Category Archive: Life

These socks are now finished and I’m looking at the next yarn

Warning!   Mostly  chatter.

1.  This day started with an appointment to see the ENT as I have an off and on sore throat – very mild and maybe a couple times a week.  Because of the length of time, I was urged to go see him since 15 years ago I had vocal cord cancer which was removed with surgery.    The good news is that he said there was not even any sign that there had been cancer and he thinks that the soreness if creeping up from possible arthritis in the cervical vertebrae.   Now I would probably not have gone, except that when they did discover the cancer, the reason I went to the doctor was something equally dumb.   I simply could no longer sing in church.   My voice wouldn’t cooperate.   So I went feeling very stupid about going, but finding the cancer early was a great idea.     So this visit was good news.

2. I was cleaning out the pantry so there would not be any tempting gluten products there.   I found a bag of flour opened but not completely used before the heat hit.    I quit making bread when it was too hot.   Guess who moved in?   The grain moths just couldn’t miss this opportunity.  When I opened the bag, I didn’t close it fast enough to avoid any escaping moths.   Beside which, I think some had already left the nest as I have seen one every other day for the past week.    I should have known.   After escorting the rest of them outside and dumping the flour, I went through most of the rest of the pantry (still have lower shelves to go).  I found a few of the escapees and wiped everything down.   Then put up some traps  which REALLY work.   They send out the same pheromones the females too and attract the males.   The ones I put up last year were full, so up went 3 more.   (There are different brand names)

And here is what they look like when in use.   The little fellows go inside and get stuck to the sticky sides of the tent.

3.  I went to get some meat out of the dog chest freezer which sits outside and found it had thawed out – but not completely.  So with somewhere between 4-500 pounds of dog bones and meat from the hunter scraps last year, I did not want to lose it.   It comes packed in  banana boxes and I usually take a box out at a time and repackage it to put in the indoor freezer for them.   Then I can take a couple days worth out at a time to thaw.    PANIC button push time!  I took a box of scraps inside, repackaged it and put in freezer, but now that freezer was full.   I figured that temporarily I could put enough packages of bones in the garage freezer to save another two boxes of bones, so  drove the car around to do so.   DH showed up about then to help me.  By this time there was enough water in the bottom of the freezer that the bottom of the boxes came unglued.   We packaged the bones in grocery plastic bags, tied them shut and loaded them in the back of the car.    Then we found that the outlet wasn’t working,   So I went around, found all the GFIs and reset them.   The freezer came back on.   So we reloaded the freezer from the back of the car.    It may be that the freezer was dying and tripped the GFI.   If that is the case, I will go to the used appliance store and replace it in the morning.  It could also be that something else tripped the GFI.

Now you know why I use adrenal support supplements.

The husband has fallen in love with home canned beans – pinto, black, red, white – whichever is in a jar that he can pop off the lid and pour over potatoes or rice or ????.  Variety is good.   I had never canned these beans before, just always cooked them when I wanted to use them.   This  year after reading several accounts of others canning them, I tried some.   So now that he can bake a potato and pour beans of some type over it, I think I can run away.    All kidding aside,  I spent most of today in the kitchen instead of the garden weeding.     I cooked and canned 40 pints of red beans and  black beans.  Tomorrow, perhaps garbanzos and pintos, though apparently it would be welcome if there were jars of split pea soup and lentil soup.    Hmmmmmmm.    Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea – more sewing time this winter, right?

Their are still 10 pints in the canner.

The kettle in the background has beans soaking in it overnight so I’ll be ready to go early