling the dish. I used to and I remember what a headache it was to get the pasta cooked perfectly, then get it cool enough to handle but still hot enough not to stick together. Not easy.

I don't remember how I discovered this, but somewhere along the way I started assembling lasagna with uncooked pasta. It was SO much easier to spread the soft cheese/egg mixture evenly on the dry lasagna noodles. Literally every aspect of the assembly process was easier. The first time I did it, I assembled the layers to make lasagna, then covered it and left it in the refrigerator over night. I thought the pasta would absorb some of the juices overnight and soften up. Then I set it on the counter for 30 minutes the next day to come to room temperature, then baked it at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, as normal. It was wonderful. Later on, I discovered leaving it overnight in the refrigerator was not a necessary step. So now I just assemble and put it in the oven and it always comes out fine.

These days you can buy 'oven ready' lasagna noodles in the grocery stores. They are shaped slightly different and have shallow ridges (like Ruffles) running the long way on the noodles and they are about twice the price of 'normal' lasagna noodles. But the ingredients lists are exactly the same. What a rip-off, huh?

So if you're still boiling the noodles when you make lasagna, please try this method next time you make lasagna. You may be skeptical the first time, but you'll be a believer after you try it. And if you think spreading soft cheese/egg mixture is easier on unboiled lasagna noodles, just wait until you see how much easier it is to stuff the manicotti when it's not pre-boiled.

Fair Warning

2011-05-08T13:42:00.000-05:00

Be wary any time you contemplate the purchase of anything where the words 'easy to install' are boldly printed on the packaging and instructions. Just know going in that some key component will be left off of the list of items contained in the package, or some critical step in the installation process will be skimmed over in the instructions. It's a given.

In the days before the Internet, you were left to your imagination and ingenuity to work around these little problems. At least now there is usually a web address listed somewhere on the packaging and, if you're fortunate, the web address will have additional instructions and sometimes a video demonstration of the installation process. If you're not so fortunate, well ...you can always fall back on your imagination and ingenuity.

I purchased two sets of 'easy to install' roman shades for our living room last week. I was initially impressed with the instructions because they included a paper template you could cut out and tape to the wall in order to mark the screw holes precisely for the hardware. I've used homemade paper templates for such tasks for years and was impressed to see a manufacturer include one with the instructions. I read the instructions. Seemed reasonably clear. English might not have been the first language of the person that wrote these instructions, but other than a couple grammatical errors, the steps seemed logical and fairly clear.

The instructions started with a section titled 'Carton Components' which clearly listed each item, the quantity included and a diagram for easy identification. The items listed were 2 end caps, 2 mounting brackets, 1 shade assembly, 6 screws, 6 drywall anchors, 1 wand clip, and 1 wand. Yup, all there.

There was a separate section titled 'Additional Tools Needed' which listed only three items ...a Phillips screw driver, power drill and tape measure. So far, so good. I gather my tools and move on to the actual instructions.

Step one: "Slide end of wand assembly over spring in shade assembly. Tighten the screw one quarter turn past when it stops." Okay...

First thing I notice is the screw is tiny ...and black ...impossible to actually see if it's a slot or a Phillips head. Use the old 'touch and feel' method ...definitely not a slot. Go get smallest Phillips screw driver I own (think eyeglass repair) and proceed to turn screw ...and turn and turn and turn some more. Screw is turning, not tightening. Grrr.

Re-read instructions. No clues there. Re-read packaging material. A-ha ...a web address. Go to computer and log onto website. Oh good, there's a link for a five minute installation video ...this is encouraging. If the 'how to' video is only five minutes, how hard can this be? Now we might get somewhere. The first two minutes of the video is a sales pitch on all the virtues of their product. Yeah, yeah, yeah ...get to the installation part!

And there it is. The missing piece of the puzzle. She is using an Allen wrench to tighten the screw on the rod assembly ...and she refers to it as 'included' in the packaging. What?! What wrench? I pause the video and go back to dig through the packaging. It wasn't with all the other hardware, clips and brackets. And then I see it ....taped discretely to the bottom edge of the shade. All the other small components ...screws, drywall anchors, clips and caps had been packaged separately in a little cardboard box that was plenty big enough to hold the wrench too. Why they taped it to the bottom of the shade, I will never know.

Mission finally accomplished and I guess all's well that ends well. It just baffles me though that in an age where product labeling is so highly regulated in all other areas, there are apparently no minimal guidelines a company has to follow before they are allowed to use the words 'EASY TO INSTALL' on their products.

Chicken ... Is It What's for Dinner?

2011-05-01T16:40:00.000-05:00

Soon and very soon, two of our three hens will be on the menu if they don't start laying again. All three of them are Production Reds which are a cross on the Rhode Island Red and are supposedly very good layers. We bought them as day old chicks in April of 2009. They started producing eggs at about five months of age and were very consistent layers for the first year, not even slacking up for winter in 2009. We were getting eighteen to twenty-one eggs a week, every week the first twelve months. But all three of them started slacking off in December of 2010 and production dropped down to a total of only about ten eggs per week. Now two of the hens seem to have stopped laying altogether. The one hen that is still producing lays an egg almost every day but neither of the other two have produced an egg in over a week.

There are certain health issues that can cause a hen to stop laying but these birds are alert and healthy. They might just be spent as far as egg production. If that's the case, I'm afraid they're headed for the freezer this fall. That's the way it is with livestock that's raised for food. These are not pet chickens. We coddle them and take good care of them and enjoy their little chicken personalities ...but they are still livestock raised for food. If they are no longer able to provide eggs, they will provide meat.

We knew this would happen eventually but were not expecting it until next summer. Yeoldfurt and I were both a little disappointed to only get about eighteen months worth of egg production from the Production Reds. So we decided to try another breed and bought four Barred Plymouth Rock chicks from a different source this year. We lost one of the new chicks to a snake in the chicken coop last week and I think one of the remaining three is a rooster. We will keep the rooster for a while and try our hand at raising some chicks ourselves and the two new pullets should begin laying by August or September. But we may not have any eggs to sell between now and then since we are only getting six to seven eggs per week now.

Yesterday I got a lead on a guy that has chicks available for a reasonable price so we'll go check him out next Saturday. The chicks are cross-breeds (Rhode Island Red x Americana) and should lay muliticolored eggs when they're mature ...green, blue, white and lighter shades of brown. He has some young Rhode Island Red hens that are ready to start laying but those are little more expensive. I'm not sure what we'll come home with but it's always nice to have a new source.

In the meantime, the one hen that is still laying has apparently put her stamp of approval on the new nest boxes Yeoldfurt built yesterday. She laid an egg in one of the compartments today ...good girl, Red!!

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The old 'nest boxes' were five-gallon buckets laid on their sides on a raised shelf about six inches above the ground. Two of the snakes we've killed in the coop this year were in one of the buckets when we caught them so Yeoldfurt decided to build nest boxes and set them much higher off the ground. This is what he built for them.

We wondered if they would need a perch in front of the compartments but apparently not since I found Red's egg in one of the boxes this morning. There's a lot of work to keeping livestock, even if it's only chickens. Seems like there is constantly some repair or improvement project that needs to be done. So it's always nice when your efforts are appreciated.

Homemade Laundry Soap Containing Borax in a Gray Water System

2011-05-01T09:34:00.000-05:00

In a recent discussion on Kris Watson's blog at Simply Living, water conservation methods such as a gray water system to capture water from the kitchen, laundry and shower were being discussed. One of the comments left on the post said that you should not capture laundry water if you are making your own laundry soap using Borax because it "can be very toxic to plant life and not good as a gray water option." No offense to the person who posted the comment, but I feel it's important to clarify some things.

It is true that Borax can be used as a herbicide to kill weeds and stray grass. For this purpose, you need one-half cup of Borax mixed with one gallon plus one cup of water. Wear gloves and mix the Borax powder in one cup of water until well blended, then dilute in a garden sprayer containing one additional gallon of water. Spray it directly on the vegetation you want to kill. When mixed with water in this ratio and applied directly to a plant, Borax interferes with photosynthesis and the plant will turn yellow and die. Basically, it will starve due to the inability to process nutrients drawn up through the roots. A second and sometimes a third application are required to completely kill the vegetation.

When making laundry soap, the same one-half cup of Borax is combined with one-half cup Arm & Hammer Washing Powder, one-third bar of grated Zote soap. The final ingredient for making laundry soap is six gallons plus six cups of water. So the concentration of Borax required to kill vegetation is more than six times the concentration in homemade laundry soap. Consider also that the recipe for homemade laundry soap makes enough for at least 120 loads of laundry. So simplistically, each load of laundry contains 1/120th of one half cup of Borax. The concentration is then further diluted by the amount of water your washer uses to complete the wash and rinse cycles.

So let's think about this. If two and sometimes three applications are required to kill vegetation when Borax is diluted in a little more than one gallon of water, how likely is it that a dilution at least 126 times weaker is going to have an adverse affect on vegetation?

We have been making our own soap for over a year and a half now. When this house was built in 1985, the original owners set up a primitive gray water system to capture water from the kitchen and laundry only. I say 'primitive' because a state of the art system would include some kind of containment reservoir and some means of dispensing the captured gray water such as a sprinkler system or leach field. The system in place here is just a two-inch pvc pipe that runs underground about 40 feet out from the house. At the end of the run, about six inches of open-ended pvc protrudes above the ground to release gray water as it's produced. The outlet is situated at the edge of the backyard fence line, about fifteen feet uphill from six mature pecan trees. My husband trenched from the outlet pipe down toward the trees in an attempt to channel the water for a useful purpose. Any water generated from the kitchen or washing machine flows out the end of that pipe. In our current ongoing drought situation, the grass at the outlet and all the way down the trench is about the only green in the yard. We have nine mature pecan trees on this place but the six that benefit from the gray water flowing down the trench are the healthiest of the bunch.

Installing any gray water system is most affordable at the time of construction. After market systems can be installed but significant alterations to plumbing are always expensive. But if you are able to capture gray water and you happen to make your own laundry soap, please don't let concerns about plant toxicity of Borax stop you from including laundry water in the capture. You will be missing out on significant water conservation and irrigation opportunities.

Renovations, Inside and Out

2011-04-30T19:07:00.000-05:00

First thing on our Saturday 'to do' list is almost always to not set the alarm and sleep until we wake up. This Saturday was no exception but since our alarms goes off at 4:45am on work days, 'sleeping in' generally means we roll out of bed by 7:00am.   Still plenty of daylight to do whatever needs to be done. We had a mix of indoor and outdoor chores on today's list. The main chore inside was to get the mattress back into the bedroom. Then the bedroom and the living room needed to be straightened up. A week of 'camping' in the living room made it impossible to keep things tidy in there and there were still a lot of tools and such scattered around the bedroom from last weekend's painting project. The big chores outside were to snake-proof the chicken coop and rebuild all the nest boxes for the hens. There were a few other things on both of our lists but those were the main goals to be accomplished today.

During the work week, Yeoldfurt takes care of the morning chores like feeding the dog and outside cats, tending to the chickens and turning the horses out. I leave for work an hour or two before the sun comes up, so it makes sense for him to take care of those chores Monday through Friday. But on Saturday and Sunday, I'm off so I usually do the morning chores and let him enjoy his coffee.   When I finished with the chores this morning and came back in the house, I figured I would start the laundry and get him to help me move the mattress back into the bedroom. Silly me ...he had already moved the mattress by himself while I was outside. He's always doing sneaky things like that.

By 8:30, he was headed down to the chicken coop to start on his projects and I got busy with the laundry and straightening up the house. I carried him a big mug of iced tea an hour or so after he started and helped him hold a board here and there. But mostly, he worked outside and I worked inside.

