Summer Garden

The weather is warm and the garden is growing. 💚 I love this time of year watching my seedlings growing into established plants. I down sized my garden this year. Less tomato plants, pepper plants, green bean plants and no cabbage or cauliflower. I did plant shelling peas, unfortunately they have grown very slow.  I won't be getting as much of a harvest as I had hoped for but they taste divine. 

I'm excited that I will be teaching a couple food preservation classes this year. I re-certified to be a Master Food Preserver again. I'll be teaching a Meats/Low Acid Foods class and then an Emergency Food Preparedness class. It's been over 10 years since I taught a class and I'm so happy I'm able to teach again.

We've had a good year so far. We've seen our great granddaughter and our son more this year and then one of our son's moved back to Colorado. I miss him and his family so much but they are happy and making a good living. Isn't that what we hope for for our children? 💗 I visited one of my Sisters and hope to see another one of my Sisters in July. We have family visiting in July and August so it's going to be a busy summer.

2023 A New Beginning

Yes, I am alive. 😊 

 

I hope to start writing here again. Back in the 2000's I was so good at posting regularly, since then not so much. Partly because I have been battling illness and partly because I'm not confident in my writing skills. I was always great at math. English not so much. Most of the time I barely passed my English classes in school. Recently a dear friend of mine, who is great at writing, said, the more I write the better I will get. Haha, not sure I believe that but I'm willing to give it a try. Then I thought, no one is reading this blog, so, I'm safe from being judged for my week writing skills. 😁

My husband and I made our annual Vision Boards over the first week of 2023. My goals for the year are as follows:

Create 72 hour kits / Go Bags for my immediate family.

Get our house ready for an emergency (food, gear, medical, etc.).

Remodel office.

Remodel canning room.

Organize garage.

Cook more.

Do more house chores.

Work on my diet.

Exercise more.

Learn about using herbs for healthy living.

Plant an herb garden in front yard.

Some of these may seem silly to put on a vision board but for me they will be hard to accomplish. They have been my focus for several years. As the years go on and I stay focused on them I have gotten better. So, I continue to put them on my board. 

Here's to 2023!  🎉

 

Day 54 of Quarentine

   Yea, you read that right, day 54. It's so crazy to realize it's been that long that we've been isolated. We are retired so even though we don't go out to work it's still a bit hard. Hubby is going a bit stir crazy and a little down from the lack of interaction with the world. He is the social butterfly and I'm the hermit. I like to volunteer for things and teach a canning class occasionally but since 2010 I've had some health issues that have prevented me from doing that. So, quarantine isn't much different for me. We use to do the grocery shopping together or hubby did it. I now do all of it since hubby is in the high risk pool and I don't want him in the stores. The one thing that has been hard for me is not seeing family. Our son hasn't been home from college since Christmas and we didn't get to go see my Aunt and Uncle in California this winter like we usually do. We stay for a week or two and enjoy the company and the nice weather. The rain makes things a bit more gloomy in all of this craziness.

   It's been fun to watch families be creative and enjoy time together on social media. I see mothers and fathers say over and over that they are loving being home with the kids and spouses for the first time in a long time. That's one silver lining. The other is how we are staying social with each other via the social media platforms. A couple things I have so enjoyed is SGN, Some Good News, by John Krasinski and then The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon At Home Addition. They have been my daily and weekly laugh and joy. Go check them out if you're up for some feel good entertainment.

   Here is a few things we've been doing in quarantine.
We planted some early spring veggies in the garden.
Started veggies seedlings indoors.
Had to groom the poodle. Boy that was a chore. We really appreciate our groomer more than ever. :)
Been sorting and finding homes for inherited items from our family that has passed in the last year.
Keeping the house kind of picked up and cleaned. I miss my house cleaners. I can't do a lot of it and hubby hates it. So we appreciate our cleaners even more. :)
I've been making masks for the local Health Authority. There is a group of us, at the HA's request, that is making them. A local t-shirt print shop donates all the materials. We pick up kits from them, sew the masks and then turn them in at their business. They sanitize them and give them to the HA. The HA passes them out to the nursing homes, health clinics, hospitals and first responders. Our group has made over 5,000 masks in a month and a half, and still counting. I thought we would be done by now but we just had a request for several hundred child size masks. I made 22 the other night and need to go pick up another kit so I can make more. I've been sewing them on the machine I  inherited from my Great Aunt. It's a beautiful 1950's machine and has worked like a charm. I've really enjoyed using it. She would love that I'm using it to help the community. :)

I want to post regular here and so I'm going to commit to posting weekly. Not sure what day yet but maybe Thursday. LOL

That's all for now. Here is a photo of my Great Aunt that I inherited the sewing machine from. She was a outdoors woman. Fished and hunted her whole life. Most of the woman on my mothers side were like that. However, this tough cookie could hunt and fish them all under the table.
Love and miss you Auntie 💖