Frugality-80% Savings at the Book Store

Just up the way on old Route 66, right at the intersection of Hwy 50, is a little flea market that has been operating there ever since I can remember. The Mason Dixon Flea Market is a mishmash of old buildings, stalls and metal sheds with vendors selling everything from old tools to fresh produce. You can find old farm tools, motorcycle parts, cast iron cook wear, clothing, furniture, collectibles and even get a tattoo if you are so inclined.

There is a great bookstore there, inside where you can go all year long. She has a wide selection of books,categorized by genre, stacked neatly on wooden shelves. The prices are good, much less than the list price plus some titles are fairly current.

My husband is an avid reader but bookstore prices, even Amazon, can be a bit too high in this economy so we are always looking for a good deal. The library is a great source and can work pretty well for me; however, he tends to read large books, typically historical in nature. He's a fast reader but sometimes it is more convenient to have a copy rather than try to complete it in two weeks and hope you can renew if you are not done. In addition, we are supporting a local business owner.

Yesterday's find List Price vs. Purchase Price:
The Century by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewer $60 vs. $8
Thomas Jefferson by Willard Randall $35 vs. $7
Lee and Jackson by Casdorph $13.95 vs. $5
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides $14.95 vs. $4
Black Hawk Down $7.99 vs $2

Total List $132
Purchase $ 26
Saving $106

This is an 80% discount. You can't beat that!

When the Circus Comes to Town

When the Circus Comes to Town

The Culpepper & Merriweather Circus rode into town bringing their updated blue and white striped Big Top, a host of performers, workers, kiddie amusements and of course an array of animals ranging from a braying donkey to the king of beasts!

This is small one-ring circus, the type that would travel from town to town in days past, riding in on the railroad, unloading and parading through town. Folks would watch in awe as lions, tigers and colorful performers made their way to the outskirts of town where in a matter of hours the big top would tower over the fields; a signal to all that the fun would soon begin.

photo credit

Today they arrive in a caravan of trucks and trailers still parading through town hauling ticket booths, trailers that will soon serve popcorn, soda and cotton candy, bounce houses and a small side show- Giant Snake- Live! Many hands are needed to erect the 3600 pound tent, driving a hundred stakes with 20 lb hammers. These are the strong men not featured in the show but critical to the success.

The kiddies lined up early eagerly awaiting the exciting acts that would soon be no more than a few feet away. Some took advantage of the pony rides, some the bounce house but all had that look of excitement, the type you can find only in a child's eyes.

Soon the circus sprang to live, music blared from speakers and the crew was in high gear. The townspeople filed in as they have for generations: moms and dads with kids in tow, grandparents and teens, circus fans of all ages, a thread that binds us all. Run to get the best seat in the house but don't forget: Get your bag of Popcorn! Peanuts here! Snow cones and Soda. Balloons and trinkets. Get your face painted like a tiger!

Let the Show Begin- The Big Cats. You are a mere few feet from the big cats, separated only by removable steel fencing. Some parents brought their children right up to ring-ill advised and they were quickly shooed back to their seats. Regardless of the safety precautions and the cats' apparently tame disposition, these are still wild animals. I have seen my house cat in action and he weighs only a few pounds with tiny, albeit sharp claws. Imagine the damage a three or four hundred pound cat can inflict.

What's a circus without clowns? Yes, those funny, sad and oft times scary clowns that have entertained us for ages, holding our interests and tickling our funny bones during set or costume changes.

The Performers
Jugglers, trapeze artists soaring through the air, the Whip Master, dancing dogs, unicyclists and the many others file in performing act after act of amazing feats.

If you believe the trapeze isn't really so high, contemplate jumping off the top of your six foot step ladder. Not so sure about that? Simone, beautiful ringmaster and trapeze artist, flies high in the air, swinging by her neck spinning in frantic circles. Later she soars faster and faster, toes almost touching the top of the tent and suddenly drops suspended by her ankles or perhaps with her neck resting on the bar held only by the strength of her shoulders.

You find yourself both amazed and afraid for her. You silently send up a pray for the guardian angels of the circus to hold her in the palm of their hands. You see, she works without a net.

As we watch transfixed, she is dangling by one foot from a small rope loop as she poses her body at a 90 degree angle. This is no six week circus school. This is an investment of a lifetime, someone who has grown up and developed skills exceeding most prime time athletes. This is a daughter of the circus.

Next time the circus comes to town make time to take your children. If your town or charitable organization does not sponsor the circus, bring the idea to your next aldermanic meeting, gather the presidents of your local Lions Club, Rotary or tourism board together to discuss the possibility of bringing one to your community. Contact the circus directly at cmcircus@gmail.com to see how they can assist you or your organization.

I hope you are able to enjoy this simple type of circus, one that generations before came to know and love.

photo credits

Portable Bathroom

My husband bought me a bathroom today-a portable one- and guess where it is? He set it up right in the middle of the living room! See the porta-potty? In the living room? No,no, no. This is just a demonstration- we will definitely not be keeping a portable bathroom in our living room, no matter how convenient my husband believes it is!

