Cold

The thermometer this morning read a frosty 10F. Everything was heavy with hoarfrost that didn't melt till around 11 a.m. The trees looked so pretty. I bundled up, went outside, and unloaded from the van the cement blocks I bought yesterday. I bought 25 of them and stacked them around the camp fire ring I set up a few weeks back for boiling maple sap down. I had just enough blocks to make a three wall enclosure around the fire ring to keep the wind, rain and snow out. I laid two doors across the top of the blocks for a makeshift roof, and I covered the whole thing with a large tarp. That should keep out the wet. I will keep a path to the rig dug open as the snow falls and I should have no problems getting out to the fire ring and uncovering it so I can start boiling down sap come March. Hopefully I worked off a few calories lugging those blocks! I was glad to get the job done because the weather forecast is calling for 1-3" of freezing rain starting tonight. Yuck!

Went to the eye doctor today and finally got my eyes checked. My prescription had changed quite a bit. Saw my brother-in-law there, too! He sure gets around LOL!

After the eye doctor I went grocery shopping. I simply cannot believe the price of basic food staples! The tab was almost $165 and I bought NO meat. A gallon of cooking oil was almost $12. Same for a 3 lb. block of cheese slices. Flour was nearly $5.50 for 10 lbs. A 10 lb. sack of rice was nearly $13. I bought a small bottle of green olives for making deviled eggs for Thanksgiving and it was ON SALE for $1.93. Butter was on sale for $2.50 a pound. Everyone I saw in the store was reading labels and comparing prices. And if you look at what is on the shelves to "compare" prices with, all you see is crap -- generic brand packaged goods of questionable quality. From past experience I can tell you that these unknown cheap generic brands are terrible to cook with. Once I bought a generic type of cheese, supposedly like Velveeta, to melt for making macaroni and cheese and that stuff never did melt. It burned, but it did not melt. People better plan on digging up their back yards BIG TIME this Spring and planting gardens.

If we don't get that freezing rain, I think tomorrow I'll go cut those fence posts from all the tree top limbs that are down. If the weather's bad I'll study the plans for the free range poultry skids. I just might run ducks in a skid and see how it goes.