What's everybody doing today?

[Patchouli]

Oops forgot to say that we have worked out how to make bread using plain flour instead of bread flour @Tank-Girl which is a lot cheaper to buy. If you are thinking of buying a bread making machine let me know and I will give you the recipe. We also make jam in our bread making machine too and put it in sterilised recycled jam jars with pop top lids too.

I'm game for the recipe, @Sewingcreations15 . I dont think we intentionally use bread flour when we bake bread in our machine. We usually let the machine do the mixing and rising; we pull it out, form it and put it in the oven to bake as we prefer a free form shape to the square loaf.
@Tank-Girl chocolate ice cream for breakfast sounds perfect.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Gearing up for round 2 of freezer cooking meals for home made tv dinners.
Thinking about Chicken enchilads, Spanish rice, some kind of vegetable.
Have to run to Wal*Mart for produce and tortillas, diced tomatoes, green chilis.
I have to either make bread, tortillas this week.
Or go back to buying them. Really hate all the preservatives in the processed stuff.
Making a medium size bowl of pasta salad out of pantry.
You and I both know that bowl of pasta salad will grow into large size, but oh so good.
It's that time of year again.
Time for all the mothers in the family to decide where we go together for our annual Mother's Day outing.
We take ideas from all the mothers put them in hat then dad draws out suggestion.
We clear our calendars for that one day a year. It gives mom much joy to have all the women in family together for at least one day.
We normally do this several weeks before Mother's Day, so as many of can participate as possible.
Basically a hen party as dad calls it. I think this year their will be 15 of us women there. Maybe less, maybe more.
Everybody have a great day, morning, afternoon, evening or night.

 

[Spikedriver]

It's done snowing, but not done blowing. Looks like I've got about 1 1/2 feet in my driveway, with drifts up to 3 feet. It's gonna be a long day of shoveling once the wind dies down...

 

[hiwall]

It's done snowing, but not done blowing. Looks like I've got about 1 1/2 feet in my driveway, with drifts up to 3 feet. It's gonna be a long day of shoveling once the wind dies down...

Don't you just love winter?

 

[WVDragonlady]

Did hubby's laundry.
Make breakfast and lunch
Baked some choc chip cookies
Sat outside just now for about an hour in the sun. Its 50* out so far waiting on a wind storm to get here
Reading some
Have to figure out supper lol
Then hubby's lunch and the coffee pot set up
I slept like a rock last night hope I can do it again

Tomorrow I want to go to the Dollar General store.

 

[WVDragonlady]

I'm game for the recipe, @Sewingcreations15 . I dont think we intentionally use bread flour when we bake bread in our machine. We usually let the machine do the mixing and rising; we pull it out, form it and put it in the oven to bake as we prefer a free form shape to the square loaf.
@Tank-Girl chocolate ice cream for breakfast sounds perfect.

This is how I do it too but most of the time I use the bread pan for the square loaf

 

[Terri9630]

In El Paso visiting friends. Went to the zoo then stuffed ourselves with pizza.

 

[Spikedriver]

Don't you just love winter?

TBH, I don't mind the cold. It's the @#$! wind I can't stand. You can always put another layer on to beat the cold, but the wind will drive the cold straight through your bones.

It took two hours to shovel all the snow out of my driveway. I actually didn't even do part of it. My back told me it was time to quit. I'll get the rest tomorrow...

 

[snappy1]

Church this morning, then went to local grocery for gift card for a gentleman who's wife is in the hospital, so he will eat. Went to Kroger's and got grapes for $1.49 a pound (which I seem to live on) and a 12 pound ham for 77 cents a pound. Cost about $9 for the ham! Ran to hospital to see my elderly friend and give her husband the gift card. Then Dollar Tree for frozen fruit--green smoothies. Came home and got the ham in the oven, mess around here, change light bulb for DH and then give the gentleman from earlier a ride to Church this evening. Big Sunday here for me. Will rest a bit tomorrow, I hope!

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Patchouli this is just the recipe from my bread book for a 750 g loaf of bread which by the way fills the pan up. So I suggest looking at your bread book recipe and triple the bread improver amount, double the sugar amount, double the yeast amount and and add 7 ml extra water. The tripling the bread improver amount turns the plain flour into bread flour by increasing the protein content in it for a far lesser cost than buying the bread flour (which is more than double the price of plain flour here).

Here is the recipe I use for a 750 g basic white bread loaf in my Breville bread making machine -

- Water 287 ml
- Oil 1 tablespoon.
- salt 1 teaspoon.
- Sugar 2 tablespoons.
- Plain flour 500g.
- Bread improver 3 teaspoons.
- Milk powder 1 tablespoon. - we use instant milk powder
- Yeast 3 teaspoons. - we use high activity instant dry yeast.

