Do You Buy Food Staples Online?

 Hi everyone,

   This week I have been food shopping online. Do you do that? We live more rural for shopping here at the lake, then when we lived in the woods. At the woods house, the closest town had everything we would need, a super Wal mart, Aldi, Lowes, lumber yards, hardware stores, really anything at all one would need.

  Here at the lake, we are situated between two cities once we reach the highway-left has a local grocery store-very expensive, a Sav a Lot which I have been exploring. Their meat is usa meat and pretty good, everyone bags their own groceries so I think that keeps the prices down. Neither store is great with fresh produce.  If I turn right that will take me to the county seat, and they have a very small Wal Mart store so they don't always have many things do to it's size, and still since covid they are still not fully stocked. That's it pretty much for food shopping there-if I would want to drive another 20-30 minutes that will take me into the Amish communities I don't like doing that by myself though.

  Since I am not set up to can here or have a veggie garden-the night time critters eat everything-I started shopping online at Wal mart.com, Amazon, Vitacost, even Ebay for canned items and other staples. Yesterday I cleared and boxed up a shelf that had empty canning jars-and started adding canned fruits-no sugar, all sorts of beans, canned  meats too.

   I found at Wal mart a really good USA product of canned beef and turkey by Keystone.  Online this same company has chicken, hamburger, pork and in smaller cans. These are good to have around for quick meals and as a back up. When you open up their cans it looks just like if you had canned it yourself-quite impressed with the quality. 

   I have never lived near a Whole Foods Market but searching for different canned beans, found that Amazon is selling their organic beans at an excellent price-and free shipping can't be beat either. (after spending $25.00)  Of course one needs to research out the prices ahead of time as the price of food online is all over the place-allot of it is very over priced

  We have a neighbor that keeps telling us to stock up as food will be scare this winter-not sure if that is really true but I am thinking allot of items will be more expensive do to the extreme heat or in some areas too much rain.  I have always put up enough food every year to last for the upcoming year or two except for meats and fresh produce--so it is strange to me not to be doing that here at the lake.

  I grew up always freezing, canning, dehydrating  food from a huge veggie garden  Growing up in northern Indiana they had a huge huge covered market-fresh produce came in from Michigan and Indiana-have never lived any where else through the years that compares. Any kind of veggie or fruit you would want to can or freeze. 

Thoughts?? Do you put up the harvest or store foods for the up coming winter and year?  With the severe hot and humid summer here I am thinking our winter could be a doozy too

Happy Friday and Pancakes & Cheesecake

   Happy Friday and Weekend,

Yep still too hot and humid here, and reading posts from friends on the east coast still raining places there and too cool-and my friend Iris in Germany is too cold where she lives-so I am guessing many of us are not happy with Mother Nature. haha

 I will have to say I am very ready for Fall and cooler temps this year, so we can get back to outdoor projects and feel better.  I am really concerned about the very high electric bill that will be posting soon-scary 

  I asked Larry what he wanted for breakfast yesterday and he says pancakes please. So after making his I made a gluten free batch for me. Photos are the gluten free version.

 

Maple syrup from Pennsylvania-I buy a gallon and break it down into quarts direct from their farm

In the background in above photo you can see some of the cheesecake ingredients.  I have learned the cake bakes up better if all the ingredients are brought to room temperature first-takes a couple hours-cream cheese, sour cream, and eggs I do use a keto powdered sweetener instead of sugar for the sweetener. This time I made a walnut crust-grind up the walnuts, add a little flour-used gf flour-and butter and a little sweetener I used Splenda instead of sugar. Bake first til just done.

 

Ingredients ready to  mix for the crust below

We had cheesecake for breakfast this morning-good eats. forgot to take a photo of our plates.

 For some reason I woke up wide awake at 3:30 am this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep-will be needing a nap this afternoon 😀

Enjoy your weekend

Good Morning

 Good Morning mid week-already,

   This month at times seems to be moving along slowly do to the extreme heat and humidity here, but then it also seems like July is going by too fast as well. I am ready for September though-cooler weather so we can get our landscape projects accomplished.

   I have decided to start a second blog, Thoughts   where I can express myself if I feel I want to about what ever I feel like writing down.  Topics can be anything. When I was working on a title google wouldn't let me use anything specific-strange-but they do censor like Facebook does, so I came up with Thoughts and they accepted that, and I like it too.

