It's not pox!

It looks like hives... or mystery bumps of some sort. Thank goodness! I really think that that would have put me right over the edge! Scary to imagine having to deal with a potentially very sick hubby at this point. We had gone to the doctor a couple of years back to see if we could get my hubbys immunity tested for the pox ( I know that you can have your titres checked in the States) but they don't offer the test. My hubbys brother had had the chicken pox when they were young but my MIL said that hubby never got them in his childhood. They offered him the vaccine for two doses at 80 bucks each, but he didn't want to get it if he was potentially immune. I have some homeopathics put aside for him just in case, and good access to a herbalist in an emergency so that we could at least keep him comfortable... just didn't really want to deal with that right now. It feels like I have already been playing nurse all winter already.
It was an odd day outside today. Sunny, and snowy all at once. We got out there a bit, cleaned the house really well today and even got the bikes and skateboards out for a bit outside. I did some cupboard organising and some creative cooking! I found some beef bones in the bottom of the freezer and a small bag of freezer burnt strawberries. I roasted some bones and put on a stock for tomorrow. Not sure what I will make but I made a really nice soup a couple of weeks ago with homemade curry and chickpeas seasoned with homemade chutney. The kids don't like it but they will have to just deal with it I suppose! I took some dried pears that I had tucked away, simmered them and took off the peels , threw in some dried apples and the freezer burnt strawberries and made some strawberry applesauce something. It smells yummy! I found a bag of millet, a small amount of quinoa and a package of gluten free hot cereal mix that the kids don't like. I spent a little over an hour and ground it all up in the coffee grinder. Even though I can't eat the grains, at least the boys will have some flour to make bread over the next couple of days. I think that I made about 3 or 4 pounds of flour, so that will make for some good bread with the soup! So it was busy today but I managed to make the strange random bits of food into something edible! Thank goodness for my hours and hour of food prep and drying in the growing season! I am just finishing the last of the nettles from last year just as the new ones are about to come up again! This year I plan to be even more organised ( I even have my special trees in the orchard which I know make the best apple rings, best tart plums, best apple butter etc etc!) and at least double the garden. I couldn't grow much of anything last year because the water reservoir was vandalised in our community and we weren't able to water the garden. Therefore I wasn't able to put anything at all away.
Times like this really make me remember how important it is for us to have a good pantry and stock of foodstuffs from harvest time. How much it helps to have those things when you only have beans and rice.
We might go into town tomorrow, but would rather not use the gas. We have to go into town on Monday for work and circus class and it would probable be more cost effective to save the gas for then. I have a 25 dollar gift certificate ( one of those ones that you receive if you spend a certain amount of money on a grocery shop) so we should be able to get eggs, water( our pipes are 80-100 years old and the water makes us sick to drink so we refill our big jugs at the store), rice milk , dried beans, garlic and onions. That is about what we can get for 25 bucks these days.
Hopefully we will get paid on Monday sometime because we are out of EVERYTHING! I really need things like laundry soap and dish detergent.
My oldest kiddo has his circus performance on Monday afternoon. I promise some photos... it should be so fun!