Blog Index

Gardening

Strawberry Secrets
Growing Giant Peruvian Corn
Cardboard as Weed Barrier
Tips for Growing Peas

Recipes

Stuffed Peppers
Potatoes, Broccoli, and Bacon
Beef with Onions, Pineapple, and BBQ Sauce

Animals

Meet the Cats
Meet the Sheep
Wildlife - Game cam pictures
Bears

Nature

Giant Mountain
Flowers
Snow Sculpting

Frugality Tips

Saving on the Grocery Bill
Grocery prices comparison
Grocery Prices

Miscellaneous

Snake Rescue
Contemplations about time

Grocery Prices

 The frugal one in me always compares prices when grocery shopping. It's rare to find all the least expensive things in one store. Somethings are cheaper in one store and other things are cheaper in other stores. But, considering how far the stores are apart, it's cheaper in the end to buy everything at one store.

I went grocery shopping on Sunday, January 19, 2025

My plan is to note the prices of some items here. Those are items I buy often, so whenever I buy them, I will edit this post and add the price. I'll be looking at the same items, same brand, same store.

Sugar - Store brand - 10 pounds 
01/19/2025 - $8.17

All Purpose Flour - store brand - 10 pounds
01/19/2025 - $4.57

Whipped Topping - store brand - 8 ounces
01/19/2025 - $1.07

Whole milk - Store brand - 1 Gallon
01/19/2025 - $2.84

Angel hair half length - Store Brand - 1 pound (Half is the same price as full)
01/19/2025 - $0.98 

To be continued :)

Life and Death of a Snow Sculpture

 When it comes to snow sculpting, timing is everything.

First, the temperature has to be right. Too cold and the snow won't stick, it'll be powdery. Too warm and we know what that means. The sculpture will melt.

The best time to make a sculpture is just before a cold snap but up here we rarely have temperatures warm enough for the snow to stick.
Even in the best of circumstances, a snow sculpture usually has a short lifespan. Just a week ago we had a brief warm-up and the freshly made snow sculpture started to suffer on the second day.

So let's take a look at the life and death of a snow sculpture.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

RIP!

Bears Caught on the Trail Cam

 It's been an interesting summer. My neighbor and I have been setting our trail cams here and there to see what's all out there.

I honestly didn't expect to see so many animals around here.

Between the two of us, this is what we have seen so far:

- Bears - many
- Deer - many
- Bobcats - 3
- Coyotes - 2
- Racoons - 4
- Skunks - 2
- Fisher - 1
- Bunnies - 3
- Turkeys - many
- Grouse - 1

I might have forgotten some, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Here are some bear pictures. We had damage to 2 trail cams due to bears.

Got some big ones around!

Wildlife - Game Cam Pictures

 It is such a privilege to live close to nature. It's difficult to imagine the sun setting behind a skyscraper, out of sight just like it's difficult to imagine living life without smelling freshly cut grass in summer. The passion is real.
I wanted to share some pictures captured by my game cam this week. Enjoy!

Deer munching on apples under our apple tree.

A raccoon, also in search of apples. I've seen it on the cam a couple of times this past week.

A young buck roaming the fields.

Judging by the rack, this buck is a few years older. He might want to hide during the upcoming hunting season!

A turkey family. The young ones are growing!

Flowers.

 The main reason why I plant flowers in my vegetable garden is to attract bees, but every year I am amazed by their true beauty. The flowers make me smile every time I go in the gardens.

Flowers are generally super easy to recycle seeds from so all it takes is the purchase of one seed package and it's like the gift that keeps on giving.

Sharing the beauty..

Love in a Mist. I discovered this flower last year after planting a seed mix. The seeds of Love in a Mist were easy to recycle but not very easy to germinate. Only 3 out of 10 seeds germinated. This is one of them.

California Poppy. The orange is lovely.

This is some kind of poppy, but I don't remember which one. I want to call it sloppy poppy for obvious reasons :)

The bees like it.

Delphinium, also loved by bees, butterflies and their families.

Here's a Frosted Salmon Poppy which closely resembles a Flemish Antique.

One of my all-time favorites: The Teddy Bear Sunflower.

Painted Daisies. The butterflies as well as the hummin bird moths are regular visitors.

Black Eyed Susans. They are grateful flowers because they bloom long, and they are downright beautiful. You'll see pansies, alyssum, and lavender ladies in the background.

Paradise can't be much better than this.

I'll post pictures of sunflowers soon; they are just starting to bloom now.

Beef with Onions, Pineapple, and BBQ sauce.

All recipes in this blog are my own. When cooking, I very rarely measure anything at all, so I'm afraid that some of the amounts I mention here are just educated guesses :) Use your best judgement.

What you'll need:

- 1 pound of ground beef.
- 1 small can of pineapple chunks. 
-  4 ounces of BBQ sauce.
- 1 big onion.
- 4 ounces of Thai coconut cream.
- 1/2 cup of fine breadcrumbs.

- 1 tbsp of dried spinach or parsley flakes. (optional)

How to cook it.

This is a really simple recipe but it's delicious, I promise. It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish so it's great for a quick meal.

1) Open the can of pineapple chunks and pour a little bit of the juice in a pan. I am using this juice instead of oil which makes the recipe a bit healthier or at least I think so :)

2) Break up the ground beef and add it to the pan. I cook it on medium heat to medium-high.

3) Chop the onion in small pieces and add it to the meat.

4) While it's cooking, add the breadcrumbs, BBQ sauce, and half of the pineapple chunks as well as some more of the juice from the can with the pineapple. 

5) Last, add the coconut cream. 

6) Let it all cook through, add the spinach or parsley flakes, and it's ready to serve.

That's really it. It's super easy, it's fast and it's delicious.

A few things to keep in mind

- You can add as many or as few pineapple chunks as you feel comfortable with. I use half a can, and I transfer the other half to a plastic container and put it in the fridge to make something else with it later.

- My ground beef is incredibly lean. I can't even cook it without using oil or some kind of moisture like the pineapple juice. This is because my Amish friend raises the cow, I don't buy meat at the store. If you have ground beef that's fatty, you might want to cook it first and drain the fat.

- Thai coconut cream (not to be confused with coconut milk) comes in a 13.6 ounce can, it can be found in the Asian aisle at Walmart, at any Asian store, or on Amazon. Walmart is often out of stock on it, so I usually order it from Amazon. It's actually not more expensive than at Walmart. I open the can and transfer the content to a small canning jar with a cover and put it in the fridge. It's excellent in stir fry, soup, and all kinds of sauces. It needs to be stirred up very well before each use.

- The spinach or parsley flakes are just to make it look fancy.