Quintuplet Update

They are doing well for the most part.  I do worry about the girl, Gypsy (short for Gypsophila).  She is smaller than the boys and does not seem to be able to digest as well. She is not as playful and never wags her tail when she is drinking her bottle of momma's milk.  Time will tell.

They have been moved around because of overfeeding, bullying, underfeeding.  I have learned a lot about having a herd set up and we are continuing to make improvements through trial and error.

As of right now they are in the fenced garden area.  (No, I do not have my garden going yet this year-oh the woes of the working wanna be farmgirl!!)

The boys being lazy while Gypsy keeps guard.

Free mineral and baking soda for all

New places in the garden to explore; good thing nobody cleaned up this winter!

The abandoned asparagus patch

The old rooster house in the garden will be an excellent shelter for the babies
until a more permanent home is made

I am hoping the babies will help clean up the grass and briers that the roosters did not.  Shelter, sun, shade, food and water.  Hopefully everything they need until they are sold!  So, any takers?  Just let me know if we need to band them/castrate them for you!

Food Friday 4/21/17

Time to get back to menu planning!  I am finding that the animals are eating better than we are.  Why is that?  We have all done it and I am slipping back into it.  Create a menu, buy a menu, however you get your menu, you have it.  You buy all the things to make the menu.  Then, by Tuesday, the menu isn't appealing or you have missed something and have to make something else.  I can honestly say when I was home full-time, this wasn't as big of a problem.  Having a full-time job outside of the home, this is harder for me.  I do NOT want to get back in the car and get something.  I do NOT want to try and cook a huge meal or "homemade" meal that takes more than 30 minutes-and that seems extreme!  I will send the boy to get something unhealthy, or call hubby to pick something up on the way home, or we have an incomplete meal.  Just meat and potatoes, just meat, just salad, sandwich.  Who knows!  As I said a couple of years ago.  I get sales ads on Wednesday and Aldi starts sales on Sunday.  I have notebooks full of various menus, frugal, busy, clean eating, vegetarian, and let's not even talk about the cookbooks, pinterest recipes, etc.!  I am a little angry at myself for falling off the wagon on this. Yes, I can't, well, I won't,  make a glorious homemade meal every night with fresh baked bread, grass-fed meats and slow-roasted veggies with a fresh salad out of the garden.  But, I can do this once in a while with planning, can't I?  
So, what is going on this coming week? 
Well, I let my son pick out a menu...bless him. *sigh* It is an old "Frugal Mom" menu from Menus4moms website a few years ago.  I will do it though. So, what is planned? 

Saturday-STRAWBERRY PICKING DAY
       Lunch-vegetable soup using up any of the veggies that are getting a little old, as well as opened boxes of broth.
       Supper-Swedish meatballs, green beans
      Considering strawberry pie as hubby wants and strawberry cake maybe

Sunday-
       Brunch-pancakes, bacon, milk.  Freeze some extra pancakes
       Supper-Orange and Chili pork, long grain and wild rice, peas (new recipe)
       IF time and inclination, I would like to make a pizza to take for lunches tomorrow, as well as make some biscuits to freeze for later in the week.

Monday-
       Lunch-hopefully pizza from last night
       Supper-Baked ravioli, broccoli
Sounds like a heartburn kinda night, doesn't it? 

Tuesday-
       Lunch-leftover ravioli and broccoli
       Supper-Creamed beef over biscuits, fruit of choice (fresh strawberries are in season right now and hopefully have some picked from Saturday, organic apples are on sale, so it might be a bit impulsive fruit choic)

Wednesday-
       Lunch-frozen PB&J, bananas, trail mix
       Supper-Crockpot Orange chicken, rice, stir-fry vegetables

Thursday-
       Lunch-Leftover orange chicken or another PB&J sandwich 
       Supper-Sloppy joes that I have canned, cottage cheese, salad

Friday-
      To Be Determined.  I will try to get back into the swing of things and have it covered next week!

My To-Do List for the menu
1. Cook and freeze extra pancakes
2. Make biscuits to freeze
3. Make pizza dough if none in freezer
4. U-pick berry patch Saturday! 
5. Freeze 2 bread loaves worth of PB&J; consider getting sliced turkey breast for frozen turkey sandwiches too.
6. Make and bag trail mix
7. Make hubby's morning oats and bag. 

