It's been a really long day, but here, as promised, is a photo of the ducks.



You can really see how much they have grown here. They tower over the chicks and they are not even fully grown, though they will be soon. They are so beautiful. It is hard to do them justice in photograph, because they don't let you get too close, but they are not just black. They have glittering dark green feathers mixed in.

We did not make it down to the farm store at Skagit River Ranch so that will go on the agenda for next Saturday. I've set the money aside. We did go to the Food Co-op and we became members. It costs $90 to buy a share (you can only buy one share) and that makes you a member. It is then $5 a year to keep your membership current. They do have a special program for senior citizens though where you can buy in at $3 a month until it is paid for. I thought that was great for people living on a fixed income. You can buy without a membership but it costs more.

We spent $156 on groceries there, but I should not have to buy too much else for the next while. Just milk and produce as needed. I bought a frozen duck. I've never made (or eaten) duck before, but I've been reading the Cook's Illustrated Poultry book (that's not quite the title), and it's got some great recipes in it so I will try it like one of those. It was a five pound duck for $20, free range, pasture-raised, and organic. So $4 a pound. Not bad. We also bought a locally produced chuck roast for dinner tomorrow. It was much less than the ones at the farm, so if it is really good we may just buy our roasts here and just get the other meats there. We'll see.

They also had ground elk, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $12 on one pound. I decided I didn't want to cultivate a taste for something that expensive. Though I was very curious to try it. If I knew someone who hunted it'd be on my list for sure.

I ground my own peanut butter. It was fun! Just peanuts and nothing else. I've never been someplace before that had a machine that wasn't broken. It smells so good and I love knowing exactly went into it. I will be making more peanut butter cookies with it this week.

I checked out all the flours and rices and many other things I didn't get to look at so closely when I went with the children. DH rapidly became a big fan of the place.

I need to plan my menu for this week still. It's half planned in my head, at least the protein dishes, but I still need to figure out the rest.

I spent a good part of the day cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen, but it's not done. It's not even that big a space, but there is a lot to do.

I need to bake tomorrow. I need to make hotdog and hamburger buns and also regular bread. DS uses the hotdog buns for his sandwiches to school. He likes them better than anything else. I also want to do another batch of peanut butter cookies and maybe some blueberry corn bread muffins. I found some great reusable BPA free bread bags at the store the other day and I think I will fill them all up with my baking this week. I want to make French bread mid-week for garlic bread, too. Busy busy I will be.