babysteps

Already got loads, but I appreciate the thought!

Strawberry all the things. The only problem is, I'm running out of ideas and there's still about 8 lbs of strawberries staring at me wanting to know what they get to be. As an aside, at one point today my watch congratulated me on completing 45 minutes of rowing. I was hulling strawberries, but okay...

I'm late to the conversation, but - I've been using the ForJars brand all summer and I have to say I've been quite impressed by their quality. Over the course of the summer, I've gone through close to 600 lids and I think I've only had 4 failures total. Compare that with the past several years of 2 or 3 PER CANNER LOAD with Ball, Kerr, and Golden Harvest - I'll stick with these for now. I'm very curious about the new Tattler ones... somewhere I read that they will be used with the regular rubber gaskets? That person may have had incorrect information, though. It will be interesting to see!

Thank you Ladies <3 <3 <3

Oregon has already added 8 more to that number 😔 and as a country we appear to be adding about a thousand a day now. A few days ago it was only about 200 a day. Crazy and sad.

Okay, I know this is serious, but I got a giggle when I opened a webpage that tracks the numbers involved in this crisis... and got this. I think there's a slight glitch in their math... (they have since fixed it, thankfully!)

I don't have the cool breakdown by country and state that Ambergris has, but... regular news is currently reporting 2110 cases in the US and 48 deaths. 😔 I know here in Oregon we're reporting 30 cases but I also know there's a LOT of people who are waiting to be tested. Schools here have also been closed and currently are saying they'll be back in session on April 1st. We'll see.

We were talking about this on our way home from our small town fireworks show. Right after - like less than 2 minutes after - the show ended, every cop in town lit up and went flying down the road just past where we were sitting. That'll make you wonder what's going on! Hubby said he had heard there had been at least 3 terrorist plots that had been foiled for this year's 4th of July celebrations. I don't know what the others might be, I'm guessing the one Jeepers listed was one of them though. (He's LEO, so he often gets a little more info than what the msm hears.) It's sobering and thought provoking, to say the least.

Oregon is definitely a mess. Small towns like mine that were already struggling with the meth crisis, and now we have this too. Theft has gone up in our town SO MUCH in the past year or so. Homeless problem is getting worse. And UGH it STINKS!! Working in a customer service job, the sheer number of folks who walk through our doors each day with fumes just rolling off them is enough to make me lightheaded. And (of course) it's getting into the schools in ridiculous numbers, despite it being illegal for kids. Our small town high school has had law enforcement called to it for drug-related activity more times in the past four months than in the past four YEARS combined. I firmly believe it has its place in medical usage. But so does morphine. And neither of them belong in the general public's hands.

I've got a good old Winnie the Pooh-style blustery rainy night tonight. I should be asleep, buuuuuut... between the wind and the hubby snoring and my brain that won't shut up, I'm wide awake. Do we have anyone in Alaska anymore? I'm sure we used to... just wondering about that big quake and the tsunami warnings up there early this morning. My news was full of it on my way to work this morning, but no updates on my way home. So much going on with everyone! Prayers for your move to go smoothly, Ambergris; for Mr Homesteader's knee to improve quickly; for Jeepers' energy levels to come back; for Mt Rider to NOT DO TOO MUCH (lol); for WE2's dad and Miki's DH; for CG to stay off the ladder ; and for all the rest. Yikes!

Yay! I just recently found my way back, too. Welcome back, Grace & Violets!!

That's awesome!!

Hmmm! Maybe! It looks like it prefers zones 8-11, and my area is considered 7 to 7b. It'd be a little tricky but should be doable, if I gave it some extra care in cold temps...

Tax season opened on the 2nd so I've spent the week learning my new office. My kids are going to have to re-learn how to stay on top of their schoolwork when mom isn't breathing down their necks, lol. They did a great job last year, so I'm not worried about them. And this year DD18 has her driver's license, which is a huge help. Our weather since Christmas has been typical temps for winter in our area (30s low, 40s high) but unusually dry. Yesterday was the first measurable rain in two weeks? Last year we had a moat around our house by this point. (No, really. I have pictures. Our house is a high point on a property with serious drainage issues. We had a moat.) DH put in a drainage system this fall and WANTS rain so he can test it, and... no rain! Everyone caught in this extra-cold winter weather... I'm so sorry. My sis-in-law had to make a trip to Iowa this week and is pretty much frozen solid by now, I think. Other than that, it's business as usual. DD4 and DD13 spent one afternoon this week poring through one of the seed catalogues we got in the mail. I came home to an already-planned-out garden. I did have to point out that I wasn't sure we could get cotton candy seeds. DD4 had them on her list and nothing that DD13 said was convincing the younger one that those aren't a thing. Her logic was "there's cotton seeds in the catalogue, so OBVIOUSLY there will be cotton CANDY seeds too!"