Better Days & Homestead Happenings

Hello, friends.  Last week, I canned mushrooms, which will add two half pints and six 4 oz jars to the pantry.  Homemade thousand island dressing was made.  I recently picked up a birthday card, 6 Valentine's cards in a pack, and Christmas gift tags (75% off) at Hallmark for about $13, and received $5 back through a Swagbucks promotion.  Suet was made for the birds, which used some of the dehydrated berry and tomato remains after canning last summer.  In the mood for comfort food, I made colcannon with some of our cabbage.  I'd eat it often, but J only likes it on a rare occasion, so I took advantage of him working out of town.  Another jar of the gifted jam was shared with a friend who stopped by.  I made tapioca, a favorite comfort food since I was a child, and enjoyed every bit of it.  

I made The Prudent Homemaker's taco soup for lunches, and pulled a package of maitake mushroom from the freezer to make gravy, which was used over jasmine rice.  A bag of cubed winter squash was pureed for dog treats.  Home ground wheat and the last of the chickpea flour were used in them.  I've been trying to use up last year's frozen winter squash before starting on the one's in storage, but I do need to begin using them soon.  A sweater, shirt and a pair of pants were mended.  I'm still using my old muck boots some, and repaired them once again with shoe goo.  A load of laundry was done, with the intention of hanging it on the line, and getting the previous day's laundry in.  The last time I had looked, there was 5% chance of rain, but it changed to 70%, and was sprinkling.  Oh well, my preference is to dry laundry on the line, but I'm very thankful to have a dryer as a back up plan.  As always, we collected rainwater for household and chicken use, and heated with wood.  My potter friends sent some new shaving mugs with J.  I took photos, and got them listed in the shop.  They've been good sellers for previous Valentine's Days, so here's hoping.

With J's return home on Friday, I tried two new dishes.  The first was a sweet & spicy cauliflower, which had 2 tsp of sriracha in it.  Wow, that warmed us up, but was just a bit too hot for our tastes.  I'll cut it back next time.  The next was a butternut squash mac & cheese, and for that, I pulled another bag of last year's winter squash from the freezer.  It also used homemade bread crumbs and our rosemary.  You really couldn't detect any squash taste, so that's a win in my book.  It made a big pan, so I froze a good bit of it.  We ran to town on Saturday, picking up a bundle of insulation, paint and sheetrock for the workshop project.  J got his 5% veterans discount on our purchase.  Then we ran to Tractor Supply, for chicken feed and sunflower seeds.  In the mood for pancakes on Sunday, I decided to use up some things.  Along with unbleached white flour, I used up the remainders of home ground corn and wheat.  Homemade buttermilk was used for the liquid, and our frozen blueberries.  They were denser than the usual pancakes, but that's not a bad thing on a day that started out in the low 20's.  I'll be heading out to powder coat orders, and that should stick to my ribs while I work.

When done cleaning up the kitchen after pancakes, the buttermilk was renewed, which just involves adding some milk and letting it sit on the counter.  I watched a free movie on amazon prime.  J got the insulation up when we got in on Saturday, and the sheetrock on the walls in the workshop while I was powder coating orders on Sunday.  We're heading to pick up cypress lumber for the porch floor on Monday, found for a good price on fb marketplace.  I prefer that over treated lumber.  For Sunday dinner, several of our sweet potatoes were baked, and succotash made, which included our lima beans and sweet onion.  For a green salad, vinaigrette was made with some of our mixed berry syrup.  I expect everyone knows who Amanda Gorman is at this point.  It gives me great hope to see the young people speaking out with wisdom and grace in these times.  I believe we are moving into better days, and though there will surely be rough patches along the way, I feel we'll look back to this past year as a turning point.  Wishing you a week of whatever brings you peace, comfort, joy.