I was unable to pick up my turkey today because the road to the farm was underwater. Fortunately they called me before I left so I didn't make a wasted trip. Assuming the flooding has gone down I will be able to pick it up next Saturday. I am actually kind of glad I did not have to drive down there as I am still not 100% out of the brain fog department from being sick. DH will be home to drive down next Saturday if I am still out of it by then. Let's hope not.

I guess there was flooding in our county as well. Now that I don't live anywhere near the river I don't pay as much attention to those sorts of things, but I guess the mountain got 19 inches of snow and then it rained and caused the river to go a foot over its banks. There hasn't been much local coverage of such things because everything is on the events in Paris.

Luna kindled today. She gave birth to 4 kits. Since she missed on the last two breedings, missing today would have been her 3rd strike. At which point she would have been taken out of the breeding program become a house bunny because she is a love and totally would adapt to being a pet. I had my suspicions it wasn't her, but the bucks she had been bred with. This was a different buck who has never failed and he did his job.

I am still waiting to see the results from Ruby (who is building a crazy big nest), Serena, and Kalia. I'm pretty sure Kalia is pregnant as she is so like the woman who is 2 weeks over due and just plops down and doesn't move and prays for it to just be done already. She is always like that the last week of her pregnancy. She did build a nest last week. Serena has also built a nest, but it's hard to tell with her. She's a slim rabbit and doesn't show when she's pregnant. She also missed last time for the first time, so hopefully she won't this time.

These will be the last births of the year as I won't breed any of them again until February.

I was interviewed last month by The Homestead Nation and it went up on youtube on Tuesday night. It talks about how I am raising meat animals, a big garden, and trying to be as self-sufficient as possible on half an acre in the city and what brought me on this journey. It was a really fun interview. Brad and Tommy are great.

I have found The Homestead Nation to be an excellent resource for all kinds of information in regards to this lifestyle. They also cover some preparedness issues. If anyone is interested in seeing it, it is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQfQYj60EIQ

It's a little over half an hour long, so make sure you have a chunk of time if you are going to watch it.

$345.84 Starting Balance
+_10.00 Weekly Deposit
+_67.00 Rabbit Money
+_13.00 Coin Jar Money
---------------------
$435.84 New Balance

$514.16 left to hit my goal of $950 (revised down from $1000 since I put a $50 deposit down for my turkey).

I earned $67 today selling a rabbit to the lady at the farm we buy meat from sometimes. I also spent $204 buying bacon and pork chops. We got quite a bit of it. Part of the $204 was that we put down a $50 deposit on our turkey to be picked up 11/14.

The rabbit money will go into the Christmas Fund, but I'll also be able to lower the fund goal to $950 since I already spent $50 on the turkey. I also need to track down another heritage turkey for the holidays, since I couldn't raise any this year. I think we definitely will next year, though.

I'm having to switch rabbit feed and I'm not happy about it. But I can't get it here without an exorbitant shipping cost. The only way for the shipping to even be reasonable would be to buy 29 fifty pound bags at once. I have the capacity to store 15 bags at the moment.

In order to store 29 I would have to purchase 5 more containers capable of storing 150 pounds in each. I can't leave them on a pallet in the garage because we'll get mice. They have to be in chew proof containers. And we don't have the space to store 5 more bins anyway. Even if I could, it would take too long to get through the feed. It would be very stale and have the possibility of going rancid by the time we went through so much feed.

With the buying club having gone under, I can't reasonably get the organic feed anymore. So we are switching back to the feed we were buying before, which is about 33% of the cost of the organic feed. I hate the idea of going back onto a feed that might have GMOs in it, but there is not much I can do at this point. I will investigate other options, but at least getting this type of feed will buy us time. They do, at least, attempt to get non-GMO ingredients for their feeds, they just can't guarantee it.

I do have to admit it will be nice to see the feed bill drop by so much.

On Thursday we picked up 1/4 of a beef cow (yes, cow, not steer) at the butcher's. The meet itself was $475. The cut and wrap was $195.71. Total cost was $670.71. It worked out to about $3 per pound for grass fed organic beef. I also got 40 pounds of tallow. I only asked for 10, but they give it away, so now I have an overwhelming amount of frozen beef fat to render.

It is for making soaps and lotions, though, so it will all get used eventually. I might also use some for the deep fat fryer. Tallow used to be what all the restaurants used to cook their fries in before they all switched to hydrogenated vegetable oil for "health" reasons, only we know now that is far worse.

It has filled up 3 compartments in the freezer. It is amazing how little space it takes up. If I hadn't had the tallow it all would have fit in two compartments, which is 1/8 of the overall chest freezer space. It will last a long time, though.

We had the first meat from it last night for dinner and it is very flavorful.

We lost power on Saturday in the massive wind storm Western WA had. We were out of power for a little over 8 hours, so we ended up getting takeout from a place that still had power. We spent $48 for 4 people. If it had gone more than that day we would have gotten out the camp stove and started using it to cook on. We had hot water since our water heater is gas and the pilot light was still on.

I made a couple of videos from the day of the storm and the day after showing damages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FciaxrDMHtE

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ElDGouEDk

It got pretty bad in places, but most of the county has power back as of today. We lost a bush and had a lot of damage to some squash vines, corn, and tomato plants, but otherwise came through pretty unscathed. The animals were okay, especially after we put the shutter up over the windows of the rabbit shed. All of their roofs stayed on.

