themartianchick

Welcome back, Pixie! I hope that you visit more often to escape the whirlwind!

I hope that he enjoys the classes!

Echoing the others... The accessory kit is worth its weight in gold! My daughter bought it for me because it scared her to watch me can and lift jars out using undafe implements.

Good point, Deerslayer! I know that I rely on having access to Violet's wisdom in food preservation.

I've read a couple by Beverly Lewis, but I wasn't sure if she wrote any non-Amish themed books, too. I have read several Amish themed books written by Wanda Brunstedder and Beth Wiseman, too. I usually enjoy the "escape" to Amish country, even if it is only through fiction.

Is this an Amish themed book?

I've gotten lots of canning lids and other supplies at Lowes. I usually wait until the Fall and buy them when they are on deep discount.

Adding my prayers that Grandma makes a full recovery from something that is not serious!

We don't eat rabbit, but I think I will make a note of that tip! After running through the names of the months, it seems as though there really is an entire season to avoid.

Monetizing a blog is when you add advertising banners to your blog to earn a little cash. You can select the types of ads that you are willing to have displayed in most cases and with some companies/advertisers like Amazon, you can actually select specific products that you are willing to have ads for on your blog.

Welcome back, Wormie! You were definitely missed here. So sorry to hear about the garden. We didn't get much of a harvest from ours, either. I also didn't plant my main garden bed. Our best crop came from the strawberries, but there were absolutely no mulberries this year. The tree is usually loaded, but there were no berries at all on it. The raspberries are attempting to put out another (small) crop and I have 2 tomato plants left, but doubt that I will get more than a couple of fruits on them. My mom and dad had a bumper crop of green beans and they generaously shared with me. I will be snapping and freezing them tomorrow. I suppose that it was a good thing that I didn't plant the big garden since the summer was too hot for me to even really be outside for any length of time. Here's hoping that we'll all have better luck next year!

I don't have a Kindle, but I do have the software on my computer and use an iPhone. I have quite a few books dowloaded for pleasure, but I don't expect to have acces post-EMP. Instead, yard sales are a great place to find cheap books for entertainment. If you go to a yard sale at the end of the day, the people will often give boxes of books to you. Then you just keep the ones that you want an donate the rest to your favorite charity.

I was afraid that Michael's story was leading up to Lori needing to grab a mallet to whack-a-mole in his garden.

Does he participate in any group activities? I know of a homeschooling mom that had all of her children enrolled in a lot of activities to make sure that they had access to other kids for socialization. At that age, I would think that he may be thinking that he's missing out on things that his public schooled peers may be doing. (It doesn't mean that he is actually missing out...Just that he may believe that he is!)

Not duct-tape... tape! Welcome back, Reb!

Awwwww! How sweet that you got to meet eachother.

YAAAYY!!!! Congratulations to you and your family! Like C4C, I remember the writer's cramp from signing my name so many darn times. By the time the house was ours, my signature didn't even look like mine anymore! On the way out of the building to find our car in the parking lot, I remember me whispering in disbelief to my husband, 'We just bought a house!' The moment was HUGE!!! And yours will be, too!

If ya'll didn't realize that I'm a troll... It is just that you've never seen my hair when I first wake up!! I look EXACTLY like those treasure troll dolls. I try to stay inside until I've dragged a garden rake through my hair, so the neighbors don't find out the truth! http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Troll_doll

Like walkin' in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go.....and you're feelin' like a part of you is dyin'. Yep, seriously stuck in my head...I used to sing that song all the time when I was growing up. (I'm more the type to whistle it all day!)

I am now picturing this:

Congratulations on Lucy! She will be a wonderful prep to have and you can raise up some calves for meat or to sell. I never really thought of doing something like that. I usually shy away from the idea of having a milking critter because I don't want to be tied down to a milking schedule. Your plan would work for me! Er...uh... If I ever move out of the city, that is!

If only my neighbors weren't the complaining type!

My freezers are now full... Unless I start canning some meat, there is no way that I can stockpile any more meat. We have a deep freezer and two fridge freezers that I have gone all out on stocking up during the past month and a half. A local grocery store with awful prices on everything else has surprisingly good prices on meat, so we've stocked up on hubby's steaks and beef ribs. Our chicken comes from Wegmans at 99 cents per pound. It isn't the best price, but it is affordable for us. We generally don't trust the chicken from the other stores, though it is often a bit cheaper. However, we did catch a sale on chicken breasts at Price Chopper a few weeks ago for 99 cents a pound and stocked up. Now I need to wait for the roaster chicken sales... There are only two left in the freezer and I won't have room for more unless I use up the big bag of ice in the deep freezer. ( I like to keep a bag of ice in case of a power outage.) Though it was pricey, I stocked up on a couple of bags of frozen shrimp, tilapia and salmon. That will see to our seafood needs and there are plenty of turkey products (turkey bacon, turkey sausage, turkey breast, etc...) Now, it is time to focus on stocking up the dry goods and canned items. I still believe that there will be a meat deals out there... I think we will have to search for them. I know that there are certain days of the week where my local grocery stores have good sales due to fast approaching sell by dates. There is one type of meat that I only buy during that type of sale. I may invest in a meat slicer so that I can slice my only deli meats and whatever else I can use it for.