He used plastic coated chicken wire to make a barrier on the floor of the chicken coop. The three or four snakes we've caught in there so far seemed to be entering and exiting under the edge of the corrugated tin wall at the back of the coop. The tin is rusted pretty bad at the bottom and I'm sure there's a lot of give for a big snake to push it's way through. He buried the edge of the chicken wire several inches into the dirt at the base of the wall, then came a foot of so up the wall and tacked it down with a 2x4 rail that extends the full length of the wall. We have lots of flat concrete stepping stones left here by the original owners and he used some of those to butt up against the wall at the bottom. Those concrete stepping stones are very heavy ...it would take something a lot bigger than a snake to push them anywhere.

While he was busy with the coop renovations, I spent most of my time putting the new shelves up in the bathroom. It's kind of scary to start drilling holes in walls you just spent three days re-painting ...but after the first hole, I was okay. The shelves are up and the bubble on my little torpedo level is dead center. Just like I like it. I also had to drill holes and hang hardware for several decorative pieces in the bedroom but it all went smoothly. The only thing that's left now is to hang the new curtain rods. That will be the main project on tomorrow's list.

On a side note, I think I found a source for some new laying hens for us. The guy has Americanas and Rhode Island Reds and most of the chicks are a cross of the two breeds. He has chicks for sale from three days to three months old for $3 to $5 each.   He even has some six month old hens that are just starting to lay that's he'll sell for $7 to $10, depending on the breed. He seems to be very knowledgeable and said he would be happy to show us how to tell the males from the females on the really young chicks. That will be useful if we're ever raising our own and selling chicks. He guarantees what you buy from him too. If you want only females and end up with a male, he will take it back and give you hen of the same breed and age. Sounds like a good deal to me. He lives about 40 miles south of us. He was out of town for a funeral this weekend but we were already too busy to run down there today anyway. We'll probably go see him next Saturday and buy four more chicks. We'll buy chicks about the same age as the three we have in the brood box now so they can learn to like each other while they're still small. Another few weeks and they'll all be out in the big coop anyway.

We're both tired tonight, but happy with how much we accomplished this week and especially how much we accomplished today. I don't know if I can talk Yeoldfurt into it or not, but I think we are due for a 'no projects' weekend now. Everybody needs one of those once in a while. If we end up driving the 40 miles south next Saturday to pick up those new chicks, maybe we can take our time on the way down and relax a little.

Deluxe Compost Box ...Free!

2011-04-29T23:00:00.002-05:00

One of the perks to Yeoldfurt's job is access to a lot of free material. Every week, the company discards several heavy wooden crates and pallets. The materials to be thrown away are left in a designated area near the loading dock and anyone who wants them is welcome to take them. Yeoldfurt hauls something useful home almost every week.

He has been disassembling the crates and pallets and stacking the lumber according to size and thickness. A couple of weeks ago, he used some of this free material to build us a really nice compost box. Before he started building it, we talked about what size it should be and where we should put it. We've had it for about two weeks now and, so far, I think we made some good choices. It's four feet square and the sides are about three feet tall. He set it up against the chainlink fence between the garden and the chicken coop. We figured that would be a convenient location both for putting new material in the box, and for getting material out of the box when it was time to build up the garden.

This is what it looks like. Notice that the four corner posts extend about two feet higher than the walls. He did that on purpose so that it would be easily expandable. If we run out of room, more boards can be added to the walls without him having to disassemble and reconstruct the whole box.

But then he got fancy. He built the front so that only the bottom board on that wall is permanently affixed. All the boards above it can be removed to lower the side. That will make shoveling material out of the box a whole lot easier on our backs.

Fire ants are a constant problem here, so the first thing we put in the bin was a thick layer of cedar mulch. Most bugs, including fire ants, don't like cedar. I don't think it's poisonous but it's not inviting to them either, so hopefully it will minimize their presence. After the layer of cedar mulch was in, Yeoldfurt pulled all of the old hay out of the chicken coop and piled it on top of the cedar. We put the hay in the coop in December to help the chickens stay warm through the winter. It was 'well-seasoned' and should be a bonus to our composting efforts.

My next problem was figuring out how to easily and efficiently gather household scraps on a daily basis to add to the compost. It's only the two of us and we only eat one meal at home on week days, so there isn't much to gather on a day to day basis. I didn't want to make too much of a chore out of 'feeding' the compost. I'm not looking for any new chores and if it's not convenient, it might not happen regularly. I also didn't want to deal with odors or a potential accidental spill if I accumulated too much before dumping the scraps. So here's what I came up with ...

I got one of the plastic coffee containers out of storage, the kind with the handle molded into one corner and a tight-fitting lid. I labeled it on the handle and the front and the lid 'COMPOST' and I keep it under the sink in my kitchen. Every night when I wash the coffee pot, I dump the old grounds in the can. When I crack an egg, the shell goes in the can. When I trim vegetables, the trimmings go in the can. Left over vegetables go in the can. Pretty much everything except meat goes in the can.

The coffee can is heavy plastic, very sturdy and easy to handle and has a tight-fitting lid so I don't have to worry about odor or spills. A bonus that I realized after the first week is that coffee grounds are a natural odor deterrent. I guess I knew that at one time but now it has real relevance. The last time I emptied the can, it had four days worth of coffee grounds, some bell pepper and onion trimmings, leftover corn and green beans and three egg shells. But the only thing I could smell when I opened the lid was the coffee grounds. What a plus!

Since keeping a compost pile wet is necessary for it to do it's job, I also started adding a little water to the can each time I put something in it. When I empty the can, I add water to within two inches of the top before I take it out to the compost bin. I give it a good swirl before I dump it which helps rinse the can. The added water with each deposit of scraps is good for the composting process so it's a win-win.

Camping Has Been Fun

2011-04-29T20:23:00.001-05:00

But I'm ready to move back into the bedroom. We've been sleeping in the living room for the past week while I painted our bedroom and bathroom. It only took me three days to do the painting which was actually one day less than I expected. What has taken a lot longer than I expected is putting-it-all-back-together. It's a good thing I took Thursday and Friday off from work last week. I needed those two days plus Saturday just to get all the painting done. Thankfully, I had some help on the weekend because my sister drove up from Houston. By the time she went home Sunday night, all that was left was to mount a couple of shelves in the bathroom and install the hardware for two wall hangings in the bedroom. But since I had to go back to work Monday morning, progress on the clean up and final touches has been much slower.

Everything turned out really nice. Nothing like fresh paint and new window coverings to freshen up a room. The color on the walls in that room when we bought this house was sort of a 'mongrel' shade of green ...as if several partial buckets of leftover paint were mixed and then slapped on the walls. Nearly all the windows had the old metal venetian blinds in them. Not the contemporary plantation shutters ...old, ugly, impossible-to-keep-clean venetian blinds. Ugh! This house was built in 1985 by a retired couple that moved up here from Houston. I'm pretty sure those blinds have been on the windows since this place was built. Repainting that room has been a project we've both been anxious to do since we moved here almost five years ago. I don't want to tackle another while, but it was worth all the hard work and inconvenience.

Yeoldfurt has been a such good sport through all this. He helped me drag our mattress out to the living room and has cheerfully dealt with the inconvenience of having most of the house disheveled for a whole week now. But tomorrow is a day off for both of us and can drag the mattress back into the bedroom in the morning. Then Yeoldfurt can concentrate on his own list of projects, like snake-proofing the chicken coop and building new nesting boxes for the hens. While he's busy outside, I'll get the shelves hung in the bathroom and finish straightening up the bedroom. If I finish before he's back in the house, there's plenty of housework to catch up on around here and I'm actually looking forward to doing it.

It's About Time

2011-04-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'm taking two days off this weekend to concentrate on a project here at home. We moved here almost five years ago and I am finally getting around to painting the master bedroom. Oh, the walls are painted ...it's just that they are not a particularly attractive color. Neither of us like them and I bought the paint to re-do the room the second year we were here. But, well ...life gets in the way sometimes. So now, almost five years after we moved here and almost four years after the new paint was purchased, I'm finally going to 'get 'er done.'

There was a time that I could paint an average sized room in about half a day. Barring cathedral ceilings or intricate wood trim molding, I was really quick and fairly tidy. Knock on wood, I've never had an all out paint catastrophe ...like knocking a gallon bucket over or anything. But I've had the occasional drips and spatters and oops's that just go with the territory. I always keep a dampened old terry washcloth handy, and clean up any accidents immediately ...damage control. Yet in spite of tying my hair back and wearing old rag-bag clothes ...I usually end up with quite a bit of paint on my person. But that only further justifies the long hot shower after the job is done, right? As long as the floors and furnishings are unscathed, I'm happy.

I haven't painted a room in a long time. I painted our kitchen the year after we moved here, but it's more of a small hallway than a room ...not very big at all. I painted two big rooms at our last house and it took me almost ten days. That was about three times longer than I had been expecting. Yeoldfurt was out of town for two weeks at the time and I remember thinking it was a good thing I started right after he left because after the painting was done, I still had three or four days to recuperate before he got home.

The rooms I'm painting this time are not large and there are no vaulted ceilings, but there are other hindrances. The master bath has custom pine cabinets in a light honey finish. Even a few specks of paint will stand out like a neon sign. There's an alcove outside the bathroom with a vanity in the same pine cabinetry and a walk-in closet. A bathroom door, a closet door and a fancy vanity to paint around in an area that's probably six to seven feet square. My edging will have to be razor straight where the wall meets the wood or, again ...it will be a neon sign flashing 'ROOKIE PAINTER WAS HERE.' I know I'm not as fast as I used to be and I'm pretty sure I'm not as steady as I used to be, so I'm tackling that bathroom and vanity area first ...while I'm fresh.

I'm starting at 7:00am tomorrow. If I can get one coat on the bathroom and the whole vanity area edged by mid-afternoon tomorrow, I'll be happy. I'll take a break for an hour and get supper lined out before Yeoldfurt gets home. I'll paint for another hour or two tomorrow night too and hope to have the bathroom and vanity completely done before we call it a night.

In my younger years, I used to just attack a painting project. I usually covered the big areas first, then went back and edged. Now that I'm older and slower and wear out quicker, I'm changing my strategy. I'm kind of like those cordless tools that are so handy for the quick and dirty jobs. I put the battery in my cordless drill and the minute I press the trigger, that battery begins to drain. It may be good for a couple dozen screws before the torque and speed start to be noticeably less. But once it's noticeable, it will be downhill from there. My energy is that way these days too. I used to be able to go all day for days on end. Now I am good for an hour maybe two ...depending on how much 'torque' and 'speed' is attempted ...and then I need to recharge. So, my strategy now it to tackle the intricate, time consuming tasks like edging first thing and save the easier stuff for last when I'm at the one foot in front of the other stage of the game.

The bathroom and vanity area comprise less than a fourth of the entire space to be painted, but with the cabinets and tight spaces to be maneuvered, I'm figuring a full day to get them painted. The second day, I will begin by edging and trimming the bedroom. There are only two windows, another closet and the bedroom door to be taped and edged around in that room ...and the baseboards, of course. Because I'm so much slower than I used to be and get slower as the day wears on, I figure the taping and trimming and edging in the bedroom will take half of the second day. If I'm right about that, I'll try to get one wall ...probably the smallest wall ...painted before I stop to make supper Friday night. My sister is driving up Friday night to spend the weekend with us, but won't be here until about 9:00pm. By then I'll be done painting for the day but she will help me finish the rest of the painting Saturday. Since all the tedious edging and trimming will be done before Saturday, I'll let her start on the bedroom walls and I'll try to get a second coat on the walls in the bathroom. The second coat should go faster because I won't have to edge anything. When I'm done, I can help her finish in the bedroom. We're a good team and just having company makes the work go faster. Sunday we will have the fun job of getting all the furniture set back up.