 I was feeling pretty good with myself on my last spin, that is until I started spinning the Shetland. I am having allot of difficulty with this one. The fibers are very springy so I am having trouble getting the fibers to slide-thinner-so I am needing to re draft the long pieces to be more narrow. Hope that makes sense. I am hoping that helps things, if not I will set it aside for a bit and move on to another fiber.

  I may need to take a bit of a break with spinning, and fix the threading mistakes on the loom so I can get the towels woven off this summer. I am anxious to figure out the ruana I want to weave.  I think going forward I will need to get out my little sample loom and test the patterns first from my old Handwoven magazines to check for mistakes.

  We did not get the rain last night we were supposed to, so I need to get out and water this morning-its already 80 degrees F at 7am with very high humidity.

Enjoy your day

Spinning

   Most of the morning today I spun up the Wensleydale, I am happy with the spin-although still not even-it's not overspun, and I think it's my finest yarn so far. I have been spinning bulky singles-which will be fun to weave with, but I have been spinning to improve this summer.

  Some how I have ended up with lots of spun yarns that are white in color-I will be needing to get out the dye pot this fall.

  

  I started on the Shetland that I shared on my last spinning post-and got a basket full pre drafted and ready to spin. This is a light brown fleece.

  I did not have any of my own lavender in the garden this year, so I needed to order some-It came today-I use it to keep bugs away from the wool The lavender was packed nicely and smells wonderful-I always have loved lavender.

  I have never bought dried lavender on stems before so seemed strange-haha My  new plants should be doing well next year.

  It was so hot and humid again today that neither of us worked outdoors. Larry hurt his neck and shoulder really bad a couple days ago so he has been resting and using ice packs.  

   Need to remember to take food photos-I wanted something simple today so I made us a goulash. I saute'd chunks of zucchini, red onion, sweet pepper, and fresh mushrooms. When tender I added a jar of spaghetti sauce, then added the browned organic hamburger, and lastly a gluten free pasta. This meal turned out really nice-pasta not over cooked, and the dish not to dry-just the right amount of sauce. Good Eats and of course I used cast iron-smiles

   Have a good evening

  

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

   Good morning and happy new week. Over the weekend I made us pineapple upside down cake-gluten free.

  This one was very moist and delicious, and stayed moist-which many gluten free cakes do not by the third day.

  I am a farm girl baker but the gluten free baked goods from scratch just haven't worked out well for me-and in the past I did try out many different recipes and different gluten free flours too.

  Now, instead of wasting ingredients with disappointments I use Bob's Red Mill gluten free mixes or Glutino or sometimes King Arthur. I do allot of shopping online these days-as we live more rural for shopping now since moving out of the woods and onto Lake in the Ozarks. I buy allot from Vitacost and take advantage of their sales-for me an excellent source for gluten free and organic canned goods.

  For the bottom (now the top) I used butter and coconut sugar and then added on top the drained crushed pineapple. I think the coconut sugar results in a darker topping. In the cake I used coconut oil instead of butter and I added pineapple extract to enhance the pineapple flavors

   I bake allot in cast iron and when I flipped this one I used the top of a large plastic storage container-then when cool I used the bottom for the top-I think this helped keep the cake moist for four days.

 The downsize of mixes for us, is that they all have sugar in the ingredients which I don't bake with usually. To cut down on sugars for Larry I use Splenda, or keto sweeteners when I bake from scratch. So these are a treat for us every few months.

PS in my list of labels-bottom of blog pages-are lots of cast iron cooking and baking recipes-just look for cast iron.

  Looks like another very hot and humid week here in the Ozarks-I think I have reached the point of I am ready for fall weather-yes I know it's early but we have started a large landscape project and the temps early mornings are already in the mid to high 70's with high humidity.  I am not a hot weather person and it's getting harder the older I get. I am thankful for the rain we received last week-much needed and the grass is growing again.

  Happy Monday

   

  (image found online)

Update: I decided to change up the title of my blog this morning.  I am living on the lake now and not in the woods-so a bit of a new start with my blog.

    I first started a blog back around 2004 or 5 after retirement and moving down to Missouri in the woods in the fall of 2003. I did allot of natural dyeing, eco printing, and more. Loved heating only with wood, still canning and preserving foods etc.

    I never thought about age til this year-I can feel that I am in my mid 70's now.  Smiles. Going forward this year we have landscape projects and I am keeping focused on spinning, weaving, and soon sashiko projects. 

   While spinning I decided to change the name of my blog-it now reflects where I am at in my life right now.

