Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Preparedness 17.0/ And 17 Degrees!

Preparedness 17.0/ And 17 Degrees! 

Well we hit 17 degrees the other morning! Winter is definitely here with a little bit of snow in the hills and mountains in a few days. I have been tracking the weather closely, so we already had all of our perennials fairly well mulched, and I put row cover over the kale and collard greens. Last year some of my collard greens wintered over with no cover but they were bigger. With the weeks and weeks of 100 degree weather this summer they got a slow start- 

under nice row covers

This weekend we will be taking all of the tools inside from my garden work bench on the back porch and storing them and then covering it up for the winter-

bench on right

Dave got the new sunroom design up on the coop, we'll be soon running a power line through for their water heater/ hard-wired in heat lamp if we need that. Gives them more dry/warm space-

For preparedness for the chickens we bought several months worth of food in advance and pine shavings. Same thing with our cat as well, we have at least a month or two's worth of extra food on hand. You just never know what's going to run out anymore-

Debbie left and Sunny right

Luna deep in thought

I'm also going to stock up on some sewing items. I'm a little bit short on various needles. Being able to mend your clothes or a pair of things over time it's a good skill to have! I cannot tell you how many really great thrifted designer tops I have bought that were missing a button, while there was one sewed into the inseam. When somebody is not knowledgeable enough (or maybe rich), they don't sew a button on, they donate to shirt instead, shakes head.

Part of preparedness for me is having the house ready for winter. We have the nice warm comforter on our bed now and we are lowering our heating temperatures during the day-

Since I'm working from home I close my office door and turn the down the furnace. I have an oil-filled electric radiant heater that I turn on first thing in the morning, then turn on/off as needed in my work space. That way we were not heating the whole house! I added a little battery operated Ikea string lights to my pantry rack, cheers up the space. I'll add some Christmas and winter decor soon after Thanksgiving!

On the preparedness front- as far as food I did notice a few anomalies here and there I went to our local WinCo last week to get some groceries. I noticed that there was actually zero beef lunch meat on the shelves, except for one brand. There was lots of turkey, chicken, ham, etc. but only one type of package of beef. Meat prices are definitely way way up so I'm glad we don't eat meat everyday. I did find some good deals on chicken breasts w/ribs for a $2.00 a pound which was not. I bought a four pack and roasted them with salt pepper garlic paprika and Sage. Roasted a couple of yams and it was a great dinner!

I think a few things are good to think about stocking up on would be things like laundry detergent, or components to make your own. Soaps, shampoos, deodorant those kinds of personal hygiene products you might need. And for you females you know what you might need certain products as well! Recently bought some extra things like Q-tips. Got to have my Q-tips! 

I have been seeing a lot on social media about ever increasing prices of gas, food, etc. I've also heard that there are people who were raiding grocery stores. They go in a group and get lots and lots of full carts of food, run out of the store into a waiting truck, load it all and leave. That's pretty scary,  stealing $1,000.00's worth of food. I think using the phrase repeatedly supply chain issues may be an attempt to normalize that. It is not normal and it never will be. Sadly the weather comes into play with this, in British Columbia one of their ports was hit with massive rain storms and was shut down-

From Canada Flood and Landslides

I just finished up my last dehydrating tomatoes batch! I have a few fresh ones on the counter that I'll be using to make some pasta sauce with sausage this weekend. Good time for hearty food!

I have been watching some videos on YouTube of preparedness folks and one of them I actually stopped watching. She kept saying "oh my husband's favorite meat and oh my daughter's favorite drink is out!" I finally put something on her YouTube comments about being resilient! Maybe time to make some homemade flavored teas and time for husband to look at alternative protein sources? With things being the way they are (I don't see this changing anytime in the future) it is time to be resourceful, flexible, and resilient. No point being a victim through all of this, get creative! 

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-