Prepping for Winter!

Prepping for Winter!

We've been having some pretty weird weather. It's been swinging between the 60s and the lowest temperature so far was about 28°. We've had nice weather and then lots of rain. I think the next week or two will be kind of the end of our Autumn weather but that's a guess. We've been doing lots of little prepping things inside and out getting ready for winter. I have some nice Autumn decor on our front porch, took down the Halloween goodies from our front yard that we like to put out. It was fun seeing the trick-or-treaters again this year! Now we have some more regular decor out and prepping for Thanksgiving. Lots of leaves coming down daily- 

 

 

Turkey prices are seeming a bit high in our area, but I'm not seeing any shortages yet. Anybody seeing anything interesting out there? We will be hosting this year, doing a potluck with our adult kids and grandkids. Sometimes we have a little snow in November that doesn't last, but comes down. I'll be curious to see if we get some before Thanksgiving. The leaves are definitely coming down! Dave already cleaned out the gutters once-

 

We both got new wiper blades for both cars the other ones were toast. Got out out winter woolens and fleece, gloves, hats, etc. Had to buy some new wool socks at Costco, mine wore out. I love theirs, just throw in the washer dryer! Snow scrapers in the cars with emergency blankets. Cleaned out the garden beds, picked the last of the tomatoes. Caulked some of our windows. Dave repainted our house trim, gor new address numbers, all looks great! Chickens are still on strike since they molted, but that's normal for them! Dave put up the coop sunroom while it was still mild. Gives them lot of extra dry space during the snow and rain. We just take apart in the spring and store the frame-

 

 

Luna on the left Sunny on the right

 

I put our winter bedding out, nice heavy comforter to keep us warmer on the cold nights. I put out our faux sheep skins from Ikea. I have a few on our living room furniture pieces which we love. Makes it look a little bit more warm and cozy and they're easy to throw in the washer and dryer. I bought a couple blue ones too and Bonnie loves them on the foot of the  spare bed. I think she enjoys the fuzziness too!

 

 

I fermented some pickles for the winter. Also stocked up on some French baguettes, low-cost at a local French bakery. They freeze really great! Nice to have those on hand for soups in the winter. So nice to also have our homegrown, organic peaches and tomatoes frozen for the future.  I decided to try my hand at making my own sourdough starter soon and make some sourdough breads. I found a YouTube channel, Our Gabled Home, that had a really great video on how to easily make your own starter. Great video How To Easily Start Sourdough  She also has tons of simple Sourdough recipes and German food videos too. Enjoy! How is your autumn weather going???   

I'm Back! Prepping For Winter and Beyond, Over One Million Views!

 

I'm Back! Prepping For Winter and Beyond, Over One Million Views!

I am back to blogging! I recently retired, had a nice refresh and will start posting more now.  Obviously there's been a lot going on in the U.S. and the world recently. I had some mixed feelings about retiring recently given the state of the world.  The good thing is that Dave and I are both pretty resilient, I have a lot of skills if I do have to go back to work at some point. Time will tell. We recently got some of the weather from the bomb cyclone on the West Coast. Then our first major snow up in the mountains last month. Dave and I celebrated our anniversary up in McCall, Idaho. It was cold on Saturday and when we started to drive back on Sunday morning it had snowed about 4 inches-

 

Snowed steadily on the way back, turned to rain in Boise. Since then we've had some rain and dry weather. Sadly we went through an inversion for a few weeks with poor quality air and very cold! Today the sun is shining and most of it is blown out, but maybe coming back next week. Built a new sunroom for the coop-

 

 

The previous one used a somewhat flexible PVC pipe which did not turn out to be sturdy enough. Weight of snow I knock off as needed and wind. I had the idea for Dave to design something that would use the heavy PVC or 2' x4's. Dave came up with the idea of the one, then he built it. We can store off-season easily. It is much more stable. Chickens are already using it! I'm planning on probably getting a few more chicks in the spring. Not sure if I'll be working, probably part-time after the first of the year. We'll see how things go. Retiring from the federal government was quite the adventure! Lots and lots of paperwork.

