Trouble - Garden - Buckets

It turned out to a beautiful morning; temperatures were in the mid 50’s.  I thought, why not cut the grass. I pulled the lawn mower out of the garage and filled it with gas.  Note to my readers, Bulldog Man and Tank spent a couple of days fixing and cleaning the lawn mower.  They even put on a brand new blade.  I started up the lawn mower and cut approximately half of the grass.  Moving the lawn mower past the front corner of the house, I passed one tree stump with no problem.  Then, I moved the lawn mower slightly left, and heard this loud clunk.  The lawn mower shut off.  I said to myself, OMG, what did I hit.  I had a senior moment and hit the second stump, damaging the lawn mower (I totally forgot about the second stump).  I’m not sure if I bent the crankshaft or just damaged the blade. I moved the lawn mower off of the stump. The entire bottom dropped, causing the blade to scrape the grass instead of cut it.   The only way I could get the lawn mower to cut the rest of the grass was to raise the wheels. Now the mower truly doesn’t sound like a mower.  Bulldog Man is not going to be too happy when he comes home, and I tell him about what I did to the lawn mower he just fixed.  The evidence is in the pictures below.



Stump



Scrape Marks



I'm telling Poppy You Destroyed His Lawn Mower!!!!

The corn in the garden has really taken off.  Here’s a picture of beans checking out the corn in the garden box. 

The spinach is doing much better since we sprayed for aphids.

Our experiment with potatoes and straw is working; check the pictures out below.  We thought we lost the potatoes in the second straw surrounding but the picture shows differently.



First Straw Surrounding



Second Straw Surrounding (need to remove grass growing)  A Couple of Potatoes Plants Growing



I picked up more food grade buckets from Sam’s Club Bakery and brought them home to clean. YAY, extra food storage buckets and there free!!!!!



Grass - Organization - Pantry - Storage

First thing this morning, I decided to tackle the grass.  Even though it was slightly wet, I figured just get it cut.  We are expecting rain everyday this week.  If I left it until it stopped raining, we would be living in the jungle on the property.  You would think we were feeding the grass Wheaties by the way it grows.

Bulldog Man purchased another shelving unit for me.  We added it to our kitchen wall (our make believe pantry).  This way I can put some of our larger appliances, canning materials and water up for storage.  We placed the microwave on the shelf.  This allows us to use the microwave stand for our water filtration system (once it’s built, I will take pictures and post them later this week).

I canned some potatoes the other day and I’m not impressed.  I think they look over- processed.  I’ll have to try again. 



Need to wipe down the jars before storing.



I also did some organization of cabinets and drawers.  Give it a couple of days and everything that’s organized will be in disarray, lol.

 

We also picked up several food grade buckets for long term storage.  Friday, I will go into town and hit up Sams Club for more food grade buckets.

That’s all for now, life is good!

EGGS

A friend of mine, Sarah Roe from Money Saving Queen, published today on her website an article on “Frugal Living, How to Freeze Eggs.”  So I decided to follow her instructions and freeze my extra eggs.

If you’re like me, you have plenty of eggs on hand to use for cooking or baking.  You may have your own egg producing chickens or you buy plenty of eggs at the local grocer when on sale. I will generally have anywhere from 1 dozen to 4 dozen in my refrigerator at any one time. I don’t find myself using the eggs up as fast as I should.  To prevent the eggs from going bad, I will take a dozen eggs or so, crack them in a large measuring cup, mix them up with a whisk quickly and poor the egg mixture into ice cube trays to freeze for future use.  After the eggs freeze in the ice cube tray, take each egg cube out and place them into a sealed container in the freezer for storage.  This allows your egg to be stored for approximately a year. I feel freezing the eggs is more beneficial and safe for my family. 

Another process is to coat each egg with a warm mineral oil (this is supposed to be like the natural membrane when a chicken lay’s the egg) and replace the egg back into the egg crate, small side down and store in a cool dry place.  This will allow your eggs to have a shelf life of 9 – 12 months and not require refrigeration.  I believe this process was noted within the Doomsday Preppers Program on National Geographic Channel.  This process, I’m not comfortable using.  The only cool place I have would potentially attract critters or bugs and I’m not planning on inviting these problems.

Another process is to coat each egg with a warm mineral oil (this is supposed to be like the natural membrane when a chicken lay’s the egg) and replace the egg back into the egg crate, small side down and store in a cool dry place.  This will allow your eggs to have a shelf life of 9 – 12 months and not require refrigeration.  I believe this process was noted within the Doomsday Preppers Program on National Geographic Channel.  This process, I’m not comfortable using.  The only cool place I have would potentially attract critters or bugs and I’m not planning on inviting these problems.  

We attempted to work in the garden today and the winds in Oklahoma are terrible, 45 mph, making it impossible to complete tasks out in the garden.  You would start something and have it blown away before you can secure it.  Time to go inside and work, forget working outside in the garden, there’s always tomorrow.

Today is Super Tuesday; Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont all prepped for primaries.  Did you vote?  I did J