Since we weren't going to be seeing the kids and the grandkids until New Year's, we knew we would be spending Christmas Eve alone. We splurged with a little errand to Festival Foods to buy their very freshly frozen snow crab legs. It's one of those special treats we only do a couple times a year.
We have an outside propane burner, that's actually part of a turkey deep fryer set up. We don't really deep fry any turkeys, but we do put on a steamer kettle to cook the crab legs. After 14 minutes of plunging them into the boiling water, they are done to perfection.
We made up some mashed potatoes and salads to go with it. Topped off with a glass of whiskey for Steve and wine for me. Steve and I easily plowed our way through two and a half pounds of crab legs, and it was really a nice treat.
Then we watched It's a Wonderful Life....
On Christmas morning there really weren't any presents to open for each other. Our present was our new tankless water heater system. That was enough for each other, it was quite a splurge, and we both REALLY appreciated it.
Steve got it all hooked up perfectly earlier in the week. Then he finished up with the recirculating pump plumbing, which means we now have hot water at all of the faucets at all times. Kind of like an on demand system. No more wasting a quart and half of water at the shower, sink or tub in the master bath while waiting for the hot water to come through the pipes. Plus it is now unlimited hot water, as long as we need it, instead of emptying the tank and waiting for it to reheat a new batch.
It's nice now that we have switched over to natural gas, as opposed to the 40gal electric tank water heater. We sold that on Facebook Marketplace to a young couple. Their water heater had just broken down and they said they really couldn't see spending a lot of money for a new one right before Christmas. We lowered the price in half and said Merry Christmas and sent them on their way.
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Christmas morning was relaxing and we had coffee, the music playing and a fire going in the gas fireplace. It was nice to not be rushing off anywhere, although we were missing family on such an important holiday. We know that we will be getting together with some of Steve's family and Pops Pfundtner on Tuesday. And of course our kids and grandkids on New Years, so it was time to just sit back and relax for the day together, alone at home.
We spent the rest of Christmas Day in the sunshine down in the She Shed. It was nice to relax by the tree in our chairs with some soft Christmas music playing on the sound system.
I was working on four corner block pieces for my newest quilt. Now I can finish assembling it a section at a time to put it all together.
Here are the border pieces that are all ready to go on next. The borders are called "piano keyboard" that will go around the four sides, with a strip of white between it and the main body of the quilt.
This is my happy place. With the music and the sunlight and a lot of projects under my fingertips, the hours just fly by when I am here in the She Shed. Steve sits in the chair, reading or watching tv, while I am busy with my fibery fun stuff.
Sewing on my adorable antique Singer Featherweight machine. It is the one that I got in September with my sister, while at the State Fair Park in Escanaba Michigan. It is just delightful to sew on. I have a big computerized fancy machine, but this little antique one is just so much fun.
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A couple weeks ago, I had popped into the local Goodwill in Marinette to see if they had a certain lamp base that I am looking for. I didn't find the lamp, but I did find this heavy cast metal light fixture! It exactly matches the other fixtures we had found over the last two years over at Habitat for Humanity ReStore, just a couple blocks away. I have never seen light fixtures like this before, or since, in any store or shop or even online. So it's kind of unusual to run across one more a year after we found the last three. It was $2.99, and then it was the right colored tag for a half price special, so I paid a whole $1.50!
After a little sanding and little scrubbing, I was able to paint it up with two coats of exterior acrylic enamel paint . Now it could become a glorious new light fixture again, and match the rest of the coach lights that we have on our house and garage.
Here's a pic from last year when I painted the other three that went on each side of the garage doors and one by the service door. We also have the first one we found, wired up out on the front porch. Those coach lights were collected in 2019 and 2020.
I am such a "Matchy-Matchy" Girl....
Steve calls it "Prettying Up The Place"
When the lamp was finally dry, Steve went out the side door of the She Shed that leads to the doggie potty yard. We only had a basic everyday little white coach lamp out there before. He turned off the power and changed it over quickly. He didn't even need the ladder, he used a picnic bench instead.
He wired it up and in no time it was doing it's job with a motion detector bulb inside.
Any time we open the door to let out Binney, the light goes on. Also the light goes on anytime there might be some stray animal in our backyard. We have had bobcats, coyotes, opossums, and just recently a couple stray feral cats wandering on through. Binney has never tangled with any of them, and we hope she never has to. With the light flashing on when it detects movements, hopefully it will scare any "intruders" away.
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We had a nice visit today with Steve's dad, Paul, and his special friend Sandy. We shared a big pot of chili and a couple games of Cribbage, it was a really fun way to spend the day. (we women teamed up against the guys and won BOTH games!) The snow started on the way home, and we are due for another 3-5 inches or so tonight.
Life has been a flurry of grandchildren visits. We are so blessed to have our grandchildren nearby and able to watch them to help out the parents when the need arises.
Here is a YouTube video clip of our grandson Mason catching a monster fish when he came to spend the weekend:
We've been having so much fun alternating between the grandkids' visits, working on projects with them, and taking them places for some fun.
I love the sounds of clump clump clump up the front porch steps and a bang bang bang on the door as I look at their smiling faces shouting "Hey Grandma and Grandpa, we're here!!!"
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One of the items we have been meaning to get done on our National Folk Farmhouse is to add some exterior lighting. Especially around the garage. We decided to install some motion flood lights on alternating corners of the garage. That way the bulbs can aim in each direction and completely cover all four sides of the garage.
