Posted on 11/01/2026 6:19:40 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
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I got a 13.8 pounder this morning frozen for .49 a pound. Last years got made into turkey sausage, this year I am letting it thaw, deboning the breast meat and separating the legs and wings. And will refreeze. Will roast the meat for separate meals, half breasts, thighs, legs and wings. Will last all winter a little at a time. Good protein is hard to pass up at that price.
We had rain last night - it’s been very breezy yesterday & today so the leaves they are a fallin’.
Warm & little humid today, lots of gray clouds. I had cut my giant zinnia blooms to dry for seeds when we were supposed to get a freeze maybe 3 weeks ago - didn’t happen. The zinnias have bloomed again, so I cut more blooms today to dry. These are the zinnias I planted quite late, hoping for blooms before a frost/freeze so the planting was a total success. I was quite surprised to see my snap dragons are in full bloom again - I thought they were ‘goners’.
Mom is hard at work in the garage, sorting through boxes we moved from Old House - 3 piles taking shape: Habitat for Humanity in Big Town, Goodwill & another local place that takes donations. The goal is to make room for the car this winter. On the way home from dropping stuff off this afternoon, we’ll stop by the pumpkin place & pick some up to go in the newly empty hosta pots.
I am making chicken broth. Doing low FODMAP, I can’t buy chicken broth because it has high FODMAP ingredients like onion & garlic - bummer. My cousin’s wife gave me an Instant Pot a couple of years ago - older model. I have a couple of rotisserie chicken carcasses I froze for broth. I hope the IP works - would save me a lot of time.
The last 2 Christmas presents for the kids just got delivered so I’ll have to dig out my wrapping paper & tape. Once Thanksgiving & present delivery occurs, the ‘gift pressure’ will be gone.
My brother was getting down off his deer stand night before last when a 300 lb black bear came by! He doesn’t want to shoot bears & saw no deer so it was exciting, but not productive.
Oysters - lightly steamed, set on a saltine and doused with hot sauce.
I buy canned muscles occasionally and do the same. Sardines too.
Scallops I had forgotten about but we ate plenty of those and clams too of course. I don’t remember going clam digging but I know the family did.
I couldn’t stand the bellies so I got clam strips(necks) at HoJo’s aka Howard Johnson’s.
I do miss the seafood availability on the East Coast. Everything from the Northeast was available in FL too. Daily refrigerated trucks roll down I-95.
Yes there were some concerned people at Thanksgiving the years we were born. Is she gonna pop?
In our case, my mom was pregnant with me while my oldest sister was also pregnant. Who’s gonna pop first?
.
“In our case, my mom was pregnant with me while my oldest sister was also pregnant.”
Eeek! Well, at least no one had to deliver on the Thanksgiving Table, LOL!
I am in SUCH a mood to de-clutter. Well, I always am, but it hits much harder in the Fall. I have two boxes of ‘treasures’ for my SIL Gina’s vintage Booth. I really love shopping for her at Thrift Stores and she likes my style. I buy what *I* would have in my home.
Wow. A garage that can actually hold a car! What a concept. *SMIRK*
I can’t complain, though. I hear ‘construction sounds’ off the kitchen porch! Yay! :)
Got to the pumpkin & chrysanthemum ‘lot’ & it was sold out & totally empty! I couldn’t believe it. The next place was the country market down the road a bit & I figured they would be too expensive. We could see they definitely had pumpkins when we drove up. Perfect timing - pumpkins were on sale as they wanted to get rid of what they had. The big ‘carving’ pumpkins were a mere $2.00 each. Small (baseball - softball) size decorative little pumpkins & gourds were $1.00 each. We got 3 big pumpkins & 16 little ones. While inside paying, there was a ‘half bushel’ of pears from their property for $5.00. Mom has already peeled the pears & cooked them down. It was quite the haul!
It was misting the whole time we were there. The market cat came over to visit & then decided our (dry) car looked like a good place to be - I had the hatchback open so we could load pumpkins. The young woman who was on duty had to keep getting the cat out of our car - pretty funny. It’s a nice cat.
