Little Tricks of the Trade.

 Little Tricks of the Trade.

 

Being a housewife years ago meant keeping up with the ads and only cutting out the coupons that were really what your family needed. My! How things have changed. No coupons in my mail anymore! But the stores do have some good sales once in a while. Michelle Malay taught me to ask for a “rain check” for things that can be bought when the store says that they have run out. Well, fifty cents a pound for chicken quarters is hard to beat, so this morning they gave me a rain check for four ten-pound bags of those things. While there, the price on the turkeys nearly had me dropping my upper plate! If you can buy Jenny O from Walmart or one of those places, it can be purchased for a little less than a dollar a pound. Personally, they can keep the whole turkey. Ground turkey makes good meat sauce for various dishes, but the entire turkey is a LOT of meat and weight. And naturally, the fresh ones are always sold out! Oh well.

 

Started my shopping out by going to the pharmacy and arranging to get my flu shot. Will wait until my arm is no longer sore to get the one for the pneumonias—both kinds. Think it is called Prevnar-20 or some such. Whatever. Dr. Blackwell thought it might be a good idea to get this one since it has been years since the last one. It seemed like for the longest that the old woman was no longer around that many people, but shopping so close to home has been a way to pick up the things on my list without having to have them delivered. Today it was peroxide and coffee filters. Snuck over to the milk counter and picked up heavy cream for my coffee and a half gallon of milk. Sometimes it is so necessary to “cheat” just a bit on my diet. Not sure if it has made any difference yet, but have pretty much paid attention to the carbs and sweets and avoided them. Who knows? Maybe the old woman will lose a pound somewhere or at least become a tiny bit healthier.

 

Noticed that a Clay County lady said that they were getting a rain shower and hoped it made it to Byers. Shucks. We have had a very few sprinkles—six inches apart. Deep, resigned sigh. Honestly, some of those flood waters need to be re-routed to the Mississippi River or at least to Texas and Oklahoma! May God bless us and our ranchers, farmers, and others with the rains we so desperately need.

 

So many people get a big bang out of decorating or putting up things for Halloween. It seems a shame that the decorations and activities could not be like that for Thanksgiving. Pumpkins make me smile, and of course, the hens love the things. Would love to be able to afford several pumpkins or other kinds of fall squash, but those things are like every other type of produce—expensive. Bought the girls a head of cabbage today. At .79 cents a pound, it was less than two dollars, but still. The pumpkin purchased for them lately was five dollars. Oh well. They like their chicken food, too. With some rain, they would be out there in the lots eating grass for all they are worth!

 

Saw a tree that some lady had decorated for Christmas. It made me laugh. The old woman does not “do” Halloween or Christmas, but this “tree” was a series of branches hung on the wall with the lengths separated by spaces to laid out in a pine shape. No leaves or anything on the sticks, but she stuck a few bows and bells on the sticks and placed a star on the wall at the top of them. Now that would be a very economical tree! No waste, for sure!

 

Finally figured out which chicken was laying the pretty spotted eggs. My Turken, or “naked neck” chicken lays that pretty egg. Turkeys lay that kind of egg, too, but they are probably somewhat larger than the one laid by this Turken. Anyway, if you are curious, look it up. Kinda wish the rest of those Turkens had not been roosters. Oh well.

 

Not even going to discuss the news. Wars and rumors of wars: nothing new, really, but the U.S. has enemies on every side now except for Canada. May God let us be faithful to Him in our every thought and action. We are not responsible for the decisions of those in places of government.

 

Rest well, my friends. You are loved.