Preparedness-wise I went through our pantry closet, pulled some things that I had bought.  Made some donations to the Idaho Food Bank. I called to see if they also needed toiletries, as we had a lot of brand new mini toothpastes, etc. that we just didn't need. It's always good to think of others needing all kinds of things and they were happy to have them. I've been re-stocking the freezer a bit. Always watching for deals! I thought I had about the effects of the new upcoming tariffs. I stocked up on some things online, as well as some things locally. I already bought some needed things like bed linens, clothing and misc. stuff. We invested in a sorely needed new mattress/frame, replaced old worn out couch cushions. The couch is a flex steel, but cushions were in really soft. We both need to take care of our backs. Those were good investments! Here's a good video about some things to stock up on soon, I really like this Youtuber, he's very non-political-

I had read about the Japanese budgeting system called Kakeibo. They talk about mindful and wise investments. Great intro video here-

 

 

Lots more on Youtube and books out there. It's great being home full time, I have more time to do meal prep and I'm losing weight which is great. My back seems to be doing much better being home with not being stuck at a desk all day. I'm really happy that one year after my back surgery my back is completely healed and doing well. Also cleaned out my craft closet and donated some different decorative items I just didn't want anymore. Lots of them were already thrifted items so not much of an expense initially anyway. Will be donating more winter/holiday decor. Now I have the time to really sort and sift! Dave did get me a fun retro Santa for my birthday that I was looking for to go by our front door, courtesy Lowe's

My lovely daughter needed me some Scandinavian style wool mittens I had requested a while back. She did a beautiful job!

I also recently invested in my first solar panel to go with my Bluetti solar charger. They were doing a Black Friday sale and so I bought one. I fired it up, even in part sun and shade it started charging!

 

 

 

 

We did buy another car after our Mazda 3 started having some odd intermittent problems that nobody seemed to be able to diagnose. It was at the point where we just didn't feel like it was worth investing anymore in it. We wanted something that would be super reliable for a LOT of years. Even though we didn't want to get into a car payment we felt we got a really good deal. We bought a used 2023 Subaru Crosstrek, only 8,000 miles on it. Basically like new. We like the fact that actually has a little bit less technology than the 2024 (better price). (The 2025's finally just came out.) We didn't like their huge infotainment screens. This one was smaller screen-wise and actually had a CD player (yes, we're old school)! I don't think it's safe to be scrolling through my phone while I'm driving. We did have the front tinted windows tinting removed. Driving around on really gray days, at night made it way too dark and we felt it was a safety issue. It didn't cost much and luckily it came right off. When we drove it around much better! We still have our old 2011 Outback, still going strong!

 

Over One Million Views!

I was shocked when I saw this blog had exceeded One Million views! I started this blog in 2011 when we bought our current house. I wanted to really track our improvements. I was reading other people's blogs, getting a lot out of them and thought I might contribute my own little version. I had no idea I would go this long, and far with folks from all over the world reading it!!! While blogging is kind of a dinosaur to some when it comes to social media there are still actually a lot of us that like to read! I know a few people migrated to Facebook/Instagram and their blogs are just sort of sitting there unattended. I may get to that eventually, who knows? But for now I guess I'm kind of a storyteller at heart and we'll see how things go. I've never really made any money off of this which was never the point anyway. Now with the whole huge monetization of social media sometimes I do scratch my head. Anyway, thanks for the views! Bring your friends, bring your family!!!

 

Harvest Time! September is National Preparedness Month, Warranty Success With A Twist

Harvest Time! 

It's been busy, busy busy!!! Harvest time is always great (and) way too much at once. Our Redhaven peach tree was delayed this year because of our wacky late spring early summer weather and started ripening around the same time as the pears. Usually our Red Haven peaches are ripe in July well ahead of the other fruit trees. We froze, baked and canned some, gave some to my kiddos. Froze these on a cookie sheet, then vacuum sealed in bags for later-

 

Apples are done now, gave away some to both my daughters and their in-laws. I put canning on hold this year as I just don't have the time and some medical stuff going on. Also working a lot of overtime at work. Since we have quite a bit left over from the last two years we're good. We have lots of fresh apples stashed in both of our refrigerators which will last for months. They are delish! As a twist we have pretty much decided to actually cut down our apple tree. It is way too big and is producing way too much fruit for us. It was a tough decision in some ways but the right thing to do. Dave has a friend who's going to take the tree down for the firewood and in the spring we'll find a nice dwarf apple tree to put in its place. I canned peaches, pears got to ripe too fast with the heat so I didn't can any. Did baking and we are ate lots fresh! Pear crisp-

 

