Well, our high yesterday was -7. But, hey, we are snug as a bug in a rug, just tossing more wood in the living room stove and kitchen range. New Years Eve and day were quiet and comfortable. On New Years Eve, we took Randie over to the China Buffet, our favorite restaurant in Hibbing, for supper. It was quiet and as usual, a great meal. We were home by 7, then watched part of the series Alone. It was kind of funny as we were all saying, “All that ocean and they’re starving?” “So, what if there’s wolves out there?” After all, we are all survivalists. Randie, too, grew up doing what those guys should have been doing all along, instead of crying and complaining. For those of you who, like us, had never heard of this series, it’s a reality show where they dropped off several men, one at a time, in isolated wilderness spots. The guy who stayed the longest won $500,000.
It made me think of why so many people would fail, in a *^$t hits the fan scenario. It’s not the cold or lack of food and water that gets you. It’s the mindset, like oh, this is so hard, I’m going to quit, instead of figuring out a way to better the problems.
The New Year is fully here and we’re gearing up for an even better one. Hopefully, with the seed orders, we’ll be able to pay off Will’s “folly,” the big Kubota tractor, and again be totally debt free. Owing money on anything really is, for us, a much more stressful situation than facing wolves, bears, cold, or wilderness. We’re comfortable with the latter. Not so much with the former!
Randie leaves tomorrow, and the next day, I’ll be down in the basement, organizing the new shelving unit Will built for me. It’ll be so sweet to get those jars organized so I can find something without digging through boxes and boxes! But I’m sure not complaining we have all that canned food. Nope, not a bit!
— Jackie
I too know about debt. There have been many times I would make it a challenge not be depressed about things. Ex in1998 when we had 4 children I would spend $50/week on groceries which included the cat food & some of those other items. I would weigh my produce & keep a running total including any sales tax. I would be within pennies of what the cashier gave me for a total.
Many years later $ was tight again. I worked pt-time and that $ had to pay for 5 of us (3 were teenagers & eaters at that point). Some weeks my job also had to take care of CVS as well (always needing something w/ 3 in sports). Or if it was vacation week & my husband decided to stay home (sales person that was commission only) I wouldn’t go shopping at all & plan accordingly.
Thankfully now all 5 children are married and on their own so we’ve been working on being 100% out of debt along w/ any home/homestead improvements we want done before we retire in a few years.
It sounds like you are a good planner for sure!! It’s the unthinking-about-it purchases that bite people in the *ss. Just pull out a card. (Not thinking about the astounding interest you pay until that and other like purchases have been paid off. Those “minimum” payments are a scam!
Yes, we’ve been in debt. But we always pay extra on the principal and pay loans off before they come due to save interest, which is like a shark. Saving for a purchase takes longer but sure pays off big dividends, when it is possible.
What beautiful photos! And the shelving looks perfect!
I’ve been seeing Hondo but no Sarge. I wonder if I’ve missed the post of something happening to Sarge?
I love my new shelves!! Sarge is just fine. Although he is, Hondo and he don’t get along anymore. After a bad fight, we keep them separate now. I’ll be sure to post a picture of Sarge soon!! They’re both very happy dogs.
Happy New Year Jackie and Will! You live such a blessed life! Thank you for sharing it with all of us. I pray this year will bless you both with good health, few mechanical challenges, and high-yielding harvests! I have not been able to find the American version of Alone yet, but you should watch the Australian version on Netflix. These men and women have a surprisingly different mindset in the wilderness challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and the winner was just who I thought it would be – because of mindset! Blessings abundant!
Yep, in any survival situation (or just plain old life), your mindset is EVERYTHING. I know it kept me going through losing my husband, Bob, going through cancer just weeks later and so much more. We do live a very blessed life! I feel so at peace, it’s indescribable. I’ll check out the Aussie version of Alone for sure.
Happy New Year!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Got my seed order mailed and garden map for the coming season finished.
We always watch the new Alone season when it comes on, somewhere in late May or June. We like to read the biographies of the participants and make a guess who will win. It seems that sometimes the most prepared people just quit because they can’t handle the isolation and/or miss loved ones too much.
Being debt free is truly a blessing. Been that way for years.
Enjoy puttering with your new pantry shelves and getting everything in order. And please post the most surprising thing you find! :)
I will, Chris. Happy New Year!! Yep, isolation can be hard. I think more for some people than others. Although I love my family to distraction, I’ve also gone on long camping trips into the wilderness and lived very remotely with only my husband and young son, David. I’ll admit that months and months without them would have been hard, I know I wouldn’t have folded and quit. Whining and crying really grates on me when someone could do a lot to improve their situation.