I hope this helps.

We just let the whole loaf bake in the machine and it works fine as electricity costs here are high and you use a lot less power in the bread machine. That would also depend on how many loaves you want to make at a time as we only make one for the two of us here at a time.

 

[GrannyG]

Hubby is feeling some better...not as much coughing, still spitting up phlegm...he felt well enough to go take care of Hombre, the Longhorn....he had pulled all the blue cord off the big roll of hay and had it wound round and round his horns..plus pulling a long sting of sticks, stickers and debris along with him, so hubby had to cut it all off...over the years, he has wound a water hose around his horns, had to be cut out of the hay rack, had a blue tarp wrapped around his horns, ended up with a metal chair around his head, took down a tree that had a rubber tire on it for him to swing...I don't know how many metal water containers he caved in with his horns...the old cast iron bathtub is still standing...LOL....and he took the top off the neighbor's dog house one year when he got out.....he is getting old..very set in his ways like some human I know....LOL

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Good to hear @GrannyG that your husband is feeling better.

Your bull sounds like a handful but we love our animals just the way they are says me about the stray cat that adopted us and was doing racing car laps of running around the bedroom this morning before daylight sounding like a small herd of wilderbeast .

 

[Peanut]

The highlight of my day… Before Christmas a puppy showed up here at the farm, obviously tossed out by someone. I know why… the poor dog has the IQ of a toad. Dad started feeding it, even built a little dog house for it on his back porch. Every time dad leaves, even rides his lawnmower over to check the cows… This puppy sits in the yard and howls. This puppy is afraid of everything, even his own shadow.

When it got really cold dad put old towels and old clothes in the little dog house to keep the puppy warm. On an almost daily basis the puppy drags all the cloth out of his little house and scatters it all over dad’s backyard, dad has to gather it all up and put it back in the house.

Today I noticed cloth scattered everywhere, once again… I went to the toolroom and got my staple gun. I stapled every piece of bedding to the inside of the little dog house.

This was the last time he scatters cloth all over the yard!

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Round 1 of today is that DH went out and pulled out the remaining posts from the garden bed down the back and now they are all down. We still have the vineyard one to pull down which is twice the size and we will have to cut the old vines off the chicken wire to get the top wire off. Still all the posts are good to reuse.

We then washed and dried the dishes and put them away. I got onto eBay yet again about the test they are doing which is turning all free listings on a buy it now to paid listings and had $100 + dollars in listing fees credited back off my seller account. They just did a test and didn't let the sellers know . Now I have it sorted that I can end the listings before they relist as good til cancelled and get charged for them. Apparently we can list for free using an auction format but not a buy it now which all my listings are currently in buy it now listings. What a hassle and time I will have to spend to change all my listings over when they run their course by editing all my listings to a different format before I relist them. Oh the joys of technology and lack of communication by large companies.

We have now made another batch of chocolate brownies from our homemade mix, it is cooked and cooling down on the cooling rack.

 

[snappy1]

Now I have it sorted that I can end the listings before they relist as good til cancelled and get charged for them. Apparently we can list for free using an auction format but not a buy it now

We do buy-it-now but have a store and relist anyway. Still wish we could keep the control!

 

[hiwall]

Watched a few youtube videos on snaring this morning. I'm not a snare guy but it never hurts to get more info.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wolfernation
Here is a link if anyone is interested.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@snappy1 I wish we could keep the control too on our selling. I have no store and sell as a normal seller so I think it only applies to normal sellers and not store eBay sellers. Not a bother though as they have refunded all the listing fees for their "test" which is well over $120 odd dollars in listing fees as they didn't let the sellers know they were doing it.

Also a continuance of last night is I went through the home and listed some spare vacuum bags from our vacuum cleaner that carked it and 1 large flower lace curtain and another set of 2 large lace curtains we don't need as I am making curtains for the storage room instead with fabric I purchased on clearance for $4 per metre. Might be able to eek out enough fabric to do a set of curtains for the lounge room too as they only sent me half the fabric I ordered as they were out of stock.

 

[backlash]

This was the last time he scatters cloth all over the yard!

Want to bet?

Take out all the cloth and put in straw. The towels and stuff get wet and never drys completely. The straw stays dry and adds insulation under the animal. Plus it's harder to scatter all over the yard. I made houses for the feral cats that hang around and filled them with straw and they love them.

 

[viking]

Rained all night, started dropping nearly snowball sized snow flakes early in the morning, stopped doing that and then by noon we had a blanket of 2"- 3" snow all over the place. I didn't let the chickens out, just filled the waterer and made sure they had plenty of layer pellets. I finally got around to cleaning the ash out of the wood stove, it was getting to the point that I could barely put in firewood, otherwise trying to stay warm and dry, it's just not fun to be out in this sloppy wet snow.

