My Tireless Retirement – Week 106

 

Well, hello everyone!  Winter arrived, rained a bunch, then dumped an inch of snow on the ground overnight, warmed back up and melted off.  After a few days of near freezing temperatures overnight which required me to turn the main heat back on the weather changed yet again and spring returned.  The heat was turned back off as temperatures rose and by the end of the week we were nearing the 80s.  Now it has cooled back down.  Has your weather been as crazy as ours has been?  Every day is different, that’s for sure.

 

Mother Nature has been very liberal with the weeds this year

All the wind and rain littered my yard with lots of sticks, twigs and other yard debris as well as some trash from my neighbors that blew in too.  I’ve also got quite a weed infestation going on right now.  They are mostly milk weeds, which actually ends up being a good thing because my chickens absolutely love them.  I’ve been going outside each day and picking them a big pile.

 

FREE chicken food!

I was further able to finish cutting up the pruned apple tree limbs and get them into the bin for pickup on trash day.  It felt really good to finally have that project 100% complete.  I gave the bunny a couple pieces of wood to gnaw on and that made her very happy.  Now I’m on a mission to get the plethora of weeds pulled from the yard.  I grabbed my yard bucket, gloves and dandelion tool and have been going out each day and filling the bucket.  Then I give the weeds to the chickens, which they absolutely love.

 

My happy girls

Things I Did To Save $$: 

Gas prices right now have jumped up to nearly $4 a gallon so I gave my little truck the week off and rode the bus to work the entire week.  I have also done some additional research on other bus routes so I can run errands and go places that way rather than drive if I choose.

I made a minor repair to one of my shoes.  I tend to be a bit of an ankle kicker when I walk and I'd rubbed a hole onto the top edge of my shoe.  I stitched it back up and added some extra reinforcement stitching.  Good as new!

 

I supplemented the chicken’s daily diet with freshly pulled weeds and they in turn laid some eggs for me.  I gave them some kitchen scraps as well so there was zero food waste at my house last week.

 

Meals I Prepared: 

Knowing I had a full and busy work week ahead I did a little bit of meal prepping so that when I got home all I had to do was pop something into the microwave to reheat.  I had three cubed steaks in the freezer so I made Salisbury steak in brown gravy with rice on the side and used the rest of the pan roasted veggies from Easter as my sides.

 

I had pesto shrimp pasta on the menu plan in February, but due to my schedule and the leftovers in the fridge it didn’t get made.  I went ahead and made up half a box of bow tie pasta and sautéed the shrimp with pesto, a bit of butter and some extra garlic.  After tossing the pasta into the shrimp I sprinkled it with some grated parmesan.  It was delicious and made enough for me and a guest as well as three additional meals to enjoy during the week.  I made simple green salads for my sides with the pasta.

 

Sad news.  The mini fryer quit working so I ended up returning it to Wal-Mart and since I really don’t need that type of an appliance I used that money to purchase a set of mini pans for my toaster oven.  I think I will use those far more often than the fryer.

 

My first daffodil!

I had a rather busy and productive week which makes me very happy.  My home is neat, clean and well cared for as are my animals.  Me too!  How was your week?  Anything exciting going on? 

 

Signs of spring are everywhere

FYI - My retirement week runs from Friday through Thursday.