April yard projects, food prep and neighborhood fun

 This entry really reflects the first couple of weeks in April, and the next entry or 2 should just about catch us up with the present. I've been lax, my bad!

We have been super busy trying to finish up various projects in preparation for our annual summer exodus to cooler climes out west. For me, that means squaring away the frozen food in both freezers. Most gets used up in our daily meals but some gets pressure canned for shelf stable storage, and some gets passed along to my wonderful neighbors who hold down the fort while we're gone. Thank you neighbors! 💙

I canned ground turkey, chicken, Cajun beans, and potato soup with Italian sausage among other things. I also made a yummy chicken pot pie and a big pot full of smoked sausage and red beans with carrots, zucchini and onions. 

Last year we used an Omaha Steaks Styrofoam box with dry ice to bring some of our home cooked meals out with us to take some of the stress out of trying to use it all up beforehand. That worked out so well we thought we'd use that method again.

The stages of pot pie construction and voila.

We did have a neighborhood fun day with a flotilla event followed by a fantastic potluck at the pool pavilion. Here are a few pics from that.

Our end of the lake and our dock, light gray in this shot.

Here they come by while we watch from the deck level.

The "spread" was impressive.

Staying cool on the shady side.

It was a good turn-out, especially for such a warm mid-80's day. It was fun to see everyone out and about.

Remember this project - the rocks on the side yard out front? Well, it finally got finished, including a semi-transparent concrete stain on the faded pavers lining the driveway and sidewalk.

I was pleased with how easily the stain went on, and
how good it looked after one coat. Easy water cleanup too.

I also put a thick maintenance coat of stain (cedar)
on this A/C enclosure to protect the wood and keep it looking nice.

More to come in the next report, so stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by.

A quiet Holiday Season

 It's been some pretty low-key Holidays this year, which is pretty much the way we like them. A modest amount of decorating and gift-giving plus some sumptuous meals is the way we roll. Not quite so overwhelming to take down and put away. Of course if we had grandkids or great-grans here in town I'm sure we would elaborate more on the decorations and activities. 

I saw a YT video done by this gentleman who makes metal coat-hanger Christmas trees as a fundraiser for his church. Link is here. I thought they turned out so cute that I decided to make one to go by the fireplace. Here's mine "in situ". I think it turned out pretty! 😌

I used 3 strands of garland braided together and colored lights.

We had a mostly sunny day for our Christmas dinner in the Florida Room. The Boss pours wine for us.

An all-time favorite of the day; turkey, dressing, rice/gravy
plus steamed broccoli, cranberries, olives, and rolls.

Our Christmas table decorations, minimalist to be sure. My 
Mother-in-law used to set a beautiful Holiday table.

I'm enjoying being back into "puzzling" - I find it very relaxing for in-between chore times. The latest one to be finished.

On New Year's Eve our neighborhood had a nice, small fireworks display. Basically one at a time, but since it was held at the far end of the field across from our house it was great! Here's a shot taken by a neighbor who lives on the other side of the lake.

Changing out the table decorations - LOL, cheap thrills.

I swapped out my Christmas table decorations for some more appropriate for New Year's. Now the table looks right. We had the prerequisite 'good luck' New Year's meal of smoked pork chops, blackeyed peas, collards and of course, cornbread. We also had some rice and a fresh tomato salad. YUM!

I did a couple of runs of canning this past week. I wanted to practice cooking dried beans, (I usually use canned), so I decided to fix pinto beans with carrots, onions and ham and can them up for easy meal prep. Served over rice with some garlic toast makes for a tasty meal.

I also had a big bag of yukon gold potatoes, and since we love potato soup and salad for a lighter meal, I thought I'd make up my Italian sausage & potato soup base, (no cream or thickeners when canning), and get that on the shelf too. It just came out of the canner so the jars haven't been washed/labelled yet. When serving, I'll add a cornstarch and cream slurry, plus some shredded sharp cheddar to make it a cream soup.

Last fall when we came back from out west, (mid-afternoon), by the time we got situated it was supper time. Luckily I had some chili on the shelf that I had previously canned ready to heat and eat. So handy.

All that being said, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy & Blessed New Year. Thanks for stopping by.

Time's a truckin' along, fun visit with family, canning & fabric fun.

We've been continuing to prep for our trip out west by doing household chores, routine maintenance on the cars, whittling down freezer contents and getting our dental and doctor visits out of the way.

