Homestead Pantry

Well we blew it today, the wind was still nasty and we didn't get much done outside.  The cheese pot is going again, though.  I pulled the cultures out of the fridge and started fresh cultures.  Tomorrow we will set up some cheese.  It's nice to have the milk available to make cheese again.  It's hard to know which kind I want to make first!

I went out to see if I could get anymore strawberry plants tucked in for the winter but it was too windy.  I was in a bad mood anyway, having found out on my way to the garden that the silly young dog had stolen from us again.  Yesterday his granny gave him a good whoopin' for stealing Little Miss Muffet's big floppy yellow straw hat with the big purple flower on it...said hat is now sans big beautiful purple flower.  <growl>  Going out I found two T-shirts, a tennis shoe, a small child's shoe that was in a bag to go to the shelter, and my horse's winter blanket.  The blanket was destroyed.  It had the stuffin's chewed out of it.  Bad Dog!  Where was GrannyDog when Bratpup was doin' that dastardly deed??

 So, to bring a happier note into this post, we'll get on our way to the garden.  The peppers are still lovin' it in our greenhouse, they are even blooming again.  The herbs in there are doing well, those that weren't smooshed by the heavy wet snow collapsing part of the greenhouse down on them. So we'll see how long they last but likely I will need to be pickin' peppers again soon.  Dr. Noel Falk told a caller on his program today that lettuces and other vegetables wouldn't do well in a greenhouse, that they wouldn't get enough light unless you hung a powerful light, and that would use so much electricity that it would not be worth the expense.  Well, he needs to have a talk with my lettuces.  They came up after we put up the greenhouse plastic and they are doing very well.  Don't remember what the one is, but the other is an oak leaf lettuce. 

 Still growling about the horse blanket, I went back into the house for some fiber therapy.  I finished spinning up the angora bunny wool I had carded out for sock knitting, and started to hang a picot hem on the sock machine.  I then realized it was too dark and the light was not bright enough to really help.  Nor was the flashlight, held in my mouth, helping me enough after I worked my way around about halfway.  Guess the batteries needed recharged, so I shut it off, set the cultures in a cooler to incubate, put the lid on the jelly, and shut off the lights. 

 So good night, sleep tight, and be sure to eat fresh.