The first half week of school went well for my son. Although he is already starting to pull some of the same stuff as last year. We are nipping it in the bud, though. It's not my fault if he stays up too late playing video games after being told to go to bed. He doesn't get to be "sick" and stay home and sleep because he made wrong choices. He gets to go to school anyway. And his video game machine gets to sleep in my room until the weekend.

My mom had her 76th birthday on the 28th and then my husband had his 46th birthday on the 30th, but it was all very laid back. We had too much work to do to really celebrate. We had to clean 18 rabbit cages over the weekend, plus we were canning. Farm chores and garden preservation do not stop just because someone is now a year older.

It has been raining pretty non-stop for the last two days. Since it has only rained twice prior to this the entire summer, it is very good for the area, but I feel spoiled after such a nice summer for wanting it to stop. And I'm worried it will spoil and split the rest of my tomatoes. The weather is supposed to get nice again by Friday, at least for a few days.

It has been a very busy week for me in the kitchen. I have canned 7 quarts of dill pickles (please, make the cucumbers stop now), 13 pint and a half jars and 1 pint jar of green beans, 5 quarts of rabbit meat, and 14 quarts of Yukon Gold potatoes. I made a batch of rabbit jerky.

I have chopped and frozen several quart size baggies worth of bell peppers and onions, and made a quart of salsa from the garden today because I had several tomatoes that were finally ripe all at once.

I am close to the $800 mark on how much produce I have gotten from my organic garden this spring and summer and with these tomatoes ripening it is going to easily reach the $1000 mark. And that doesn't even take into account the numerous acorn and sweet meat squashes coming on. This was so worth the $400 it took to build this garden.

Tomorrow I have to make bone broth from all the rabbit bones and then I will need to can it the next day. I want to try to get another 20 pounds of potatoes canned and another 20 pounds of green beans. And I think next week will be the start of some serious tomato harvesting and canning, too.

We will be butchering chickens at that point, too. None too soon as some of them are starting in with mini-crowing. Nothing loud and it's pretty pathetic rooster cries, but we want to keep it that way and get it done before they start waking the neighborhood.

Fortunately I can easily can diced tomatoes and salsa. Sauce and ketchup will just have to wait until the chickens are done. Since we will have a plucker, I think we can get through 15 to 20 chickens a day. Should take us 3 to 4 days to do it. DH can butcher 8 rabbits in an hour. Chickens are more work than that, but I think we can spend about 3 hours a day on it and get it done pretty easily. Or at least quickly.

We get our 1/4 of a beef on Friday. I've made enough room in the freezer by canning a lot of the rabbit meat that was in there over the last few weeks. There will be room for our 30 chickens, too.

It will be nice not to have to buy much in the way of meat (pretty much just seafood and bacon) for the next half year or so.

I was able to do a little more today without completely feeling like my head was in outer space, but I kept my son with me or my mother with me while I did things. I had top pick green beans, about 3 pints worth and then I pulled out the spent vines, which was about 1/4 of them and fed them to the birds who will love me forever for it, or at least until tomorrow.

I picked 3 jalapenos and about a dozen strawbrerries and a yellow crookneck squash and then watered the 3 large beds for the day.

Then I took my son to the front yard and had him pick the zucchini and our first front yard yellow crookneck squash. I still can't bend down without getting dizzy and in the front yard I can't sit down at a chair to work since everything is in the ground and not raised beds.

Then he picked a bucket full of cucumbers. There are cantaloupe coming and loads of acorn squash and the sweet meat has squash on it, too, now. One of the vines had climbed up a stalk of corn and was making it's way across the top of several other stalks so we had to unwind and disconnect it, then redirect to the ground. These squashes will get too heavy to be airborne!

Then after a break he brought the 8 rabbits that had been thawing in the fridge to the freezer and I cut the meat off the bones of all the back legs and back pieces. We had half the front legs for dinner tonight and I refroze the other 8 front legs for another night when we want barbecue "wings." The rib cage pieces are soaking in a brine and we will have them for dinner Thursday night as southern fried rabbit.

I took the meat that I had deboned and it filled 5 quart jars and then I canned them. That will make for some nice stews, enchiladas, and pulled rabbit for future meals this fall and winter. Tomorrow I will roast the bones and then start another pot of bone broth going that I will also can. It'll have to be after my doctor's appointment tomorrow, though. I will also can the green beans I picked today. I should have 2 pint and a half jars there.

I need to pull out 8 more bags of rabbit meat to defrost from the freezer. I am trying to get as much canned as possible between now and when our 1/4 beef share is ready at the end of the month and also have room for the meat chickens we will be butchering in September. And then make sure there will be room for the turkeys we will order. We will be canning some of the hamburger and some of the beef roasts as well. Having so much canned meat on hand makes the school year go so smoothly where meals are concerned.

I need to try to make it over to the canning sale as well. 2 stores are having one and it's about the same so I'll go to whichever one I am closest to. I also want to buy some carrots to can. What I grow won't be enough. I'm down to 3 or 4 jars of carrots so it is very low.

The only thing I'm lower on is potatoes. And from the looks of what Mom dug up today, I will probably need to order potatoes to make up for it. Probably 50 pounds and then again 50 pounds later in the season. I'd really like to have 104 quarts of potatoes on the shelves before I'm through. That will allow us to have potatoes twice a week. 156 quarts would be more ideal, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not.

