Last Week On The Homestead: Snow, A Birthday Boy, And Winter Cleaning

 

January 16-22, 2023

Hello friends!

As I type this it's the perfect morning for a cup of hot (dandy blend) coffee with steamed oat milk and just a swirl of date syrup.  Oliver is tucked into his bed beside me, one of his blankets covering just about every inch of his body.  Jackson is waiting by a living room window for the first peek of one of the stray cats that we provide food, water, and shelter to (there's now 3....).  And it's been snowing all night!  Our winter weather has been mild - highs in the 30's and lows in the upper teens to 20's.  We received a few inches of wet and heavy snow last week.  It coated the trees nicely for a few hours like thick sparkling frosting.  It's absolutely beautiful.  Eventually the snow fell off in plops, sending the tree limbs bouncing up and down from the release of its weight.  Today's snow is slightly heavy (not nearly as heavy as the last snowfall) and will hopefully stick to the trees a bit longer.

Our work life has slowed, and we settle into the winter rhythm for a couple of months.  A lot of bookkeeping currently - planning, record updating, and paperwork is a good amount of my work.  Making and packaging products as well as packing and shipping orders is an every-other-day task that allows the monotony of bookkeeping to be broken up.  For these couple of months, most of our workdays start a little later and end a little earlier.  It's the perfect time for getting lost in projects and reading.

Jack waiting for the trio of stray cats

Our stray cat friend Felix is walking much better.  He had previously been limping on one of his front paws and is now putting almost full weight on it.  Imposter Felix (also a stray) continues to visit us around our dinner time.  He (she?) eats quickly and runs away.  Last Tuesday afternoon I was working on the computer and Jay was working in his woodshop.  Jackson came running into the living room and began his crazy dance, which is an alert that either Felix or Imposter Felix is here.  My phone whistled and it was Jay texting, telling me to look on the front porch at the cat food dish.  

I looked out the window and there was stray cat #3.  Oh brother!  This poor little thing is skinny and very scared.  He/she is also all black and has the most adorable white paws.  At first, the cat didn't notice Jack and all of his antics in the window because it was eating so quickly.  It started to walk away and then caught a glimpse of Jack and did a double take.  Then it sat there staring at him with all of his dancing.  I can't even imagine what it thought of him.  After a few seconds of watching the Jackson show, it was off and running.  It's been a regular at the cat station ever since.  The word is out about the stray cat hostel!

Oliver turned 13 on Friday.  I really can't even believe it.  With all of his issues, he's still a happy little guy who cracks us up every single day.  He LOVES sweet potatoes and that's what I use to give him his extensive list of meds every day.  He also gets a few daily blueberries, a quarter of an apple (this is a new obsession), and, of course, his dog food and treats.  He actually eats 4 meals every day - 1 breakfast, 1 lunch, and 2 dinners, in addition to his snacks.  For breakfast he receives his dog food plus sweet potatoes with meds.  His morning snack is a few blueberries.  For lunch he eats a handful of sweet potato bites (both with meds and without) and a 1/4 of the apple I eat.  For his first dinner he eats his dog food.  For his second dinner, when we eat dinner, he receives a very small portion of something like rice, potatoes, veggies, or a combo.  He looks forward to these meals and gets SO excited (and thankfully maintains his healthy weight). 

There was a slight increase in egg production last week.  It appears that one or two of the older girls may have laid a couple of eggs!  We did lose one girl 2 weeks ago, but we are still amazed that we don't lose more with the age of the ladies we've got.  Every morning when I open the coop, I brace myself for what I might find.  It's never easy to see one of those sweet girls has passed on.

I've been engaged in winter cleaning - a version of spring cleaning that doesn't include cleaning outside (windows, porches, etc.) as it's too cold, even though we've had mild temperatures.  I have decided to tackle one room per week to go through from top to bottom and everywhere in between.  Nothing major, of course, but it's nice to go through things and re-organize where needed, deep clean, and purge any bits that can be purged.  Some weeks I won't be able to clean as the schedule will be full of making and packaging products, but I feel like I can get through the entire house by the end of March.

In the kitchen, I think I'll be making our favorite Oatmeal Sandwich Bread this week.  It's been a while since I've made it and I was thinking about it the other day.  Oh, I made homemade pizza in the air fryer last week.  Who knew!  It was delicious and took 7 minutes.  I'm planning to try a new way to cook homemade air fryer french fries this week.  I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks that promises these are the perfect fries.  We shall see!

And now a food preservation fail.  In 2021 a friend was raving about the green beans she put up in the freezer.  She had packed them raw in bags, not blanched, and she and her husband said they were officially their favorite way of preserving them.  I'd heard that they are fine packed raw for short-term use, but they degrade quickly if stored long-term (although I don't know what defines long-term).  So, I waited for them to eat their green beans into Spring, and they still said they were the best.  Last June I put the first of the green beans into the freezer, raw, and we tested them in August to see if we liked them (knowing this was short-term but wanted to try it).  We did!  I decided to preserve ALL of the green beans this way.  So far, I've been through 12 bags, and they are awful.  AWFUL!  It's not the texture, it's the flavor.  The best way I can describe it is a very strong green flavor.  I'm so disappointed that I froze them all this way.  The only hope I have is the 12 bags are beans I purchased from a fellow vendor at the farmers market and I'm hoping it's the variety of beans.  I'm going to dig into the stack and look for the beans from our garden (thankfully I labeled the bags) to see if the two varieties we grow might taste better.  Regardless, I'll be blanching going forward.

This weeks menu:

(as a reminder, I generally make 2 different meals as we eat differently)

Monday

J - Oven "Fried" Chicken Breast, Air Fryer Fries, Steamed Broccoli

S - Homemade Won Ton Soup with Spinach, Steamed Broccoli

Tuesday 

J - Pork Chop with Fig Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Cauliflower

S - Chickpea Veggie Loaf (trying this recipe by Vegan Richa, offers gf variation), Steamed Veggies 

Wednesday

J - Swedish Meatballs (Pinch Of Yum), Rice, Honey Glazed Carrots

S - Homemade Won Ton Soup with Spinach, Steamed Broccoli

Thursday

J - Chicken with Mushroom Cream Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce

S - Leftover Chickpea Veggie Loaf, Steamed Veggies

Friday

J - Rigatoni with Marinara & Meatballs, Spinach

S - Homemade Won Ton Soup with Spinach, Steamed Broccoli

Saturday

J - Three Cheese Chicken Penne, Spinach

S - Leftover Chickpea Veggie Loaf, Steamed Veggies

Sunday 

J - Homemade Pizza & Wings

S - Homemade Pizza & Salad

That's our week on the homestead.  Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!!