Staycation 2020! - Part 1

It is hard to believe that just a year ago we were on our much awaited family vacation to Disneyland.  This year's vacation pales in comparison, no doubt about that, however it is good to have some time away from work and the opportunity to really enjoy being in my home.  I thought I would share with you the highlights of what I did each day.  Some of you may find this entirely boring and that is fine.  Skip it and I my feelings will not be hurt.

Day 1 - My vacation officially began at 4:30 in the afternoon when I got off work.  Friday evening I cooked up ten pounds of ground turkey and took some homemade turkey broth from the freezer which I heated to a boil.  I canned seven pounds of the ground turkey in broth and turned the rest into sloppy joes which I also canned.  I was up until 1:30 in the morning finishing my jars off in my pressure canner before I headed to bed.  I possibly should've have thought more about taking on this project in the evening, but since I didn't have to work in the morning it worked out okay.

Day 2 - Saturday morning I was up early with less than a full night's sleep, but eager to get my day started.  I headed off to Fred Meyer with a short list to pick up butter on sale for $1.99 a pound and sour cream for $1 a container.  While I was there I picked up 2 bags of marked down apples for $1 each and a package of toilet paper, because why not?

Once my girls were up and around I made us all a waffle and eggs brunch before the oldest headed out the door to go to work.  The youngest and I were excited to go thrift store shopping.  I was on the hunt for canning jars and she was on the hunt for books.  I found nineteen canning jars to add to my collection including a few vintage jars, which I love.  She found some books that piqued her interest and I found three quilting books that piqued mine.  The hardback books were $1.49 each and paperbacks were 99¢.  We felt like we'd snagged a bargain and after visiting six shops we called it a day and headed for home.

On the way home we stopped at another Fred Meyer to pick up some ice cream.  My daughter wanted an ice cream cone and since we have cones in the pantry all we needed was something to stick in it and I knew ice cream was on sale for $1.79 a carton.  We made a quick trip through the produce section on the way to the ice cream freezer and found several more bags of apples and a bag of bell peppers in their markdown bin.  Yay, yay, yay!

At home we had a quick bite and my youngest got her ice cream cone before she headed out the door to work that evening.  While she was gone I washed my "new" canning jars and then got busy and sliced up eleven apples to load up the dehydrator which ran overnight and dried them to perfection.  My girls love the dried apples I've been making so I want to do up as many as I can so they have plenty for snacking.

"You're still here?"

Day 3 - I told myself that I was going to take it easy on Sunday and slept in until 9:00 that morning.  It is rare that I sleep in, especially that late, but it certainly felt good to do so this time.  I got up and brewed myself a fresh pot of coffee, unloaded and reloaded the dehydrator and then relaxed and did some writing, planning and financial planning.

 

Before it pretty much looked like we just tossed stuff in there
Maybe because that is pretty much what we did

All tidied up with boxes labeled and even some space to add more

It is hard for me to sit for very long so before I knew it I was up and had started a load of laundry and then took everything out of the hall closet.  I re-organized it, labeling some boxes of stored items so I now have a much better idea of what is inside of them and got everything put away so the closet is now much more accessible and functional.  It even looks good too.  I am very happy with it now.  And in the process I found two cases of quilted jelly jars I had forgotten I had put in there!  I was contemplating buying some more of those too.  That made the job totally worth it!!

Day 4 - I was up early while the girls slept in and brewed a fresh pot of coffee.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous so I opened up the back door and let the fresh air in enjoying the chirping birds and my clucking chickens.  I unloaded and reloaded the dehydrator with the last of our markdown apples we had purchased and because I had a little bit of space left on one of the trays I sliced up and added three bananas too.

Something is chewing on our new strawberry plants!  Grrrrr!!

Some bug or something chewed up the new strawberry starts, some down to the ground.  I had a tiny bit of the organic insecticide left in the bottle so I added some warm water to it and gave it a good shake to loosen it up.  It is a super sticky concentrate.  I poured some of the solution into a watering can and used that to cover what is left of my plants.  I am hopeful they are able to come back.  Dang it all to heck!!

Turning in the soil with compost added

Not to be deterred however I decided to get dressed and get outside to do some work in my garden.  After a couple days without rain the soggy mucky mess was workable and I decided to get busy and get the soil in the raised beds turned.  I discovered that if I skimmed a bit off the top of each of the old raised beds I had the soil I needed to top off the new raised bed.  Yay!

It is starting to look almost pretty back here!

I added stones to edge the raspberry patch and pulled up another huge pile of weeds from our yard.  I picked a bunch of milkweeds and dandelions for the hens, which they were thrilled about.  After a break and some keto coffee it was time to get planting!

Not too shabby and there are actually seeds in the ground

I planted my tomatoes I started from seeds this spring as well as peas, carrots, beans, beets, radishes, squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelon.  I have zero hopes any of it will grow so keeping my expectations low.  You never know.  Something could actually happen.

All of these items were FREE!  With our Monopoly ticket winnings!

My daughter had to be at work at 2:00 so I took her to work and we did a little shopping to use up a stack of FREE item coupons we had accumulated playing their Monopoly game.  We came across some markdown ground turkey sausage so we grabbed that as well as some toilet paper to add to our prepper pantry.

Who would've thought this would be such a hot commodity?!

I will continue this with another post soon as it is becoming exceedingly lengthy.  So stay tuned to what I did next if you are at all interested.