Daylily

It's 1:46 am and I have not been asleep yet. I went to bed at 9:30. This cold/flu or whatever has me all messed up. DH and I hardly slept any Friday night so I took two naps yesterday and am not the least bit sleepy now. I stayed in bed until nearly 1 am but I was SO hungry I had to get up and eat some tofu on a rice cake and some applesauce. Since Thursday, DH and I haven't been able to eat more than about 1/2 of food every few hours. I hope I can get some sleep when I go back to bed and not get indigestion. Mom has the cold and DD had a temp of 100.2 last night.

It's a regional library that has branches in several counties.

Why do you have to dispose of them? Can you give them away or have a used book sale? Our library does that.

I got another one yesterday. I clicked on the Ignore this Warning button and it went directly to Mrs. S but left the red warning box at the top of the site page. There was a close button which I used.

Annarchy, thank you! Jeepers, so sorry about the puppy. I've cried many tears for beloved pets too. It's hard. Hoe everyone is doing well.

I felt like yesterday was a waste as far as getting anything done. DS and I finally walked up the hill to the reservoir and found that it was still full and some water had even come out the overflow pipe so I did two loads of laundry. Sunday was our 45th anniversary so in celebration, we broke out one of the new puzzles DD1 & DSIL got us for Christmas. DD2 fixed us a lovely lunch while we worked on the puzzle. The bitter cold has kept us indoors but it might get up to 39 degrees today. I am deciding on the projects I (we) want to complete in January. These include the 2017 garden plan and seed orders, setting up files for the church (I am the treasurer), setting up an emergency binder and grab & go container, and a household inventory (video and on paper) among other things.

I use Firefox and got the warning.

Been cleaning house ans watching it snow. We have about an inch. I think east of us is supposed to get the brunt of the storm. The hig tomorrow is supposed to be 18, and on Sunday too.

I hope everyone is feeling better. We had a wonderful weekend with family. DD1 & DSIL came Friday afternoon. We got about 1" of snow Friday morning but the roads were clear by the time they got here. It was in the 50s Saturday and Sunday but rainy. After church, we had a delicious lunch, sang Christmas songs from the hymnal and visited. Saturday night, we made a brief visit to neighbor's New Year's Eve party and then came home to eat supper and then open our Christmas gifts. We do that slowly, one person at a time so we all got tired and sleepy before we finished. We just stopped and went to bed. We opened the rest of them after breakfast Sunday morning. it was fun to prolong it. DD2 had decorated the house simply but elegantly using the gifts as the biggest part of the decorations. The nice thing about that is now most of the decorations are gone already! I hope we can get the rest put away today before the frigid weather moves in in a couple of days. DD1 & DSIL left Monday about 5 pm and got home safely. The fridge is full of yummy leftovers, even though they took a lot with them. I want to spend some time this week thinking about my priorities for the coming year and setting some goals. I may call a friend and see if I can go over and do a couple loads of laundry this afternoon. The men worked on the spring and got a little more water running into the reservoir but still not enough to do much laundry. They have plans to do more but I'm not sure exactly what. We went to the laundromat last week and my friends chastised me for going. They said, "Bring your laundry over here and we can talk with it washes!" I'll bring the clothes home to dry them like I did from the laundromat. Everybody, have a good day!

Yes, I too hope it was a special day for you!

Hi folks. I've been busy getting ready for DD1 and DSIL to come for "Christmas" this weekend, cooking, cleaning. Also visiting DH's cousin in the hospital. He had a tear in his colon and had a section removed. Doctors still say they have no idea why the tear happened. Mt Rider, you bring back painful memories for me! I remember so many hours in the dark and cold, holding a flashlight and handing tools to DH while he worked on vehicles so he could go to work the next day. I'm glad you can get it done by a mechanic. I hope everything goes well. Annarchy, glad you made it home safely. I pray for each of you when I read your posts even though I may not mention something you wrote.

I went to the dentist yesterday for a routine cleaning. I have to go every three months because I have "active" saliva and make plaque so quickly. It is not pleasant because I have very sensitive teeth. So glad it's done until the end of March. At Ingles, I found bananas on sale for 25 cents per lb and bought about 30 lbs to dehydrate. Found that most of them are quite firm even though they are brown speckled. I will pick out the riper ones to dry and we'll eat on the rest until they ripen more. We are still having trouble with our water. DS checked on the reservoir and spring yesterday and found that the sloping bottom of the reservoir is not even covered! He thinks we can use about 1 gallon every 5 minutes which means no laundry. DD has been doing 1 load per day and getting farther and farther behind with it. So today we plan to load up the car and go to the laundromat. We'll bring it all home to dry. It's almost an hour drive to the laundromat. DS thinks that they can dig out the spring and re-work it to get more water coming in the tank and it will be OK. I hope so. DD1 and DSIL are coming next weekend for our Christmas and we'll need the extra water. DS has a denture repair to do and return today. DH has borrowed Cousin's tractor with wood splitter and we've been splitting wood as we have a chance. I guess that's what he'll work on today. It's supposed to be sunny and in the upper 40s today.

