deer

 It was several years ago.  Summer time.  There was a knock on the door and our good friend Bill was standing on the porch.

"I'm on my way to Tom's(his son) baseball game and I need a favor."

"Sure", I said.

"I was driving to the game and the lady in front of me hit and killed a deer.  She didn't want it, so I gutted it on the side of the road and threw it in the back of my truck.  Do you mind if I hang it in your garage?"

My husband was a fishing guide at the time. He was out with his boat and the garage stall was empty.  

"Sure," I said.

He strung the deer up from the roof trusses and headed on out to the game.

I was watching for my husband to come home.  Somehow, I missed his arrival.  

Imagine his surprise when he began to back the boat into the garage....

~~~~~~

Fast forward to yesterday.  Friends of ours have an ebay business.  We save small boxes for them to use for shipping out their product.

We had an accumulation of boxes (you too?) and I let them know I was going to drop them off.  

"Sure, put them in the garage.  We might not be home, but you know how to get in."

Imagine my surprise when I entered the garage with an armload of boxes and hanging from the trusses?  Yep.

Life in the Northwoods.

a perfect fall day

 

This day started off with my usual 45 minute walk.  Everyday, I am noticing more color.  The walk was disturbed by the sounds of many sirens - an unusual sound in our normally peaceful northwoods.  I prayed for those whose peace was being much more disrupted than mine.  

A quick errand into town to pick up a Christmas gift for my granddaughter as requested by my beautiful daughter in law.  She found the perfect gift on F*c*b**k marketplace. I met a complete stranger at the back of the grocery store parking lot.  Transaction completed.

I took another quick walk in the woods after returning home from town.  I'm soaking up these sunlit fall days before - you know.

This afternoon I have been making a meal for a sweet family from church who has welcomed home their third baby boy.

*Chicken tostada pie

*Mixed vegetables

*Salad

*Fudge

What do you take when you share meals with those who need a break from cooking?

grocery shop once a month

 

When the virus hit, I decided I would only grocery shop once a month.  I had heard of people doing this but it seemed daunting to me.  Besides, we live in a small town and grocery shopping has always been fun - a social networking time. In real life! Because we have lived here for the better part of 40 years, it is rare to go to the store and not see someone I know.

Since the Resident Fisherman, in particular, is in the high risk group for C*v*d19, I want to limit my time in the store as much as possible.  It is no longer a social gathering place; it is now a tactical mission.

How could I accomplish this?  One thing that helps is that I pick up meat, lettuce, and bread from our local farm share.  This time of year they have even more veggies available.  I place my order a few times a month and they have it ready for me .  There are rarely more than a few people at the pickup spot.  I also go the the farmer's market either first thing or at the end of the time when there are fewer people.  This helps keep us in fresh produce as well and I am putting up as much as I can for the winter months.

There are some things that you can't get at the farmer's market.  Dairy products, baking supplies, beans, rice, pasta, salt, spices - stuff like that.

I keep a running list of what we are out of, or nearly out of.  As my time to shop approaches, I keep the layout of our store in mind and build categories: bakery, produce, deli, meat, canned goods, baking goods, dairy, paper frozen.  Under each of these headings I list what I know we are going to need in the next month.

Friends ask,'But what about milk?'.  Milk in particular has a use by date that is fairly narrow.  Organic milk seems to have the longest sell by/use by dates so I buy as much milk as I think we will use by the date on the packaging.  I also look for the latest date I can find on the carton (sometimes I grab from the back of the cooler). In addition to the organic milk from the cooler I buy shelf stable almond milk, evaporated milk and powdered milk. If we run out of the fresh milk before the month is over, I can supplement with these.

I shop at 6 am.  The store recommends that elderly/high risk shoppers visit between 6-8 am. I have two lists.  List #1 is all of the items that do not need refrigeration.  I get those first (it ends up being nearly a cartload), do the self checkout (that is the only checkout available during the first hour), take my stuff out to the car and then come back in for all the perishable items.

I do it this way for a couple of reasons:

1.  I can concentrate better on a partial list.

2.  I use the self checkout which is the only way I can check out with my reusable bags.

3.  I will have room for the perishable items if I don't also have all the cans and bags and boxes of other stuff.

If I were a good blogger, I would take pictures of all this stuff to make it easier for you to understand my method.  But honestly, it takes all my concentration to manage my lists.  I try to buy things on sale, but things are not on sale as much as they used to be.  In fact, the prices are increasing noticeably.

I think I am actually buying more than a month's worth of some things.  But that is okay.  If/when the second wave comes, we can stay home even longer if things get bad.  Plus when the kids and grands are here - there is plenty of food for the whole gang!

I don't enjoy shopping not like I used to, but I DO enjoy formulating my strategy.  Trying to make sure I think through everything we will need, trying to remember the layout of the store so I don't have to backtrack, making sure I have enough reusable bags(I need to make some more) - that I like.

