Feather your Nest Friday, 10th April, 2020.

Welcome to Good Friday.  I find this a quiet and reflective day and it always hits me how the world went dark after the death of Jesus.  Everyone knew at that moment who they had killed.  There was no more denying it.   I guess that was a sobering moment for many!

This was a better week in that the mood improved... there was less panic in the air,  at least with those I spoke to and saw.  This had changed more to practical issues of homeschooling,  job losses and dealing with day to day life.   I know things will depend on where you live.  This week some places were in a terrible way which would be terrifying.
I hope that wherever you are you and your family are safe and well.   Now is the time more than ever that we need to do what we can to create a little world within our walls that is calm and homely, especially for children.  But as adults we need that too.  The bigger the storm outside the more our home is important.

I had Scarlett come to stay.  She is three.  She loves to work and help!

We went to Chloe's place and picked figs.  She loved this. I taught her to twist the figs to pick them.  She was a champion at it.

She would have happily picked figs all day.

Scarlett loved Paddy!!  She wanted to feed him over and over.  He probably had a belly ache later!

We fed the cows and sheep biscuits over and over too...

Most of all Scarlett played with Scout.  She learned to say "drop the ball" and Scout would put it down next to her then run and hide behind a tree until Scarlett threw it again.  Scarlett achieved the feat of wearing out the dog.   This is some kind of record.

Boy these two had a good time!

Somewhere in between I made a batch of Fig Paste and put it into little containers.  This is something we use with cheese and crackers and it is delicious.

On apples.... I dehydrated about 30 apples.  And I made an apple crumble which was beautiful!

On the way past the apple tree I picked another dozen big apples.  I think this will be the last of them now.   Each week I make apple puree.  Lucy loves this for breakfast.  It agrees with her pregnant tummy!

I made Peanut Butter biscuits for the girls...

Scarlett and I made chocolate cake.  She made the icing (this reminds me, I need to wash the tablecloth...) and then she was in charge of putting the eggs on top.   We found a little bird that is actually a salt shaker and added that!

She was so proud of this cake!!  When we went home Scarlett was just so excited to show everyone the cake and it got a suitable reception!  

I made and gave away ten face masks this week.  I posted three to my Aunt.  A face mask easily fits in regular mail making it something lovely to post in a card. 

I went to Mum and Dads. Mum gave me a big bag of scraps for the chickens and I picked Rosemary and Bay Leaves. 

 Lorraine H sent me a huge amount of beautiful Hollyhock seeds which I am planting today!   I am thrilled as my garden has some gaps to fill.

Our local tavern is trying to stay afloat by changing business to selling goods such as frozen veggies and flour etc that they can obtain  from their catering suppliers.   We all placed an order.  Well, we all got flour and toilet paper!    And the frozen products are so much better than you can get in the supermarket.  They are beautiful.  Getting a box of staple items is actually so exciting!    If you are having trouble getting items see if you know anyone who owns a cafe, restaurant, hotel... and see if they are able to obtain items.

With all the canning jars my neighbour gave me I have many very large jars. They are the types with rings, lids and clips.   I realised this big size would be fine for storing dry goods.  So I am using a lot of these to store sugars,  flour, rice and pasta.  I have almost 100 of these jars!  Think the size of a spaghetti jar but wider.  This leaves me another 100 smaller jars to actually use for canning.

So that was my week.   I am having a catch up day.  It has cooled very much.  We will need to light the fire soon.  

I am planning a Pantries and Preparedness post on the weekend.  After preparing for several years this is now a steep learning curve.  I know many people are really experiencing very tough times.   Even big families are rationed to one flour, one bag of sugar etc in many stores.   We need to help each other.

How did you build up your home and help your pantry this week? xxx