It sounds like a lot to be doing, but the kids will be helping me and so will Mom. We'll get it done and I will take rest as I need it.

Yesterday DH and I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. I am hoping not to have to shop again except for milk and bananas for about 3 weeks. It is pretty hard to do with the pain and fogginess from my broken nose and what actually probably is a mild concussion. Or else just a reaction to the pain medication. Hard to say, but I feel very out of it.

I spent $162.71. We got a few packaged meals and some other things that will make it easy to fill in around the produce coming in from the garden and the meat in the freezer.

We have canned a lot this week. My husband has done a lot of it under my supervision simply because I get dizzy a lot right now. But between the two of us we have canned:

7 quarts and 1 pint of beef
6 quarts and 1 pint of rabbit
6 quarts of zucchini and summer squash
3 pint and a half jars of green beans
13 pints of rabbit bone broth
6 pints of bread and butter pickles
6 quarts of garlic dill pickles

We also made a batch of rabbit jerky with the abdominal flaps that can be very chewy and basically are only good for being ground or making jerky. Some people make bacon with it, but I feel it is too chewy for bacon.

We plan to can hamburger and more beef chunks today and more rabbit tomorrow. I need to do another batch of garlic dill pickles as the cucumbers are getting ridiculous.

I have an order in with a local place for 20 pounds of no spray green beans. We are having issues with the pole bean crop so I wanted to make sure I had enough green beans canned for the year. I think between that and what we do get from our garden it will cover it. I will be buying some carrots soon, too. We are down to 4 quarts of canned carrots. The ones I am growing are more for fresh eating and a little dehydrating as they don't get very big.

We also have an order in for dill since the stores keep running out. They don't seem to be stocking very well for pickling season this year. They do have those super expensive little plastic packets, but one of those costs about as much as a huge bunch of fresh dill.

I bought a garlic braid since my garlic crop failed. It has about 40 heads of garlic on it, which will meet my needs for the year. I have 5 or 6 left on last year's braid so am going to slice up the cloves, dehydrate them, and grind into powder.

Fortunately a lot of this stuff I can do sitting down. I do have to be careful not to push too hard, but it is difficult when there is so much to do to get ready for winter.

I heard the other day that our beef share should be ready on August 28th or thereabouts. I am getting 1/4 of a grass fed, organic beef. It will work out to $4 per pound. We will can most of the roasts and some of the hamburger. I will also be getting 10 pounds of tallow to render for soap making and lotion making. Beef fat is very good for those things and very healthy for the body, as opposed to a lot of the chemically laden soaps and lotions.

Next month the meat chickens will be ready to butcher as well, so I'll be putting 30 chickens in the freezer. We'll also have 3 rabbits ready to butcher then, too. So lots of work coming up, but it will be so worth it to not buy much meat for a year at the store. And in the long run we save a lot of money buy buying in bulk and preserving or raising our own and preserving.

We will still have to buy sea food since DH's big fishing trip fell through. I was pretty disappointed as they were going to be fishing for King salmon and one of those would have been around 35 pounds, plenty for a year. But life happens and there is nothing we can do about it now.

$3053.63 Starting Total
+__31.33 C1-360 Interest
----------------
$3084.96 Subtotal
+__57.75 Farm sales
-----------------
$3142.71 Subtotal
+__16.25 Coin Jar
-----------------
$3158.96 Subtotal
+__21.10 ACOP Survey Check
------------------
$3180.06 Subtotal
+__57.48 Farmer's Co-op Stock Disbursement Check
------------------
$3237.54 New Balance

$762.46 left to hit my goal of $4000.

The farmer's co-op merged with another company and the paperwork that came with the check is hard to figure out what they did exactly. I don't know if this was a difference in the old stock price verses the new stock price or if we no longer have any stake in the co-op at all. Very unclear. We only had one share, but that share got us discounted prices on feed and farm supplies. DH is going to call and find out. The dividends were generally only around $30 a year when we weren't buying propane, but it was always a nice little thing when it showed up.

I have been saving up my Swagbucks for a while and finally had enough Amazon gift cards to pay for about half of the deluxe model of Excalibur Dehydrator, the one with both temperature settings and a 26 hour timer with automatic shut off. I was trying to go for the whole thing to be free, but then my piece of junk dehydrator quit working. I am in the middle of herb drying season and while I can borrow my mother's cheap piece of junk dehydrator, and did, to keep limping along, it was the push I needed to just go ahead and make the purchase.

I had $121.75 in gift cards and it cost $225. I also had to purchase the fruit leather trays because they don't come with any model of the machine. Well, maybe the $500 professional one, but no. I ended up paying a total of $156.63. Part of that was tax of $20.76 and then the trays were $32.62 (for 9) and the rest was the part of the dehydrator not covered by the gift cards.

With the fruit leather trays I can dehydrate tomato puree, mashed squash, even chicken stock all to be ground to make powders. Dehydrated chicken stock put through a spice grinder makes boullion powder without any of those nasty chemicals from store bought versions. As well as very tiny herb leaves like thyme or flower petals like calendula without having to worry about them falling through trays.

Right now I have 5 trays of basil dehydrating which will be followed tomorrow by more calendula, lemon balm, and yarrow. I am hoping that I won't have to buy many herbs this year at all and I will be able to make salves and other herbal remedies. I'm already on my way with the calendula:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nf1XLNCzj0

I did dry all of my oregano in bundles up on the wall and not in the dehydrator. If you'd like to see how I process that I did a video of it, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4hUBym8C2c

Herbs are so expensive for such a tiny amount, especially if you want organic. I will really be saving a lot of money this year by growing so many myself.

