Swollen Lip, Groceries, and Elderberry Juice

Mr. Dirt tried to pull me in for a cuddle this morning and unfortunately his elbow and my face were trying to go to the same place and now my lip is enormous! So trying to get videos done with a slight speech impediment and kind of a lopsided smile. For the last few days we had very little grocery variety which made cooking and eating unattractive. So last few days were spent doing very little besides keeping the house clean and animals fed. That meant I really splurged on veggies, fruit, and meat this morning. Unfortunately it takes me a few days to bounce back from not eating enough...so by this weekend I will be feeling great again!

A little worried about the ebola scares we are having. Mr. Dirt works in package delivery so he is there at the airport and then his delivery area is the hospital and doctor district in our town. We have come to an understanding that if a case breaks out here in Idaho he will just come home. If that means he gets a leave of absence that is fine. If that means he quits his job that may have to be fine as well. Due to this decision we are once again going through all of our food, water, and other supplies to make sure that we have enough to get us through a very long period of time.

One exciting thing about this is that my mom told me that Sambucha (Elderberry) juice is a very good virus fighter. I have jars of that juice so even if just for the flue this stuff is supposed to be really great for us! I have three bushes planted on our property and my mom has offered to buy a few more to put in the backyard where I have heavy mulch (elderberry loves water).

Nobody Took My Handle!

So here is my little blog with my own name! I think that transitioning from edibleoasisidaho.blogspot.com to here will be interesting, but keeping just one name seems so much easier! Not sure how to make sure that other blog and it's posts don't get lost thought since they were very heartfelt.

Winter Garden Progress, Lunches, and My Favorite Cookbook

The winter garden is doing well, yesterday I picked a big armful of Purple Plum radishes for dinner along with the same amount of Perpetual swiss chard. The swiss chard was chopped up and put in the chicken rice soup and the radishes have sat in cold water since harvesting so that we can snack on them at will. The temperatures have been down in the low thirties at night but that has not even phased the greens at all. The best part is that I throw old radish tops or nasty chard leaves on the ground and the next time I go outside they have all magically been composted by the ducks!

Doing these videos on the cost of meals has been very cathartic for me since by putting a price on the food and actually timing myself it appears that we are living on air and eating faster than if I had used a microwave! This has given me knew purpose in finding ways to combine the food that we grow so that it does not become stale and boring. My favorite book for this is 'Mad Hungry, How to Feed Boy and Men'. I love this book because none of the ingredients are exotic but the way that she combines them keeps them fresh and appetizing! Also, I love that she has found a way to express what all mothers know: if you don't feed them before you are hungry you are just making more work for yourself. So there is my first big post here and lets see how it goes alright?


Wow was that a big sigh.....good things that I have allotted myself 2 hours in the morning to come down and get everything uploaded and written. Why the sigh? I just realized that I have two blogs right now and I don't know which one I love the name of more. So I guess I will keep both and just see which one is the best fit.

Right now we are trying to connect all of the account together while putting new videos up with a new video editor that I am not familiar with. Doing this will hopefully make things more efficient and take less time to manage.