Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

I can tell it's gonna be one of those days... I'm taking a break right now, but I feel like the Red Queen.

No rain in the forecast, so I figured I would do a couple of loads of washing and hang them outside. I wanted to do it early so there was plenty of time for both loads to dry. I opened the washing machine and eyed the ring of diesel-and-oil from washing DH's work uniforms and decided to clean it out before I did the sheets. Then I peeled off the little cup at the top of the agitator to clean it out as well, and noticed a bunch of gunk underneath. Well, you get the picture... I ended up taking out the agitator so I could clean all the gook inside. While I was wetting a rag to wipe things up, my elbow hit a dish that DH had brought in from DS's midnight snack. So I had to stop and clean up the shards (it was Corelle- which resists breaking, but when it does break you get hundreds of tiny slivers). By the time I had that cleaned up, it was too late to fix breakfast for DH before he had to leave for work, so we had to dig up some money for him to buy something. It is now 1pm, and I still don’t have the clothes on the line (they are finally being washed), nor have I finished the dishes (we had some from last night, even if we didn’t have breakfast). I’m finally getting around to having something to eat myself. I shudder to think what the rest of the day holds for me…

I have Fish Tacos planned for dinner. Will it happen? Only the Shadow knows....

Don't you just hate days like that? It seems that every turn you make something else is there to trip you up! And, yes - Corelle shatters into the eenciest, teenciest little slivers that seem to hang around waiting for a bare foot forever!

Hope your day gets better....and fish tacos sound delish,

Good luck with your day! I hippie it improved!
PS, Friday was an eclipse, the spring equinox and the new moon all at once. Lots of odd energy flying around!

Got through the weekend without doing a whole lot of work- just playing catch-up. I bought a bag of mandarin oranges on sale that I want to can, and a 25lb bag of carrots to make dilled carrots, which the whole family adores. But I don't think I'll have a chance to work on them until tomorrow. Today I have my water aerobics class; and my arthritis has been kicking up. Last night I was just cradling my hands and wimpering- even after taking pain killers and soaking them in hot water; that's why I haven't posted much lately. At this rate, I'll never be able to finish knitting my sweater. They feel a little better today, but the knees still hurt.

Our little village has 3 military coming home next month from being deployed in Iraq, and we are planning a huge welcome home. Most of the stores in the area are donating food, ice, paper plates etc so we can have a huge BBQ, we've gotten wonderful donations for gift baskets for the 3 veterans (things like an overnight retreat at a really nice local B&B for veteran and spouse) the fire department is donating a big welcome home banner to hang over the overpass (it's a lumber access road) and flags to be put every few yards all the way down the road, and one of the local churches is allowing us to set up the BBQ and entertainment in their parking lot so we can shelter under their insurance umbrella. We figure on fixing about 300 meals (all free)- I wonder how many more will show up just for the prospect of free food however...

Sounds like a wonderful celebration Britesea!

I'm sorry to hear about your arthritis, I hope you get relief! (((hugs)))

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday, with a new doctor. I had to wait almost 3 hours to be seen, but once she came in, I realized why. This was her first day on the job, and she was taking the time to get to really know her patients. She spent almost an hour with me!
1. She thinks the bouts of dry coughing that have been plaguing me since last August are a side effect of the blood pressure medicine I'm one. So we will be changing that for another.
2. She and I agreed that if my next blood tests show that my cholesterol is at normal levels, I can stop taking the prescribed statin drug for 6 months; at which time more blood tests will be taken for evaluation. If the cholesterol is still at normal levels, I will no longer have to take the statin.
3. She has ordered one of those "wax-dipping" devices for my hands.

After some beautiful weather, we plunged back into cold and rainy, with lows dipping into the high 20's. I need to get my peas and favas planted nevertheless, but it's so hard to go out there when it's cold and wet! I always find plenty to do in my warm comfy house.

Today, I have carrots to can. I bought one of those 25# bags, because they had a great price and we were almost through all our canned carrots. I'd gotten them peeled, cut and blanched on Wednesday but ran out of time and energy. Couldn't work on them Thursday because it was payday and I had a ton of errands to do in town. So today, I dig them out of the cool room and start canning. I have enough to make an estimated 3 loads of Dilled Carrots (pints) and one load of "glazed" carrots (not really glazed, but canned with brown sugar and spices). Once that's done, I have some pork to grind and can up (can't afford ground beef anymore, but the pork works for a lot of recipes).

We ordered a new grain mill! After much research, we opted for the GrainMaker. It costs about $300 less than the Diamante, and it's made in the USA. It also has a lifetime warranty-- even on the burrs!

Finishing up the last of the carrot-canning today, and it's gonna be 26 pints of dilled carrots, 8 pints of brown sugar carrots. I had hoped to have them all done yesterday, but I just don't have room to have one load cooling down while another load is being made up. After this, I still have some pork to chop into gobbets, then grind, then brown and de-fat and finally can. *whew*

A friend has been giving us all the trout her husband catches- I have 4 in the freezer right now, ranging from 2 pounds to 5 pounds. Hubby is going to smoke at least one of them today. I love smoked trout!

The weather is sunny and cool so I'm going to get another load of clothes washed and hang them out. Tomorrow I will try to get the peas and favas planted, and finally start seeds inside. I want to buy another growing light because I really don't have enough light for the seedlings once they pop out.
I also need to clean up the cold frames. I moved them to the south side of the house, where I hope they will be protected from cold winds and maybe get a bit of reflected heat.

We still have blossoms on the plum trees! I thought they would all drop last week because of the sudden cold snap. Maybe I will have some plums to harvest this year?

I've had DS working on raking up pine needles and pine cones and generally trying to make our property more fire resistant. This is shaping up to be a really scary fire year. I'm even playing with the idea of renting a small storage locker in town to store a lot of my canned foods, since I have no way to protect them if we end up with a wildfire coming through. Town is a leetle safer than the middle of a pine forest, even if we are close to the river.

We don't even have leaves on trees yet let alone blossoms. This spring is really delayed.

Wouldn't you know... we got snow on Easter Sunday, with another storm coming later this week. So much for the plum trees.
It looks like one of the returning vets is going to require surgery in Texas before he comes home, so now we are trying to decide whether to postpone everything until he gets home too, or go ahead with the main event at the scheduled time and have a smaller welcome (flags, banner, yellow ribbons, and gift basket, but no bbq) when he comes home.

Our last snow was a week ago. And the trees might be OK. The snow can actually protect the blossoms.

That's a tough call. I can see pros and cons of both.