I'm really getting into herbal healing, doing a lot of research and trying to figure out what works best for my needs. Heaven knows the store bought remedies are not working well for me. While I don't think herbs are going to be a miracle cure, so far from what I've done myself with essential oils, they do seem to work. I will approach it with healthy skepticism until I have first hand experience with all of it.

I went to Joe's Garden and bought some broccoli and cauliflower and green onion plugs and got those planted today to replace all the ones I've harvested. I also bought some more basil plants. I spent $25.38 there.

I haven't been updating much on the garden output as I've just been trying to keep up with it and getting it eaten and/or preserved. But I've been keeping a tally and so far I've harvested enough food to equal $602.50 if I bought the same thing in the organic section of the grocery store.

And the zucchini, summer squash, peppers, beans, corn and tomatoes are just starting to fruit and we still have potatoes and winter squash, cucumbers, watermelon, sunflower seeds, and cantaloupe to come. We have now paid back the amount we spent on building the raised beds and the money we spent on bringing in three cubic yards of good organic soil. I am beyond thrilled at this garden year.

We had two litters of rabbit kits born this weekend. There were five whites born on the 3rd and 7 reds born on the 4th. The red runt died, though. It had no sucking reflex and couldn't nurse. But we still have 11 healthy kits. One of the rabbits didn't deliver though. Sometimes when it is too hot the bucks will go temporarily sterile. This is the second time this has happened this year, though it was a different doe each time. I am glad I am breeding 3 pairs at a time.

I've got orders for fertile turkey eggs. The first one will be filled tomorrow. It's just two. Then I have an order for 12, then 2, then 12 again. It's only 50 cents an egg. I could charge more, these are heritage breed turkeys and rare, but I am in it more for breed preservation than for making money. It's nice having a waiting list. I just wish I had more than one female so I could fill orders faster, but we don't have the space for it so that will have to wait until we buy our farm and move.

So DH texted me and they found a bed for the extra four nights so we won't have to worry about the four days he had to take off to be home for DD's graduation. I won't have to touch the college fund, the January Money Fund, or the Emergency Fund. So now I can focus on building the JMF and the Tire Fund with no stress hanging over my head. Or at least no more stress than usual. Which is quite a relief.

I sold 2 dozen duck eggs this morning for $9. I gave her a discount since she brought me a dozen egg cartons.

We had one litter of kits born today. Ruby had 5 reds. We are still waiting on Serenity and Phoebe to have their litters. They were due on Sunday, so they are overdue now. Phoebe has pulled fur, but other than building a very nice nest, Serenity shows no signs of being in labor. Hopefully I will come out to more kits in the morning.

As I said in my meal planning post I am going to try to go the whole month eating only from the Pantry/Freezers/Garden. I did go and buy flour and sugar today. I will only buy milk, but I will go u-pick some strawberries to make jam as I won't miss out on making jam for the year when the local berries are in season. I do have a jar of pectin so I won't need to buy that for making jam.

I picked my first snow peas today. I am so happy to have them. We will have them in this week's stir-fry dinner. It is only one serving's worth, so if we put it in the stir-fry we'll all get to have some. We should have a ton more in a couple days and then we can each have a serving of them.

So on Sunday I harvested the equivalent of 2 heads of lettuce and 1 bunch of kale and today I harvested the equivalent of 3 heads of lettuce, 1 bunch of Asian stir-fry greens, 1 bunch of sorrel and 1 bunch of kale. The equivalent in the grocery store for organic produce would be $21. That brings my total harvest so far this year to:

$64.50

And it's not even June, yet.

I sold 7 more turkey eggs for 50 cents each, so $3.50. I have someone coming to buy 2 dozen duck eggs on the weekend.

Today I gave my FIL 3 dozen duck eggs, 1 bunch of kale, and some lettuce and sorrel. He will give SIL some of the duck eggs.

How the main garden is doing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoRqDsCJoQ0

We have rabbit kits due this weekend. I gave the three pregnant does nesting boxes last night and washed the cages the night before that. We are as ready as we can be.

Yesterday I sold 2 rabbits and got a guarantee on a 3rd. She was only coming to pick up the male yesterday and look at the female who will be ready in 4 weeks when her kits are weaned. But she saw the reds and when I told her I had a red doe kit available as well, she impulse bought it. So that was $45.

The girl who was coming to buy the turkey eggs has to postpone until tomorrow, though. Hopefully she will follow through.

Last night I ordered 60 black Australorp cockerels. They will arrive on or around June 3. They are to be our meat chickens this year. We will have 30 and Mom will have 30. My half came to $68.87, which works out to $2.29 a chick. Usually they put in some extras in case they don't all make it. Now I just have to collect Mom's half from her.

We chose black Australorps because they are mostly thigh and leg with smaller breasts. We don't like the white meat as much as the dark meat, so we want the meatier legs and thighs. And we chose cockerels as they get bigger faster than pullets. They are also cheaper than pullets. The sad fact of the chicken industry is that males are often considered outright useless. You just don't need that many in a flock, even a large one, to get the job done. 1 rooster to about 10 hens is a good ratio. So they either are sold as meat birds or they are killed outright as chicks because they don't get sold on time for safe shipping.

