Prep Genrl Weekly prep thread: May 5 - May 11, 2024

[patriotgal]

Beautiful day. We split chores with a grand taking care of the greats. Another grand helped me get our tools out of rehab rental. Grand and fiance are moving furniture. DH cleared a spot in shop so grands can work on their dirt bikes this afternoon.

 

[kyrsyan]

And... doing laundry. Came back to check something and find the floor flooded. Except son isn't playing in water today. So I'm looking. No leak at drain. No leak at water connections. I decide to stop the cycle, pull it out, and watch. Because I can see suds which means it's somewhere in the draining.

That's when I find one last parting gift from the mice. Two holes in the drain hose that I can see. Made bigger over time with more loads. So waiting on a new hose. And one of the new electric mouse traps will go down back there when I put it all back.

 

[etdeb]

Cary came in the house earlier and said that he had a raised bed ready for me to plant my squash in. We had mulched the bed to knock down the grass, so he just dug 4 holes through the mulch. Good rich dirt, too. So, I now have 4 hills of summer yellow squash planted!

I do have a question. We have hardly any bees each year, and the squash has a really hard time pollinating. I was wanting to plant flowers in with the squash, but I have no idea what would be a good bee attractant. Any ideas? These would have to be plants, not from seed.

 

[etdeb]

My daughter plants marigolds and puttnias

 

[etdeb]

New learnings. Son is allergic to casein. Something we discovered when he was very young. He could have breast milk but any of the formulas were a problem. Also how we discovered soy was an issue. That bodily response was drastic and unmistakable. And years later, soy cheese flying across the room would emphasize that. It's the only food he ever did that with.

Fast forward a couple dozen years, and there is now more knowledge. Not all casein is the same. There is a2 casein which is an older form and closer to human breast milk. And yeah, goat's milk might be safe for him as well. Same for sheep milk.

His milk response isn't fun but also isn't painful. Well not now anyways. So we are going to try some of the animal milk varieties. Today it will be a2.

Why? Because there are nutritional differences between animal and plant milks. And if it is okay for him, there are dried varieties I can put in the pantry. Also, they are starting to make butter and cheese from a2. So we could stop buying the very much non-food fake stuff and replace it with more natural and real stuff. (Non food fake is kind of mandatory at the moment because son actually loves the taste of cheese.) The a2 stuff isn't any more expensive than the fake stuff.

Anyways, that was my new found knowledge today.

 

[etdeb]

You can now buy a2 milk

 

[kyrsyan]

You can now buy a2 milk

Yup. I bought a carton for him. He almost immediately wanted more. I made him wait a half hour to see what happened. He wanted more then so I gave him a bit more. No more until tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Even if it, by itself, isn't an issue for him, his body hasn't had animal milk in over two decades so it may need time to adjust. But so far, I'm not being given any signs of distress at all.

 

[anna43]

I managed to plant two rows today and I'm whipped! I had to cultivate to break up the crust before I could plant and that's what exhausted me. Then just being out in the sun when you're not used to it seems to be exhausting all by itself. I'm still dealing with very low energy which also plays a big part. I'm sick and tired of being tired!

The weather today is perfect today sunny, 77 degrees, 9 mph winds and 30 percent humidity.

Just had my first political door knock of the season a few minutes ago. She's running as Republican but is Libertarian. I'll have to do some in-depth investigation of her policies before I consider voting for her. Nice lady anyway...probably too nice for politics.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

We had a great time with Mom. We had to walk all through her flower gardens so she could show me all of her flowers and shrubs. Her gardens are just beautiful every year. People are stopping in all the time asking if they can pick a bouquet to take home with them or stopping to take photos. Mom doesn't mind. She gets a lot of exercise, and at 83 yrs. old, it's good for her. She hires someone to mow and weed eat every year, but she won't let anyone work her flowers, but her.

We just finished stuffing ourselves with fried catfish fillets, French fries, slaw, and hushpuppies, and it was so good. The catfish was cooked just right. We don't eat deep fat fried foods, but I make allowances when it comes to fried catfish twice a year.

Now that I have eaten all of that, I'm going to go for my second walk of the day. I walk in the morning and afternoon, now, since our Internist said I needed to walk more.

 

[moldy]

DH found a great buy on FB marketplace and it was less than a mile from our house. Today (with some help from friends), we brought home a 20x20 carport (for $400. Just the supports alone would have been around $2500) and about a month and a half's worth of firewood ($100, most of it already cut and split). I will need to make some jam as a thank you to the friends, but that is maybe an hour or so of work tomorrow.

Talking to the family selling these.... they are Mexican and have lived here a while. The younger man told me (with broken English) that the US has been good to him. "The last few years, great. Now not." They are returning to Mexico. These are people that came here to work, not just grub benefits. He said, 'it's getting bad, and I think will get more bad.'

 

[anna43]

Talking to the family selling these.... they are Mexican and have lived here a while. The younger man told me (with broken English) that the US has been good to him. "The last few years, great. Now not." They are returning to Mexico. These are people that came here to work, not just grub benefits. He said, 'it's getting bad, and I think will get more bad.'

Unfortunately, I believe he is right. Wise of him to realize and relocate before the SHTF and hopefully get re-established in Mexico.

Absolutely no one believe this election cycle will be good or peaceful. Many believe the demoncrats will do something to postpone the election. Most also believe we cannot trust the results of the election due to the experience of 2020.

 

[moldy]

I also think he felt a little sorry for us.... he patted me on the shoulder when I said, "you know, I think we all just want to be with our families and have a job and be happy." I got the impression they wanted to be gone as soon as possible, like last week.

 

[anna43]

I'm glad I can't see the future because I think if I could, I'd be ready to hide in my basement and pretend it's not happening. Trust in the Lord is my mantra and I find myself saying it a lot lately.

If your friend has savings, they will go a long way in Mexico.

I got my two more rows planted. Carrots and beets. And now it's now clouding up and thundering but no rain as yet. I just checked the forecast, and rain has been taken out of the forecast until 6 a.m.