Preps This Week

Blessings, Darlings!

We're having a heat wave, and moderate drought, here. So I've been only working on the yard and garden in 15 minute spurts, then coming in and trying to cool off. As a result, I'm behind in the garden, and most of my carrots died.

But the beans are well up, the tomatoes are doing great, the peppers have some issues, the garlic and onions are ready to harvest. I need to sprinkle urine around the beans every other day to keep the rodents (?bunnies?, ?squirrels?, ?chipmunks?) at bay.

Started cabbage seeds, celery seeds, and rutabagas.

Missing are the honey bees. Granted, last year we had more than I've ever seen, but this year I saw ONE early on, and that was it. We have bumble bees (not lots), and tons of wasps of all sizes pollinating their little wings off. Of course, the oregano and peppermint aren't blooming as impressively this year, either. Still, zero is not a good sign.

I've starting the spring stored water rotation a bit late, but at least I've started it. I'm beginning to fill the freezer with ice (bottles and cubes) to prep for inevitable summer power outages due to storms. I will probably defrost the dang freezer, as I have been threatening to do, next week when the temperature and humidity drop.

Physical Therapy on my knee continues. It is finally improving! Not that I've started aerobic anything again yet, but now most of the time that I have to stoop to do something the knee doesn't hurt at all.

I need to rebuild food stores, but without money that's hard to do. Yeah, duh. I did buy one can of interesting veggies, one package of crackers, 4 cans of mushrooms, a bag of sugar, and a jar of salsa this week. I need to restock tomato sauce (Bob's been making a lot of BBQ sauce), paprika, catsup, mustard, etc.

Cherries are on sale, I'm probably going to start to dry them tomorrow. Bob wants some canned, too - he LOVED the previous batch. But these don't seem to have a nice a flavor, so I'm thinking that drying them will concentrate what flavor they have. And I want to get a lot of dried fruit in place by the middle of July, in case the astrological shit DOES hit the fan.

What have you done to prepare this week?

Frondly, Fern