Hurricane Nancy

 That's me ... Hurricane Nancy ... usually running around the house at breakneck speed like a whirlwind, organizing and getting stuff done.  That makes this back nonsense SO hard to deal with.  I can DO lots of stuff, I just can't LIFT anything.  Well good grief ... EVERYTHING involves lifting!!

I started out by trying to be smart about it.  If I take my Cowgirl wagon from Janesville Wisconsin Wagon Company and fill it up, it pulls like it weighs two pounds due to the Janesville ball bearings.  It's actually pretty amazing how cool this wagon is.

The problem was that everything was too heavy to lift up and carry out of the rig.  Those big quilts weigh a ton ... too much to handle.  I ended up with just a few things.  The rig is still full.

On to the next project!  This is a great cabinet to display quilts, but it takes up WAY too much space.  They made furniture to last back in the old days ... and this thing, although made to show off your best china ... weighs so much it takes three men and two boys to move it.  It's so heavy, the top cabinet comes off the bottom to make it easier.

Even if my back was in excellent shape, I couldn't move it, but I COULD get everything out of it.  It's going on the sale block so I have more room.

Little by little, I moved all of that stuff to this cabinet.  Yup it's pretty much a mess too and will require more organizing when I get the time.  It's all fabric!  I don't know what the secret is to keeping your stash in order, but this is not it.  Maybe I'll get more of those colored boxes and at least hide it all!!  Yes, those are all completely full to the brim.

I got nowhere with this.  I think maybe there are some small quilts hidden in those boxes that I could be binding, but the boxes are too heavy to lift.  Nancy is not a dummy ... she's not going through that pain again!!  And so I left the sewing room in just as big of a mess as when I started.  

The hurricane abated.  The good news is there were no aftereffects. This morning I can't barely feel that rib.  I have to say though ... there's not much better than taking a huge breath and not feeling anything!  Woohoo!!

To keep from starting up more wind and rain, ending in a whirling dervish, I did haul this beauty to my kitchen on my little wagon.  It's really not heavy at all.  It's a Cuisinart bread machine.  Back on the ranch, we never had store bought anything, and especially bread, mostly because there was no STORE.  Everything was made by hand.  Biscuits, bread, pies, jams and jellies and all our canned foods like tomatoes, green beans, okra (yes we ate okra), peaches and pears.  Everything you can imagine.

Yessirree ... I used to mix that bread by hand and knead it for ten minutes before letting it rise, then drop it into bread pans to rise again and bake it up.  When we moved to this part of California, there was actually a store where you could BUY bread.  We hated it because it just didn't taste the same.

Along came bread machines.  I've had a couple over the years, but this one is one of the best I've used. You just dump everything in, adjust a couple of setting and hit the START button.  It mixes, kneads, rises two or three times, stops so you can add seeds or nuts, then bakes it to perfection.  

It happens I was out of bread for Jonathan and myself.  It's not even made with bread flour ... just plain old flour, yeast, water, butter and salt.  No additives or preservatives.  Seems to me that's a little healthier.  Considering the price of bread right now, this will save a lot of money too.  You can make any kind of bread too, including rye, wheat, Russian, French ... anything you want.

Let me just say there is nothing in the world that smells as good as baking bread.  It took me back to the old ranch kitchen!!  

As for the canned goods, we canned pickles, tomatoes, okra, green beans ... every kind of vegetable you can imagine ... and amazingly, none of us died.  Nowadays they tell you NEVER to can tomatoes.  It's too dangerous.  Are you kidding me?  Our outside freezer house was lined with shelves full of canned goods ... canned as in glass mason jars.  No one ever got sick from eating any of it.

We also made all our own jams and jellies from whatever we could find.  If we drove by someone's house and their tree hung over the fence, we gathered everything that fell on the ground, including pomegranates, peaches, apricots, pears and every kind of berry there was.  Homemade jam on homemade toast ... YUM YUM!!

I'll be off to the store this morning once I get my act together, to pick up some bread flour and a little more yeast.  Maybe some sunflower seeds and molasses too.  Since Hurricane Nancy fizzled out, I'll have to be happy sitting on the couch while the bread kneads away!!