Wednesday on the Homestead

-



Good morning friends! I hope your week is going great. My week has been busy but not with a lot of excitement. I guess that good in many ways. 

Yesterday was a very long day in town. We are looking to buy a riding lawn mower. We have about 5 acres of our property that is grass and needs to be mowed. Hubby has always done this with his tractor.  It's a very big job for him on top of working full time.  I have the time to help now with this and we figured the riding mower would be a good idea as I'm not really into driving his big tractor around :D.  

We spent the day in town looking at a TON of mowers.  



Hubby took notes and information on all the mowers he was interested in.  As a mechanic by trade he looks at a lot of details.  We haven't made a decision on one yet. 

Do you have a riding mower? What do you have? What do you like or dislike about it?  Any input would be appreciated.  :)

Other than that busy day in town my week has been spent mostly at home.  We had a gorgeous weekend and I enjoyed getting out and walking and soaking up some sunshine.  



Goals
Today we have an appointment in town but that shouldn't take to long and I plan on getting a few things done around here:

~sweep & mop kitchen floor
~finish cleaning the bathroom - I started some spring cleaning in my bathroom and got most of it done, I need to go through a couple drawers and clean them out and scrub the tile in my shower, mop the floor and then I will be done
~dinner preps - baked spaghetti is on our menu this evening


For the Love of Books!
I finally had time to read :). Always makes me happy. I finished Agatha Christie's book The Mysterious Affair at Styles and as with all her books, I loved it. I started reading Around the World in 80 days by Jules Verne and am really enjoying it.


Projects
My biggest project for the next week or so is spring cleaning. When the bathroom is done I need to clean up my sun room. Lots of dust and mess. I have my grandchildren's toys in that room and I need to go through them and reorganize them.



Fitness and Health
I didn't get out and hike this weekend, which was ok. I still had a few muscles that were healing from my last hike. I did get out and walk and walk and managed to get my 10000 steps in on several days. With today's weather I'm not sure if I'll get out and walk, but I want to.  I may be walking in the rain :D.



View from my Deck
It's cool, cloudy and windy this morning. The forecast is for clouds and showers today. 



Today's weather: High: 60   Low:  44



That's all for this week my friends,
Crystal

Comments

  1. Leah SpencerApril 3, 2019 at 11:02 AM

    I purchased a Cub Cadet last summer, just under 12 hours of use so far. I'm happy with it and don't wish for a different one.

    A few annoyances/issues I've ran into are: 1. shutting off when you get out of the seat. Sometimes I just want to lean over to move a stick out of the next row's path and it starts to shut down. 2. We've had a couple traction issues, one when we were trying to use it to pull out a fence post - it just doesn't have the weight to pull. It didn't do well on the snow (no chains) and got stuck. And most recently was when I was driving into a ditch to dump a load of wood chips (we have a dump trailer that we can tow on the riding lawn mower) and was having trouble driving out due to lack of tire traction.

    But as a lawn mower, there's been no problems.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalApril 3, 2019 at 8:24 PM

      Thank you Leah 😊 I appreciate this
      Crystal 😊

      Delete
  2. RebeccaHApril 3, 2019 at 11:11 AM

    We could never keep a riding or gas powered mower mowing for very long, too expensive to get it fixed every time. We gave them away and now mow when we mow with an electric one. Love it and much quieter iwhich is what country living is all about. Thank you for all you share. I enjoy your entries very much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalApril 3, 2019 at 8:27 PM

      Thank you Rebecca for sharing this... I could see the appeal of electric.. we have 5 acres to mow and we were told 2 acres is the most for an electric mower.
      Crystal 😊

      Delete
  3. AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 11:11 AM

    I love the updates! I wanted to mention that I've read a few of the book rec from your blog! Also, I have found your youtube videos helpful! Would you consider doing some more? Katie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalApril 8, 2019 at 5:35 PM

      Hi Katie 😊 l have thought about more YouTube.. I started my channel, then life got a bit crazy as I was finishing up with homeschooling my last couple of children.. then health issues. Now that I'm past this, it's certainly been on my mind. 😊

      Delete
  4. KathyApril 4, 2019 at 5:14 PM

    Our yard is so small I do it with a weed whacker in 10 minutes. Literally!

    My sister loves Agatha Christie. She has read all of her books. I have read some and although I enjoy them, she isn't my favorite author.

    Spring cleaning. I have to get started on that too.

    I always love the view from your deck. So pretty!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalApril 8, 2019 at 5:39 PM

      That's great on the size of your yard 😀..

      I'd love to know some of your favorite authors 😊
      Crystal 😊

      Delete

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this ...
Read more

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine...
Read more

Canning Beef Stew

-
Image
In my last blog post I shared that I had bought 10 pounds of beef roast. I cut it all up and used 4 pounds in 2 crockpot freezer meals ( http://homesteadinghomemaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/two-more-crockpot-meals-for-freezer.html ) . I used the other 6 pounds of meat along with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery to can beef stew. Here were the general proportions I used in canning 7 quarts of beef stew.. 6# beef 2# potatoes 2# carrots 1# onions 1# celery After I cut up the meat and got the freezer meals done I moved to the beef stew. I peeled and cut up the potatoes and carrots. I chopped up the onions and sliced the celery. I pulled out 3 quarts of veggie stock from my freezer to use for liquid in the stew. You can use beef or chicken stock or you can use water. I did not add anything to thicken the liquid as usually thickeners don’t hold up in canning. You can thicken the broth after it is opened if you would like. I added 1 teaspoon salt to each of my ...
Read more