Precious! I believe that dogs truly suffer emotionally when abandoned by their owners. Thank you for adopting a shelter dog. I hope he fits right into you family.

We have to go to a funeral this morning. 11 am. DH is doing the eulogy and we will sing two songs. Then church and Christmas program and dinner at church tomorrow. Then another funeral Sunday. It's 11 degrees right now at 7:11 am.

Our high was supposed to be 21 today. I saw 18. It's been very windy. I'm thankful the electricity has stayed on.

My goodness! Will join you in prayer for this and for Wormie's car too.

Sass, very good gardening information for beginning gardeners. I have the Square Foot Garden book too! DD1 uses that for her raised bed gardens. She grows an amazing amount of food in a pretty small space. Jeepers, I like the whiteboard idea. I really need lists to remember things too. I will explore the whiteboard concept. DD2 has often told me, "If I knew just what needed to be done, I could do it when I have a few free minutes". I can spend so much time just ambling around wondering what I should do until my time to do it is used up! You are right about "real" farmers keeping good records. We definitely need to do better because I'm getting too old for everything to be ready to harvest at the same time LOL! I was impressed with the Reformation Acres sight because of the records they kept. For the past few years, we have been recording the food we put up, which is nice to have too.

Jeepers, we learned that about cucumbers too...lol! Now we plant them about 3 weeks apart and do the same with zucchini and yellow summer squash. Just about the time the first ones are done, the second ones are starting to come in. This summer we never did get around to planting that second batch. That's why I want a planting calendar! We keep saying, "We need to plant those cucumbers!" but never did get it done. I want a calendar so I can look at it every week and say, "OK, this week we need to plant this and feed that and harvest this, etc." Harvest dates are another thing I want to put on the calendar every summer. Say I plant some green beans and they are supposed to be ready in 70 days. I want to count 70 days forward on the calendar and write "harvest green beans" so I know to plan for it at least one day that week. Every summer we're like, "Oh no! The green beans are ready and I promised to do this and help with that and can't get them picked!" Then we're all in a panic because we're over-committed and we need those green beans! It makes for a very stressful life and a few simple things like writing down projected harvest dates would help so much. Yet we have never done it. Except DS and his different corn (meal, flour, popcorn, etc.). He's got that down pat. Mt Rider, yes, it is a lot of work and we could make it so much easier by better planning and writing things down. We DO plan the gardens in January, DS makes maps and we write all that down...where everything will go. Then we inventory our seeds and order what we need for that year. We are saving most of our own seeds now but always need to order a few things. But then our organization breaks down when it comes to keeping notes on what happens when and insect emergence times. DS does write down when he top dresses anything, etc. He's more organized than the rest of us! Thanks for the article on pyrethins and pyrethrum. Pyrethin gives me chemical bronchitis so i avoid it.

Look what I just found!! http://www.reformationacres.com/2013/12/yearly-homestead-schedule.html Thanks for the input Sass! We have 5 garden plots that total about 30,000 sq ft. This does not include the orchard, blueberry patch, blackberry patch, the grape and kiwi arbors, gooseberry patches and soon to be raspberry and strawberry patches. I am trying to come up with a schedule similar to the one linked to above but more applicable to us,. We don't have any livestock to worry about. We used to have bees but a big bear got them. I have several flower beds and borders in various stages of disrepair. We also have the usual piles of junk and spare lawn equipment for parts. My dream is to have it all organized (after we de-junk!) where we can find what we need and actually use it! And it looks better! I also want to set up a pruning, organic spraying, planting, seed-sowing etc. schedule so everything gets done in a timely manner. I would like to have a schedule of when harmful and beneficial insects emerge here. This is something that requires taking notes every year for several years which I haven't done consistently. I know getting this together will be a tone of work and I wish I had done it years ago!!

I like to look at organizing blogs to get ideas. I'm trying to declutter and get organized plus do better at scheduling gardening and other homestead tasks. So many of the blogs are for suburbanites who really don't do the things I need to do, or from moms with small children. Do any of you folks have any good tips and ideas for scheduling home and garden tasks, etc? I learned from this blog good ideas for setting up an easy file system. I'm still looking for the ultimate system! http://lifeyourway.net/creating-a-file-system-that-works-the-ultimate-guide/ I just found this one too. http://timewarpwife.com/house-cleaning-schedule/ Can you recommend some good blogs?

Yay for improvements!

Oh my! Praying for peace, comfort and resolution for you both. I hope they catch them soon.

Well hello there! It's been a long time! Welcome back. Nice family pic too.

Hello and welcome!

Yes, she is a pretty cat! Rain all night last night and nearly all day today.