New Year’s

Happy New Year’s Eve!

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We’ve got a bit of a break in between things, so I thought I’d drop in and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

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My daughter and I headed out this afternoon to go to the bank in my mother’s town, where she could get a replacement debit card, after discovering someone had stolen her number and tried to use it in the US somewhere. Since it was so close to the grocery store, I dropped her off and went in to pick up some drinks for tonight, and more sandwich meats – because I know, no one is going to want to cook for the next while!

Then I spotted some excellent sale prices and got a few more things. Of course. 😄

When my daughter joined me, she picked up a couple of things just to confirm her replacement debit card was properly activated.

Before heading out, we stopped to fill the gas tank. Our province’s gas tax break ends tonight, and the prices are expected to jump by about 12¢/L tomorrow. Unfortunately, the prices went up since yesterday. I’d put some gas in yesterday at $1.309 and today it was at $1.369 *sigh*

And we’ve got so much driving to do in the next couple of weeks!

From there, we made a quick stop at the post office to pick up a parcel for my husband that came in today. While I was there, I got a cheap (on sale) bottle of wine for tonight. Then I saw the most adorable display of tiny mason jars of “Moonshine” (that’s the brand name) in different flavours. I ended up getting one of each for us to taste test. For the price of those, I spent more on them than the bottle of wine, but I’ll never be buying them again, so I figured it was a nice treat. The full size jars – these drinks all come in mason jars – are a pretty standard inventory item, but I’ve never seen the minis before. Our tiny little general store’s booze corner doesn’t have a lot of space, and these are seasonal items, so I don’t expect to see them again. Mind you, for such a tiny space, they manage an amazing selection.

From there it was home. As my daughter and I were gathering stuff to take to the house, I noticed something strange on the shelf against the wall.

The garage door handle.

My daughter had gone ahead to start the truck as we were leaving and, when she opened the door, the handle hit the sagging door frame and broke loose. When she closed the door as we were leaving the garage, I could see the screws in the door, holding bits of the handle still!

I don’t see the point of replacing the handle until we can do something about that sagging frame.

While my daughter took care of putting things away, I made sure to give the outside cats their evening feeding.

Stinky really wanted attention!

He is a strange one when it comes to trying to pet him! He wants pets, but he also wants to bite my hand. Or lick it. Or attack it with his paws. Or push his head against it, asking for more pets, then biting at my hand again.

Silly boy!

For now, we have a bit of time on our hands before we need to start preparing things for tonight. There isn’t a lot that can be done in advance. We plan to have a whole bunch of different appetizers that need to go into the oven, a vegetable tray with dip, a charcuterie board and baked brie with a variety of crackers, mini Naan and cubed French bread.

Oh, I just remembered something that needs to be made ahead! Asparagus pinwheels. They’re a simple appetizer. Flour tortilla spread with cream cheese all over, then rolled with pickled asparagus spears in the middle. This time, we will be including prosciutto with the asparagus spears. After they are rolled up, they get sliced into rounds about half an inch thick. They’re awesome, but we only make them for days like today. We just don’t normally have pickled asparagus spears around.

As we enjoy our spread this evening, we plan to continue our Lord of the Rings marathon until midnight.

Since I have to go to my mother’s so early in the morning for her MRI, I might take a couple of hours nap (I made a point of napping earlier today), but may end up just staying up all night, then sleeping when I get home.

I get the feeling sleep is going to be in short supply for the next while. 😄

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a grand time celebrating this New Year’s Eve and welcoming in 2025!

Thankful!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

The first thing I’m thankful for is our pharmacy.

My husband had just a few days left of his painkillers. With their new delivery driver, the deliveries are now on Thursdays. My husband would have been out by then, plus, Thursday this week is Boxing Day, so obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.

My husband called the pharmacy yesterday (Sunday) to ask about it. It turned out, for this week, deliveries were going to happen on Monday (today).

The problem?

His pain killers are considered “controlled substances”. Which means that he can’t refill them until he’s almost out. The earliest he could refill them?

Tuesday.

Given how things are, the pharmacist said she would try to call his doctor today to try and get his prescriptions delivered early, but she didn’t know if his doctor would even be working this week, or if she would be on holidays.

Well, I got a call this morning, and got good news! They got through to his doctor, she okayed the early refill, and we would get them delivered this afternoon.

