Good ranch dressing is no longer worth its weight in gold!

So, anyone want to guess what a half gallon of GOOD ranch dressing costs?  I don't mean that Great Value stuff, I mean something good.  Light House, Hidden Valley, or Wild Coyote good.  Well, to buy it from one of those companies, the cheapest you're going to come up with is about $20.  Probably more.  

So....what if you make it?  

A half of a gallon--64fl oz of homemade, creamy, buttermilk ranch costs about $4.

Here's what we will need:

What we have here is a quart of buttermilk, a 32oz jar of MAYO.  I do NOT advise using salad dressing!  

These are followed by:

black pepper

parsley flakes

thyme leaves

salt

garlic powder

onion powder

I have actually borrowed this recipe from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dry-ranch-style-seasoning-for-dip-or-dressing/ but I felt it was a good one to repost because (1) this is Utah and we love our ranch and (2) that's a cost savings of nearly 80% if we make it ourselves!

• 1 teaspoon dried parsley

• 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1 teaspoon salt (allrecipes calls for season salt.  I just used plain sea salt)

• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder

• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme (I liked the recipe better with about 1/4 tsp thyme, personally)  

1 C mayo

1 C buttermilk

Mix everything. 

Enjoy.

Keep refrigerated!  

FREE (or almost) cat scratch post!

Got a dividing wall or an door frame that's not frequently used?

Nails and a hammer?

What about a few old carpet remnants?

Yes?  Ok, lets go!  

Place carpet, nail to wall with sturdy nails and voila!  Beau has never had so much fun and I was even able to get my bratty cat to stop scratching that bottom stair!  With a little more time, this post can totally be more aesthetically pleasing too, but I just threw mine together in all of 2 minutes.  

This post stands about 5 feet tall.  If you were to buy this in the store as an actual post, you would spend what?  $100, $50 on a good day, so yeah.