Rained Off

 Well i hope this helps my final bid to get the ruddy potatoes out of the ground , so what do you do when rain has reached the level of monsoon ? Of course you go outside and pick apples...lol . So its been apple sauce day today , i dont use sugar i just peel and chop with the posh apple peeling tool , glad i paid a whole £2 for it in the Spring at the car boot. Then boil them with minimal water so theyre at the mush with chunks stage , fill loads of old jam jars then boil for half an hour in the big jam pan , ive sat here counting the jars popping shut and it sounds like 100% sucess , if your tight like me you sometimes get the odd jar doesnt seal but im not wasting money for new lids this year , every penny needs to be saved for the van repairs . I did go to the carboot but that was to drop off a batch of ghastly china modern dolls , to someone who revamps them into Haloween creatures , she pays me well for them and i spent a whole 20p on a couple of hand towels because all the kitchen ones are missing . No idea what oily handed cretin that was!! 

So lets talk the world , im suffering from ostrich syndrome at the moment , you know dont mention the war , Armegeddon , plague etc etc etc , just ignore the news cos theres never anything good in it . Dont mention politics same shits different coloured ties.  We live in terrible times , where our opinions count for nothing, so i guess i will just stick my head in the sand and bugger on with life  

R Soles

 We did a second car boot sale yesterday , we had had heavy rain last night so it was very misty and gloomy daughter and her friend set up next to me . We had some big tarps that himself had chucked in the garden once he had used them once , whats new . Anyway i just flung everything on the tarp and left anything that the damp could damage in bags and boxes sold loads of stuff i wanted rid of for a quid or two but what really peeved me was early on a bloke who im well aware has a music shop come and offered me £1 each for some vinyl i  offered him them at £5 each and he threw them down and stomped off muttering . Now i was well aware that online a couple of the LPs sell online for over £30 each and they were immaculate . Later on i toddled to the loo and left the girls in charge came back and the crafty arsehole had offered them £3 for the whole pile and they took it . Now am i annoyed ..very..but i will share the story around and make shore that everyone at the boot sale is well aware of him , crafty arsehole hope he doesnt get many bargains now  

Whats Going On

 Today the dehydrator is hosting a fridge pity party , cucumber ends , last of a punnet of cherry tomatoes half an onion , celery trimmings and a sad tiny red cabbage , ground down this will make veg powder , great as stock powder or a couple of big spoons in a pan of mash . Still struggling with motivation on the apple front ..lol. they are everywhere.

Managed to do myself a bit of an injury while chopping down branches , twisted my back and couldnt move for a couple of days and then dropped a big branch on sons head so thats a work in progress at the moment .

We have now been a year of the builders over the road , they have built mcmansions instead of the eco homes on the original plans , ghastly things twice the size of the original plans , theyve been reported umpteen times for the huge bonfires they built next to the old farm buildings the idea being to smoke out the bats living in there , they have suceeded and are now demolishing the building and squeezing in another house , the fires are now being built against a giant sycamore with a preservation order on , doutless it will die and they can squeeze another property on there, what was originally to be just 4 eco homes has turned into a housing estate . In the world of planning these days once the original plans are granted they go back after 6 months and get granted whatever they want to change.  Dread to think who will move in to these monstrosities , 4 bedrooms with two retiree occupants is the norm . Why they cant put a bedroom tax on private properties I dont know  

Being Prepared

 Woke up at 4am for a change and got watching a few of The American preppers on You Tube while i added yet more granny squares to my mountain . Good grief half of them have gone biblically batty, quoting the bible , Revelations seems to be a favourite or theyre all about to be raptured , which i always think sounds a bit like the aliens coming to harvest theyre food crop . What is  going on ? are they putting something in the food? 

Meanwhile im sat here with the jets screaming overhead because its Cobra Warrior the airforces annual war games season , we have Italians Americans Canadians Polish all spotted in the Coop looking baffled , theres others here as well so the plane spotters are going mental . Being between two of the major bases its a bit like living on the side of a motorway during this exercise . Not sure what night shifts are on this week but its dig the ear plugs out time .

Managed to buy 3 books and a tshirt for son from the jumble , the carboot however fielded a load of plastic coated metal garden stakes for a bean row , the bloke had only used them this year and his beans much like mine yielded bugger all so hes given it up as a bad job , so i snaffled them and proceeded to javelin everybody as i wandered round with them , still looking at raised bed ideas I dont think im going to get any better at digging my concrete ground , all i know is that it has to be cheap..lol 