That really IS the fun part for us female types. Men don't seem to care about rearranging furniture, at least not just for the sake or rearranging. Cats definitely don't like it. The one cat we have in the house is beside herself at the moment because we moved our mattress out to the living room last night in preparation for this painting project. We are 'camping' (sleeping) in the living room until the room is put back together. This cat is a little neurotic anyway. She absolutely adores me and finally, after 12 years, has decided Yeoldfurt is okay too. But she likes us to stick to a routine and not MOVE anything. If we stay up past our usual bedtime, she sits in the hallway and lets out pitiful yowls to tell us we're keeping her up too late. If one of us goes to bed and the other stays up, she wanders back and forth between us uttering the same pitiful protests until we are both in bed for the night. Well, when we wrangled the mattress out to the living room last night, she was wide eyed and anxious. When we actually laid down on the mattress and settled in for the night, she was beside herself. By the time the painting is done, she'll have gotten used to the mattress in the living room ...and then we'll put it back in the bedroom. She'll be traumatized all over again. I don't dare tell her I'm planning to rearrange the dressers in the room when we put it back together. Poor kitty ....

Oh, What a Great Day!

2011-04-09T22:07:00.001-05:00

We always have a 'To Do' list for Saturdays and today, we got it all done. That in itself made it a good day but what made it even better was that the first thing on the list was a fun thing ...riding. That's something we don't do enough of these days and that we haven't done together in a long time.

I think we enjoyed today so much partly because last week was tough for both of us at our respective jobs. In both cases, it was your typical work-related, boss-engineered fiasco exacerbated with a healthy dose of office politics. Total nonsense and so not productive in the work place. By Thursday evening, it had taken it's toll on both our moods. But Friday, as I drove in to the office, I decided I was going to do everything I could when I got home to make it an easy stress-free evening for Yeoldfurt. Saturday is the one day out of the week when we are both off so we try to make it count.

I had to do the grocery shopping on the way home, but I hurried through the aisles and didn't waste any time getting everything put away and dinner started as soon as I got home. While dinner was on autopilot, I went out and took care of all the critter chores whic is a 30-45 minute ritual every evening. By the time Yeoldfurt rolled in, all he had to do was get comfortable and meet me on the patio. I had his favorite beverage on ice and waiting for him. We always spend an hour or so on the patio in the evenings this time of year. The temperatures are bearable and the sunset is spectacular. This is our time to catch up on the happenings of each other's day and make plans for the days ahead. When we had our session last night, we decided there were three things we wanted to get done this Saturday ... RIDE the horses, FINISH the electric fence (minor tweaks) and one town errand.

When we first started talking about it last night, Yeoldfurt suggested we go into town first and get that out of the way. But the place we needed to go doesn't open up until 10:00 a.m. and I knew we should probably get our day started long before then. So reminding him that since the first thing on our list was the one thing we could count on accomplishing, I suggested that we ride first. We are always up with the chickens, so to speak, and it's always coolest in the morning so that's the best time to ride. The horses are also already right here by the house until we turn them out in the morning so it's also the most convenient time to ride.

Plans are just plans. Sometimes life gets in the way and plans have to change. But today, everything fell into place perfectly. We were both up an hour before sunrise and I had started my experimental batch of 'Leather Cookies' in the Excalibur. By 8:30, we were dressed and out the door to feed the little critters and gather the horses. We brought the two horses in that we were going to ride and turned all the others out to the pasture. By 9:00, we were saddled up and riding. Yeoldfurt's mare is the buckskin named Lucy. She's half-mustang and can be highly opinionated. She hadn't carried a saddle, let alone a rider, for about a year so she was a little more opinionated than usual this morning. But after she lost the first argument or two, she settled down to business. By the time Yeoldfurt stepped off of her, she was willing and even enjoying the attention. He had only been on her about 30 minutes but it was a good ride and a good refresher since she'd had so much time off. I stayed in the saddle a little bit longer, working on some fancy stuff with my mare. She's neck reining now and her sidepasses are getting better and better. I guess her sidepasses have always been fine. She knows what to do ...it's really me who is getting better and better with my cues. If I get my cues right, she does great. If she's sloppy or hesitant, it's because my cues were off. She probably appreciates me finally figuring it all out!

We spent a while grooming them after the ride and gave them both a handful of sweet feed for a treat. By that time, the 'Leather Cookies' were ready, so we let them sample those too. Lucy will eat anything you offer her but my mare tends to be skeptical of anything new. They both LOVED the leather cookies though. They ate three a piece and were looking for more, but we had to draw the line somewhere. We turned them out with the other horses and got ready to run our town errand. Even the town errand went smoother than we expected and we were back home in an hour. I fixed us a light lunch, we took a short break, and then we were ready to start on the fence work.

Fencing is a never-ending chore when you have livestock. Setting posts and stretching wire is slow and back breaking unless you have a crew and a tractor or bobcat to run an auger. But today's chore only involved replacing and repairing fasteners on the electric fence. Yeoldfurt started at one end and I started at the other. The poor dog is used to tagging along with us whenever we work around the property, but we're usually working side by side. With us heading off in opposite directions, she didn't know who to follow. It didn't take long though and we met in the middle to finish up the job. It was about 5:00 in the evening when we were done and we sat down on the patio with some cold drinks, taking a break to reflect on what a good day it had been.

Just when I couldn't imagine how the day could get better, we got an email from our tax consultant that we're getting a nice refund this year. That means we can fund some of the goals we set for ourselves in January, like buying a freezer and getting a couple of calves. There will probably even be a little 'mad money' left over for each of us. I think Yeoldfurt has some ideas on how he'd like to spend his and I know I have ideas on how I'd like to spend mine. Yup, today has truly been a great day!

Leather Cookies!

2011-04-09T07:28:00.000-05:00

No, not the rawhide variety. Today had my first ~~experiment~~ adventure with making fruit leather. I cheated a little ...bought a jar of all natural applesauce, no sugar added. I know, I know ...much cheaper to buy the apples and make my own sauce. But my time is limited and at $1.29 for the jar, I think I made a wise decision. Until homesteading and prepping are my fulltime and only occupation, I have to make these choices sometimes.

Instead of making one big sheet of leather, I made 'cookies' approximately three inches in diameter. I used a tablespoon to dip the applesauce out of the jar, then spread it as evenly as possible with the back of the spoon. This is the before picture. I'll post an after picture this evening ...along with a taste test review.

They look a little uneven in thickness here, but the applesauce was cold from the refrigerator when I spooned it onto the tray. The thicker parts will flatten a little as it warms up in the dehydrator, just as cookies flatten and spread in the oven. The instructions in the book that came with my dehydrator said to aim for 1/8-inch thickness in the center and 1/4-inch thickness on the edges when making fruit leathers. This is my first try, so we'll see how it turns out. The 'cookie' in the top right corner has a bit of homemade plum jelly stirred in. This is, after all, an experiment ...might as well try a couple variations! They should be ready in 4-6 hours. I set the timer for 5 hours and we'll see how they turn out.

In the meantime, Yeoldfurt and I have some saddle time planned for this morning. We've learned from experience to prioritize carefully on our days off. The first thing on the to-do list always gets accomplished ...the second thing usually gets accomplished. Anything further down the list has a fifty-fifty chance of not happening for one reason or another. Number One on the list today is some long overdue time in the saddle. Number Two (not as much fun) is the never-ending chore of fence maintenance. The leather cookies were just a wild hair I had while I was waiting for the sun to come up. It took five minutes to set them up in the dehydrator and now they're on auto-pilot. An easy bonus to whatever else we manage to accomplish today.

Warm Fuzzies

2011-04-06T21:49:00.000-05:00

These are the four newest members of the flock.

Yes, there are really four of them.

One is being shy and hiding behind the others.

We currently have three Rhode Island Reds that we bought in the spring of 2009. Their first eighteen months of production was great. They barely even slacked off during winter, producing 18 to 20 eggs every week. But for the past three or four months, we've been lucky to get 12 eggs in a week.

So we decided to try a different breed this time and bought these four Barred Plymouth Rock chicks. They are a dual purpose breed and have an excellent reputation for producing large brown eggs.

The chicks are staying cozy in the brood box in the garage for the next several weeks,

until they feather out and the nights get warmer.

In the meantime down at the coop, the rumor is slowly spreading that there are some new chicks in town.

So far, none of the incumbents seem to feel threatened ...at least they're not letting on if they are.

Do they look worried to you?

Reba

Red


Dora

If hens can be cocky, these three surely qualify.

As far as they're concerned, the good life they're enjoying will go on forever.

Gee, that sounds like most of the politicians

we have these days!

The Second Day Went Much Better ... (Only Four Days, conclusion)

2011-04-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

At least it started out much better. The hotel provides an awesome breakfast buffet from 6:00 to 8:00, Monday through Friday. Everything from hot or cold cereal to bagels or fresh baked waffles and scrambled eggs. There is usually link sausage, patty sausage, bacon and sometimes even grilled ham slices. They also always have a large assortment of fresh fruit. That's what I usually go for. I grab a bagel and some orange juice to eat for breakfast while I'm checking email, then grab some fruit to take with me for lunch. A very no hassle way to take care of lunch when out of town on travel.

I was well-rested from having slept in an extra two hours and could take my time getting ready since it was an easy fifteen minute commute to the training class. The class didn't start until 8:30 but I left at 7:45 so I could work on some of the cases I brought with me. By the time the other students and the instructor arrived, the case I started the day before was finished and I had a good start on the next case. I knew I would work through lunch each day and was feeling pretty optimistic that I would easily be able to keep my real workload in check even with a four day absence this week. It was going to be a good week.

Class was dismissed at 4:30 and I had accomplished even more than I hoped during the lunch hour, so I headed for the hotel. It's only about four miles from the class site to the hotel but the route takes me through a fairly busy retail section of town, lights every other block or so. I was stopped at a light and decided to turn on the radio. Since I was out of range for my usual stations, I glanced down to press the Seek button and that's when I noticed the brake light on my dash was lit. Hmmm. I didn't recall having set the parking brake any time recently, but I reached down and pulled the release just in case. The light was still on. I'm thinking it's got to be something simple.

The traffic light changed and I started to move with the traffic, leaving maybe just a wee bit more 'stopping space' in front ...just in case. The next light was a block away and had just turned green. I'm not familiar with the timing on these lights and have no idea what my odds are that it would still be green when I get there ...but I did notice it's on a hill. A rather steep hill. I was still not convinced I had a true brake problem but really didn't want to stop on an incline to find out. The light turned red long before I got there and I was the third car back from the light ...still very much on the hill. My brakes felt normal but that red brake light was still staring at me, unrelenting. I was only a mile or so from the hotel by then. I figured I could make it that far even if I had to walk.

I glanced down at the dash again just as the light turned green. The brake light was still on and now the ABS light was on too. Ruh-roh ...definitely not good. I still couldn't detect any oddities in the feel of the brakes but obviously the truck thought something serious was amiss. I decided I would get on the Internet as soon as I got to the hotel and google some answers ...and maybe the location of the closest Mazda dealership. I parked, went to my room to change clothes and headed back down to the Business Center. The Internet was down. The computers were functional if you just needed a spreadsheet or a wordprocessor but there was no Internet. Great. Access to the Control Panel had been disabled (typical on these hotel computers) so I couldn't even troubleshoot anything myself.

I went to the front desk and asked if there was a problem with the Internet. They were not aware of it until I told them, but called tech support for their provider right away and offered to let me use a computer behind the desk in the meantime. If I just wanted to check email or read some blogs, I would have just gone back to my room. But under the circumstances, I was very grateful they offered. I'm telling you, this hotel is top notch.