Tomatoes are coming in like crazy, finally! Our favorite variety this summer is the Black Prince tomato, a Russian variety, sweet and really delicate flavor! Smaller but amazing, will plant again-

 

Lots and lots on the vine too. I frozen some, have eaten fresh and used some of our bumper of crop cherry tomatoes to roast and pack in olive oil. They will keep well in the fridge through the winter. Elliott Homestead has some really good videos on Youtube for food prepping. I used her recipe for the cherry tomatoes. She has another recipe for sun-dried tomatoes (in the oven) and again packed in olive oil. I made those too-

 

 

Roasting

 

Freezing, used vacuum bags after this part

 

Roma's "sun dried" in the oven

 

Packed in Olive oil

 

 

In the fridge for winter

 

Fresh with our Basil and cukes! 

Swiss chard grew really well in a in a box this summer! The chickens love it so I give them some as treats-

 

Kind of so-so on our new little garden bed with radishes, carrots, and green onions. I think it's just been the weather since they've been getting plenty of water-

 

I bought really fresh, nice pickling cucumbers at a local farmstead to ferment again this year. One jar went to each of my daughters and the rest for me-

Made my 1st Chimichurri, came out great with my stored frozen roast and local roasted potatoes!

  

 

 

Eggs are in good production since Luna started laying again!

 

 

 

We're ready for Autumn!

 

Bonnie enjoying the ending summer light-

 

 

 

 

September is National Preparedness Month-

Speaking of storing and preserving food! September is National Preparedness Month (again). I can't say strongly enough I think things are going to get much much worse over the next few years before they get better. If you or your loved ones, or someone you know, is the type to thank everything will be okay they will be in for a very rude awakening. I HOPE I AM WRONG. I'm not trying to be negative, just realistic, and for those who are able to listen- store up extra foods, water, cash, fuel you know the drill. You can look back on my preparedness posts here or Google September National Preparedness Month for all kinds of resources in your area. Don't forget your pets and don't forget over the counter supplements, syrups, pain relief, etc. What if you had a bad cough and couldn't find cough syrup anywhere? Not a good scenario, but if you have a couple of extra bottle stashed along with other kinds of first aid supplies your set. Winter is coming and we've already seen the bizarre international weather events. This is the new normal. Just a good reminder to not rely on anybody to help you, EVER.

 

Warranty Success With A Twist-

I blogged a while back about how I found a used Stanley travel mug with (it turned out) a broken lid-

 

 

I replaced the lid which wound up leaking sadly. I called the Stanley customer service number which was an overseas call center. That was pretty well a nightmare. I looked on their website and anything over 30 days was NOT covered by warranty, shocked! I had bought the lid and stored it for quite a few months before I used it. I started thinking about a work-around. I went on to Amazon's website looked up the Stanley flask/mug that was similar and posted a question, since I couldn't post a comment. Mentioned that they had terrible customer service and was there a local phone number? Within 24 hours I got an email from Stanley to go to their website and fill out a form, which I did. I got a response within about 2 days asking for a photo of the bottom of the cup and a video showing the leak, which I did. Within a few days I was told that the lid is out of stock, but that they were going to send me a replacement. Not a replacement LID, which was what I asked for, but a full replacement mug/flask. They let me choose which of two colors, I went with Rose Quartz (almost Copper), so now I have a brand new Stanley travel mug/flask and lid that works! Item here- Stanley1913 Mug I will save the old one, just won't use in a bag, etc. Pretty funny, I spent $3.00 for the thrifted item, $10 for a new lid and I wound up getting a free, more expensive new flask. Always pays to be creative and think about your options. 

What Are Synchronized Crop Failures?

                          From Vice.com

 

What Are Synchronized Crop Failures?

I thought I'd share this since this video has such a good description and explanation of what synchronized crop failure really is. Great for us non-scientists. I really appreciate this YouTuber, City Prepper, because he does such a good job with data, science and is a-political. Watch the whole thing, might be good information if you want to make some changes. I really like the idea of food pivots. He has tons of great info and a free newsletter with lots of useful info-

 

Here's his website Cityprepping.com  I rarely endorse anyone (no fee paid), but he has very professional work and very informative. Better to get ready now than later... 

 

Wild Weather/Front Yard Garden Redo, Thrifting Scores!

