Fugal Package for Homemade Gifts

Store with the bail off & bottle upside down. 

If your a greenie or short on cash here's a packaging idea that works great & only costs a nickel.
We buy these wire & bail bottles back from the neighborhood redemption place which although not as fun is cheaper than purchasing them filled from the corner store.

Good soak in boiling hot soapy water then a bit of elbow grease scrubbing the labels off with an old toothbrush.

Fill with homemade apple cider vinegar, secure the cap, add label. These work well for flavored extracts, oils, & vinegar. I could even see these holding homemade lotions. There is the obvious of course ... homemade beer or wine.


~~ pelenaka ~~

Free Amazon Kindle Books

Amazon recommended these free kindle books to me today ... oh how they know me so well.  I haven't had a chance yet to read any of them but in case there's only a 24 hour window of opportunity (read free) I wanted to share.

~~ pelenaka ~~




Gardening - never enough points of view.

Green Living - this catch phrase makes me lol.

Turning the Unemployment Tide 

Just in case that interview is group affair.

4 reviews 5 stars - got my attention.

$

Hopefully I'll learn something new.

Foreclosure Next Door

3rd in a series of the perfect storm (foreclosures) surrounding my urban homestead.

Twin

Foreclosure due to Illness/Poor decisions - I'd been expecting the foreclosure of my neighbor's home since October when he had casually mentioned his bank note hadn't been paid in months. He had apparently missed the financial boat sometime within the 15+ years of home ownership to refinance @ a lower rate. Years later after smoking two packs a day for forever he came down with the big C, surviving isn't always the half of it. It is also surviving the cost of cancer. 

Without a steady paycheck burdened with a McMansion sized mortgage note, fed up with responsibilities of ownership he choose not to find a solution. Just as he choose not to have his roof replaced, or his furnace fixed, or gutters hung in times of plenty. Repairs now to the twin far out weigh it's current value. 

My neighbor's choices in life are now resting on my front stoop and my heart. My worry is that the twin can become a rental. Secondly, the value of my home has over night sunk even farther down the real estate rabbit hole. 

I had on the occasion of my marriage to Woodsrunner, made a promise - that with the last child out of high school we would move to the country (yes I would blog through that transition & no it wouldn't be a 100% happy move for me). Now not unlike a million other homeowners while not exactly upside down on my note, I have no pipe dreams of being able to sell. And I don't mean sell for a profit (no profit no raw land), I mean just selling to break even. 

The twin to my 1902 two story farmhouse built on a stacked stone foundation with a hand dug cellar in the balloon frame method is @ the widest point 13' from my own home. 

The floor plans is exactly the same with a few exceptions from remodels on both. The twin has had an additional toilet installed downstairs in what was originally a walk in kitchen closet that was then blocked off & door rerouted. My twin had a wall & doorway removed converting the downstairs bedroom into a dinning room. Not the smartest move, downgrading a home from three to two bedrooms. 

The most visible difference between the twins is exterior. 

For most who aren't gardeners the difference is house color. 

For others it's the porch designs. 

Neighbor's twin has two driveways a sweet deal where on-street parking can be the norm. 

But for me who has lived with spacial confinements and lack of life giving sun shine the biggest difference between the twins is MORE dirt for one twin, not enough for the other.

The other twin sits on a double lot, a full 60' x 90'. 

It also sits off to the right on that lot giving that extra 35' of lawn all day sunshine. An extra 420 inches. 

I covet my neighbor's lot.

~~ pelenaka ~~

Accessorizing the Hearth

I've been collecting stove parts for years before we actually installed our stove. The Jotul that we use now isn't even my first.

I had a Vermont Castings on the porch for a few years that I had bought second hand then eventually resold once my then fiance now husband finally convinced me that wasn't the stove for my house. 

In the mean time I continued to be a collector of all things wood stove related.

Advertised as a mostly complete stove accessory but is it ?

I found this on ebay, @ that time I had no clue how I would ever afford to install a stove but I knew I needed this. I just really really needed this.
I also knew that it had become a one of a kind piece. I bit the bullet and bought it for my as yet un-acquired wood stove for around $50. Then stored it the attic of my house for the next ten years only to be forgotten time & time again until a few days ago.

Clearly it's a ?

Demmler Bros. Pittsburg, Pa. Patented Apr. 20, 1869. Rare to find one with the adjustable stove collar, spine, and adjustable stops. Trivets & stops are cast iron. The spine is metal. Could use a good rub down with stove polish not to mention the Jotul. 

Placed in front of the chimney pipe for photo opp. 

An antique chimney shelf, what every box style stove needs.

After husband made the final placement behind the stove pipe he used a 7" stainless steel hose clamp from the plumbing supply to fasten it around the pipe. 

He promised to keep an eye out of another fastening option in black.

Off grid coffee cup warmer.

