GOOD FOOD ON DAYTONA WEEKEND

 It's been a crazy weather weekend.  Saturday was humid and warm...

...then a front came through. Scary skies but it was quick moving.  Dumped a lot of rain but it was quick moving and today is beautiful, though a bit windy.

Saturday I made our food for the weekend.

It is time for our semi-annual tradition of BBQ ribs and coleslaw.  I did the lean pork ribs, baked up on a rack for even less fat, and the coleslaw is broccoli slaw with all the seasonings and greek yogurt instead of mayo.

We this meal twice a year, once in the Summer (usually 4th of July weekend) and then the other is for this weekend...

 Daytona weekend!  We are racing fans and it's the big weekend for NASCAR.  Holding out hope the weather in Florida cooperates, so far it has, fingers crossed.  We have an amazing new TV in our new house and this has been the first race of the season.

Let's hope the green flag is in the air!

FRUIT GATHERING TOOLS

Here are a few additions to our list of tools and equipment, ha.  Can you guess them?

These are berry gathering tools.  You just hold it by the handle and run it through the berry vines/bushes and it gently pulls off the fruit.  With the prolific nature of our dewberry vines here at the farm, I felt like we needed a couple so we can gather dewberries this Spring.

Yes 2nd Man, you will be out there with me gathering dewberries!

These are the other items we got.

Do you know what they are?

They are orchard gathering tools for getting pears, apples, peaches, etc down off of the higher branches!  You put a rod/pole in one end (it comes with a clamp to screw it down) so you can make it as long as you need according to your tree height.  Then you put the open end around the fruit and just use it to pull them off (the pointed ends help maneuver through he leaves and smaller branches) and then the fruit can roll into the other end so it doesn't fall out.  They came in a set of four so I figured if we break one, we'll have a backup.

I used one of the crates I found downstairs back at the apartment in a "trash to treasure" find, put them in there and stored them away in the mower shed.  They are ready for this Spring now that we are out here and whatever nature wants to bring us.

SPICE DRAWER CREATION

One of the things I promised 2nd man was that I would figure out how to turn the kitchen into as much of his dream kitchen as possible.  I'm also big on organizing and I figured a new kitchen would have endless possibilities.  The first thing I did was check out how best to use the drawers and I had been planning for months while the house was being built.

So, these are the three drawers in the island.  I knew exactly what to do here with the top drawer!

Here it is, a blank slate, just ready and waiting for me to work my magic.

I ordered these from Amazon.  Link HERE if you are interested.  I ended up getting three sets because I needed one more solid row in the back.  Of course, they come in various sizes to fit different size drawers. 

It also came with jars and labels which was awesome.

I took our most often used spices, one by one, and put them into the new jars (which we will now just refill from whatever plastic/metal container they come in).  Then I stuck labels on.  Each set comes with 216 pre-made labels covering just about every spice plus some blanks to make your own on a printer.

Behold!

But wait, that's just barely open...

BOOM!

2nd Man has an amazing spice drawer at his fingertips!  It is directly behind us when we are at the stove and of course, being on the island, it makes prepping a dish/recipe for cooking super easy.  We open the drawer and take out what we need, use it and put it back up.

We could have filled another drawer but these are what we use most and have our overflow and backup in another drawer.  2nd Man was excited!

SUPER SUNDAY

 

It's the day of the big game.  We support the Houston Texans (who did really well this year, so close!) but not sure who we got in this game.  However, we ARE here for the commercials, ha!

It's been a good weekend.  Some more little things done around the house.  Had hoped to get the boxes out of the garage and into the barn but it was easier to do stuff inside and relax.

Last weekend when it was cold we did our version of a traditional beef pot roast, cooked low and slow all day, only we used a pork roast.  Same veggies (potatoes, carrots, celery and shallots instead of onions).  We opened a bottle of white wine to drink and use some in the cooking of the roast.  It was so good.  

We just enjoy our new house so much, we never want to leave!

JELLY BABIES AN UNEXPECTED TREAT

You know me, roaming around at lunch with too much time on my hands, ha.  I was in the grocery store and saw bags of these.  I immediately thought of growing up and watching Doctor Who (Tom Baker specifically) and his version of the Doctor had a favorite candy treat of Jelly Babies...

We know it's a British thing and not something we see everywhere here so I figured "we should try these!" so I bought a package.  We loved them!

It's hard to describe them but they are so soft and almost melt in your mouth.  We were expecting something more like a "gummy bear" texture, but nothing could be further from that.  Soft, delicate and full of flavor, each color actually tastes different.

We like them!

Now on to the Tardis!  If you know, you know...😆

Is there any other international candy treat we must try if we can find it?

PREVENTING SEPTIC TANK BACKUP INTO HOUSE

Since we are new to having a septic tank, we are learning the ropes as they say.