Winter Checklist

 So its the time of the year when i start to check off the stuff i need to get done for the winter , apart from the usual 10 tons of garden jobs that im not hurrying with due to disalusionment . The never ending saga of the jam jar lids that i finally have the right sort of , still havent figured out why all the bleedin suppliers cant put on , these will fit  a Lidl pickle jar or these fit a standard jam jar along with the size and the number of lugs . I have a huge box of jars seals lids etc etc that are unused but i figure they will be ideal if the freezer dies or we have a big power outage , himself doesnt like me canning meat based stuff but i know how to do it .  we cant afford a generator or solar big enough to power a large freezer .Still have to source the Camping Gaz cylinder that i emptied , nobody locally supplies it anymore so im waiting till im in town to go on a hunt . ive a mountain of apples to tackle but i could do with a few more cookers to make the apple sauce and pie filling a bit more tart  . Pears sit happily on the tree yet before i start making endless pear chips which i could happily eat all winter. Popped into the chicken factory shop today they were practically forcing big tubs of chicken drumsticks on you at 75p a tub so i got a load that ive bagged and split for chicken soup and stew for the winter . Got a big bag of veg from the Community larder that will be mainly dehydrated , they were also forcing carrier bags of broad beans on you which is no hardship they will be podded and blanched into the freezer they will go . Im missing the squash that usually sits on top of the kitchen units , nobody seems to have any so im not the only one had a massive fail this garden year . Noticed how well plants sell these days at the car boot so ive been frantically taking cuttings and splittings galore .

Jumble sale season is upon us now, the little Cat Charity has one tomorrow  so i will see what i can find just to annoy himself...lol

Meanwhile

 In the meantime ive not done a stroke of gardening , think ive lost the will to even venture into the depths . Best ive managed is popping a few mini daffodils in the planters round the door ive got a big tub where ive thinned out the ones in the back yard planters, how a dozen daffs have turned into a couple of hundred never ceases to amaze me. 

Himself has been a tad mentally challenged he blew up his new van on the way to Mablethorpe and we had to pay to have it recovered because Mr I know what im doing didnt bother to tick the recovery box on his insurance !!!  i havent said a word . The fact he was 3 days over the warranty about finished him its going to cost thousands for a new engine if it cant be repaired . Ho hum we will be skint till next year and there wont be any heating oil so he had better get used to it being cold . I have enough food and pet supplies to last 6 months so we will be fine . Im still off to the Jumbles no matter what he says ...lol 

On a plus note my cousin  rang me up whinging that mother had a black eye and she was being abused yet again trouble is theyd sent me the video already as she walked smack into her toilet door, he insisted that the doctor see her straight away , poor little love was there to see someone else so obliged , mother decided to attack her , nothing new but it rattled the poor girl .  As he said ..God shes fast, not sure if he meant mother or the doctor running for her life  

The Little Things

 Its been a busy sort of day , lots of online sorting out, then i finally managed to get some plums bottled , i thought they would have finished by now but theres a couple of shady branches left , theres nothing more satisfying than hearing the pop of the jars sealing shut . Nearly didnt get any canning done as i had no lids. himself having crushed and damaged most of them , everywhere on line was sold out of the ones i needed, found some only to find id ordered 4 lug instead of six , ordered a test lid from a different supplier only to find out theyre a drop shipper and they may arive next month sometime . The other supplier i ordered from sent a sample that was great , but they dont have any in stock AAARRRGGGHHH  managed to find 4 lids so that was this afternoons project . Himself wants plum jam , but i use Kilner orange tops for that and ive packs of seals for them so that will be later in the week ..its all go then its the cooking pears next, once lids arrive from somewhere...memo to oneself order loads of lids once the autumn rush is over.  Bleedin useless prepper thats me   

Temper Temper

 During the week i had a bit of a paddy , id a stack of boxes of stuff to go from the renovation , stuff id found bits of auction lots , etc etc  now this has been under my feet since June so i told them i was doing a car boot regardless of the fact i might die or cripple myself . I got the usual high level response my daughter offered to take it all to the charity shop but there was a few decent bits among it and i wanted a bit of cash . So yesterday i crippled myself loading the car and then it chucked it down it chucked it down during the night as well but i was still going and it turned out very humid but warm and i had two huge plastic sheets hed saved and chucked in the garden from when his gazebo died last summer . I just chucked it all on the ground and let folks get on with it . Daughter turned up so i could go to the loo and to look in bafflement at what id sold . Loads of 50s dress patterns , Sindy caravan and stable , lots of paperwork , big meat plates , bags of fabric scraps 2 boxes of knitting patterns and various weird craft stuff , i sold a good 3/4 of it then it chucked it down and i was home by half past ten ..lol  I made £45 which is good for me and now daughter wants to do one next weekend , she did say folks will buy anything at Metheringham , no we are very rural and you cant just pop to the shops all the time so we craft through the winter on budgets of pennies . I think it was worth my while but the folks either side were moaning they hadnt made a £100 this week !!! I did buy a couple of bits A half bag of king edward potatoes nice big bakers that will keep for the winter a whole £2  and an Alvingham Pottery toilet sign from 1976, id never seen before and i have a whole lot of Alvingham...lol