The information I found on the various forums and Mazda tech sites was less than helpful but I did find a dealership one exit south of my training location. So I printed their contact page and went to my room. It was a few minutes after 6:00 by then but I called anyway thinking at least a salesman would still be there and be able to tell me what time the Service Department opened in the morning. A switchboard receptionist answered and said sometimes the service writers are there for a while after closing so she would put my call through.

Sure enough, Angel Martinez was working late that night and picked up on the second ring. I explained the symptoms my truck was having and described my predicament with being out of town and no alternate transportation. He gave me some safety pointers on deciding whether it was safe to dive if it was safe to drive the four miles to the shop in the morning and told me the doors open at 7:00am. When Yeoldfurt called me that evening, I filled him in on the situation. He told me to just use my judgment but not to take any chances ...if I needed to have it towed, have it towed.

I decided the less traffic there was, the safer we would all be ...so I set my alarm for 4:30am with the intention of driving to the dealership at 6:00am.. I was dressed and in the parking lot by 5:30am. The master cylinder was low but not empty and I made a couple of test runs through the parking lot to see if I could feel any difference. The brakes were a little mushy but still there. So I headed out and was at the shop by 6:15am. When the doors opened, I was the first one checked in. The mechanic I'd spoken to the night before told me that if the parts were in stock, they could get it in and out that day. If not, they should be able to get it out by close of business the next day. A shuttle driver took me to my class and I tried to put it out of my mind and concentrate on the class. One of the ladies from that office gave me her direct line and said she'd drive me to the shop to get my truck or to the hotel if it wasn't ready, or anywhere else I needed to go that afternoon. Very sweet lady!

Unfortunately, I did end up having to rent a car because a couple of the the parts did not come in that morning. I was promised that my truck would be first in line the next morning and they would get it done the next day even if they had to stay late. The rental car only cost me $30 which was a drop in the bucket compared to the repair bill I was expecting on the truck.

Class was over at 4:20 on Thursday and I was at the dealership by 4:30. My truck was not finished but they assured me they would be done that day, probably within the hour. Keep in mind the shop closes at 6:00pm. When I sat down int he customer waiting area, there were about four other customers waiting with me. One by one, they left with their vehicles. By 5:45, I was getting nervous. Finally, a few minutes after 6:00, my mechanic came through the door. He wasn't smiling and I was really expecting him to say they found something else wrong ...or they were just quitting for the day. I admit it, I was expecting the worst. The lenses on my Pollyanna glasses were cracked ...it had been that kind of week. But he was just coming to tell me that they were almost done and that he wanted to test drive it on the side road by the dealership because he knew I had a long drive home. He said he and his mechanic helper were staying late because they knew I was in a bind. As grateful as I was for their willingness to stay late, I sure was anxious to get back on the road. If you're ever in Austin and need a Mazda shop, call Mazda South and ask for Angel Martinez. He will go over and above for you.

Finally, at 7:15pm, my truck was ready. I paid the bill, thanked Angel profusely for staying late to finish, transferred all my luggage from the rental car to the truck and turned the rental car keys over to the shop manager. I called Yeoldfurt and let him know I (finally) on my way. I was very cautious with the brakes for the first hour or so, but honestly, they felt fine to me. When I pulled into the driveway, Yeoldfurt met me at the door and helped me get everything into the house. I had only been gone four days, but it felt like an eternity.

I learned two important lessons from this trip:

Make sure the corporate credit card is working before I leave

If the State wants me to travel, they can sure enough provide me a rental car

Silly Me, the Day Wasn't Over Yet ... (Only Four Days, Part II)

2011-04-02T08:12:00.000-05:00

Class was over at 4:30 but I ended up staying until 5:00, working on some real cases I'd brought with me from the office. My job is to review and assess new applications and I have a 20-day deadline to get them routed on to wherever they need to go. Does 20 days sound like more than enough time to assess a ten page application? It might be except for the sheer volume of applications that come through. I receive an average of 30 new cases every day, even weekends because in addition to paper applications, they can be submitted online 24/7. That 20-day clock starts the day the application is date stamped as Received and doesn't stop for anything ...not for weekends, not for holidays, and certainly not for four day training trips. So I'd brought the four applications with me that would have been older than 20 days when I got back from trip. The class was from 8:30 to 4:30 with an hour break for lunch. I figured I could come in at 8:00, bring a sack lunch and work until 5:00 each day to get these four cases done before the deadline. It sounded like a good plan...

Monday was a long day because I'd worked from 7:00 to 10:00 that morning, then spent three hours on the road to get to class, and another three hours in class. I was tired. But by 5:00, I had a good start on the first case so I packed up and headed for the hotel. I've stayed at this hotel four times in two different towns and it's always a nice place. The rooms are immaculate, the staff is always courteous and professional and the location is always within a few miles of my class. Because I normally have a 45 minute commute to work and the class started an hour and a half later than my normal workday, I was even going to get to sleep in a little the next three days. I was looking forward to it.

I got checked in, unpacked my suitcase, put on some comfortable clothes, then headed back to the lobby to use one of the computers in the Business Center. This hotel has a complimentary dinner buffet from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evenings. Nothing fancy ...fajitas or burgers or spaghetti and meatballs, always salad and fruit on the side. It's always good and there's always plenty. It was almost 5:30 by the time I sat down at the computer, so I figured I would catch up on email and read a few blogs until the buffet started. About 6:15, I looked up from the screen and noticed there wasn't the usual clatter and chatter you hear in a restaurant. Hmmm. I went to the front desk and asked and was told that as of January, the complimentary dinner buffet is only offered Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Budget cuts, you know.

I had stayed at this very hotel for a three day training class earlier in the month, but that class had started on Tuesday, so the buffet was on every evening I was there ...I didn't know anything had changed. By this time, I was really tired. But as much as I dreaded the thought of going back out to find food, I was hungry enough to talk myself into it. I went back to the room for my car keys and headed out.

I detest eating alone in a restaurant. I seldom go to a restaurant that I don't see someone else at a table or booth by themselves and think nothing of it. It's really no big deal but I just don't want to be that person. My usual habit on these trips is to go to a grocery store the first evening and buy enough food for however long I'm staying and just cook in my room. The rooms are really more of a suite ...they have a two burner stove, a microwave oven, a full-size (but small) refrigerator/freezer and even a dishwasher and disposal. With my aversion to eating alone in restaurants, cooking in the room makes the evenings more relaxing for me. But that night, I was exceptionally tired and I decided I'd just do fast food. A drive-through would be quick and I could take my food back to my room. I would be able to sleep in almost two hours past my normal wake up time the next morning and I could make a grocery run the next evening. Another good plan. But you know what they say about plans...

None of the drive-throughs I saw looked good enough to stop at and when I came to the grocery store I usually shop at, I pulled in and parked. It was 6:30 on a Monday night and the people were thick as flies. I took a deep breath and waded in. I got a cart and started in Produce. I was in the Express Lane twenty minutes later with my purchases and very happy to note there only two people in front of me. When it was my turn, the cashier rang up my items and I handed her my (new) corporate Mastercard.

IT WAS DECLINED.

Apparently, I had learned nothing from my Whataburger experience earlier that day and was sure it was just a fluke. I was actually confident when I said, "That can't be right. Could you try it again, please?" She tried it again ...then again ...then she tried entering it manually. The line behind me was getting longer, so I said, "Nevermind ...use this card" and gave her my personal credit card.

My personal credit card company is very vigilant about suspected fraudulent use and have been known to decline purchases if they are more than 50 miles from my home address. So when my corporate card had been declined earlier that day, I had called my own card's Customer Service and informed them I was traveling and where I was and that I did NOT want to have any issues with my card while I was on the road. But still ...after the day I'd had, I think I held my breath while the cashier swiped my card. I think the long line behind me held their breath too because when the transaction was approved and she asked me to sign for it, we all let out a sigh of relief.

My total was only $26.34 for the food and I had enough not to have any other meal expenses on the trip. I got back to the hotel, carried my food to my room and sat down to call the Customer Service number on the back of the corporate card. I couldn't wait to find out why the NEW card had been declined. Again with the seemingly endless number dance on the keypad to get to a real person, I was informed that 'grocery stores are not on the list of approved establishments' for purchases. WHAT?! Common sense and minimal scruples would tell you going to a bar or a sporting goods store would not be an 'approved establishment' at which to use your corporate credit card on a business trip. But this was the first I had heard of a list of 'approved' establishments.

I was a speechless for a few seconds. Before I spoke, I reminded myself that the person on the other end of the line was not responsible for the policy or the list or the kind of day I'd had so far. I took a deep breath and in as reasonable a tone as I could muster said, "Then could you please tell me what establishments are on the approved list? For instance, if I go to a drive-through eatery and try to pay with my card ...will it be declined?" He replied with, "There's not really a list ...we can only see a reason code after a card is declined. So you'd just have to try it and then call us if it's declined to find out why." Oh that SO did not sound like a good plan to me! I thanked him for his assistance and hung up.

The clock said 8:30 but it felt more like 10:30 to me. So I cooked a little something for supper and crawled into bed. I remember thinking at least I have enough groceries now for the duration of the trip. There need be no more humiliating moments with my card being declined. That actually did prove to be the case. I didn't have any more credit card issues on the trip. But Tuesday ended up being even more 'interesting' than Monday.

...to be continued

Only Four Days

2011-04-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

That was how long I was supposed to be out of town this week for a class. When you lead a critter-intensive lifestyle like we do, having one of us away from home even just overnight leaves a lot on the one who stays behind. But, fortunately, travel is a rare requirement for either of us these days. So when it happens, we just take a deep breath and deal with it. We can do anything for four days, right?

My class was starting at 1:30 in the afternoon in Austin, a seventy-five mile drive west of where we live. My office is a forty mile drive east of where we live. So when they told me about the class a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take comp time in the morning and drive straight to the class from home, leaving around noon. That was my plan right up to quitting time last Friday.

Last week had not been very productive because we are short-staffed right now and I had been pulled off my own work to help in some other areas for two whole days. Everything that crosses my desk is time-sensitive so when I miss two out of five days in a week, it piles up fast. By 5:00 last Friday, my own workload was out of control. I knew it would pile up even more this week since I'd be gone four days. So I decided I would go ahead and drive the forty miles east on Monday and work from 7:00am to 10:00am ...then head to class from the office. Being that much further east made it a two and a half hour drive to get to the class, so leaving at 10:00 left me enough time to grab lunch somewhere along the way and be at class by 1:30.

I dreaded the new plan all weekend but I ended up accomplishing a lot Monday morning, so I was in a pretty good mood when I stopped at a drive-through burger joint in Bastrop. I was about 45 minutes from my destination, still a little over two hours before class started so I was feeling pretty good. We are supposed to use the corporate credit card for all meals when we travel so I ordered a kiddie burger and drink and whipped out my State of Texas Mastercard.

IT WAS DECLINED. I said, "That can't be right. Try it again please?" The girl tried it again ...and again ...then tried entering it manually. Same result each time, it was declined. By that time, I was more than a little embarrassed and the cars behind me were probably getting annoyed. So I gave her $5 in cash and paid for my meal.

I pulled over to a space in the parking lot and called the number on the back of my corporate card. After the seemingly endless number-punching routine, I finally reached a live person and ...wonder of wonders ...he actually sounded like English might be his first language! Things were looking up.