When I get home - it takes a long time to empty the car and put everything away.  However, shopping once a month saves both time and money.  There is no room for impulse buys in the cart (or the budget). If I went to the store every week, I would spend a lot more time between traveling and the actual shopping than I do by just going once a month.  I think I save 3-4 hours a month shopping this way.

How about you?  How have your shopping habits changed during 2020?

on the fence

 

This summer has been busy.  We haven't gone anywhere but thankfully the kids and grands have all been here at one time or another.

My little garden has been  invaded by the chipmunks and squirrels.  The little buggers have been snatching green cherry tomatoes, taking one bite of them and leaving them behind.  Grrrrrr.

The flowers have been gorgeous tho'.  The Resident Fisherman works hard, feeding, weeding and pruning.  So lovely.

Worse than the chipmunks and squirrels tho, are the large 'rodents'.  The deer are thick as thieves here and do a lot of damage.  So, we hired some friends to install a fence in our backyard.

It turned out great!  

We are looking forward to filling it up with flowers and food.  And places to sit so we can stop and smell the roses.

Of course, the fence won't keep out this fella: 

He stopped by for a visit about 6 weeks ago, but we didn't roll out the welcome mat.  He has apparently moved on to greener pastures/dumpsters.

While the Resident Fisherman is out working in the flowers, I am often in working in the kitchen.  I know I am not alone in feeling an urgency to put food up for the winter.  Yes, I can buy it from the grocery store.  However, I am only going to the grocery store once a month.  The rest of the time I am shopping at the Farmer's Market.  

I am filling our freezer,dehydrator and canned goods shelves with things I buy there:

squash, onions, peppers, peas, beans, celery, and cucumbers. Soon I will be getting a few boxes of tomatoes to can.

I am so thankful to see the freezer full. The canned goods shelves are crowded.  Yes, canning is work, but I love knowing where my food comes from.  I know the names of the farmers and chat with them at the market about how things are going on their farm.

I'm thankful to live in a place where, although the winters are long and cold, things grow well here.

I also buy food from our local farm share.  Tonight's dinner will be Swedish meatballs with ground beef and pork from about 50 miles away. The potatoes for mashed potatoes and the summer squash, sauteed with garlic, were grown even closer than that.

What's for supper at your house tonight?

happening lately

I made 20 face masks last week.  After I ran out of elastic, I used bias binding (homemade), twill tape and elastic hair bands.  I mailed most of them out to the kids and grands along with some fun activities for the grands.

I went to the grocery store to replenish what we have eaten the last month plus get ahead.  I did not go down the paper product aisle, so I’m not sure how the supplies were there.  The flour aisle was picked over, but there was still plenty of flour to be had.  There is not a speck of yeast to be found in our county and the next.  I still have some, but not as much as I’d like.  Time to actually make a sour dough starter instead of just intending to do so.  I read that yeast sales are up 300-600%.

I shopped at 6 am on Monday – seniors only. The store was not crowded at all, about half of the customers had on masks.  A mix of homemade, surgical and N95.  Only the self-serve cash registers were open.  

Once home, I wiped everything down and put it away.  Inventoried freezer again and am feeling blessed.

Did another seed inventory.  We are fine for this year but I will be saving seed from what I grow and from what I buy from the farm share/farmer’s market.  Thankfully farmer’s markets in our state are considered essential.  I’m grateful for that.

Got quite a bit of yard clean up done now that the snow is beginning to recede.  We had a gigantic oak taken down 6 weeks ago.  That will allow more sun into the area behind our house.  We hope to put up a fence and do a lot of vegetable container gardening.  We live in pretty dense woods so sunshine is at a premium.  I will be planting in every container we have.

Washed out baggies.  I’m putting the ‘waste not’ strategy into high gear.

Am just about done with two batches of homemade apple cider vinegar.  Starting another (found more peels and cores in a bag during freezer inventory).

Washed potatoes and carrots for stew the other night.  Saved the peels in the freezer for vegetable stock when I have a bag full.  Again, waste not.

Had 3 Zoom calls this week – my ladies’ Bible study, the kids and grands, and my sibs.  I sure do miss my grands.  This is a fun way to connect, though.  #2 son and family got a puppy.  A COVIDK9.

Called a dozen ladies from our church – just to make sure they are doing okay.

Thank you for your well wishes for the Resident Fisherman.  He is doing much better.

Did I mention the snow is receding?  As I type this it is snowing again.  They are forecasting 10-15".  Sigh.

Ah well, it will surely melt again.  In the meantime I wish you all the best.  Safe safe, be well and wash your hands.

not what you want to hear

 "Hon, I think you need to take me to the emergency room."

These are words you never want to hear, especially during our current corona virus crisis.  It was midnight.

I quickly dressed, we got in the car and sped (yes) to our tiny emergency room.  They wouldn't let me in, only the resident fisherman.

I stayed out in the car and waited.  And waited and waited.  It was 31*F but I was thankful for a full tank of gas so I could run the car from time to time.

Finally, I called in and asked if I could come in to use the facilities or if I needed to go home.  They invited me in (of course, my call first went to an offsite answering service...).

