UDATE Duck Move

Nope.  Not gonna work.  What was I thinking?  Okay, I had hoped that they would love the new abode and settle in.  They did love playing in the pond, but didn't go back in the fenced area.

Found them sleeping by the garden gate.  Oh, dear. 

I guess we will have to make it a four-sided area and let them in the pond occasionally.  I am not sure.  Actually, I am thinking of just planting berries there and calling it a day! 

Back to brainstorming.

Tuesday To Do 2/16/16

Last week's inside chores:  Declutter calendar.  Call the car dealership  and oil change.  Make breakfast burritos and put in freezer.  Bake bread and cookies.  Baby chick care, and prepare for baby duck hatching. Seed potatoes cut and ready.  Mail Valentine Day cards to the family in Indiana.

Last week's outside chores:  Clean out the chicken coop/duck coop.  Order bees.  Pritchard nipples, bottles, iodine, and extra colostrum.  Car Tire.

This week's inside chores: 
Time to start thinking about some spring cleaning.  With some nice sunny days coming up, time to wash and hang out curtains to let the sun sanitize them.  Wish it would iron them too.  Actually, I enjoy ironing.  Baby chicks are going to be moved outside to the garden coop with a heat lamp.  The duckling needs to be moved to the bigger inside brooder. Continue cleaning and decluttering schedule.  This week's "chore" is coupon organization.  I have already discussed that is not my thing anymore, so I will do any catchup on the calendar that time allows.  Not a lot on the agenda for the inside this week.  Just the basics.

This week's outside chores:
I cleaned out the potato bed and spread the wood ash (finally).  I need to clean out the asparagus bed and restraw it, as well as clean out the other two raised beds.  I did purchase some onion sets to plant.  Oh, and I have my eye on a package of strawberry plants that I want.  Since the ducks refuse to live in their pond home, I will just make that a berry patch until I figure something else out.  I also need to remove all the black plastic we laid down in the garden to try and kill some of the torpedo grass; but really, does it ever die??  I am going to spend the next couple of years focusing on using cover crops to strangle it out. I also need to reinforce the bottom of the garden fence since I have found Rocky, Vinny and Gandy in the garden with the chickens.  All rabbit holes will have to filled in and timbers laid around the perimeter.  I have a few trays going in the greenhouse so those are added to the daily chores.  I do want to order my soil and send off a seed order to Baker's Heirloom for just a few things.  We did purchase three wonderful wooden 3x3 double-paned windows for $5 a piece.  These are almost too nice for cold frames, but that's what they are for.  Bruce will be working on these for me (after he heals a bit from a chainsaw-ladder accident).  I found more broken glass washing up around the barn, one of the caveats of living in a valley and having old buildings around, and that will have to be cleaned up. 

Getting Ready to Move

We are not moving.  The ducks.  They have to be removed from the garden as spring approaches.  1) their pool and constant water changes make the garden constantly wet.  2)  They ate all my pepper plants last summer!

We are making a little fenced area open to the pond and using an old rabbit hutch that we don't use anymore.  I was thinking about making an opening for them to come out into the yard, but obviously with the pond available to them, they can "dock" anywhere.  That makes me a little nervous now that I think about it...

Regardless, they have to leave the garden for the sake of the pantry!
 

Boys put in some cedar posts

The old rabbit hutch being moved.

Flipped it upside down  for ready-made shelter.

 Now we are just waiting for the fence.  That 5-foot fence takes a little saving up but we have several weeks before the garden will be in any danger.

Winter Walk in the Woods #1

I love taking nature walks and I love getting pictures of trees, leaves, mushrooms (any fungus) and moss in any combination.  Simple joy and beauty.

Because we have to keep our dog tied up since he killed two goats, several rabbits and chickens over his lifetime, and my husband refuses to get rid of his friend, we occasionally take him for walks/runs when we go so he  can stretch his legs once in a while.  (Don't worry, he has a whole car as a home.  He has a front seat, back seat, top and trunk for sunbathing.  He is not suffering at all.)

Freedom

Sweet freedom

Here piggy, piggy...wait, no, go away

piggy, piggy.

Big piggy had an itch. 

Being Frugal on the On-Grid Farm pt. 2

The biggest impact that a stay-at-home homesteading wife can make is (drum roll please)...Food.  Always comes down to food, it seems.  How much can I save, how much do I spend, how much can I grow, how much should I cook. 

Let's start with saving.  I am far from being an expert.  When I worked, I loved couponing and collecting points or bucks or rewards and making $90 purchases for $2; it was so exciting.  I still have soap from probably three years ago; that is not so exciting.  And, yes, 75% of us bathe everyday.  So that's not the reason.  I even gave away a lot of items. But it was so fun!

Now, I use no coupons.  Let's face it, they are usually for pricey or  ultra-processed items that are not necessary or are not good for you.   Most of the products that I used coupons for I now make from scratch, whether it be food, such as potatoes au gratin, or body care like toothpaste and mouthwash.  But as "they" say, if you have a coupon for something you use, use it!  I don't think I would save as much as the Sunday paper costs to get coupons, and I hate to print them out and cut them and, ugh!

I guess I am a bulk buyer.  I buy bulk meat from Zaycon  at 40 pounds a pop, and divide and freeze or can.  Admittedly, I hope that once our new rabbit stock gets going, and our incubator chickens are a constant, and we have the pasture pigs going well, the rest of my meat will be from local grass fed farmers and Zaycon and grocery store meat will be a thing of the past. 