We also got together with my sister and brother-in-law for a wonderful picnic lunch down in Mt. Dora, FL which is about half way in between, a little over 100 miles. It was a beautiful day for a drive and we made things super easy by agreeing to each pick up sub's for lunch rather than doing a potluck affair. Even though we talk all the time, and email back and forth, this is the first time we've actually been together in a few years. BIG HUGS all around!! 💖🥰

The Elizabeth Evans park was pretty nice, and right by Lake Dora. We were blessed with a shady picnic table and a medium-strong breeze all afternoon which kept temps down and bugs away.

Donna and I each had a goodie bag with several small gifts
for each other to make up for all the missed celebrations. It was also
her Birthday weekend coming up so we didn't want to miss that.

Looking towards the lighthouse, the shoreline is natural with lots of cattails and such.

One of the neat things about the park were all the large trees. There was one cluster that actually had a palm tree growing up out of the middle of it, and you can see how nice and shady it was at our table.

The guys talk car racing and stuff, while Donna digs for
 something in her purse. I'm just being a nuisance taking pics.

Palm tree just growing into the mass.

Lots of hills & small lakes dot the area near Ocala.

The Boss enjoying his new shirt.

In addition to that fantastic visit, I've lately had time to indulge in some canning, some floral work and some sewing fun.

First off, the canning. In the 2 freezers I had a stockpile of ground pork, ground Italian sausage and brats that I decided to can - there was no way to eat it all and it never hurts to have a few things on the pantry shelf.  It requires a hot pack, so browning it first and having some hot beef stock to cover the contents, then pressure canning for 75 minutes.

I've got this huge, deep wok-like pan which is great
for cooking up large quantities. Even so, I worked in batches.

Since meat shrinks when cooked, it ended up only being
enough for 6 pint jars (16oz).  Rainy day goodness.

I was also hit by a need of the Southern cooking variety, which lead to homemade cornbread, black-eyed peas over rice, and fresh spinach (in lieu of collards) to go with our roast pork. Yum, so good!

I fry up some chopped onions & add
minced garlic, then I use an envelope of 
onion soup mix and 1/2C water. 
Let it simmer a while.

More rescued straw baskets with their new and perky flowers. We use these all over, and they're especially nice on the back deck.

A nice pop of color and civility, lol.

Last topic, my purply-squares fabric project turned out to be a bed pillow sham. I liked it so much I made another using pastels and tried utilizing a geometric pattern instead of random like the first one. I like them both, and they didn't take a world of time either - win, win. Which do you like best?

Well, thanks for hanging out with me and catching up on my rather unexciting activities. Hopefully, next month we'll be out west and we should have some new scenery and stuff to talk about. Until then, see you next time.

Driveway/walkway freshen-up, gobble work and crafts

 Back in 2015, a couple of years after we switched to being part-time on the sailboat we had the driveway/walkway's refinished in a decorative concrete finish & sealer and it was quite an improvement. Here's the before/after for that.

A sad sight for sure - I hated those white rocks!

2015 - Quite a spiffy-up, looking good.

After many years that lace-like pattern trapped a ton of dust and dirt which hardened & turned it into a dirty looking mess, not to mention the surface cracks reappearing in the concrete. Going off and leaving it for several months at a time didn't help the situation. 😞 I got kind of fed-up about how bad it looked, so to stop my b*tching and complaining about it we bit the bullet and had a different treatment applied. No more dimples, instead a slate-like, smoother texture for easier maintenance.

Big-time pressure wash finished, and now fixing the cracks.

It took a week, luckily we had great weather, and it came out great! Ryan and his crew did a thoroughly professional job, and made no bones about getting our input all along the way to make sure we were happy. Looks a dream again now! 😍

I think I'm going to get some brick stain to breathe a little
life back into my brick paver edging, it's a little washed-out.

If you click on the picture you can see the grid lines & new texture.
Also, in between the 2 doors is the new-to-me floral arrangement.

On to other things that I've been spending time on. Remember that .49¢ per lb turkey I picked up before Thanksgiving? Well, I had to do something with it that didn't involve eating it - too much other stuff to try to eat up before decommissioning the freezers and heading out west. The solution; thaw it out, cut it up and pressure can it using the raw-pack method!

I have a separate piece of plastic I use over my craft table 
when I doing messy work. No lingering contamination that way.

I got 8 nice pint jars out of it and, as they say in the Islands,
"Dat Finish" - whew, happy to have that done, (it wasn't too bad).

Additional things I've been working on are silk floral arrangements, I'm a victim, really! I see these half-way decent straw basket/greenery projects at the thrift for $2.99 and I can't resist - it's a compulsion. 😁 Anyway, I have to bring them home with me and "fix" them. Here's my latest; unfortunately I didn't take a before pic showing all the bare stalks of  greenery in the pretty good basket. It looks quite nice now, I didn't spend more that a couple more bucks on it (Dollar Tree flowers, lol), and I'm using it in the courtyard.