Still convinced it must be a mistake, I explained my predicament to him and asked him if he had any idea why my card was being declined. He put me on hold for a minute and then came back to say the card had been canceled ...that very morning. What?!? I asked him if there were any notes as to why and he put me on hold again to check. It's frustrating enough when you have to call these customer service lines but it always amuses me when they ask to put you on hold 'so they can check' on something. They are, after all, a Call Center. They never leave their cubicles when they're covering phones. Everything is right in front of them on a computer screen ...complete with scripts of what they're supposed to tell customers in almost any imaginable situation. If they put you on hold, it's because either they are new enough not to be familiar with the scripts or they are uncomfortable enough with what the scripts are telling them that they want to consult with their co-worker or a coach to confirm. If they put you on hold twice or three times during the same call, it's the latter.

He came back a minute later and said he was sorry but there were no notes as to why, but he could give me the name and number of a person at the State Office who would know. I wrote down the name and number and thanked him for his time. Then I dialed my supervisor at my office, hoping she had not left for lunch yet.

She answered on the third ring. "Hi! Aren't you on your way to Austin?" I said, "Well ... I stopped for a quick lunch in Bastrop and was just wondering if you might have heard anything ominous through the grapevine like maybe that I'm being FIRED??"

Brief silence then she laughed, probably thinking I was kidding. She said, "No, why?" So I told her about the card. Thirty minutes had passed by now and I told her that if I didn't get back on the road, I'd end up being late to class so would she please call the State Office and find out what was going on. She said of course and not to worry ...she'd straighten it all out and call me back.

I didn't hear from her again, but when I arrived at my class an hour later, the receptionist gave me an envelope with my NEW corporate card in it. It seems that someone with Decision Making Power and Authority had determined that our Mastercard through JP Morgan was no longer the best deal and a Mastercard through Citicorp was now the way to go. This decision had apparently been made several weeks ago because the receptionist told me 'they were supposed to mail this to you at home two weeks ago.' Nice.

It was still 30 minutes before the class was due to start so I asked to use a landline so I could activate the card ...a tedious but fairly simple automated process that only took a few minutes. I was about to go on to my classroom when it occurred to me that I should check on my hotel reservations. Good thing I did. I no longer HAD reservations. It seems that when your room is booked three weeks in advance and guaranteed on a specific credit card, canceling that card also cancels the reservation. Makes sense.

I sure am glad I called because it took them a few minutes to finally find a room for me. I gave them the new credit card number and thought 'well, things can only get better from here.'

SILLY ME .... to be continued

Slowly, but Surely

2011-03-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

A lot of things got in the way of Lyric's training schedule these past two weeks. Some things you just can't control and you have to learn to be flexible.We did try something new this evening though.

Lyric has been saddled and bridled at the tree four or five times now and pretty much takes everything in stride. Every time I've saddled her, I have reinforced that I expect her to stand still while I'm working ...unless I ask her to move, she shouldn't move. Those of you who've had to try and dress a squirming toddler will appreciate the concept. A toddler who won't be still and cooperate with getting dressed is frustrating. But a 1000-pound horse that won't stand still and cooperate with being saddled can go from frustrating to dangerous in a heartbeat. So it's a lesson we're rehearsing every time she's saddled.

Sometimes doing the same old thing but in a new place will make horses a little antsy. A change of scenery, a change in the routine, even a change in the weather can affect their mood. Changing things up on purpose early in the training process can help a young horse learn to take change in stride. So today, I decided to change things up a little for Lyric. While the horses were still eating, I put the saddle and blanket she'd been wearing up in the front paddock at the round pen. When they were finished, I got Lacy and Lyric and brought them to the tree, just like we've done for the past three weeks. But this time, I saddled and bridled Lacy and then led her around the house to the round pen. I left her up there and went back to walk Lyric up.

Once inside the round pen, I draped Lyric's lead rope over the rail next to Lacy and started brushing Lyric down for the saddle. This was routine and she didn't fidget much until two teenagers on a four wheeler came down the road and turned around in the driveway. Lyric had to look at what all the racket was, but the only thing she moved was her head so that's okay. I got her saddled up in no time and walked her a few steps before tightening the cinch all the way. As a precaution, I pulled it a notch tighter than usual tonight because I intended to turn her loose in the round pen. If a cinch is too loose and a horse gets too rambunctious, the saddle can roll under the horse's belly. That makes for a really scary experience for a young and can be really hard on a good saddle so I wanted to make sure it was snug. But she didn't act up at all which is great.

I unsnapped her lead rope and left it on the rail. She was loose but didn't seem to realize it at first. After a minute or two, she dropped her head to sniff the ground, but still just stood there. I petted on her for a few more minutes and then turned to walk out of the round pen. She followed me as if still tethered by a lead rope. When I went out the gate and closed it before she could follow me, she looked a little surprised but not upset. I walked down the rail on the outside to get Lacy and Lyric just followed along. While I was adjusting Lacy's saddle and attaching her reins, Lyric decided we were boring and wandered off to the center of the pen to nibble grass. So I got on Lacy and started riding around the outside of the round pen hoping to get Lyric interested in following us again. She ignored us. So I moved Lacy inside the round pen and we rode all around Lyric. I ignored Lyric unless she was in the way of whatever maneuver we were working on and, when that happened, I just rode Lacy through her as if she wasn't there. If I had been riding any horse but Lyric's own mama, she might have taken offense at being pushed ...she tends to have a rather high opinion of herself. But I was pretty sure she would be submissive to her own mama and, even if she got uppity, I knew I could move her mama quick and easy enough to avoid a wreck.

I was only in the saddle on Lacy for 30 minutes and Lyric probably only wore her saddle for 45 minutes. Neither of them worked up a sweat but it was still a very good session all the way around. It was good for Lyric to wear the saddle while she was free to move around and good for Lacy to answer up to my cues regardless of whether Lyric was in our way. When I was done, I got off of Lacy, unsaddled her and left her on the outside of the round pen. Then I went back, snapped the lead rope on Lyric and walked her over to where Lacy was standing so I could unsaddle her too. Until tonight, I've been slow and deliberate when unsaddling Lyric, always mindful not to let stirrups or straps flop against her and startle her. But tonight, I decided to quit coddling her so much. I unfastened the cinch and let it fall behind her front legs while I folded the strap up in a 'necktie' through the ring on the saddle. Then I moved to her right side and secured the dangling cinch to the tab on that side of the saddle and pulled the saddle and blanket off from the right side. I carried them around behind Lyric and tucked them through the rail on the pen. She stood quietly through the whole process like like she'd done this all her life.

I didn't really have a set timetable in mind when I started this training process and lots of things have kept me from working with Lyric three times a week as I'd planned. But even the unplanned slack time is good because it hasn't seemed to affect Lyric's progress. She learns quickly and retains what she's learned even if there are long gaps between sessions. That reassures me that she's going to be one of those horses that can be out in the pasture for months at a time and still remember all her manners and maneuvers when you saddle her up. It's a good thing because tomorrow I am leaving town for four days due to work. Yeoldfurt is going to have his hands full just keeping up with all the chores that I normally handle when I'm here. I doubt he'll have time to mess with Lyric until I get back. But I know on Saturday when we have our next lesson in the round pen, Lyric will pick up right where we left off.

Lyric's Progress Report

2011-03-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

Lyric's official training began a week ago last Sunday with some basic sacking out (desensitization) exercises and some hang time on the 'thinking tree...which is a big live oak tree out back. We call it the 'thinking tree' because we use it to tie horses when we're saddling or unsaddling or when they need a lesson in patience. They're not tied directly to the tree. We have lengths of chain draped over two stout branches on opposite sides of the tree. At the end of each loop of chain is a tie ring. When we 'tie' a horse to the tree, they are really not tied at all. The end of the lead rope is pushed through the tie ring and a tongue in the loop provides resistance if the horse pulls back or moves away from the tree. How much resistance depends on how the rope is fed through the ring, but this is an excellent training tool for a horse to learn to stay where you put them.

Each evening's lesson began with Lyric on one side of the tree and her mama, Lacy, on the other. Lacy is there just so Lyric won't be anxious about being separated from her herd and can concentrate on whatever we're trying to teach her. The first day, we just worked on patience. A little grooming, a little petting, but a whole lot of standing and waiting for something new to happen. The object was just to establish a routine. I also took the opportunity to adjust the bridle Lyric would be wearing so that it fit her properly. The technical term is really headstall, not bridle. Bridle would be the whole assemby, headstall and bit. But I wanted to make sure the headstall fit before I attached a bit so that it would be as comfortable as possible the first time Lyric wore it.

The bit we are starting out with is a full cheek snaffle with a copper mouthpiece. A snaffle is a broken bit which means the metal part that goes in the horse's mouth is hinged in the middle which allows the two sides to move independently, which gives a rider the ability to send more clear direction to the horse. The 'full cheek' refers to metal bars that extend above and below the bit on the outside of the horse's mouth ...preventing the bit from being pulled through the mouth and aiding in directing the horse's face.

Once the headstall was adjusted to fit, the bit was attached and Yeoldfurt put it on her. She was unsure at first. But with patience and persistence, she figured it out. As soon as the bit was in her mouth, she instinctively mouthed it and played with it, trying to figure out what it was and why it was there. She was probably also trying to spit it out. We just let her wear it and play with it for a few minutes until she relaxed. Then he gave her a honey bun so she would figure out that she could still eat with a bit in her mouth. He expected her to bite off a chunk, but she sucked the honey bun in whole. I had to laugh because you could almost see her eyebrows furrowing up as she concentrated on not dropping any while she worked around the bit. When she'd finished the honey bun and was again settled down and standing patiently, Yeoldfurt removed the bridle and told her what a good girl she was. Then he put it back on her for a few minutes. He took it off and put it back on a couple of times that evening. She learned several things that first day ...how to accept a bit, how to carry a bit, how to eat around a bit and that it was okay to let us put it on because it wouldn't hurt her and we would eventually take it back off.

Her next official lesson was on Thursday and Yeoldfurt was at work so it was just me that day. I bridled her up with no problem. I proceeded with our usual grooming session but with me standing on the mounting block next to her instead of on the ground. The purpose of standing on the mounting block is to teach her that it's okay for me to be moving around above her. Young horses that have never been ridden are often spooky about sudden movements from above. It's a new experience for them. So by standing on the mounting block, I am making myself considerably taller than she is used to seeing me and am able to reach even the far side of her with the brush. That's another important lesson for a young horse ...that we can stand on one side of them and touch them on the other side. I'm preparing her for the day I stand on her left side and throw a leg over her to get on. If I don't teach her I can be on two sides at once, she's liable to go rodeo on me.

Last Saturday was her third official lesson and we progressed to letting her wear a saddle. We followed the same routine we had established the other days, bringing her and Lacy to the tree and then grooming and putting her bridle on. On Saturday, we added the saddle. She did really well for her first time. We let her sniff the saddle and pad before we placed them on her back and we were careful not to let the stirrups or straps flap around too much and startle her. Once she is completely comfortable with the idea of wearing a saddle, we'll make a point to wiggle the saddle and jostle the stirrups so she gets accustomed to those sounds and sudden movements. But the first few times, the goal is just to let her understand the process and that the saddle is not going to hurt her.

I saddled her again tonight right before Yeoldfurt got home from work. I was careful about the stirrups and cinch strap but moved a little faster than I did on Saturday. She did real well and was all tacked up and standing patiently when Yeoldfurt pulled in the driveway. She's really has a good attitude so far and is soaking up the attention. I'll work keep working with her at the tree for the rest of this week. Then next weekend, we'll take her out to the round pen to saddle her up and turn her loose. If she has any inclination to buck with the saddle, that's when she'll do it. If she does, she does ...she'll only teach herself that she can't buck it off. But I'm hoping she maintains the same quiet attitude she's had so far and just waits for us to show her what's next.

