CoM

Artichoke stuffing This was a quick experiment one night when baking a chicken. My husband NEVER eats Stove Top stuffing. It came out so good we are trippling the recipe for our turkey this year. We usually do the stuffing from scratch but this saves time & is very good. Basic recipe 1 box of Stove Top dressing mix (any flavor). 1/2 to 1 large onion few cloves of garlic 1/2 - 1 can of artichoke hearts chopped olive oil for sauteing chicken broth butter Salt & pepper 1. Saute onion & garlic in olive oil. 2. Add drained & chopped artichokes ( plain canned type, not marinated ) 3. Add stuffing mix. 4. Replace water in stuffing mix recipe with chicken broth. 5. Add butter & chicken broth and complete cooking instructions on box. 6. Salt & pepper to taste. We trippled this recipe for a 12 pound turkey.

This is a blog I have been following about a family who is learning to homestead. Many of their entries include videos of the new skill they are learning. Scroll down to entry dated Nov 11 entitled "Our Methods and Tools for Hand Washing Laundry (w/ videos)". I can't wait! lol I don't own a wringer but I do have a new mop bucket that has a wringer and I have used it during hurricanes. http://pocketsofthefuture.com/blog/?cat=55 CoM

You have to harvest the stevia BEFORE they flower.

I will experiment a little more with it and maybe just store it as a last resort. We do have bees & honey as well as a few hundred pounds of sugar stored.

I was so excited when I had first learned about the herb Stevia. It is a natural sweetner, 300 times sweeter than sugar. 1 teaspoon is equal to 1 c of sugar so says all the info I have read about it. It has no calories. I bought a few plants and have just harvested my first batch. If you chew on a leaf you are amazed at how sweet it is. I am a sugar addict and the thought of having a replacement that is healthy was very exciting to me. I dried the leaves and ground them very fine and thought I would try it in my beloved iced tea. OMG was it nasty! It had the same after taste that all artificial sweeteners have though not quite as bad. I was very disappointed. If anyone has any suggestions please reply. I also have a question about baking with Stevia. Since 1 t = 1 c of sugar would I have to alter my recipes to account for that 1 c of extra bulk that will be missing? Or would it be better to make a liquid with the Stevia and use that as part of the liquid in the recipe? Thanks

Well, Not a total washout. I mustered enough motivation to transpants some Zenia seedlings and 2 more trays of Basil seedlings!

I want cherries sooo bad but all we can grow this far south are wild cherries.

I will tell ya, Murphy lives with us ! Sometimes it's just one step forward and two steps back. Our simple plan to set up four 55 gal drums to collect rain water has turned into a major deal, sigh! First we must install gutters on this old country home- $700.00. Ok, so we bite the bullet and decide to have it done. We have needed gutters for a while as water tends to go under our house when it rains and that is not good. Our 2 story home has what I call a "barn roof" meaning that the sides of the roof come all way down the side of the 2nd floor and end at the ceiling of the first floor. The house has is "barn shaped". The gutter man can not install the gutters until we cut back the overhang of the metal roof. It falls 4-5 " past the fascia and should be no more than 2 inches hanging over. On top of that the main electrical cable coming into the house is attached with a stress relief thingy onto our fascia before it goes into the electrical panel. The bracket for that needs to be moved down onto the side of the house freeing up the fascia for the mounting of the gutters. Nope, we can't do anything as simple as that! Now it would be to low and not up to code. Sigh! Eventuaally, we will be installing a new electrical panel when hubby finishes building his new work shed and he wants to run all electrical underground. So that will have to wait. We have decided to just put the gutter on the side of the house that will have the rain collection set up located. It will at least cut down half of the water that runs under the house and we'll have our rain collection set up which will save us wear and tear on the water pump and save some on the electric bill. Great, we are back on track! Thursday hubby trimmed back the excess roofing from back side house and plans to pressure wash the whole roof this weekend. He wakes up Friday morning with a very red achy eye. A microscoptic piece of tin had gotten into his eye in spite of having goggles on. By Friday night he can barely stand the irritation any longer and all attempts to wash his eye out has failed to remove the foreighn particle. Off to the ER we go at 11:30 pm last night. We were there until 6 am this morning! The doctor was able to remove the tiny piece of tin but there is rust in his eye also and he must burr it our with a "burring" tool, something like a tiny drill. However a piece to that tool is nowhere to be fouind in the hospital so now the procedure will be dragged out until Monday. Sigh. Needless to say today has been a washout. We slept in til about noon and both of us are just tired so for now we will rest up, heal and resume this small project next week. Perserverance is key !

What a day ! Fridays are always a busy day for me. I get to work early, make some coffee and honker down for the day. I won't return until Tuesday so I make sure everything is closed out for the week. I place pending orders, do accounts payable, notify any customers of items to be picked up and have the cleaning girl in. Being tax season I am also working on that, now at a more accelerated pace. Being First Communion and Easter season I am scurrying to make last minute adjustments and preparations. Having a Homeschool Conference in two weeks I am putting together a plan for that as well. Today was not the typical Friday! This morning I arrived to a wet building. I had roof leaks in three locations in the building. I was not a happy camper. I had been reporting minor leaking, if there is such a thing as a minor leak to the landlord for months. Last night's severe storm was more than this old roof could cope with. I had puddles everywhere. I mopped up what I could. I put buckets under the leaks. I had to totally move one side of the stock room to another part of the room as I soaked up towel after towel of brown water! I called the landlady and I must have made my final point because within 30 minutes the roof guys were here . They examined the roof and said" yep, you got a few leaks" to which I replied and a whole lot of work inside ! So now I have the very famous blue tarp look on my building. After the next big expected downfall tonight and tomorrow the new roof will finally be put on. The landlord's husband did apologize for taking so long to attend to it. One good thing about all this rain is that many of the plants in the garden seen to be another foot taller and I got a free car wash !

