Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

Our temps have been in the 90's, but we are in high desert so very little humidity except in August, which is thunderstorm season. So doing as @Mini Horses works pretty well for us. It tends to cool down to at least the mid-50's at night.

I bought a fan for inside the house yesterday, as well as a shade canopy that was on sale- for the outdoor table and chairs. The only thing I had intended to buy was a new kiddie pool for the ducks- which they appreciated mightily, the old one had sprung a leak in the side and would only fill a couple of inches.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Independance Day! We've invited a couple of friends who are temporarily "single" for a simple barbecue of hamburgers, sausages, potato salad, veggies and dip, and ice cream floats.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Mid 50's??? WOW - we were still at 90 degrees at 9pm last night. Heat index 111 at 9:45 this morning.... ugh.

Have a great 4th!

 

[Mini Horses]

DANG! That HOT TX weather coming our way for later this week.
Britesea I would love the lower humidity ... makes the heat a little more tolerable.

Rained here today but, I had an inside job handing out food samples. So, was ok. But won't be so nice in a day or two when the grass isn't cut due to the daily showers, heavy dew in AM, etc. Will juggle my work to bad days and be home any "good" ones. Predicted 100 on Thu & Fri....Note: hose the piggies! They love it.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I want some of that low humidity too. When DH was working in El Paso the temps would be 100+ but without the humidity it was tolerable. As soon as you stepped in the shade it was like the temp dropped 20 degrees.

Heat index at 3pm - 115!

Note: hose the piggies! They love it

They already know to come running when they see me coming with the hose, lol!

 

[hqueen13]

Yup, we're getting a dose of the heat here, too. Ugh. Not looking forward to it. I have to make sure I get the horse hosed twice a day now for the next week. Fun fun...
I haven't really tried to figure all of this dehydrating stuff out! How do you rehydrate/cook the hash browns?? I really want to know, and I just haven't used them because I don't quite know what to do I didn't try doing a slurry with the mashed potatoes, I really should give that a try and see if it works out. I got some potatoes from the store, so maybe I'll do that. I think for our hash browns we blanched them for a lot longer than 30 seconds, but I don't totally remember...

 

[Britesea]

You don't really have to blanch the potatoes, but it makes them stay white; otherwise they turn a bit grayish, but still perfectly safe to eat. I think all you're really doing is rinsing the excess starch off, which oxidizes. I grate my potatoes with the coarse side of a box grater first, and 30 seconds is plenty long enough to get them hot all the way through.
Anyway, @hqueen13 I take equal parts of dried potato shreds and hot water and let it sit for about 15 minutes or so, until they are soft through and then drain them. Put some fat in your pan and get it sizzling, then throw the potatoes in and brown them on one side. At this point, you could serve them if you have blanched them, or you can turn them over and crisp up the other side of them.
I also like to add dehydrated onion pieces and sweet pepper pieces, although the pepper takes longer to re-hydrate, about 30 minutes, so I do them separately.

I checked my blood pressure after trying just the hawthorn extract for about 4 days and boo my pressure was up to 157/91; so it's back to the prescription on that. I'll try again when I've lost 25 pounds or so.

I checked under the mulch on the kale bed, which was last watered about 6 days ago, and the soil was still moist on top, so the mulch is doing a great job! I have a few more beds to cover and that job will be done. Hubby is being somewhat slow about hooking up the soaker hoses to the faucet so I'm still unhooking a bed manually from the hose and then hooking up the next bed. It's clumsy because I have a brass pressure regulater and two separate filters on the end of the hose, and holds greater potential for the soaker hoses to get filled with dirt since the open coupler is lying on the surface. I want to make a big push to get that done today.

Mama Duck moved her eggs in the coop for some reason. She was sitting on them inside the nest box yesterday morning, but today I found them moved to the opposite corner- about two feet away. I checked the temperature and they were all nice and warm, so I know she's still sitting on them, but this moving business surprised me. I didn't know they would do that. We have a few more days to go- I'm estimating July 11 as D-Day.

Our local cafe has started serving free breakfasts to seniors on Wednesday mornings, so I'm off to Max's Cafe.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Our local cafe has started serving free breakfasts to seniors on Wednesday mornings, so I'm off to Max's Cafe.

Well, dang....guess I'm gonna havta move, lol!

 

[Mini Horses]

Nice café

 

[hqueen13]

Ooo free breakfast is awesome! Enjoy!!
THanks for the tips, I'll have to give that a shot and see if it works. I'll let you know!

 

[Britesea]

Well it's been a real busy summer. We are still working on putting together the greenhouse; it's been so hot that we can only get a little bit done in the morning- and some of those are taken up with going to the Y for Tai Chi and swimming, and a little in the evening if we aren't dead tired and me busy making dinner.

We decided to take some of my inheritance money and buy one of those tabletop freeze dryers! I'm so excited! I will let you all know how it works when it finally comes. Right now, I'm trying to figure out where to put it; it's too tall for out counters- it won't clear the cabinets above. It weighs about 100 pounds so it's too heavy for my little rolling cart. I may have to put it in the dining room for now.

We are having some problems with the irrigation in the garden. I bought some soaker hoses and set them up to water each bed individually, with shut-off valves and filters and a pressure regulator. At first it worked beautifully but lately I've been finding the soil dry when I check on things, and some of the plants are looking stressed. I'm wondering if that's why my purple bell peppers are about 1 inch in diameter? Anyway, I'm back to watering by hand until we figure out what's going wrong, so color me standing in the garden watering and slapping at mosquitoes. Sometimes I hate living right next to the river.