I buy a lot of items at Sam's Club: beans, sugar, dry milk, cheese.  I buy 50# of potatoes for $14 at a local flea market  and can or dehydrate most of the bag.  I also take advantage of super sales or cheaper places like Aldi's for food.  Again, freeze, dehydrate and can.  One of my favorite blogs is A Working Pantry.  She always has fabulous ideas for stretching everything!  Check her out sometime.

Another thing that I have learned over the past year of being at home is saving by portion control.  I would make a huge pot of beans and we would eat it for supper and I would have a massive amount of leftovers.  I would put some in freezer bags for later use, but it seemed that "later" never came.  Eventually this bag would be thrown to the chickens when I cleaned out the freezer and couldn't figure out what it was or it didn't look appealing.  So now, I make less, and I don't put any leftovers in the freezer.  They go in lunch containers and are used up until gone.  No waste. 

On the other hand, I tend to freeze my leftover tomato sauce now.  I buy the big #10 cans for less than $3.  When I open one the plan is to have spaghetti, chili and pizza within the week to use all of the sauce.  Sometimes this doesn't happen.  So I have half-gallon jars of moldy tomato sauce in the back of the fridge.  Yes, that is just poor planning and poor followthrough.  But, since I have learned my own weaknesses and if I know that I am not going to be using it all, I will go ahead and throw it in a freezer bag, label it and toss it in the freezer.  There are days when I can spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce or even chili, and then I can use those freezer bags as well as the numerous cans with no waste.

There are many ways to save when you buy food, and different ways work better for different people.  What ways work best for you?

Homemade Mayo

Stop me if we have done this before...

Please note that I am using olive oil, but if you don't

want a strong olive flavor, which sometimes I don't, you can

use a good vegetable oil.  I actually use the

vegetable oil more often.

I chipped my food processor bowl, which holds a Dixie cup

perfectly for slow oil pour.  I had to use my blender and do a

little rigging for the cup to fit.

I put one egg  in.

I mix dry mustard, vinegar, salt and a bit of sugar. 

A bit of lemon juice also brightens the flavor.

I dump in the vinegar mix, put my Dixie cup

in the blender hole and pour in my oil.

Begin!

Keep pouring.  A toothpick hole at the bottom

of the cup is the perfect continuous drizzle.

It takes a few minutes.  My blender bogs down

a bit.  This doesn't happen in a food processor.

Gotta get a new bowl for mine!

It gets thick and creamy.

I use it for whatever recipe I am doing (coleslaw today)

and the rest remains in the fridge for a few days.

I try to use it up fairly quickly.

Tuesday To Do (A Day Late) 2/3/16

Last week's inside chores: 
Declutter calendar.  Basic cleaning schedule.

Last week's outside chores:  
Clean chicken coop.  Check bees.  Wood ash on potato plot. 

I raised the fence line for escape artist, Max's, back home, as Brie is getting closer and closer to birthing and he has to be far away from any milk so as not to taint it. I am going to have a hard enough time convincing hubby to drink it.

This week's inside chores:
Continue the declutter calendar.  It's going okay.  This week is about organizing recipes and cookbooks.  Oh, they have no idea what they ask! Hubby's fishing lures and my cookbook obsession.  The shame.  So for the next week my specific declutter chores

Current cookbook shelf-Ahh!!

in temporary residence until

dining room is finished.

include: Gather recipes and decide on method to organize. Sort and organize into categories. Declutter cookbooks. Declutter kitchen small appliances and gadgets.  (Dehydrator, grinder, slicer, yogurt maker, etc...I think I have a problem in this area too!) Declutter plastic grocery bags; switch to reusable.

Continue the cleaning schedule.  I am hanging a list in the kitchen and bathroom so if anyone asks if there is anything they need to do, all I have to is point or have them look at the list. 

Call the car dealership and schedule an appointment to have a recall notice taken care of, and go ahead with an oil change. 

Make breakfast burritos and put in freezer.  Bake bread and cookies.

Continue baby chick care, and prepare for baby duck hatching.

I did purchase a 5 lb bag of seed potatoes and need to get those cut and ready.

Mail Valentine Day cards to the family in Indiana.


This week's outside chores:

Weather is going to be warm but wet until the weekend (then the temp will drop again).  Some things will be put on hold, but most have to be done anyway.

Clean out the chicken coop/duck coop.  Straw and pine shreds have been purchased.  

Continue to check the bees when it is dry enough.  It's getting past time to purchase another package or two!

Make sure kidding stall is ready for Brie with fresh straw and feed and hay, as well as a new water bucket handy.  Have Pritchard nipples, bottles, iodine, and extra colostrum ready in case there are more than two-pretty sure there are.

Car needs tires.  It goes over 100 miles 5 days a week with hubby's work and daughter's school.  Hopefully daughter's car will be fixed after tax refunds come in.  The car really needs a minimum of two, but I need to figure out how to finance this.  More than likely we will purchase used tires to last another year.  Two for the price of one new one.   They do have a "rent to own" tire place where you make payments on four new ones, but I am sure the price is exaggerated.  I can't look at just the immediate cost.  I am saving up for the car taxes due in March, and if I am still paying "rent" on tires.  Nah, that doesn't make sense, does it?

For it being winter, it sure is busy on the farm, ain't it?