We picked up some motion-detecting units and some LED flood bulbs. Steve got to work mounting them up in the corners of the eaves on the garage.
I know motion detector lights are not the most beautiful, but we did manage to buy white ones that will kind of blend in with the rest of the garage trim, soffits, and fascia.
We waited anxiously for the darkness to fall, and then sat in the partially finished she shed looking out the windows. There was nothing moving out in the backyard so Steve finally went out there and walked near the lights so they would fire up.
Ahhhhh Let There Be Light!!!
I think this is going to be especially nice in the winter time. I love sitting at night and looking out at the snow falling, as it's reflected in the exterior lights. When we lived in the log house on North River Road, we had exterior lights on the outside of the patio doors aiming outward. It would reflect on the snowflakes falling down and make such a beautiful sight, reminiscent of a snow globe. Bring on winter?
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As for the She Shed, our next project was installing a little window near the top of the stairs that leads into the kitchen. This is a really odd shaped window. It was only single paned glass and an old wooden frame. It needed to be replaced with a thermal-pane or double paned window. We measured it up and inquired at Menards about having one special made to fit the space. Ack!!! $290.00 I kid you not.
We managed to find one at Habitat for Humanity ReStore that was for $20, but it was also their 75% off sale on all windows and doors. So we got it for five bucks! it wasn't quite as tall as we needed for the space there would be an extra inch on the top and the bottom. It is a nice high quality window with the same matching grids between the glass. It cranks out in a vertical method, but we needed to mount it horizontally, like an awning window. Hey, that's okay, Steve would make it work.
With Steve working from the outside on the ladder, and myself on the inside holding it and placing the shims until we had it level and plumb. We make a good team and figure out how to make the best with what we have.
Soon he trimmed out the window on the exterior and I was able to give it a coat of paint before it started to rain. It's best to get the wood sealed in and not have it absorb any additional moisture. This morning I went back out and gave it a second coat of paint, as well as touching up all of the other windows that we have installed so far.
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Steve is gone today, helping his brother Pete on a garden shed at his house in Menasha. Steve, Pete, and their brother Mark are all working together to make their garden shed a pleasing feature in Pete's backyard. Brotherly love.
I worked on some projects myself while Steve is off doing these other adventures.
Since we are not able to move the front steps, due to a crazy new city ordinance that won't let us put anything new within a 25 ft setback of the road, we had to leave the steps where they already are. That means they are grandfathered in where they are at right now, so we will make the best of it.
I painted the wood of the stringers a matching red. Then I gave the existing stair treads two good coats of the grey oil deck paint. I added bit of red to the pipe underneath our mailbox. The box is already a nice matching gray. I'm considering some pretty lettering on the side in red to put our name and house number on it. That will be another project for another day.
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I accomplished another thing last week. I ordered up a bushel of beets from the truck farmer on the corner by the grocery store in Oconto Falls.
I love to make pickled beets, using my mother's recipe that never fails. Year after year I make the same ones, and year after year they always turn out great.
I have childhood memories echoing in my head of all of the years I learned to can fruit, vegetables and make pickles and sauerkraut at my mother's side. We had a large family and not a lot of money. We also had a large garden. Everyone had to pitch in and help. My father would also haul large bags of vegetables or cabbage or potatoes back from a place called "The Muck Farms". It was a large commercial growing place that would sell their seconds, the ugly or misshapen vegetables, at a discount. We would buy huge quantities and can them up and sell excess produce to our friends and neighbors.
I remember standing alongside my mom in our sweaty hot kitchen, humid with the moisture from the boiling canning kettles on the stove. Washing jars in hot hot water to keep them clean and boiling the lids for sanitary canning. Why is it always the hottest part of the summer when vegetables come into season and are ready to be harvested and preserved?? Lol.
We would work for hours cleaning, scrubbing and cutting up vegetables. We had many many shelves in the basement with multiple rows of jars that would be filled up by the end of Summer. With a large family, it was so handy to reach for a jar off the shelf in the middle of winter and pop it open to add to a meal. Stewed tomatoes, sauerkraut, and all different types of vegetables lined the shelves, including things like pickles, jams and jellies, and mom's famous pickled beets.
I distinctly remember Mom standing with a smile of satisfaction on her face, surveying our rows and rows of finished products lining the shelves in the basement. And one time she said to me, it echoes in my brain, "My oh my, aren't we rich!!"
Back to my canning day:
I started cooking up a couple pounds of beets at a time in my tall kettle. I started doing them in the house on the kitchen stove. It was hot outside, but I had the central air going, and a big hood vent to help with the steam.
The beets need to be cooked up enough so that the skins "slurp" off, as my mom says. Then I can cut them into chunks and fill the jars with pieces of beets and then ladle in the hot brine.
Once the jars are capped off with lids and rings, they are set in a hot water bath in a canning kettle on a slow simmer for 35 minutes. By the time I finished the second batch in the house, I was battling the central air. It was running non-stop and not keeping things cool. It was in the 90-degree range outside and the humidity levels were atrocious.
Steve came home, and I asked him to set up the outside propane burner unit. It's actually for deep frying a turkey, but we use it for steaming crab legs, dyeing wool, or putting my canning kettle on to simmer.
Doing this task outdoors was a lot easier. I would simmer up a pot full of raw beets until I could slide off the skins. Then I would switch over and put on my canning kettle to simmer the next batch. My canning kettle holds seven jars at a time. It took a couple batches to finish up the rest of the bushel of beets.
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