New house, old harvest Yarn and fiber for sale.

We are all moved into a nice two bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood of a large city.  It was a very long process involving lots of sorting, cleaning, moving things, and of course, lots of stress.  Hopefully this situation will be a good one, and so far, it mostly is.

There are lots of new shops and markets to discover.  A middle eastern grocery sells Halal chicken and extremely large bags of rice.

25 lbs of jasmine rice

 I might have to turn this into a tote bag.

There are two Russian grocery stores nearby.  At the smaller store, a very nice Russian lady with limited English has conversations with me about the need for each of us to practice our new languages.  She also helped us find the very best non-expensive kolbasa in the meat case.  I LOVE being able to find affordable Russian food again and hope to be able to discover new recipes while practicing my Russian.  They also have extremely large bags of flour.

How could I pass up 50 lbs of flour?

You can see a theme here.  Now that we have a whole house, why not start buying goods in bulk?  The local doughnut shop sells food-grade buckets.  We have a small chest freezer.  I am very much looking forward to a winter of plenty.

We are taking this opportunity to go out more, explore new shops, take walks...this is already becoming fun.  I don't know how long we can keep up eating 2-3 dozen doughnuts a week, though...

Because we moved again during harvest season, I have had to improvise food storage methods.

Sunflowers and onions hanging.  The sunflowers weren't ready when I cut them, so they are drying near a dehumidifier in the basement.

Carrots, green tomatoes, sugar beets, and rutabaga.

More green tomatoes, and Amish pie pumpkin, and some winter squash.

 Dried and canned goods

More dried goods and spice cabinet

Before and after the move, I have also been saucing apples, dehydrating apples, canning tomato sauce, sorting dried beans, and soon I will start making a molasses-type syrup from the sugar beets.

 I processed 60+ lbs of drops apples

 Glorious apple peeler and slicer.  I don't know what I would do without it.

 Just two batches of unsweetened applesauce.

Kidney and yin-yang dried beans.

The backyard is one giant retaining wall project, but after that is over, Jon and I will be making a small garden space.  I get to really think planting over and practice some French intensive space-saving methods.

I will also be selling yarn, fiber, and knit things on ebay.  Some are made by me, some are from a farm back home.  I am very happy to sell things outside of ebay, too.  I have lots of boxes to go though, but please comment here or send me a message if you're looking for something specific.  I can also knit custom items.  There will be niddy noddies and antique carders listed, too.  My ebay page is located here. *Page is now active and has several items listed.

Money is tight.

I just sat down and worked on a budget.  I need another car, and I realistically don't have the money for it.  I can't really cut anything out of my budget- its all pretty much gas, food, rent and wedding stuff.  And of course, rabbits, but they will always have plenty to eat and be comfortable.  I love them!  When my garden gets going, they will have plenty of veggies, and when my future father-in-law starts haying, I'll get hay from him and not the pet store.  Wedding spending is almost over, though, and I will be very thankful for that.  I still have a few more things to pay for.  This is going to be a beautiful wedding!  Its coming up so soon...19 days, I think.  I'm getting nervous, but I guess that's good.  Waiting is the hard part.  If I can finally save up for another car, then I'll need to save up for a house and future children.  It never ends!

This last weekend went by very quickly.  I knit quite a bit, and am now on row 99 of the shawl.  I babysat Saturday night with Jon.  We stopped at the Russian grocery and got dinner food!  We had potato and mushroom perogi, real Russian sour cream, kvas, cake, sushki (sweet crackers in the shape of rings), kolbasa, an apple, and Challah bread.  Lots of lovely leftovers.  Очень вкусно! (Very tasty!)

I'm about ready for a nap.  I spent all morning outside with the kids.  The baby is already starting to lift onto his hands and knees...at 5 months!  The toddler ran and ran and biked and slid and giggled for hours.  =)  The kids are napping now, so I might just catch up on some hulu and think about knitting patterns!