Recently, the company that installed the system came out to do what they call a "Septic 101" meeting and went over everything with us. What to do, what not to do, how everything worked, early warning signs for issues, maintenance, etc.  It was great.

One thing they suggested getting was a sewer popper cleanout and relief valve.

This is what a standard cap looks like, what it came with, this screw on cap.  It's access to the system to clean out clogs, etc.  What happens is if the sewage ever does back up, it goes to here but then it reaches a screwed on cap, can't escape and keeps flowing...INTO the house via the toilets etc.  Those are the horror stories you hear about sewage backing up into a house, destroying floors, tile, walls, etc.

So, he recommended this.  It is a sewer pop up protection device.  They have several different styles, we bought THIS ONE ON AMAZON.

You can read the details on the instructions above on how it works, how to install etc, but here are some photos of the process and how it works.

First, you unscrew the regular cap...

Then you screw this piece on.  This is it sitting on a hard surface so you can kind of see how it works.  The center piece is just sitting inside, not attached to anything and will pop up like this in the event of a sewer back up.

Here it is in place!  Super easy, took about 5 minutes (if that) to install.  How it works is really just the laws of physics.  If sewage ever starts to back up, it will flow backwards and up into here because of pressure.  But instead of it meeting resistance with the previous, screwed-on cap and heading further up the line into the house (the direction of least resistance), this little valve pops up and out and the sewage will flow out of this (outside) instead of into the house.  Sure, it's a mess outside if that happens but better outside than INSIDE!

Pretty cool little fix and DEFINITELY worth the peace of mind.

GOOD FOOD AND FROZEN PICTURES

It's been cold again, mid-20s.  The other morning we had a LOT of frost and frozen water.

We've been staying in where it's warm and of course 2nd Man made us something good to keep us warm.

This is a bowl of pasta and white bean soup with ground turkey and three greens (turnip, collard, mustard).  We topped it with some warm and crusty ciabatta bread and it was hearty, filling, and warm on a cold day and freezing weekend.

The standing water from the rains a few days back was frozen solid.  I was able to (carefully) walk on this.  It was crazy.

But it sure was pretty...everything was covered in white and looked like a true winter wonderland.  It might be all we get this year (though February gives us a few more weeks of a chance).

Hope you all are staying warm!

THIS IS FOR THE BIRDS

Ha, thought that would be a fun post title.

We have decided to help the wildlife now that we are out there and part of that ecosystem are the birds.

So, the other day, 2nd Man said, "get some bird seed at lunch!".  I found this "Texas Blend Wild Bird Seed", formulated for our state's wild birds.  

Of course, we have no bird feeder.  We do have a fabulous barn replica birdhouse that a very sweet friend gave us, but we don't want to put that up just yet.  We'll do that in the Spring.  We also have some great Texas bird books also gifted to us but they are still in storage, will have to get those out soon.

In the meantime, we do have some Shepherd's Hooks that we brought from the last house, and I had plans to put windchimes on them, but we'll use one for this.

 

As I went down the "bird aisle" at the store, wow, all sorts of fun stuff.  We will get other kinds of feeders in time for the coming Spring.  We'd love for our property to be bird habitat.  Sitting on the screened in porch listening to birds sounds like a winning situation.

IT IS COLD

It has been cold.

We got down to 21.

The house has been great.  We have temp sensors around and the house attic has stayed around 70 degrees (!) even as it's almost teens outside.

We got sleet, ice and snow flurries.  This was the radar Sunday morning.  We were right in the middle of it.

Monday, all schools were closed, and most businesses (my office included) had people work from home. 

We had ice all over everything.  The roof and the driveway were covered.

As were the trees and bushes.

The screen door to the back porch was solid ice from the rain that hit it and froze.

We had some icicles over the back door and when I went out to check the well house, I shut the door...

...and one fell off and hit me in the head.  Glad it was melting and not sharp and of course also glad that it didn't fall from two or three stories up, ha.

We had a light dusting of snow that didn't last long.  But it sure looked pretty.

Last night was another cold night and after a slight warmup the rest of this week, we will have another one this coming weekend and another chance of snow!

OUR FIRST HARD FREEZE AT THE NEW HOUSE

Well in years past, the big Winter storms we've had were while we were in town and the farm was out there by itself.  Many times, too many

Ice and sleet predicted for everyone, almost all the way to the coast...

Temps in the upper TEENS for us.  Brrrr!!

But the plants are safe inside...

We moved stuff around and got both cars in the garage so they'll be safe from the elements.

Bill will have to stay outside but I took him for a long drive to move fluids around, get it warmed up and charge the battery well.  Parked between the two buildings it stays sheltered from North winds.

Our attic is super insulated so we shouldn't have to worry about the few pipes that run through it.  We have temp sensor up there to keep an eye on things.

Now we just sit back in the house, cross our fingers the power stays on and enjoy the Winter wonderland we might have in a few short hours.

Stay warm. 

Stay safe.