Month: December 2022

Happy New Year

I found this lovely inspirational poem this morning with an unknown author which is sad because it says it all for what I wish for all of you on this eve of a New Year 2023!!

A NEW YEAR BLESSING

(AUTHOR UNKNOWN)
At the sound of the tolling midnight bell
a brand-new year will begin.
Let’s raise our hopes in a confident toast,
to the promise it ushers in.

May your battles be few, your pleasures many,
your wishes and dreams fulfilled.
May your confidence stand in the face of loss
and give you the strength to rebuild.

May peace of heart fill all your days
may serenity grace your soul.
May tranquil moments bless your life
and keep your spirit whole.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Pay It Forward Day

I’m starting some new things for 2023 along with my Bucket List which I revised today after seeing it on paper it was a bit repetitive!! One of the other new things will be “Pay It Forward Day” which can be any day of the week or month. Since I’m not going out much these days, I’ll be writing lots of short notes to people that mean a lot to me. I’ll thank them for being a part of my life! I think I’ll be doing this at night when things are quiet, and I can really think about what the notes should say.

Some simple ideas that take hardly any time, effort or money might be:

Offer to return shopping carts for people at the grocery store

In heavy traffic, let someone out of a parking lot, you’ve stopped for a light anyway

If someone is short of change in front of you, offer the change they may need or if they only have a couple items let them through ahead of you

On baking day, take a loaf of bread or cookies to a neighbor

Compliment a parent on a well-behaved child

Leave a kind server a smile and the best tip you can afford, compliment them on their service

Thank a nurse or doctor for their care, these days that’s rare

Send a “thank you” note to the officers of your local sheriff’s department or firemen. How long does it take to write “thank you”! Same goes for the local linemen and telephone workers.

Take muffins or cookies to your local librarian

The list goes on and on and in this world acts of kindness go far and mean so much!! A smile goes even further, so what if they cause wrinkles!!!

Thank a cashier for helping you and let them know you appreciate them so much more than checking yourself out, they’re so much faster.

2023 BUCKET LIST

This morning’s chores are done, and I’ve been organizing a closet and packing up clothes I haven’t worn in two years and donating them. While doing that I thought you should do something like this at least once a month and my life my become a bit simpler. This is what I came up with, my 2023 Bucket List. I do love a challenge!!

BUCKET LIST FOR 2023

  • Clean out one closet, chest, dresser once a month for a year. Donations are wanted everywhere.
  • Go somewhere that you’ve never been in your area once a month. Take a photo to commemorate the daytrip’s.
  • Call a long distant friend or family member once a month.
  • Put a certain amount into your savings account ($5, $10, 25, $50, whatever you can afford) once a month.
  • Write a handwritten “thank-you” note to someone once a month.
  • Thoroughly clean one room in the house once a month for the year. Organize, decorate, or change things up.
  • Read 24 books in 52 weeks. This may be a challenge with all that’s on this list.
  • Make a list of 10 small things that you enjoy doing, and make sure that you do at least one of those things once a month. Make something creative.
  • Have a picnic with your better half once a month.
  • Go for a good walk once a week with your hubby, kids, grandchildren, dog or friend.
  • Try making a new recipe once a month.
  • Grow something new in the greenhouse once a month from April through September.

A New Page and More Recipes

The last few days it’s been a little chilly in my little office, but I’ve stayed long enough to add a new page to my blog and also some new recipes. Hope you enjoy!! Click on the picture and see what you think. If you want advance notice of new posts and recipes just click on the “Follow Living the Country Life My Way on WordPress.com” on the right side of the posts.

Cellar Inventory

We have our first winter storm heading this way for the Christmas season, and we think we’re ready for it. The worst part will be the single digit temperature and 40 mph winds.

One of the things I had to do was go to the cellar and stock up on things on our menu for the next 7-10 days. I was shocked!! One of the green bean shelves was empty and I didn’t realize that I had cooked them up so fast!!! They were canned in 2020 and as fresh as if I had just picked them from the garden and cooked on the stove for dinner.

