$2907.63 Starting Balance
+__34.50 Coin Jar and Egg Money
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
----------------------
$2952.13 Ending Balance

$1047.87 to go to hit my goal of $4K.

It's a slow build, but I am getting there. I still haven't gotten new tires, even though I have the money in the tire fund. We were going to get them last week while DH was home and then he was only home for one week instead of two and it just didn't happen.

I am not driving much, though, with school out, just to the grocery store or the library, PT and the chiropractor. I am maybe driving 10 miles a week right now. And it's not like the tires are bald or anything, just getting to the needing to be replaced point.

My green beans are getting ripe. I harvested a couple quarts this morning. I've picked 5 zucchini this week, only one of which was a monster, and two large bunches of radishes. My biggest watermelon is now bigger than a tennis ball. Yesterday it was about half that size so you have an idea of how fast it is growing. The snap peas are winding down but I am still getting a handful every other day or so. Lettuce, chard, and kale are still going crazy.

I am harvesting and drying sage, yarrow, dandelion leaves, dandelion roots, basil, calendula, thyme, lemon balm, and marjoram. I bought the book (well, with a gift card I got for Christmas) Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide and I am really learning a lot so far. It took me forever to find any herb books. There were 14 different books on growing pot in the local B&N (cause it's legal here, though I recall seeing a few in the garden section a few years ago before it was) and only 3 on herbs and one was on cooking with them and the other was far too technical for where I'm at. I am saving herbs for culinary and medical uses, some for medical use in the rabbits, like blackberry and raspberry leaves, dandelion, and comfrey.

In reading this book and seeing these remedies I am kind of starting to understand why that little old lady who lived in the woods in the 1700's and had all these healing things at her fingertips might have been considered magical or even a witch. Traditional medicine was nowhere near "there" yet at the time. It must have seemed like something very "other" to those without the knowledge of how to use it.

I'll just be happy if I can do something to clear up some of my colds, allergies, and skin issues, because traditional doesn't work for me. I still need to learn more about essential oils as well and maybe even learn how to make them myself from herbs, though that is a long way down the road as I don't have the space to grow that amount of herbs here.

CCF (I think) had asked what I am doing with essential oils and the only thing I have done so far is to make flu bombs, 5 drops of melalucca oil, 5 drops of oregano oil, 3 drops of lemon oil, and 3 drops of On Guard in a size 00 capsule taken at the onset of flu symptoms or colds, 3 x per day with meals (otherwise you will burp it up all day long) for 48 to 72 hours. It does shorten the duration. It doesn't prevent them, unfortunately, but shorter is better.

Anyway, that's a bit of what I've been up to. I've been making vlogs almost daily on my youtube channel, but not blogging as much as I should be, either here or on the farm blog. There is just so much to do it is easier to just talk into a camera for a few minutes a day than to find the time to sit down and write. But I miss it so I'll try to find the time to sit down and write a little more often.