Tucson Trip
One of my cousins contacted me a couple of months ago and said one of my Aunts has breast cancer and some of the cousins were going to go down there to see her (Tucson AZ.). I haven’t seen any of this side of the family in over 30 years so decided I would go. Started putting money aside for it as soon as I found out.
My brother and one of his daughters went with me. And Joleen meet us there. We left on the morning of the 9th. We got a quarter of the way when we found out the way I was planning on going had some road closures because of the fires. So we picked an alternative route well we get further down the road and seen that that road was also closed. We were able to talk to a BLM ranger and she said that one of the roads had just opened up for southbound traffic. Thank goodness otherwise we would have had to go back at least 400 miles basically start over. So our 8-hour trip ended up being 12 hours.
While we were there we went to the OK Corral. I highly recommend it if you are ever down that way. We watched a reenactment of the shooting, the actors were great and put on an awesome show. Rode in a stagecoach that drove around the town telling the history of some of the buildings. Went into several little shops. They have several museums but we ran out of time before we could go into them. It is defiantly a two-day type of trip (at the bare minimum). I do want to go back and take Andy to see it. A few pictures of the trip.
I was also able to go to a 2nd hand store in Tucson. I found a few goodies. They had a set of round boxes that fit inside of each other and looked like drums for 5 dollars, well I have been wanting some hat boxes so I got these and will turn them into decorative hat boxes. They had a dish drainer like I have been looking for a 1.00 and I found a shirt and a pair of shorts. I really wish we had good 2nd hand stores here.
The weekend before we left we had a Birthday party for my Dad, We did a taco bar and I made red chili, green chili, and a couple dump cakes for it. Everyone else brought something to go with it.
Katie was down that weekend for a wedding so I got to spend a little time with her.
We got a little of the garden planted I have got to finish it up this week.
I have been letting my goats free range to help with the weeds and to cut down on how much hay I am having to use. Especially with this drought and hay is getting to be pretty scarce.
My Goals for the week
Kitchen
I have 30 pounds of potatoes that I need to get canned.
I want to clean out and rearrange a couple cabinets.
Make bread.
Make a cake.
Clean out the fridge (and the mud room fridge time permitting).
Make some yogurt
Sewing
I redid my bathroom (more on that later) and I have some fabric I want to make some curtians for it with.
Side Business
Wreaths
I am wanting to start selling wreaths, So hoping to get at least 2 made this week.
Soaps & Lotions
If I have time I would like to make some lotion (don’t really see that happening though)
Daycare
Get a lesson and menu plan put together for the month.
Work on next school years lesson plan.
Yard
Get the rest of the garden planted.
If I have time work on the back patio area.
Animals
Clean out the chicken coop
Start staking out the goats instead of letting them free range.
Blog
Get the deep pantry challenge caught up and post at least 5 times a week
Miscellaneous
Shower spray made
Pick up a sour dough starter from a friend( Mine died when I was sick for those 3 weeks)
Paint and hang a chandelier ( I got from a 2nd hand store several months ago) in my bedroom.
What I am reading/ listening to
You are a Badass by, Jen Sincero
Book 5 of The Sword of Truth series “Soul of the Fire’ By Terry Goodkind
Hoping I can get most of this done. What are your goals for the week?
Sounds like you had a good trip.
You could have left this HEAT down there in AZ ya know????
Goals for the week??? OMG, how about trying to stay COOL.
This heat wave strangling the West-Southwest is a bad one, add to that the Drought, tis going to be a very long summer I’m thinking.
Garden is coming in like crazy, have to get my Spinach cut and Dehydrated NOW!!!, it’s starting to “Bolt” aka Bloom. So it needs done this week for sure.
Also been picking and eating Squash to no end, need to also get some of that put away. Everything else is growing like there is no tomorrow.
PS: found a killer recipe for Coleslaw (Cabbage is coming in nicely), I mean this stuff is GOOD, 10 times better that KFC stuff, and that is good to begin with.
Have made a full on decision to reduce my electrical bill by 25%, so Laundry is all going to be hung outside, except the Underwear HAHAHAH.
I do know the Dehydrators will use a bit of power, but the rewards are worth it.
Unfortunately with this heat, the Freezers and Fridge are working overtime….
So we shall see.
A few extra things I need to get done:
Update the Inventory List.
Does cleaning the House count?
Need to spend a lot more time with Blue at the Lake, he’s now 9 years old and thinking More Time is a must.
Have a Rock Border project I need to finish along the house, would be nice to get that done.
Reading is a must for late evening after the walk, so will continue with that for now, and May re-read Lights Out, always a good wake-up call.
Other than tending the House Plants, mostly Herbs, and keeping the Garden watered, I probably should do a true Deep Clean on the Garage, along with repacking the Freezers and Fridge, have 1/2 beef coming in Nov. need to make sure there is room.
Anyways, Y’all have a GREAT week. Time for this Old Fart to get busy doing something, or maybe a Nap HAHAHA
It’s nice to hear what others are up to and planning. Here in southern Ontario, the first “safe” date for planting tender crops is the third week of May, so most of my tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos were started indoors and went out at 4-6 weeks. However, I still have a few hot peppers to get in. We will have zucchini around the middle of July, and winter squash around September. Next week I’ll be strawberry picking for dried and frozen berries: yes, I’ll make jam too, but not until the weather cools off. Jam make from frozen berries in November tastes just as good as from fresh berries in June, and the added heat from cooking and canning will be welcome then. Our cherry tree is loaded and it’s time to get some bird netting on it. The mulberry trees are huge – the birds love them but there is always enough for us to eat fresh/freeze too.
Glen built me a wood and wire compost station last year, so I decided to turn our old town-supplied composters into potato “gardens:” A layer of soil/compost, a bunch of potatoes, another soil layer, then more soil as the potatoes poke through the previous layer. This will be my first experiment with potato towers – they are about 4.5 feet tall so it will be a while before the layers get up that high. I’ll also try planting zucchini or pumpkins through the wire at the base of my composting station……stay tuned!
NRP and Blue – please post that new coleslaw recipe you have.
We have about 12 slips grown from sweet potatoes on the window sill, and I better get them in the ground asap. This will be my first time trying sweet potatoes too.
We had a sudden outbreak of pantry moths, and even though I scrubbed it all down (all the food is in glass or sealed packaging) there are still some moths around. I’ll need to pull out the freezer and see if there is anything underneath that might be fostering them.
There’s bulk food in the freezer (to kill critters) I need to package up, and new 8 kilo bags of rice I need to put in the freezer.
Then there’s weeding – which is likely on most peoples’ to do lists. Although, it’s not too bad this year since I’m using woven weave plastic in most of the beds. (That’s the only plastic allowed in our home.)
So that’s my list.
Thanks so much for sharing yours!