Last night I finally got around to reformating my computer. With all of the junk that accumilates over the months it is reccomended to reformat at least once a year. I clean out everything daily. I run scans, have firewalls, antivirus, ad adware protection, etc. I do most of the updates. Still, over time you still end up with unwantd files, broken links, registry problems. Yes, it is a slight pain having to reinstall all of your programs and the numerous updates but you end up with a like new computer. Of course I always save all of my favorites and back up important files to blank cd's. Notice, I said I "always". Except for last night , that is. sigh.... One problem I was having with my computer was in transfering files to be copied. There was no way I could back up files. My spare flash drive was full and would not hold any more files. I came up with what I thought was a very smart idea. I have always been good at improvising. Windows Live Messenger has a feature that allows you to share files with friends. These files are held in a Sharing Folder and remain there until you delete them. I tested it and it was storing all the files I submitted. There seemed to be no space limitations. I had over 800 files! There were family Tree Files, Photo Albums, Music Files, tons of Word Documents, mostly on Preps, etc. They would be there just until today. Double checked, triple checked before i wiped my computer clean. Today the files are gone !!!!!! I don't know if I am more madder at myself for trying this or madder at Microsoft, who by the way has yet to get back to me. I have learned a very hard lesson. I should have went and bought another flash drive before reformatting. Take my advice....Never, never, never trust anyone else to store your files. There is one good thing that came out of this. I have a new computer!

Blogs are all the rage these days. Somehow the thought of me having one has never appealed to me. I have only recently even began to read blogs. One has to be extremely interesting to keep my attention. I guess it is the same as reading someone's newspaper column. I sometimes wonder if those who have blogs and write well have a hidden desire to be discovered as writers. Or are blogs sort of like writing in a journal or a dairy, except making those thoughts public. Whatever the reasons, it is all new to me. I suppose if I can discipline myself some to do this it will only produce my normal daily dealings in the world or perhaps some personal reflections. For this to be fun for me I can't enter into it from a writer's mindset checking spelling, sentence structure, topic sentences, etc. I have a tendancy to do that and it will take me forever to write anything. I am my own worst critic. I would never allow anyone to read something I wrote in it's first draft. Maybe that's what blogging is all about. Not having to critique every entry..Just write..let the juices flow. I am in foreign territory. It feels strange and awkward. Ok, I confess, I just did a spell check on awkward on dictionary.com At least I chose the right word to describe this experience. awk⋅ward   /ˈɔkwərd/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [awk-werd] Show IPA –adjective 1. lacking skill or dexterity; clumsy. 2. lacking grace or ease in movement: an awkward gesture; an awkward dancer. 3. lacking social graces or manners: a simple, awkward frontiersman. 4. not well planned or designed for easy or effective use: an awkward instrument; an awkward method. 5. requiring caution; somewhat hazardous; dangerous: an awkward turn in the road. 6. hard to deal with; difficult; requiring skill, tact, or the like: an awkward situation; an awkward customer. 7. embarrassing or inconvenient; caused by lack of social grace: an awkward moment 8. Obsolete. untoward; perverse.

Here is some of our wood. We pile it in a large circle and have our outdoor firepit in the center. It's close and handy for the fire and also blocks some of the wind . It's not a great pic but you get the idea.

I ordered 165.00 worth of CVS brand pharmacy items from their online 30% sale . I paid 100.02 and saved 65.00 plus got free shipping ! This was a nice suppliment to our first aid/medical supplies. Woo Hoo

I have: ANDERSSON from Halland, Sweden (changed to SMITH here in US) ANDREASSON from Vestfold, Norway BODIN from Halsingland, Sweden BURRILL from New York DIAKOUMAKOUS from Karvellas, Laconia , Greece DICOMES from Massachusettes ERSSON from Halsingland, Sweden LAMBOUDIS from Kaliaji, Mani, Greece PLASS from New York SEBEKOS from Marathea, Laconia, Greece SHANTZ from Germany/New York

Here is a link for commercially canned ghee in the US. You have to click the "continue" button to get all info. I don't know the price on this yet but it may well be cheaper than canned butter from New Zealand. http://www.purityfarms.com/index.html God Bless, CoM

If you do not want to can butter because it really isn't reccomended you can make Ghee (clarified butter) and just store it in jars. It last about a year. http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/ho...-butter-205650/ http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/ho...-butter-241324/ There is now commercially canned butter available as well. I am not reccomending this site just posting this link to show what is available. http://www.internet-grocer.net/butter.htm

arby: https://www.greenbags.com/?cid=587776 is her site but I got mine for the same price at Bed, Bath & Beyond & saved shipping. They claim you can use each bag up to 10 times but that you have to keep only one type of food in each bag and not put clips etc on them. I started off trying to do that but ended up using any bag for any product and I saw no ill effects. I also now use a clip on some of them and it hasn't torn the bag. We are well pleased with them.

I hung clothes on line, watered down just a little my thick ceasar salad dressing and used conatiners instead of Zip lock bags to store some stuff in fridge. Those Debbie Meyer Green bags work great at preserving stuff, thus reducing waste.I bought the ones for vegetables/fruits but also use them to store home made bread in. Just wash out good & dry well.

Two pinching penny tips: #1 Walgreens Photo Dept refils most computer ink cartridges for 10.00. Sometimes you can even get it free as they have a very strict test on the refills. If it fails the test you get your cartridge back and it is still full of ink :-)(and worked fine) #2 Use extra left over slats from vinyl mini blinds to make garden stakes. Just cut to desired length and cut a point on one end. Use marker to write on them.