It has a strap to hang a 6 gallon bag of water for showering in addition to a place for the porta-potty. Now, we have a camper and a really nice camper. It has a bed, sofa, table, full bathroom, refrigerator, etc. Unfortunately, it has become so expensive to operate between the price of diesel and low gas mileage that the truck gets. It has basically grounded us.

We do have a tent. I have to be upfront with you- I hate tent camping. It's uncomfortable and I do love my creature comforts. That's why we have a camper. Now he wants to do some tent camping with the neighbors and knows I want a bathroom plus I invariably have to go there after dark and I hate walking around campgrounds by myself late at night. It's spooky.

He thought this might satisfy my needs. The thought was good but really, this toilet is 11 inches off the ground. That's really short and I just don't know if I can do it. At least not without falling over. About 10 years ago a driver crossed the center line and hit me head on and caused the car behind him to veer off and go crashing down a hill through the woods, trees cracking all the way. Everyone was helicoptered to the hospital except for me. Although I had my seat belt on, I still hit the dash with both knees, breaking one. The guy had to be cut out of his car- no seat belt, no airbag and a low profile car. It took out everything under my car and sent me into a deep ditch. The result of this is my knee cap no longer nestles into the place it belongs plus there is nerve damage, not debilitating but causes problems. It is sort of part way out but the doctors didn't want to do the replacement until I was older and couldn't function. Anyway, I can't kneel or put much pressure on my knee without lots of pain. There is no way I can lower myself down to 11 inches!

I don't know what I will do about camping but I do appreciate that we have this, just in case we have a power outage. Out here if you don't have electric you also don't have water, so no toilets unless you have enough water stocked up. It can be part of our preparedness planning.

This was our old camper, but I wanted a bathroom. We sold this and purchased a travel trailer.

This is the "good" camper.

Cooking with our Rendered Lard

Here it is, the very first item cooked in our recently rendered lard. It's potato pancakes, all nice and crunchy outside but beautifully light and soft inside, just perfect for melting cheese all over and dabbing on a bit of ketchup.

I can't say it was our healthiest meal- potato pancakes and SPAM! But it sure was a good one.

Hey There Mister, Do You Have a Mop Refill?

Hey there Mister, do you have a mop refill?

You'd think this was a no-brainer, right? You sell a mop, you have the refills.
OR
You sell the refills, you have the mop. Yep? Well, not so much.

I like the red mop with the stringy, floppy mop head but it really doesn't scrub so well, especially after canning when you might not have been as neat and tidy as you should have been. Plus, you have to replace the heads pretty often if you get into some messy jobs. My husband likes the green mop but wants a real sponge type head on it, not the cellulose kind. Also, I don't want added perks like brushes or strange stuff attached to it. So a standard mop it is.

Every time I get a mop they stop carrying the refills so I decided to buy the mop and oodles of refills, thinking that might be the smart thing to do. We went to a big box store, the kind where you can get groceries, clothes, camping equipment, swings and sandboxes all while you get your oil changed. They will have a mop, they have Everything.

Yes, they had a mop. Let's see, it was a $14 mop with $8 refills. Sorry, no deal. I can purchase a whole new $6 mop every time I need a refill and still be ahead of the game.

They had a nice squeeze mop with just the perfect head. But no refills. None, at all. They had a nice refill but guess what? No mop that fit the refill.

So, onto the discount dollar store, the national kind that carries name brand things. They will have a mop, they even have clothespin bags. And they did have mops, Mr. Clean mops, and a lot of them. But guess what? No refills, except for, like the first store, a really funky one that seems like it will break or at best not ring out well.

I even got "the guy" in charge of that department and he said, "No, no refills were shipped. I'm still waiting for them." This does me no good at all. What if I buy this great mop and they don't stock the refills? He handed me a string mop. Said this is what his mom used to use. I didn't get a mop.

Why can't I get a mop? Just a plain old mop where I can always find a refill. It doesn't seem to be too much to ask. It shouldn't be this hard. I guess I'll try KMART tomorrow.

Bug Out Bag Meals

I've been thinking about a light weight solution to emergency food rations should you have to leave your home for a few days in a hurry. We have a food dehydrator and a vacuum sealer. Why not combine the two for an easy to store, easy to pack food source that does not need refrigeration?

I made some seasoned zucchini chips, three kinds: garlic, plain salt and Montreal Steak. No, they don't taste like potato chips, but they are crunchy plus it's extremely good for you and creates a sense of fullness. They can be a good alternative to snack foods when you need a little something. I also dehydrated some heirloom tomatoes which, when finished, are completely flat but retain all the great heirloom flavor compacted into a little bite. The flavors explode in your mouth! Rich and sweet. They can also be used as a snack or thrown into your soups or crumbled onto breads or pizza. They are a good source of vitamin C. As strange as it may sound I am always concerned about scurvy- blame it on my history teachers as they discussed sea crossings!

