Meh, just stuff.. and food.. and nice weather

Getting some stuff done.

It was nice enough and dry enough the other day that I buried my herb garden in fall leaves. It was super nice out today with only overcast tomorrow so I can rake up another batch for the garden and prolly some for the compost bin too. If I'm feeling extra super maybe I'll snag a barrow or two of horse poo to toss on top of the bin. We pretty much went from hot and parched to cold and wet so now I'm just biding my time.
Even though the grass looks pretty shaggy I'm not going to mow again this year. Rather leave it a bit shaggy to overwinter rather than cut it now and have it freeze up all crappy.
I also want to pick up a bunch of the pinecones to sock away for winter ornament use- if they end up being critter or indoor use I haven't quite decided yet. 

Made a batch of pork stock. Didn't feel like dinking around with the smoker, so I used just neck bones and roasted them in a hot oven for a half hour before making the stock. It wasn't as gelatinous as I'm used to, but that's ok. Made up a gallon and a half and concentrated it down by half before chucking it in the freezer. Today I made ham and bean soup with it and it's pretty darn good. I was also able to use some of my dehydrated onion, celery, and carrot in it, yay!

Yesterday I made up a crockpot of chili and one of meaty tomato sauce. Tomorrow I will re-arrange the freezer so I got all the stock in back and the edibles in front for quick service.

Hit the Meijer yesterday, and they had pint and a half tall wide mouth canning jars on clearance- 5 bucks for a nine pack. Damn good deal, so I got 4 of them. When I go there after Halloween to check out their clearance stuff, if they still got them, I may end up picking up a couple more.

An ekkgads.. I finally filled up the two huge jars with dried mushrooms. And I still had a couple more packs to dry up sitting in the fridge. What's a girl to do? Make mushroom powder of course! Took about three quarters of a jar to make a couple cups of powder. What's it good for? Adding umami to just about anything... and for making magic dust. So today I made up a half batch of magic dust- shit smells good as hell. What's magic dust for? Just about anything that needs an extra hit of flavor. It can be used for meat rubs, on veggies, in soups, stews, casseroles..

Magic Dust:
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 T mustard powder
2 T oregano
1/4 cup chili powder
1/4 cup cumin
2 T black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 T cayenne pepper- you can use some red pepper flake instead if you like or are out of cayenne
1 T orange zest- you can use powdered orange, or add in some lemon or lime if you don't have enough orange zest
2/3 cups mushroom powder
Blend all this together in a spice mill or your blender till it's all a powder. Magic dust rocks!!

Hmmm, what else? Oh yeah, been working on christmas presents. Got a couple of kusudama flowers all set up, now all I have to do is finish gluing the flowers together into globes. Cut out a set of geodesic ornaments, and got the first one primarily glued together.  Need to let the glue dry before I finish assembling the first one. Then on to the next, lol. Next up on the list will be making glitter string balls, beaded snowflakes (the store finally had tiny styrofoam balls to work with), and some star ornaments.
Got most of the rest of the recipes typed up for this years family cookbook. Just need to get a couple of recipes from my bro's GF and they will be ready to print out and assemble.

Got a bunch done on the rosepetal pavilion. I had to find a more viscus clear glue that would work outdoors and I did at the local fabric store. So I did the backfilling of the tiling on the floor today, at least on the two big hexagons. I'll finish the backfilling once I get the posts and the final outside row of tiles in place. Got the posts stepped into their cups, painted, and the stopper beads on the tops done. Those all need to dry overnight or so before I can glue those into place. Then it's finishing the backfilling, then oh dread, working on the roof action.

Out of Tippy and friends...
lol, oddly enough, after spraying ammonia and scaring the shit out of the coons, we haven't seen them around the house. The swan family is finally flying out for the season. Geese are heading south in major arrows... And I saw white kitty in the yard the other day. We hadn't seen him in so long, we figured he was a goner.
Our new boy, Nova, seems to be finally settling in... or should I say, the other cats seem to be finally getting ok with him. I was a bit worried there for a while, but I think everything is going to be ok. He's huge, at almost 6 months old he's about the same size as the twins. Next month, his balls get snipped- want him to be fully recovered and OK before thanksgiving. He's already a mama's boy- I snuggle the snot out of him and it shows.

As a random SPAM moment...  A couple weeks ago, I got a letter from Best Buy with nonsense about my Best Buy card.. Damn, hadn't used the thing in so long I forgot I even had one- didn't even have a card anymore or paperwork or anything.. So I call in to cardmember services and cancel the card entirely... So today in the mail shows up my new Best Buy credit card? WTF?? Thats spamalot, and I will be calling to complain and make damn sure the account is really canceled. Dumb ass spamming mofos.

And seeds... MMMMM, still haven't gotten anything in the mail from the SASE folks I sent off to, but then I'm not terribly surprised. It will prolly take a while for those to come in. I got back on the Gardenweb. For 4 stamps, I'm getting a half gallon sized package of marigolds, for a pay it forward I'm getting marigolds, pumpkin, and parsley, and for an SASE I'm getting tall marigolds. If I'm at all talented next spring, and Mama N plays nice like she didn't this year, I should get a goodly border of marigolds going on down to the firepit. I put them in this year, but it was so dry I couldn't keep up the the veggie rows, let alone the firepit borders.
I already have my seed wishlists made out for a couple of places, but I'm going to be a good kid and hold off till December to order them.. it can be my xmas present from my love to me, lol.

And wedding stuff... I got all the invite stuff of to my sisters, that all is in their hands now. I picked up a bunch of lovely flameless pillar candles with spring flowers pressed into the was from Joanns on clearance- table lighting for the wedding is now checked off the list. And badass, my clansman Chuck has stepped up to the plate to make all the brew for the wedding, and is asking around for some of the other things I need help with, like the tent! He is frigging awesome with the brewing, so I know the drinks will be yummy as hell!!
Now I need to get off my booty and start making up some origami boxes for wedding favors. I was going to do jars for the garden in a jar- but I'm thinking that garden in a box would make more sense coming from Growbox hill like it is. I'm going to tinker around with construction paper and see if it makes boxes the size I want them.