Frugal Friday! May 2-June 4, 2021

 

Hello Frugal Friends!

Wow!  A month has whizzed by, without my posting anything at all!  It is not that I do not have any ideas to post--I just don't end up sitting down to write!  Nor have I kept a good list of all my frugal endeavors. But I do remember some of them, so will share a few anyway, and I hope they will help spur other ideas for you that may help save and bless your family! 

*I made a second mesh tray for my dehydrator, using inexpensive plastic canvas from Walmart. I already had one mesh tray--these are useful for dehydrating things such as herbs, and any small item that may fall through the regular plastic tray spaces.  The company that made my dehydrator sells additional mesh trays--or at least they used to--my dehydrator is so old, I honestly am not sure if the company is even still in existence.  I have had it at least 22 years, and realistically more than that. But 22 for sure.  Anyway, my niece is staying with us for the summer, and she was going to go on a back packing trip.  She brought up wishing she could make her own dried back packing foods, and I remembered my dehydrator.  So I pulled it out of the basement and we started brainstorming. I didn't want to take the time to wait for additional trays to come to me in the mail, because she was going back packing that next weekend.

SO.  I bought some plastic sheets at Walmart, and used the one mesh tray that I had as a template to draw where to cut for the new mesh tray.  It turned out just fine!  The plastic sheets from Walmart were maybe 1/2 inch more narrow than my trays that I wanted it to fill, but I just centered it so the "short" part is only 1/4th inch on each side, and it actually works perfect as a little finger hold for when you want to pick the mesh tray up! 

I made her several trays of pinto beans, as well as some black beans.  I also made her some dried bananas and gave her some dried apple slices that I had made previously.  Along with some instant brown rice and some oatmeal, this gave her quite a bit of light weight foods, and since she is very sensitive to gluten, we had more control over any potential cross contamination so she didn't need to worry about that.

*I enjoyed fully our beautiful garden.

This is my garden gate.  Most of the year it looks rather like a tangled mess--probably because it kinda IS a tangled mess!  But during the month of May, it becomes a glorious mass of pink roses!  I have included a close up of the sweet flowers.  And one of the best things is this rose is thornless.  Every year it seems that a bird will build it's nest there.  If I was a bird, I would love to build my nest in a bower of roses. . . 

If you are interested in this variety of rose, it is known and sold as a "Peggy Martin" rose, and has quite the story behind it from hurricane Katrina. You can read more about that story here: Peggy Martin Rose

Other things are also blooming in the garden. I do try and squeeze in food, but I confess at least 50% of the garden is filed with flowers, which is food for my soul.

These flowers above are all in pots on my back porch.  I can see them from my kitchen window, whenever I am working at the sink. 

The rest of these flowers are all out in the garden.  They are either perennials that came back on their own, or from seeds that I planted this year.

*I continued to read my daughter in law's History blog as part of our homeschool.  Recent posts that she has done include the following:

Whitaker, Rind, and Wager: Part the First

If Walls Could Talk

Men of Honor, Part 5: A Soldier of the West

*I attended our daughter's string quartet recital.  These teens truly did a fantastic job! After the recital, she decided to take some of the recordings that various parents had captured and organized them into a very nice YouTube channel. If you would like to listen to their recital, I think you will enjoy it very much.  You can find it at this link: 

Quaternity String Quartet in Recital | May 24, 2021

If you would like to subscribe to her channel, she would be delighted. My daughter is the violist in the group, which is an instrument that is often rather overlooked.  It is similar to a violin, but a tad bit larger and plays a lower register.  She also plays the violin, but in this concert was exclusively on the viola. There is often a shortage of viola players, and she has received frequent requests to help with various school orchestras to help fill in their viola section.  As a homeschooler, in the past she has been able to do quite a bit of helping out in this way, but sadly two years ago she sustained a rather significant injury, which necessitated her almost completely stopping her music playing altogether.  She still suffers some pain, and has to be careful with the amount that she plays, but by God's grace, and with the help of two wonderful physical therapists, she has come a long way on the road to recovery.  For this reason, I am even more proud of her and her hard work.  I know what she has gone through, and how difficult it has been for her to get where she is today. I especially love when she uses her music to raise funds for charity, which she does every year.

*I picked strawberries from our garden.  I do not have very many plants, just a few in a five gallon bucket.  But they were sweeter than sugar!  I am wondering if there is a way I can propagate more plants from the ones I have.  I am not sure what type they are.  Does anybody know if I can help more plants to grow?

*I picked a few raspberries from our garden.  More will be ready soon.  These are from plants given to me from a friend's garden.  I have in turn passed on some extra plants to others.  I still had to pull some plants from my garden pathways and throw them away, which about killed me.  I hated doing it, but I had no one else who wanted to take them and I knew if I left them where they were I would soon have no pathways in my garden!  My daughter assured me, "They will grow back in the path, Mom."  She is right, they will. 

*My daughter picked some flowers from her garden bed, and used them to decorate the table one day.  We then put them in a vase, and have been enjoying them for around a week so far, and they still look pretty good!

*I made our own Taco Salad bowls, baking whole wheat tortillas in some pans that I found years ago at the thrift shop.  We used to purchase salads like these at Taco Bell, but they stopped selling them a while ago.  Mine taste better anyway, and are cheaper to make and we get more food! 

Well, those are the things I can remember from the past several weeks.  What have you been doing?  Do you have a garden, and if so, is it producing anything yet?  Please share, as it helps us all learn more!

~Susan