Training Philosophies ...Theirs and Mine

2011-02-27T12:46:00.000-06:00

If you talk to most of the 'natural horsemanship' people today, the less resistance / restriction you use in training your horses, the better. I can buy into that philosophy to a degree, but some of them carry it too far ... asserting that halter breaking a two or three day old foal is 'restrictive' and not natural and, therefore, not good. That's where we part ways.

I've had one or two very young foals that managed to get themselves hurt and require daily medicating or doctoring for a week or so. If that foal is unaccustomed to wearing a halter and unfamiliar with being constrained by a lead rope and handler, daily medicating and doctoring can turn into a daily wrestling match. A newborn foal weighs roughly 60-70 pounds and will double their weight in a matter of a few months. Even if it's a newborn and I still outweigh the little critter, it's all I can do to wrestle them into submission and hold on. If I also have to handle a syringe or bandages, forget it. It would take one of us to hold the bugger down and the other to do the doctoring. That's trauma and stress on all three of us that, in my opinion, doesn't work in our favor as far as building trust, and certainly doesn't do anything for the healing process. So we always introduce a halter the first day the foal is born. They wear it for the ten or twenty minutes it takes their mama to eat, then it is removed. They wear it again every time their mama gets fed from that day forward. When they are about a week old, we introduce them to the lead rope.

At first, we just clip one on their halter and turn them loose. Then we lead mama off a few steps because we know the foal will instinctively follow. Inevitably, they step on the lead rope as they walk and the sudden downward pressure on their nose always surprises and sometimes bewilders them. But they soon figure out that they are stepping on the rope and they move their foot. It's fun to see the little light bulb go off in their heads. I think some of them have those curly-que watt saver bulbs because the light is very dim at first and brightens up as the lesson sinks in.

That lead rope lesson is the first introduction to 'give to pressure' ...a very important foundation for everything else they need to learn. After a few days of dragging the lead rope while they follow mama, we pick up the lead rope and put gentle pressure on it just a fraction of a second before we lead mama off. We are standing right in front of them and they can see that WE have the lead rope and WE are putting pressure on it, but before they have a chance to think about it too much, we lead mama off and their instinctive and immediate response is to follow her.

Timing is everything at this stage. By letting their first step release the pressure you have on the lead rope, they are learning that the reward is in giving to the pressure and following your lead. Just a few steps the first time, then we stop mama, pet all over the foal to reinforce good behavior and repeat the process.

Most everyone I know with horses, even the 'natural horsemanship' groupies, eventually teach their horses to halter and lead. But the one thing I find that people don't routinely do these days is teach their horse to just stand. Stand tied or stand with a rider on their back, just stand and wait. You might not think a horse can learn much when he's just standing in one place, but you're wrong. A horse learns patience. If he's tied up, a horse learns to wait however long it takes for you to come back and release him. He also learns trust ...that you WILL come back and release him and that you have left him in a safe place. If he's got a rider on his back, he learns that it's okay to just stand still and rest. We teach our horses that unless we ask them to move, they should just stand still. We might need to adjust the saddle or adjust something on ourselves, or whatever. If you DO need to adjust something, having to worry about controlling the fidgety horse you're sitting on only complicates the task at hand. These are very important lessons and, in our opinion, ones that horses are never too young to learn. So we introduce the halter the first day, the lead rope within the first week, leading lessons soon thereafter and standing tied by their second month. You have to be smart setting all these lessons up, always try to set the horse up for success and build each lesson upon the previous ones.

Mares and foals are instinctively very emotionally dependent on each other for the first few months, so we use that bond to enhance our lessons. Just as leading the mare off to introduce the lead rope and leading lessons, the mare is also a great great tool for teaching patience. When we have bred mares and new foals, we feed the horses twice a day. They are stalled while they eat and it usually takes them fifteen or twenty minutes to clean their buckets. Like all babies, by the time foals are three or four months old, they are taste-testing everything around them. When mama sticks her nose in her bucket to eat, the foal is curious and wants to see what she's after. Our mares are good mamas and, like all good mamas, they are patient with the babies in their feed buckets ...to a point. By the time the baby is eating a noticeable amount, mama is starting to get annoyed. So we introduce the baby to their own bucket with a little sweet feed. They are already comfortable with being haltered during feeding and familiar with the concept of a lead rope on their halter. So a bucket is hung just outside mama's stall and the baby is led over to their own bucket. They are immediately enthusiastic to having their own feed bucket and they are right across the fence from mama who is calmly eating her own feed, so we are set up for success with this new lesson. While they're eating, we are scratching and brushing and handling the foal's feet. Constant 'feel good' contact reinforces our bond with the foal and also ensures we are right there if foal gets in a panic over being tied. As they become comfortable with the new routine, we gradually spend less time right there with them and they learn to be confident in the situation on their own. Mama's la-tee-dah attitude and the distraction of yummy sweet feed right under their nose makes these lessons go that much more smoothly.

All of this has been on my mind because I've decided to saddle break Lyric myself this year. I raised her mama from the age of four months and did everything I could think of to prepare her mentally and emotionally for the day I would ride her. But when she was finally old enough to be ridden, I sent her off to a trainer for 30 days to be professionally started under saddle. Her daughter, Lyric, is five years old this April ...plenty old enough and plenty stout enough to carry a rider. She's had all the same ground work and preparation that her mama had and we would have sent her off to a trainer a couple of years ago, but a long stint of unemployment and several other personal challenges got in the way. Things are better for us now and we could scrape up the money to send her to someone later this year. But I'm thinking it would be good for her and me both if I do the honors. I'm no bronc rider and if she decides to buck, I will most likely hit the dirt and hit it hard. But if I do MY JOB right, she won't ever buck. So it's up to me to make sure I do things right.

We will start next week and I have a very specific game plan in mind. I'll take pictures and keep you posted every couple of weeks as we make progress. Hopefully it will be a success story in the end and I'll be riding her with reasonable confidence by the end of this summer. But if we hit a few snags along the way, I'll own up to those as well. We all learn from experience, even if it's not our own.

Nothing Like a Road Trip!

2011-02-26T21:12:00.000-06:00

Yeoldfurt and I have racked up a lot of miles on the highway over the years. I moved from Texas to New Mexico when we got married in 1999 and the move itself involved three or four trips back and forth. I had only been there a few weeks when he got transferred to a location 60 miles further north so we moved again. Five months later, we moved back to Texas. By the time we bought our little place south of Houston, we both decided we were putting down roots. Neither of us wanted to hear the 'M' word (as in 'move') again for a long, long time. For the first few years, we spent many a weekend hauling horses up to Lake Somerville for overnight camping and trail riding. The more time we spent around Lake Somerville, the more we realized this was the part of Texas we really liked. So we started working on a relocation plan. It took us a couple of years and many, many road trips to meet real estate agents and look at different properties. But we were finally able to move up here in the summer of 2006. The property we bought is twice the acreage that we had at the old place and is a brick home versus the singlewide mobile we had at the old place. It has definitely been a step up. But the best part is that the driveway here is only a 30 minute haul to the trails at Lake Somerville. Yes, it has definitely been a good move.

Today, we got to take a road trip down to our old stomping grounds to buy a new hay ring. Yes, they sell hay rings up here ...but choices locally are limited. We could buy a welded steel ring for about $130 but, being steel, it will inevitably rusts apart and become a hazard to the horses. The only other choice locally is a new plastic tubing model that (choke) costs $299! Uh ...not happening. When we lived at the old place, we had a galvanized hay ring that was extremely sturdy and was designed as two pieces that 'pinned' together so it was extremely easy for one person to maneuver. Being galvanized, it was also extremely rust-resistant. We had owned it for over five years when we moved and it was in perfect shape. But we left it behind because we had decided round bales didn't work for us. They didn't work at the old place because that place was only about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and the climate is incredibly humid. Even with seven horses, the big round hay bales would mold before the horses could eat them down. Moldy hay can kill a horse, so we would end up having to burn half the bale more often than not. Where we live now, we are at least 150 miles from the coast and the humidity is much lower. Round bales are cheaper pound for pound and it's certainly less labor to put one round bale out every two weeks rather than wrangling square bales every day. So it wasn't long after we moved here that we decided to buy a hay ring. We bought a steel one locally and it is literally rusting to pieces now, a little over four years later. We don't want to buy a new hay ring every few years or risk a horse getting injured on rusty metal, so we decided to head back to the old stomping grounds today and pick up a galvanized ring. The heavy duty model was only $135 and I promise you, it will be in good shape and still serving it's intended purpose a lot longer than I am! We had to drive down in the big diesel and at $3.49/gallon, we probably spend $60 in gas but it was worth it. We also met my sister and her three grandkids and two other long-time friends for lunch while we down there. Lunch was another $30, but it was also well worth it because friends and family are what makes life special. For me, even the long drive down there and the long drive back were enjoyable because road trips had been such a big part of our early years together.

My dad used to always say, 'the simple minded are easily amused.' Well, I guess I'm simple minded because driving the same old route we had traveled so many times when we were trying to move up here and seeing so many of the same old places along the way was fun for me. The purpose of the trip may have been the new hay ring, but the journey and the time with friends and family is, for me, what made this day truly worthwhile.

Trying to Catch Up

2011-02-21T18:29:00.000-06:00

Why is it that when you fall behind on something, it takes longer to regain the ground than it took you to lose it in the first place? I was off today for President's Day and managed to finish our taxes, catch up the laundry and the housework, and take care of some routine maintenance on the car. If I had been half as productive Saturday and Sunday, my list of what still needs doing would be a whole lot shorter. But the sun is going down and taking my last bit of motivation with it. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone at the paying job.

Thanks to the nasty flu bug, Yeoldfurt and I have done next to nothing around here for the past two weeks except eat and sleep and occasionally (only recently) go to work. Other than feeding the menagerie and a bare minimum of housework, pretty much nothing got accomplished. We are finally starting to feel better but to look around at what needs to be done just to catch up makes me want to crawl back under the covers.

The garden is a mess but we're reconfiguring the raised beds this year, so it will be a late start anyway. The buckets we used last year need to be loosened and composted. Seeds need to be started. The fruit trees are budding and one is even flowering, so they need to be mulched and watered. The chicken coop needs to be raked out and the bedding composted for mulching the fruit trees. There's the never-ending fence projects and still plenty of downed trees to be cut up and hauled either to the burn pile or stacked for firewood. The iron hay ring we bought when we moved here in 2006 is rusting and falling apart. So next Saturday we're taking a road trip to our old home place to buy a new one. The one we're buying is galvanized and will probably last longer than we do. It's worth the trip and the price.

When we moved up here, we were raising Paint horses but the market for pleasure horses has tanked in the past couple of years. We will be venturing into the cattle business this coming year in order to maintain our Ag Exemption on the property. We'll buy three or four weanling calves this spring, raise them for up to six months, then put one in the freezer and sell the rest at the auction. It should pay for itself plus a little to spare but it's not as much about making a profit as it is about putting quality meat on the table and maintaining the tax exemption on the land. But that means we need to invest in a freezer this year too. It's something we've wanted to do for a while, and will be useful when the garden starts producing. I will be able to blanch and freeze vegetables as we harvest and wait until I have enough to make a whole day of canning worthwhile.

It's going to be a busy year and, I'm hoping, a bountiful one.

TGIF

2011-02-18T20:08:00.000-06:00

It's finally Friday, oh happy day! I ended up missing three days of work last week due to the nasty flu bug. I went back to work this past Monday, but have been dragging all week. You know how when you know you're going on vacation, you can kind of prep your desk at work for your impending absence, so the fallout won't be quite as bad when you come back? Well, nasty flu bug gave me NO WARNING and my desk was already severely backlogged. So when I showed up at 7:00am this past Monday, one of my co-workers asked me if I brought a shovel. My desk was that deep.