We got the delivery shortly before 12:30!

Meanwhile, I checked the holiday hours for our garage. They were open today, so I called and left a message, though I did not expect them to be able to look at the truck on such short notice.

I left a message, then decided to head out to the general store and post office. It’s just a 5 or to minute drive away. Short enough to not trigger that oil pressure sensor and have it start screaming at me!

Since we aren’t going to be able to do the last minute shopping we originally intended, the girls wanted to do some baking, so I picked up a couple of dozen eggs and a few other things to tide us over, including a cheap (on sale) bottle of wine. We actually had mail today – a letter from the health authority for my husband – but there are still quite a few things we’re expecting, including a donation of cat food.

Ah, well.

After I got home and put things away, I tried to get a nap in – I’ve been really sleepy, lately – but wasn’t very successful. Then the phone rang. I kept it close, because I was expecting a call from the delivery driver, and it was him. I’d left the gate open already, but I headed outside earlier and used the time to do a bit of shoveling. The delivery driver even drove up into the yard, which was nice of him!

After bringing the meds in, I went to close the gate. On the way back, I found myself being watched, attentively.

There was eight at the time, but there had been more earlier.

When I came out this morning, I counted a full dozen cats in the upper level!

I also found the heated water bowl knocked over again, and hanging through the narrow opening under the window. This time, however the managed to knock it over, it was enough to push a corner of the window loose. The screws holding it are shorter, but still! I’ll have to find a longer screw that will fit the pilot hole to replace it with. For now, they have a small gap in the corner of the window.

This time, I took the heated water bowl out completely. After moving the cat bed out, I could grab the insulated box nest and remove it – with a kitten sitting on top, along for the ride, at first!

I had thought to put it in the lower level, but didn’t want to fight with the entry shelter box, so I put it in the catio, with the other box nest.

Then I put the cat bed where the box nest was. It’s slightly wider and overhangs the opening where the hammock and cat scratcher ramp is. Hopefully, it will stay.

I then took the smaller heated water bowl from the sun room and traded it with the one I took out from the isolation shelter. After securing the cord around the cross piece, I set it more into the corner, where the cat bed had been. Hopefully, this will give the cats more space to move around, and they won’t knock it down anymore.

Judging from the photo above, they are happy with the new configuration!

I could also see cats in the catio, sitting on top of the insulated box nest. There is exposed rigid insulation around all sides, secured with pieces of wood lath, so it would be like sitting on a self warming mat.

So that seems to be working out, too.

Meanwhile…

Once inside and settling at my computer, I saw I had a missed call note that I’d missed, earlier. The garage had tried to call me back while I was going to the post office!

So I called back right away.

We talked a bit about what was happening; he says there would be moisture in the sensor, setting it off. He completely understood why I didn’t want to be driving it with that alarm going off.

They are open on Friday, and he could fit me in that afternoon. I told him, we’re down to one vehicle, so when I come in, I’m stuck in town, and he understood. He probable gets that a lot, I’m sure. He confirmed that he would just be looking at the sensor (if he couldn’t get us in until after New Years, I told him in one of my messages that we may as well get the MAF sensor and block heater cord replaced, too), then said it would be no problem. He also assured me it would be okay to drive the truck into town – the alternative would have been to book a tow truck, and there’s no need for that.

So that should be fixed before the end of the year.

Yay! Something else to be thankful for!

Plus, since they’re right across from the grocery store, I’ll be able to get some of the things I wanted for New Years. It’s only Christmas dinner that’s going to be a bit different than planned, but not by much.

All in all, it’s about as good as it can get, under the circumstances!

The Re-Farmer

Welcome to 2024!

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Syndol says hello.

I counted 37 this morning! As I was returning to the sun room after doing my rounds, Syndol kept reaching out and grabbing at me, until I finally picked him up for a cuddle. He so loves to be cuddled!

If this morning is a sign of how our year is going to be, it’s going to be a messy, destructive one!

I woke to discover a cat threw up on my bed. It’s a good thing it’s such a big bed, or I would have rolled over, right on it. So I’m doing laundry right now!

My husband woke to find his mouse on the floor and his cowboy hat knocked over. His wired ear buds the hat was protecting were completely chewed up.

He’s keeping his door closed now.

Which reminds me: the door the girls were measuring for is not for between the rooms uo there, as i thought. It’s for over the stairs.

