Well, yesterday I came so close! I began to write my blog after morning chores. Simple enough, right? Well, not so much. When I went to transfer my Montana trip photos from my camera so I could shoot some pictures for the blog, nothing would work. Not my camera. Not the USB cord. Not the Picasa 3 program my photos are on. After an hour I discovered my computer memory was full. Okay, so I began going through my files and photos (hundreds of them!), deleting what was not necessary or poor quality photos. Still wouldn’t work after six hours!

On to plan B. I figured I’d just transfer big blocks of photos to a flash drive. Simple, right? Well not so simple when you’re computer illiterate, like me. David’s ex-girlfriend, Ashley, had shown me how to do it months ago and I even wrote down instructions. Just in case… But I couldn’t find them! Yep, my desk is a disaster. So I spent an hour cleaning it. No directions sheet. Maybe in a drawer? Another hour turned up nothing. I tried this and that on the computer. No go. Finally at 4 o’clock, David came home from work and saved me.

Not only did he show me how to do the transfer but while I made dinner, he sat and transferred photos onto a flash drive. Three hundred fifty of them! And when I again tried to transfer them to Picasa 3, they actually showed up. Thank God, I was close to losing my sanity. And I did lose a whole day that I could have used to harvest before the hard freeze hits us on Sunday.

So today I began harvesting like mad. I pulled in a whole bucket of beautiful pink popcorn. This gorgeous popcorn not only pops up white and fluffy with a nutty flavor but it’s so pretty. It has various shades of pink from deep mauve to light pink. A few kernels on some ears are lighter or white so you are always surprised at what you open. So nice!

Isn’t the Early Pink popcorn pretty?

Then I picked another basket of Scarlet Runner beans and part of a basket of Succotash beans. Even with the frosts, those beans are drying down nicely and the beans are plump and shiny. This afternoon I’m opening up the hoop house that holds our sweet peppers and will be harvesting those peppers for both seed and to dehydrate and can up. Our peppers were outstanding this year! Back to normal homesteading tasks lets my fried mind get back to normal — it’s my Zen.

This is my plastic bucket seat. I find — for me — it works best in a 6 gallon bucket as they are a little bit taller than 5 gallon pails.

I promised to take photos of my handy/dandy plastic bucket seat, so here it is. I couldn’t garden without it! Thanks Pyro. While taking the photo, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of our pretty kale. It’s so gorgeous and brings fall color to our gardens.

I love the colors in this kale.

— Jackie

18 COMMENTS

  1. Regina–Canned pears are good sliced and mixed with apple slices in crisps and pies. You can easily freeze a few pies if your problem is that your containers of pears are too big to finish all at once.

  2. I have spent most of my working years working on computers, but transferring to flash drive,etc, oh that makes me tense each time! Beautiful veggies!

  3. I was just saying the same thing to someone yesterday. I can’t tell you how many times, even came very close a few of them, I wanted to throw the computer out the window.

  4. To answer your question, yes I have wanted to throw it out the window at times.
    That kale is beautiful and its so big. Guess its all the “things” you put on your ground. My dad used to put spread manure on the fields. This was before they came out with all the fertilizers etc they use now. My brothers have the farm now and use commercial fertilizers & weed killers. Wish they would go organic. Since they have no cows to produce fertilizer anymore I don’t know what they would use.

    I love your blog Jackie. I hope you stay healthy and can do your homesteading for many years to come.

    • Thanks Ruth Ann. I know that it’s hard to farm without using chemicals when you have no animals to create manure. Around here, the animals are sort of a by-product as we treasure the manure so much. Not only does it add fertilizer to the soil but also tons of organic material which improves the soil tilth and body.

    • My husband loves this pie. It originally called for fresh pears but I use my canned peaches, so don’t know why it wouldn’t work with canned pears. Just drain them before you use. Enjoy!
      CREAMY PEAR PIE
      1 quart canned pears, drained
      1/3 C sugar
      2 TBS all-purpose flour
      1 C sour cream
      1/2 tsp. vanilla and almond extract
      1 unbaked (9 inch) pie crust
      TOPPING
      1/2 C flour
      4 TBS butter, melted
      4 TBS brown sugar
      Toss pears with sugar and flour. Combine sour cream and extracts; add to pear mixture. Pour into pie shell. Mix topping ingredients till crumbly and spread on top. Bake 400 degrees for 10 min then reduce to 350 and bake 45 min more or until pears are tender and topping is browned. Hope you like it.

  6. We ordered the bucket seat for Jackie from Amazon. I’ve used them for years – they are so handy and help me garden in spite of my bad knee. I think they will work on any standard size bucket. And I agree with Jackie, the 6-gallon is easier since they are a bit taller.

    • You can buy one online. Just type in plastic bucket seat in your browser. I did and found many different ones. It fits five and six gallon buckets; smaller ones it won’t fit but they’re also too short for me anyway.

  9. Glad David came home in time to save the day (and your mind)! Computers, can’t live without them these days, but when they don’t work they can garantee to drive you nuts! ? Hope you can get everything harvested before the freeze.

  11. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And while I work with computers every day, my escape/hobbies are the anti-thesis. One must keep her sanity.

    • I agree. Although I, obviously, work with computers a lot, my canning, gardening, animals help me keep my sanity. Unless the cows get out…….

Comments are closed.