Once I was in, they allowed me to stay.  There were no other patients by that time (told you it was tiny) so I stayed and waited more.  His severe pain had subsided - thanks to medication and his blood pressure had come down.  An x-ray was inconclusive.

So, he would need a CT scan but it would take a few hours for him to drink what he needed for contrast.  He encouraged me to go home and get some sleep.

I did go home, but sleep was hard to come by.  I think I logged in an hour or two.  When I called the hospital to see if I could bring him home, they told me they were transporting him to a nearby hospital so they could take out his gall bladder.  So that is what was causing all the trouble!

That hospital was not allowing any visitors so my resident fisherman was whisked away without my being able to be with him before or after surgery.

He is home now, recovering.  This was his fourth surgery in two years.  He has also had radiation and a type of chemo therapy.  It is all a bit exhausting.

But we are thankful.  There are only a few cases of COVID 19 in our area so he was probably not exposed to it.  If life was going on as normal (remember normal?), I would have been going out of town.

As I was trying to figure out what I might feed him when he got home, I really wanted to avoid going to the grocery store.

We had some ginger ale, chicken bullion, chicken noodle soup but no popsicles.

So I made an un-popsicle .  It is kind of a mashup of some recipes I found.

Combine 1/2 C. sugar (the original recipe called for 1 cup!) with 1/2 C. boiling water to dissolve sugar.  Add 1 C. lemon juice.  Add to 2 C. strawberries (I also used mixed berries) and blend all in a blender.

Because I don't have any popsicle molds, I simply poured this into custard cups and put them on a tray in the freezer. It makes a very refreshing dessert and is packed with vitamin C.

Now our stay at home orders are extended to April 30.  I put on my inventory manager hat and planned out some more meals.

What are you eating these days?  Are you able to stay out of the grocery store?

I would really like to stay out of the grocery store, but with the extended quarantine and with only a few cases of COVID 19  in our area, I am thinking I should go shopping before it gets worse here.

I am thankful to have options to the grocery store.  If/when I do need to go shopping I will order from our farm share, pick up things from our little health food store and perhaps from the meat market.  These are little locally owned places and there are usually one or two other customers when I go in them. We like supporting local businesses.

I hope you are all well.  We have one case of COVID 19 in our family - my cousin's daughter.  She is 19 and just came back from Spain.  She has no symptoms but is being careful.

Billie Jo, I could not comment on your blog for some reason, but enjoyed your last post.  So peaceful.  Thank you.

looking forward to lilacs

and be thankful

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ... And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3:15-17

I was meditating on this verse the other day as I pulled some items out of my freezer.  My freezer(s) still have an abundant amount of food in them - but they are not as full as they were two weeks ago.   I reminded myself to be thankful for every bit of food I have.

Two weeks ago was when I made my last grocery shopping trip although I have made one trip to the health food store and one to our farm share.

It seems like one of my main jobs now is inventory manager.  We had homemade pizza for supper the other night.  The Resident Fisherman inquired as to why I was making it from scratch when I had 4 frozen pizzas in the basement fridge.  I explained that the mozzarella in the refrigerator would not last as long as the pizzas in the freezer would.

We had the homemade pizza Saturday night and last night we had fried rice.

The fried rice recipe is a mashup of other recipes I have used in the past.  I start off with a dollop of m*r*cl* wh*p in my cast iron skillet.  I sautee anywhere from a half cup to a cup of chopped onion in that until the onion is translucent.  You could use oil of course - but the mw adds a little bit of a tart flavor.

Then - the sky is the limit.  This is a very forgiving recipe and a great way to use up bits and pieces.  I had some chopped chicken so I added that .  I added a cup of frozen peas.  If you had some broccoli or peppers or any raw or cooked veggie you could add that. 

Then you add your (already cooked rice).  The rice needs to be precooked and cooled.  Keep stirring everything around until all the pieces are cooked. I add 1-3 cloves of garlic towards the end.

Quantities are up to you, but I would recommend about a/2 c. of cooked rice per person.

Season with salt or soy sauce and a generous amount of ground pepper.  We love this dish.

I used chicken but you can use shrimp, ground sausage, tofu or not have any protein added at all.

 See?  Forgiving!

The little ramekins in the picture above are a lemon custard.  Actually the are the lemon part of our favorite lemon bar recipe. No crust here. I juiced many pounds of lemons a few weeks ago and also zested the lemons (tip - zest first, then juice). We are using what we have. I sprinkled a bit of zest on each ramekin before I baked them.

By eliminating the short bread crust for our lemon bars, I am able to save the butter, flour and powdered sugar they require for another day. The end result was a very satisfying sweet/tart dessert.  Serving size is  limited by the size of the ramekin.  I would only eat one of these after dinner.  But if we had a whole pan of bars.  Look out.

Hope you are able to manage your home and pantry during these days.  I'd love to hear some of your tips in the comments!