Howdy, Friends!

I've been taking this past month off from blogging, just trying to take better care of my health. I've had several health challenges this spring and now summer. This has been my wake-up call to do better. 

So, that's where I've been. I truly could not string together enough words to create an upbeat and positive blog post and still have energy to take care of my family and myself.

We've still been living frugally -- who hasn't during the pandemic when you couldn't go out shopping, eat in restaurants, go to the movies, theme parks, or any other activity that has an admission fee.

To restart my blog posts, I thought I'd list out some of my recent frugal activities with 

the penny-wise dozen edition

• 1) cut my own hair, several times over the course of the last 4 months
• 2) colored my hair with a kit in a box

• 3) made rosemary and rhubarb preserves
• 4) restocked and expanded the pantry to develop an emergency pantry while we seem to be in a good place with grocery shopping -- store shelves are full once more and autumn stockpiling has yet to begin. I used our vacation fund for 2020 to pay for the purchases. Also, we've increased our monthly grocery budget to $250.
• 5) made a long-term food use plan and have been sticking to it. Doing so ensures we have well-rounded meals for a long stretch of time.

• 6) still baking sourdough bread -- loaves, hot dog and hamburger buns, and pizza crust

• 7) making yogurt on the reg. I'm a creature of habit and have a small cup of vanilla yogurt every morning and another small cup of chocolate yogurt after lunch.

• 8) I'm harvesting from our garden. Not everything did well. However, in the places where seeds failed, I replanted with other veggie seeds. It looks like it won't be a green bean year -- boo.

• 9) the hanging lettuce baskets are finally looking like I could pick from them

• 10) drying sage, oregano, thyme, lemon balm, and peppermint and freezing rosemary and basil for use in the coming months. Lemon balm and peppermint iced tea has become a favorite in the afternoons.

• 11) playing with ring and pin designs using wire wrapping techniques -- the pins are in gold wire and the ring is double wire (one silver, one gold)
• 12) knitting another dishcloth using leftover yarn (this one is lavender)

What are some of the ways that you've been penny-wise (but not pound-foolish) these last couple of months? Add your list in the comments.

The Last Bit of the Radish That We Eat -- the Seed Pods

We eat the red roots of radishes. We eat the greens. And we also eat the green seed pods.

A trough of radishes in flower.
The red stalk through the middle is a beet plant going to seed,
to collect seeds for next year's beets.

When radish plants are about to go to seed, they develop these small and pretty, pale pink flowers. From each flower, a seed pod will grow. When the seed pods are still green (so the seeds inside are still soft), they are edible to eat fresh or added to soups or stir fries, tasting like mild radishes. The pods are best when still young and tender. 

I've let this trough of radishes go to seed just for the pods. I don't need this planting space for another 2 or 3 weeks, so the timing is great. Over the next two weeks, I'll be harvesting all of the seed pods and use them, fresh in salads and slaws as well as cooked. They're also good for pickling in a garlic brine. I may pickle a jarful if I have enough at any one time. 

Radish seed pods -- making our meals interesting.