In The Refiner's Fire

Our garden produce from the 13th of October.  The weather is so weird here - last week I was harvesting garden produce, today we received about 4 inches of heavy wet snow! October snow of this magnitude is not common in Minnesota, though a "dusting" is not unheard of.  It should melt and be warm enough to stay snow-less for the next week or two.  I am sincerely hoping to have no significant snow until after Thanksgiving again!   We are working on eating the things in our freezers that need to be cooked in the oven or on the stove top as we are heading toward a time when we will not have a working stove top or oven for up to six weeks.  I have several things that can easily go in the slow cooker and we have an electric skillet.  We will need to be creative!  In the meantime, I am enjoying the food we are making! Here is what we are eating this week: Sunday, October 18:           Brunch: Eggs, Toast and Smoothies   ...

My entire 2020 Carrot harvest. Ha!  We have had lovely, lovely weather this week!  It has been right about 70F (~21C) and sunny.  The fall colors on the tree leaves are amazing and I have been trying to spend as much time as I can outside.  We started the fall yard work for the year - raking leaves, cleaning up flower and vegetable beds and turning and adding compost and fresh dirt.  We have two beds completely done and the first round of leaves raked.  John and I and Buddy and I have taken several walks this week and John and Missy have been running regularly.  I have also enjoyed many a cup of coffee on my patio while doing email or reading.  It has been lovely.  I am hoping it lasts a few more weeks!  This week I harvested the winter squash and my three lonely, tiny carrots you see above.  I planted an entire package of carrot seeds this year, thinking I would get enough to can.  Most never came up.  I was going to repl...

  Man, this week was a rough week.  A lot of the overtime at work has caught up with me and I had the worst PHN flare I've had in almost two years.  I knew things were getting stressful but I did not realize how much.  I don't know about you, but I feel like 2020 has been a year of three steps forward, two steps backward, and then something veers right or left or up or something.  I am sure some extra sleep will help, as will taking an evening off but the truth of the matter is that my workload currently is unsustainable.  I have several co-workers who are "retiring" or choosing not to renew at the end of their contract or the school year or the term.  Next term could be a real mess if enough people do not continue.  While tempting, I still have more days when I enjoy my work than not.  Until that changes, I will push forward.  With my PHN flare and all the work this week, it seems like we did not do much that was frugal.  We did do...