New Honeyville Grain Blog Button!

From time to time I will add buttons for businesses that I use. Today's addition is on the upper left of this blog. I've added it for two reasons.

First, on their blog, they are having a great give-away for three different assortments of their long-term food storage items (#10 cans of freeze dried fruit, vegies, potatoes). Not that I want the competition, but you may want to check it out. I'm a great believer in their products -- I use their grain to make bread (see my previous blogs about grinding grain to make bread). I've used some of their other products as well and find them to be a really good value. I expect their blog to continue to offer the same quality as their products -- and they give good stuff away!

The second reason I've added their blog button is related to the Honeyville Grain PRODUCTS. They are always high quality. There is NO weight minimum on bulk grain. Their shipping is always $4.49 per order. For those who regularly buy grain that must be shipped to you, you may say "Website X has lower prices for their grain" and you'd be right. I ran the numbers on websites X AND Y and found Honeyville to be the best for my needs. Website X sold grain for half the cost, but by the time you included their SHIPPING cost the grain was TWICE the Honeyville cost pound for pound. Website Y was a little less expensive and their shipping was almost as reasonable as Honeyville -- BUT they had a 250 pound minimum for grain that is packed for long term storage. Not sure about you, but I just don't have the extra money and space to buy 250 lbs when I only need 50 pounds for current use.

I suggest you check them out, bookmark their site and, when thinking about your daily and long term food strage needs, order from them. They ship fed-ex to me, so the goods arrive within a few days (less than a week)and even the 50 lb boxes (with a big bag of wheat inside) arrive in perfect condition. As you can tell, I'm a fan!

A Morning with a Mission

Both literally and figuratively!

A friend and I drove up to the San Xavier mission, south of Tucson. The weather was stunning and topped off at around 70 degrees. There were few people there when we arrived.


The mission was founded in the early 1600's, burned down in the early 1700's and was rebuilt. The second mission still stands. The restorations have been ongoing for years, both inside and out. Here is one of my favorite views inside -- bright vibrant colors to brighten your prayers!



The dome above the nave is partially restored, and reflects the roses of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

From there, we bid farewell to the Mission and headed toward the Mission School.



We had some business there. Our service organization, which has purpose that includes education and historic preservation, donated reading books, dictionaries and a small amount of cash to the school.

It is a beautiful little school, with probably 150 students. In giving out the dictionaries, we encouraged students to learn the right words to learn and pass along their tribal culture and legends, as well as prepare themselves for their future.

I detoured for a moment to take care of personal business, and found a wonderful place to learn.



We ended our visit with a stop at the brush arbor for a fried bread sandwich. My friend had cheese, I had bean and cheese. Wish I'd skipped the beans, but it was a delicious ending to a lovely morning with a mission.

The Art of the Porch

We are blessed to live in a place with three comfortable seasons and very few nuisance insects, in part due to the low humidity. Our garden, which incorporates integrated pest management practices also helps on the bad-bug reduction. We are in a part of the country where porches never really went out of style. I remember my mother referring to the 'sleeping porch' in her childhood home. On hot evenings, they would break out the cots and enjoy the cool night air while the adobe walls gave back the day's heat. By 3 am the house would have cooled down, but they were fast asleep on the porch by then.



Our porch is about 10 feet wide and 30 feet long. It provides three seasons of entertaining and resting space. It offers a small 'summer kitchen' for making preserves without heating up the entire, unairconditioned house. We have no dining room inside, so winter meals are on a collapsable table if it is too cold to use the porch.




The porch is a window on our world. We see when the crowd at the cafe has let up, so we can grab a salad or talk to the neighbors. We can see my sister's house and whether the lights are on, signifying that she made it back from town. We can break bread with neighbors or rest in its shade between chores. Most of the houses in our town have porches, and we tend to sit a spell on each a few time each year.



I have come to believe that porches are the ultimate sign of a civil community. They tell people that you are part of the community, that you value the concept of community as more than a geographic space on a map, but as the communion of neighbors with common purpose. They invite the borrowing of a cup of sugar or a conversation about how little Jimmy is doing in school. They may not be the glue that holds a community together, but they sure provide the opportunity to start making the glue. Or at least that's my opinion.

Lazy Woman's Garden

For years I have watched people who buy and plant annuals (plants that germinate, bloom, set seed and die in one growing season) and scratched my head. I'm not talking about the annuals like larkspur, where you cast the seed on the ground and they become self-seeding for many years after. This is the act of buying, preparing soil, digging with trowel and planting petunias, marigolds, heck -- I don't even know the names of most because they don't interest me. Why go to all that trouble, just to do it again next year? Some do it each season, for multiple iterations per 3-season cycle. Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get it. Do they not have other things to do, like bake bread or make beds?

