Guilt

After months of eating the expensive catfood we got for a dollar a box at Happ's, the stuff is now gone. It is not something we would ever dream of buying at regular prices. The stuff runs between $14-18 for a box of 12 pouches, and those ferals were eating more than a box per day. We would be spending more to feed cats than we spend on food for ourselves!

We feed them a good dry catfood, but finding a replacement wet food has been difficult. I am sure finding out what they won't eat. 

They began coming to the door to mew pitifully.

I bought two more 12 packs of cat food last weekend, different brands, and hallelujah! One of them was something that they all ate. 

So, yesterday, while I was out, I bought a 40 can case of it.

You guessed it. Today they were not so fond of it. 

Tim says, 'They'll eat when they get hungry enough."

I feel so guilty.

Tomorrow is No King Day. Tim and I will be there.  I feel no guilt about that. 

A friend posted that no Christian should be at one of these protests. Surprised me that she was one of those. Not everyone agreed with her. I pointed out, choosing my words very carefully, that many religious leaders of a wide variety of faiths felt it was putting their faith into action. Talking the talk is fine but sometimes it is required to walk the walk. 

She responded that behind these protests there were corrupt and evil forces at work, citing her experience at the Standing Rock protests where she was arrested.

I wonder where that idealistic woman went? She had such a passion about social justice. She firmly believed in roght and wrong. I didn't bother to say anything more, but it seems kind of sad to me. 

These protests are on track to be the biggest protest in our nation's history. Chicago and Portland are doing a fine job of nonviolent resistance to ICE. We will certainly support them.

I made wheat bread today. It has been a while but it turned out very nicely. First yeast bread of the season. I always wonder if I lost my knack. Nope. I still got it.

This has nothing to do with anything but it made me laugh: 

The Experiment

 My new stove has a multipurpose oven, and one of the things it does is dehydrate. Now, I have never tried dehydration before but decided to give it a go. The one thing that I decided is that when I run the dehydrator, the oven will be full. So I use both racks and even put a smaller baking sheet on the bottom of the oven, and then I run the dehydrator over night. The oven keeps at a steady 150 degrees.

When I wake up, everything is done. The house is also warmed on these chilly mornings. Double duty, there!

This is my first experiment. 

This jar is about 1.5 quarts. Unbelievably, this jar contains 3 lbs of carrots, 3 lbs of celery, six large Vidalia onions, at least 4 trays of dehydrated tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, corn, green beans. I just dehydrated whatever I found on sale, produce wise or whatever came from the garden. If I had part of a onion left over from whatever I was cooking, I just diced it up and put it on a parchment covered baking sheet. It was a great way to use up the last of the garden, when things were winding down, not enough to make a meal, but too much to waste.

It is my soup jar. I have tried this. I had made a little venison roast. I saved the broth from it. I chopped up the meat and dropped it back into the crock pot of broth. I added a half cup of dehydrated vegetables and enough water to cover it. I let the crock sit over night in the fridge and then popped it back into the crock pot on low the next morning. I added a handful of barley and let it go.

That evening, we had our bowl of venison-vegetable-barley soup. Tim said, 'This is good.' I said that I had used the dehydrated vegetables. He said, 'Really??? They don't taste any different from regular vegetables!'

He is a convert. He tells everyone.

I have been dehydrating potatoes too. We bought a 50 lb bag. 

This is a two quart container. You can see that it is about 2/3 full. This is 10 lbs of potatoes. I will do another 5 lbs tonight. My thoughts were to use them for scalloped potatoes. If they pass Betty Crocker's scrutiny, there is no reason it shouldn't work for me. 

I hunted online and discovered that there are quite a few people who swear by dehydrating.

I found an 'instant sauce mix' to use in making the scalloped potatoes. Dried milk, flour, cornstarch. Dried minced onion. Garlic powder, parsley, salt, pepper and ground mustard. 'Better than Betty's' they proclaim. 'No additives!' 