 

[NannyPatty]

Want to bet?

Take out all the cloth and put in straw. The towels and stuff get wet and never drys completely. The straw stays dry and adds insulation under the animal. Plus it's harder to scatter all over the yard. I made houses for the feral cats that hang around and filled them with straw and they love them.

Yeah, we tried staples, too. Didn’t work for long.

 

[GrannyG]

Sixty degrees today and we sat outside in the sun....watched a beautiful starling in the pecan tree, we could not stop watching him as he warbled for a mate. His colors were so magnificent, sparking iridescent in the sun. Kept looking at him through the binoculars, could not get enough of his beauty. I also saw my first robin in my yard today. He sat on the neighbor's fence first, then hopped down to visit our yard. Know there are yummies out there from the chickens, they throw grain all over scratching. How blessed we are....beautiful fat doves in the hackberry trees, yellow finches at the feeder....we are rich in the Lord's beauty.

 

[Peanut]

Yeah, we tried staples, too. Didn’t work for long.

We get our last frost about the 1st of Apr. just a few more weeks then the little mutt won't need bedding.

 

[The Innkeeper]

Don't you just love winter?

Thanks ... that’s more than we got in to at all since Christmas. I feel much better now. Oops replied to wrong post ... meant to comment on the 3 feet of snow

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Went and got taxes done- bummer.
Went to library took books back.
Didn't get any new ones, not in the mood to read.
Look at pictures in seed catalogs yes, read no.
Been digging through the grunge in bottom of kitchen cabinets.
Cleaning them out slowly.
Have mid morning doctor appointment tomorrow.
So far have disposed of two trash bags of odds and ends stuff out of drawers of kitchen cabinets.
Still have long way to go, but it's a start.
Making up grocery list for this month, not much.
Strawberry's food, treats, calming pills.
Phone card, money order for rent.
Meat bundle that's pretty much it.
Went and checked on parents today as I was out and about.
Date night tonight.
Taking out empty boxes of things I no longer have or already go rid of out of closet in living room.
Trying to make more breathing room.
Regifting little used baby swing to cousins new grand baby due anytime.
Other great nephew 11 months is pulling himself up to everything.
He has discovered the toilet.
And how to flush it, if you can't find him, wait a minute the toilet will flush and he'll giggle.
Just cleaning, reorganizing the whole house, trying to get ready for Spring.
And it can't come soon enough.

 

[Tank-Girl]

I am beyond tickled as my new portable washing machine AND my weed mat turned up!

Am I upset that now that my washing machine is here it's started to rain?
Nope!
I'm giddy as heck.
I LOVE the fact it's analog.
No digital (as much as I can help it ) for me anymore.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Tank-Girl so happy for you but now you have spoilt the funny visual image I had in my head of you doing the washing hula in the bath tub washing clothing bopping to your favourite music .

 

[Tank-Girl]

@Tank-Girl so happy for you but now you have spoilt the funny visual image I had in my head of you doing the washing hoola in the bath tub washing clothing bopping to your favourite music .

I'm sorry SC but after 3+ years my days of washing hula are done.
I'm actually surprised I didn't slip and fall over once in all that time considering how hectic
some wash sessions got.
I'll still have the praise music going because what's wash day with music?

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Yesterday DH worked on getting off more wire off the garden enclosure down the back that used to be used for a vineyard. In the afteroon DH helped me cut out the curtains for the food storage room and lounge room from the fabric we purchased for $4 a metre. With doing a little patchworking of plain grey fabric to the top of one for a small window in the storage room I will be able to make curtains for 2 rooms for the cost of about $31 instead of paying $120 + for ready made curtains with any sort of pattern on them that is nice.

Round 1 of today this morning we have finished removing the wire off the top of the garden bed vineyard down the back and it took 2 of us up on ladders to do it. We had to cut the grape vines from the wire underneath and cut the wire into 3 sections removing 6 ft sections at a time. We then rolled it all up to use for other garden beds we are doing up the front of the property to keep out the kangaroos. Still got the galvanised pipe framework and support ironbark posts to dig out yet. Some are rotted so we will use them for firewood this winter and the others we will save to use as posts around the garden beds.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Exactly @Tank-Girl and on a more serious note I was waiting for you to get sick of doing your washing for that long by hand or in your case foot before you would give up and buy a washing machine . I am glad as it will make life so much easier for you without the risk of falls.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Exactly @Tank-Girl and on a more serious note I was waiting for you to get sick of doing your washing for that long by hand or in your case foot before you would give up and buy a washing machine . I am glad as it will make life so much easier for you without the risk of falls.

Thank you Friend.
I don't bounce anymore and I try to minimise the likelihood of the Base hospital killing me by injecting me with something I'm allergic to.