Sorry I fell off the face of the earth

Sorry I have slacked on my posting. I am still keeping with my Doing Not Thinking challenge though. I've still been fighting my slump but its been better the last couple days. The last few days I have had wonderful experiences that have helped me stay on the up and up.

I hope everyone is doing ok with Ike and the crazy weather that flowed from Kansas through us in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky.

The northern and central parts of Illinois have had problems with flooding but here in the southern part we had what I dubbed the Whipping Winds. Gusts up to 60mph+, we had some rain but not as much as Phelan or my parents who are still up in Decatur. Trees were blown everywhere, there are still parts of towns around here that dont have power and have been told that they might not until Wed or Thursday. Not us we lost power for all of 2 minutes thankfully and though I personally haven't seen the garden yet Bill has. He has warned me that its very trashed and I will have my hands full Tues and Wed salvaging what I can. He tried yesterday and today to get in there but it was really muddy. So I am moving to the clean up the garden phase.

But despite that like I said earlier I've been doing pretty good. Let me tell you about these things ....

Saturday Bill took me to an auction that was held a couple blocks up the street at the DeSoto community park. I've never been to an auction before and balked at the first auction that started as it moved too fast and I could not understand a thing. I stuck in though and $7 dollars later I came out pretty happy with some unexpected buys...But the score of the day would belong to Bill who accidently wound up getting a VERY nice dining room table and 5 chairs (one of the host chairs was missing) for $5. Yeah and wait til I get my camera battery charged up so I can take the pictures! He had thrown a bid on it because they had stalled at the start and started rambling (at that time the company had just started another auctioneer outside the pavillion and people had started bouncing back and forth between the two) usually when a bid gets thrown in (especially on furniture) it gets the ball rolling quickly....however, in the confusion no one realized that the bidding had started and next thing you know he was the only bidder on it. So yeah there you go. The table needs some murphys wood soap and elbow grease and the chairs need re upholstered [Something I actually know how to do!] and the other host chair needs a new back (its its a piece of scrolled wood that got splintered up) but it I mean WOW $5 bucks!

The second thing would be an email from Kathie at two frog home. She was asking how we felt about these coming hard times and what would really help and I was honest. I am very worried. We dont have any savings and there have been a lot of layoffs at Bill's work and there has been a lot of "restructuring" at my job. What I need is people to actually talk to. It's pretty much just me and Bill by ourselves at the moment, not a lot of people we know are into this way of life and its lonely. Im trying to get my household in order like I hear so many people doing. On that I think I would do well with a structured system, something almost military (yeah I know coming from me thats funny) But anyways, I got an email from Kathie and it warmed my heart.

The third thing would be that Bill has approached me on what we will plant for the next garden and mentioned we needed to get garlic put in. I really worried that the gardening problems (affectionately know as the McNelly Grass War) might sour him on gardening and the homesteading life. But that is a resounding no. He is more interested in doing seed swapping and getting away from Burpee Seeds and even went so far as finding a Local Harvest listing that was close by to possibly get seeds from for next year!

The last thing Im mentioning actually happened at work. I take orders for a vitamin company and pretty much am on the phone for 8 hrs straight lately. I talk to people all over and sometimes I have the most fascinating people and conversations. Today I talked a good while with a woman named Linda who lives in New York who I absolutely adored. She has a bermed house, loves gardening and we talked about all things we have been doing and the homesteading community and what not. I think we talked for almost an hour but it was one of the best calls I had all evening. I gave her the names of my blog and Phelan's over at A Homesteading Neophyte. So "Hi!" to Linda and I hope you enjoy what you find in our online community.

Aggravated

I pressure canned 6 qts of green beans. I lost about an inch or so of liquid and I dont what I did wrong. I spatula'd for air bubbles. I gave it an inch headspace. I was hot packing and I think that I might have packed the jars too much. So I dont know how that much liquid loss constitutes determines whether or not I can store these or use them ASAP.

Question

Is there any trick I should be doing to save seeds ? Someone said in one of my yahoo groups a something about fermenting seeds?? Help !

