A Bread and Beans Kind of Day, and Some Nice People

We had so many things to do today it was hard to decide which one to do first! Larry is working on his little log poutin' house (pics later this week), but he also felt he needed to finish the couch stripping project. I wanted to write more on my novel, work on grants, and cook. And I needed to work on eBay too. What got done? The cabin came first for Larry because the weather is good and he wanted to take advantage of that. I managed about 1000 words on my novel and wrote out the outline for the rest of it. Now I know what is going to happen and why and how it will be resolved. I did a little on the grants and then got into the kitchen. Tonight I'm working on eBay, after a little side trip I'll tell you about below.

I needed to make bread so I tried out a recipe for Honey Oatmeal Bread. Result? It's delicious, although the crust got browner than I usually like. This is one of the recipes in my KitchenAid cookbook, and I thought it might make a nice change from wheat bread.

 The stove was busy today--bread raising on the back and beans in the canner. I still haven't put away last week's vegetable beef soup

The other cooking project today was canning black beans. Last week I canned white beans with ham as well as the vegetable soup, and the week before was pinto beans. I wrote about canning dried beans last winter; it really does save a good bit of money. At the current prices, the amount of beans I canned would have cost over $18.00 at the grocery store. I spent $6.45 for five pounds of dried black beans and about 3 cents each for the lids (I bought them in bulk last summer and still have about 30 left). Since the gas is free and the water is too, this is a good savings for very little time invested.

This evening we drove to Parkersburg, about 50 miles away, to look at a used washer. My trusty old Kenmore that I bought in 1993 or 1994 finally kicked the bucket last week. We were going to try to repair it--all it needed, we thought, was a pump--but when we pulled it out we saw how rusted it was. There was really no use to repair it, the poor thing was done for. I was happy with my old Kenmore because it was a workhorse that had never given us any trouble. So when I checked Craigslist for a used washer and found one almost identical to mine but a good many years newer, I was thrilled.

We found the lady's house easily, but...she told us that in moving the washer a piece had come loose and she didn't know where it went or how to fix it. It seemed to be an important piece, the one that keeps the tub in balance. We tried to find where it went too, but no luck. It seemed like the washer would need to be taken apart to fix it. The lady was so upset that we had come all that way that she said, "If you'll take it as it is, you can just have it." And she meant it! So we loaded up the washer and brought it home. Can we fix it? I think so, or at least, I think Larry can! If not, we have another washer to haul to the scrap yard. But I think it's fixable and I am still astounded at that lady's generosity. People like her remind us that the world is still full of good folks, it's just that the other kind are noisier.

So that was our busy, oddly productive day. A lot of smiles, a lot of mess, and a lot of things accomplished.