Safe shipping is during the first couple days of life when they are still absorbing the nutrients from their yolk sack and food and water are not an issue. After that it can be dangerous to ship chicks, especially once it gets really hot.

I did try to source them locally, but all I could find was the Cornish cross and I am not raising those again, at least not while living here.

...so you can see what I've been up to when I'm not stressing out over DD's medical issues.

Bird Update:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5DFKIb0yI

The Raised Bed Garden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDfnEC9NMyI

The kits at the 3 week mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vgqo71yBps

The Raised Bed Garden Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF5zboB5d18

The Gutter Garden and George
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itgDoO_lJBg

3 Sisters Garden and Potato Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk6FNSuI8sg&spfreload=10

Gina, who thinks she is a duck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBlY0FBOJI

Fruit Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCjLJ3mzs1o

That is how life has felt lately. I've done a lot and had a lot more still left to do.

I have sold $72 worth of rabbit meat and 2 dozen duck eggs for $9 (discounted .50 each since they brought their own egg cartons). I have also traded 10 fertile duck hatching eggs for 14 calendula starts. It was supposed to be 12, but there were a couple extra plants hitchhiking in.

The garden is doing beautifully. I have got lots of things planted and I am hardening off four trays of my seedlings and have four more trays under the lights. They have done great and almost everything I planted has sprouted. I think I have a germination failure rate of 1 out of 50 seeds so far. Except for the green onions, but I have to be patient. Those can take 14 days to germinate from seed. So they still might come up. That was old seed though so who knows?

I've got my carrots, zucchini, and yellow summer squash planted. All of the garden beds have been built and all but two have been fully filled. The irrigation system has been put in to everything but those last two beds. We will finish those up when DH comes home towards the end of next week.

We had 3 litters of rabbit kits born a week ago Sunday. One died due to an improperly nipped umbilical cord, so we have 14 live ones in this batch.

We have let the turkeys come out to free range for a few hours a day on days it is not raining. They are enjoying hanging with the other birds. I let them out mostly in the afternoons. Gina lays her egg around 5 p.m. and if she is in the coop she will lay it from the perch, which means splat. If she is outside she will lay it on the ground. She is not laying consistently yet.

I have made a ton of videos for my other blog, so thought I'd share them here as well. Most of them are pretty short.

Newborn litters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmHkqdzSD9k

The turkeys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlIvIEF8jJ8

Raised Bed Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMN9vIWLxZc

Gutter Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2f1IhwwwWU

Kits at 5 days old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmB_RYTzaoA

Kits at 8 days old (fully furred) and 8 weeks old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFc6aF7xuP0

Kiki wanted to see what the difference was in the different eggs so the photo below shows all three. The big white one is a duck egg, the pale pink one with dark pink spots is the turkey egg, and the brown one is the chicken egg. The chicken egg would equate to a large egg at the grocery store, though we do get quite a few that would equal the extra large size (even laid by the same chicken that laid this one). I chose the one with the nicest color contrast. The turkey eggs will get bigger than the duck eggs after Gina has been laying for a couple of months. All bird eggs start out small when their systems are just coming online.



Joan had asked about selling eggs by the ounce. That's not really something that happens in our community. The going rate of what other people are willing to pay is pretty set around here and depends on how hard it is to find them. For organic chicken eggs straight from the coop or farm, people will pay $3 to $6 a dozen. In the stores it is $6 to $8. For organic duck eggs people are willing to pay $5 to $7 a dozen and in the stores it is $8 to $9 a dozen. Turkey eggs of any type start at $8 a dozen and go up higher for organic and you can't find them in the stores at all. If you are selling fertile hatching eggs you can charge more.

I try to keep my prices reasonable in that range, just because I have seen people try to get too much and then people stop buying from them even if they lower their prices back down. No one wants to deal with a price gouger.

For rabbit meat I do sell by the pound, though, as that is standard. We can get $15 a pound for organic rabbit meat. It costs $4 a rabbit for the processing fees at a WSDA facility, which we have to use to legally sell butchered meat. That plus the organic feed costs, well, we do need to make a profit and I don't feel bad about charging more there. It is what the market will support.

And if there is interest, I did an updated rabbitry video this week. The kits are about 6.5 weeks old here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEqD6GFsdwA

On Thursday I sold 4 dozen duck eggs for $20 and then on Monday I sold 2 dozen duck eggs for $9. The second sale got a discount because she brought me back empty egg cartons. I discount 50 cents per dozen if people bring me back egg cartons because that is how much new egg cartons cost each. So $29.

I also gave away a dozen duck eggs and 2 dozen chicken eggs (some mine, some Mom's) to my neighbor's grown daughter (she's poor and super appreciative) and 18 duck eggs to my physical therapist on Friday.

The ducks are back in full production, giving me 5 to 6 eggs a day. The hens are starting to molt, so my four are doing 2 a day right now. We are still getting plenty for our own use. I also got 3 turkey eggs so far this week. They taste just like the chicken eggs. Not nearly as different as the duck eggs are from chicken eggs.

Once the novelty wears off of eating the turkey eggs I will sell them. I think I can get $4 for a half dozen.

I may also sell fertile eggs if anyone is interested. I'd like to incubate turkey eggs this year, but I don't think we can swing a really good incubator until next year. One day.

I received $30 worth of Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks today and sent for a $10 check from Pinecone. I was sorely tempted to do two $5 checks instead, but didn't have the time to mess with it. I wish they'd go back to the $3 cash out. The increments of $5 annoys me when the surveys are only worth $3.

