Hello, friends. Besides using pantry items last week, I've been slowly working on eating what's in the freezer. During the week, I finished a jar of peaches J had opened in oatmeal, then started using a bag of gifted frozen apple pieces in oatmeal. I felt like baking, and made a MM spice cake. A library book I'm enjoying is The Ride of Her Life. There were rutabagas that needed using. I haven't enjoyed them as much this winter just boiled, so I tried making soup with them, which was decent. There were leftover sweet potatoes, which I tried making GF naan with, with Bob's 1:1 baking flour. I've yet to have any GF breads that I thought were good, but these were a little better than the loaf breads I've had. It was time to get my car inspected. I did replace tires in the fall, as I knew they wouldn't pass, and was happy it needed nothing else to pass this week. I read about jar openers that don't damage canning lids, allowing you to reuse them. I purchased a Jarkey, and though I haven't tried reusing the lids yet, it does seem to remove most of them without damage. If it works, that's definitely worth the small investment.
While I was baking broccoli mac & cheese (vegan), I put 6 sweet potatoes in the oven to bake too. Another night, I made mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and had a salad to go with it. Our cabbage, onions and garlic were used in a stir fry, along with cashews and other veggies. Little by little, I've been working on my taxes. I'll crunch numbers for a while, then go do something else. This way, it will get done, but it's less painful. Our library announced this week that they were doing away with fines. I still brought back the books and documentaries I had, so others could enjoy them. I used some pesto from the freezer with pasta, and made a salad for a dinner. With our shop holiday over, we're back at work on Berkey stands. We had two firsts this time. We made our first stand with three shelves, and made our first stand headed to France. We're pretty excited about that.
We awoke to a light dusting of snow on Friday. I asked J what cozy meal he'd like for dinner, and he said he'd like me to cook some dried beans. I do can some dried beans every winter, and still have jars of crowder peas and lima beans, but I put a pot of dried crowder peas on the woodstove in the morning, and let them simmer through the day. I froze several containers for future meals. Bags of frozen spaghetti squash and lambs quarter were used in a side dish. The chickens got warm grains, powdered milk and greens for extra warmth and nutrition on the coldest days, and a few handfuls of meal worms. I added more hay to their nest boxes and coops, when the forecast called for a wind chill of 9 degrees. Brrrr. The farm cat has been getting canned food, in addition to her kibble. There was another 3" of snow Friday night. Even so, laundry was hung on the line, and J made progress on the framework for the solar panels. After seeing several mentions of it, I checked out Wordle, and have played three days. It's always good to do things to keep your mind sharp, I'm thinking.
There's been an interesting discussion about home temperatures, on The Prudent Homemaker. It seems somewhat of a trend that those in hot climates can handle warmer temps in their homes, ie., have their a/c set on 81, and those in colder climes are comfortable with colder home temps, ie., have their heat set at 58. Heating with wood, we aim to keep the temp 76 in our great room. The thermostat is only about 9' from the woodstove. Sunday morning, I noticed the bathroom temp was 63.9 and the studio was 61 degrees, so the periphery of the house is definitely cooler, and we keep our bedroom door almost closed at night. There are winter days where it's 75 in the great room, and I'm comfortable, and on summer days when J is not indoors, I can be comfortable at 77, and I'm sure higher if it wasn't so humid here. J's inner thermostat runs hot. I layer up on cold days, with fleece pants, a camisole, cashmere sweater, warm vest, and use a flannel shirt over that when needed, plus wool socks and slippers. On occasion, I'll keep a hat or scarf on indoors, and take layers off when I'm cooking, etc. I'm sure it's what you acclimate yourself to, but I don't think I could wear enough to be comfortable at 58 degrees, or even 65. How about you?
8 comments:
58? Not bloody likely. When we lived in FL, we often kept our house at 78 or 79 in summer and were quite comfortable. I don't mind living in layers through the winter, as I am on the slim side.
Congratulations on your shipment to France! How exciting! Where can one view a Berkey stand?
Yes, the weather has been downright frigid, but it is easily tolerated using enough layers and it helps me appreciate the sun that much more.
Have a productive week, Laurie!
So, it sounds like you may keep your a/c a little cooler in NC than in FL, which fits what they were saying. Yep, we have to create our own layers if our bodies don't have enough of their own! :o) Our Berkey stands and other metal home goods are at soulseeds.etsy.com
Thanks for asking!
We keep the AC at 78 during the day and drop it to 73ish overnight because we like to sleep cool.
In the winter we are fortunate that along with our heat pump we also have zoned electric baseboard heat. We have doors that can be shut to isolate our den and kitchen so most days we only heat that area of the house, keeping it at 69 or 70 if we are in there. At night the whole house heat is set at 60. If it's really cold out, the den and kitchen will be 59 degrees when I get up... brrrrrrrrr!
Congrats on your sale to France. It's always exciting when our handcrafted items travel the world.
Michele, the heat setting makes sense, with you being from the NE. I'm wondering if you spend most of your day in the basement making pots, where it should be several degrees cooler in the summer. In any case, I know it's not a formula, but it's been interesting to see how people from different areas stay comfortable.
Daisy, BTW, I'm pretty sure the 58 degree heat was from a woman in Alaska. I guess if it's 40 below when you step out the door, 58 must feel quite balmy.
Our household is just the opposite; my husband runs cold (he wears sweaters in the summer!) and I run warm. During the day, while he is at the office, I keep the thermostat at 68 and add layers, such as a sweat jacket over a sweatshirt over a t-shirt. I bump it up to 71 just before he gets home and he starts his evening with hot tea. At night, I turn it down to 61 (and we have a heated mattress pad, which is sweet). Our nights the last few days have been in the single digits, so the house is chilly when we wake up. I think I could go with thermostat below 68 during the day but haven't taken that step yet.
Though we've had cold nights (in the teens), with quite a few more coming up, I was just saying to my husband "well, at least we've not had any single digits". That's cold! Though I do spend a lot of time in our great room, I'm in and out of the other rooms through the day, which are significantly cooler. I'm pretty sure 68 near our woodstove would mean low 50's in the rest of the house, which makes me cold thinking of it!
There is a funny followup to my comment about the temperature in our home. Turns out our thermostat was going out and all the time it was reading 69 or 70, it was actually 65 or 66. Yesterday it gave up entirely; the repairman came in, took one look at the "70" showing and said "It's not 70 in here." New thermostat installed; 69 is positively balmy! We figure it must have been going out over the last two months! I had to laugh! So yeah, I can do 65 or 66 with a couple of layers! LOL
Ha! You're tougher than you think, LOL!
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