Jump to content
MrsSurvival Discussion Forums

Homesteader

Users2
  • Posts

    3,301
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Homesteader

  1. I got them last year. It was a few days after my mom died. I was told that stress is a huge contributor. Our pharmacist friend said that the newer shingles vac is much more effective than the previous one. He said to wait a year between infection and getting the shot. I'll decide this coming Sept as it will be the anniversary. DH just got the newer vac and was told that it's a two-part regimen now. The other half of this nasty virus is that it can break out around the eyes and people have been blinded by shingles.
  2. One of my fav sayings is .... "The faster I go, the behinder I get."
  3. I used to garden on those west Pacific islands when we had long projects there. They were rat infested due to our WWII military shipping containers bringing them in. All the food scraps had to be buried daily. I finally switched to covering the soil with hardware cloth as the peelings broke down. Only took several weeks and kept the rats out. You might come up with some ideas as a spin-off to what we used to do.
  4. Mine have always done this. All of us pass around homemade jams at Christmas time that look that way. When opened for the first time, we just swirl them around with a knife. I should have asked them in Amish country how they get everything to gel together in their country stores.
  5. I heard from two HVAC guys that Freon for AC units has gone from $125/25 lbs to $550/25 lbs. When EPA decided that Freon was destroying the ozone layer 30 years ago, they put tremendous regulations on the mfg of it. Guess what? It's now manufactured in CHINA. The replacement gas that can be mfg here in the USA has now been deemed more toxic than Freon to our ozone. Compressors and other AC parts are generally made in CHINA also. I'm thankful you were able to get your AC unit fixed. The future looks very bleak for HVAC servicemen.
  6. My rider was making a tapping noise last night so I shut it down and asked DH to check it. Turns out the belt for the mower was slowly chunking. He said to keep mowing until it broke. Three more passes around the field and I came back in the house with a broken belt. And, of course its not easy to find one in stock. What a disastrous economy we have these days. It will arrive by Friday and I feel very blessed. DH gets a homemade rhubarb custard pie this weekend and I get to work on filling up the compost bin again.
  7. Had Lyme's disease last year. Ticks are notorious for Lyme's in Wisconsin.
  8. I just found my old pedometer last week and was thinking about changing out the old battery. I try not to carry my phone anymore. I get tired of being tracked all the time.
  9. It took us about 3 months before we settled down. Now we have to keep projects in front of us for motivation. The best part was "NO ALARM CLOCKS" anymore.
  10. Maybe she will agree to decrease the amount of the cholesterol drug in the interim and continue regular blood testing.
  11. My honeybees get first dibs on dandelions.
  12. Hi I am Homey's hubby (a tool and dye maker, machinist) - I watched the video you referenced and found it to be very informative. Sometimes the Youtube videos can lead you astray, but not this one. I use 3 different grits of diamond with water. 325, 600, and 1200. I also just measured the pressure I use and found it to be about 4 Lbs. I also use alternating strokes with one pass per side when nearing a sharp condition. It takes time, be patient. It's harder to get a sharp edge on cheap steel.
  13. I took the bones from the two hams and made ham/bean soup over the weekend. Ended up with 5 quarts of soup. I'm so sick of ham that I'm done with it for the year.
  14. DH mentioned that a large commercial turkey farm in northern Wisconsin was under attack from bird flu. Five hundred were found dead the first morning. Haven't heard anything since then.
  15. Last night, I canned up the last ham gifted to us at Easter time. Another 13 pints. I think I'll have about 6 quarts of ham/bean soup to can later today from cooking down the ham bone. I'm trying pinto beans instead of navy beans. Mom would roll over in her grave if she knew I changed the family recipe. It was an easy decision ... experiment ... as I have pintos by the bucket and Navy beans by the pound. What's killing me is my lack of inventory of empty canning jars. I stop by the charity shops on occasion and scoop up most of what they have. I also check with friends having estate sales. It's hard to compete against the Amish around here. I certainly don't want to get in a pushing and shoving match at auctions with them. So far, lids have been easy to find. It's early in the season. The Chinese knock-offs are hard to use and don't have much of a rubber ring to work with as far as centering them on jars. The local store said to use the Chinese jars with Chinese lids. Cheep crap!!
  16. I don't mind the canned ham. I usually throw it into a pot of cooked beans or make scalloped potatoes and ham. We grow our own potatoes, so there's lots of ways to serve the two together. I'm not sure about the ham shank from the store. It will say on the outside of the package if its cooked or not. Mine was precooked so I just cut it up in small pieces and placed in pint jars. Don't squish the ham in the jars or they might not heat properly throughout. I poured boiling water over it and pressure cooked for 75 minutes at 10 # pressure. I didn't add any spices. I do that at mealtime. I watched a video last night on how to pressure can dry beans. You put 1/2 cup dry beans into a pint jar and finish covering it with boiling water to within 1" of the top. Add the inner and outer lids and pop them into the canner and pressure can for 75 minutes. Follow the canner mfg recommendations on water in the canner. This lady did it along with some ham she was processing. The dry beans finished filling her canner and she ended up with a few pints of cooked/canned beans. I'm going to give it a try. I seldom veer away from the Ball book. It's always tested and true. I do like a full canner, though.
  17. I am trying to rotate my frozen meats and decided to can a precooked, spiral ham. Very tasty indeed. DH pretty much stayed out of the kitchen yesterday whilst the carving knife was in my hand. I got 8 pints of ham, and all of them sealed. One more ham to go. I need more pint jars. With mom gone, I'm back to stretching our meat between multiple meals out of a pint jar. She used to say, "Where's the BEEF?" She has never had to live in another country and receive the last chicken a family owned so that we could eat with them.
  18. Woot! Woot! Happy birthday, friend. I remember bringing down cans of silly string for the kids to pummel you with. They enjoyed standing by my suitcase when I arrived in Miami to see what I brought for fun for the upcoming week. Praying you have a great day, full of wonderful memories of becoming an ancient one like the rest of us.
  19. The State Vet who is overseeing the destruction of one commercial operation was mentioning all the spring birds using the chicken feathers of the dead birds to build nests. Spring is a great time to watch birds find nesting material. When we combed our long-haired dog outside, the birds would come from everywhere. I remember as a child my grandmother cutting lengths of string and hanging them on a fence. The birds would come and use the string as sewing material in their nests.
  20. In Des Moines, I think my family used to call it decoration day. They went out and decorated all the graves for the summer. When we lived in Indiana next to a cemetery, they did the same thing. Was wonderful to walk through and see all the people remembered by their children.
  21. Layer feed was $13 bag. I gagged. I can still get pastured eggs from the pantry that I work at most weeks. I treat them like the golden eggs. . We used to eat very little overseas. My memory is coming back very quickly though. I am starting to like rice again. 3x a day for years gets very old. Just give me a pile of mashed potatoes any day, smothered in butter and sour cream/chives. 😋
  22. I keep telling people not to kiss their chickens on the lips. They've turned them into children. The farm near us is into another phase of having to destroy their 3 million birds. I guess they're now trying to dispose of the eggs ... 400 TONS of them ... but the landfill doesn't want them until after THREE DAYS of cooking them.
  23. Thanks for all the updates. We've been thinking about a sawmill since all the oaks are slowly dying from Oak Wilt. A retired forest ranger told us to just sell them or cut them down and mill them before they die. It seems there is no cure for Oak Wilt and it will eventually kill almost all the oaks in our country.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.