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?

inventory

 With the weather outside being frightful and the fireplace so delightful, it seemed a good time to take inventory.





My little black book has daily to do lists, menus, birthdates, calendar, meeting notes, notes from significant books, sermons, conversations, lists of books read, books to read, challenges, lists of lists....You get the idea.  It basically holds my brains.  It is a rudimentary bullet journal.

It also contains a list of things I should never (or not for a long time) need to buy again.   I do not need to shop for:

• plates
• cups/mugs
• glasses (drinking not wearing)
• silverware
• pots 
• pans
• paper
• pens
• pencils
• scissors
• thread
• embroidery floss 
• paint
• file folders
• notebooks
• piano books
• candles
• luggage
• garden tools
• purses
• nuts
• bolts
• washers
• paint brushes
• mason jars
• furniture
• buttons
• sewing books

And tea.  I counted well over 300 bags of tea, not to mention several packets of loose leaf tea.  The resident fisherman does not drink hot tea as a rule. I drink tea almost every day, and half the time I  'have tea with an old bag' as I've heard it  said (use a tea bag more than once - this saying is in no way a reflection on my girlfriends).

So, I think it is time to throw a tea party or ten.  Other wise I will be drinking tea on my own for the next few years.

I'm also taking another inventory.  This list will never be finished.  It is an inventory of blessings.  Here are four for today:

• The resident fisherman is healing well from his recent vocal cord surgery, although he is still not supposed to speak
• I've finished three books, totaling over 800 pages (see first blessing)
• The sun is shining promising to warm up from the -16* we had to start the day.
• Lots of good friends to enjoy a cuppa tea with. 

What are some of the things in your blessings inventory?

meal plan

Hydrangea (pre-deer attack)

The resident fisherman was out doing what he does yesterday (fishing) and I had a rare fit of organization come over me.

After reading the post and  comments from Annabel's inspiring and encouraging blog, I donned my winter gloves and headed to the basement to inventory the freezer.

I set up a few card tables and pulled everything out.   I put all the things in categories: 

Meats

Grains

Fruits

Vegetables

Main Course

Dairy

Bakery

Other

Then within each category, I listed what we had:

Turkey Breast

Ground turkey

Brats

Chicken Breast

Sausage links  

(Apparently we are in crisis mode now as there was NO BEEF ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND IN THE FREEZER.  No worries,  since this is Labor Day weekend, there will surely be sales on Beef - ground and otherwise.)

Then as I put each item back, I tallied.

I am too lazy to take a picture of it, but it looked roughly like this:

MEAT

Turkey breast     O

Ground Turkey    OOO

Brats OOOOO

Chicken breast O

Sausage links )

FRUIT

Mixed O

Cranberries OOOO

Strawberries OO

Rhubarb OO

And so on...... 

Obviously, we are light on beef.  The ads come out tomorrow and I will rectify the situation immediately.

Buoyed by the sight of a nice, neat freezer, I came upstairs and tackled the fridge freezer.  Same system.  Different piece of paper.

Earlier this year I had already done the pantry, the lazy susan and the food stores we keep in the basement.  I would say 95% of our groceries were bought on sale.

I looked over my inventory sheets and roughly calculated the servings in each package of meat and some of the main dish type things like some homemade chili I have packaged up and frozen.

I came up with (roughly) 63 servings.  Just from our 2 freezers.  That would feed the resident fisherman and I for a while.  I did not count the other areas of food storage we have or the fridge.  I have 16 cans of canned soup alone  that would provide us with another 32 servings (2 per can).

Why am I mentioning this?   As of this writing, Houston is being inundated by Hurricane Harvey.  People are being flooded out of their homes.  Other people, sheltering in place, will be unable to find an open grocery store or restaurant for a little while yet.

Having a decent stockpile of food, means that (unless you are flooded out of course) you can shelter in place and feed yourself.  If we lost power, I could pressure can the meat and veggies and water bath can the fruits (gas stove).

If we had to evacuate our house (we are much more at risk for a forest fire than a flood here), I would grab a change or two of clothing, family documents and pictures, blankets, camping stuff and fill the rest of the car with food.

Hopefully, we will never have to do that.  But we are ready for other kinds of storms.  We have a rather large expense coming up in October.  Because of our deep pantry, we can divert money we would otherwise use for groceries in the next two months for that bill (which if paid in advance saves us 5%).

So, I save 25-50% on my grocery bills (I calculate my savings after every major shopping trip).  I 'snowball' that money into paying other bills advance when it is to my advantage to do so.

What do you do?  Do you have a deep enough pantry to get you through a rough patch?  A bout of flu?  An unexpected bill or job loss?  Or unexpected company?

I would love to hear your plans!

Oh, the circles after each item in each category?  When I use up, say, a bag of cranberries, I color in one circle to denote that it is gone.  If I buy more cranberries, I simply make another circle for each bag.  Every once or twice a year, I re-inventory.  You see, according to my previous inventory, we still had 4 pounds of ground beef in the downstairs freezer.  Someone forgot to color in his circles.  :)

The system works best if it is used properly.

prepared

Crabapples are nearly ready to harvest!

Some bloggers I respect are sounding the alarm.  Not an alarming alarm, but a cautionary alarm.  Personal, national and world events feel unsettled.

Here are a few of the articles:

Several articles at Coffee, Tea,  Books and Me
Grandma Donna
Cheryl's Frugal Corner

Violence in Charlottesville, VA

Terrorist attacks in Spain

Traffic issues and empty shelves in anticipation of the solar eclipse

Job loss

Weather events

Health concerns

All of the above are good reasons to 'be prepared'.  What do I mean by that?  

First of all, fear not.  Keep calm and carry on, as they say.

For us, the most likely issues we will face is health problems (like my shattered elbow) or weather events (like 12 inches of snow in one day).

So, I prepare for those.  When things that we eat go on sale, I buy a case or a bunch depending on what it is.  When toiletries and other things go on sale, I stock up.  I buy quantities of things at the lowest prices I see.

It is pretty simple.  If we are snowed in, we have plenty to eat.  If we have an extended power outage, we have alternate ways of cooking and lighting our home.

If we are sick, we don't have to venture out.  There is comfort food on hand.

Buying things on sale and stocking up is smart.  It is good insurance.  And it is like money in the bank.  


I'm not a prepper or a survivalist.  But I do like to be prepared.  And I think it is Biblical.  Read the story of Joseph in Genesis 47.

Keep calm, carry on and stock up!

What do you do to be prepared?