I thought I had taken a photo of what was in the cellar at end of gardening season, but I can’t put my eyes on it so I’m using the 2021 photo to explain. The bottom two shelves of green beans were three shelves, and the potatoes were in another area. At the moment the shelf with the potatoes is now empty of green beans. I’m shocked and planning for the next gardening season will be including enough green beans to fill up that shelf.

The dry beans that I canned is now down to half so in the near future I will be looking for about five pounds each of pinto, great Northern and yellow-eyed peas and will can them in early spring while things are relatively quiet. I believe we’ll have plenty of potatoes to do the winter and still have some to can while waiting on 2023 taters!!

I have about 15 quarts of tomato juice from 2021 that I want to cook up as pizza and tomato sauce and those will be done when I can’t get outside to help the Mr.

Like gathering firewood for next year, I will be accessing the needs for the cellar and produce to sell. Hopefully, we’ll have a better growing season than 2022 was with sparse rain and high temps. Climate change is real!!!

Rudy, the New Rooster

Click on the photo to see “the rest of the story”!

I would like to introduce our newest rooster which was raised on the farm by one of my Barred Rock hens, Blue and his name is Rudy. His mother was a Barred Rock that was given to me by a friend along with four of her siblings. They all lay beautiful large brown eggs, when they’re not molting and lots of the eggs are double yoke’s, great when baking.

This isn’t a very good photo of him and he’s much larger than he appears, but he is young.

The other roosters, were recycled into jerky for Sadie. One was two years old with huge spurs and he tortured all of the hens. When he crowed it sounded like someone trying to scream in a deep voice. You could hear him a mile away.

The other two were siblings of Rudy and I didn’t need four roosters on the farm. I think I picked the best roo for the farm and our hens. Barred Rocks are gentle and lay beautiful eggs, though Rudy won’t but I do have some hens that go broody in early summer.

I’m sure you’ll be seeing more photos and tales of Rudy as he matures.

Pullets Are Laying

My April chicks are laying beautiful brown, green and white eggs.

We have been using a lot of my duck eggs the past month and very few chicken eggs. It’s baking time and the pullets picked a great time to start producing. Today we got five chicken eggs and two duck eggs. There’s nothing better than fresh eggs. If they keep this up on a regular basis, I’ll have eggs to sell to pay for winter feed when they can’t get out to forage.

These little beauties, the lighter two, are feeding us well.

First Ice Event Winter 2022-23

We’ve had worse but this is bad enough. 31* and ice everywhere.
It got so cold so fast this morning that Old Glory froze solid in the wind. She’s froze solid!!
The trees are covered with ice and the power keeps blinking.
It took 15 minutes for the ice to melt off the truck with the defroster going full blast.

It’s still 31* at 12:19 p.m. and sleeting heavy with rain. Everyone be safe out there. I just saw on Weatherbug that our area will get hit with it again next Thursday.

Shingles and the Vaccine, Don’t Wait

This is a repeat with explanations from a post on my old blog but is very much worth repeating and encouraging, I hope!

Shingles rash that I thought was a heat rash!

Back in early 2021, I was planning to get my shingles vaccine and then COVID came into our county with a vengeance, so I decided to wait because I was afraid to go to any public places with good reason. I got shingles while I waited.

We didn’t know what was going on because I was having so much pain in my back but there was no rash. It got so bad after three days that Eddie took me to the emergency room. There I was given so much pain medication I was throwing up for hours after and x-rays were completed, and an MRI was done. NOTHING! More pain meds and sent me home with what they assumed was a herniated disc and advised me to go to my primary care.

My visit there was a thorough check, and a small rash was found on my upper thigh, but she still wanted me to go to the orthopedic specialist to check on my back. Appointment was made and my daughter took me.

