terrycorum.com

I am not sure why, but Google seems to like this site. I just posted 2 little articles today and they were immediately cached by Google! I have done a little work on some other blogs and never get quite this success. So I am going to continue this blog and post some things for a site that I do a lot of work on and needs all the help it can get, google-wise!

Scratch n All is the site I want to promote. Scratchnall® pads are designed to give your pets a safe place to scratch – any time they feel the urge. They also work to protect your property from paws, claws, heads, hooves and hips. This pad can be used for cats, dogs, horses, goats, donkeys, any animals that are scratching all the time. The pads are designed to be put together to make as large a scratching area as needed for the type of animal it is intended for. The best way to show this is by a picture:

A single Scratch n All pad installed on corner

Several Scratch n All pads installed on barn door frame

Even better is a video:

A couple of weeks ago I started up a little indoor garden. I moved my office into the dining room for the winter in order to conserve heating and I hated that it is so dark in there all the time. There is a window, but with the plastic on it and the cats, I can’t put plants in the window! I do have a large entertainment center in my winter office that normally is just filled with “things”. So I cleaned out the big center area and stuck in some lights and now I have a plant area. I have one pink African Violet, one miniature yellow rose, one sad English Ivy, one sad lemon verbena, and one grass plant (for the cats). The light in the room really makes a big difference, it feels like sun shining into the room.

Yesterday I added some trays of pebbles and water to help with the humidty. The back of the entertainment center had been removed and I am thinking I want to do something with it. If I could find a large picture of woods or a garden or something, I would like to stick it back there for some depth.

Yesterday I did some winter sowing. I planted:
1. Sweet Pea, Ocean Foam – bought last year from Botannical Gardens and planted some in the garden direct but they did not do well.
2. Sunflower, Elves Blend – bought last year from Botannical Gardens but never planted.
3. Chamomile, German – bought last year from Botannical Gardens and planted some in the garden direct. They came up but didn’t do real well.
4. Morning Glory, Chocolate – Some left over I am not sure if I got them last year or the year before.
I have my seeds planted in milk jugs and sitting on the sunny side of the porch.

I tried some winter sowing last year but didn’t have a good place for the 2 jugs and they kept getting knocked over so I am giving it a second try. We will see how it goes.

I recently converted a coat closet into a pantry. This closet is in the entryway right inside our front door. The entryway is very small and in the winter I hang a heavy quilt over the doorway into the living room to help keep the house warmer. That works very well. But that closet has 2 walls facing the outside and with the quilt hung up the closet becomes so cold in the winter that no one wants to hang their coats in it anyway! So when I decided I wanted to create a place to store foods, I felt that closet would be perfect!

The closet is 4 feet wide by about 3 feet deep. I have a digital thermometer in the pantry and since it has turned cold, the temp in there hovers right around 50 degrees fahrenheit. Perfect!

However, being a coat closet, it only had one high shelf. I did not have money to buy shelving materials so I used what I have, namely plastic milk crates and odd pieces of boards I keep for just such purposes. The closet is working very well, I really like having a supply of food on hand so I don’t have to run out if the weather turns bad. But it really needs to be emptied and reorganized already!! I noticed that one of the milk crates sides are getting droopy because a lot of canned items are on the shelf it is hold up. I am going to have to take care of this before I have everything fall down. This is what is on my mind lately.

Sorry I do not have a picture of my pantry because I do not have a camera right now.

After Thanksgiving day dinner, pull as much of the turkey meat as you can off the turkey carcass. Put the bones, skin, fat into a large pot and cover with cold water. Simmer for at least 4 hours. I put mine back into the roaster oven and simmer it overnight. You can add chopped onion, celery, and carrot, and salt and pepper. I like to simmer the broth for a very long time (12 hours maybe) until the bones have completely disconnected theirselves.

Let the broth cool and then remove all the bones and stuff. You can pour the broth through a sieve if you like. Check to see what the broth tastes like and if it is still watery tasting you can simmer it longer with the lid off to condense it.

If you prefer, you can chill the broth and remove any fat that has congealed at the top.

Then use the turkey broth for making soup – turkey and rice, turkey noodle, whatever you like. Or if you still have a lot of turkey left and no gravy, you can use it to make more gravy. If you are tired of eating turkey you can freeze the broth for another time. Just make sure you leave a couple of inches in the top of the container as the broth will expand when freezing.

Donkey using the Scratch n All pad

All animals enjoy a good scratch…and now an innovative, new product lets pets of any size, and people, satisfy that need any time they feel the urge.