When my parents were still living here, a frame of 2×4’s was made around the bottom of the bannister to hold a plywood cover that was flush to the floor upstairs. This was so that they weren’t heating the upstairs in winter, when they weren’t using it. We’re not sure what happened to that plywood cover. So the girls want to cut a new cover to size so that they can keep the cats out while they sleep, and have it hinged and rigged to easily open and close as they need to use the stairs.

Oh, we don’t have a land line anymore. For about a week or two, people have been having trouble reaching us by phone, getting crackling noises, or it would go straight to machine. Then, a couple days ago, a light started blinking on the phone base I’d never seen before. It’s the “hold” light. The display says “home line busy”. Apparently, the phone thinks we’ve got it put on hold, but it won’t turn off. When I try listening, there’s just a crackling noise.

Something similar has happened before. The repair man replaced a jack in my husband’s room to fix it. My husband used to have a corded phone set up there, but he unhooked it and has no phone hooked up at all, now.

We suspect it’s the same jack that is the problem, and that it got sprayed by a cat, though to be honest, I can’t really see signs of that. The problem is, my husband has his room set up in such a way that it’s not really accessible. We are going to need to rearrange things. That room is so small, it means actually taking things out of the room. Except his hospital bed. Because it’s extra long, it can only be taken out by dismantling it. It can’t be moved around in the room without taking pretty much everything else out, first.

So we have to clear all that up, just so we can see what we are dealing with, and for a repair man to access the jack to test it. We also need to arrange it so we have access to the section of wall against there the bath tub is. We still need to replace the tap and faucet, but are not sure it can be accessed from the front, once the tub surround is removed. If it can’t be accessed from there, we’d have to access it from the bedroom, and right now, it’s blocked by a wardrobe. There is a closet in this room, but it’s currently being used to store some of my late father’s belongings. Between my husband’s hospital bed and the little table that’s holding his medications fridge, the closet it completely blocked off.

It will be a huge job, but one that’s overdue. We haven’t been able to clean that room properly in ages.

To be honest, I need to do the same thing in my room. How I have it set up, with my “office” in one corner, and my craft table completely covered with stuff to try and keep the cats from getting into things they shouldn’t, it’s a disaster. I would love to be able to get the wall shelf out and replace it with more functional selling, but aside from not having replacement shelving, I’m not sure how to take it out. I’ve asked my mother about it, but all she could tell me was that she thought it was brought in, in two parts. Which I figured it had to have been. I just can’t figure out where it came apart! What I’d really like to do is set my bed up on the other side of the room, but there’s a heat vent there.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

What a start to the new year!

The Re-Farmer

Happy New Year!

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Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful year in 2024.

The family and I have successfully managed to get our fondue going!

I am glad I got the extra burner, because we emptied one almost before the oil was hot enough!

The cheese fondue mixed up nicely, but the hot plate was too hot, even on its lowest setting. Still, it was enough to get started while the oil heated.

Not pictured is the tempura batter, which got mixed up at the last minute. We still can’t do more than two items in the oil at once, as the food cools the oil down too much – which makes for a very slow meal. Perfect, as we watch Columbo and wait for midnight.

If we can hold out that long before just going to bed!

😁😁

The Re-Farmer

Oh, this is just too much!

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This has got to be the most ridiculous time we’ve ever had, planning for a special day.

We now have everything we need for food for both the oil and the cheese fondue. I’d already taken the oil fondue set down, ready to be washed and assembled. It’s a lovely set that includes a spinning glass ring around the pot that holds bowls for sauces. The cheese fondue set is a basic ceramic pot with a stand over a tea light. I just went to take it out to be washed and readied, too. I headed over to the shelf to get it and…

No pot.

I checked all the other cubes in the shelf, but no pot.

I started going through other shelves and cupboards.

No pot.

I even checked closets in my bedroom.

No pot.

After talking with the girls about it, the only thing we can think is, we didn’t take it when we moved. My older daughter now even half remembers us deciding that the big set was worth packing, but not both sets, but she doesn’t remember it well enough to be sure. Alternatively, it is among the things the movers lost, but I was positive it was unpacked and in that shelf!

Which is just hilarious. After all this, and we don’t even have a pot for the cheese fondue!

That, at least, is easy to substitute. We will just set up the hot plate and use a saucepan.

Or I could bake a round loaf of bread or two!

