Adulting and Freezing
Adulting. It can be so complicated, and yet mostly so easy too. Complicated because parenting, working, paying bills, getting groceries, cooking, and cleaning house. Generally all things adult or your adults do. But it can be as simple as letting the people in your life know what's going on so they can help plan things like say dinner, or when to put the baby to bed so they can see said person before they get tucked in. You know, the basics. You'd think that would be simple...yeah, or not. I've been waiting most of the day for the simple text of "I'll be home around..." Yet here it is nearly 5:00pm and he's been gone since 6:00am and still no word. I know darn good and well it's not his boss this time. It's him not wanting to deal with what he thinks of as conflict. My one and only massive pet peeve with his entire family and raising. They refuse to deal with any and all conflict, instead blaming everything else rather than just deal with the issue. I'm not just talking about my parents-in-law either. It's the entire extended family. No one will be responsible for dealing with the annoying things in life. My father-in-law is much better at dealing with it than anyone else, and most of the time we can get things sorted that no one else will deal with. Granted I was raised in a family where my dad could deal with conflict in an almost emotionless logical way. It was a little weird sometimes, but my mum could handle conflict for the most part really well. Except with the family. Then it could be anyone's guess, but even still, at least she dealt with it. Me? I'm somewhere a balance between all of them. I don't pick fights for the most part, and if I do bother to fight at all, it's because it's something I believe in strongly enough to fight for, and then only when I'm absolutely, without question, no holes in my theory, steel wall right. Which is very little. it can be summed up in three things. I like to call these the three F's. Faith, Family, and Freedom. Otherwise, it's pretty much a non issue. When conflict does arise, I do my best to deal with it calmly, rationally, logically, and of course with compassion. However, there are days I'm more like my mother. Not afraid to tell someone off to their face when they are being stupid. Generally couched in semi nice terms. And tactfully...mostly. Tonight looks to be one of those types of nights. Nope, I lied. It's going to be one of the few nights that he actually gets a butt chewing. Not that he doesn't have it coming. He totally does.
Onto freezing. No, I'm not cold. Actually it's very warm out today. No, I'm talking about freezing food. Particularly fruit. I'm going to attempt to freeze peaches and pluots. For those of you who don't know what a pluot is, in very basic terms it's a hybrid of an apricot and a plum. They were once described to me as the fruit punch flavor of plums.They tend to be a little sweeter sometimes in my opinion. I grew up with a plum tree outside my house that the bears used to enjoy eating from. Well that and the apple tree. My mom woke up more than once to the sound of bears climbing in the trees. It was always interesting. They also enjoyed our Elderberry trees...bushes, whatever you want to call them. They were big enough to be trees. Anyways, back to freezing. To freeze the peaches I'm going to mix a little lemon juice with sugar and cinnamon. Then I'm going to blanch the peaches lightly to peel the skins off, slice, and toss in the sugar mix. From there it's into freezer bags and popped into the freezer. The pluots will be sliced in half-ish and placed on a baking sheet covered in plastic wrap. Then those will go into the freezer until frozen hard enough to place into freezer bags. I may sugar the open parts of those as well just to see what happens. Then I will have frozen strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and pluots for winter. I'm going to attempt to get some nectarines and a few other fruits and veggies to freeze for winter as well. It's harder to get decent fruit in the winter than in the summer. So, as Dad always said "Be prepared for whatever may come and pack away excess in the summer to make up for the deficiency in the winter." Yup, I grew up where we had more in the summer than the winter. Thus the packing away for winter. That included freezing meat, fruits, and anything else we could. We canned, and dried. Chopped stupid amounts of wood, filled the extra gas tanks and snowmobiles, double checked tires on cars, and topped off the propane tank before the first freeze hit. It also meant wrapping certain pipes to make sure the snow wouldn't hurt them, and checking the hot wire fences and water trough heaters for the horses. Extra blankets for the dogs, and a warm place in the hay for the cats. And lastly making sure each of the cars had warm blankets, water, and some granola bars in case of a break down. Growing up that way tends to teach you to be prepared for the worst that the weather can hit you with. So, when you do get hit, you no longer worry to much about it. It's why, while we don't get as harsh of weather, I still tend to pack in the wood, check that the pantry is more than full, and make sure we have plenty of warm, cozy stuff to curl up in. I don't have to go to quite the extremes that my dad did when I was little, but I do make sure that if we get hit with a big storm and can't get out, we still have plenty to get us through until the end of the bad weather. Thus my freezing, packing the pantry, and generally squirreling stuff away for winter. Which then gets unpacked next spring and gone through.
Well bloggers, that's all I've got for the day. How do you prepare for winter? Let me know in the comments as I always love new ideas. Happy squirreling!
Onto freezing. No, I'm not cold. Actually it's very warm out today. No, I'm talking about freezing food. Particularly fruit. I'm going to attempt to freeze peaches and pluots. For those of you who don't know what a pluot is, in very basic terms it's a hybrid of an apricot and a plum. They were once described to me as the fruit punch flavor of plums.They tend to be a little sweeter sometimes in my opinion. I grew up with a plum tree outside my house that the bears used to enjoy eating from. Well that and the apple tree. My mom woke up more than once to the sound of bears climbing in the trees. It was always interesting. They also enjoyed our Elderberry trees...bushes, whatever you want to call them. They were big enough to be trees. Anyways, back to freezing. To freeze the peaches I'm going to mix a little lemon juice with sugar and cinnamon. Then I'm going to blanch the peaches lightly to peel the skins off, slice, and toss in the sugar mix. From there it's into freezer bags and popped into the freezer. The pluots will be sliced in half-ish and placed on a baking sheet covered in plastic wrap. Then those will go into the freezer until frozen hard enough to place into freezer bags. I may sugar the open parts of those as well just to see what happens. Then I will have frozen strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and pluots for winter. I'm going to attempt to get some nectarines and a few other fruits and veggies to freeze for winter as well. It's harder to get decent fruit in the winter than in the summer. So, as Dad always said "Be prepared for whatever may come and pack away excess in the summer to make up for the deficiency in the winter." Yup, I grew up where we had more in the summer than the winter. Thus the packing away for winter. That included freezing meat, fruits, and anything else we could. We canned, and dried. Chopped stupid amounts of wood, filled the extra gas tanks and snowmobiles, double checked tires on cars, and topped off the propane tank before the first freeze hit. It also meant wrapping certain pipes to make sure the snow wouldn't hurt them, and checking the hot wire fences and water trough heaters for the horses. Extra blankets for the dogs, and a warm place in the hay for the cats. And lastly making sure each of the cars had warm blankets, water, and some granola bars in case of a break down. Growing up that way tends to teach you to be prepared for the worst that the weather can hit you with. So, when you do get hit, you no longer worry to much about it. It's why, while we don't get as harsh of weather, I still tend to pack in the wood, check that the pantry is more than full, and make sure we have plenty of warm, cozy stuff to curl up in. I don't have to go to quite the extremes that my dad did when I was little, but I do make sure that if we get hit with a big storm and can't get out, we still have plenty to get us through until the end of the bad weather. Thus my freezing, packing the pantry, and generally squirreling stuff away for winter. Which then gets unpacked next spring and gone through.
Well bloggers, that's all I've got for the day. How do you prepare for winter? Let me know in the comments as I always love new ideas. Happy squirreling!
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