Jackie, you are so right about the “mindset”. During COVID shutdown I had a hard time mentally at first. We too had a pantry full of food. We were definitely not going to be hungry. I had to get myself into a normal routine. Then I was fine. And oh how I agree with being debt free. When we have debt we work extra hard to get it paid off. I pray your knees improves dramatically in 2026. God bless
I think in the series, if the guys would have first built a sturdy, useful shelter and really worked at gathering food, they wouldn’t have had such a nasty time, mentally. When you’re cold and hungry, everything seems to eat you alive. It goes to show “survivalists” should first concentrate on shelter, then water and food. Fear of wolves, bears, cougars, etc. prevents action, which saves you. My knees are slowly, very slowly, getting better and I pray daily for them to continue on so I can do more of the work I enjoy.
+Happy New Year! God is good to give us each day. : ) I join Erin with a similar onion question:
Have been gardening for more than 50 years, growing only scallions here in Ohio, Zone 5, but finally venturing into storage onions this past year. We planted Sturons for their long-keeping characteristic, much like Clear Dawns. Waited to pull until tops were down (although a fence-climbing ground-hog stomped many down somewhat prematurely on his meanderings through the garden.) Waited for three weeks for the onions to cure under cover on the patio, but still with intermittent sun exposure. Cut the dried tops off–with careful examination, I couldn’t see any stem that wasn’t dry) about an inch from the onion, then brought them into an unheated basement (about 60-65 degrees at that time). This was around the beginning of October. Started checking them for firmness or any signs of rot about a month later. Found one or two that felt firm but, when cut into had begun to rot in the center, while outer layer was still fresh and firm. Started seeing black spots on the outer layers of dried skin, but they seemed to appear on both the sound and unsound onions. Checked the stored onions every week, finding increasing numbers of onions that felt firm but had started to rot in the center–about 2 out of every 3 onions were lost, with a few beginning to sprout in early December. Two months in storage is pretty poor performance for supposedly long-storing onions, so I’m thinking it’s not a failure of the onions, but rather their gardener. I don’t think it was insect-driven, as we encountered no onion worms in the garden, nor any sign of pests in the deteriorating onions. Any ideas?? Am sure grateful for your years of experience and willingness to share!!! Thanks a bunch.
I’ve found that onions store best when the tops have completely dried down and fallen away to the point you can barely find them. At this point, the necks have dried and thus won’t let bacteria and fungus transmit down into the bulb. Ours are pulled after several frosts but no hard freezes, with very dry tops. Maybe give that a try and see if that doesn’t help your own storage.
Happy New Year!!
+Thanks so much. The advice is most welcome and will be followed. What a blessing you are!! Now, to make sure any remaining groundhogs stay out. (The fence has always worked for resident deer, coons, possum, and foxes, but the groundhog caught us by surprise…and we know it was a ‘whistlepig,’ as we saw him lumbering through the garden!)
Time to get out the .22!
+Yup. Have to say I’d hate to live in a place where we couldn’t enjoy the watching the antics of deer, skunks, foxes, groundhogs, squirrels, possums, and coons in our neighbor’s yards.
Now that we are back to ‘work’, doing our food-y things and planning for spring, I have a question about stored onions.
Some of my Clear Dawn have black mold on the layer between the nice dry outside and the eatable white layer. I dried them like I do every year, so am puzzled. They’re still useable, I just cut that one layer off and use the rest of the interior. Any suggestions? Or is this yet another oddity from 2025 gardening stories!
Did you pull your onions when there was any green in the tops? We always let ours dry completely down, not just wait until the tops have folded over or the frost is threatening. Once pulled at this point, fungus and bacteria can’t transmit down into the bulbs as they can if there is any green at all in the stems. Any that show green when I cut the roots and tops off, I use right away. I hope this helps you.
Yes, I probably had some green on tops yet. Will wait longer this summer.
It did surprise me though, because I have done it the same way for years, drying the entire thing on screens in shed. Then cutting tops and roots off after several weeks, drying longer, then moving to cellar. Cellar isn’t as cool as I’d like in the Fall, but later it is.
Also had problems like Nancy mentioned, so cut out soft centers and chopped/froze or dehydrated good parts of onion. Thanks for the information, I’ll be sure to follow it.
Glad you’ve got shelves and jars arranged, what a great feeling!
Happy New Year to you too. Winter is here in the Copper Basin Alaska. Yesterday’s high was -33 with a low of -38, last night it hit -40 We had a high of +3 on the 27th, the only reading above zero since the 15th of December. Forecast is for at least two more nights with -40 or colder lows. A January thaw would be nice. I’ll try and get my seed order in soon. I know what you need about debt, we had to replace batteries and then buy a hospital bed and some specialized equipment after my wife’s hospitalization in 2024 and dealing with inflation we are running some now.
