This Week's Accomplishments

The weather this week has been nice, with little humidity, but warm. (70s and 80s)  Not as much rain as in the past week.

It's 5:25 AM and I hear the birds have just woken up with songs in their hearts.  The sun is slowly rising, but there are strange looking clouds in the sky.  Maybe rain on the horizon.

The garden strawberries have slowed down, but there's plenty of flowers and green berries coming out.  I may have had my fill of chomping them down as soon as I pick them so maybe now I can add to the half quart I put in the freezer to make jam.

The left side of the yard is the strawberry
patch.  I started with five plant two
summers ago and it has come to this.

The blackberries are showing their buds with some of the berries on the verge of turning from red to black. I did buy some cheese cloth to cover them, but it's not enough.  Perhaps today I will purchase more so I get the berries before the birds do.

Even though the blackberries have
been trimmed, I left the one that's
taller than the six foot fence
because there are buds on it.

All of the canning supplies have been gone through and organized as well as cleaned.  The jars are sitting in the dishwasher ready to be washed and hot air dried.  The pot is clean and sitting on the stove ready for the first canning session of the season.  I have plenty of lids and pectin.

Canning supplies at the ready!

Our local grocery had green beans on sale for .99 cents a pound so I picked up a little over a pound and spent time this week blanching them and freezing them.

A few green beans ready for the
first step in the freezer.  Once frozen
they will get put in food saver bags
to keep fresh all winter long.

To help motivate me this year I purchased the new Ball Canning Blue Book.  There's a couple hundred recipes in it and they are covering all types of preserving this year.  I'm most interested in the preserving with salt as I have never done this type of preserving.

I have a pot of pickling cucumbers and needed to thin them out.  I transplanted two of them and thinned out five small ones.  I hate to discard the small ones, but I may have to if no one wants them.  One of the plants went into the garden that I had covered in the rubber mulch and the other went into a pot of it's own on the garden table.

The cucumber transplant.  He was watered
with compost tea and caged. 

One of my favorite meals I made this week is mushroom soup and green beans on the side.  When it's warm out I eat light meals because I tend to get a sick stomach if a meal is heavy.  Lunches and dinners included cold items such as tomatoes, lettuce and cheeses.

Mushroom soup and green beans for
tonights dinner.

The carrots and celery that were brought home this week from the grocery got washed in a vinegar water solution, dried, and put in the refrigerator.  One of my favorite snacks is celery with peanut butter and raisins.

I saved 5.25 using ibotta this week for a total of 47.25.  It's adding up.  I won't use ibotta every week, just when there are items I already use.  I'm hoping for at least a hundred dollars by the time Christmas gets here so I can turn in the proceeds for  four 25.00 Wal Mart or amazon gift cards.

The big cleaning I did this week is to dust all of the walls, crown molding, ceiling light fixtures, and base boards.

I had to leave the house twice this week going to the pharmacy and grocery one day and for the life of me I can't remember what else I did, but I remember I did it with my daughter S.

That was the week at this home.  What was your week like?  I hope all went well and your  health is good.  Please feel free to highlight your week in the comment section.

Stay safe.