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I'm sorry to hear about Charles' infection. It's good to hear he is improving.  

I'm thinking I will can water to store.  Although I have a hand pump on my well, having clean water right at hand would be most helpful for such things as eating and drinking.  

I've been discouraged about my garden lately.  I found nematodes have attacked a second raised bed.  I will keep at it, but the UFAS website has made it clear that getting rid of them is difficult.  They say the old remedies, such as planting certain marigolds, only work with certain types of nematodes, and apparently, there are a number of differing types.  I'm not ready to give up, however. I will be adding compost, as nematodes dislike it, but I will have to buy it and it may not work all that well.  I've never had much luck composting myself- I always end up with fire ant nests in it, even using a rolling tumbler.

We recently celebrated a family birthday, and I fed a group of seven adults and four children with one small chicken; I made old fashioned chicken and dumplings, which the birthday honoree loves.  My grandmother, (born 1896) always made them from just flour, salt and hot broth from the bubbling pot, then rolled the dough out thin and cut it in strips, and I learned that method from her.  It's an old way to feed more people with less expense but more labor, which I am willing to do.  I am looking at making more of other recipes that we used to eat more often because they stretched the food budget so well.

I am developing a few more old-time routines, but my best routine still so far is avoiding the dryer.  It's automatic these days for me to use the line outside or use the indoor racks.  I think I have used my dryer twice this past year.  I also hand wash much more than I used to and use my portable wringer to wring out the hand-washed laundry.

I'm still working away at improving my sewing skills.  I also took an herbalist course a few years ago so that I know how to make some things such as elderberry tonic, fire cider and how to use yarrow to stop bleeding.  I grow as much of the ingredients as I can.

I recently learned to sharpen my own knives.  The places near me that sharpen knives charge up to 75 cents per inch of blade, and I have six kitchen knives I use a lot, so that would be quite the expense.  I am pleased to see that I am improving and now sharpen them regularly.  My late DH was very handy with many things, but he never learned to sharpen knives for some reason, so I never learned from him.

I have some new projects to start in addition to getting my kitchen redone, so the next couple of months will be busy.  I will continue to stop by here for inspiration.  I hope everyone is doing well.

We've been thinking about storing water too! We needed to change our plan since we don't get water delivered anymore. I have a few large-ish jars we fill when the electricity goes out, but it's far from enough. I read that it's recommended to have a gallon of water a day per person, with a 14-day supply on hand. For us, it means nine 5-gallon bottles, but the first thing I did was buy a waterBOB. It's a food-grade plastic liner you put in your bathtub when the power goes out, and you cross your fingers and hope the water stays on long enough to fill it from the tub faucet to get it full to (allegedly) 100 gallons of water. It comes with a pump to get the water out. It only cost $35, so I thought it was worth the money. Naturally it's no good if a disaster knocks out the water first thing, but for $35, I thought it was worth taking a chance on, since that's a lot of water for washing clothes and things. 

My husband wasn't particularly impressed with my waterBOB, though he admitted it could be useful. He wanted those nine 5-gallon bottles, filled and waiting. I told him how much 5-gallon glass bottles cost, and after he got up from his faint, he liked the $35 waterBOB more than he did before. Literally after I hung up the phone from having this water conversation with him, I went to the mailbox and there was a refund check from the insurance company because when we replaced our hail-damaged roof a couple of months ago, we put on the hardened kind of roof, and now we get a discount on our policy. So I called my husband back and told him that the insurance company just paid for our first four water bottles. Except that two days later the price had gone up $12 a bottle, and we could only get three! But it's a start. My husband suggested filling them at one of those water machines, so I found one in the next town over, and it's only a few dollars to fill each bottle. We came up with a plan of rotating our filling once we have all nine, so we didn't have to keep doing it all at once. And how we would use our bee wagon to get the full bottles from the store to the car. 

We still have to buy six more bottles, but at least we've got a good plan. I feel more secure. 

The video about Eva was so touching! 

And this from the 2017 post:

"There are droughts, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, pest attacks, epidemics, unexpected job losses and the threat of terrorism and war going on all the time.  We all need to arrange our priorities to keep a stocked pantry even if we do not have a pantry because we can find a place to put the stock.  Keep a stocked first aid kit and medical needs stored and have drinking water stored (especially important) and not put off doing these things.  Have an evacuation plan to where if we must leave our home we leave with provisions and shelter (we keep a tent with our evacuation supplies)."

It was written before the wars and covid! Before the US ran out of money and AI became a danger to us! I don't even want to think about what it might be like ten years from now! Grandma Donna has helped us to become so much more prepared. Thank you, Grandma Donna, for all of these posts you've written over the years. 

Stephanie G. - I fill empty gallon bleach and vinegar bottles with water and store in the basement.  That is washing and flushing water.  I have something like 24 dozen boxes of quart jars that I do not use and am slowly filling with water and canning.  I'm reusing lids for this project because lids are expensive and they are working.   If a jar comes unsealed, no financial loss.

I recently purchased an electric pressure canner and did 8 quarts of water while learning how to use it.  I had to replace my kitchen stove in July and quickly realized I could not safely pressure can on it.  The two front burners are very high BTU and do not go low enough to safely can without turning the burner off and on to balance the heat which isn't a good idea at all.  I'm not at all happy with the new stove as the front burners are too hot ... browning ground beef was done with the burner halfway between medium and low.  Cremation is the only use for high on those burners and that is something I try to avoid while cooking!  There are several other bad design features on the stove which leads me to believe whoever designed it never cooked in his/her life.  I'm stuck with it because $962 means it won't be replaced.  Fortunately, the oven works good.

I read the post from 2017 and you mentioned biscuits.  I'd been trying to  think of a snack for my grandchildren who are here everyday. I'll be making them tomorrow. 

They need snacks everyday and I have pretty much used whatever I had on hand but I need to be more intentional on this and actually add making homemade snacks to my routine. They have opinions on what they like for snacks for sure but we'll be working on that! Lol

My mother's illness & death in the past year found me relying on store bought too much. But now I'm getting back to filling our tummies with homemade goodness and it feels good!

I've been enjoying the fresh apples from the orchard near here. And hope to get more soon! Saving the pumpkin purchases for mid to late October.  I'm trying to focus on one seasonal produce item for each month as something to look forward to for that month and really explore how to best make use of it (going beyond my usual recipes).