A Little Getaway

Hello, friends.  I'm sorry for not putting a post up last week, but we were enjoying a little getaway.  My experience at the herbal conference two weeks ago exceeded my expectations.  The Square reader had some glitches, and with three of my sales, several minutes after the payment was approved, they canceled the payment due to a "problem they were having".  I did manage to run down one of the customers, and re-enter the payment.  After contacting Square about the other two, they did not make good on them, sad to say.  Other than that, it was a positive experience, and one I would do again.  I cut my toothpaste tube, to get the remainder, and got quite a few more brushings from it.  

The morning after the conference, we headed to the mountains.  We found a lovely log cabin rental, with a gurgling creek just beyond our porch, which soothed us while reading, and lulled us to sleep at night.  It was not a frugal choice, but it was the perfect peaceful, secluded place for us.  Before leaving town, I froze the tomatoes for future canning, gave pawpaws away to a couple of folks, froze shishito peppers we were gifted, and dehydrated eggplant.  Some of the eggplant was seasoned to make it into "eggplant bacon" in the dehydrator.  It turned out truly awful, and was used up in the chicken mash.  For the plain eggplant, there's a recipe I'm going to try for patties.   Chard was harvested, and brought with us, along with a jar of our lima beans, pesto and onions.  We ate all meals at our cabin, except for a dinner, when we met our niece.  

The black eyed susan vine has started blooming

We visited one thrift store, and the only thing purchased was a bag of cotton quilt batting, for $6.  It looks to be around $50 online.  We tried some discount grocery stores, and got a few things, including quarts of raw honey @ $10.99 & $11.99, a 10# bag of pasta for $4, and Pepperidge Farm bread BOGO.  On our way out of town, we dropped pawpaws off at a neighbor's, as he made it known they'd like more, and picked up library books.  When we returned Tuesday, we harvested eggplant, tomatoes, pawpaws and green beans.  Wanting something simple for dinner that night, J boiled eggs for egg salad, and I sauteed some cherry tomatoes, onions and garlic to have over pasta.  The early bands from Helene reached us Tuesday evening, and we lost power during a thunderstorm, for most of the night.  J started up the generator long enough for us to get our showers.  We've got one or two solar batteries that seem to be having problems, so it didn't kick in.  Two free Kindle books were read, over the next few days.

The day after we returned, I went to the DMV to renew my license, and spent most of the day waiting.  Happily, I passed my eye exam without problem.  The week earlier, I had an eye exam at an office, and passed at 20/20 there, but I do have some cataracts, and he suggested glasses.  I purchased an inexpensive pair on Zenni Optical.  I don't know how much I'll actually wear them, but I wanted to have them, in case I didn't pass at the DMV.  You may have read about the devastation the storm did to Western NC, as well as in other states.  My niece managed to find a route through SC, to get back to her parents home here.  The college she works at will be closed a minimum of two weeks.  I keep thinking how we just missed it.  We got our second Azure Standard order, which I picked up this time.  We got everything we asked for, except for rice.  I was able to can tomatoes again.  This time, I dehydrated the skins for us, and pulsed it in the Bullet, to make tomato powder.  Well, that's been some of the goings on the past two weeks.  I hope you've been faring well.  Stay safe, friends.  

Update- If you're looking for a way to help, here are two resources:

https://www.nctripping.com/help-western-nc/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/154hYrmMKWNKWIwcTkUP8GhcAn4z4LXnFr2AKMgv3Qik/edit?fbclid=IwY2xjawFoMBBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHWLgEUVeqKcD37uR2Np0qN5nBGXZFkUU7fmUd8X29dbquBTlZMCV348z3w_aem_VXRIRFirSfDqRT4nKkcaSw&pli=1#heading=h.6uj98onhfl96