Nice oblong straw basket, now full and pretty

Still on the puzzling train and enjoying it in between bigger projects. Here's the latest. Bigger than usual at 550 pieces, it took more time but was fun. Patsy (https://patsyischillin.blogspot.com/ ) could knock this out in a couple of hours, she's a master puzzler!

In the food arena, we had more beef pot pie, more cookies (pecan & chocolate chip macaroons) and fresh cornbread to go with our baked ham leftovers from the freezer.  I was mentioning to my sister that I may try to source some dry ice and pack an old Omaha Steak cooler with some of our frozen goodies - I still have quite a few steaks and center cut pork chops not to mention roast pork and baked ham. It would make for some easy meals if I could get it out there intact.

Edges got a little dark on me, boo.

A "half recipe" is perfect for us, we usually get at least 3 meals off it.

And finally, building some more fabric squares for some future project.  It's great busy-work and I enjoy it. I'm loving my puff quilt/pillow!

I guess it's going to be purply-blues this go round.

Thanks for the visit, hope to see you again sometime. In the meantime, take care, be safe, count your blessings and have a great day. 

Sewing Projects, and more Cooking Exploits

 I've been continuing to work on my various sewing projects and even to invest in some more colorful fabrics for quilts, trivets or whatever else I can dream up. When we head out west I will have a bag full of trivet supplies to take for my amusement. The quilt topper is finished and now I just need to sew on the backing. Being as this is the first quilt I've made, I am finding this last step a bit daunting. I'm using a fleece throw and I'm not sure how easy it will be to work around the edges with. I know, it's 85° out and I need a quilt why? 😀 It will look pretty on the bed during the day and on the floor at night, lol.

Crazy bright puff quilt topper - tada! Each fabric square represents
material I used to make a trivet with, so I love them all so much.

I had also decided to downsize my cross-body purse to something more dainty. The big one is great for travelling and has, in addition to the essentials, every manner of things in it, like lotion, mints, a nail file, meds, & wet wipes, but around town for errands, too big & unwieldy.

I happened upon some fairly decent looking faux leather fabric at Walmart and figured that would do fine. $5 later, here's what I ended up with, a quick little bag with velcro closure. It'll hold wallet, phone, keys, lipstick, advil and that's about it.

The other night after a big shopping day, (grocery, drugstore, library, et.al.), I was pooped so I pulled out of the freezer an old standby - a beef and black bean burrito.  Add the fancy Tex-Mex rice w/onions, corn and cheese & you've got a delicious gem. I use a combination of enchilada sauce & salsa, plus a dollop of the chipotle sauce mixed in as a topper while cooking.

Believe it or not, we get 1 dinner each and 1 breakfast (w/egg)
each and we still feel like we pigged out a bit. So good.

I've been tackling a few pressure canning opportunities as I find meat on sale, (Ms. Frugal here 😊), and this week I found 10# bags of chicken leg quarters on sale for $4.70 a bag! I bought 2. There are about 10 leg quarters per bag, and sure, they have a fair amount of skin/fat on them and may have come from older birds, but they're great in a casserole, a stew, or even pulled off the bone for burritos or chicken salad.  I set some aside raw to grill later, and froze a few too.

I chose quart-sized jars and got 5 quarts.
Each quart held something like 3-4 drums and 2-3 thighs.

I can them using the raw pack method, so after rinsing, I skin them, take off excess fat and cut the drum/thigh apart. Most of them have a small portion of the back attached (with the oyster), so I cut those off too and use them to make broth. Into clean jars, bone and all, with just a skosh of chicken stock and some salt. They cook in their own juices. Great to have a few of these handy for soups or easy meals.

And lastly on the food topics, I was (finally) on the other side of town within easy reach of this fantastic Oriental Market - they are huge and have been at that location for many years. I was on the hunt for dried mushrooms. After trying to source them online, I decided I'd rather pick them out in person, and at a better price.  Eons ago, I took a cooking class with the emphasis on Chinese dishes and enjoyed using Cloud Ear mushrooms. I have wanted to round up another package, so we made a stop. I bought 3 different types to try, as well as some ultra fresh bean sprouts. We'll see how they do.

2 different types of shitake's and one of the cloud ear
 (black fungus is how it's labelled).

The reason we were on the other side of town was to freshen-up the funerary flowers on the family plot. We try to get by a couple of times a year. I can't believe it's been 5 years since Ed's Mom passed, talk about time flying by.. we certainly still miss her!

Finally, from my Irish roots and for my Mom & Sister, both born on this date, I'd like to wish you a 

Well, that's about it for today, thanks for stopping by and check back again soon. Appreciate you taking the time to read it. 💚