An Armenian cucumber from last year I’ve been writing this series on my blog for a just over a year now. Here is last October’s post. As you may have noticed, I shop first to fill gaps in my pantry and secondly for fresh items that the garden cannot provide. In October our temperatures start…
I cut basil from the garden and hung it to dry inside. I cut garlic chives and parsley from the garden. I cut two lemons from the tree that ripened early and split. My tree is so heavily laden with lemons that I think this will be a regular occurance for a while. I cut…
I had hoped the weather would be cool enough for me to plant my fall garden last week, but with temperatures of 103ºF (39ºC), it was too hot to plant. Soil temperatures were still at 90º. I did manage to put in a couple of hours in the garden last week and I’d like…
I cut flowers and branches from the garden for several arrangements in the house. Zinnia, lavender, basil, passionfruit leaves on the new table runner I made My husband picked up 4 wood pallets from the curb that someone was throwing out. I smoothed and saved the brown paper that came in a box with…
Our desert looking towards the mountains we went up last week. This photo was taken in the spring a few years back. I was hopeful that our weather was starting to cool enough for me to do some planting, but the revised weather forecast for this week shows most days over 100º, with the exception…
I cut apple branches from the garden to put in vases. I cut flowers from the garden for the table. I cut garlic chives, peppermint, thyme, basil, a few beans, and grape leaves from the garden. I cut a large Armenian cucumber from the garden. This one was growing on the driveway! It took…
I used a free Redbox code to rent The Hundred-Foot Journey for a date night for my husband and I. We both enjoyed the movie very much! Winter downloaded free songs from the library through the Freegal program. I picked up some books from the library for Winter for school. I borrowed The Awakening of…
A 72-hour kit is a bag filled with the things that you need to survive for 72 hours in the event of an emergency. Often, help is at least three days away (U.S. Residents, FEMA says to expect at least 7 days before help arrives). Sometimes, however, help is further away than that. When…
Fall is a great time to plant a garden! All of the wonderful things you want to grow in early spring grow well in fall. Once temperatures reach freezing, most will overwinter in an unheated greenhouse, under floating row covers, under hoop houses (plastic sheeting over hoops) and cloched under glass or plastic. Something that…
My husband drove to Phoenix to purchase a wood burning stove from Craig’s list, and while he was there he purchased 200 pounds of powdered milk for us (at $49 for 50 pounds). He was also delighted to find that gas prices were significantly lower in Arizona than here, so the gas was $50 less…
Monday is Labor Day, a holiday in the U.S. I’ve written a list of cleaning and organizational goals for the family to work on that day, including cleaning out the refrigerator, washing windows, cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing bathtubs, scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand, and cleaning bedrooms. Liberty’s birthday is this week, and I…
What are the holes in your pantry? If your circumstances were to change so that starting in October you would need to live on only what you had stored for the next 12-18 months, what items would you run out of? This month I would encourage you to strongly consider this question and figure out…