Grocery List:
sour cream     cheese ravioli (refrigerated section)     frozen o.j.     frozen peas
ribs                 frozen stir-fry veggies                           dried beef?   egg noodles
grn pepper     long grain/wild rice mix                         chili sauce    balasamic vinegar
flour               bananas                                                oatmeal        pepperoni
buttermilk      cottage cheese                                      romaine        salad ingredients
jelly                peanut butter                                         bread           

I think that may be all.  I will see what it adds up to and let you know.  I have gone over Publix sales ad and found a few things that I want from there.  Particularly because of the $10 off a $50 gas card if I spend $50 on groceries.  For example, frozen family entrees are $3 off and those come in handy on those I CANT COOK TONIGHT days.  Kiwi for hubby, organic gala or pink lady apples, 8 cans of tuna for $3.83, baked beans for quick side dishes when we grill, Wishbone dressings are BOGO, Kerrygold grass-fed butter is on sale, Hunt's tomatoes are BOGO, there is a good deal on papertowels.  AND yes, I am even considering things that are horrible!!! even besides the papertowels, Klondike Ice Cream (it would keep me from eating a whole pint of Ben&Jerry's and then eating whoever hasn't finished theirs by the morrow!, and BOGO Eggo waffles for either easy supper sandwiches or lazy breakfast days.  I haven't got these things yet, maybe I will meet my $50 minimum with just the organic fruit and tuna...but I have a contingency plan, as horrible as it may be.  

I will post some pics, if only for the accountability of it!  

DIY Healthcare

I had a blood pressure scare last week.  It was 180-188/124-115 over the course of the day that I missed work.  I went to the local urgent care as my regular doctor was on spring break.  It's lowering slowly.  Luckily, as you know, I work at a hospital and have access to lots of wonderful nurses who are willing to help me check it. It's still not close enough to normal for me, but I feel confident that things will turn around.

This event made me 1)wonder why it shot up so badly and 2) how can "fix" this as naturally as I can.  The answer to why is because of the stress.  Right now, I have stress at home, with the farm, at work; I really have no area of serenity.  At home, we are still trying to remodel and I have been so tired lately that I feel I live in a hoarder's house and don't have the energy to change anything.  On the farm, we are in week 6 of our quintuplet baby goats.  They have gone from adorable to annoying!  Feeding, wading through the little bodies, trying to configure areas where everyone can get feed they need but not too much, roosters that crow all hours of the night and just the weight of farm chores that never end.  Work...is work...

How can I "fix" hypertension that has a strong genetic background?  Probably can't, but I can do a lot of things to lower it and help it.  First, I have to be a better patient.  Nothing like being called non-compliant.  We all know that healthcare workers are the worst patients though, right?  Secondly, get down to a normal weight.  As hubby would say, totes obs. Then comes a better diet.  I have been doing fairly well at avoiding all sugar, flour and processed foods.  For a few days, I went totally whole-food vegan, but eventually you can think salad and taste it without eating anything!  I am a little nervous about doing too much extra exercise except for walking.  Time to charge that fitbit!  I have an appointment and will talk to my doctor about how far to take the exercise, as well as listen to my body.  The last thing I am trying, as well as for the hubby, is to make my own supplements.  I have decided to start with the hottest new "super-supplement" turmeric.

First I bought a capsule machine, a pure, organic turmeric powder, black pepper and capsules.

I mixed the turmeric and black pepper (4 Tb turmeric, 2 tsp pepper) in a bowl, filled the machine with the capsules and filled them up.  

I followed the instructions and it did pretty good.  I did have one that did not close right for me, but all in all it was fairly simple.  I put them in a jar after hubby and I took one for good measure.  

And then I washed my hands.  NOTE TO SELF: USE GLOVES!!  I knew this but was so excited to try and make them that I just did it! 

Now I am ready to 1) see what Mountain Rose Herbs have on sale next month and 2) buy some organic oranges to dehydrate and make my own vitamin C capsules! 

Good health to everyone!  

Battle of the Bulge Prep Day

Let's get ready to battle!!!  At my workplace, which is a hospital, they have some great incentives to keep their employees healthy.  And I have decided I had better take advantage of it.  I have had some crummy lab results the last couple of times, not to mention feeling crummy way too often.  So, tomorrow is the start of a 10-week challenge called the Battle of the Bulge. It is a weight loss competition; I am planning to use it as a jumpstart to some healthier habits and if weight loss is a side effect, more the better.  And if I win any of the prizes that is great, but there are over 4000 employees, so I am not pushing that hard for a fit bit and $100.  Sorry y'all.
 