 

Wild Weather/Front Yard Re-Do:

Life has been busy, so NO blogging lately! Settled in my new job nicely, took a lot of brain power I will say. We've had some very WILD weather since May, a lot of rain, some snow and wild temperature swings. We had some flooding on the street right near ours two weeks ago. The force of the water pushed the manhole covers up and off! We had some severe monsoon type rain. Then rain off and on mild temperatures. We had another monsoon rain last week. That resulted in the basement office (across the hall from where I work) having 4 inches of water on the floor. Luckily it triggered an alarm for cleanup and there was no permanent damage. Getting cool again with a freeze advisory in Oregon tonight. The rain's been great for the perennials!

 

 

 

 

 

It's been tough on everyone's allergies sadly. Pollen city. It has made it hard to do gardening trying to work between the weather systems. I've gone between wearing summer clothes and winter clothes. We had  some firefighters in the Boise National Interagency Fire Center going up to Canada to help with their fires. I feel really bad for them but I think this is going to become a regular thing sadly. Crazy weather, excessive rain and droughts. 

Before shot

Last year the county came through, widened our street and added sidewalks which were much-needed. We knew it was coming, which was good, so we were able to plan ahead. Since we had a lot of shrubs and perennials right along the front sidewalk we were able to move some of them to the back yard. We figured we would save of those more mature plants. After the process was done the county had added a steep slope on the front with turf. We decided to let it winter over and then re-do in the spring. Dave was able to remove the first strip of turf closest to the sidewalk by hand. We both went shopping and picked out some things we liked. All drought resistant and low water.  I thought it would look nice to have something tall that would stay green year round in the corner by the sidewalk and driveway. I think it looks nice! It's  a Juniper-

 

 

We opted for some different kinds of plants with different colors and textures. We choose a nice tall grass by the end and then mixed in with some different perennials and shrubs. We relocated one of the shrubs from the backyard into the second section, but it died. Bought a replacement. The other one survived. Dave did all the planting, then put down weed barrier and bark-dusted. With a tight budget we're going to do the rest of it this fall and next spring so that the whole slope will be landscaped, no mowing.  I would like to remove all of the front yard turf but Dave is not a fan so far. Time will tell. Really happy all our fruit trees are really loaded this year! Love our peaches-

 

Red Haven peaches

With various projects and the weather we got kind of a slow start getting the vegetable garden planted. We went through this last year! Luckily I had started some things from seeds and we had planted some cucumbers, two different kinds, kale and collard greens. Those have done okay with the crazy weather. I also started from seed some rainbow Swiss chard and added a couple store-bought ones and started those in a wooden planter box. I also started some basil,  transplanted outside into another planter. We finally bought some veggies, Dave planted the various tomatoes, yellow squash, Italian and Gypsy Sweet peppers. They will be slow to get going, but worth the wait. Our normal summer are so hot they will grow thru most of October-

 

Thrifting Scores!

I hit a local thrift store this week and got some really great deals! My non-stick 13" skillet I use all the time was starting to fade. I spotted was a 12 inch like-new non-sick skillet. The lid I already had fits perfect, $4.00-

 

 

I found a Stanley coffee mug for $3.00-

When I got home I realized part of the lid was missing that you push to drink. Luckily the Stanley website has replacement caps, so for $10.00 I ordered one, then will work. Still saved quite a bit on that one. It will be good in the winter to be able to take my own hot tea to work. We don't really have a break room in the part of the building I'm in. No where to get hot water.

I've been meaning to make a "bug hotel" but then saw one for  $10.00. We mounted in our backyard on our maple tree! Will attract pollinators that don't sting and hopefully they will find it this year. To buy the bamboo alone to make one of my own would have cost more than this-

Got a fun little wreath for my kitchen dining room display area. $2.00! Fits right in with the color scheme. I previously had a thrifted French style clock, but decided I did not need a third clock in the dining room-

Spotted a nice Fleur-de-lis statue that I will paint for somewhere in the house. Not sure what color yet, maybe dark blue? I only found out a year or two ago that I'm part French. There is quite the history with the symbology of fleur-de-lis going back to very ancient times, including the Egyptians. It's a really fascinating symbol. I always thought it was just associated with the French but it goes way back before that-

Found a nice summer weight blouse for $4, perfect condition. Nice large glass container that I will put flour into, $3.00. Really interesting that a lid that came with it actually has a canning-type rubber gasket on it, it fits inside the screw on lid, never seen this before-