Hello lovelies! I had a good week and I'm excited to tell you about some of the things I did to be thrifty.
1. Harvested green beans, raspberries and cucumbers from the garden. I also found a few things on my foraging list: red clover, mullein, and elderberries. The elderberries aren't ripe yet, but it seems like there is such a short window of time between when they ripen and when the birds eat them. I wanted to at least know their location (about a mile away from our house) beforehand. I did find two decent sized patches on a local public trail. I hope there will be enough for me and any other foragers. 2. I used our dehydrator to dry some frozen vegetables from the freezer. This year I'm trying to strike a better balance between frozen, dried, canned, and "cold storage" foods. In the past I've leaned heavily on frozen foods rather than canned or dried. With things so uncertain in our world, I don't think there's any guarantee that our electricity gets cut off (or service is spotty, etc.) or the freezer breaks and we can't find the right part to fix it. Already freezers AND canning lids are in short supply, so drying seemed to be the next step. I was happy with how easily the frozen mixed vegetables dried in the dehydrator. I'm just now finishing up some parsnips from the freezer, and later today I will do some frozen corn. 3. Along with dehydrating, I also ordered more fermenting supplies this week and will be fermenting more vegetables. I did some sauerkraut earlier this year, and it turned out amazing. This week I repackaged it into one jar, added a glass weight and an airlock lid, and put it in our basement. I hope it will do well there. Our basement is 60-70 degrees right now and our fridge was between 40 and 50, so I'm not sure what will happen. My pantry list says that I need something like 30 lbs. of carrots to last a winter, and I feel like splitting that amount four different ways (canned, dried, fermented, cold storage) will be more achievable and healthy than trying to preserve ALL of them the same way. 4. I also canned some meat that was in our freezer, again diversifying the stash. I am going to can more of it, as well as dry some, this coming week. 5. I got a free, new-to-us piano! We had been needing one for a good six months or so, and I finally got around to looking for one in the last couple of weeks. This one (pictured above) is in good condition for a free piano. It needs a good tuning, but all of the keys work well and the exterior looks very nice. 6. I used a digital credit from Amazon to buy the song "Dawn" from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice soundtrack. I'm really hoping to learn the song by the end of the year. It is so hard to find time to practice, especially with children wanting to bang on the piano beside me every time I sit down. But I would love to be able to play this beautiful piece, and I know it's within my skill level. Hearing the piece will help me learn it faster. The song cost $1.29, so with the credit I was able to buy it for $0.39. I already have the sheet music. 7. I continued working through the Fascinating Womanhood course that I started last week. I am doing one lesson per week, and the course is 23 lessons long. It takes me about three afternoons, one hour per day, to get the course work done and journal. I am still really enjoying it and I feel like it is keeping me motivated on days when I'm "not feeling it". Well, that is about it for this week! I hope you are having fun being thrifty and keeping your homes! ~Prudence~
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Hello everyone! I hope you are having a good week. I've really enjoyed working outside, as the weather has been much cooler than the past few weeks, topping out around 80°F. We've had a few good rains since last time I wrote, which has been great for the garden.
1. Harvested cucumbers, Borlotto beans and green beans from the garden, along with a few wildcrafted herbs. I'm really happy with how everything is turning out. The cucumbers aren't bitter like they were last year, and my husband likes the Borlotto beans because they're not stringy when overgrown, like green beans can get. I am also trying to sniff out some elderberry bushes, because I'm 99% sure that there will be a shortage of elderberry syrup this year. 2. I worked on cleaning out the freezer this week. We had a lot of frozen fruit from last year and even the year before, so I made a couple of desserts and we enjoyed them that way. Before we moved into the new house, I was planning on getting a new freezer. But it just didn't happen. Now there is a freezer shortage, apparently, so a new freezer isn't going to happen any time soon. The door on ours is broken and it frosts up pretty quickly, but it's going to have to work until more freezers are for sale. 3. Evaluated my pantry and food storage plan for the coming months. In addition to a freezer shortage, I hear that there is also a canning lid shortage. Shortly after the virus hit, we visited an Amish bulk/discount store and bought a bunch of lids, so I'm thankful about that. However, the freezer situation might become dicey in the coming months, so I've been considering some other ways to store food. First, I'm looking into getting a food dehydrator. Currently I don't have one, because mine broke a few months ago. Second, I'm going to evaluate our basement for cold storage use. There are no heating elements down there, but it does get pretty humid and I want to make sure that is okay before I put my fermented veggies or root vegetables down there. Third, I will likely be canning some of the meat that is currently being stored in the freezer. Canned meat is something we don't mind eating on a regular basis, unlike canned fruit and vegetables, which neither of us care for (with a few exceptions, of course). Fourth, I'm just beginning to look into long-term storage of things like grains and beans. Honestly this is not something I'm ready to do yet, but I want it on my radar. 4. I began patching a pair of jeans for our daughter. 