I made a dent this week, but it would take me at least another week to just get the backlog down to where it was before I got sick. I'm not going to get that opportunity though because the office is closed next Monday for President's Day. My work load (applications for child support services through the Attorney General's Office) roll in around the clock. Some people submit paper applications, either in person or by mail. But applications can be submitted online too. So the work just piles up. Next week I will have only four days to accomplish five days worth of work and try to whittle down the backlog. The following week, I have to go out of town for training for three days, so I'll only have two days to accomplish any actual work. Anyone who thinks 'government jobs' are cakewalks ought to try one sometime. That sure hasn't been my experience!

But now it's Friday and I'm not going to think about my desk or my backlog for three days. Tomorrow is Yeoldfurt's birthday and we're going to celebrate. He found a demonstration on blacksmithing he wants to check out and while we're in town, I'll take him someplace nice to eat. We may even do a movie. Netflix is a great deal but every once in a while, it's nice to go on a movie date. Whatever Yeoldfurt wants to do tomorrow, we'll do. It's his day.

Like Dominos

2011-02-11T21:19:00.000-06:00

When one goes down, the other usually follows. I've been sick since Tuesday night with flu-like symptoms and am finally on the mend this Friday evening. But Yeoldfurt got up this morning feeling a little off and ended up coming home from work a little early because now he's sick. Good thing I'm on the mend because he needs to spend the next few days in bed. Tomorrow is his off day and he doesn't leave for work on Sundays until almost noon, so maybe he can head this off before it gets too good a hold on him.

I had to make an appointment at the local clinic today because rules where I work say if you miss a third day, you can't come back without a doctor's note. I was out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so I had to have a note. My insurance options through the state are both PPO's which are very picky about in-network and out-of-network stuff. But now they make you choose a PCP, a Primary Care Physician and that doctor's name is printed on your card. If you want to see someone other than you PCP, you pay the first $500 out of your own pocket even if the one you want to go see is in-network ...unless you call ahead and temporarily change your PCP. My PCP is about 10 miles from my office but about 40 miles from my house. I could either make an 80 mile round trip to see my regular guy or I could spend however long it would take to wade through the automated phone system at the insurance company to make the temporary change. It took the better part of an hour but it was worth to avoid the long round trip commute and the $500 out of pocket. I'm not sure what either of my doctor's offices would charge if they weren't billing the insurance company, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot more than the $25 in-network co-pay I ended up with today.

Long story short, my problems are probably viral but since they've drug on for this long, they gave me a z-pack of antibiotics and some prescription cough medicine. They also gave me my doctor's excuse so I can go back to work on Monday which is the only reason I bothered making the appointment. These things usually wear out on their own but rules are rules.

Maybe it's viral or maybe it's this crazy weather lately. Tomorrow will be in the 60's and several days next week in the 70's. Several days last week never got over 40. This is crazy weather, even for Texas. All I know is I need to get Yeoldfurt well as soon as possible. I'm going out of town for training the first three days March and everything will be on his shoulders while I'm gone. So I have about two weeks to whip him back in shape. His birthday is coming up in just a week and we have plans. So I really only have one week. Good thing I'm on the mend...

Snow Two Years in a Row

2011-02-05T18:49:00.000-06:00

Snow is not a common occurrence in central Texas. To have a measurable snowfall two years in a row is really something. Moisture in any form is always welcome in a rural agricultural community. The sight of a thin blanket of snow over land that's been plagued with drought for several years running is beautiful. So as soon as Yeoldfurt had the water flowing again at the house, I took the camera and the dog and headed for the big pasture.

My excuse was to check fence which is always a good practice after any windy weather. But the truth is, I just wanted to forget the troubles of the last few days and enjoy the scenery. Since snow is so rare in these parts, winter here is usually dull and barren. Just dormant vegetation in multiple shades of brown against the variegated gray of winter skies. To see all that dullness dressed up in white from fresh fallen snow is just breathtaking while it lasts.

The catch pond had been completely dry most of the summer because of the drought. A week of heavy rain in November brought the water level about halfway back to normal again. Hopefully, we'll have better rainfall this spring and summer.

Looking back toward the house and barns, the snow was already starting to melt as the temperatures were finally above freezing. The afternoon forecast called for sunny skies and temperatures in the low forties.

The thing about walking dogs in the country is that they get to lead the way. We take our dog with us whenever we walk the property or even if we just walk up to the road to get the mail. She never takes off and one word from either of us stops her in her tracks or brings her to our side. She's revels in the freedom of no leash and I smile at the freedom of having absolute control with no leash.

The purpose of the venture was to observe the winter landscape but it wasn't long before we were being observed by the horses.

Being herd animals, when one horse is interested enough to stop eating, instincts take over in the herd and it isn't long before the others are checking you out too.

If they all stop eating long enough to snort and stare, it won't be long until someone is elected to come check you out. Dancer being the low mare on the totem pole almost always draws the short straw. She circles off to my left, probably intended as a diversion.

Then the others move in from the opposite side. You remember these two from Devious Deeds, I'm sure! When things are boring, they pester one another so much you'd think they couldn't stand each other. But when an adventure is afoot, they are always together and always right in the middle of it. They move in to my right in an obvious attempt to flank me.

I was never a threat to them and they were never a real threat to me or the dog. It was just a silly game of sneak attack, invented as a way to warm up on a cold winter day. Either they got bored because I wasn't playing 'scared' for them or they worked up an appetite from their little game because they were back to foraging in a matter of minutes and the dog and I continued our walk down the back fence line.

There were plenty of downed limbs on our property and the neighbors, but none that damaged the fenceline so it was just a nice walk in the woods. But after about 20 minutes, my face felt stiff from the cold so we headed back. I was cold and I could no longer feel my toes. But I was smiling because I knew I was going to be able to enjoy a long hot shower that evening ...all thanks to Yeoldfurt, my very own Dragon Slayer!

How It Really Was

2011-02-04T21:12:00.000-06:00

Last night when Yeoldfurt came home from work, he was met at the door by a very bedraggled unhappy wife. We had been three full days without 'indoor plumbing.' I have been known to primitive camp for a long weekend from time to time and I have roughed it out of circumstance and necessity in a house with no lights or electricity for as much as a week a few times. But when I was camping and roughing it, I wasn't also trying to pull off a 'professional' appearance at an office job every day. This past week was tough. I am no barbie doll that has to have all the frills and froo-froo every day ...but that doesn't mean I have no standards for cleanliness. By the time Yeoldfurt got home from work last night, I was not clean, my floors were not clean, my counters were not clean, the laundry was piling up and I just had a melt down.

Yeoldfurt, being the gentlemanly knight that he is, let me blow off my steam and 'wring out my rag' as my sister calls it and then promised me it would get better. Today, he made good on that promise. It was still bitter cold but he was outside with my hair dryer first thing this morning, trying to thaw out the water line feeding the house.

It took quite a while but he finally got a drip going. It was slow at first, intermittent at times, but it was progress and I was happy. We left the spigot open and went in the house to warm up.

We opened the taps in the house too so air could work its way out of the lines. Thirty minutes later, we had water. It was wonderful!

When Yeoldfurt mentioned in his first post this morning about HB not being happy ...he was understating the facts out of kindness to me. When he made light of his day's accomplishments in his last post this evening ('another dragon bites the dust'), he was just being humble. Ain't he sweet?

Still No Water

2011-02-03T01:49:00.000-06:00

Yeoldfurt posted Wednesday morning about us waking up to no water in the house. He emailed me at work mid-morning to say the rural company that supplies our water had an issue overnight that they expected to have resolved by noon. We were both hoping our lack of water was due to the water company's issue. But when I got home mid-afternoon, there was still no water. It was too late to call the water company for an update. But my best guess is they fixed their problem and we could now assume our lack of water was our problem. Guess we won't know until at least Saturday since the daytime and nighttime temperatures will remain at or below freezing until then. The prediction right now is mid-50's for Saturday. By the time we hit 40 degrees, it will be pretty obvious if we have a busted pipe. We're still hoping for the best though.

The day before yesterday, we were rudely awakened fifteen minutes before the alarm went off to a big crash outside. The wind was howling when we went to bed the night before and I knew right away what had happened.

Do you remember this tree?

It was dead as a doornail after last year's drought and had been slowly shedding it's bark and smaller limbs. You can see how close it is to the chain link fence and stalls on the right. What you can't see in this pictures is our house about twelve feet to the left of the tree. Every time I walked by it, I would try to knock a few more limbs off and offer a little prayer that it would miss the house and the fence when it finally came down. That was the sound that awakened us fifteen minutes before the alarm on Tuesday ...the sound of an answered prayer.

This is what the tree looks like now.

It missed the house AND the chain link fence. If we had cut it down ourselves, we could not have laid it so perfectly in that narrow space. It will be a lot of work to get it all cleaned up, but at least it's down and no longer a threat to the other structures.

We lost several trees in last year's drought, included these tall pines along the driveway.

That picture was taken at the end of last summer. They look like dead soldiers, all lined up along the driveway. A few months later, we paid a contractor to take the tops off to make them more manageable. They were all sixty to seventy feet tall and would have either blocked the driveway or taken down the power line on the opposite of the driveway if we tried to fell them without topping them first.

This is what they look like now, decapitated sentries.

This picture doesn't show you the seemingly endless piles of brush created by the decapitating. We're still working on cleaning those up and then we'll cut what's left of the trees down to the ground. They were pretty when they were alive and healthy. But I would rather have them gone entirely than still standing in their present state.

Such is the country life. There are always going to be fences to be built or repaired, animals that need feeding or doctoring, gardens that need to be planted or harvested. Rain or shine, there are always chores to be done. It's a labor-intensive life and it's not for everyone. Sometimes my city-dwelling co-workers see pictures or hear me talk about things we're doing out here. Then they tell me how much they wish they could live out in the country, have horses, raise a garden, enjoy a simpler life. They might even really believe it when they say it. But I just smile because I know better. They would enjoy it like they would enjoy a vacation. They'd have fun for a while and then be ready to go back to the city. They would be missing their Starbuck's and their movie theaters.

Monkey Bread and Cinnamon Rolls

2011-02-02T21:01:00.000-06:00

I discovered Monkey Bread when I was in my early twenties. Someone brought some to an office Christmas Party, I got the recipe and it has been a holiday tradition in our home ever since. Over the years, I've found the same recipe by different names ...Cinnamon Bubble Ring, Cobblestone Cake. It's all Monkey Bread with a fancier name. I like to bake it in a fluted bundt pan because I think it's prettier but you can use a 9x13 rectangular pan or two 8-inch round or square pans. I've even seen it baked in a 2-pound coffee can. Just spray whatever pan you will use with Pam (or similar) nonstick cooking spray before you add the dough.
The recipe is very simple. You need:

4 cans refrigerator biscuits
(Pillsbury or store-brand, doesn't matter)
1 cup sugar plus 2 Tbsps cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1 cube butter, melted (not margarine or butter substitute)

Put the sugar & cinnamon in a large ziplock bag
Open the canned biscuits, cut into fourths
Drop the dough pieces a few at a time in the ziplock bag
Shake to coat, then put them in pre-sprayed baking pan
When all the dough pieces are in the pan,
Combine the brown sugar & melted butter
Pour evenly over the top of the dough

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then cover top with foil and back an additional 10-15 minutes

To serve, place an appropriate sized/shaped platter over the baking pan and invert. Can be served warm or cold and makes a good breakfast bread.