Good Morning Sunday & Thoughts Going Forward with my Blog Posting

   Hi Everyone,

     We are back to sunny and hot this weekend. Thankful for all the rain we got last week, and we did have one cooler day too. 

   Find my latest spinning adventures in my previous post. 

 I decided I needed a bit of a new beginning for my blog posting, The biggest change--No more joining in and posting at T for Tuesday including any other link ups-and no more creating link ups.

   I have enjoyed over the years visiting, and also making new friendships from several on the T group which I am thankful for.  I want to thank Elizabeth for welcoming me in to her group, and I loved seeing and learning from your art. If we lived closer I think we would enjoy a dye day-smiles

 Last week's T experience with my swap partner was the motivation to change course.    I also do not really "fit in" with many on the group-being a Christian conservative is not mixing these days with far left liberals -I have learned to not say anything but a handful have been very let us just say-not friendly towards me  Another reason I have decided to stay in touch with friends but just not link up.

 Blogging and the internet has been my venue since retirement to connect with people of similar interests.  Blogging gave me a way to "talk" with people, and share what I am doing with my art and craft adventures, and years ago when I first started blogging I loved to also share food recipes and share my "doings".   In the beginning-around 2005- my blog was written like a journal to share with friends.  

  Hoping you will continue to drop by for a visit

 

(above photo found online)

  I have decided to turn off comments for this post, no need for discussion, just wanted friends to know I won't be linking up  

Still Spinning

  I have been spinning most every day or at least every other day depending on the weather and if we are working outdoors or not. I am hoping to be much improved by the end of this year.

 I just started preparing the Moorit Shetland wool for spinning this afternoon, and wow this reminds me of the bison fiber I was working with a couple years ago.  Very short staple and soft.  I like to search out the more rare breeds to spin, I feel like I am honoring their heritage, and shows me how different the breeds of wool are to spin-especially if they have not been over processed.

 Researching I found out Moorit means the brown color as Shetland comes in many different colors.  They are considered a mountain sheep and are native to Orkney and Shetland. They used to not be shorn but plucked in July-which reminds me also of the bison wool-which is the extra warm layer on top for warmth and that will shed as it gets warmer.  These are considered a rare breed now.

I found a photo of a Moorit Shetland online here  and this site  has a page of information and interesting facts about Shetland wool 

  At the moment I am spinning the Wensleydale roving. This is from a different seller and spins entirely different than what I originally purchased from another Etsy seller-this one is more processed. I am working on spinning a finer yarn, and so far this one is the finest I have spun, thinking this is a sport weight-I like it. This breed has a very long staple and very soft and springy

It's a bit over spun, but not too bad, I will loosen up the spin when I put it on the niddy noddy.

  This morning I made us a batch of vanilla ice cream, and also a peach Jello with mandarin oranges and fruit cocktail. This coming week I want to bake us up a new york cheesecake. I think we are headed towards another very hot and humid week.

  Happy weekend and new week

Do You Have a Favorite Summer Food (s)

    I remember as a kid growing up, the few times we would go out to eat-something we rarely did-we would visit A&W for hamburgers, fries, and root beers. I don't know if these are still around or not, as I haven't seen one since I left home after high school. They did have those trays that hooked to the driver's side window too. (back in the 50's & 60's)  So I think that's where my love of root beer comes from.

  Well I had to research this-Yes there are still A&W root beer restaurants and they also make their own root beer in house. 

   "Our signature item since the opening of our first tiny Root Beer stand in 1919. It's still made fresh on site with real cane sugar and a proprietary blend of herbs, bark, spices and berries".

 

 I also love smores. So every summer I need to make me a few to enjoy. 😀

   Recently I started making them in my microwave, since I don't have a gas stove here at the lake. Before if not over a camp fire, I would make them over my gas stove.  

  I use Pamela's gluten free graham crackers, a good quality chocolate like Lindt dark chocolate w/ orange and a large marshmallow-or two. Just a few seconds is perfect to soften the chocolate and marshmallow.

  The photo came out a little dark-I have chosen a new camera but haven't bought it yet. I am waiting to see how high the electric bill will be as this past month has been very hot so the a/c has been on quite allot.

Recipe ideas for smores-a site for creative smores, the salted caramel sounded good-I love caramel This site had some interesting ideas.

  Happy Friday and Weekend everyone.

T Stands for 10th Anniversary

   T This week is a celebration event with our hostess's Bleubeard and Elizabeth for 10 years of T Stands for Tuesday. 