Here's my idea of gardening: select the perennials you want, plant them, put them on the drip system, prune them occasionally and let them fend for themselves. We have a polinator garden 'room' full of native blooming plants to attract beneficial bugs , a medicinal and herb garden of only perennial herbs, a cutting area with peonies and daiseys, fruit and nut trees, currants and berries, asparagus, rhubarb and soon jerusalem artichokes. It's survival of the fittest.

It has paid off fairly well in the last few years, although this year my dear husband convinced me to put bone meal on some of the fruit to get better yeild, which we did. We have had apples all but one year (late frost), a bumper crop of currants and raspberries (enough to can a few quarts of preserves) and will probably harvest enough asparagus next spring to have a meal (it's only been in the ground for 2 years).

More and more my thoughts go to not spending the time or water on something that doesn't 'contribute' to the system. I have a few of those, but most of my plants have a specific purpose in addition to just bringing a smile, though that's not a bad purpose for any living thing!

The Ultimate Bedache

I hate clutter. You wouldn't know by seeing the interior of my home, as a liberal collection of it is visible at almost any time. Part of this is from the lack of meaningful storage in American houses. As a result, I look for furniture that takes advantage of the space it uses by providing storage. As an example, my living room coffee table is actually a chest that is also my horizontal filing cabinet.

Several years ago I saw an advertisement for The Ultimate Bed. WOW!! It showed what is essentially two 6-drawer chests of drawers with a platform bed on top. Talk about hitting multiple hot-buttons with me!!! In addition to hating clutter, I hate box springs, so this product was calling my name. The fact that it is made in the USA set the hook firmly in my jaw. All that remained was to reel in this fish. Of course, the downside is that it was not inexpensive and other things were higher on the list, like paying off the house.


Fast forward to 2010. Money saved up, bed selected and careful delivery plans were flawlessly executed by the manufacturer and Federal Express. Kudos all around.

The day after Thanksgiving we disassembled the old bed and made room to set up the new. When I read that the bed came in several cartons, my vision was that the chests of drawers were each in their own carton, the headboard in another, the platform in several pieces, etc.. Oh contraire! The cartons were small and flat. This gave me pause. No sweat. We were two mechanically-inclined adults with Makita power tools. We could easily wrestle this bed into submission.

By the end of day 1, I could barely walk -- my back was shot. My husband was whipped. The two dressers and drawers came together after only about 6 hours AND we only had minor issues that required dis- and re- assembly. My husband estimated that we had installed at least 200 screws by day's end. We slept on the fold-out in the living room that night.

Day two was equally full and saw the manifestation of the platform and headboard. Of course, I wanted the mission-style. Surprise!! Each slat of the design (there are 29 slats) required placement on their specific spot and installation of two screws. The good news is that the top and bottom rails have spacing tape already on them to make the slat placement easier -- no need to measure and mark off the spacing yourself. However, it would have been nice if the directions stated to put the slats on the BLACK lines. We counted slats and counted black spaces and decided they were meant to go on the WHITE lines. Oops, we miscounted and had one slat left over. So, unscrew, reposition on black, and reattach.

By dinnertime, approximately 15 hours elapsed time after opening the first carton and reading the directions, we were able to replace the mattress on the new bed and start filling the drawers. My dear husband's back was on fire -- a rare occurrence. The projects I had planned for the long weekend had not been touched -- other than the bed.

The good news is that the bed is very nice. The drawers are a bit smaller than I had expected -- about half the size of my old dresser drawers. That part is OK, as the excess clothing will go to a good cause. We moved two dressers from the bedroom, leaving our nightstands and a comfy chair. The headboard has reading lamps so we now have less clutter on our nightstands as well.

The bad news is that it is Tuesday morning and despite pain meds, my back is only starting to return to normal. I ended up taking today off from work to recover. I know that a year from now I will have forgotten the discomfort -- like forgetting the pain of childbirth by the baby's first birthday. I love my new bed, but I am still recovering from my Ultimate Bedache!

Old Year's Resolution

Twice in two days I have been really irritated by the concept of waiting in a long line to give a merchant my money. I work hard for my pay and the concept that the merchant does not want to add one more $7.50 per hour checker to handle the crowd makes me crazy. Yesterday, I resolved not to put up with this form of tyranny. Oh, before then I might occasionally abandon a cart-o-stuff if the management was not paying attention to the queues, but now it is a crusade.

Yesterday, I was polite about it when I found 7 people in line and 1 checker out of 9 aisles. I mentioned nicely that I'd like to leave my money in their store (Hastings Books), but if they didn't open a register soon, I'd just leave without their merchandise. It worked, and by the time we got to the cashier, there were 3 aisles open and people still standing in lines 3 deep.

Queuing theory is not lost on me. Yes, lines wax and wane throughout the day, blah, blah, blah. A sharp manager will know when to open a line so that people don't leave their stuff. That was the story today -- not the sharp manager part. I left my cart of selected stuff and walked out.