I am saving up my gift cards to buy something for the farm. So far I have $80. I haven't decided which I am going to get first, a Brinsea incubator or a barrel feather plucker, but those are the two things on the horizon. They are both hefty purchases. I can rent a plucker for now, but eventually we want our own so we can process on our own schedule and not when we can get the machine.

I went in this morning and signed the last paper for the house. They said that the sale should be recorded and official some time tomorrow. I hope the money shows up in my account on Friday and not on Monday. I then will have to check with the credit union to make sure that I can use the money right away or see if there is a hold on it. I know with checks like that there can sometimes be a hold, but the title company wasn't sure about whether there would be a hold on a direct deposit or not. I wouldn't think so, but I will ask just to be on the safe side before paying off the van.

We did not have a payday last week, but I still made some payments from money saved over for this week's bills. These were all autopays.

$250.00 AMEX
__45.30 Life Insurance DH
__44.66 Life Insurance Me
__74.41 Car Insurance
__48.75 Homeowner's Insurance
_186.00 Storage
__16.17 Power Old House
--------------
$665.29 Total Money Out

I won round 1 of my transformer 6 month dietbet. Don't know what my winnings are yet. I also signed up for another 4 week dietbet with the same group I did the first one for. It has way more support being a smaller group. The transformer has over 1800 people in it, so it feels extremely anonymous when it comes to support. So that was $20.

I have to make a list of people to call tomorrow once the sale has been recorded. So far I'm thinking:

Power company
Phone company
Security company
Propane co-op (DH will have to do this one, it's in his name)
Home Owner's insurance company (should get a partial refund)

There was no cable or internet hooked up out there so that's not an issue. The water/sewer has been taken care of by the title company since it is owned by the homeowner's association out there. It was mixed in with the sale and is current and up to date.

I will probably go to Comcast in person tomorrow. It is faster than trying to get through their customer service line. I will be over there anyway as my daughter has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. I will also drop by the insurance office in person since it is by the high school.

The rabbit kits are doing well. The runt died. Not sure if I said that, but it did. I knew it would. It was just too tiny. But everyone else is doing great. Here is a video of the babies and some photos:

http://youtu.be/gDTZI_s-AWc

It was a long weekend here on the farmlet, but all of the does kindled their litters and with the exception of a tiny runt, nothing was wrong with any of them. They all look healthy and strong, even the runt who was wiggly and vocal. I have never had a kit this small before and I hope it will make it. It is teeny. It is as wide as my index finger and as long as my pinky. In comparison, a normal sized new born kit is about two fingers wide and as long as my middle finger.

You can see for yourself how small it is. He is towards the middle of the photo surrounded by his bigger siblings.



This is Firefly's first litter and she had seven. If the littlest one survives it will probably have to be grown out two to three weeks longer than the rest.

The other two litters are doing well. Persephone had six, four of which are bigger than the other two, but even those smaller ones are still way bigger than the runt.



Luna Blue's litter was also six. Hers are all really big, but since Leo is the father that is to be expected. You can definitely see the difference in size in this photo.



So with 19 kits, 3 of which will have to grow out longer, I am glad I held off breeding on Wednesday. I think I will wait until the 11th and then breed 3 does again.

I sold 2 dozen eggs on Friday, making farm sales for February $105 and $132.50 for 2015. I will take a dozen to my physical therapist tomorrow. We are starting to get a surplus built up again and by tomorrow I should have 3 dozen. I plan to make a pound cake this week and 2 batches of peanut butter cookies. I may make some egg bread, too. We'll see.

I have lost 21 pounds so far since December 31st. I have 2 days let in the first round of my six month diet bet. Unless something goes drastically wrong, I should win it.

I am pretty excited about some of the upcoming things on the farm. I sent a check off today for $330 to a local sustainable farmer who raises rabbits as well. He's going to be importing organic rabbit pellets from Modesto Mills in California and has offered to let anyone in the county get in on his order, no shipping fees. Since he wasn't sure how often at first he'd be ordering, I got a 2 month supply, or 600 pounds. Well, technically, this is more than a 2 month supply at the moment, because we have no kits and are just feeding the 13 adults and 1 junior who will be an adult in another month.

But we have kits due on Saturday/Sunday, so in about 4 weeks that consumption will go up to 300 pounds a month. This does a little more than double our rabbit feed costs, but with the new small animal slaughter house starting to butcher rabbits this spring, I will be able to sell WSDA approved meat if I use them. Rabbit meat from rabbits fed organically gets upwards of $15 a pound. So selling one rabbit would cover the cost of 2 bags of feed. I have interest from people who I have not sold to yet, because of not having the WSDA approval.

I do not mind raising the feed costs, since our old feed that used to be GMO free no longer is with the heavy introduction of GMO alfalfa into the rabbit feed supply a year or so ago. Which, by the way, has coincided with increased kit mortality in many rabbitries across the states. It may not show up in humans this quickly, but with something like the rabbit population where generations are born in a very short time span, it can very quickly be seen. Not proven, but the anecdotal evidence amongst breeders is pretty high. Just another reason to thank Monsanto for their constant interference in nature and scientifically proven (by non-M researchers) lower yields (despite advertising higher ones).

We don't buy alfalfa hay anymore as there is just no real way to track that unless we buy farm direct, which we may do this summer (and eventually will grow ourselves when we buy our 5 acre farm).

