Snow Day & Frugal Accomplishments

Hello friends.  I hope you've been staying warm (or cool if in the southern hemisphere).  With the recent single digit temperatures, I've been baking more.  One day it was Carrot Apple Zucchini bread, other days I baked sweet potatoes, and another day it was crusty bread in a Dutch oven.  Even with a heater set up under the house, our water froze up on the coldest night.  J added a heat lamp, which thankfully got it running again in short order.   I sure do love and greatly appreciate hot running water.  Not wanting to go back to using well water in the house, we have to be mindful of how much rainwater we use, so to leave it dripping all night wasn't an option.  Using the broccoli I cut last week, plus our eggs, garlic, green onion, leftover peas and pantry items, I made fried rice for dinner one night.  I went through ebates for a small purchase, & used a 12% coupon to purchase a recliner on overstock for my studio.  I realized a recliner next to a window would be the most comfortable way to do the stitching I'm wanting to do, and it will be a lovely spot for reading too.  We took a walk in the snow last weekend, and I thought I'd share some pics today.

I've continued to add citrus peels to vinegar for cleaning vinegar, and have a full quart steeping now.  We had filled up lots of bowls, buckets and bottles with water, in case of freezing water or a power outage.  Once the temperatures warmed up, I began using the water for all the house plants, filling the humidifier on the woodstove & filling the pups water bowl.  We are working on using up the last of our Longkeeper tomatoes that were picked green in the fall.  One morning, I made scrambled eggs with several and our garlic.  The tomatoes are not pretty or as good as summer fresh, but not half bad for January.  On a cold day, I caught up on my ironing, while watching a TED talk, and a couple episodes of the Great British Christmas Bake Off to amuse me.  Ironing is not my favorite chore.  I noticed there were ahem... quite a few summer linens in the bunch.

last of the tomatoes

At the grocery store, sale items bought were catfood, beer, wine & organic frozen corn and peas (2/$4).  I picked up a couple of artichokes too, which have been staying at 2/$3.  The snowman I embroidered last week had some holes in the fabric on the back, which were mended while listening to President Obama's farewell address.  Though he wasn't perfect (and who is?), I believe he & Michelle are good and decent souls, and I will surely miss them.  I finally got around to making a batch of granola, and definitely need to get back into doing that, as I really like it.  One night, I enjoyed dinner with a friend at a new farm to table restaurant.  The food and service were good, and I picked up a couple Arkansas Black apples, a few cookies for J, and some local goat cheese in the market there.  I hope they will do well.  When one grows and eats a lot of your own food, you appreciate good, fresh food.  I also think supporting local food (& businesses) is an important piece of the puzzle.

That's a photo of my frugal niger thistle feeder.  I never could get it to focus on the feeder instead of the tree, but hopefully you can tell it's just a lid in the bottom of a stocking, with a skewer through it.  I spoke about needing to add some pieces of rag on either side of the skewer to keep the seed from just falling out through the holes that enlarged.  That seems to be working pretty well.  The feeder was very busy on the cold, snowy days.  I was happy to redeem points for my first bag of free Purina Naturals catfood.   J needed a few things from Lowe's for a project, so I purchased them through ebates, which gave 2.5% cash back, and using his credit card reduced it another 5%.  Once the days warmed to above freezing, I uncovered the lettuce, and found that most of the green lettuce had froze and rotted, but most of the red lettuce survived.  I'm happy to still have lettuce, and picked some for the coming week.  I've continued to pick up sticks for biochar, and now have a 55 gal. barrel filled.  The next step is to pack down the sticks.  This involves tamping it with a 2 x 4, and J will do that.  Hopefully, it won't take the level too far down.  Then I'll start filling the outer, larger barrel.  I've already started collecting some limbs for that.  That's a pretty good summary of the week and frugal goings on around the homestead.  Thanks for stopping by!