Monday Message

"Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to ‘prepare every needful thing’ (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors, and support bishops as they care for others." (All is Safely Gathered In pamphlet)

As I was just out weeding in the garden I thought physically there is no way I could grow enough to live on for a year. That is why it is important to store extra. Does this mean why try to grow? Nope, as it benefits us the money I would have spent on produce can now be spent on things I cannot grow. It is a frugal thing even though I personally do not like it, I still very much appreciate having the fresh produce. It is also exercise though I like the treadmill better. It all goes into assisting us and helping our budget.

I usually cannot grow cucumbers very well but for some reason they are growing this year. I kept looking at the little ones from the flowers on top and thought well, I guess it is too early for them yet, but today in there weeding I found all these goodies. There must be a parable in there somewhere.

We have been having such hot weather that the weeds seem to be running amuck. Japanese Beatles have found their way here, so many on the peach tree. I was dusting it with seven dust when I noticed about five peaches. I thought there would be none this year because we had a very late freeze, not frost but a freeze.

Now to distract Neanderthal while I get them when the time comes to pick them. Who is Neanderthal?  Well he is really a chipmunk but bigger than all I ever see and he has the shaggiest of coat, much like a caveman. He lives out front by the peach tree. I was hand watering my little bleeding heart, trying to keep it alive last year and I saw him by my bleeding heart and watched him. He looked up and made his arms going up and down like (  ) going from top to bottom following the lines of the parenthesis, over and over. I thought, well, we are in dry conditions and he has seen me come out and water this plant - I could only think he was saying oh fat one, come bring water...the little peach nabber...that year he kept setting off the door sensor as he would go into the tree and nab a peach over and over again.

I have been doing a bit of spinning each day.

Thankfully raspberry picking season is over, I am so glad to not get poked and scratched and eaten by bugs.

I did make two batches of jam and froze a lot more if I would like to make more jam in the future when it is cooler.

Remember, a couple of years ago I suggested to put together a binder of food storage info and go through your recipe, file finding things that you could make that if for some reason we had no refrigeration...

I continue to urge you to do this and to store the foods required to make the recipes.

Like if you make chicken and rice casserole. If you don't can chicken, then buy canned chicken from the store. Put it in your storage with rice and canned soup or whatever else your recipe has in it that can be shelf stable. I store powdered milk that opens up to being able to make things with milk in it.

I know it sounds like yucky recipes would be only shelf stable, so I took a pic of the table of contents of this binder.

You can see they are a lot of great tasting meals. Do I have more? Yes, I do. In other binders I have more that could be included in this one but it would get a lot heavier.

So again I say go through your favorite recipes and find the ones that could be made of all shelf stable ingredients that with just a bit of switching ingredients could still be made - like powdered milk for milk in the gallon or chicken for canned chicken.

You will notice beef recipes in mine, that is because I can meat so I can add those to my binder easily.

There are some who have gotten together to contribute shelf stable recipes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEjsa4pF5UI&t=2s - here is one, I like what she is showing under it, click show more and you will see the recipe but under that you will see others in the shelf stable collaboration.

Missy says keep working on your skills and your storage, both are very important.

Gus says keep being safe, the virus is not over yet and looks to be increasing a bit.