A year ago today I was still living in England. My family and I had just moved from our house in Portefields Road, to my mother-in-law’s flat in Warndon. Jordan had not long finished his brain surgery, and we were still not even sure if he’d be able to fly to America with us! The flight was booked for the 29th of the month (September), and the Visa’s that we had spent so long, and so much money obtaining were set to expire on the 7th of October. We did not find out Jordan could fly with us till five days before the actual flight! Adventures are great to watch on the cinema screen, but when you live those moments in real life, it’s enough to give ulcers to your ulcers.
Living in Britain was amazing! I laugh when I hear people say they want to live there too, because I know that unless you are quite wealthy, living there is kind of like that party you go to but you stand close to the door so you can make a quick escape. It is expensive there, and though you can get through the day to day on normal wages for working class dogs bodies, it is hard to advance. I read an article the other day that was published in the Worcester news about a guy who had been charged more than twelve thousand pounds for his monthly electrical bill. It was an obvious mistake, so he got the power supplier to send him a corrected bill for his two bedroom bungalow and the corrected amount was 167 pounds. (There is no pound sign on this keyboard! Very frustrating!). The pound is worth about $1.60, so if you convert it, that means he was paying $270 for a small, and I mean SMALL, two bedroom house. (Maybe 900 square foot or so.) Last month we paid $227 for a 1,900 square foot house, with the air conditioning running full steam due to the 110 degree heat. Even if you don’t account for the exchange and let the numbers stand as equal in value, it leaves me scratching my head! Life is less expensive here, and for that, I am thankful! The history here is nothing near as extensive as it is in the UK, and for that, I am a little bored with that aspect of it. Still, we have chickens and ducks and horses and a cat, and kids and really nice neighbors, so I cannot complain!
Our goals for this month are to get a pressure canner and start canning excess we get through our food co-op. I have made sauerkraut and pickled eggs so far, and that has been really fun and easy. If I make no more posts on this blog, then that has been more difficult than I thought! Of course, the eggs come from the chickens we have out back, so they are not going to waste when the chickens over produce for us and we cannot sell them. I need to perfect a recipe for them! We need a pressure canner to make more than this though, such as canned veggies. High acidity foods are okay without it, but the low acid stuff needs to be sealed to be safe to eat. The pickling works because of all the vinegar that goes into it.
My personal goal for this month is to get me a KitchenAid mixer so I can make a chore of getting up every morning, adding some ingredients, and banging out a loaf of bread. I am also looking forward to about a million other recipes too, such as really smooth mashed potatoes, but the kicker for me is the bread! I still have my bread pans from England! And, the oven here is spades better than the one we had in England! It is hotter and it cooks far more evenly. It also is self cleaning! What more could I want? Well, my mixer, obviously!
So, you are saying to yourself, “Kelsey, you can knead your bread by hand!” I am responding that I have psoriasis on my hands, which causes a bit of dead skin… Enough said… !!!
The weather is really cooling off now. We are sleeping at nights with the windows open and the air conditioning off. That will really help cut that bill of ours quite deeply! It is hard to believe that we are sitting outside taking in the cool air as soon as the temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Can’t wait for winter, eh? The temperatures here swing about 90 degrees across the year, where back in England it only moved about 50 degrees on average. Those cold winter’s mornings are going to be an eye-opener after this summer! Of course, I started off this paragraph with the comment that the weather is really cooling off now. Well, by the comparison to winter, it is not. But at least nights are not over 100 anymore! I look forward to the end of the month when the temperatures are all around tolerable!
Right at the moment I am listening to the sound of a horse and buggy as it goes by. It is a sound I would love to get more familiar with! I would desperately love to get a buggy for one of our horses to tow. My choice with family would be a Surrey, but if it were just me I needed to pull around, I would love a Farm Wagon. I have always been a little Amish inside!
Well, I am off to go start my Labor Day!
Kelsey J Bacon