I wanted to also explain something else. You really can fall down quite a rabbit hole with this dehydrating stuff. Gz mentioned that she just braids her garlic and hangs it. We go through a lot of garlic in this house, either sautéed in olive oil and stored in the fridge or minced fresh.

This sauce recipe (and many other  dehydrating recipes) called for minced dried onion and garlic powder. I had a lot of fresh garlic and that bag of Vidalia onions. I wondered why you would buy that. If you were dehydrating, why couldn't you dehydrate those like everything else? So off I went to discover that for myself. I would call the experiment a success, but I will warn you that 3 trays of onions and one of garlic will bring you to tears! Luckily, we sleep with our bedroom door shut and windows open for the cool. By the time we got up the next morning, the tear makers were neutralized!

We will be putting these potatoes to the test on Sunday. We have company coming for barbecue. I will let you know.

This jar contains 40 ounces of fresh mushrooms. They were on sale at the grocery store, so I picked them up for dehydrating. They turned out great. I have used these already. I tossed a scoop of them into the tomato sauce I was making from the last of the tomatoes. Again,  they were (to us, anyway) indistinguishable from cooking with fresh mushrooms.

So...that is my experiment so far. I am pleased with the results. It is awfully nice to have the time to try my hand at new things.

Get 'r Done

 We have been getting things done here, and for whatever reason, it seems to be moving along without 'hiccups'.

Today, I walked out of the house with my to-do list. Tim had a list of his own. He dropped me off at the bank. Despite multiple assurances that the bank's hands were tied, two teller trips to the manager's office to discuss the situation (I was pretty sure the teller did not understand what I was explaining), I finally was allowed to speak directly to the manager. I explained the situation, she immediately understood what I needed and she did it. She also took the extra step of calling the main office to double make sure the issue was resolved. I appreciated that. I was in and out of her office in ten minutes flat.

From there, I walked to the post office with some letters. We had our mail forwarded to the new address. It took two tries to get that accomplished, but it got done. Except that we began getting mail addressed to other people at the old house!

I was directed to the postmaster. After a brief conversation with him, that problem was resolved.

Then it was out the door and over to the library. For our wedding gift to our daughter and almost son-in-law, we got them tickets to a theater event they wanted to see. Since we still do not have our computer set up, I needed to print them off there.

One interesting thing happened there. Someone had left their cellphone beside the computer, so I took it up to the desk and turned it in. Immediately, this caused great agitation. One of the librarians made a big deal about 'what are we going to do with it' and 'I am not touching it!' (Repeated multiple times). I am not sure why she was so upset by the phone. Surely it was simple enough to put the phone behind the counter for safekeeping until someone realized they'd misplaced it and began retracing their steps. The issue was debated for far longer than I thought it needed to be.

But in any case, the tickets were printed out. At about the same time, my phone rang. Tim was finished with his list. Perfect timing.

We got a few groceries and headed home. Yesterday, we had gotten our freezer loaded onto the truck and down to the new house. I got it defrosted overnight and wiped it down. We got it unloaded and into the basement with minimal difficulty. 

Has anyone heard of this cheese? I had never tried it before, but we both think it is the best cheddar we have ever had.

So anyways, I was happy with the day's work and I felt quite accomplished. I reminded myself that:

Relief

I had a doctor's appointment today, and I was sincerely dreading it. I hate arguing with the doctor. She is actually a Physician's Assistant, but, you know what I mean. She had been trying to convince me to do metformin for my 'diabetes', even though I clearly fell into the pre-diabetes range. I was pushing back. 

I cited NIH guidelines. I discussed the fact that I was hampered by a very bad knee which made exercise difficult. I was also struggling with a bit of depression. I was just not in a good place last winter.

Personally, I was seeing this as a wake up call. I got serious about my diet. My knee replacement allowed me to begin exercising in earnest.

But despite all of those changes, I was dreading that doctor visit like crazy. I was sure that the issue would be pushed again. 

Except it wasn't. 

I am no longer pre-diabetic. I have lost just over 28 pounds this year. They are pleased with the changes. Told me to keep on keeping on.