Since it is a lower temperature dip, we can use regular forks, though I think the big set has six fondue forks, and we only need four, so we should have at least two available.

Well, I know what to be on the lookout for in the future! 😆😆

On the plus side, while looking for the fondue set, I checked inside a box and discovered a set of lovely little serving bowls we hadn’t taken out of their packaging, and promptly forgot about.

We will enjoy using those again.

The Re-Farmer

New Years shopping: this is what almost $360 looks like

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What a long, long day.

I headed into the city to pick up mostly stuff for our New Years fondue plans, though of course, I got other stuff, too. I ended up going to 3 different places in the city, then swinging by town to pick up my husband’s insulin, before heading home.

I’m totally drained.

My first stop was actually the post office, where I found a package I am quite excited about. I haven’t opened it, yet, but it’s a book I won.

My next stop was in the city. The international grocery store is part of a franchise, and there is a new location near the Costco we normally go to. It’s not an international store, but we used to shop this franchise all the time before we moved, so I decided to check it out. They had hot food available, too, so that was where I had breakfast.

Sadly, I was a bit disappointed. Not in the food. That was delicious. There just weren’t a lot of options. The store may be about the same size as the international one we normally go to, as far as I could tell, but all the departments seemed like they were half the size. I was particularly surprised by how small their meat section was. The beef section was not only small, but many of the choices were discounted “cook tonight” packs that were near the end of their shelf life. The Cat Lady often buys these to use as cat food! Even the regular cuts, though, were looking oxidized.

Still, this is where I got the bulk of my list.

This is what $229.84 looks like.

Yeah. Pretty sparse.

Here’s what I got.

For the meats, I was looking mostly for stir fry type cuts, but there weren’t any. So I just got trays of beef, pork and chicken breast that we could cut to size ourselves. Then I found a package of frozen hot pot combination meats – beef, pork and lamb. So I got one of those, too. I also got small frozen scallops. Together with the frozen prawns I got earlier, we have plenty of protein for our oil fondue. I got 2 bottles of peanut oil for that.

I found a basic recipe for the cheese fondue, and was looking for Swiss and Gruyere, but was really surprised by how small their fancy cheese section was. I got two cheeses there, but I wasn’t sure if they would be enough.

I got a tempura batter mix, plus a mixed vegetable tray and some pears, strawberries, and tiny crimini mushrooms. The pears and strawberries are for the cheese fondue, along with the French bread. The mushrooms are for the tempura batter and the oil fondue, while the vegetables can be for either.

I picked up various sauces for dipping, but could not find marinara sauce anywhere. That was unexpected.

Aside from other household stuff, I also got two tubs of seasonal ice cream- Eggnog flavour – that were on send of season clearance.

My next stop was Walmart. The main thing I was looking for there was fuel for the oil fondue burner. I’d seen the gel fuel we’ve used before at another location, so I figured I’d find it at this one.

This is what $74.43 looks like.

Also very sparse!

You’ll notice there is no fondue burner fuel in there.

I looked all over that store! I even asked for help. The employee I snagged looked up gel fondue fuel on her phone at the Walmart website, which said it was in stock, but she couldn’t find it. I went through the housewares section it should have been in, the camping fuel section, the grocery aisles, and even end cap and aisles displays. Nothing!

I did find stir fry beef, though, and grabbed a package as an extra. I also got another cheese for the fondue.

Still no marinara sauce!

Along with drinks and household items, there are mini cupcakes for dessert. While still looking for the burner fuel, I spotted an excellent sale price on Kraft Dinner, which my daughters like, so I snagged a case. By this time, I was also feeling really dehydrated, so I got some drinks for the road.

I still needed burner fuel, though. I can’t say I was too unhappy about not finding it at Walmart. The employee that tried to help me showed me her search results to confirm the item, and it cost almost $40! For one bottle, not a case. I was shocked, to say the least!

So, it was another trip up the road to a Canadian Tire.

I’m happy to say, I found what I needed, and more!

This is what $54.24 looks like.

It wasn’t the gel fuel we’d used before, but I confirmed it was for fondue burners.

They were $9.99 each, so I bought two.

I also got a little strainer to scoop out anything that might fall off the fondue forks. Plus, an extra burner. That way, if we used up the fuel in the burner, we can just switch and not have to wait for it to cool down.