When I was at home and we had one income, I had to be as frugal as possible.  That came down to lots of flour and baked goods, which is not good for one's blood sugar.  I had to supplement our meat supply with cheaper meats and processed meats like bologna or hot dogs occasionally.  Yes, we had our "pasture-raised" chickens, our rabbit meat, our eggs and goat milk.  We had some produce from the garden.  But for that first year, there wasn't really enough to sustain us.  It may have been my lack of confidence to produce more or just the luck of the draw with the weather.  So the chemically-laden additions did my body no good, nor anyone else's for that matter.

Now that I have a small income and less time for making buttermilk biscuits and homemade breads, I can afford to be a little more loose with my grocery budget for the sake of quality.

Another incentive, is getting my lab work and going to my "wellness checks" which allow me to get all my labs done for free and go to their little gym for free.  They have a few classes after work and a few weight machines.  There are dumbbells and balance balls.  There are lots of cardio machines.  It was initially a cardiac rehab facility so there are lots of low impact machines, such as stationary bikes.

The hospital also offers a $15 produce box every two weeks.  Pay on Monday and pick up on Wednesday. I got one box last week.  It contained:  6 red delicious apples, 6 oranges, 2 heads of broccoli, 1 pineapple, 1 pound of fresh green beans, 1 personal watermelon, celery, cherry tomatoes and 4 ears of corn.

I spent several hours today doing some meal prep.  I have told the family that I am taking these next 10 weeks off from cooking supper for them.  (The daughter cooks Tuesday, son Wednesday and hubby is supposed to on Thursday, but that never seems to pan out for him. So it won't be a huge change for them.)  I have offered that they can have anything that I prep and put in "my" refrigerator but MUST let me know if they take the last one of anything, or the second to last would be even better.  Today I prepped:
Brown rice, aldi blend of grains (red quinoa, jasmine rice, brown rice and farro), baked salmon, boiled eggs, cut watermelon, pineapple, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes,and broccoli.  I  roasted green beans with garlic and coconut oil.
I made a large batch of Detox soup. I used the recipe from Clean&Delicious on YouTube found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu-hUHYTv00   The soup is in several jars in the fridge that will last me all week.  Daughter did take some with her to work last night, but she and I will probably be the only ones to eat it, which is fine by me.  I made some chocolate chia pudding.  I made some salsa-ranch chicken in the crockpot for the family to eat throughout the week-see, I am cooking for them, dern it! I made my oat jars that I always make with the yogurt granola topping for breakfast.  I will be making smoothies twice a week to make use of my Omega juicer (awesome!).  I will be stopping at the store and getting some romaine and feta so that I can make my greek-style salads to use up the red onion and black olives I have opened.  I might make up some salad jars.

As I said, I am not really in this challenge for the prize other than healthier habits and feeling better.  I am allowing myself a cheat day.  This cheat day is going to be pretty consistent.  Sunday will be Farmer's breakfast and homemade pizza day.  I am not going to go crazy such as having 6 biscuits with gravy or 12 pieces of buffalo chicken pizza, but a pizza and a side salad for supper shouldn't cause me to revert back to old habits, should it?  However, I am going to remain strict with my sugar intake, particularly table sugar and other added sugars in boxed and bagged foods.  Those are the devil!

I will update you on how this goes, successes and failures, lessons learned, etc.

Well...let the games begin.

62 Hours

Egad!  It has been over two months since I posted anything.  Time flies regardless of the amount of fun one has.  Hubby swears it has to do with our age.  I would much rather blame the spinning of the earth or the change in the calendar.

Do you ever get that feeling that you are spinning your wheels?  Do feel like you get nothing accomplished or finished?  You maybe one of those persons who can focus from start to finish-not a hint of ADD.  I am not.   As the season has changed and the leaves have begun to fall, I have taken another look at what we accomplished this year, both pre and post my working off the homestead.  If we passed, it was with a D-.  Maybe I am being a little hard on us, but there are some projects that still are not done from months to years ago.