The Instant Pot chicken bone broth turned out great! So easy - dump in chicken carcass, tablespoon of vinegar & water. I did not add any aromatics. I did run the IP for 2 cycles of 120 minutes each. In between, I checked to see if I needed more water & it did not. The yield was 4.5 quarts of broth.
https://therealfooddietitians.com/how-to-make-instant-pot-bone-broth/
Thank you! I’ve been wanting to do two things with my Insta Pot - learn to make broth and to make yogurt.
‘Winter projects’ after the garden is put to bed. And the porch is finished. ;) Great progress today, though! Pictures soon!
If you need a cat I have TWO that I can send you! As soon as the weather turns, they will be inside most of the time and will be at each others THROATS.
There goes more crockery and table lamps! Four AM ‘Caged Death Matches’!
Yeah - I wouldn’t do that to you, LOL!
Hard experience...Shrimp, lobster, crab, all things for me to avoid. Hives, throat swells, breathing problwems. I have had Campbells Oyster soup and clam chowder when I was growing up, so maybe not a problem.
I have been a 2-cat household before. Fortunately, they mainly interacted by grabbing each other by the neck & trying to lick each other’s faces off!
One of the cats was trouble enough on her own (tortoiseshell & very smart), the other started life as a feral & kept a low profile. The tortoiseshell did things like poop on my den rug & chewed the ears off a horse statue (I discovered both at the same time) because I had started locking the cats out of my bedroom at night.
I get my cat ‘fix’ these days helping my cousin’s widow with her elderly cat that she tolerates because he was really my cousin’s cat. I built him a house out of an old Igloo cooler last year so he could stay outside at night & not pester her to go out at 2-3 in the morning. I also get him in the cat carrier & help her get him to the vet. He’s really a good cat & he likes me - greets me when I visit because he knows he’s going to get a good rub down of all his favorite spots!
I think i have russian red and some german but not certain but they do create large cloves also. They are hardnecks that i bought in several locations many years ago. I generally plant the largest cloves but given my odd harvest last spring I took the most unappetizing ones:). In spite of the temporary mold, the peeling, and otherwise looking degraded the plants seem to be thriving.
I remember your cat cooler house! That was ingenious.
It’s going to be too cold shortly for Dolly to stay out overnight in the doghouse I have for her. (She has wool blankies in there, too). I need to start taking her down to the barn at night so she can bunk with Schatze. They can keep each other plenty warm in the dog house inside the barn.
“Better” this morning, so far... Very poor at times, yesterday. :-(
Then again, now FR is really doggy again!
Oh. Lord.
If I do step 10 first, I won’t get to another step until March...
Hi, FF! I’ve sent you a PM!
All:
Although I did not get a lot of fruits (just one plant, and I waited a bit too long to put it in a bigger pot), the fruits from my “Coolapeño” pepper plant, once they turned red, were great! Very sweet, somewhat “fruity”, and mostly with few defects. Very little variation from fruit to fruit — none trying to bump up near Jalapeño heat. The plant just had a few more fruits turn red, with a couple more greenies still coming along: I brought it in last night* and we’ll see if it overwinters ok.
*Our frost last night was NOT as bad as forecast. NWS had predicted 30 deg. F and my best (and best located) outdoor (electronic) thermometer says we got down to 34.6 deg. NWS says the 5:53 a.m. temp. was 34.0 deg. F at their office. I probably should have tried to cover “everything” I couldn’t bring in, but only some of the fully exposed surfaces here had frost on them (our old popup camper’s roof gets frost on it B4 anything else.)
NWS presently forecasts 31 deg. F for us early tomorrow morning, so maybe the plants I did cover can pull through. Then it looks like the next (even colder) air gets here ~ next Friday. Golly, we have a lot of green tomato fruits still out there...
Oh, BTW, FF (and “All” too!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA
;-)
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