Thriving In my thrifty Week–August 3, 2019

We spent a day enjoying OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). The submarine tour was especially interesting to our crew, as we had never been on that before. Between a friend who had a reciprocal pass and my sister’s membership, Patsy and I were able to tag along.

My sister bought us all tickets to see the Science of Pixar exhibit at OMSI. The kids loved it because it showed how so many of their favorite characters were engineered and had hands-on activities for them to do.

It was a beautiful day. I enjoyed the river and the bridges. I don’t go to Portland very often, and I am seldom in a place where I can just gaze at this sight.

I worked like crazy before and after OMSI, because the peaches were going, going…..and soon would be rotten…….I did get 17 jars of jam made, froze some, and Rob froze the rest while Patsy and I were gone. I was so glad that I got to them before they went bad. Peach jam is one of our absolute favorite kinds. I will use the frozen ones for smoothies. I will can another kind later in the summer.

During the summer, Michaela usually only hangs around with Rob for one day a week, Thursday. He takes her to Horses of Hope first, then to volunteer at 50 +, and then brings her here for a bit, then home. We have declared Thursday to be “wash the dog day” because she so longs to wash dogs:). So, once again, she and Patsy gave the dog a good bath, making Michaela happy, and saving us money at the same time.

We returned lots of bottles and cans, most of which were given to us, to put in our vacation fund. To make it stretch even further, we put the money on the Bottle Drop account, removed that amount of money from my grocery envelope and put the cash into the vacation fund, and then use the Bottle Drop 20% extra feature at the grocery store to get a few more groceries each time. If you don’t have Bottle Drop where you live, this may not make sense, but basically if you leave the money on your card and use it at a participating store, you get 20% extra store credit.

In the garden, things continue to ripen, and a few new seeds have sprouted. These are green onions. I hope to have a row next to the edge that will overwinter as they did a couple of years ago. These seeds were saved from those green onions, so I’m not out anything if it doesn’t work. I have baby lettuce, a few green beans, and a few more pickling cucumbers coming up for fall eating.

I have been picking cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, beets, broccoli side shoots, and herbs.

Patsy needed shorts. Rob found some jeans at a thrift store for $1 in her size. I took 2 pairs of them and cut them off. One I hemmed, and the other I just sewed around so she could fray them up to the sewed line.

It’s a busy time of year!

6 thoughts on “Thriving In my thrifty Week–August 3, 2019”

  1. Well done on getting the peaches preserved. It often feels like a race this time of year, doesn’t it?! “Wash the Dog Day” made me laugh. Nice to have someone that likes to do it! Flea beetles have been chewing on our fall greens. We need to figure out a solution.

    1. Good luck figuring out the flea beetle solution! It’s annoying to have holes in all the boc choi, which is what gets eaten like mad around here. Pretty soon there are more holes than greens!!!

      Michaela thrives on routine. She is very happy when we get”stuck in a rut” as the rest of us would call it. To her, it’s heaven:). So she loves things like “wash the dog day,” “horses day,” etc. She would love it to be “Go to McDonald’s day,” every day, but we won’t get into that routine!

  2. I just sat down to rest my feet from processing garden food and wanted to see what you were up to. It seems everyone in the world (my favorite blogs are all frugal topics) is putting up food for winter. A bit of an exaggeration, I know, but wouldn’t it be great if it was true? I suppose I am prejudice and think garden food is the best.

    Seeing your little seedlings are getting me in the mood to plant something for winter. It is blazing hot outside, weeds are rampant and the produce is piled high in the kitchen and I am wanting to add more work to my to-do list.

    I always get inspired to do more when I see what you have accomplished. Just ignore me

    Jeannie@GetMeToTheCountry

    1. Thanks, Jeannie! You may notice I’m not paying as much attention to the blog as usual–there’s just nothing like a huge pile of green beans or cucumbers to distract my attention:). What are you preserving these days?

      1. Obviously quite a bit since I am almost a month behind at replying to your message! Right now it is green beans, pickles (bought cucumbers at Aldi), Dixie Butterpeas (will be eaten not canned). Pesto is on the to-do list and I want to make “Veg-all” . It is jars full of mixed vegetables from the garden that are used for pot pies and soups. Tomatoes, peppers, and onions will be made in to salsa. I also need to can tomatoes for soups but I don’t know if there will be enough left over. We eat so many fresh.
        Lemongrass, feverfew and basil need, no MUST be dehydrated today. I awoke early and went out on the back deck to look for the armadillo and now I can’t get back to sleep. I am waiting for the sun to come up so I can get out and water…again!
        Yesterday I picked: watermelon, one soft cantaloupe (may not be edible) onions, butterpeas, Swiss Chard, sugar beet leaves (are digging the roots one at a time), one black futsu squash (if that is what it is) because it had a soft spot, tomatoes, peppers. I held off picking green beans because the refrigerator is full. Okra is coming in and it needs to be rolled in cornmeal to be frozen…but first I need to grind more corn for the cornmeal. There is a gallon of milk sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be made into yogurt.
        I keep a different kind of bean cooked and ready to eat in the refrigerator all the time. I love fresh beans and can eat them every day. There are TWO yellow squash waiting for me to make a casserole today. (Notice I said “yellow squash”).
        I try to eat as much fresh every day as possible. My new freezer is smaller than the older one and I feel the difference.
        Time to get the spotlight flashlight and go check to see if the armadillo ripping up the garden.
        Jeannie

        1. You have so many pests that bother your garden! We have slugs that are eating almost all my strawberries before I can pick them, but they seem small compared to hole-digging armadillos! Yikes!!

          You are definitely in the middle of a canning frenzy, that’s for sure. I am trying to get what I can preserved. My garden looks awful–lots of spent bushes and weeds, but that’s how it goes–I either preserve food I’ve harvested or weed, so at this time of year, I choose to preserve:). Of course, I admit, I’ve taken off quite a bit of time lately for other pursuits. But, hey, those weeds will still be waiting for me when I get to them, and I get a few bucketsful every couple of days.

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