  I would like to thank Elizabeth for hosting this event for all of us every week for 10 years, and I don't believe she ever missed a Tuesday.(that I remember)

  I first learned about T from being invited to join from two blog friends-Deb now living in Texas and Carol from Missouri. When my favorite social media site-Multiply-sold out to a foreign company, and that company got rid of our blogs-sigh-I was having a difficult time finding another blog site that I liked.  By this time most of my friends were no longer blogging but were enjoying Facebook instead.  I had enjoyed Blogger as there are many crafts persons and artists here-just very difficult to find and connect with. 

  Over the years that I have been here on T,  I have learned about mixed media, journals, painting and more. I also have enjoyed our hostess's tutorials and reading your T posts. Being mostly a fiber artist I learned allot of new things  over the years from T.

  Elizabeth wanted us to share a photo of something 10, so I decided to grab 10 tea bags. Most all of these I have shared on one of my blogs for my drink reference over the years.

  My swap partner was Cloudia in Hawaii, I have never known or gotten mail from Hawaii before.

   I didn't even think about taking photos of the small package I had sent her at the time-and was so surprised how fast it arrived-only took 3-4 days from Missouri. That is really fast I found a vintage postcard of Lake in the Ozarks online, I also made a postcard to celebrate the 10th anniversary, and I sent along several tea bags.

    Cloudia sent me a vintage postcard too which I really love, that was mailed inside a pretty envelope with butterflies. I love the postcard-thank you. She sent me a sample packet of white truffle face moisturizer by Truffloire which will be new to me to try. Cloudia also sent along a card about a lady shopping in a wine store-that said " I don't remember the name, but it had a taste that I liked"  That was a fun "funny" That circle is the state of Hawaii seal.

I did also get a photo of the stamp

   For mine, I sent out small packages instead of envelopes, I wanted tracking on them, and being around $5.00 or more-that was just too many stamps to ask the postal lady to put on the packages-and I would not have had the tracking either. Sorry I know Elizabeth wanted actual stamps.

 I also sent a postcard to friend Deb, and she sent me a lovely ATC

and the back has the number 10

  I will close with another root beer float-smiles (for my drink reference today)-I am out of my homemade ice cream now so will need to make more once it cools down enough to go grocery shopping.  There is also an empty bottle of wine in the back.

  Happy 10th anniversary for T Stands for Tuesday

Find coffee, decaf coffee & hot water for tea for our T party today

(photos found online)

    Just a little update: my swap partner did not share what I sent her for T's 10th anniversary today, but I did want to at least share the vintage postcard I had sent to Cloudia  I had searched around for one and found this postcard on Ebay-I liked the map of Lake in the Ozarks on this card-known as the snake since it is very long and curvy.  

   We live on this lake near Versailles - find upper middle of card.   I don't remember now what postcard I had made her for the anniversary, thinking like the one Deb shared.

Early Tuesday morning my swap partner did share a photo of some of the items I mailed to her thanks Cloudia

 

Wood Ducks, Gardening and Spinning for T

    I was not going to hook up with T 'til the 10th anniversary, but since I am caught up a bit with outdoor work for now and  that we are back to the high 90's F  again I will have time to visit.

   We had a few days of much cooler weather-finally-but still not a drop of rain. The grass is all burnt up here except for what splashes on from the lake.  Good thing though is no mowing for me smiles.

   Find link up for T with Bleubeard and Elizabeth in my side panel, you are welcome to join in just post a drink related photo.

  Today and Yesterday, I raked out the smaller stones and added 8 large bags of garden soil to part of the area. I will need to add more for sure but at least I got these bags on the ground. I collect my zinnia, marigold, and other seeds so I spread a bunch over this area-to keep weeds from growing and the butterflies will love the flowers too. It is way too hot, and with no rain, not a good idea to be transplanting perennials to this area right now.

  By the front door are the steps to the top-and then to either side is the rock wall with a curved area on both sides. I have a bird bath on the other side, so I added this large metal leaf for drinking water to this left side that we are working on. The rock came from the woods property I am thinking this is a drink reference as the butterflies and little birds love this for a drink of water.

Larry has been scraping off the dead grass with his skid steer on the left side of this area-we will be placing landscape fabric and adding stone to that area very soon.

   Doing that he found this large heart rock-so I brought it up to this corner area At the woods home, some of you may remember my rock shower project-sadly we never got to use that, but in the process of gathering rocks I found many many small and medium size heart rocks-never one this large-I love it.

