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Well, No One's Perfect

September 13th, 2012 at 01:21 am

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.

7 Responses to “Well, No One's Perfect”

  1. Thrifty Ray Says:
    1347497829

    Progress, not perfection...I love that- it fits for eating healthier too. There are much more expensive choices you could have made for eating out, so at least it wasnt crazy expensive. Nice job on all the canning! My hub gets home an midnight tomorrow night. Big Grin

  2. wowitsawonderfullife Says:
    1347501990

    Ick, organ meat. I have hated it since I was a kid. When we were young my dad would go to the butcher with 10 cents to get dinner for a family of six. I've hated liver and onions since then. Could you find someone to trade it with?

    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!

  3. Susan Says:
    1347503440

    For pork check out the link below. I read his blog regularly and he has a lot of interesting stuff to say about farming.
    http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/p/we-sell-pigs-pork.html

  4. snafu Says:
    1347504576

    We've always eaten organ meat and found it delicious but my grandmother, mom and I use nice names for various cuts and used ethnic/deli recipes. German and French styles are fun to duplicate.

  5. LuckyRobin Says:
    1347515240

    Thank you, Susan. That looks pretty good.

  6. North Georgia Gal Says:
    1347543061

    I am not alone! You are right...there must have been something in the air last night!

  7. Monkey Mama Says:
    1347545334

    "Progress, not perfection"

    That is my life motto - it is so much easier. Big Grin I hadn't used those words, I will have to remember them! Which is probably why I just skipped the no-eating-out challenge. I don't intend to eat out most the month, but was feeling a little lazy and went to Burger King Saturday - was a whopping $10. Actually, it was a good reminder that our vacation budget doesn't have to be too high. The "whole week of eating out" always worries me. Then again, we are so used to good home cooking, that a week of fast food isn't very enticing either. Hoping for a homecook meal or two from the grandparents we are visiting. *fingers crossed.* All this to say, I am not going to beat myself up for spending $10 out this month, and it was maybe even a good thing to gain a little vacation budget perspective. Wink

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