The food dehydrator also makes pretty good jerky. We've used hamburger in the past but I'm sure you can change that up. Jerky in and of itself was always a good source of preserving food so why not incorporate it into my bug out bag? I've seen my granddaughter fill herself up with a few pieces of jerky. Just think how much meat you have eaten if it would be re hydrated. A little goes a long way.

Now what if you made a packet. I'd put in two or three pieces of jerky, some dehydrated vegetables: tomatoes, zukes, potato slices or peppers. Then I might add some raisins or other dried fruit. I might put these into small sandwich bags and then arrange those on the vacuum bag, just to keep it separate.

Once I'm done I would have a complete meal, ready to eat with the cut of the bag. They are so light I could pack two or three meals for each day I anticipate being gone. I don't have to lug around heavy cans or worry about how to heat them up.

I'd have my water purification cup, available at Wal-Mart or on-line. I hope I won't need to but just in case, I'll grab my bag and off we go.

What do you think? Would this work for you?

A Cucumber Bonanza Update

My husband told me he was bringing some cucumbers home from a friend's house since they had already put up 24 quarts of pickles, which would cover their needs until next year. Little did I know that I would find 70 lbs of cucumbers when I pulled into the garage!

WOO HOO! A Cucumber Bonanza !!!!!!

Tomorrow he plans to start chopping cucumbers and preparing the jars while I am off to work. He's picked out a few recipes from the Ball book, all pickles and relishes. I'm very lucky that he enjoys this, probably more than I do.

And guess what . . . . he CLEANS AS HE GOES! Double lucky I'd say.

UPDATE

Chopped up a half tub of cucumbers so far 25-30 lbs
Bread and Butter pickles- about a third of a turkey fryer pot. About 8 lbs.
Relish a full stock pot full - 2 gallons. It has used 22 lbs of vegetables so far.
Only 12 jars canned so far, it will take us awhile.

I found some cucumber bread/cucumber cake recipes that I will try and then freeze.

Anyone want a cucumber?

Honey Giveaway at Invited to the King's Table

HONEY giveaway at Invited to the King's Table

Take a stroll on over to Invited to the King's Table for a chance to enter the honey giveaway. You should see how pretty these jars are with a bit of the comb in them.

After you look at the honey post click on her banner to get to the most current post and then scroll down. She has some really pretty coasters and chicks that she made. It's a very nice blog. You might want to follow her!

A Cucumber Bonanza-

My husband told me he was bringing some cucumbers home from a friend's house since they had already put up 24 quarts of pickles, which would cover their needs until next year. Little did I know that I would find 70 lbs of cucumbers when I pulled into the garage!

WOO HOO! A Cucumber Bonanza !!!!!!

Tomorrow he plans to start chopping cucumbers and preparing the jars while I am off to work. He's picked out a few recipes from the Ball book, all pickles and relishes. I'm very lucky that he enjoys this, probably more than I do.

And guess what . . . . he CLEANS AS HE GOES! Double lucky I'd say.

Rendering Lard -

One of our challenges of the week was learning how to render lard. The price of Crisco is now about $6 or better for the 3 lb tub. We processed this for less than $1 per pound plus minimal electricity cost. Don't forget, Crisco is whipped so it's full of air which is why 3 lbs looks much, much larger than our jars which are dense- all lard, no air. We'd almost have to melt the Crisco to compare.

We started out with pig fat from our local butcher who is out on the backroads of our rural community. My husband cut it up and put it into the Nesco cooker since we didn't have the time to do it over an open fire.

It started as a 24 pound bag of fat and we still have almost all of it left after making two jars of lard which is a total of about 4-5 pounds. The rest is in the freezer waiting for the next rendering.

After cooking down for six or seven hours, about 325 degrees, the fat cooks out of the material that is not completely fat. It's called cracklings. You scoop out the cracklings once they start sinking to the bottom then strain the fat through cheese cloth.

These are sort of like pork rinds but they are not the skin. I don't care for them at all but we thought we'd see what would happen if we fried them.

They are done but not so good- the kitties, opossums and probably a raccoon or two had dinner.

We put the rendered fat into canning jars to cool. We'll keep this in the fridge so we didn't can it. I thought it could keep the dehydrated zucchini chips and tomatoes company. The zucchini chips were dried with a variety of seasonings: one with pure salt, one with garlic and the last with Montreal Steak seasoning.

Once cooled, it looks just like Crisco, but better for you believe it or not.

According to Nourished Kitchen:
Pastured lard is a remarkably good source of vitamin D and of monounsaturated fat – the same fatty acid found in olive oil and avocado that is heralded for its benefits to cardiovascular health. Odd that lard, given its fatty acid profile and vitamin content, earned such a bad rap over the last few decades. Like many wholesome, nourishing fats, lard seems to have been swept aside for a time, but it’s quickly earning a much-deserved renaissance – ensuring that taking the time to learn how to render lard is worth your effort both in terms of its redeeming nutritional value as well as in celebration of the wealth and variety of your local foodshed.

My husband is excited about our Homestead Challenges. He's ready to bake a pie, make some biscuits and fry some chicken. Sounds like a good meal is on the horizon!