The trivets become good & warm never hot despite almost touching the stove pipe. Besides keeping my cup warm the trivets are great for warming mittens and stoppenfloppers.

Forget towel warmers the ultimate in luxurious comfort is a heated stopenflopper.


~~ pelenaka ~~

Free Firewood Isn't Free

Someone on a forum this past month reminded me that when I say we have free firewood it really isn't free. 

There's the cost of tools unless you inherited them. 

Maintenance on tools like axes, chain saws, manual cross cut saws, ect. 

There's also the tools that you need to preform the maintenance on your firewood making tools.

Add in gas & oil for a mechanical chain saw. 

Then of course there's the cost of traveling to the source & carting the wood back. Along with the cost of the equipment used to transport ... ect. ect. ect.

So no I wasn't being totally truthful when I post that we have free firewood but this is just about as good as it gets. 

Witness to the construction of a neighborhood.

Hundred year old Maple located in the hell strip was finally after eight years of complaining, pleading, and yes even cursing trimmed.

This tree is actually in front of my neighbor's home (to the left if looking out front door), but if it had split that trunk would have bounced off his home & landed in our driveway crushing our only horse or worse my front stoop.
I think the deciding factor for the city to have it trimmed was that my neighbor's home is in foreclosure.
Bank owned properties are as much of a hassle for local governments as they are for a neighborhood. Banks/mortgage companies can be very lazy about maintaining a property especially ones that they won't ever see any return on.

Race is on to get the logs cut & stacked out of view from the street.

For the cost of a few dozen cookies the tree trimmers were putty in my hands .... actually our driveway was closer then were they had their trucks street parked. If the tree had been Oak there be no way they would have let us glean but we're thankful for the Maple.

Legally I only own half of the drive but since notice of his impending eviction the neighbor has been agreeable to not using the area to park his truck (he has a second drive on the other side) when we've need the extra space.

Log rolled back this little piggy didn't run fast enough home. 

Sometimes you have to factor in a higher cost of keeping the home fire burning.
Thank you my husband you are a good man ... and patient.


~~ pelenaka ~~

Filling a Sweet Tooth With Whole Grains

Another example of my New Years Resolution #2 - Eat more healthy as if $ was no object.
My mother's B-day is tomorrow so I wanted to practice baking her as well as us a healthy cake.

Mi Mama, like so many of her countryman suffers from diabetes as well as high cholesterol. She's actually very good about her diet on her own but won't cook with whole grains due to her one & only attempt @ cooking brown rice with nasty results. After that there was no talking her into a second try.

She grew up with white rice learning @ a young age to cook a pot of arrozo con costillas on an open fire. She use to tell me that as important as having the right ratio of water to rice was to make sure that all three of your rocks that were needed to keep the pot level in the hot coals. When they traveled to another area of the island she always remembered to bring her rocks. Pretty smart for a seven year old girl.

Last week when she came for dinner I made arroz de gandules con pollo subbing in brown rice on the wood stove. Much easier than the open fires of her early childhood. Everyone including Mama, thought it was good but lacked that thick layer of pagao in the bottom.
Later during dinner Mama volunteered that maybe half breeds can't make pagao as she spooned a second helping on to her plate. My mother's skill of manipulation would make a Jewish Grandmother envious. 

An added stipulation to this birthday cake baking is I'm beyond broke (what else is new), so I needed a recipe that didn't require any bought ingredients. Well @ least a recipe I could manipulate (yes I am my mother's daughter in so many ways).

I got this free kindle book thanks to a heads up by Pam6, 
Healthy Whole Grains Dessert Recipes, Easy and Delicious Whole Grain Desserts last week. I was in need of a whole grain dessert cook book to fill that deprived void that we've been experiencing since our change in diet to whole gains. This has been a perfect fit for my pantry shelves.

I found a few Lemons in the fridge & sliced bananas in the freezer. Both left overs from the food bank I volunteer @. Hubby put in the time with the grain mill to grind up fresh Soft Winter Wheat I just bought last month with Swagbucks. I subbed in carob powder (had) instead of chocolate, powdered eggs instead of fresh, real butter instead of olive oil because I'm out of extra light, and nut milk for homemade Greek Yogurt because the yogurt maker has been slacking. Knock off brand of Splenda for any sugar needed. to make this recipe more diabetic friendly.

Other than a few substitutions mentioned for Mama's cake even the peanut gallery who doesn't suffer from the sugar is enjoying having sweets in the house again. 

I gave this book 5 stars on my Amazon review and although I was able to score the kindle version for free I would purchase this again ... guilt free.

One of the many hats my Kindle wears is being a Techno-Amish Cookbook 

There's no follow up pic because in my rush to put out coffee & dessert for unexpected guests yesterday evening I forgot. Cake baked up well in the stove top oven giving the house a wonderful smell.

Feliz Campleanos Mi Mama!

~~ pelenaka ~~