So anyway, I am happy to find organic non-GMO feed again for my rabbits. We will do a slow switchover, as a rapid feed change can kill the bunnies. But we have 200 pounds of the old feed left, so we should be good with a gradual switch over. Might have to buy an additional 100 pounds, but we will play that by ear.

Here is a short rabbit video I made yesterday. It shows the different nesting styles of my three rabbits who are currently pregnant.

http://youtu.be/nNU4PmlaP1Y

I made $80 in rabbit meat sales today. That brings the total sales for the month to $95 and $122.50 for 2015. That more than covers a month of feed for all of the animals, especially since we don't have any babies right now, but since I have a large amount of feed bought in previous months, I don't need to use it for that and it will go to the EF on Tuesday.

This week I also received my AMEX reward that is attached to my Costco card. It is $58.82. I have to go to Costco to cash it. I wish they would just let you cash it at a bank, but they won't. We will go there sometime soon, maybe Tuesday so we can avoid the holiday weekend shoppers. I don't really need much from Costco, maybe Ziplocs, but nothing else, so I hate to go all the way over there just for that, but oh, well. That money will end up in the EF as well.

We went to the farm today and got several pounds of pastured organic meat. For $280 I got 32.3 pounds of meat divided thusly:

8 2.5 pound pot roasts (20 lb)
4 pork chops (2.30 lb)
5 packages of bacon (5 lb)
1 rack of lamb (3 lb)
1 beef hanging tender (will have to look up how to cook this)(2 lb)

We will can the pot roasts later this week after they have thawed out.

Since we were down that way DH and I went out to an early dinner at Outback for a combination of Valentine's Day and my birthday. It was nice to have a nice dinner out without the kids. We rarely do. We brought home wings and bread for the kids and they also stole our leftovers. I didn't end up getting steaks after all on my actual birthday so I don't feel guilty at all about going out, especially since I set aside the money I would have used to buy steaks.

I sold 2 dozen duck eggs today for $10, bringing my egg sales for the month to $15. I received my two Pinecone checks in the mail today, for a total of $20. I have received all five of my $5 Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks and have cashed out for a $25 gift card. I think I'll be able to get another one before the month is up if I keep qualifying for surveys.

This Saturday we'll be going down to the farm store to buy beef for canning and we will be selling the lady who runs the counter some of our rabbit meat. She pays $15 a pound. I'm not sure how much the package weighs. We use their scale when we get there. But the last sale was $67.50 for 4.5 pounds, so should be around that much.

I need to order some more rabbit cages. I want to stop using the 24 x 24 inch cages and just use the 36 x 36 inch cages. The smaller ones are standard for bucks of this size, but when I moved the two bucks that were in them to the larger cages a couple weeks ago, they acted like they were in heaven. I'd rather they have a bit more space if it means that much to them. I like to keep them all happy.

There really hasn't been all that much to write about this week. I've lost 9 pounds since December 31st, so my diet is going pretty well. We haven't spent much money this week.

We may have some house expenses coming up. Apparently there has to be an inspection of the foundation and we will have to pay for that. I'm not sure why the sellers have to pay it, though. It seems like the buyers should have to pay for all inspections, but I guess not in this case. I swear, I never want to deal with this type of house again in my life.

So, so far, it looks like we're going to have to pay $1000 between the wood stove fix and the foundation inspection. So I probably will end up taking money out of the EF. Since DH also is having dental work done tomorrow and just had a second sleep study done and will have to buy a B-PAP machine, which is more expensive than a normal C-PAP machine, and since our deductible started over insurance won't cover much if any of it, we may really be seeing a dent in the EF.

DH says I can take most of his school money ($800 of the $1000 we set aside) since he doesn't think he'll be ready to do that until after the income tax refund comes back anyway. I hate to do that, though. Of course I hate depleting the EF even more, but we'll see.

Our real estate agents (husband/wife team) wants to sit down and discuss our looking at houses as soon as the sale closes. I don't want to and don't like the pressure. I think we will need to save for an additional year before we are ready to buy a house, possibly longer. I just want a bigger EF and a bigger down payment so our mortgage payment doesn't cost an arm and a leg every month. I just don't think I am ready to go through the stress of looking at houses. DH is probably going to have to tell them to back off.

Plus I want to enjoy being totally debt free for a while (except the loan from Mom), which we will be once we pay the guy who did the house repairs and pay off the van. I just want to have all that stress free time to save like maniacs. Of course that is assuming we can put up with Mom's particular brand of crazy for another year. At the very least we want to finish off the school year, here, though.

Also DD is talking about moving in with two of her friends in the summer of 2016 and if that is the case we can actually look at some smaller houses. She wants to find a job after graduation and work for a year, saving as much money as she can, before getting an apartment. We will try to pay for one class a semester at the community college for her. She'll have one credit when she graduates because her Psychology class counts as a college level credit.

The ducks laid two eggs today. We haven't gotten 2 eggs in a day from them since December, so either they are starting to gear back up again due to the longer days or one of the 2 new ducks has relaxed enough to start laying. Wade has been mating both of them so that might have kicked one of them into gear. Both ducks have been completely accepted into the flock now.

Nothing else really going on around here. Sticking to the meal plan and not going out to eat.

