Feather you Nest Friday, 29th January. 2021.

 The week is ending well as we had a downpour last night and everything is soaked!  This is good! 

I was able to get quite a bit done this week.  Having a "normal" week is honestly quite exciting!  

Each day I have brought produce into the house.  

I am trying to base my meals around what we have.  Later today I will go out and bring more tomatoes in.

This week I had a few small op shop finds.  The best was a very old tin canister that I love.   I also made up a big batch of laundry liquid as my bottles were getting low.

In the laundry I have made sure I have good supplies stored to make loads of batches of laundry liquid.  The old tin might be good to store soap flakes with a pretty tea cup as my scoop.  I have a few odd tea cups I could use this way.  I love the pretty pink and rose ones! 

On my trip to town I checked some apple trees I have had my eye on.  I had to drive an extra ten minutes to check on some on the other side of town.  Well, it was worth it! 

If I go back next week with my ladder I can get as many again, maybe more!   So today the apple processing begins.   Last year I had a month of apples coming in.   At least with apples they keep a while.  I put some into the crisper in the fridge.   The rest I usually use my method which is to do something with a dozen a day.   This way it is surprising how fast you get through them.   By the end last year I had containers of apple puree for baby food,   stewed apples frozen,  apple pies and apple crumbles in the freezer plus we all ate apples some way pretty much everyday.  I did baked apples once a week and ate them for breakfast.  They are so nice.  This year I will keep Thomas and Sidney and the girls in apple puree.   Oh,  and I made cakes and covered them with apple slices.  When they were cooked I just sprinkled them with icing sugar.  Everyone loved these cakes.  So simple.  I even did this with a packet mix gluten free caked it was so nice!

I have lived here two years now and I am still discovering fruit trees.   On Wednesday I had a good day.  As part of my shopping trip I was picking up three new chickens!   The man who breeds them lived out of town and I passed the biggest old fig tree on the road side.   The figs were not ripe yet.  But I will go back and check on it in a couple of weeks.   

All my life I have wanted Wyandotte chickens!   Mine are scrawny teenagers at this stage.  So instead I will show you one of his nice mature chickens.   Mine are "blue" and gold laced.  He was very nice and showed me all his chickens, pigs, ducks, pheasants, quail... yes I was getting all kinds of ideas.  He also told me if I have a broody chicken to ring him and he will give me a dozen Wyandotte eggs!   

On the theme of chickens I have been making pot holders.   I had these panels for a while in my sewing cupboard.

I cut up an old pure wool blanket for my padding.  I still have about six left to do.  They are cut out ready to go.  Most will be gifts and a few will refresh my own kitchen supplies.  I really like chickens... :) 

Loads of my parsley has gone to seed.  I saved lots and let them dry out for a while.  This week I packaged them up into little envelopes.   

I can count these as part of my Make the Most of it Challenge!   

I continued on with crocheting cotton wash cloths.   This pattern is very easy!  It is Crochet Bobble Stitch blanket by Sirin's Crochet on You tube.   Rather than a blanket I just cast on what I thought was right for a wash cloth.  It works up very fast.  I am using up some cotton that is a bit thin so I am using two strands.  But I think I got six more done this week.

I wanted to make Sidney some more pumpkin puree baby food.   I still have plenty of pumpkins that I grew.  This time I made bone broth from some lamb bones.  I had that going for a full day then refrigerated it overnight so I could remove the fat.   Now I am cooking it up with a whole pumpkin cut up added to it.   This will have some very soft lamb included.   I think Sidney is going to love it.   

Harper had her first day of school!  She is so excited.  I made a couple of trays of pinwheels for the freezer to take for some school lunch boxes.    Next I will do some little apple muffins. 

Each day I got something extra done and it adds up!   A little bit of sewing every day has helped me add a lot to my gift cupboard!    Now I hope my apples can add to my pantry a lot!   I count what is in the freezer as part of my pantry.  I count what is in my sewing cupboard and gift cupboard as part of my pantry.   All these different pantries are different kinds of supplies.  Patsy  (A Working Pantry) taught me to count all these things.   So my ingredients to make loads of laundry liquid are part of my laundry pantry.    I have never felt the importance of having good stocks as much as I do now.   

There are things we can do and things we can control.   So I work on those things.

There are things we have no control over!  So I pray about those things! 

What were you able to put to good use this week?  Were you able to add to the pantry, garden or gift cupboard?   I hope it has been a good week for you.   The first month of the year is almost over.  What a month it has been.   This weekend I will try and make some plans for February.  A little review of January too!   Time flies by and we need time to think!   xxx