babysteps

12 hours ago, Littlesister said:

Strawberry pie filling, jelly and jam. Those are all I can think of right now. 

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... 

In defense of the ladies you were talking with, if I wasn't VERY confident of the group I was with, I wouldn't admit to a prepping mindset either. I'd agree in a vague sort of way with the vacation ideas and not really commit to what **I** would do.

As far as what I *actually* would do - I'd have to think about it a bit. There are quite a few things I'd like to do next on our little property, so hubby and I would have to weigh our options. I'd like to start a couple of bee hives, redo the fencing in a few areas. A small separate lambing/calving barn would be nice.

Hubby would probably want to look at a farm fuel tank for the tractor and I'm pretty sure he'd also be interested in that solar generator idea. 

It's fun to dream, lol! 

We are doubling our garden size this year, so we're still working on prep. I was hoping to start planting this weekend but it's cold and raining for the next few days, so probably end of next week instead.

I'm anxious to get my hands in the dirt! 

Yeah. It's been a few years since we had chicks - but we had been planning to do this last year, and then last year went a bit bonkers on us with my parents' health, so I opted to wait till now. And now I'm kicking myself.

Usually I aim to get new chicks in the late fall, so they'd start laying right about mid spring. They don't lay well in winter anyway so might as well have them as chicks through that first winter, you know? But I missed that window and looking at prices now... well. Darn it anyway. I'm sure not waiting until fall though!

I popped onto a couple hatchery websites (McMurray and Meyer) today to look at ordering some new day-old chicks.

GOOD GRAVY. Most of the brown egg layers were $10-$30 APIECE for day old chicks on the Meyer website. Only the super common breeds, like Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons, were less, and they were still in the $5 range. I nearly hyperventilated. 

McMurray has better prices - BUT their earliest delivery date is in June, and they're already sold out of 3/4ths of their birds. 

If you were planning to get new chicks this spring, like me - well. Good luck. I'm absolutely kicking myself that I didn't do this last fall!! 

I may have to try it, Mother! I'm not much of a writer, but it's just FUN to play with these what ifs. And they have been surprisingly helpful in real life for me - a few years ago when we were under a level 2 fire evac (get set), because I had already done a bunch of scenarios in my head, we had **everything** we wanted to save, for my entire family of 9 plus pets and livestock, packed and ready to go in less than an hour. I had to get on the board a day or so later, just to thank Mt Rider!! 

Soooo.... I'll keep reading about your wagon trip, AND I'll take a peek down in Fireside and see about joining in on the fun down there, too. ❤❤

Littlesister, I sympathize! Our lives are so busy, it's easy to miss these.

This scenario started back 2008!! And there are multiple threads of the traveling, the settlement, and all of that.

I don't know how I missed this when the wagon train started, in 08, but I'm sure enjoying the trip now. 😊😊

Over the past week or so, I've been reading this, and wondering how I missed out on joining when it happened. I was here! Why didn't I join the wagon train?!? 

In a lot of ways, this reminds me of my favorite of Mt Rider's Without Warning scenarios, the whole "Pack up, we're heading for somewhere ELSE" thing. This one is so challenging because of the weight and space limitations of the wagon. But on the other hand, this one had a little prep time, so folks were able to acquire some of the necessary supplies before leaving. It makes me look around and consider - what would I get rid of? What would I want to get? 

PHOOEY! I want to join a wagon train! 

Oh well. I'll just live vicariously through the rest of y'alls adventures. 

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!!

12 hours ago, kappydell said:

We need a happy dance emoji!  Mary e-mailed the original movers we had asking about her bed, and they found it!  I found the urns (whew! ) along with my safe and the firearms!  Now all we are waiting for is the carport to go in, with the storage part at the back. 

 

   That's awesome!!

2 hours ago, Ambergris said:

Can you grow feijoa there?  The petals taste something like cotton candy.

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!" 

Happy New Year! 

I started working (for the first time in almost 20 years) last January as a receptionist in a tax office. Easy work, only during tax season (Jan-mid Apr) and a good way to ease back into the working world again. 

Guess I did a better job than I thought. (It's not like we're talking rocket surgery. Answer the phones, be polite and friendly, and help in the office where you can. How do you mess it up?)

I got a call from the district manager yesterday. (!!!!) One of the office managers accepted a job out of state and is leaving in 3 weeks. Right as tax season really kicks into gear. And would I consider accepting a position as an office manager? 

I would get three days of virtual training and then two weeks of on the job training and then... they throw the baby in the deep end and see if she can swim.

So the past 24 hours has been me doing lots of this 

As you can imagine.

Praying for all the sickies!! NOT fun at any time, and just miserable at Christmastime. 

We had a good Christmas too. We woke up to freezing rain on Christmas Eve, but the roads weren't bad so we went to church anyway. Went over to my bro and SIL's in the afternoon. My parents came too. Watched White Christmas with the family and opened a few gifts that night. We had some more freezing rain on the way home but the roads stayed good till we got home, thankfully! I like snow but ice is a whole different animal.

Tradition at our house is that kids get pjs and a new book each on Christmas Eve after we get home from the family party. So they read for a while and then went to bed. DH and I stuffed stockings and finished wrapping gifts and then went to bed also. 

Christmas morning the kids SLEPT IN  till 8:30, so we woke them up and let them get into their stockings while we made waffles for breakfast. DS21 and his girlfriend came over for breakfast, and then we opened the rest of the gifts. The rest of the day was spent reading new books and eating cookies, lol. 

You'd be so BORED here, Mt Rider! An inch or two of snow maybe --MAYBE-- once or twice a winter, , no bears, cougars are rare...  What ever would you do for fun?? 

It ended up not getting near as cold last night as they predicted... might have been down to 30, and was above freezing by 9am. We had clouds move in -- which is what warms *us* up. It's the clear nights that are stinkin cold. The cloudy ones are much warmer. And we get lots (and lots, and LOTS) of rain. Which equals mud. All winter long.