And yes. That is a second vegetable peeler you are seeing in there. We need to replace the ones we have, and are forever losing track of them.

Since I was there anyhow, I picked up a tri-light bulb for my bedside lamp, which has a normal incandescent bulb right now. I also picked up no-mortise door hinges. The girls took measurements of where they need to hang a door. It may be possible we have an interior door in one of the sheds they can use. If so, these hinges can be used. We shall see. If they can’t be used, it won’t hurt to have them for the future.

That done, my next stop was for gas at Coscto. Prices around the city have dropped to 129.9 cents/L, but Costco was 117.9!

From there, it was time to drive the hour or so to pick up my husband’s prescription. By then, it was getting quite dark.

It was also a long time since breakfast, so after I got the prescription, I went to the Dairy Queen and got us burgers for supper.

That and I really needed to use a bathroom, and the one in the pharmacy was out of order!

Yeah. That’s my excuse!

As of now, the only thing we are missing is dry white wine for the cheese fondue sauce. I will pick that up tomorrow!

Somehow, I didn’t expect that doing a fondue for New Years would make it more expensive than having all finger food for Christmas!

Ouch.

The Re-Farmer

Living in a post card

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The fog has mostly dissipated – I was still seeing touches of it while going my morning rounds.

My goodness, but it does make things beautiful, this time of year!

I couldn’t resist getting a picture from the same spot as yesterday.

The temperatures are nice and mild right now. As I write this, we’re at -8C/18F, with almost no breeze at all. We’re supposed to reach a high of -6C/21F today. A good day to finish clearing in front of the garage so I can open the doors to get my mother’s car out, and clear a few more paths.

One way we can tell how much more pleasant the weather is, is by the cats.

The usuals are back to preferring to eat on the cat house roof again. In this bunch, there’s only one that’s friendly. I can sometimes pet the black and white, but not often. Still more than I can come close to Broccoli. I don’t know how she’s been with her kittens gone. She’s been avoiding me, so perhaps she’s made an association between me and missing babies. I don’t know. I so want to socialize her more! We’ll have to wait longer before we can try to trap more females. The hard part is waiting for things to warm up, so there’s no chance of a critter freezing in the trap, but not so warm that they start going into heat and get pregnant, first.

Speaking of which, I saw Shop Towel skulking around when I put the food out. While I was switching the memory card on the trail cam (and melting the frost off the lens and solar panel), I heard a cat fight, and am guessing it involved Shop Towel.

Before going in, I tried to get some more pictures of the frost and was able to zoom in to get this little cutie.

We have not been able to keep up with the feeding this winter, because of the racoons destroying the hanging feeder, but the chickadees and blue jays have been raiding the kibble trays, instead!

While getting this shot, something strange in a tree above the storage house roof caught my eye.

Well, I guess we can see who Shop Towel went after! One of his older sons, no less. A couple of the grey and whites are much larger – more like their dad in size.

In other things, I spoke to my mother last night. She’s in need of a grocery shopping trip, which is why I want to clear the doors to her car. She was fully expecting to go to the grocery store today; apparently my sister is supposed to be visiting her, though my mother didn’t seem sure, when I spoke to her. I pointed out to her that it’s New Year’s Day. The stores will be closed. She sounded so surprised when I told her that. 😕 So, if all goes well, I’ll be heading out tomorrow to help her with shopping – in her own car!

For now, I’m monitoring cats. With the littles gone, I actually got a full night’s sleep! The ladies seem relieved to have the room to themselves again – even if Marlee still hisses at Butterscotch and Nosencrantz sometimes. Leyendecker and Cheddar seem to be looking for the littles when they come in. Meanwhile, I now have grandma, who moved out here with us, in with me. My daughters just let me know she’s been behaving oddly, like there is something stuck in her mouth. We thought it might have been something stuck in her throat, but I’ve seen her eating. She seems fine, until she suddenly makes retching faces and started rubbing the sides of her face with her paw. My one attempt to gently move her head for a look had her meow in alarm and run off, so I do think something is hurting her. Hopefully, it’s something that will work itself out. So far, she’s eating and drinking normally. Right now, she’s on my bed, not far from Marlee, and settling in for a nap.

I’ll have to get one of the girls to take over monitoring her when it’s time to get outside.

The Re-Farmer

Year End Review: Our top 10 most popular posts

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Well, it’s New Year’s Eve! Let’s take a look at how things have been on the blog for the past year.