As I reflected, I began thinking about my time.  What I do with it and how much I have to work with. Well, we all have 168 hours a week to work with.  I would love to sleep 56 of those, although I don't believe that is the case.  I work 40 and I add 10 for the weekly commute to and from.   That leaves me 62 hours a week to do what I chose.  That's a whole other full-time job and then some!  I never really figured that out before.  So what in the world do I do for these 62 hours that leave me feeling like I don't get anything accomplished?  Maybe I plan TOO much and do TOO little.  Maybe I sit on the couch too much writing out menus and budgets.  Maybe I go to bed too early and read my library book too long.  Maybe I watch too many YouTube videos or look up too many Facebook posts. (Actually, I don't get on Facebook very much at all anymore.)

62 hours.  I feel that is a good amount of time to keep the homestead running and get some projects accomplished.  I feel that is enough time to take a few of those hours for me to workout at the gym at work before heading home to try and get into better shape to keep my energy up.  I feel that is an adequate time to cook and clean and keep the home fires burning.  I feel that is enough time to take in a musical in the 'Ville every couple of months to reward myself for all of the above-mentioned.

Honestly, today is one of those days I feel like I did okay with my time.  What did I do?

Made toothpaste

Made trail mix to bag up for lunches

Batch of Hot Chocolate for Hubby

Bags of Hot chocolate

Pizza-ish pockets with my homemade
frozen dough

Also made breakfast pockets-sausage, egg and cheese

Freezer meal-shepherd's pie with deer

One shepherd's pie for supper, of course

Blowing out duck egg

This is what my mom makes
from blown eggs.
 ( I did not inherit
her artistic talent, so I will just continue to
raise the ducks and eggs.)

The kids and I also got 16 PB&J sandwiches and 6 deli meat and cheese sandwiches in the freezer for lunches.  There were still a couple of things that I had planned to make for this coming week (chicken fried rice, blueberry muffins, pancakes) that I did not get to.   I am not worrying about it.  Heck, I already know that tomorrow's supper is... chicken fried rice!  

We did purchase some things from Tractor Supply during the holiday sales to get a new goat paddock/browse with a shelter going.  We are going to be separating the herd a bit. We are hoping that Mollie is bred; she sure is acting like it! and we want to keep her and Annie in the goat yard as they are both disbudded.   Maggie, Tulip and Voldemort will be kept in the new area.  Even though Voldemort is polled (no horns), he still nurses Mollie and that won't fly! So he has to take his chances with his sister and cousin.  We purchased an auger to make putting the posts in the clay soil that has not seen rain in 119 days easier and quicker.  We also purchased a 10x10x6 kennel to modify for a shelter.  That'll use up some my 62 hours next week!  I will try and get some pics of how it goes.  

Hope your week is productive! 

Learning to Meal Prep #1

It has become apparent that I cannot cook and prep quite like I did when I was staying at home full time.  I don't bake as much fresh bread and biscuits.  I don't make cookies or pies.  I don't roast beef or pork in the oven.   I don't freeze breakfast burritos or other things.  I just haven't made the time to do a lot of the meals that I did.  I really should, at least in moderation.

My last paycheck was a real eye-opener.  I had spent four days in the cafeteria for lunch.  I could have bought a week's worth of groceries for that!  Those two reasons have helped me to decide that I do need to make my lunches.  However, I do not want bologna sandwiches and chips!  So, with the help of some awesome youtube videos (shout out to Mind over Munch and Domestic Geek-check them out), I have begun the learning process of good healthy meal preps, mostly for lunch.

Last week I went WAY overboard and spent $200 on groceries to prep and have available.  I ended up throwing a lot of things to the chickens.  Hated by the budget, loved by the chickens.  So this week, I toned it down a bit.  I still had a lot of groceries to work with this week.  This does give me hope that I will definitely be saving money when I get the process down, not to mention the health benefits.

So this is what I did this week.  Please remember that I am a novice at this type of prepping and have a long way to go.  This is what I have for hubby and me for four days this week.  His lunches contain larger portions, especially of protein and we are going to add fruit (peaches, nectarines, bananas and apples).

I am trying to incorporate breakfast into my day so that I am not starving by the time I get home after 5:30 pm.  I have a jar of oatmeal, chia seeds, hemp protein, cinnamon and on top I have full-fat greek yogurt, frozen blueberries and honey to sweeten it up.  At work, I dump the jar into a bowl, add hot water and stir for a bit.  Then I add my yogurt mixture and stir. I have done this twice and it does seem to help my appetite so far.