I can't tell you how relieved I am.

Pete Hegseth put out a demand that all news agencies at the Pentagon had to sign a pledge not to cover any stories not approved by the Pentagon. The deadline was 5 pm today. As far as I can see only one far right news group has signaled a willingness to do so, something called OANN, which stands for One America News Network. 

I can't tell you how relieved I am about that too. 

Let's end it on a humorous note, shall we?

Happy

 

Today, I had to go into town early to have blood work done. We had company coming for supper, so I wanted to pick up makings for a tossed salad, but I had some time to kill before the grocery store opened, so I went to the Tractor Supply to see what they had left in their garden shop. Everything was 75% and I was not going to buy anything. Just look. 

As you do. 

Except there was this bumble bee clinging to this plant in the morning chill.

Isn't that just so cute?

I bought the plant for purely humanitarian reasons, and the little bee was quite happy to travel home in a warm car with me. 

I know it is ridiculous, but that tiny good deed made me very happy and that happy lasted all day.

For Blondi

Blondi Blathers tickled me yesterday with her comment, so here you are: My refrigerator. I have a lot of magnets. Some artwork. 

I have a stone that my youngest granddaughter presented to me with great pride. She painted it herself.

The 'hagstone' (the rock with the hole in it) was found by my grandson.

They are kept in a crystal dish with my other interesting stones, arrowheads, a stone scraper/knife, fossils, pottery shards. 

I have an orange plastic spider on the bathroom window sill where my granddaughters left it.

That's enough real for the moment. 

Today I woke up at six am. I finally just got up. I peeled the rest of my apples from my niece's house and made apple sauce. Once that was on the stove, I chopped up 3 trays of onions and started dehydrating them. Once done, I whisked them through the food processor on pulse, just the tiniest bit to make dried minced onion. I am drying garlic to make garlic powder. This dehydrating thing has been such a very interesting thing to learn about. 

Taking a tip from Boud, I did a bit of creating. I made a little terrarium with mosses. That made me happy too. 

My sister and her husband came over. I finally won a game of scrabble. It's been a while. She brought beef tips and noodles for supper. I added a loaf of zucchini bread and apple sauce. Apple pie ala mode for dessert.

That is it really, unless you want to hear about the recycling taken in. Or scrubbing the bathroom. 

There you have it...another day in the life, but it was soul satisfying.

Dull Day

 Today was a hodge podge day. Errands to be run, a bit of groceries. Then back home and up to deliver some pepperoni to my niece. We picked apples. She has a glut of them and I am welcome to as many as I can use. 

We have had two hard frosts, and so I picked the last few of my tomatoes and figured to use them for spaghetti sauce. I added some of my dehydrated onions, mushrooms and garlic. I tossed in my seasonings and three cooked links of Italian sausage and let it all simmer together to rehydrate my vegetables. I peeled and cut up apples for an apple pie. 

Tim spent the afternoon tinkering with his 'new' old truck. So far he has changed the oxygen sensors, something about wiring harnesses and grounds. He cleaned the fuel filters today and he changed the ignition switch. He is patiently tracking down codes. He bought a fuel pump for his last old truck but thinks he will have to put it on the new old truck and just order another fuel pump for the last old truck.😵‍💫

I say, 'I don't understand why you had to buy a new old truck. Why didn't you just fix up the last old truck?' The answer is always 'The body on this one is perfect.'

Lucky he doesn't apply that thinking to wives. I will stick to apple pies and spaghetti sauce. 

But here's something curious. I didn't really have enough tomatoes to make enough sauce, so I added a jar of marinera to stretch the sauce. It was a brand I was not familiar with, but the label said 'Marinera' and underneath 'roasted red bell peppers'.  It was only after I added the sauce that I noticed in smaller writing above the word 'marinera'. It said 'with Hatch chiles'. 

Have you ever seen marinera with chiles?

Tim does not like spicy food but he liked this a lot. He also liked his slice of warm apple pie with ice cream on top. 

So that was today. Who is that snoring out there?