Recent content by LaurenRitz

Last week had temperatures up into the 80s, down into the 40s at night, so of course I removed the window insulation. Then this morning it's 18 degrees out there, 50 in the house, and the furnace isn't working. Hot water is electric. I'm glad I brought the chicks in. I have the oven going...

Government regulation shut down the last of them about 15 years ago, I believe. Mom passed away in 2016, and she got the notification. She wanted to go get the equipment, but someone else had already grabbed it.

I still have food from 2014, as I inherited my mother's storage. 2025 and 2024 are separated, I'm trying to eat the oldest first. I did clear out everything older than 2011 before I moved. It's been convenient not to have to go grocery shopping.

""The only thing more dangerous than a woman with her eyes wide open is a woman with her eyes half shut."

A few weeks ago my neighbor let a fire get away from him and the fire truck got bogged down on my property before it was out. So I have some nice deep trenches that I filled with wood and leaves before covering over with dirt. They'll make beautiful gardens in a few years.

My heavy clay is over a layer of rock. Last hole I dug I ended up taking out about 500 pounds of rock before I decided to stop, and I still can't plant a tree there because there was another layer underneath. I suppose that any tree managing to survive there would be extremely well anchored...

When I bought my car in 2004 (for cash) I immediately started putting away a payment each month for the next one. That car has now lasted upwards of 20 years, the money for its replacement long since spent on survival. Well worth it, both the car and the car "payment" savings.

Just follow the voice of your doctor, who is no doubt scresming "My eyes! My eyes!"

Any dairy can be bottled. I do pressure can for the added safety factor, but if you look up milk processing it is flash pasteurized at 161 degrees so boiling should be plenty to make it shelf stable. I bring the canner up to pressure and immediately turn off the heat. If cooked too long it...

The only dairy I've had a problem with is sour cream, and that was probably just over-canning. I had just started cannig dairy, couldn't find any information on it, so I canned for the full 90 minutes.

I used to fantasize about a house wih no flat surfaces. I walked around balanced in the corners. :) Right now every flat surface is filled with seeds or plants or gardening stuff.

Metric was designed by the French to be "modern" and efficient. So they took measurements that made sense to a pre-industrial people (inch being the thumb to the first knuckle, foot self explanatory, yard 3 feet or the length of a man's arm, etc.) and said "if you want to be considered...

Yeah. The "joke" is that an American would choose the 100 m over the 1 km, which makes no sense at all. Anyone who doesn’t know metric is goong to go for the lower number, which is 1. If the creator of the meme split the measurements and intended the 100 m to be 100 miles, that should have been...

I looked in mine. I think I found the piece you're missing.