Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[hqueen13]

Even with a pellet stove we get the dust. Not as bad as wood I suppose, and I don't have the wood mess. Though I do end up with a ton of plastic bags that have to be trashed. We use them as trash bags and I'm still using up last year's bags lol

 

[wyoDreamer]

We may have the option of putting a wood stove in the basement ... the chimney had two flues and there is an old woodstove sitting in position, but not hooked up. Not sure why I would want a wood stove in the basement though.

You have to admit the pellet insert looks really nice...

 

[Britesea]

My house is only 850 square feet, and even with an outdated and inefficient gas stove our gas bill ran between $50 and $70 a month last winter (and that's for heating and cooking); which is why I think we can get away with one of those tiny stoves. I'd love a rocket mass heater, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to get a permit for it, or what our insurance would have to say about it. Most of those entities tend to be very conservative and RMH's are off the beaten track. Still, I'll be calling our insurance agent tomorrow to find out their take on the wood stove, and I'll ask about a RMH too.

I had a bout with insomnia last night-- only got about 4 hours of disturbed sleep. Now I'm nodding off, and I haven't finished the soup for tonight yet. I still have to pick the meat off the bones and add it back to the stock (I've already added the veggies). Maybe a quick 20 minute nap...

Our Christmas present to each other came today; we bought a Kindle. I spent some time moving the books I already had on Amazon's Cloud reader into the Kindle (about 10% of capacity, lol). I'm looking forward to replacing a lot of our library, although it will take time. I still like books, and some of them I won't be willing to give up; especially the beautiful hardbound classics I got from my father (love the smell of leather books!)

Off to take that nap... see y'all later!

 

[Denim Deb]

Hope you got a good nap.

 

[wyoDreamer]

A full bookcase will provide a small amount of insulation value along the wall!
I love books any reason to keep them works for me

 

[hqueen13]

Kindle is nice but I'm a paper book person.
Good luck with the stove research. I hippie you find out good things!

 

[Britesea]

I don't think the Kindle will replace all our books-- just some of them so we don't have them overflowing every room of the house, plus boxes of books in storage that we haven't looked at in years.
The ones we are getting rid of are the ones we just feel "meh" about them.

 

[Britesea]

In other news... I got the report on my recent Xrays of my knees; I have osteoarthritis in both knees... o Joy! I figured there had to be something going on, when some days I can barely walk.

I had fun last night using my vacuum sealer. I vacuum sealed a bunch of bags and jars of dehydrated fruit and veggies, a couple of meal kits (cream of broccoli soup, and some pea soup mixes).

Yesterday and today I ruthlessly thinned out our VHS collection; they are getting so old they will soon be unplayable. I bid on a couple of replacement movies in DVD format on eBay. That cleared 12 feet of shelf space-- more room for books, lol!

I was going to can up the Turkey soup I had made, when I realized I had added barley to it so it's not safe to can. I don't have room in the freezer for all of it either. So I poured out 3 pints that will fit in the freezer; the rest will have to sit on the stove and get a daily dose of simmering to keep the bacteria at bay until it gets eaten.

 

[Denim Deb]

Could you dehydrate it and make your own instant soup?

 

[hqueen13]

What is the best way to store dehydrated stuff? I have some Mullien leaves I"ve dehydrated and I want to make sure they don't go bad or I lose them or something. I'd like to dehydrate more, but I am just not sure what to do with it all.
If I dehydrate diced onions and then want to use them in a recipe, what do I do with them??? LOL I feel silly asking, but I'm not sure how all this works!