Yes, sometimes debt is necessary. Hey, I had to charge two truck tires on our credit card. Things happen. But it sure feels good to get debt paid off!! Boy, your new year started off cold. Fortunately, our lows have been fairly “warm”, only going down to -24 and highs up as good as 30 above. We’re kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop… We never get a January thaw, but you’re right, that sure would be nice.
A Happy and hopefully Peaceful New Year to all! So glad you have had such good family time over the holidays. While we don’t watch Alone, we do sometimes watch some of the Life Below Zero shows. They are still ‘reality’ shows but more about working together to get things done, and we have learned a few things. Weather here is still up & down & dry. Teens one day, upper 40s the next. And with no snow cover that’s not good for alfalpha, wheat, pasture or livestock. We’ll see what the next couple months bring!
Our daughter, Randie, bought us a Roku stick for Christmas so that’s our first time, seeing Alone. To me, it was kind of depressing as there was so much they could have done to have a better time of it. I’ve never seen Life Below Zero. We only have 3 TV stations and no paid streaming. (We didn’t even know what it was until recently!!) Okay, we’re old. Ha ha. We’ve got snow cover but only about a foot, which is drought around here. I hope you’ll get some nice, fluffy snow to help out.
I agree debt is a form of slavery. Unfortunately for me land purchases required it and I still have some to pay for. There seems to be always indoor projects to complete. Soon time to start seeds. I love the solitude of winter. There’s nothing better than a warm stove, good book and a comfortable couch.
I totally agree! We really love our wood stove a good book and each other. We also had to go into debt each time we bought another adjoining 40 acres, one at a time. When it got paid off, we bought the next, while we still could. Now all the Potlatch lumber land has been sold, so we’re glad we did it when it was available.
Are you watching season 8 of Alone? Never heard of it before will check it out! Happy New Year!
No, season 1 was the first we had ever seen of the series. We’re new at the free streaming thing!! Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year! Down here we are having much needed rain with highs in the lower 60’s. We harvesting collards, kale, broccoli, lettuce and cabbage from the garden. I am sorting out my saved seeds and ordering a few more. In a few weeks I will start my tomatoes and peppers indoors.
Looking forward to getting getting your new seed catalog!
It’s so much fun to hear of you folks in warmer climates talking about harvesting and planting when our garden is covered in a foot of snow and the ground is well frozen. It gives me encouragement during our cold, long winter. Happy New Year!!
To me debt is a prison. I’ve been debt free for around 15 years and plan to stay that way. However, I discovered not having a good credit score means increased car and home insurance premiums, so I worked out a system to stay in the 817 range. Three credit cards, use one for a couple months paying the balance in full each month, then switch to another and continue throughout the year. Works for me.
I’ve solved the basement supplies issue by duplicating what I need so they are already in the basement. I have a landline and also have a phone in the basement which helps, now if I just had a toilet downstairs, I’d have it made. I’ve reached the point that I make a list of what I need to bring up from my basement pantry otherwise I forget.
My current project is emptying jars of things I canned and found I do not like or things that have reached 10 years of age. Time for all that to go and better in winter so shelves and jars are ready for 2026.
I need to organize my seeds and decide what, if any, I need for this year. I save my own tomato and pepper seeds but need to check everything else. Last year I could not find seed potatoes and ended using sprouted grocery store potatoes with so-so results. Local hardware store had seed eyes for $5 for a package of 5 eyes which I thought ridiculous.
Wow – $5 for 5 eyes is ridiculous. I too need to check my seed supply. At this juncture, I’m thinking retirement mid-summer however I am leaving my options open given the less than stellar actions of late.
Yep, I’m also going through my main pantry, emptying jars of old pickles as we really don’t eat that many today. I do keep foods over 10 years old that we like, however. Just in case! Holy cow! $5 for five potato eyes???? I thought $14 a dozen eggs was horrible.
I agree, debt is a prison. It can eat you alive, worrying about payments and interest!! Been there; done that in the old days. Yep, I do have a credit card for the reasons you mentioned, plus for emergencies. But due to the interest, we pay it off very quickly and use it infrequently, just enough to keep our credit score up there…just in case.
I can’t speak for others but there is what seems to be an endless list of things to do inside when the weather is not ideal.
I’m with you on what I call smart debt (land, equipment, vehicle that meets one’s needs). I still continue to make house “payments” but to savings. The one benefit of still working FT and being debt free is the ability to sock away money and not “miss it”.
Don’t forget to take any supplies you need with you when you go to organize those shelves (marker/dry marker, labels etc). I hate it when I forget to take/bring up something when I go downstairs or upstairs. But yeah, it is exercise but I dislike the waste of time.
Oh, the heck with exercise!! I get enough of that, as it is. Ha ha!! I take a bucket with those types of things with me after thinking about it for a few days to be sure I’ll make only one trip. It’s a great idea to pay yourself into savings that way.