The specialist was a recovering cancer patient who was training a young student. We talked about what I had been seen for and without even examining me he was convinced I had shingles, was very concerned for himself and his student (neither had ever had chicken pox) and got me out of there as fast as possible.

We called my PCP, and she ordered a prescription for a shingles med (can’t remember what, at this point) and three weeks later, no pain. I was told I should wait a couple months after it was gone before I got the vaccine. I was determined to never go through that mess ever again and in the meantime to stay out of the public unless absolutely necessary because of Covid.

Due to the pandemic the vaccine was delayed until 2022 and I made the appointment for the first vaccine in April of 2022, first vaccine was $197, and I received the second shot in July of 2022 for $200. Regular Medicare does not pay for shingles vaccine, so therefore, Medicare supplements don’t either!!!

This is an expensive vaccine but worth the cost to keep from going through that pain ever again. My advice, get it while you can and don’t wait until you are 65 or older. Get it while you have other health insurance, don’t wait for Medicare because it’s NOT covered unless you have different coverage that what I had. Why wait??? A prick of a needle is nothing compared to excruciating pain!!

DAISY DUCK

She left me way too soon! We got Daisy several years ago from friends that need to scale down their animals. She came to us with eight to ten other Pekin ducks, but she was special because she was crippled when we brought her home. I’ve no idea what was wrong with her, but we gave her special care. She started laying beautiful large white eggs almost immediately and up until the last year she was here only taking a four to six week break between spring and summer.

Because it was so hard for her to walk, we kept a small pool close by for her enjoyment.

On the morning of August 2oth, she came out of the duck house and found her soft tuft of grass she sat in every day and an hour later she had stretched her head back over neck like a regal swan and she was gone!! Sadie had gone and sit with her knowing something was wrong. I really missed her huge white eggs and her soft quacking in the mornings wanting to be released from her shelter. She is gone but will not be forgotten!!!

My beautiful Daisy

Christmas Card from Brother

I got this adorable Christmas card from my youngest brother last week and fell in love with him all over again. He lives at an assisted living facility in Covington and we have grown closer over the years. He colored the front and drew the picture on the back. This will be one of my treasures from him forever!! Merry Christmas Dean!!!!

Baking Day

Yesterday I woke up in the mood for blueberry cobbler and boy is it good. BUT I went overboard, made a pecan pie and a chocolate pie! Now, just guess who’s going to eat all of that????

I will add the recipes to my cooking page sometime this week, but I really need to get out of the house or I’m going to be as big as a barn by the end of this winter!!!!

The Old Woman Is Back on Her Feet

A week ago today, I went down and thought I wasn’t going to get up!! I had a condition, that I was not aware of, called Baker’s Cyst. Baker’s cysts are fluid-filled lumps or sacs that form behind your knee. This condition can be caused by a knee injury or a condition like arthritis.

I’ll not go into a long story about this but will tell you it was painful for me. I thought it was just arthritis in my knee joints and it kept me awake about 10 nights before the day it ruptured. When that happened, I was taking a step down from our front porch with a bucket of wood ash in my hand. It felt like an explosion behind my kneecap that flowed around to the front of my leg and down the shin to the top of my foot. It took my breath away and a few words out of my mouth that were not nice. I tried to proceed on down the yard to the garden to dump the ash, but the pain got worse causing faintness and severe pain, so I slowly and very painfully headed back in the house and called the doctor’s office in town. I was home alone!! I called our daughter and she came to my rescue. I spent the next four days using a walker to get around, taking Tylenol and anti-inflammatory meds and lots of icing on a raised leg.

Google the cyst and you’ll find lots of information about it, most of the time they don’t burst but I guess I pushed the “arthritis” just a bit far. I’ve learned the hard way to listen to my body when it speaks and don’t wait for it to speak loudly!!!

I’m back on my feet but not venturing out of the house too far and especially not without someone knowing where I’m at. Glad to be back and hope you pay attention to your body!!

Today I’ve added more recipes to the blog and will probably post another story later today.

Happy Sunday!!!

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