The bags of soil were so heavy that I worked from both ends-ran out there in the middle-oh well, I need lots more soil before fall. I need Larry to decide about that hill in the back area-would need allot of garden soil added to level a bit. To the right is the pallet of brick for the outdoor cooking area.

We learned that our duck visitors are a family of wood ducks, that have been breeding in the area for many years-according to one of our neighbors. The hen discovered our bird seed early mornings and sometimes her youngsters come too. She had 6 survivors out of 10 or 12 little ones.

     I am realizing I spin better with less processed wools. I have found a couple sellers on Etsy that I really love, including the Icelandic wool. I was inspired to search out this wool from Erika's Iceland trip, learning that many of the sheep are not penned in-love that.  It spins like a dream I love it, feel like I know what I am doing even haha. I had bought a variegated roving with black, white and dark grey.

  Ready to spin

  This is very soft yarn, I am in love with this one-and ordered a little bit more of this one and the dark grey.

     I am still spinning thick and thin but it is not over spun which is a good thing. I love the textures of that in weaving. I am still spinning singles opposed to a finer yarn that is then plied together with two or three-right now I don't need to strive for that as I am not a knitter or do crochet-weaving is more forgiving I think depending on the garment being made.

    We have been enjoying root beer floats during these hot humid days. I shared one in my last post but I did make us another one last night.

   I make them with my own homemade vanilla ice cream-yum summer for me is a root beer float.

  This is a photo of me layering the ice cream and the root beer.

Happy T

We Have Been Working on Outdoor Projects

   Despite the hot and humid weather, (still very little rain over the last couple of months as well) we are getting outdoors very early and working on projects. We are so hot and humid with-high 90's F so we are up at day break to put in a couple hours before it's too hot for us to be outdoors.

   Larry has been working on getting his skid steer working again-changing parts and a major tune up, and a new seat -quite the job. He used to be a heavy equipment mechanic as well as working in construction and road projects. He does enjoy his "toys"  He also brought over a back hoe, the bull dozer is still at the woods house.

  The first couple months after we moved to the lake, he had rented a jack hammer, hired a couple guys we knew to get rid of all the concrete that ran in front of the house, and replace the walkway with bricks. The people before us knew nothing about directing water away from the house-we live on a hill, so they ended up making things worse with loads of concrete.  Those pieces have been piled up along the stone wall just in front of our door and front of the house.

   You may remember that I had carried allot of it to make those rock hills, and plant the perennial garden to the right of our front door and steps. To the left of that area we still had large piles of the concrete pieces.

  We got right to work this week, and I totally forgot about taking a before photo. Larry also dug out two large horrible bushes that just made no sense for this area. They are gone now and will be sunk in the lake, around our dock for fish breeding.

  Here is an after photo, and we also got the 8 large bags of garden soil down here too. In the back there behind the bags of soil is a lilac bush-I love lilacs so wanted to save it. This gives a clear view now, so we won't feel so cramped with those horrible bushes gone-they were just the wrong species for this space.

   Tomorrow morning early if I am not too sore, I will rake this area out and add the garden soil. For now I will scatter a bunch of zinnia, cosmos and marigold seeds to fill the space. To the right of this photo is a large pallet full of bricks to make my outdoor cast iron cooking area, we are pushing to achieve that this summer as well-still working on getting that large tree stump and roots dug out.

   Leaving the small pieces of rock and concrete will add some drainage to the soil, I did that on the other side as well. To the left and behind the lilac bush is a little garden shed-and behind that is a steep hill to the lake. Larry worked on scraping off the grass in that area this morning-getting it ready to put down the landscape fabric (my job) and rock-this will be easier for me to maintain with less grass cutting. 

  So we are making allot of progress which feels good-we both just have to really pace ourselves especially Larry with his heart condition. Those bags were soooo heavy-I had quite the time getting them into the skid steer bucket.

 I have needed to water almost every day, do to no rain. Everything is blooming well though and I am so happy with everything-there will be plenty of perennials to split up in the fall or early spring to plant in this new area.

My echinacea is still producing flowers and I have many butterflies that are enjoying all of the different flower blooms They really make me smile. We are attracting the bees as well.

For a treat late yesterday I made up a root beer float with my homemade ice cream, In the back is an empty bottle of wine waiting for me to remove and save the label.

   I am still making progress with my spinning-will post about that soon.

Enjoy your July and Summer

Happy Independence Day America

 

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies' separation from Great Britain. The Constitution provides the legal and governmental framework for the United States.