Sure, I spent 30 minutes picking it out, but I wasn't about to waste 30 minutes waiting for a chance to pay for it. Either a merchant wants my business, or they don't. Making me wait more than 5 minutes to leave my money is unacceptable to me. Why 5 minutes? Because that's about how long it will take for me to find the same things and pay for them on line. When I buy on line I do not need to wait in line -- on-line, not in-line -- catchy, eh?

News Flash for Mr or Ms Store Manager: not opening the other cashier is false economy. When I leave my cart-o-stuff, it actually costs you MORE than having the checker open. Someone will need to handle, think about where it goes and reshelve every item. A cashier could have checked me out in 3 minutes. Reshelving will take 8 to 10 minutes, because my stuff was from all over the store -- and you won't have the $50 I would have spent, so that's a net loss to you, Ross dress-for-less!

WHEW. I feel better now. Perhaps good enough to go back for the same stuff tomorrow and use my Senior discount. Now that's adding insult to injury for the store's bottom line!

So anyone else have a shopping pet peeve?

Preparing for two holidays at once

I'm starting to confuse myself! Which is the Thanksgiving list and which is the Christmas list?? This year we are trying to shop frugally and thoughtfully for Christmas. I won't have time to make everyone's gift, and my talents aren't that strong so buying enters the picture.


One gift I've given before that is really easy to make are nice bread boards. Most of the ones for sale are made of strips of scrap wood from China glued together. They tend to split into kindling in my kitchen. In years past, I went to Home Depot and bought a 5/8th inch thick, maple or oak board, 6 to 8 inches wide. My husband was kind enough to cut them to 10 inch lengths on the table saw. A couple of pieces of sand paper and a bottle of mineral oil, combines with a few hours of sitting in the evening and POOF, you have sturdy breadboards. I really abuse mine and only one has split, probably because it was a foot square, which is too wide for a board that gets wet and dried often.


My brother is easy. He loves a type of German Chocolate that he can't get in Boise, so that's his 'big present'. Everyone gets a bottle of dried rosemary from my garden. My sister usually has a list and assigns us a gift. No surprises, but at least you know she won't be returning it. Two lucky winners will get breadboards with nice but small breadknives I found on sale. Maybe only one, if I can't stand to part with the other one...

People at work get this year's wonderful Penzey's spice collection (Total bargain: 4 bottles of either baking or BBQ spices for $8) and a locally made tree ornament. My boss will get a coveted bottle of black currant preserves from my garden, not because I want to impress him, but because he is a good Christian man who works hard for the good of his organization AND he loves black currant jam.


That leaves about 6 people and I'm clueless about them. Three are over 80 and in moderately good health. I'm thinking edibles, but low cal. The others are in their 30's and I'm lost. If anyone out there has a suggestion about this age group, not too expensive, I'd love to hear some ideas. I usually keep gifts under $25 for a lot of reasons, and the recipients are relative conservative people (if that helps). Thanks for any ideas you may send my way!

Dog People

My husband and I are dog people. We like having a companion who is smart, but not surly like cats are. Why have a pet if they are not here for your companionship and vice versa? We have had several dogs in the years we have been together. The first, Dusty, was a terrier mix who looked like a fox terrier had mixed itup with a basenji. Nice enough dog who came into my life when she was 9 or 10 years old, but was raised by cats so had some interesting traits. Once she figured out that if she calmed down she could be a house dog, all went well.

Our next dog was THE dog of my life. She was the result of a dog-sitting accident between a golden retriever and an english cocker spaniel. From the first day, she was cute beyond belief. She looked like stuffed bear, so we named her Teddy, of course. We bonded while she was a puppy and she was our little girl for many years. When she was about 6 weeks old, she sat inthe middleof the kitchen floor, threw back her head and let our a little puppy howl "ROOoooooo!" It was one of her many vocalizations and we loved it. She learned to hunt birds from Dusty -- the dog raised by cats. One day I watched her and she was like clockwork -- flush the birds to the east, switch back, wait and catch them when they turned to avoid the north fenceline after avoiding the east fenceline. Dang, she was doing some serious planning and the bird went right into her mouth -- never saw it coming.

She was also a fierce watchdog. She went from cute to protective in nothing flat. It always startled and amazed me, but it was her job and she took it very seriously.

A few weeks after she was in heat, she started nesting. She had several favorite babies and moved them religiously around the house as she went about her daily routine. She would have been a good mom, but had bad hips, so it was not to be. It was still incredibly cute to see her nurture her little squeeky toys for a few days before getting back to being herself.

The tough part about being dog people is the bargain. For all the joy and love, our companions,

their lives are too short. It has been a year since she went on to puppy heaven and I miss her. I hope some day to go to puppy heaven too so I can hang out with her again. She was a good one.