As we did last year, we will have two top ten lists. The first will be the posts with the highest number of views in 2022. The other will be the posts actually written in 2022 that got the most views.

All links will open new taps, so you won’t lose your place!

Here are the overall top 10 posts with the most visits, starting from lowest to highest.

10: Fall Garden Update: Crespo squash This one is from 2021. We did try to grow Crespo squash again in 2022, but they did so very poorly. Yes, I plan to try again!

9: Recommended: CS Brews This is from my 2020 Recommended series.

8: Presto, Change-o! I saw a traffic spike to this 2021 post in the fall. I suspect a lot of Canadians were looking for information on pressure canning in 2022. Particularly since we don’t have anywhere we can take the gauges to for calibration.

7: Making Crab apple cider vinegar: airlock or cheesecloth? This post goes back to 2020. In 2022, I saw a large spike in traffic to crab apple related posts. Last year, we had no crab apples to harvest, and I don’t think we were the only ones. This fall, it seems we were not the only ones to have an excellent harvest to do things with!

6: Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes This one goes back to 2018, and remains a popular post.

5: Chokecherries, ready to freeze This post, from 2019 also sees a jump in traffic in the fall. We, however, have had no chokecherries to speak of for two years in a row, now.

4: Our 2022 garden: Baker Creek seed order is in! Our first 2022 related post – and it was written in 2021!

3: Making kluski; Polish drop noodles This post from 2020 still sees some regular traffic. I also now have the sudden urge to make some kluski! 😄

2: Making hard crab apple cider; will it work? Another post from 2020, and yes, it did. We have a 2022 batch of it fermenting right now, too!

1: Things with crab apples: apple cider vinegar Hmm… I see a pattern here! This post from 2019 saw the largest spike in traffic in the fall I’ve seen in a long time! It looks like crab apples did well for a lot of people in 2022!

I see another pattern in all these popular posts. They are all food related, and all but 2 are related to preserving food in some way!

I think that tells us something of what’s been important to people in the past year.

Now, we have the top 10 posts that were actually written in 2022.

10: First snow A 2022 cat post makes the first entry in this year’s top 10 list, and it’s not even two months old!

9: Cabbages update – and a fundraiser announcement We’ve had so much help from the cat lady and her rescue, but nothing compares to how she went all out in the fight for Cabbages’ survival. I’m happy to say that Cabbages is not only healthy and happy with the Cat Lady and her family, but her treatment is now being used as a case study by other vets, in the treatment of other severely ill cats. Saving Cabbages is saving the lives of other cats!

8: Large batch crab apple cider vinegar The crab apple theme continues!

7: Hard Crab Apple Cider follow up – I am the Queen of Procrastination! The end results of hard apple cider, that was started in 2020.

6: Getting Cozy (crochet talk) The cozy I made for my tea mug has disappeared. I think the cats dragged it off somewhere!

5: Thoughts on being prepared Okay, I just got distracted by reading this post over again! It remains quite relevant. With the winter storms that have just passed through much of Canada and the US a short while ago, I truly believe this is something we all need to consider, no matter where we live. There is one thing I would add to my commentary. We’ve found that ghee, purchased in restaurant quantities, can be a LOT cheaper than buying the jars in the grocery store. Ghee is a shelf stable butter, and would be an excellent addition to a preparedness pantry!

4: Remembered to order: from Lee Valley I’m rather curious about why a post about getting a sharpening stone and holster for our scythe got this much traffic!

3: Sometimes, I hate being right (convoy talk) The use of the Emergency Measures Act against legal, peaceful protestors has gone through its mandatory committee investigation. The investigation – as biased as it was – proved that there was absolutely no reason for it to have been invoked, and that our Prime Dictator and media repeatedly lied about the convoy. But will anyone be held accountable for it? Of course not. Our Prime Dictator should have resigned years ago, the RCMP should have laid charges against him (but didn’t, for political reasons) – and that was even before he went full dictator – but there has been zero accountability. And most Canadians have no idea what happened, or are too apathetic to care.

2: Two pounds! Another Cabbages update.

1: Recommended: RoseRed Homestead – That “Woman with a gadget” This is from my 2022 additions to the Recommended series – which I still need to add to the list under the Recommended tab! Rose Red Homestead is well worth taking the number one spot for 2022.

