I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!DH is home now and I totally caved on the no eating out thing. It was early dismissal at the high school and it already felt like a long day when we picked DD up at 11:15. After running a few errands we ended up getting pizza out. So NorthGeorgiaGal, you are not alone in not only eating out, but choosing pizza! We must totally be on the same wavelength. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. It's been about 4 weeks for me of no eating out and I plan to go the rest of the month without doing it again. I had to rearrange some money, and I'll pay it back on Friday. Progress, not perfection, right?
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WAVA finally has taken its head out of its backside and we should be able to get into the system within 24 hours. I'll believe it when I see it. If all goes well we could be doing lessons as early as Friday, but I am still not holding my breath.
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I harvested a pint of green beans, 2 strawberries, 4 blackberries, a handful raspberries, a half pint of blueberries and a half gallon bag of Italian prunes from the garden today. And there were 2 duck eggs and 9 chicken eggs.
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I've been looking for ways of using beef heart, liver, and tongue for when we buy our beef. It seems silly to me to pay for an entire beef and then leave several pounds behind just because we've never eaten organ meat. I was thinking we could just have it ground and I could mix it with ground beef and pork to make sausages. But then it occurred to me that even if we don't like it, the chickens are omnivores and can eat any meat but chicken and they would eat the ground beef organs happily, so it wouldn't go to waste.
I am also planning to get the fat for rendering so we have it for cooking and maybe for soap and candle making, too. But at least for cooking. It would be nice not to have to buy cooking oil anymore, although I'd still have olive oil for some things.
I'm still trying to track down a farm that will sell a whole hog. Most places seem to just do $300 boxes of pork. I'd like a whole one or at least a half, and the fat to render into lard. That's still quite a ways off, even further off than the beef, so hopefully one will turn up by the time I need it.
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This Saturday I hope to make it to the farmer's market so that I can buy the rest of the organic tomatoes I need to finish off our diced tomato needs for the year. I need 25 pounds of tomatoes to do 24 pints of diced. If I can get those put up next week then I'll see about making more sauce. The greater value for me though is in putting up diced ones.
I still have a ton of green tomatoes, but I just don't think I will have enough of them ripe before the first frost hits. Anything is possible, but it's just been a weird year for growing tomatoes. We've had the heat, but...I don't know. And now nights are around 50 and if they drop much lower than that we won't see a lot of these making it to red, at least not on the vine. It's too bad June was constant rainfall. I think that is half the problem. Still if we don't frost until mid to late October I might get enough to put up. We'll see.
Well, No One's Perfect
September 13th, 2012 at 12:21 am
September 13th, 2012 at 12:57 am 1347497829
September 13th, 2012 at 02:06 am 1347501990
By the way, I saw a great youtube video on how to separate eggs. It uses a plastic water bottle and it just sucks the yolk out. Very cool!
September 13th, 2012 at 02:30 am 1347503440
http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/p/we-sell-pigs-pork.html
September 13th, 2012 at 02:49 am 1347504576
September 13th, 2012 at 05:47 am 1347515240
September 13th, 2012 at 01:31 pm 1347543061
September 13th, 2012 at 02:08 pm 1347545334
That is my life motto - it is so much easier.