Playing Cat and Mouse

For weeks we have been plagued by an ever-elusive mouse who has made his home above our kitchen cupboards. Despite have more cats than kids, our felines have been unable to capture the menace. Often at night, I would wander into the kitchen to find one of the cats, (or two or three) perched on counter tops staring up into the cupboards. They often chase flies around the house (causing much amusement and destruction) so I thought nothing of this, until I found tiny holes in my dried pasta bags, and bits of food all over our otherwise organized cupboard. Strange. Where was this critter coming from and how had he eluded the claws and jaws of our pets?

As a result of nibbled bags of food I was forced to place all our dry goods in 1L mason jars or plastic containers, a quick, inexpensive fix since I already had the supplies. Anything that wasn't in cans was placed in a safe place away from gnawing teeth. I had hoped to starve him out.



He had become good at avoiding capture. My husband even heard him once in the cupboard at night. Once I removed all food items from the cupboards and left all cupboard doors open to give our cats easy access. The noose was tightening and I think the mouse must have knew his days were numbered.

Then late last night, while attending my sick daughter, we heard Augustus pawing at something on her shelf. She and I both thought it must be a string, he is known to make a play thing out stationary objects. And then all the ruckus was over and he showed us his quarry... the Mouse! My husband chased down the cat and chucked the dead thing outside which our other cat promptly ran out for. It was like she was saying, "Don't throw that out, it's still fresh!" and out she ran.

I am so glad to have the whole ordeal over with, though I don't mind having all my dry goods in glass jars. I think I will keep it that way.

When Good Tomatoes Turn Bad

We are still making our way through our stash of canned edibles from the garden. Much of my canning this year was done with vegetables I purchased from local farmers. My small garden had let me down again, or was it I who let it down. In any case, som valuable lessons were learned this year so not all as lost.

I made vegetarian chili yesterday. It's a very easy recipe that involves two 500 ml cans of tomatoes, my 100 mile tomatoes. Since I make my chili in the crock pot I assemble all the ingredients and just throw it in as I chop or open cans. That's when I noticed one of my cans of tomatoes did not look right. There was not enough liquid surrounding the diced tomatoes and the colour was slightly off. The tomatoes were still red, but just a tad more brown then the jar beside it.

Tomatoes were an experiment this year. I had never canned them before, so I needed to be on the safe side. I brought out another jar of tomatoes and used them, leaving the "off" one on the counter. Today I decided it would be better to dispose of it before I inadvertantly used it on something.

Well, there was no use in worryying about me using it. As soon as I opened the lid I could smell how bad they had turned. The actual tomatoes looked okay, just the slight colour difference. I am sure now that even if I had not noticed the colour I would not have missed to odour. I suppor nature is good at letting us know when something is not safe to eat.

This experience has reinforced a few things for me as far as canning goes. You can do everything by the book and still suffer a bad jar. Tomatoes are tricky so pay careful attention to times, head space and acid content. Always look carefully at your jars even after ensuring the lid is sealed. Any off colours or major air pockets can indicate a good jar gone bad.

I am not sure what happened to make that single jar go bad. I have had over 12 jars of perfectly scrumptious tomatoes in former chili batches and so this single one was an anomoly. Even still careful attention to detail is certainly not lost when it coms to canning.

Clutter, Stuff and Hoarding

It's resolution time and I bet along with loosing weight, exercising more and quitting smoking that organizing is one of the top five resolutions people make at this time of year.

New Years signifies the end of something, and beginning again with a clean slate. A clear calendar with no mistakes. January 1st can be a great starting line, a start date for things you have always wanted to do.

An organized home is not something taught in school. Organizing and the ability to discern clutter from usable goods is a life skill usually passed down from parents or other mentors in your life. If you had neither of these and from infancy you have always managed to keep everything well organize and shiny clean then you are a freak of nature and probably anything I say will be of little use to you. But read on if you wish.

...for me to claim ownership of something I simply must love it or love it's usefulness

Organizing is finding a place for everything and putting everything in it's place. Easier said than done but do-able. When I was younger I certainly was not the best housekeeper. Over time I have amassed tips and techniques that have slowly but surely transformed my home.

The main thing I needed to master was defining clutter. Is clutter something superfluous or something usable? Could I have clutter and still have organization. I believe the answer is yes and no. Clutter is a group of items gathered with no or little purpose. Clutter neither brings me usefulness nor enjoyment. That is not to say that anything without a purpose is clutter. Certainly not but for me to claim ownership of something I simply must love it or love it's usefulness.

Using the above definition we can classify clutter as just stuff. Our modern society loves stuff. Big stuff. Little stuff. Expensive stuff. Cheap stuff. In fact we love our stuff so much our economy is kept afloat by our continued desire to amass stuff.

When our desire to claim ownership grossly exceeds our need we call it hoarding. Hoarding is a growing phenomenon, something that happens behind closed doors, away from prying eyes. It is something I think everyone suffers from to a certain extent. We buy and buy and buy, getting rid of things we bought a year ago to make room for the stuff we bought today. The only difference between us and diagnosed hoarders is that hoarders never get rid of anything and just continue to add to the pile.

When I hear stories of compulsive hoarders I am struck by the poignancy of their plight. These people are just doing what the last century of marketing told us to do. Their homes with floor to ceiling piles of clothes never worn and gifts never given away is really a reflection of each and every one of us. We are a society of hoarders, collectors, and stuff savers.

Somehow we think this makes us affluent. Somewhere along the line we told ourselves this makes us the envy of the world.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned on this road to simplicity is that these things, these materials make us no better at our jobs or our relationships. They provide us with no more comfort than a rock. In fact these things only further our sheltering from those around us. Like protective padding, this stuff is really just cluttering up our heads even more than they do our homes.

Give you one guess what I am doing Jan 1st...

Apple Harvest

We went apple picking at a local farm and truly enjoyed ourselves. My husband found this lovely gem among all the apples we picked (a bushel) and presented it to me. "I must have picked this one for you." He can be so sweet.

I usually make 10 apple pies and 10 apple crisps and put them in the freezer unbaked. We bake and eat them throughout the winter. Last year we barely got through them all so I think I will only make a few of each. But I still wanted to pick a whole bushel with a plan to store the rest.

Since I have a rather large sack of potatoes in my back room (our pantry) that space is a 'no-go' for my apples. Apples and Potatoes don't get along well, you see, and I would hate to have rapidly ripening bushel. So I stashed them in my linen closet up stairs. The hideaway gets no light and there is no nearby furnace vents which keeps the spot relatively cool. We have no basement and the temperatures in our attic vary so greatly I would not trust anything to survive up there.



There are a few things to worry about with apples: Bruises and close contact with other apples. These two things can wreak havoc on an apple harvest. To combat this apples must be sorted. Any fruit with breaks in the skin, bruises or soft bits should be used for pies right away. All reasonably 'perfect' apples can be wrapped in newspaper (not the coloured paper) and placed in a container. The apples are kept from touching each other so if one does decide to decline, apples sitting around it won't degrade as well.




Apples should stay firm for a good three to four months if stored like this.