Well, the themes for the most popular 2022 posts are a lot more diverse, but not one of them made the overall list. Not by a long shot!

What I am seeing seems to show a trend towards people looking for more information on how to grow and preserve their own food.

After the past three years, that doesn’t surprise me at all. Food security has become a huge priority for so many!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Here’s to a better year in 2023 for us all!

The Re-Farmer

Happy New Year!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

The Potato Beetle does not approve of 2022, already!

Maybe because, as I write this, we’re at -33C/-27F with a wind chill of -42C/-44F, which is a couple of degrees warmer than when I was outside feeding the critters.

I made sure to top their kibble up yesterday evening, and there was still some left. Not a lot of the outside cats came out for non-frozen kibble. The warm water was of much more interest to them! At least it was sunny, and the yard is sheltered from the wind.

I hope you had a wonderful time bringing in the New Year, while keeping warm and cozy!

We had our prime rib dinner, which turned out very well, even though things didn’t turn out as planned. After going through a number of recipes, I settled on one that said to roast it at 500F for 20 minutes, then shut off the oven and leave it closed for 2 hours. The recipe even made clear that this worked on newer ovens with digital temperature displays that were more accurate than older ones, and since we did have to get a new oven…

Well, after 2 hours, the meat thermometer basically read “raw”. Oh, there was a fantastic crust on the outside – I coated it with a heavy layer of fresh crushed garlic, salt, pepper, paprika and enough truffle infused olive oil to make a paste – but the internal temperature barely moved the needle on my meat thermometer. I fell back on another set of instructions I’d read, which had been to sear at 400F, let sit for 3 hours in a closed oven, then roast at 350F until the internal temperature was right. So I turned the oven back on, and it took about 45 more minutes to reach medium rare, then it had to come out to make room for the stuffed squash. The squash took way longer to roast than expected, and we ended up increasing the temperature and cooking the appetizers at the same time. We ended up eating the squash as an appetizer, too. :-D It just worked out better that way.

The stuffed squash was only thing I managed to get a picture of. I can’t remember the name of the squash I bought.

My daughter stuffed the halves with thin slices of Granny Smith apples, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. It was very good, though the squash itself was not as tasty as the Red Kuri squash we grew (which I’ve never seen in a grocery store), so we didn’t bother keeping the seeds.

All in all, it was a very good meal, and we all ate way too much, even though we spread the courses over several hours. My husband didn’t make it to midnight, and our daughters and I almost didn’t, either! :-D

Aren’t we just the party animals. ;-)

Today, we’re planning another special – much smaller! – dinner to continue celebrating the new year, which is also the 8th day of Christmas.

Until then, I think what I really want to do is take a nap.

I like my boring life.

The Re-Farmer

I see you…

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

After setting out food and warm water for the outside cats, I noticed a little face peeking at me from under the kibble house.

It wasn’t until I uploaded the photo that I saw there were three cats under there!

It’s a bit tight, but squeezing under there is a favourite spot for the smaller cats. Putting the sheet of insulation under there may have made it a bit tighter, but I don’t think they mind! There is also insulation under the floor boards of the kibble house, so they are insulated from above and below in there.

Which was sure needed, today! We were supposed to warm up a few degrees today, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. When I headed out, it was still -35C/-31F with a wind chill of -42C/-44F At least according to my app. We didn’t have any wind in the yard, so we at least didn’t have to deal with that. As I write this, it’s -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -40C/-40F. Our high of the day is supposed to reach -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F

A good time to celebrate New Year’s indoors!!! My FIL used to bring in the new year with a BBQ every year, even if it meant shoveling out the BBQ. We did keep that up for a while, but … no. :-D BBQ’s don’t cook very well in these temperatures, no matter how high you turn up the heat!

The critters seem to be handling the temperatures just fine. With the long, mild fall we had, the deer will have built up a good layer of fat for the winter. The deer in the photo above is walking in the path dug along the garden bed at the fence. It’s one of a pair that come here every day, several times a day, to the feeding station. They don’t leave much behind for the birds! :-D

Well, it’s time for me to get started on our New Year’s dinner. We’re doing a prime rib today; something I’ve never done before. Until we got our quarter beef, we’ve never been able to afford one before! I’m really looking forward to it. :-)

Happy New Year! And I hope you’re warm and toasty, wherever you are celebrating. :-)

The Re-Farmer