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!!!

 

Happy Earth Day!!!

 

Happy Winter Solstice!!!

 Happy Winter Solstice!!!

Preparedeness 16.0/ Grocery Recon, Autumn Colors and 27 Degrees!

Preparedeness 16.0/ Grocery Recon-

I went grocery shopping a few days ago at a store I haven't been in for quite a while. Started going to Winco in the spring with food prices going up, and they have a great bulk section! I was at my dentist's the other day right next to an Albertson's so decided to go in there for a few odd items. One of the things I'd read about was a potential pasta shortage coming up, due to grain prices. I was really shocked at the Barilla brand pasta that I have bought for years has almost doubled in price, and the box has shrunk about 35% at least. SHRINKFLATION. Luckily Albertson's had their store brand pasta and I was able to buy six boxes of pasta for $0.99 each. I love pasta in the winter! I did get a few of my other regular items at a slightly higher price. They did seem to be pretty well stocked. I must say our WinCo prices are definitely cheaper. I also stopped at a Ross discount store with clothing, etc. Their shoe section was 50% empty which was really a shock to see. They're bedding section which used to be several rows was now 1/3 of a row and mostly empty. I guess it makes sense that a lot of the discounted clothing from stores is not getting shipped around much. Not a shock, but the shortages are settling in. We have everything for Thanksgiving so I'm good to go! I'll be hosting our partial family, so we're ready!  

Oakleaf Hydrangea, love the bronze tones! 

Autumn Colors and 27 Degrees! 

We had a real cold front come in last week and woke up to 27 degrees in the morning! Our autumn colors are really pretty right now, but will come to an end soon so I decided to take some photos. The day after this it was pouring rain. So here's some of our autumn colors at the little Homestead!

Our little rainbow Zinnias I started from seed 

Delphiniums

Rainbow Echinacea

Roses

We went to Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve early Sunday afternoon for a walk. It's a reserve that's not too far from our house. There were tons and tons of wildlife there, wish I would have taken my zoom lens! Lots of Canadian geese and various water fowl. Really nice oasis in the middle of town. We drove up to Bogus Basin after that, almost up to the mountaintop, but it was a solid sheet of ice, so we had to turn back. At least we got to see some mountain trees and snow! Here's some shots from the reserve- 

Emergency Bee Evac! Garden ReHab Phase 4 Fencing, Coop Rehab 2.0

Emergency Bee Evac! 

I love bees, always have, always will! When I came out mid-afternoon Wednesday, into the back garden, I noticed there was something all over some fence boards. When I looked at it for a minute I realized it was moving and it was covered with bees!

I called Dave right away to see if there was a beekeeper who could come and collect the swarm safely and keep them. Luckily we had two bee keepers come over, one was a master, one an apprentice. They came over and removed the swarm gently and safely. Took them several hours, luckily we haven't planted the veggies yet so they had plenty of room to work. They said we were the nicest people they've ever worked with and will bring us some honey from their other hives! We had to give them some money even though they refused at first, because they were in 95-degree heat, cooking trying to save these bees. It was 103 yesterday, record heat!!! Apparently they were looking for a new hive and were Italian bees which I have never heard of. It all ended up very well. The swarm and the queen found a new home and all is well in their bee world! Maybe someday I can have my own hives! They removed several fence boards and put the hive box (not sure waht it's called?) in the easement. They found the queen in the grass behind the fence, and got her safely into the new hive box thingy-

Bulk of the bees on the back of the boards

Still swarming a bit

New hive box mostly full

By 9 pm Dave got the fence boards up back up.  We let the hens out of the coop and the hive box got picked up after dark. Good outcome! 

Garden ReHab Phase 4 Fencing-

The garden fencing had been around for about 10 years and basically works as a separation between the chicken run/coop and the main backyard garden. When we first built that we used a lot of recycled wood and new chicken wire. With all the weathering it was getting pretty dilapidated, so we decided to do something about it. Dave priced panel fencing and new 4' x 4's. As everybody knows by now lumber prices have really skyrocketed. When I was looking for a gate to go with with the potential new wooden fence I saw a gate and got me thinking. Started wondering what the pricing would be for metal fencing instead? Something that would be really durable but didn't need to be heavy since it's basically just keeps the chicken out. It won't have any big heavy dogs jumping on it or kids climbing on it. Dave and I picked out the design we liked and he went to Home Depot and priced it-

$50.00 for 3 panels, about 3' x 4'

Turned out to only be about $50 more than what we were going to do, but it was much much less labor.  It will probably last longer since it's powder coated and certainly looks nicer. Total was about $250.00.  Here's the before old fence shots-

 

Hens in the shade area with the mister, nice and cool!

So here's what we did-  temporarily fenced the hens into the shade area with access to the coop-

I helped Dave pull the old fencing out and we made a pile-

We saved some of the chicken wire in case we need some. Dave cut up the wood and it went into the compost bin to be composted by the county. Chicken wire went to recycling. We started with the section closest to the coop-

We leveled as we went (lots to level!) and otherwise was pretty easy! Add the stakes and go on-

Photos From Home Depot

We had some leftover 4x4's that we were able to use to brace the gate. Dave turned one panel into a gate but it was a bit wobbly. A post on either side, worked great! 

Gate made by attaching hinges and a clip

The rest of the sections-

Attached to fence with clip

I will add another ornamental grass to the right of the gate, veggies coming this weekend! 

Shade area, attached to the coop on the left

We added some scrap 2x4's to prevent digging

Attached to the coop with washers and screws

Temporary gate clip, fence attached to post

Again attached to fence

We LOVE it, should last for years to come!!! The yard looks really empty but we will fix that soon! 

Coop Rehab 2.0-

Last week we got the coop pretty well rehabbed. We realized after we put the door up and it was pretty awkward getting in and out. It opened on the right. Dave thought he could go ahead and rotate the door and flip it around, which he did. I went ahead and pulled off the screen panel and replaced the screen with new-

big hole

tools makes it easy!

New screen up, glass cleaned

Dave thought it would be a good idea to put a screen protector up and it was. This weekend one of our grandsons started heading toward the coop and pushed on the screen protector! Great idea!