Mostly inside Saturday

Got started on cleaning and straightening up the front room of the qhut today. Found and installed the latch plate for the connecting door between the front room and the kitchen. Cut up and cooked 4 strips of bacon and a large onion this morning and when done added to the pan of great northern beans that I cooked yesterday and have had it simmering all day. Heated yesterdays stew for lunch and then added several ladles of the beans to it when we reheated it for supper. Quite tasty and so far no excess gas. Beans finally cooked down enough about 8 pm and I took them off. They’re still cooling in the kitchen, but should be about ready to put in the fridge now.

Looks like another day or so on getting the front where I can actually start working on stuff in there again. Haven’t even gotten to the work bench yet. Slowly, slowly eats the elephant. And this sucker is big and old… Finding things I lost 10+ years ago.

Made a trip out to Food Land this afternoon for some milk. Ended up getting some ground round as they had it about 30 cents a pound cheaper than their ground beef. Also picked up a quarter pork loin. Just couldn’t walk away from the stuff at the prices they had. They also have dry black eyed peas at 88 cents a pound which is considerably less than else where, so got a couple of pounds of them too. Spent $13.15 if I remember correctly and ended up with about 5 pounds of meat.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring. Would like to go to the flea markets but need to do stuff here if the rain lets up, and it seems to be moving out for now so hoping I can get a little wood cut and hauled if it dries up enough. If not will be inside again. Which ever, it all needs doing. Till I type again…

Alabama – Eat Wild

Alabama – Eat Wild

Interesting page of links to organic farms in Alabama.
Found through Solecist.net

The Studley Tool Chest Gets a Facelift

The Studley Tool Chest Gets a Facelift
Another article on the Studley tool chest this time in Fine WoodWorking.

THIS DATE, FROM HENRY DAVID THOREAU’S JOURNAL

THIS DATE, FROM HENRY DAVID THOREAU’S JOURNAL

January 3, 1853
The air is thick and darkened with falling snow, and the woods are being draped with it in white wreaths. This is winter. They are putting on their white greatcoats. The woodland road is spotless white. The color of the pond depends on the light. It is now dark, in the storm. True to its nature, between earth and air, it is both green and blue. Let clear, serene weather come and illustrate its depth, and it is green; let the air descend on it and toss up its surface in waves, and it is blue like the sky.

Don’t think I have posted this before, nor do I remember where I found the link, but is an interesting look into life those many years ago. Some long, some short, and from different years. Interesting stuff!

Friday Jan 2

Ended up being a stay inside most of the day kind of day. Nothing much exciting got done. I did get out for a while and raked the leaves up from around the back porch where I had cleaned them off the roof when I added the tin the other day. Cleaned them out the drainage ditch and moved all of them to the compost pile. Dug a bit and added another block of width to the small bridge over the ditch to make it easier to push the wheelbarrow across when moving firewood in. Also cleaned up a bit more around the radial arm saw. Tis almost to where I can use it again. Cooked a pot of pork soup for lunch with leftovers, some noodles and a can of diced tomatoes. Added some frozen veggies and a cup of uncooked rice and after the afternoon sitting on top of the woodburner doing a slow cook had a nice thick stew for supper. That’s the brown glass pan sitting in the middle of the bottom section in the picture in the post below. The other silver pan is 2.5 pounds of dried great northern beans that were quick soaking. Took them off soon after the picture was taken and let them cool then drained and rinsed and put them back on till they got done about midnight. Am going to put them back on today with some cooked onion and bacon added and let them simmer for a while longer till they thicken up. Close to supper time I decided on a pan of cornbread to go with the stew. Didn’t want to heat up the oven (or use the electricity really) so got out one of the flat bottomed dutch ovens, went to the metal pile and found a piece of quarter inch steel rod and brought it back up to the work area out back. Rough measured and used the hand grinder to cut the rod to where I could break it by hand, then using a hole in the small anvil bent a triangle out of it. Hammered it flat enough and put it in the bottom of the dutch oven. Got the foldable trivet I use with the dutch oven lids outside and put it upside down in the ashes in the firebox after moving the coals and still burning small firewood to the back and sides, then set the dutch oven on the trivet. Got a wearever pie pan and added a bit of oil to it and put it on the triangle in the bottom of the dutch oven. Mixed up the batter and poured it in (after taking the dutch oven out of the firebox) and put it all back in and closed the doors. Checked it in about 20 minutes and turned it 180 degrees and in 5 more took it out. It was in there about 5 minutes too long. Should have turned it at 15 and out at 20. After removing the burned crust was still quite good. Nothing like a learning experience at meal time…

Had hoped to get some outside stuff done today but unless the rain quits and it dries out a lot faster than I think it will doesn’t look like that will happen, so will try to get motivated and start on cleaning out the workshop in the front of the qhut. Am gonna move the repair stuff in there and the books and such over to the room I have set up for repair now in the yard sale trailer. Still trying to figure out how to heat the front, and with typing that may have just done so. Will let that brain fart ferment for a bit and see how it smells later.

Time for the oatmeal to be done, so will close for the nonce and go eat. Till later…