We went to Costco today and spent $211. I stocked up on toilet paper, bought some tikka masala spices, vitamins, fuzzy socks(!), and of course groceries. We also got gas. It was $1.84 a gallon and we got just over 11 gallons. We paid just a smidgeon above $20. I can't even remember the last time that happened.

The house contract was signed Monday night by all parties. They have scheduled their inspection. We have to do $500 worth of work on the wood stove to bring it up to code. I think we will be able to swing that without touching the Emergency Fund. Since I have $700 in the propane fund (and still have $50 of credit with the co-op) and still haven't had to fill the tank, I can take most of it from there, and I also have an extra $70 in the dues fund. I am trying not to get excited about the house sale happening because it fell through last time, but I am a little bit.

I have now lost 8 pounds since starting my diet December 31st. I hope that continues to go well. I still need to lose a few more pounds to win my dietbet. I think I am going to make it. I've got 15 days left. Even if I don't win, the support of the group has been wonderful and it is worth that for $30. But I want to win.

I have managed to keep my calorie intake in my goal range every day but one. I went over by 15 calories that day, so I still consider it a win.

Tomorrow I have someone dropping off a baby aloe plant for me and another person buying 2 dozen duck eggs for $10. That will bring farm sales for the month to $37.50.

I received my Costco bonus check for $46.27 today. Of course I didn't open the mail until after we'd come back from our shopping trip to Costco. Wish I had because that check can only be cashed at Costco. DH will have to run in there on Sunday. We'll be going past it on the way to visit his parents so we won't have to make a special trip.

I think that about covers everything.

We were given two ducks today, both females, from someone who was having predator problems and they had wiped out her flock except for these two. We have named them Bluebell (she's a Blue Swedish) and Daisy (she's a Khaki Campbell).

Integration was interesting. I think it is all going to be okay, though. It isn't like with chickens where the birds can be downright nasty to newcomers. They are very well taken care of, healthy animals. I wasn't planning to add any more ducks to the flock, but it is hard to say no to free, especially after losing Lemon.

I did a short little vid if anyone is interested.

http://youtu.be/DCy6-buXFVA

Tomorrow I have someone coming to buy a 4 month old doe kit. It's a non-pedigreed but purebred New Zealand White, so only $20. Proven and purebred go for more and reds go for more than that. This will bring my January farm sales to $27.50. But DS gets a percentage because he does so much work with the animals. He gets 1/3.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I decided to sign up for dietbet. I did a $30 one. I figured maybe if I had some monetary skin in the game it would make it more likely to hang in there during the hardest part, the first month. Once I get my groove on, I generally do pretty well, and with having been off soda for probably a year now, this time I'll be doing it without my biggest temptation.

I am using survey money. Anything I win will go towards the DRIP thing I'll be starting up. The initial investment will go back into Dietbet for the next round. I want to lose 15 pounds this month, but I'd be happy with just making progress.

I have gained back all of the weight I lost before, plus another 15 pounds. And it is making life difficult. This time I need to make the changes permanent. I really hope I'm finally ready to do that.

In other news we lost Lemon today. She had hurt herself a few days ago and while we had been treating her injuries, she just couldn't recover. She died this afternoon. That brings our duck flock down to 4 females and one male. It is sad, but it doesn't hurt as bad as it did when Sienna died. Ducks are not affectionate by nature, and while they make me happy with their antics, they are not something I have cuddled with. It puts more space between me and the loss.

Aside from the auto deductions and the AMEX bill, which have money set aside for them, I am hoping for a no spend week starting tomorrow and going through next Tuesday. We have plenty of food, milk, and medication and toiletries in the house and no reason to spend any money on anything, so this week should be a breeze to get through. I won't have physical therapy again for 8 days, which I will have to pay, or I'd be trying to go no spend until January 9th, which is our next payday.

Today we spent $75 on rabbit feed and oats and I spent $90 on physical therapy.

The kids start back to school on Monday and normally I would buy lunch meat, but I am just going to make an extra pizza on Sunday and then they can take that for lunches. They both like cold pizza over sandwiches anyway and since I make it with lots of onions and peppers it is reasonably well balanced.

My husband taught my FIL and my mom how to butcher rabbits so they could help do it and DH could keep his injured finger out of them, so on Monday they butchered 10. These ones were a few weeks older than our norm, so it'll be close to 35 pounds of meat and about 2.5 pounds of livers. I will be working on cutting it all up tomorrow for grinding. We should get about 35 pounds of burger after the bones are taken out.

Then I will boil up the bones, pick off the remaining meat, and can the stock. I might even make up some ready made soups to can with the meat from the bones, although generally I save that for making enchiladas.

I am about ready to start cooking again, even though I'm not over this illness. My brain is starting to unfog, which is good. And since DH just left for Alaska and won't be able to help, I am glad I feel like I am capable to start at least making dinners again.

I made the most I have ever made on farm sales in a month this month.

$67.50 rabbit meat sales
+39.00 egg sales
+20.00 live rabbit sales
---------------
126.50 total farm sales

I am excited to see it doing so well. That was enough to cover a month of rabbit feed and a month of turkey feed and 1 bag of duck/chicken layer feed. That's not what I'm doing with it though. I have decided to take my farm sales money and my survey money and start investing in DRIPs.

I would like to end up with enough in drips that by the time I am 65 I can switch from reinvesting to getting the dividends paid and make enough income from it to provide about $2000 a month for retirement. I know that I'll have to add more money to it than what I can make with the farm and surveys, but I think we can manage that.