Just Call Me Polly Pioneer

   I have been called Suzy Homemaker and Betty Crocker in the past. I have decided lately it should be Polly Pioneer. Gardening, preserving one way or another, sewing, crocheting, spinning, weaving know how, cooking, yogurt making. I think I have too much time on my hands. No real marketable skills.
   Yesterday, I had a thought. Why it didn't come to me earlier, I'll never know. Some people are just slow, I guess. I bake our bread, and when the loaf is stale, I was feeding it to the ungrateful birds, who won't eat it. My thought was, why not make my own stuffing mix, like StoveTop, so that's what I did. I already make the usual bread crumbs with it, and I intend to make croutons, but haven't yet. Anyway, I made 2 quart canning jars of stuffing mix. I will make more of it in my stocking up efforts since I will have more stale bread. I guess we could eat it faster. With just the 2 of us, my loaves are getting smaller, but homemade bread gets stale to fast. If I make larger loaves, I cut them in half and put half in the freezer.
  My stuffing recipe is one I made up as I went. I cut the bread into bite size pieces, but you can tear it. I sprinkled ALOT of poultry seasoning, some dehydrated parsley, and some garlic powder,( because I didn't have any dehydrated garlic), on the bread and spread it out on a cookie sheet and baked it on about 300 degrees until the bread was dryed out. After it had cooled I filled a quart jar up to the bottom of the neck and added some previously dehydrated celery and onions to it and put about a tsp. of chicken bouillon granules on top, and used my foodsaver to suck the air out after I had put the lids on, of course. To make the stuffing, I will use about a cup of boiling water, more or less, and 1 tbsp. butter or margarine. I will use chicken broth instead of water, if I have any around, and mix like you do with the Stove Top. I will tweek the recipe of the fixings as I go, until I figure out the perfect amount of everything.
   Yesterday, I harvested our first spinach crop and made apple pear crisp. I was jokingly ask about spinach in the apple pear crisp and said it was on old family recipe, but the hardest part was turning the spinach into apples and pears.
    I cut the leaves off, and I hope, more will grow. I washed the leaves well and cut off the stems and then  I blanched it for 3 minutes and put it in ice water for 3 minutes and then spun out excess water with my salad spinner. I blotted a little more water off with paper towels and put it in a gallon ziplock bag, go as much air out as I could, and put it in the freezer. I need to bet more foodsaver bags, along with canning jars, of different sizes.
   The apple pear crisp was made the usual way. I had 2 large apples of some variety and 2 pears, Bartletts, I think. Anyway, It was good.
   Our garden is growing really well this year. The new crop of potatoes I planted are growing. We are going to have corn coming out our ears (harhar). Birds are eating the flowers off of the tomatoes when they are staring to turn into tomatoes.
   The deer luckily haven't eaten any of the berries, but they have walked through the garden along Rufus, the one of the many dogs that live behind us. Wht is it, that the majority of people who live out in the country feel it's alright to let their dogs roam loose?