I have been making cinnamon rolls for several family members and friends at Christmas for almost 20 years. I usually half the dough and make two 8-inch pans (approximately 12 rolls in each pan) from one recipe of dough. I also make a Monkey Bread or two, usually at my daughter's request and usually using my fluted bundt pan for the Monkey Bread. While I was thinking about Monkey Bread the other day, it occurred to me that I could stack the rolls on their sides in a bundt pan and I would have pull apart cinnamon rolls! A cinnamon roll ring! When it was done baking, it would fit on a normal 8-inch dinner plate or round serving platter and it would be easy to use a fork to pull one (or two) rolls off at a time. Ahh, decadence and convenience all in one pan!

I was had a day off a few weeks ago and Yeoldfurt was at work, so I decided to give it a try. My fluted bundt pan that I use to make Monkey Bread held all but five of the rolls. So I used a small rectangular Pyrex dish to stack the remaining rolls. The result, I hoped, would be a pretty and easy to serve Cinnamon Roll Ring and (mini) Cinnamon Roll Log.

This is what the rolls looked like after 45 minutes raising time in my Excalibur dehydrator...

As you can see, there was not much 'head space' remaining for the rolls in the pyrex dish. These rolls always rise a bit more during baking so next time, I will use one of my 1-pound loaf pans instead to give them a little more room.

After they're raised, I always sprinkle the tops of the rolls with cinnamon and sugar, then cover with a generous layer of brown sugar. The last step before baking is to melt a cube of butter (not margarine or spread) and pour over the top of the rolls. When I was making the recipe in two 8-inch square pans, I would use 1/2 cup melted butter on each. Since the bundt pan held considerably more rolls than the pyrex, I poured approximately 3/4 cup butter over the bundt pan and the remaining 1/4 cup over the pyrex.

I was able to bake them together in the same oven, but since the rolls in the pyrex were already so close to the top of the dish, I had a lot of bubble-over during the baking process. A waste of buttery goodness and a mess in the oven! Using the 1-pound loaf pan next time should eliminate that problem. This is what they looked like after baking. We haven't sampled them yet, but I've been making these rolls for so many years, I can tell by looking if a batch came out good. These will be good!

Using the bundt pan and 1-pound loaf pan will streamline my holiday baking from now and I think it makes a prettier end product as well.

This batch went to my office with me the following week and when the email came around two weeks after that announcing an upcoming Breakfast Staff Meeting I was asked by several co-workers if I was planning to bring another batch to the meeting. I guess they were a hit! I'm happy because it's so much faster and easier to bake them this way and I think the end product is pretty.

Yes, pretty matters at least to me ...if I can't make it pretty, I won't want to make it. If I don't make it, nobody gets to eat it. So pretty matters. Yeoldfurt was a quick study on that one. Ha!

Comfort Foods

2011-01-23T21:15:00.000-06:00

Most of us have memories centered around a special dish or food that we enjoyed when we were growing up. A special dessert your grandmother used to make, a supper dish that was a family favorite, even something special your mom used to make for you when you'd been under the weather. Comfort foods. As good for the soul as they are for the tummy! Baked Macaroni and Cheese is one of those dishes for me. I worked full time the whole time my kids were growing up and I am ashamed to admit when I served them Macaroni and Cheese, it almost always came from a box. They loved it, but they didn't know any different. If I had started them out on Macaroni and Cheese the way my mom made it and then introduced them to Kraft Shells N Cheese in a box, they would have thought I have complained loudly. There is just no comparison.

Since both CHEESE and PASTA (any shape will do) are pretty high on Yeoldfurt's list of favorite foods, this dish is one of his favorites. When my mother made this, she didn't put meat in it because she generally served it as a side dish to meat, and she started with a thick White Sauce made from scratch, then melted cubes of cheddar cheese into it. I've added meat to it as a matter of convenience (one dish meals mean less work and less clean up!) and I usually melt some of the spicy Mexican Cheese version of Velveeta for the sauce ...also as a matter of convenience. If I didn't have a full time job that kept me away from home 10 hours of the day, I would make my cheese sauce from scratch too, but even with Velveeta, it's still really good.

There was one thing my mom did as a garnish that I have never done for Yeoldfurt. She would beat an egg with about two tablespoons of water and a little salt & pepper to make an egg wash. She would set that aside in a pie plate. Then she would put about a cup of crushed saltine crackers as a coating in a separate pie plate. In the meantime, she was melting a cube of butter in a small skillet. She would slice one good sized tomato in five slices (there were five of us), dip the slices in the egg wash, dredge them in the crackers and then fry them in the melted butter until they were golden brown on both sides. Just before she put her macaroni and cheese in the oven to bake, she would put these fried tomatoes on top as a garnish. It was a pretty garnish and oh so good!

When Yeoldfurt was leaving for work today, he mentioned that he'd like some Macaroni and Cheese for tomorrow's supper and I told him about the fried tomato garnish my mom used to do. His eyes lit up so we'll find out tomorrow night if he likes it as much as he thinks he will.

As I said, my Macaroni and Cheese is based on the way my mom made it, but tweaked to accommodate our busier lifestyle and Yeoldfurt's penchant for spicy. Yeoldfurt asked me to share the recipe, so here you go:

Meaty Macaroni & Cheese

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

(save the drippings!)

1/2 cup diced fresh onion

2 cups sausage links, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 lb Mexican Velveeta, cubed and melted

1 cup milk (add 1/4 cup at a time, mix well after each addition)

4 Tbsps butter

Fried Tomato Garnish (optional)

1 large firm tomato, evenly sliced

1 egg plus two tablespoons water, well beaten

1 cup Saltine cracker crumbs

Salt/Pepper to taste

1 cube butter, melted

This is what it will look like assembled & ready to bake:

Spray sides and bottom of a 9x13 deep baking dish with nonstick cooking spray, set aside. Cook pasta, drain and set aside. Cook bacon slices in oven at 375 degrees until crisp, approximately 20 minutes. Set bacon on paper towel to drain and pour drippings into a medium sized skillet. Add sausage and diced onion in skillet over medium heat until sausage is slightly seared and onions are translucent. Melt cheese cubes and 4 tablespoons of butter in the microwave, add 1/2 cup milk and blend well. Put cooled pasta in the 9x13 baking dish. Add sausage and onions and mix well. Pour melted cheese over top and stir to coat all of the pasta. Set aside while you make the fried tomatoes.

When you start frying the tomatoes, you want to set up an assembly line because they will cook very quickly. Melt the butter in the same skillet you used when you cooked the sausage and diced onion. Crack a raw egg into a shallow dish, add two tablespoons of cold water, and beat well. Add salt & pepper to taste. Crush the saltines and put them in shallow dish ...a pie plate works well. You need to have a couple of layers of paper towel on a plate next to the skillet to drain the fried tomatoes when they're done. Once everything is ready, set up your assembly line ...tomato slices, the egg wash, the pie plate of saltine crumbs, the melted butter in the skillet and the paper towel to drain ...in that order. The tomatoes will only take a few minutes to cook once you get started, so now would be a good time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. After all the tomatoes are fried and drained, arrange them on top of the macaroni and cheese. What the heck, if you're feeling decadent, pour the melted butter from the fried tomatoes over the top too. Everything is better with butter, right? If that feels a little too decadent, you're just kidding yourself ...it's not like this recipe would ever make it into the Heart Healthy magazines! Now sprinkle the crumbled bacon evenly over the top and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before serving. A nice tossed salad and some fresh or canned fruit for dessert and you have a complete, well-balanced meal.

If you want to make this ahead, you can cover it with plastic wrap and it will keep for several days in the refrigerator, or can be frozen for several months. If you plan to freeze it but want to use the fried tomato garnish, I would freeze it without the fried tomatoes and make them fresh before you bake it.

Where to Begin

2011-01-20T22:43:00.002-06:00

I don't think that either Yeoldfurt or I consider ourselves experts necessarily on prepping or long-term food storage. But since we started down this path a couple of years ago, we've learned a thing or two ...most of it the hard way. We've also accomplished a thing or two during that time. So since the real purpose of this blog is to share information, I'm going to try to share what we've learned. This post is my first installment on that effort.

Food and water are the most basic of necessities. Stockpiling these necessities is not a new concept but, in light of our floundering economy and rising costs, it is fast becoming a very popular one. There is so much to take into consideration when you decide to embrace this lifestyle. How many people are you planning to take care of ...for how long in a worst case scenario? Are you preparing for temporary hard times, or a full blown collapse of this economy? No one has a crystal ball and no can really prepare for every single contingency. You just have to take an objective look at your own situation, your own needs, and your own limitations and then do the best you can.

You will need space for your long-term storage. How many people you intend to take care of and for how long will determine how much space you need. Underestimating the space can be a serious pitfall. So calculate carefully and then round up on your estimations. I had a boss once that used to say, 'It always takes a third longer than you expect.' He was talking about estimating labor costs when bidding a contract, but I've found that 'a third longer' is a pretty good rule of thumb. So when you round up, round up by a third. It's much easier to find out you didn't need quite as much of a particular prep item, or didn't need quite as much storage space overall than it is to find out you needed much more.

There are two basic things you need to know before you can determine how much you need in terms of preps or storage space. You need to know how many people you are planning to support and for how long. Obviously you know how many people live in your household, but do you have extended family that you will accommodate if they show up on your doorstep? If so, it's much better to plan for them and have them not show up than to not plan for them and run short in a crisis. So decide how many people you want to accommodate in a worst case scenario. Next decide how many months worth you want to store. We decided on 12 months. The LDS church has always advocated a 12 month supply. It's long-term enough for you to get through most temporary personal crises and short-term enough to be manageable in terms of rotation. But I have known families who just keep a month or two ahead and other families that have literally years worth of staples. Decide what YOU are preparing for and plan accordingly.

Now that you know how many people you expect to accommodate and how long you expect to accommodate them in a worst case scenario, you can start your itemized list of what you will be storing. It can be mind-boggling at first. Somehow the hardest things to estimate for 12 month supply are the very things that are the most fundamentally essential to our daily life. Toilet paper is a good example. It's something we ALL use daily and would all miss dearly if it wasn't there. Yeoldfurt and I jokingly refer to it as 'rolled gold.' I say jokingly, but we take it very seriously. Off the top of your head, if you were new to prepping, would you KNOW how much toilet paper you would need per person for a 12 month supply? Before last year, I wouldn't have. For most people, their initial estimate would tend to be high because their estimate would be influenced by their keen desire not to be caught short. But investing more than you need of one item at some point robs you of the ability to invest enough in some other need. So it's important to be as realistic as possible in your estimation of quantities for all things. Breaking everything down into a one week or even a one day supply will simplify the task.

When we were just starting out, Yeoldfurt found a list online somewhere and built our list from that using Excel spreadsheet software. If you're building the list on the computer, any software will do ...but I highly recommend using a spreadsheet so you can easily sort. Most wordprocessing softwares will sort also if you set them up correctly, but it's not as user friendly. If you have spreadsheet software, that's definitely the best way to go.

Every item on Yeoldfurt's initial list was in alphabetical order. I decided early on that I needed to reorganize it into categories if I was going to be able to use it week to week. I also found that it included a lot of things that we didn't really use. Every family is different and has different needs. I'm the shopper and the cook in our household, so the list had to make sense to ME if I was going to be able to use it efficiently. Every person is different. Every family is different. You have to make sure the list fits your situation.

These are the eight categories that I used to organize our list:

Beverages & Related Condiments
Canned/Dried Goods
Cereals/Grains/Pastas/Stuffing
Cleaning Products/Chemicals
Condiments/Sauces/Salad Dressings
Cooking/Staples & Mixes
Personal Hygiene
Paper/Plastics/Foil

An inventory list is only useful if it's kept current. When I pull something out of storage, I write it down on my grocery list for the following week. Then a day or two before I plan to shop, I add any items from the inventory list that we're short of goal on. When I get home from shopping, I update the quantities on the spreadsheet. It's really very easy once you get in the habit.