I have a taco plate that includes grassfed beef browned and mixed with my homemade taco mix, black beans (I bought these canned I am afraid, but I have a bag to cook up and freeze into 1 c. portions), spinach, split cherry tomatoes, grass fed cheddar cheese and salsa.  I have a flour tortilla bagged up, but wish I just had some organic corn chips to make it into a salad. I will be adding a bag of organic grapes on the side.

Hubby had grilled up chicken and I sliced each breast into 3 sections.  He has 2 sections and I have one along with a rice blend (wild, red, basmati and brown), green beans and tomatoes for color.  There is a baggie of healthy trail mix for an afternoon snack if needed (pumpkin seeds, raisins, craisins and organic soynuts. (I still make the trail mix for the family with peanuts, chocolate chips, raisins and sometimes craisins/dried cranberries).

  

 I have a leftover meal of potatoes, carrots and kielbasa with green beans.  I have some leftover sauerkraut that I will probably throw in there too.  I am taking raw walnuts for a snack if needed.

And another leftover breakfast meal is a hash of sort.  I used my awesome chopper to dice green peppers, potatoes, onions and sauteed that in butter/EVOO blend. I added black beans to finish off the open can-none wasted!!  The original meal had the eggs cooked in it, I boiled some and tore a piece a bacon in there too.  I sprinkled a little extra hot sauce and there are my four lunch meals ready for next week.

I have an extra day that I can 1)skip lunch, not likely, 2)eat at the cafeteria if they have something extraordinary or the salad bar, 3) take something fresh or leftover from supper that was just to die for.

I feel better about not having bologna and chips and there is still leftovers such as rice and fruits and taco meat, things to make snacks or I can use in supper meals.  Or the kids can grab as a snack.  Don't get me wrong, I still have some chips and bologna in the refrigerator just in case, but it is a lot less tempting when you have a meal ready to go and it seems harder to make a sandwich than grab a tray of food.

The only caveat...

But then again, basically the dishes are a one and done!!

Summer of '16

Having gone back to work at the beginning of summer, I still feel that it was a decent one on the farm.

From the garden: I canned a few tomatoes, ate a few, froze some zucchini bread and fried a few.  I had one cleome/spider plant to survive and thrive.  I canned jalapenos and cooked up quite a few.  I had enough green beans to cook one pot.  No cucumbers-again.  No green peppers to speak of.  I did get cayenne peppers to dry.  

Mollie did pretty well with milking until July when I let her dry up because I was only getting 1-2 cups a day.  I did freeze two quarts of her milk either for ourselves or if needed for new baby goats next spring.  We drank several quarts to gallons and I did make one batch of yogurt.  I, however, did not get to make cheese.  The kit I ordered was on backorder and I did not receive it until after we started drying her up.  

We butchered several rabbits, some being almost 4 pounds, and put in the freezer.  We butchered several roosters and still have a few left in the freezer.  We actually still have about 3 or 4 more to butcher within the next month.  

The chickens did not produce eggs very well at all this summer.  Our temperatures were in the 98-100's most days.  We also switched to a locally milled laying mash that I don't feel had adequate nutrition for them, especially the ones that are about 18 months old and should have been laying very well.  The temperatures are still hot here, in the mid to upper 90s still but the nights are cooler.  We have also added an organic laying pellet to the mash along with sunflower seeds and a few extra "scraps".  
Finally we have some progress! 

We have let the remaining two rabbits out to free range in the garden, along with the chickens and goats to begin the cleaning up process.  

It is time to start thinking about breeding the goats, combining all the chickens and consider incubating for the fall, combining and containing the ducks, preparing the bees for the fall (find the reducers, purchase some extra pollen and non-gmo sugar for emergency feed), clean up all the grass and weeds that have been left to grow and that no animals have eaten and start a new compost pile for next year's garden. 

I will admit because of the hot weather and my getting used to working full time again some of the projects that I wanted to do did not get done.  We didn't repair and repaint the deck and railing, the house didn't get washed, the shutters didn't get repainted.  With a little experience under my belt now, I can get back to planning and setting a realistic time frame for these projects before the winter hits.