Crafting, Camping, Cooking and Life! (with RA!)

  Good morning all! Excited today that I am using our new Z-Grill Smoker! It is the Indigo Blue Junior. We bought it from Rural King for a really good price, at about $370. Nice features, pellet burner with electric auger, has the electronic selector and 2 probes and readings. The settings run from Smoke to 450F. So far, the only complaint I have with it was the packaging. It took forever to get the foam and parts out of the smoker portion. We did the initial fire up yesterday to test everything and now have a 9.6 pound pork butt cooking. I'm using a competition blend wood pellet and Famous Dave's seasoning rub on the meat. I like that it's not just a smoker, but a pellet grill to boot. Pork butt, smoked for one hour and had already reached 165F in 6 hours! The finished product! Finally was able to get the greenhouse back up. Found a handy little thermometer/hygrometer on Amazon for $8.49. I like that it has Bluetooth. The app allows to set alerts for a range of temperature...

 Good morning all! Hubby and I got planning a few of our upcoming camping trips. So excited! Our first trip will be just the weekend in a few weeks. Which means, we need to get started on everything! For me, the biggest part of getting ready are 1) food 2) cleaning 3) packing. With the health issues, RA, osteoarthritis, balance and brain issues, I have found that early planning and preparation works the best for me. And lists. I love my lists! One of the biggest lists I use is Google Keep. A lot of the Google products work interchangeably and can save to Keep. I have made up a food packing list as well as what items we need/want to pack. This way, I can be sure I haven't forgotten anything. I also like that once you have the item packed, you can check it off your list. Food. We all love camping food. For whatever reason, food always tastes better camping. I don't know if it's because the relaxing atmosphere from being away from the daily grind, that you get to cook over a g...

  Good morning all! Chilly morning here, about 32F with a high of 38F. All my outdoor activities are on hold, 1) it will be a low of 21F and 2) having a flare up this week that has gradually been knocking me down hard. My joints are red and hurting and a couple of larger joints in my right thumb and index finger. Finally got around to checking my temperature, low-grade 99.5 after Tylenol about 2 hours ago, so probably been running about 100. A couple of years ago, my providers were able to keep the flare ups in check better as I was getting Rituxan infusions. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago I started to develop a reaction to them. Ugh, I miss them! Felt like a million bucks about 3 months afterward! Was out jogging, running 5Ks, it was the best, truly miss it. Guess the plan is that if it keeps deteriorating, will be adding another medication outside of the methotrexate. The lower dose wasn't helping as it was, the higher dose was making my hair come out more and splitting my ...

   Good afternoon all! Boy, what a morning so far! Had a 0900a.m. doctor appointment and returns to the stores from shopping Saturday. We had several storms last week with a lot of wind, so my poor greenhouse was torn apart. There is a plan in place though. We already had some stakes for the bottom, but now we are looking to use loop/hook tape to wrap around all the joints to better reinforce the frame. The ties were pulled from the plastic, but should be able to replace those. I went outside a little while ago and made another decision - moving the greenhouse. At the end of where I am adding a few more beds and between 2 apple trees I have a space about the size of the greenhouse. The beauty of this is that this is also where I moved the compost. My plan is to wrap the bottoms metal tubes with plastic to protect them from corroding, remove the bottom shelves and let the compost heat the greenhouse. The temps are still pretty low at night so I am hoping this will help. I'm als...