Savings and Goals Journal #17

The majority of my time this week was spent in the kitchen canning and freezing our garden produce. The weather has been a bit cooler and I’ve started doing some yard clean-up to get ahead on that for fall. Many of my flowers have finished blooming, so I’m cutting them back. We’re expecting rain here in Northwest New Mexico, and cooler temperatures.

In the Kitchen

Canning, canning and more canning!

We canned pickled jalapenos (15 pint jars), tomatoes (7 quart jars), and tomato sauce (10 quart jars). I have fewer than three dozen empty quart jars left, and less than one dozen empty pint jars. Grampy wants to can one more batch of Cowboy Candy and then we will be done with that. Any extra jalapenos we have before the frost in mid- to late-October will be given to friends who want them.

We froze bell peppers, okra, and shredded zucchini. I made two loaves of zucchini bread using my favorite recipe.

My daughter has been helping out a lot with the cooking and made this week’s meal plan using ingredients from our pantry (except for the Labor Day goodies).

This week’s Meal Plan

• Sunday: Labor Day Barbecue: Bratwurst, Seven-Layer Dip, chips, corn on the cob, watermelon, cake and ice cream
• Monday: Leftovers
• Tuesday: Shake-n-Bake pork chops, roasted potatoes, zucchini
• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Gumbo, rice
• Friday: Leftovers
• Saturday: Tacos, Spanish rice

In the Garden

Parts of the garden are winding down. The green beans were done, so I pulled them up. The jalapenos are producing well still, and so are the green chile plants. The tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes. Hopefully the cooler weather coming won’t slow their ripening too much. We will harvest as much as we can until the frost comes. Normally we get a frost and then it warms up again for a while. We may cover some of the plants to protect them on colder nights and prolong the harvest.

We were happy to harvest several pears from the tree in front of our house, as well as some grapes from the grape vine along the fence. These two things don’t usually produce much, but did better this year. We gave the pear tree a good pruning earlier this year, and had decided if it didn’t produce well, we would remove it. The grape vine will likely stay, since it covers a not-so-pretty fence. Our part of New Mexico is so bare and brown, we hesitate to remove anything green.

I had thought earlier about trying to start a fall garden, but I’ve decided against that for this year. I have many projects needing my attention that I’ve been trying to get to all year, so I’m going to be working on those.

Home and Family

My older daughter will be moving in the next few weeks. Everything is working out great for her to relocate. While I’m sad that we won’t see her as often, I’m happy she will be living a short distance from my mom. I’m planning to make her a bunch of breakfast burritos and quick and easy freezer meals to take with her. She also bought a slow cooker. Even if she doesn’t live by me, I will be encouraging her not to waste money on fast food!

With the cooler temperatures, I hope I will be more inclined to finish decluttering my storage sheds. It’s no fun to work in a stuffy shed, and I was distracted from my decluttering project by all the work in the garden! I’ve been getting rid of several things in the house each week, but I’ve been putting off working in the sheds. I think it’s because lots of the things I need to sort through are sentimental items.

When we’re finished with the canning for the year, I am going to work on some of the home improvement projects I need to do. We’d like to install a backsplash in the kitchen. I need to finish painting in the laundry area. And, I’d really like to put in a dishwasher. We also have some work to do on the outside of our house (new skirting, brick pathways to the sheds and play yard, and finishing our front and back porches). These are all things we can do ourselves to save money. We have many of the supplies, so several of the projects will not cost a lot to complete. We just need to prioritize them and and get them done.

My “Word of the Year” for 2020 was “Finish.” As in “Finish Those Projects!” At the rate I’m going, it might have to be my word again next year… 🙂