Independence Days Update

I do update my Independence Days Challenge on Fridays. On that vein, I'll post a modified check in and post my challenge seperately.

In yesterday's mail I received 2 oil lamps from Lemans. Interestingly, they are out of stock on a lot of the lamps - esp. the cheap ones. I havn't been ordering enough to know if this is unusual. I picked up lamp oil at the local True Valu hardware store so as to not pay shipping on such heavy things.

We also got 1/4 of a beef yesterday. Mrs. Neighbor and I went in on a side of beef grown by a friend of hers. As I made dinner last night, I realized everything but the oil in the bottom of the dutch oven was local - and everyting but the beef we'd grown and processed ourselves. That was a fun aha moment. We ate by lamp light.

I was talking with Mrs. Garden about the shock Mrs. Neighbor and I had gotten walking back to the garden and coming across the head of a very large bull elk - big even for an elk - lots of points on the rack. I thought Mrs. neighbor was going to climb me like a tree when she came around the corner and was surprised by that! I don't make much of a hunter, I feel sad when I see the beautiful creatures dead - I don't feel the same about an animal I've raised for it's meat. It turns out the Garden's son got the elk and isn't going to take much home on the plane and they don't want much and so I think we'll recieve a good amount of elk as well! We're a year plus on the meat front and two weeks ago I thought we'd be going without meat (except our chickens) in even of a crisis.

I am drying corn most days a week though I need help with the shucking. Turns out I think I sliced a nerve in my finger when I got the deep cut doing apples and it is still really tender to bumping and pressure and numb in one spot. I'm aiming for a bucket of dried corn and am nearly there. I am putting it in the bucket in storage baggies incase the dehydrating is bad in one batch, it won't spoil all the batches.