The Scratch n All® pad from Animent, is a high-quality, rubber-based grooming pad specifically designed to allow unlimited applications in homes, kennels, stables, barns and even zoos. The pad’s raised nub design is based on curry brushes familiar to all animal owners.

The Scratch n All® pad was created by a pet owner and animal lover who recognized the basic need to groom, scratch and experience the tactile pleasure of an invigorating massage. They can be configured to meet any self grooming application, making them perfect for all animals—horses, dogs, cats, goats, alpaca, sheep, pet pigs, rabbits… and even dairy cows.

I pretty much have an ugly garden.  I used to feel bad about it sometimes and go around madly trying to “clean” it up.  But after reading about some other ugly gardens, I have decided not to fight it.

There aren’t a lot of pictures on this site of my garden because my camera situation is almost non-existent.  Plus I was always trying to clean it up before I take a picture.  But you can look around, there are a few from previous years, and you will see, they are pretty ugly.  This year, the garden is occupying nearly the entire back yard, and it ain’t any prettier!  oh well.

I have been lax on updating my garden notes.  The book my Mom gave me and this blog.  Too busy is my excuse.

The peas and strawberries are flowering.   The lettuce and spinach are being eaten.  The tomato plants are mostly in the ground.  I put in some cucumber seedlings this morning and in the next couple of days the squashes should be ready to plant (my goodness they grow fast!).  The potatoes are growing like crazy and the beans are coming along.  The broccoli tends to wilt a lot.  I think the weather  may have turned too hot for it, I should try and figure out a shade arrangement for it.

I need to build some more tomato trellises before the plants get very big.

My new phone will not send email photos.  I don’t know how to fix that, I will have to ask Caitlin.

I think I always wanted to live simple, just things got in the way…

At times I would do things like bake my bread, make yogurt, sew my clothes.  Most of the time these things were done because I never have had much money, so I had to do things the “cheap” way.  Most of my adult life I had a fulltime job.  I had children.  My husband had a lot of health problems and did not work or do very much around the house.

Then, in 2001 I lost my last full time job at the age of  50.  We live in a Detroit Michigan suburb and the economy around here was starting to go down the drain.  It has never recovered.  So any dream I had of finding a full time job (especially at my age) was pretty much a waste of time.  So I started working at home making websites.  I did work part time at a couple of different jobs, but I hated them.  Being a cashier in a grocery store for minimum wage was not for me.  Then I partnered up with a gentleman who sent me website work to do on a regular basis.  He asked me what was the minimum amount of money I needed every week and he paid me that.  If there was more work, great, but at least I could count on the minimum while I was learning to live very simple.  He died suddenly 6 months ago, but I was left with the regular clients we had and am managing to keep just about the same income I had with him.

My first garden

In the meantime, I started doing more simple living things around the house.  Cooking from scratch, more sewing, small things.   Then the food scare started.  It started with tomatoes for me.  The ones in the store dissappeared and that summer I planted my own, along with a couple of other things.  My first vegetable garden was quite small, but I was impressed by what I got from it.  That winter I did a lot of online reading about organic vegetable gardening.  That was when I found blogs like Little Homestead In The City, down–to–earth, and others.  I was very impressed by what other people were doing in their yards in the city.  The next summer I dug up more of my backyard and planted heirloom seeds I bought online.  More success!  So much so that I canned up a lot of tomatoes, made pickles, and froze some other items from my garden.  It wasn’t enough for the whole next 6 months, but it certainly made a dent in my grocery bill!

Way too much lettuce that season!

I also started making sure I bought locally and organically if at all possible.  I composted our scraps and cardboard.  My garden this year will be the majority of our backyard, I am hoping it will be an even greater success, enough to last us through the winter and next spring.  I am now 59, my last kids are grown, although they still live at home, and unfortunately are both now unemployed.  Money is still tight.  But that’s ok, because we don’t need much.  I have been trying to teach them what I have learned too.

In between working on websites from my little home office, I do the simple things like gardening, sewing, knitting, cooking.  To me life is the best it has ever been!  I don’t leave home often, I don’t spend hardly anything at all except what is required. The clothes I wear are old.   It would be really nice if I had enough money to visit my 2 other children and 5 grandchildren on the other side of the USA, but I will have to settle for Skype visits.

My gardening buddy, Jack, sunbathing

Lettuce, spinach and peas are finally starting to come up outside.  A few sweet peas sprouting.  The broccoli is coming along.

Very nice weather for a few days and I am stuck inside trying to figure out a website problem!  Why aren’t these support people helping me??  Maybe they are outside!  I need to plant the raspberry bushes.