66 days in. 24 to go.

Getting close to the finish but a big finish actually seems kinda anti-climactic. For someone who is prepared, this shouldn't be a big deal I guess. The garden is producing more than enough for a nice salad every day or every other day. I have planted a winter garden each November since moving to Arizona. This is my 4th one. For reasons described earlier, I planted the salad ingredients earlier than usual and already enjoying the produce. The butter head lettuce leaves are quite nice.

A few meals on the table this week- Hot loaf of bread with Hamburger soup (Hamburger, dried carrots and dried celery, soy sauce, tomato sauce, salt and pepper, dried onion soup packet and after cooking for a couple of hours in the crock pot, add Parmesan cheese and parsley and some macaroni or whatever other pasta you have- used bow tie pasta this time- and then serve it up.) Salad from the garden, pancakes and sausage, oatmeal, cream of wheat cereal, franks cooked into a crescent roll, peanut butter and crackers, apple sauce, canned pears and hot chocolate.

Attended a wedding at JW Marriott Resort at Desert Ridge this week- NOT as a DJ. It was a lovely occasion and really enjoyed the meal provided by our hosts. (I enjoyed the company of our hosts and the other guests too.) The salad had romaine lettuce, orange wedges with the membranes peeled off, capers, and some kind of a citrus-y dressing. The entre was a choice of prime rib, lobster or sea bass. I had prime rib and it was a fantastic piece of meat. It came with some baby arugula leaves and northern beans (Yankee or White beans) with some cherry tomatoes and a hint of olive oil. Deeeee LISH!

There is 1 1/2 lbs of butter left. The Santa Fe apples are gone. Made fruit leather and ate as many fresh apples as could be eaten. They still lasted longer than they should have before going south. Made some cupcakes from a Betty Crocker cake mix and while they tasted like cupcakes, the egg solids didn't hold up very well. They were plenty moist and puffy, but had nothing to hold them together- they were crumbly. Even the wax paper baking cups didn't bond to the cake very well. It was odd.

I'm reminded that without electricity, the living of this adventure would be dramatically different. The freezer and the bread machine have been fantastic. Dried beans, rice and wheat would sustain life in a crisis but I'm more and more bored with the narrowing choices for meals. I would have gone nuts already without the freezer. The garden is gonna save my sanity.

I have felt a couple of times that the point has been made and all possible lessons may have already been learned. I actually considered calling it off with these 3 weeks to go, but owing to the spiritual feelings and and some of the other unexpected observations made, I have chosen to continue to 90 days as there may be more to learn. The only reason there is anything to write about is because I have have followed wise counsel and attempted to prepare for the future and I'm just testing my wits.

I've often noted in this blog that I'm a Styx fan. I heard "Come Sail Away" as a young teenager and that was the first time that I felt that an artist was speaking right to me. The song is about beauty of our dreams compared to the sometimes lesser reality of our lives. It's hard to find that pot of gold, but we keep dreaming anyway and we "carry on!" That's when the angels bear us up and I think it's ONLY then that they do so- when we have done all we can. That's when heaven sends help- somehow. "And we'll try the best that we can, to carry on!"