Lot's O' Stuff

Busy Day

Today was a busy day, I went into town with a friend, I needed to pay my internet bill, I went ahead and paid for 2 months so I don't have to worry about it in a few weeks. I do wish my internet provider would accept on line payments, or even credit card or bank card payments over the phone, but they don't, they only accept snail mail or carry in payments, and since they are a good 30+ miles (one way), it's not likely I will be there in time each month to pay, and paying bills by mail is just a pain. Enough complaining. :)

Glasses & Hair Clippers

While I was in town, I purchased something I have been needing for some time, reading glasses. I noticed a couple of years ago, it was getting more and more difficult to read fine print, up until now, I have just been forcing myself to see what I needed to see, I would strain to read medicine bottles and such, well, now it's just about impossible to read those things, I can't force my eyes to focus enough to be able to see what I need to, so at the store, I tried on the different strengths, I think they only had 4 or 5, when I looked at the test print to decide which ones you need, I could read every line without glasses, so I looked around to find something with small enough print to test. I found the appropriate small print and tried on glasses. It turns out I only need the weakest one, WOO HOO, I'm not totally blind! (didn't really think I was...). I picked out the frames I like and found a pair for Bob too, he is also having trouble reading fine print, we both have to use a magnifier to read most small things, I didn't know which strength to choose, so I chose the weakest for him hoping it would be ok, I picked out the manliest looking frames, he looks pretty good in them! It turns out that he could have used a stronger pair, but for $5,00, it's not worth going back, and they do some good for him.

I also got something else that will come in very handy, it's something every mountain woman needs to tame her mountain man, a set of Wahl clippers, it includes an assortment of guards, a comb, scissors and oil. It's been so long since he has had a haircut that I think I'll have to make a name badge for him so everyone will know who he is, no one will recognize him! :)

Garden

I discovered something new about an ordinary plant that most people put in their garden, radish seed pods. I had a few left over radish seeds, not enough to plant very many seeds, I pulled most of the mature radishes, but chose to leave a couple that had gotten too big to be edible, I allowed them to go to seed, the idea was to produce more seeds to plant. The plant got about 2 or 3 feet tall, had some pretty but small white flowers on it, a week later, there were these seed pods popping up like candelabras all over the stems. The seed pods looked like succulent green beans, I decided to break one open to check out the inside. It was exactly like a succulent green bean, so I tasted one, it really tasted good, it was crisp, crunchy, juicy and tasty. I wasn't sure if these were really ok to eat, I do know that some plants are toxic except for the parts that are ok to eat, potatoes come to mind... anyhoo, I Googled radish seed pods and found that they are very edible, in fact it turns out the whole radish plant is edible, leaves and all, and some radishes are grown just for their seed pods. They can be eaten raw, or sauteed, and in Asian cooking, they are stir fried. I cooked some today, I picked a bunch, added them to the few green beans and immature pea pods I had, I sauteed them in butter, salted them, added some water, covered and let them steam/cook for about 10 minutes. They turned out pretty good, they stay crispy longer than green beans, and I found out that you need to remove the tip, that part stays tough no matter what. I have decided that I like them raw best, I will probably just take them with me and eat them as a raw, crunchy snack, I can't wait for someone to ask, what are you eating???

Now I just have to allow some of the seed pods to mature so I can have more seeds to grow more seed pods... or maybe I can find some seeds still in the store.

I went out after dinner and planted more beans, onions, broccoli, chives and carrots. Gotta have more plants coming for summer and fall.

Solar Panels & Filling In The Cracks

Let's see, Bob got the solar panels back up, he made a frame that tilts to face the sun better, right now it has to be tilted manually, eventually he will have an actuator on it to make it turn automatically. It allows us to catch the early morning and the late afternoon sun, I don't know what that actually gives us percentage wise, but it is an improvement, it's really great!

The other thing Bob has been doing is caulking and foaming up all the cracks, anywhere where bugs can get in, it's made such an improvement, especially in the evening when all the bugs are active and trying to get in.

Food

I finally got my canned meats in from the Internet Grocer, they accidentally sent it to my billing address instead of my mailing address, I had to wait for them to send a label to my Dad's house so he could drop it off at the UPS place. I finally got it yesterday, I was able to try it today. The first thing I noticed was the cans were bigger than I thought they would be, I had ordered the variety pack of meats (it has one each or beef chunks, ground beef, pork, chicken, turkey, butter and 2 cans of cheese), I ordered the small cans, I expected the cans to be the size of large tuna cans at best, well they were much larger, 14 ounces. I opened the beef chunks, and WOW, it is really beef CHUNKS, in very tasty, thick meat juice, not too salty either. Good texture and good taste! I had boiled some egg noodles, I added a packet of beef gravy and the can of beef chunks. It was a real hit at dinner tonight! :) I think the small cans will be perfect for Bob and I.

I can't wait to try the other meats, if they are as good as the beef chunks, I know where I will be buying most of my meats from now on. I'm not one for doom and gloom, but I read an article at Internet Grocer, this one is a bit scary, it turns out that the federal government purchased ALL, the ENTIRE STOCK of dehydrated foods at Mountain House, makes you wonder what is going on...

I am going to try to talk the country store into carrying the canned meats, I know it would be a big seller out here, it's quite a distance to go into town, and having access to good canned meats that aren't like the processed garbage that is sold by other companies would be a good thing for everyone out here.

That's about all for now. :)


Wretha

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8 Comments

seth said...

those beef chunks were good, weren't they.....the ground beef was just as good. will let you know on the others.

July 12, 2008 8:00 AM

Mayberry said...

Holy cow! That Mountain House news is good to know, and kinda scary! I posted on this today, with a link to your site and the story, hope you don't mind, but this word needs to be spread!

July 12, 2008 12:05 PM

tjbbpgob said...

Wretha, the feds. probably bought up Mountain House so they could give it away to foriegn countries. I wish M.H.could do like Barrett and just not deal with them feds. anymore.

July 12, 2008 5:55 PM

Wretha said...

Seth

Yeah, it was very good! I think we will try the turkey next, got a box of stuffing.... mmmmmmm...

Mayberry

I don't mind people linking to my blog, share the love!

tjbbpgob

Yeah, what you said. ;)

Wretha

July 12, 2008 10:28 PM

seth said...

I found a place to get inexpensive eyeglasses. If you have your prescription, you can order new ones from these guys. zennioptical.com

July 13, 2008 7:07 PM

Rook said...

I don't know what is going on. I tried to pull up the story tonight and it was a dead link. Maybe the fed's don't want people to know....

Working on the moat..


Rook

July 13, 2008 8:44 PM

lornkanaga said...

Wretha,

Have you read "The Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book" by Mike Oehler? I just read it--fantastic ideas, and inexpensive to implement. Apparently this guy has fairly fresh produce year round from his sunken greenhouse, and he lives near the Canadian border. If you're interested, I'll shoot you a link to his website so you can check it out.

Glad to hear the canned meats from the Internet Grocer were good. How was the cheese, or haven't you tried it yet?

TheMajor'sLady

July 16, 2008 5:52 PM

Wretha said...

TheMajor'sLady

Thanks for the heads up on the book, I think I found the website, very interesting, I think our location would be very doable for an underground or partially underground house, we live on a mountain side, the biggest problem would be the rocks/boulders.

Haven't tried the cheese yet, the only thing we have tried so far is the beef chunks, and it was VERY GOOD! I'll post updates as I open up new cans. :)

Wretha

July 16, 2008 8:09 PM