Doing Not Thinking Challange Weeks 2&3

Yeah well they got combined cuz I was out doing and forgot to post. Lots of excitement...even some pictures and video (oooooohhhh!!) that I will share after tomorrow hopefully. Week two found me harvesting more and snatching up 2 square foot gardening boxes that were freecycled. I should be getting them tomorrow after Bill gets off work. I cant wait!! I made 4 quarts of limed sweet pickle chips and they seem to be a hit. I followed their success with another batch of pickles that I am confident will be crisp! I also made 3 qts of pickled green tomatoes but I made a mistake and pressure canned them instead of boiling bath(and for too long probably too high) and not only were they mushy but I lots a LOT of fluids out of them. Oh but they tasted perfect! So score for learning from that eh?

Week 3 found Bill and I going through the garden and planning what we will do better next year...like say MULCHING! We have been harvesting a super long Cayenne that Im not really excited about...they are not very hot the farther you get away from the seeds...just not what we wanted but we'll make do. Got some Hungarian Wax peppers and seeds from a friend for next year We did pull out 4 watermelon, 5 cantaloup and 1 honeydew. the honeydew was a little under ripe but oh well more where that came from. Saturday I took a half day and Bill and I went out for a drink and music then came home and cleaned, blanched and froze 2- 5 gal buckets of sweet corn on the cob. We had a good night.

Which brings me up to now.. Monday we got out and pulled more pickling cukes and meandered over the beans ...silly us....yeah i have a 5 gal bucket o green beans I gotta do something with soon. I also got more tomatoes. Bill has been harvesting his gourds and getting them ready to dry. Cant wait to see how they turn out. We will be going to the store tomorrow to get more supplies and ingredients and (possibly) a boiling bath canner that is a size that will actually fit on my stove.

Other than that things are surviving...the power bill was higher this month and so was the water bill. Money wise things are tighter than I had thought theyd be. Im working on a more feasible plan to pay off the credit cards and I only have 10 more months on the car. I am seriously considering taking on another job or renting out the 3rd bedroom to help ease up some of the cash flow.

Doing Not thinking 1st Week Update

I got started a little early as you can tell by the last post. Went out in the garden Monday afternoon with Bill and harvested more cukes, 5 more spaghetti squashes, some grape toms (YAY!) still more jalapenos and finally some sugar snap peas (though a small few actually made it in the house lol) Going to do more pickles and Im trying another recipe for pepper jelly...the other one wasnt bad but it was not hot enough. I want to do some pickled green tomatoes...gods know I have a boatload that will not turn for me. The watermelons are getting HUGE and I found 2 cantaloup but they are small. They are hard to find..the grass has reclaimed. Um and the lettuce is going to seed :( grrrr. Got Tues and Wed off. I will be on the attack, grass beware!

Now with Pictures!

So its a long post but its mostly the pictures I've promised.

All the hair I cut off

This is me after I chopped off all my hair

This is the chronological photostream of the backyard/garden:

First broke ground the beginning of June, planting didnt finish til just before the wedding and leaving for Ragnarok-June 19th

End of July/Beginning of August
This is our friend we found in the garden. He was moved over to the gourd patch.

The First Harvest

Some Dried Basil, Thyme and 5 jalepenos...and a bunch of fresh dill that went to my best friend's mom

The Second Harvest aka OMG!

I've given away a 1/4 of the jalapenos already and still have this much!

So I got all my ingredients and equipment out and decided to DO something

So a day later with all my seals (YAY!) I have 5 Qt of whole and speared pickles, and 4 Pts of Hot Pepper Jelly and the dehyrator is drying Basil, Tarragon and Thyme

Today I got a basket full of pickling cukes. I have 3 spaghetti squash harvested and sitting outside and massive amounts of Sweet Basil, Thyme and Texas Tarragon. Oh and a buttload of jalepenos. I did get a Ball Blue Book of canning and I will be doing some running into town (while Im in getting the sticker for my car) to my local Rural King and grocery to pick up the last ingredients for canning. I am a little amped, way nervous and really wish one of you guys lived closer so I could steal you for the day.