5. I accepted a free flock of laying hens from a friend of ours. In all I picked up 17 birds (I'm pretty sure at least two of them are roosters...) and we've gone from collecting 1-3 eggs per day to collecting a dozen on some days. We free range our chickens, so right now they are not going through a lot of feed. Still, I plan on "harvesting" the roosters at some point and also looking for alternative feeds. Also, something that is not necessarily "thrifty", but something I'd like to share anyway. I purchased this Fascinating Womanhood course and began going through it. It has really improved my outlook and quality of life. It gives me something to look forward to every day, especially in all of the stress of shortages, shut downs and the whole "mask issue". I tell you, it is not fun to go places anymore. But going through Cynthia's materials makes me feel better about the world, and makes me want to focus my efforts on creating a beautiful home life rather than worrying about world events that I can't change. Note: I also have the FW workbook that Mrs. Andelin's daughter Dixie has redone. I don't care for the fantasy esthetic of the reworked edition, plus it's loaded with gaudy clip art from the 1990s. It just makes the book not very fun to use. It used to be that the Fascinating Womanhood organization would train teachers for in-person classes, but I don't think they certify teachers anymore. Instead, Dixie has made a very expensive video course (it's $99.00 for 3.5 hours of video). Cynthia Berenger's course is just over $20.00 and seems like a more substantial amount of material; something you can chew on for a lot longer. If you do want to listen to Dixie, you can do it at her Youtube channel. She has over 150 videos on there; most around 20 minutes each. Anyway... That is all for this week. I hope you all have a beautiful weekend! ~Prudence~ Hello again! It is a beautiful time of year at our homestead. I'm now spending more time harvesting than I am taking care of my plants... and THAT, my friend, is a good feeling. Here are a few thrifty things I did this week: 1. Harvested beans, cucumbers, raspberries, basil, raspberry leaves and anise hyssop from the garden. I froze three quart bags full of raspberries, but I don't know if we'll end up freezing beans or canning pickles, although I do need to can some relish. I cracked open our last jar of relish this spring. 2. Fixed three broken toys with hot glue. 3. Repaired one pair of underwear and began patching up a pair of pants. 4. Brought home over $50.00 worth of bread products; discards from the food pantry. Someone from our church had a whole pallet piled high with bread, so we were definitely not the only ones who took a lot. You can see some of what I brought home below: This haul was perfect for July, since we have a lot of sandwiches this time of year, anyway. I put most of the bread in the freezer, with the expectation that it will be used up before I start freezing garden produce. I'm looking forward to seeing what delicious sandwich combinations I can make, especially with the bagels.
5. Made a playlist of hymns on Youtube. It is comforting to listen to spiritual songs in the morning especially, to direct my focus away from troubling news headlines. It is so easy to get sucked in to national and statewide news, but the hardest for me to stay away from is local news. Our state is one of the many that now require the use of face masks in areas open to the public. I'm happy that at least our home can be a refuge in a society filled with everything from petty bickering about this issue to violent outbursts; some of which made national news. That is about it for today! I hope you all have had a joyful, productive week at home. ~Prudence~ Happy Thursday, everyone! I have a few things to share for this week: 1. Went to some community garage sales just 10 minutes away from our home. I didn't go with a long list, but I did find some things on that list, such as kids' clothes one size up from what we're using now. I bought several shirts and pairs of pants for 50 cents a piece. I thought the clothing was good quality for the price, with few stains and/or holes. I also bought some toys and got some free books. I've been thinking about what I want to put into our daughter's preschool program for this fall. I have a scope and sequence started for grades, but for ages 0-5 I have it organized by age. She will be three years old during this school year. Two has been such fun for us, and I'm amazed at how much she can comprehend and do. The free books will be part of her curriculum for next year.
2. Harvested cucumbers, raspberries, garlic and beans from the garden. The garden is doing wonderful, and I was able to make several small harvests. A few years ago, I decided that I could no longer handle mass-canning (which also entails mass-gardening) as long as we have young children around. If I had older children or teens around, that might be different, but for now it is me handling EVERYTHING- seed starting, composting, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and preserving... and the last step is just one step too many. That being said, since I decided to stop canning, we have enjoyed better variety and far more fresh produce than we did when I had a garden set up primarily for canning and freezing. I can or freeze here and there, if I have extra, but most of the time we just enjoy what comes fresh. We all like it better that way. 3. I cleaned out items in our house that didn't belong to us. The previous owners were family, so it wasn't as simple as donating or using the things. I was happy to get them out of the way, so we could use the storage space as a spare bedroom. 4. Line-dried several loads of laundry. 5. Made popsicles. That is it for this week! Hope to be back again next week! ~Prudence~ Hi everyone! I don't have a lot to share nor a lot of time to write about it, but I thought I'd pop in anyway.
1. Sold our motorhome. We went camping over the weekend with it, and then two days after we got back, we sold it. We were able to sell it for $800.00 more than we bought it for, and even after the costs of registration, fixes, etc., we still came out about $200.00 ahead. 2. Made popsicles. We have had such intense heat waves in the last month; probably a week's worth of 90 degree days, which is HOT for our area. I found a popsicle mold at the Dollar Tree and we used it a couple of times before it fell on the floor (full...) and broke. I bought a new one on Amazon for $14.00. It was a lot more expensive than the Dollar Tree version, but it is silicone (therefore, virtually unbreakable) and has two more popsicle spaces. I was able to salvage one half of the broken mold, so in all we can make 8 popsicles at a time. For a recipe, I just make Koolaid and pour it into the mold. But I would love to try some more complicated recipes. 3. Started a new audiobook. It's called The Accidental Presidents, about the eight vice presidents who were promoted to President after the death of their acting President. I've only listened to about an hour of it, but it's very, very interesting. 4. Finished sorting through all of the old kids' clothes, plus some of my pregnancy, nursing and baby clothes. I got three trash bags' worth of clothing and a couple of loose items to donate or give away. 5. Made a few different summer meals this week. I was getting tired of taco salad for Taco Tuesday, so I rinsed some extra taco meat in hot water and added it to potato salad. I also started making a lot of boiled eggs. Normally I don't care for boiled eggs, but when it's this hot out they seem to go down easier. Our toddler has also taken a liking to them, which makes me happy because sometimes she eats like a bird. Well, that's all for now folks! We are going to be hosting some family for the Fourth of July, so I am going to get back to cleaning. Blessings, ~Prudence~ |
About PrudenceI am a Christian homemaker who lives in the Midwest. I enjoy sewing, gardening, reading and thrifting. Archives
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