Gosh a lot can happen.....

On the farm a lot can get done in a few short weeks. Well everything but updating my blog of course. But you already knew that.
With the extremely dry summer we had been thinkin the whole dang garden might be a bust we have been blessed once again. We had far more corn than we needed and gave some to some friends that were short on corn, short as in knee high and not lookin promising. All the time I kept thinking maybe we would not have enough green beans to can for out food supply. Ended up we had far more than enough of those too. I think we have near 160 quarts of green beans canned. My bell peppers out did themselves this year. The plants were huge and so were the peppers. Two different time we picked 2 of the 5 gallon buckets of peppers and dried and froze them. I also have a gallon jug of dried cayennes that will last a few years. The jalapeno peppers did great too and I have plenty of those for poppers later. The carrots were not as good as I had hoped but we still have our years supply put up.The potato crop was not as bountiful as we had hoped but we will manage with what we have and be happy we had those with no rain. The sweet taters are still in and will get dug just before frost to prolong their storage life. The popcorn is lookin like it will be nice this year. The okra is still producing and I still need a bit more in the freezer for gumbo. I almost have all the stuff in for making gumbo to can so that will get done in a couple weeks for sure. The last bushel of beans we picked I am using to make shuck beans with. I like shuck beans but they are not a favorite of Rodgers.

With the hot dry summer and predicted low yield of crops in the western part of the country and potential for ever increasing food prices we decided to go ahead and make our trip to Sams club to stock up on things we dont grow or make here. Ends up, compared to most households we spend very little at the store. It may seem like a lot when we spend $300 at Sams but it has been 5 months since we have been there. Not to mention the stuff we bought will last probably 6 months or more. That averages out to around $50 a month. Now mind you we do buy a gallon of milk locally and very few other things, most of which are not necessities. Like coke to support my habit. I do like coke products and you get rewards points that I use for a lil splurge of ordering magazine subscriptions for free. With my points I have ordered 6 magazine subscriptions that didnt cost me anything out of pocket. Anyway back to the stuff we do buy, such as flour in 25 lb bags, sugar, coffee, rice, well you get the idea, just basics. Our total monthly average outlay for purchased food stuffs is close to $100 a month and that would include coke and milk and ocassionally chips or buns, thing we could live without if need be. Not bad to be able to eat mostly organic home grown food including meats. I think we do pretty well here.

It has been a hard month for me as far as medical condition goes. New state law is not conducive to providing pain management for those of us who take our meds as we should and dont abuse them. So it has been a long painful process of trying to can and take care of things here with no means of reducing the pain from the RA and fibro. Sure makes for some long nights when ya cant sleep for hurting. I do see the RA doc on Thursday so maybe he can do something different this time. I can only hope. The fatigue is awful most days. But I manage one day at a time and hope the next day is better.

It is gettin late and there are things to do tomorrow, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella