Today was long, but everyone is now snuggled up safe and warm and happy and we are nine bunnies richer (or a lot of money poorer, but they will eventually pay us back).

Here are the hutches for the does:



And the one for the buck, which has a silver roof instead of brown:



This is Leo the Storm Master, our nine month old buck:



This is Piper, a nine month old doe, with her litter of 3 week old kits:



And this is Phoebe, who is 9 1/2 weeks old and will be a breeding doe when she is old enough:



So far we have paid $551.40 for start up costs. I figure it'll take about a year to earn that back. Plus I want to get another grown doe and buck from a different breeder and we'll need to make a few cages, so that will add a bit. On the plus side, though, we already have someone who wants to buy rabbit meat from us, our daughter's best friend's mother.

I need to find out for sure what license I need to get to butcher for sale. I've saved a couple of .PDFs with the info, but haven't had time to read them yet since I've been reading the stuff on care. We are 5 to 7 weeks away from butchering though so I have time to find out and do the proper legal stuff. And we probably won't sell any of this first batch. I want to keep the biggest, strongest girl to grow up for a breeder and that will only leave five to go to freezer camp. I might part with one. We'll see. She knows it may be half a year before we have enough to sell some.

You ever have one of those days that just gets away from you completely and before you know it's 4:30 in the afternoon and you are sitting in the driveway feeling like you are about to faint and realizing you have forgotten to eat all day long? Today was one of those days.

I spent the morning completely out of it. Didn't sleep terribly well and was trying to get a nap in before physical therapy. I don't usually eat before PT because it quite often makes me want to throw up if I do. By the time I got out I had to pick up DD from school and then I had to run to the credit union to pay the mortgage and get money out to buy the rabbits tomorrow and to buy feed and all the other rabbit stuff like feeders, waterers, hayracks and drip pans. The store only had two hay racks, so I figured the buck can do without one until they get another one in.

Then we ran to the pharmacy to pick up some medication and then went to the grocery store to do some shopping. I started feeling queasy in the grocery store, but I was okay until we got home and then everything started going fuzzy and I thought I was going to faint and that was when I realized I hadn't eaten today.

DD grabbed a honey oat bar and made me stay put while she and DS took all the groceries in. I was a bit better after I ate it, at least enough to go into the house. DD made me lay down and then brought me some better food and after about 20 minutes I was no longer in danger of fainting. She gave me a big lecture about letting my blood sugar get so low. I deserved it, but hearing my own words come back at me like that was a bit surrreal. I guess she's been listening to me these last few years. I think I better keep a stash of honey oat bars in the glove box from now on.

----------

I spent a ridiculous amount of money today. I mean, I know that the rabbit stuff will pay for itself eventually, but start up costs do hit the wallet hard.

I will do a payday post tomorrow. Right now I'm still not clear-headed enough to do finances and I still have a few medical bills to pay so wouldn't have a full report anyway.

We've bought 3 rabbit hutches now for a total of $255. We will be going out to the rabbitry on Saturday and if all goes well, we will be bringing home some New Zealand White rabbits. I know what to check for, no eye gumminess, no ear mites, fur in good condition, no sores on the feet. I will post a few photos here, but probably more on my homesteading blog. I can't believe how fast this is all happening.

Mom is still talking about getting broilers, too. I'll probably come back from California and there will be ducks, too, even though we all decided not to do them this year. Oh, well. It's definitely making this place seem more and more like a farm.

I haven't spent any other money lately, but I will have to pick up milk and pure maple syrup tomorrow.

We have now jumped through appropriate hoops and Aetna has decided that, oh, hey, maybe these two doctors do know what they are talking about in recommending this... I so hate my insurance ($12,000 out of pocket last year alone). Anyway, I now have a sleep study scheduled for Wednesday night, since they had a slot open. Won't that be fun, especially since I'll be getting the permanent crown on Thursday? Oh, well, it needs to be done and now it can be.

I'm glad I have money in the bank right now. That's all I can say.

I picked up my first rabbit hutch today and the guy is going to make me two more tomorrow. They cost $85 each. It's an expense that will eventually pay for itself. We love rabbit meat so it is going to be worth it. I am glad we had set aside some of the money from our tax return. I guess we are really going to do this.

We'll go to the rabbitry on Saturday to get our New Zealand whites. It's a big step, but I think it will be just as positive as raising poultry has been. It's a big step on our path to sustainable living.

I also spent $38.52 at the grocery store today. Paleo is a bit more expensive than even the lower carb diet I was on before, but I feel the benefits so much more, too, so I guess that's okay.

I might actually be getting rabbits in the next two weeks. First, I thought I was a year out from this, then I thought a couple of months, but the perfect opportunity has arisen and if all goes well, I could be the proud new owner of 14 rabbits. It's $175 for the lot, 2 does, 1 buck, and 11 5 to 7 week olds. That works out to $12.50 per rabbit. I think if we get them we will save the best looking young doe of the babies for breeding and the other youngsters will end up going to freezer camp after they've grown enough.

I can really see this cutting down our food budget in the future. Obviously this lot will be the most expensive, but after we breed the rabbits again, it will just be the cost of feed to get them to size. A few years ago, I never thought I'd be raising livestock, but now I'm turning into a mini-farmer.

The kids are already trying to name the buck Stormaggeden the Destroyer. I'm like, no, I was thinking Leo, Piper, Phoebe and Prue for the breeders. If we get them.

I spent $9.43 at the grocery store today. I ran out of ketchup and also DS wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, so I bought some of the expensive chocolate chips that he isn't allergic to.

The Girl Scouts were being extremely aggressive outside the store. I got pretty mad, but kept my cool and waited to make snarky comments until I was in the car. Don't they realize what a bad name they give the organization with their total lack of manners and in your face sales tactics? Or is that what they are teaching them today? When I was a GS that kind of bad manners would not have been tolerated or dreamed of, for that matter. When people are clearly avoiding you and refusing to make eye contact, you do not jump in front of them waving your arms and shout at them to buy your cookies. Bad, bad form. Especially when they did it to the lady with the oxygen tank.

After the store we went to the library and I picked up my holds. 3 of them are on rabbits and the other 2 are on backyard livestock in general and homesteading. We are likely starting on rabbits sooner than we thought and I need to do a lot more reading still. And we need to build our own hutches since the cost of buying premade ones is hugely expensive. Even used the good ones are $75.

...I've started a new blog. I will still be doing this blog, but some of the things that are less on the financial spectrum will be covered over there instead. Things like gardening and poultry and sustainable living, homeschooling, and eating from the 100 mile food shed as much as we can. I will probably still touch lightly on those things, because they do affect the budget and what we spend money on, but there will likely be a lot less chicken photos, etc.

Anyway, the new blog site is here if you want to follow:

http://whendidthisbecomeafarm.wordpress.com/

Today is my birthday and I can't say that 43 feels at all different from 42. We got pizza today since I didn't want to cook and spent $27.18. No cake though. Just didn't feel like baking one and the problem with cake is that it is then there every day for a week. I figured one bad food choice this week was enough. Since my Christmas present was so expensive we made it a combined b'day/Christmas present. And I'm still loving my hard ice cream maker so I am not feeling in the least little bit deprived. And DH comes home tonight at 8:30 so that's the best birthday present of all, anyway.

Tomorrow starts three days worth of appointments. I go to a consultation with the people that do the sleep study. Then Thursday, I go back to the new doctor, and Friday I see the physical therapist. I had to fill out a boat load of papers for the sleep study place. Oh, shoot, I keep forgetting to run over to the lab and ask them to shoot my new doctor a copy of my labs from December. I'll need to do that in the morning.

I'll also need to remember to tell them when we set up the sleep study about getting my new crown because I'll be on narcotics for a couple of days and don't want that interfering with anything.

There is not much else going on. The chickens are still loving their expanded space and Georgie hasn't gotten out on the driveway side for days, so no more chicken hopscotch. They do hop the other fence to go to the neighbor's yard when she doesn't have the dogs out, but she likes them.

Coming home is funny now, because they recognize the sound of my van. They come running (quite like that scene in Jurassic Park with the velociraptors) so fast I'm actually glad the fence is there. They are expecting treats now as we had some bread that went bad, picked out the moldy bits and gave them all the good bits over the course of a few days. Now they expect it.

We are getting about ten eggs a day. It helps that nine of them are pullets. That rate will slow down as they age. I still miss having duck eggs for baking, but the chicken eggs are pretty fantastic. They beat store bought by a mile.

It is very windy today, and was blowing like crazy last night. Even though the temp is 50 degrees F today, it feels cold because the wind rips right through you. You can get an idea from this photo how stuff is blowing around in the new grassy area we've opened up to the chickens.



The turtle sandbox that used to be the duck pond was flat last night and now it's on its side. There will be a fair amount of cleanup when the wind stops. Not many of the chickens are willing to be out today, but I can't blame them. I saw a gust of wind pick up poor Ecru. She does not like it when she's not in charge of her own flying, as you can imagine.

We'd gotten in the habit of collecting eggs a few times a day when it was really cold and they might freeze. Still doing it even with the warmer weather. This photo is from the afternoon haul.



The colors are a little off, but in real life they are medium brown, pale green, pale pink, pale blue, and pale brown. The green one is from one of the Auracanas and the blue one is from the Auracana/Bantam cross. It's fun to have a rainbow of colors. We do get some darker brown ones and some white ones as well as a darker pink with reddish speckles from time to time.

I had physical therapy today so I took a dozen eggs to my therapist and an 18 pack to the receptionist at the same office. The eggs really build up when DH is not here. He eats 3 to 5 eggs a day when he is home. Physical therapy was $90.

I stopped at the grocery store and bought milk and stamps, but she forgot to give me the stamps and I was distracted by the kids so I didn't think about it, so now I have to go back tomorrow and go to customer service and get the stamps. Pain in the neck. I don't need them until Friday fortunately. There are only a couple of bills I still mail because they don't have an option of paying online or their websites are so screwy I don't want to deal with them and I'll be sending those bills in then.

Not much else going on here. Just waiting for Friday to come so I can do more financial stuff. Oh, and I sent for another $5 Amazon gift card since I hit 450 at Swagbucks, thanks in part to a 40 point search. That's my new highest. The previous was 29.

I'm thinking of inventing a new game. It's called chicken hopscotch. The rules are pretty simple, just avoid stepping on any lovely presents the birds have left behind from the driveway to the back porch. Extra points for particularly balletic moves in twilight conditions. If you drop anything you were carrying to avoid it, the chickens win the game. If not, you do. Since we put the new fence up there haven't been any of these lovely bombs. Until today. Today someone clearly got out. My money's on Georgie. She's lucky she is my second favorite.

----------

I added 66 cents to the coin jar today.

It is sunny and bright outside today and almost warm at 47 degrees F. It's the sort of day that fools you into thinking spring is just around the corner and that it's time to start planting. Of course it's not. I have to wait until mid-April for most of that, though snow peas will be going in during March and a pot full of lettuce greens and maybe one of spinach will have a place on the deck and be brought in if frost threatens.

The seed catalogs are here and they bring these dreams of eating summer produce with them. I've been plotting out my garden space for a couple of weeks now. I've definitely got the green thumb fever.

The chickens are enjoying their new pasture, though I'm not sure much will be left of the grass. One thing less to mow, I suppose. And they are determined to dig into the compost bins from the bottom. Silly chickens. Of course they know there are all kinds of yummy things in there for them to eat. Since expanding their area to range in, they haven't tried hopping the fence at all. Which is nice, since there are no unexpected surprises being found in the driveway.

They will help to double our garden space though, so I can't complain too much. Chickens are very good preparers of the soil. It's keeping them out afterwards that can present a challenge. I like to fence the garden off for a good six weeks to let plants get established. After that they don't do too much harm.

----------

I couldn't get into the blogs last night to report this, but I spent $44 on prescriptions yesterday. The lower dose BP med that the doctor wanted me to try is $40. The one that I was on before was $80 so if this one works for me, then that will be a nice change. We pay for all prescriptions at full price until the $2500 family deductible has been met.

I also spent $60 on food. DD has decided to do a new exercise and diet regime so she asked for me to buy some foods for her to implement that. I will be glad when I can grow baby spinach, because it costs an arm and a leg practically. At least cabbage is always cheap. I also picked up some salmon. They had wild caught sockeye for $5.99 per pound if you bought the whole fish.

The new chicken fencing is up so the chickens have a whole new "pasture" to range in that is all grass and no mud. A good time was had by all. However, they are trying to get into the compost bins. My opinion is let them. They'll scratch it up and turn it over and then we can shovel it back into the bins and close them back up.

----------

We got everything in under the wire for homeschooling this month. I was a little worried since both DS and I had the flu virus for a good ten days this month. But we did get caught up. Now I just need to worry about getting him through his regular lessons tomorrow and then the weekend is here and I am going to sleep.

----------

I met with the new doctor today and I have to say I like him a good bit. He listens well. Didn't have the physical today as he wanted to talk about some of the other problems I've been having, the dizziness, the tremors, the tingling, the dizziness, the exhaustion, the insomnia, the dizziness...

And he wants me to go for a sleep study, because he is expecting that my chronic exhaustion/insomnia situation may actually be sleep apnea. Oh, joy. So I have to call them tommorrow and make an appointment.

I also was given a mammagram paper and I need to call and set that up. I've never had one. I should have had one at 35 since my mother is a breast cancer survivor, but I had so much else going on in my health the past seven to eight year it never happened.

I also have to go over to the lab who did the blood work for my last doctor and get a copy of it sent to my new doctor, since that lab is not part of their computerized sharing system.

He also wants me to order a device for taking blood pressure at home. Fun. It's going to be an expensive next couple of months, I can tell.

Anyway, so new doctor man wants to get to the root of most of these things before I come back in 2 weeks.

So in writing down my surgeries, it came out to 11, 7 of which have been in the last decade. Geesh. No wonder I can't get well. My body is determined to kill me.

----------

Anyway, there was no money out today though my kids were despereate for me to get burgers, or Hawaiian Barbecue, or KFC and I totally would not. I came home and I made spaghetti and meatballs, which I think was technically tomorrow's meal, but close enough.

----------

I still have $120 left in my checkbook and payday is tomorrow, albeit the two day paycheck.

I am glad I copy my entries every time before trying to post them, because this week SA has been eating my posts alive, its favorite comment being the one that says "Our records show that you are already logged in as yourself." And I'm like, No Duh, every time it does that. So if I'm logged in as myself, than what is your problem, you goofy computer program? /vent

Some days I wonder why I even bother to make a meal plan, when I end up making pizza 3 times a week lately. I had planned to make Bolgogi (Korean stir-fry), which should be a relatively easy new recipe for me. But I didn't. Maybe my day was thrown off because my mother had a procedure done and had to be there at 6:30. And I had to take DD to school at 7 and then pick Mom up at 7:40 which turned more like 8:30 because she takes so long to come out of anesthetic. I was dragging by the time we got home and pretty much dragged all day, so when it came time to make dinner I had no interest in making a new recipe.

Instead I took the easy way and dumped dough ingredients into the bread machine. All told it takes about 4 minutes of hands-on time to make a pizza. I always have toppings in the fridge, either ham or pepperoni or sausage or ground beef. I always have cheese. I always have onions and bell pepper strips (frozen). I always have tomato sauce and basil and oregano. So when I am feeling particularly tired (or lazy) or don't want to think it seems to be my go to dinner.

At least it is good pizza. One of my tricks is to rub the dough (and my hands) with extra virgin olive oil before pushing it out on the pizza pan. I think it makes a big difference in not only the flavor of the dough, but in making a crisp crust. Also the crust never sticks to the pan when I do this.

----------

I received a $5 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks today. That makes my total $85. I should get one more in by the end of the month.

----------

I scheduled a doctor's appointment with a new doctor. I decided to try to find someone who wouldn't put me on a waiting list just to make an appointment. This doctor I will be able to see on Thursday and he's in my PPO.

It's not a female like I wanted, but I didn't find anything negative on him on the web and he's young enough that I shouldn't have to worry about finding a new doctor again in my lifetime if I like him.

I went ahead and scheduled a physical. It's been a few years. I need to make out a list of my medications and dosages and see if I can find my copy of my blood work results from December so he won't order extra.

I also need to sit down and list all my surgeries. I can't even remember how many I've had. 7 or 8 since 2003, at least five before that. The last one was in 2011. When I make out lists like that, I realize how lucky I am to be alive and doing relatively well now.

I think my insurance covers physicals without having met the deductible, so hopefully there will be no out of pocket expense for this visit.

----------

I have physical therapy tomorrow so that is $90. I have thought about cancelling because I don't feel well, but that might just be the course of today and being so tired.

----------

I almost lost a shoe today to the mud pit that is the chicken yard. It can stop raining any time now. I need to buy a pair of Wellies. Even the boards we've put down to walk through the mud are sinking in it. Rain is better than frozen because it's warmer, but frozen is better than rain if you are trying to walk across the ground. I'm ready for summer. Really, really ready. At least we will be in Cali for a week in March. That will help with my cold season blahs.

----------

On the bright side of things, my knee hasn't hurt all week. And I am back to walking down stairs one foot per step instead of two footing it. Still a little slow and I still like to be within grabbing distance, but it feels almost normal at the moment.

Some days I wonder why I even bother to make a meal plan, when I end up making pizza 3 times a week lately. I had planned to make Bolgogi (Korean stir-fry), which should be a relatively easy new recipe for me. But I didn't. Maybe my day was thrown off because my mother had a procedure done and had to be there at 6:30. And I had to take DD to school at 7 and then pick Mom up at 7:40 which turned more like 8:30 because she takes so long to come out of anesthetic. I was dragging by the time we got home and pretty much dragged all day, so when it came time to make dinner I had no interest in making a new recipe.

Instead I took the easy way and dumped dough ingredients into the bread machine. All told it takes about 4 minutes of hands-on time to make a pizza. I always have toppings in the fridge, either ham or pepperoni or sausage or ground beef. I always have cheese. I always have onions and bell pepper strips (frozen). I always have tomato sauce and basil and oregano. So when I am feeling particularly tired (or lazy) or don't want to think it seems to be my go to dinner.

At least it is good pizza. One of my tricks is to rub the dough (and my hands) with extra virgin olive oil before pushing it out on the pizza pan. I think it makes a big difference in not only the flavor of the dough, but in making a crisp crust. Also the crust never sticks to the pan when I do this.

----------

I received a $5 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks today. That makes my total $85. I should get one more in by the end of the month.

----------

I scheduled a doctor's appointment with a new doctor. I decided to try to find someone who wouldn't put me on a waiting list just to make an appointment. This doctor I will be able to see on Thursday and he's in my PPO.

It's not a female like I wanted, but I didn't find anything negative on him on the web and he's young enough that I shouldn't have to worry about finding a new doctor again in my lifetime if I like him.

I went ahead and scheduled a physical. It's been a few years. I need to make out a list of my medications and dosages and see if I can find my copy of my blood work results from December so he won't order extra.

I also need to sit down and list all my surgeries. I can't even remember how many I've had. 7 or 8 since 2003, at least five before that. The last one was in 2011. When I make out lists like that, I realize how lucky I am to be alive and doing relatively well now.

I think my insurance covers physicals without having met the deductible, so hopefully there will be no out of pocket expense for this visit.

----------

I have physical therapy tomorrow so that is $90. I have thought about cancelling because I don't feel well, but that might just be the course of today and being so tired.

----------

I almost lost a shoe today to the mud pit that is the chicken yard. It can stop raining any time now. I need to buy a pair of Wellies. Even the boards we've put down to walk through the mud are sinking in it. Rain is better than frozen because it's warmer, but frozen is better than rain if you are trying to walk across the ground. I'm ready for summer. Really, really ready. At least we will be in Cali for a week in March. That will help with my cold season blahs.

----------

On the bright side of things, my knee hasn't hurt all week. And I am back to walking down stairs one foot per step instead of two footing it. Still a little slow and I still like to be within grabbing distance, but it feels almost normal at the moment.

Not terribly much going on at the Robin's nest today. I didn't sleep last night so I didn't trust myself to drive. Instead I sent the kids on a walk (six blocks) down to the store and they picked up cheese and milk and tater tots (I know, I know!) Tater tots are the one potato product I have not figured out how to make from scratch and since the store carries one brand of potato products that is Feingold safe for my son's allergies, I do get them from time to time.

We put down some more hay for the chickens on the ground since it is so cold for them outside right now. They have been a little less than enthused about coming out of the coop in the morning and have headed in before dark for the last couple of weeks. They know where their heat lamp is. It got all the way up to 41 degrees F today. I keep waiting for it to snow because the pullets have never seen it before and there is nothing more hilarious than a chicken's first experience with snow.

If our new place ends up being large enough to keep chickens, I definitely want to locate the coop next to a spicket. Dealing with frozen water buckets and carrying water from any distance is a royal pain. Either near the coop or put in one of those miniature wells, the name of which escapes me, but they have kits for doing it yourself. The water table is pretty high at the farm we are looking at and for garden and livestock use, it wouldn't have to be driven too deep.

I keep trying not to get ahead of myself, but I do have to admit that that farm would be a fantastic place to live. DS asked if we did get a place like that if he could have a dog. My answer to that question has always been no. With our allergies, I don't want an animal in the house. But with almost seven acres...well, I told him I'd talk to his dad about it. Maybe a border collie. Something that would help guard chickens and rabbits from predators. And then there's always the much needed barn cats.

I've always been kind of anti-pet as an adult because I didn't want to be tied down, and I didn't want to ever have to kennel an animal for vacation and it was hard enough taking care of two small kids with my disability without adding pets into the mix. But my kids are older now and there are pet sitters/house sitters, and I bet I could find one willing to take care of a dog, a couple of cats, some bunnies and a few chickens when we want to go away. And if not, well FIL and MIL are just five minutes away.

Honestly, I need to stop dreaming ahead. Until our house sells there is no guarantee that any house available today will be available then and even if it is, it would have to pass an inspection. Especially since our house still needs the final coat of paint, the rugs replaced and the new doors installed before it can even be put on the market. It looks like things will be done by March, but I am not holding my breath. I've seen houses sit on the market for years out there.

----------

I added $8.51 to the coin jar today. And that's all she wrote.

We bought a rabbit at the food co-op the other day. They had some in the freezer, so I am going to fry that up on Wednesday when DH is home so we can all try it. I remember having it when I was eleven and liking it, but I haven't had it since and the kids never have. I don't know about DH. But anyway, if we are going to get into raising meat rabbits then we definitely want to know if we all like it.

I did some pricing as well, and it looks like meat rabbits are selling for $20, at least the breeds I am looking at, which are the Californian and the New Zealand. So start up livestock costs will be $80 for 1 buck and 3 does or $160 for 2 bucks and 6 does. We can make some fairly inexpensive rabbit tractors from PVC pipes, rabbit wire, and zip ties for daytime use, but at night I would want them in hutches. Also in winter and the heat of the summer they would need more shelter than tractors provide.

That's still a good way off, though. At least a year. I think I will add a budget category called rabbitry and start saving some money for it once the credit card debt is paid. Even if we don't do rabbits, we will do meat chickens and the money will be there for either.

It is a really good thing that DH was not trying to get home this week and that he is working an extra week as they have been in whiteout conditions for the last few days and no planes would be able to take off and land. What is a whiteout? It's when blizzard conditions reach stage 3 and no one is allowed to go outside. Visibility is gone, all you see is white, whirling, blinding snow. Stage 2 they are allowed to go outside but they must travel in caravans of 4 or 5 trucks. Stage 1 is when you must travel with 2 trucks together.

DH sent me some pictures after he was allowed to go outside again. It is still snowing, but no longer blizzard conditions.







Even when they are in whiteout conditions and can't fully do their jobs, they still get paid. It's one of the hazards of working in the arctic.

It's been cold here, too, but nowhere on that scale. The last few days have hovered around 28 degrees F. It has been taking 20 to 25 minutes to defrost the van every morning, even with deicer, because the inside of the window is just so cold it takes forever to unfog enough to drive. I am going to have to buy some more deicer soon.

I read somewhere that wiping the inside windshield with isopropyl alcohol can prevent that fogging over, but I've never tried it before. I think I will do that, though. Or at least look for some type of antifogger.

The days have been very sunny this week, but that's deceptive. It's just very icy. I keep waiting for it to snow here, not that I want it to, but it only brushes the tops of the foothills. Today the chickens were doing the one foot stand, like a flamingo. They keep one foot up against their fluffy warm bodies and then switch off. We put some hay down for them as that helps insulate them from the frozen ground.

My son is still running a fever today, but he looks a little better than yesterday. DD had early release today and came home and crashed for 3 hours. I hate the flu. It is just so enervating. At least I still can function.

I don't think I realized how many times a day I check in here before I suddenly couldn't. Five minutes here, five minutes there, a good hour in the afternoon or evening. So happy the site is up and running again.

I have made good use of my time researching meat rabbits and meat chickens, pens, hutches, and tractors (not the diesel kind, the movable pens with built in coops) and getting an idea of what the expense will be and the minimum size property we'll want to purchase when we are ready to move. I know we are probably two years out from raising either right now, but the more I know, the more feasible it'll be to actually do it.

There has been nothing financial to worry about this week. I'm just waiting for Friday to make another payment to BoA and another payment to the dentist for my crown.

Homeschooling is going well this week despite DS being sick with the flu. He's been hovering around 100 degrees with his fever and generally miserable. I am understanding the math faster than he is, which never happens. We're doing a reduced schedule for him at the moment, as he isn't up for a full class load, but he wants to not fall behind on the harder things to catch up on, namely math and science. We are a couple weeks ahead on history and a few days ahead on literature so as long as we get chair time in by the end of the month we're fine.

Queen got a bath today. She's been hanging low to the ground when she walks and that's usually a sign of a partly blocked vent (and it was) which can lead to getting egg bound which can lead to death. Always so much fun to break it up, but she perked up after she was dry again.

The two leghorns went over the fence to the nice neighbor lady's house, who sometimes invites them over when she's working in her garden, but she was away all day today and so her dogs were in the fenced back yard instead of the house. Oh, my gosh, I have never seen the leghorns fly before, but Ecru got going so fast she was over the neighbor's fence and across the yard and over the fence into the chicken pen in one go like a little white bullet. That's about 40 feet.

Everything I've read says they can't fly more than 15 feet, but that girl zipped like a bat out of hades, so I guess they can if their lives are in danger. I have never seen a chicken with her wings pumping so fast before, not even the time Curious got her tail feathers clipped by the same dog. Ecru was hilarious, but only because she didn't get hurt. A chicken with a dog bite is no laughing matter.

Eggshell only made it over the neighbor's fence and into our yard in one go, but she was right off the ground again and airborn a few seconds later. They do learn eventually to check for dogs first. It just takes some of them longer than the others. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere for people getting into and out of debt, but I'm too tired to figure it out.

I did get a $5 gift card from Swagbucks for Amazon yesterday, and I got another survey from ACOP, so that'll be $3 eventually.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracana, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked orpington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is a stubborn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird. She is second in command of the pecking order, after Queen.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen (HBIC)



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Knox is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracna, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked oprington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is stubburn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Know is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

So Queen--you all remember Queen, right? The one who sulks if you put her back in the pen if she doesn't want to be there.

So Queen has apparently noticed my absence outside in the last two days. I've been sick and so not been out to see her since Thursday. Even though the kiddos went out and talked to the flock apparently it wasn't good enough for Queen.

About 3 o'clock I hear an unheavenly racket going on outside my bedroom window. I thought one of the chickens had flown out and couldn't figure out how to get back in. That still happens with a couple of the heavier chickens. I opened up the curtains and looked out and there was Queen, who of any chicken besides Curious and Georgie, can get anywhere she wants to except the roof (that's still Georgie's claim to fame, none of the others have managed it yet).

Boy, when she saw those curtains open, she got so excited. She started jumping up in the air. She was getting a good three feet of lift with her wings and was chattering the whole time. As soon as I opened the window and spoke to her through the screen she started cooing at me. It was so funny. She settled right down and after about five minutes wandered back to the fence and hopped over. I guess she just missed our daily chats?

The girls seem to be very happy this winter, probably because it hasn't snowed yet and the ground is thawed at least for part of the day so they can still scratch. Egg production is going well. It is nice not to have to buy eggs. A few days ago I noticed the going rate for organic, free range, sustainably farmed eggs at the grocery store was $8.99 a dozen.

We're getting between 7 and 10 eggs per day. I'm going to have to take a couple dozen to my physical therapist and have SIL and MIL stop by for some, too, soon. The backlog in the fridge is getting so big.

Mom is talking about getting ducklings again in the spring. She might as well, since Fort Knox is sitting there empty, but I'm not doing them in a brooder in the garage again. They can be raised in the spare bathtub just like the first set were. It socializes them better when we can spend more time with them and pick them up more frequently and that only happens inside the house.

Speaking of ducks, Lady is doing well at her new farm. I still miss her, but she and the widowed drake are getting on famously, beyond all of our hopes. We'll try to go visit her next weekend if I am better by then. I miss having duck eggs for cooking, but I'd much rather she be happy.

----------

There isn't much to talk about on the financial front right now. Everything is ticking along on autopilot until 1/11. That's a good thing, I guess. And it'll give me time to finish up writing about the food stamps challenge. No, I haven't forgotten about it.

Also wanted to give a great big thank you to all of my readers. My blog hit 1.5 million hits this morning! That's half a million since April. It still amazes me how many people want to listen to (erm...read?) me blathering on, even when I wander off topic *coughs* chickens *coughs* But I am very happy that you do!

I transferred the money from savings that I saved for January and paid out the following:

$300.00 to Mom for her utilities
39.53 Life Insurance DH
32.70 Life Insurance Me
59.89 Car Insurance
45.63 House Insurance for Old House
41.16 ADT Security System for Old House
153.00 Storage
570.00 Mortgage
29.80 Electricity Old House
100.00 Chase VISA
----------------
$1371.71

I have $227.43 left in checking and $28 of my allowance left in cash to get by on until the 11th. No problem.

I transferred $2000 from ING and it should arrive on Thursday and I will then send that to BoA VISA, my first of four $2000 payments to be made to it this month. I am so excited about putting this card to rest by month's end.

----------

I have decided that I will be sending my $100 January allowance to a friend of mine in New Hampshire who is in dire straights right now medically. She and her husband are in fear of losing their medical insurance and they both have numerous ailments. She has to take like 12 different medications a day just to stay alive and her husband has to take some too and is in need of surgery.

They have both been unemployed for a while, no more benefits, he's now got a seasonal job that bounces between 10 and 20 hours a week and could end at any time. They have been desperately looking for work and are down to eating one meal a day and were out of heating oil. I also asked her if she wanted me to ship her a 50 pound bag of rice. I have enough gift cards at Amazon to do that. Waiting to hear back from her on that.

They can't get food stamps or Medicaid because of the face value of a life insurance policy, their only asset, despite the fact that they are well below the poverty level at this point. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. What sort of state denies someone food stamps and healthcare because if the wife dies they will then have $750,000? New Hampshire!

If she dies they won't need food stamps or the Medicaid, obviously. Basically she's been told she can either die or move to Vermont where they have different rules. Your tax payer dollars at work, people. If I lived in NH, I would seriously be yapping at the heels of my congressmen and my governor and any news channel or paper that would listen right about now.

We have actually managed pretty well with the portable heaters. I mean it wasn't comfortably warm or anything, but it wasn't freezing either. Just more sort of adequate. Fortunately the new control board for the furnace came in a lot earlier than they claimed it could get here and the guy came out and installed it around 2. It is nice to actually be warm again. I think that's something we can really take for granted sometimes until it's no longer there.

----------

Some expenses that have gone out this week:

$50.47 for 3 prescriptions
$90.00 for physical therapy

Also $76.95 to AMEX which had a couple of autopays go through before I could cancel one and switch the other to the BoA card. The holidays made me absent-minded. Or maybe I'm just naturally absent-minded. It has a zero balance again and I don't plan to use it for gas until the BoA is paid off.

And $30 to DD for last week's and this week's allowance. Also 4 cents to DS who has finally paid off his advance and will resume getting his full allowance next week. As of next week the kids have to start banking half of their allowances for Disneyland.

----------

Finally got through the preface of the book I got for Christmas. The review at Amazon said it was written from a Christian perspective, but I think it's coming off more like he's a religious whackadoodle. If it doesn't tone it down some I may not make it through the rest of the book. So far the writer does not come off as the sort of Christian that I strive to be, certainly. More the type that I tend to look at and think please get out of my religion, the type that makes that verse about not judging others very difficult to apply. At this point I am glad I did not purchase it myself. I hope it gets better. I hate to think it was a total waste of my SIL's money.

----------

I do plan to get back to the food stamp challenge menus soon, but I totally torqued my knee on Christmas day and so it's making it hard for me to concentrate for the amount of time it takes to devote to one of those. It is getting better but is still swollen and sore. Hopefully it will continue to improve.

----------

DH and I have been planning out more of our Disneyland trip. We have a hotel narrowed down for our overnight in Seattle. It has a hot breakfast included (not continental). That was the last thing that needed to be booked.

----------

The chickens are doing really well. Finally put a light in a week or two ago. Today we got 10 eggs out of 12 chickens. Not bad. I miss Lady, though. She is doing well at the new farm, but I still miss her. She was my favorite duck and such a sweetheart.

December broccoli!!!!!! What is with this weather system? I am grateful for it as it means less money spent on produce, but it is downright weird. And the sprouting broccoli is still making new heads. We had a smattering of snow yesterday (didn't stick) and yet I am still harvesting broccoli.

------------

I went to the dentist today and they had the permanent crown ready so he took off the old one, cleaned up the adhesive then put in the new one, took it off and adjusted the bite, repeated this for four times and then finally it was right. I did not choose to have novacaine. I probably should have because it didn't stop hurting for 4 hours. But I didn't want to spend my day with a frozen face. And it was uncomfortable and a bit painful, but not something I couldn't deal with.

After that he adjusted my night guard so that it wasn't resting weird against the new tooth. I ended up paying $200 at the dentist and will be making another payment in January and one in February. Then on February 7 I'll be having the cracked molar on the other side taken care of. That should give me about a month with the new crown before we go to Disneyland.

After the dentist I went to the vampires and had two tubes of blood drawn. I had a great phlebotomist. Found the vein first try and everything. Now that I'm showing no signs of the UTI infection I can have all those blood panels done and see if we can't get to the bottom of my exhaustion and tremors.

----------

Lady the duck has gone to live at another farm today. The woman had lost one of her ducks, and she had a very lonely drake as well as another mated pair, so if all turns out well, Lady will adapt to the new place. If she does not we'll take her back. But she's got two different creeks to swim in and a bigger area to roam. I will miss her, but I think she will be happier there. Plus they have a dog trained to protect their ducks and 21 chickens from predators. It's a sad decision, but she really was missing her dead flock mates. As much as she got on with our flock of chickens it wasn't the same for her. I am sad and I will miss her, but it seems like the best thing for her.

The paperwork for putting the Christmas Bonus (well, end of year safety bonus really) in the 401K came today. That is not what we are doing with it this year, but I kind of think it is nice that they are offering that as an option. It would sure help out people who can't contribute throughout the year or can only contribute minimally to get caught up. It also feels like a tease though. The closer we get to when it is sent out the more impatient I get about it. I just so want the credit card debt portion of our lives to be over.

DH and I have discussed what to do with the bonus in future years. DD wants to go to either the local university or a state school in Oregon and the bonus would go a long way to whether or not we can cashflow tuition. If the bonus is 5% of yearly income it would cover half a year's tuition. If it is 10% it would cover a year. Even at 5%, we would only have to save up another $7000 each year. I absolutely am opposed to getting student loans. I do not want my kids saddled with that kind of debt starting their adult lives and I refuse to take it out ourselves. I do expect them to work and help pay if jobs are available.

The other option for DD is two years at the local community college and then a transfer to the university. That would give us longer to save up for the final 3 years of college (5 year teaching degree). A full load at the community college is $3000 a semester.

When it comes to DS's turn, he will likely go to a technical college. If his interests hold true, he'd like to be involved in power generation, the operation of dams, solar power, and wind power. I know there's an engineeing program for that kind of thing, I just can't remember what it is called. It is definitely something he is passionate about. He built a water wheel that powered a lightbulb in the 5th grade.

One of the things I have been thinking about lately is whether or not my kids will be able to get jobs to help pay for college. It is super hard for teenagers to get jobs right now in our area. The fast food jobs are held by thirty and forty-somethings who had no other choices and are far more reliable than people with no work history.

If we end up moving to a place with enough land we will be raising rabbits and I think that might be a good job for them. We would, of course, raise our own meat rabbits, but then any surplus could be sold. In our county rabbit meat goes for about $15 a pound. Selling a live doe or buck is about $30 per for good parents. Rabbit manure is highly sought after for gardens because it doesn't have to be composted, so that is another sellable item. And then of course there are the pelts. It could be a nice little business. And DH says he will slaughter if they don't want to.

I think I would want to eventually establish 2 breeding lines with 2 bucks and 3 does per buck. That would be beneficial because then we could sell a buck from one line and does from the other to the same people. It is kind of hard to find that in established rabbitries around here and you don't want brother and sister rabbits breeding, so you have to look at more than one place usually to get your start up animals.

I don't know. It's all conjecture at this point. But it would give them work to do and start them off with their own business.

We finally got a hard frost last night. And I do mean a hard one. When I went out at 7 to take DD to school there was thick ice on the windows. Fortunately,I had some spray on de-icer. I started the car heating and defrosting while I sprayed it on. Unfortunately, there was a layer of ice on the inside of the windshield and you can't spray de-icer on the inside because of the fumes. I had to scrape it. It wasn't nearly as thick on the inside.

I checked all the windows to make sure nothing had been partially down overnight to cause it to freeze inside, everything was up. Then after I scraped it we had to sit for a while with the defroster going to get rid of the humidity that was making it fog up. The car probably ran for 20 minutes before the windows were safe to see out of. Fortunately, DD's school doesn't start until 7:45, she just likes to get there early. She was still fifteen minutes early.

I was really surprised because we've had such mild weather this fall, I was expecting it to continue. The broccoli looked like it was a goner this morning, but the leaves all thawed out just fine by mid-day and were looking as healthy and beautiful as ever.

I had to take DS to the foot doctor today. He had gotten inflamed ingrown toenails on both of his big toes. It runs in the family. Of course he did this early in the holiday weekend so he's been miserable pretty much since Thursday. The doc drained them and packed them with cotton and prescribed an anti-biotic.

We'll go back on Monday next to see if they need surgical correction after the swelling has gone down. It's a very minor surgery, he just cuts away a bit of the tissue and any torn part of the nailbed. They use a local anesthetic, lidocaine. DS had a lot of relief just by having the side of the nailbed packed with cotton. It will probably have to be corrected though if he is anything like me or his father. Bad toenails or not, DS has the nicest looking feet. He could totally be a foot model or something.

Anyway, so we paid out $4.76 for his antibiotic and I renewed my BP med while we were there for $40.00. And since that store happened to have some Haagan Das vanilla ice cream I got that too, for $6.49. A little more than I like to pay for it, but at least I found it. Considering I wanted to just tool on down the road a bit to Arby's and buy dinner instead of coming home and making stir-fry, that's not too bad. Arby's would have added about $35. And my cooking was better anyway.

I think the heater is going to have to stay on 70 tonight. I can feel the chill through the house despite having on slipper socks, a sweater, and an afgahn over my lap. I've pulled out the extra blankets for everyone, but we may still be sleeping in sweats tonight.

All of the birds were out today, even Silver (the shyest and most timid) and Lady (the duck). They've decided to be free range apparently. But they stayed in the yard and still put themselves into the coop a half hour before dark. Lady was less than pleased that her little pond was frozen over and she let the whole world know. Not that she's super loud or anything, it was just a constant murmur of complaint.

Fort Knox remains empty. It's just as well. It's warmer in the chicken coop with all 13 birds sharing body heat. We have to be a little more aware of the waterers now, making sure they aren't frozen. They will be eating a lot more feed now to keep up their body temps and be able to lay eggs. We got 7 today. There were five delivered to the box on the back porch. Both leghorns are laying in there now. Because why use a perfectly good set of nesting boxes when you have access to the world's best cardboard box?

Not much of anything, but a little bit of everything. I added $1 to the coin jar. It was in what DH gave back to me before he headed to Alaska.

I balanced the checkbook to the penny again. I love it when it comes out perfectly. I have $419 left in checking until the 30th and no bills due until after that. I shouldn't have to buy anything between now and then except milk and oranges and if I do, I have $105 in cash. I am hoping to send the full $419 to the credit card. Any cash left from the $105 will hit the emergency fund.

I had to send DH to the grocery store with a list before he left Monday because I am extremely contagious. Let's just say he spent quite a bit more than I would have. Total was $115.92 We're over the allotted grocery budget for the month, but we aren't going to eat out between now and then anyway because I am trying to expose as few people as possible to this thing that never ends, so I just took it out of that money.

I received a check from ACOP for $14.05 for surveys and sent for another $5 gift card through Swagbucks.

I set up the budget spreadsheet for December and I updated the November one with all of the medical spending.

I ordered a box of checks. It was $16.86. They are getting more expensive but I am using them less and less. I still don't want a debit card. I feel like writing the check out makes me more mindful of what I'm spending. It's too easy just to swipe a card and forget about it.

My kids have decided they want to spend the entire weekend in their pajamas. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I may join them in that.

Mom is cooking dinner tomorrow. She's the only one not infected and she wants to stay that way. Eldest sister is coming over. I'm still not used to her wanting to be a part of our lives. It is weird. I never thought I'd see the day where I was actually looking forward to having her around again. I am hesitant to think I can rely on her to help out with Mom, but maybe she will.

The day won't be too hard on Mom. I had brought up just skipping it until I'm better (ha!) if she didn't feel like she could handle it, but she wanted to. Since we are only making Cornish game hens instead of a turkey and baking the potatoes and dressing at the same time she says it's easy. Mom has a double oven, which is helpful. Minimal fuss, minimal muss.

We will also have fresh broccoli from the garden. I still can't beleive that I am harvesting anything in late November! What a weird fall we are having.

Let's see, what else? Oh, the birds. Kyri has finished molting I think. Queen and Patricia are in full blown molt so not laying at all, and the pullets continue to lay pretty well, as does Lady who is still bunking with the chickens. There's been no luck on trying to find some ducks her age to keep her company. I think she's happy enough thinking she's a chicken.

There are now four chickens who are laying regularly in the little box on the back porch. Apparently it's the in thing to do. New to the box is a leghorn since those are the only white egg layers we have. Everyone else lays brown, pink, or blueish green eggs. Daily egg count is an average of six eggs. I am glad we haven't needed to put a light in with them at night. We might in December and January just for a heat source if the weather turns and it starts freezing, but it has been so mild so far we may luck out.

And...I think that about covers it. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to all of my American friends and happy Thursday to everyone else.

The weather this fall has just been the weirdest weather I remember having. It's been unseasonably warm. 2 nights ago we finally did have a frost overnight and a temp of 28, but it has bounced back up into the high 40's at night. The frost didn't do any damage at all that I can see. The kohlrabi is fine, the green onions are still green and of course the cold-loving broccoli is doing great. All I can think is that because it is next to the house, maybe that is a warmer area and somewhat protected.

I've almost finished the broccoli that I have harvested. I think I'll need to cut a couple of the plants by Friday, but the rest are fine to continue their slower growth. It is nice not to have to purchase broccoli, but harvest it as I need it. I really wish I'd gotten some more lettuce into the ground in late September because we'd be eating it now.

The potato outcome is 107 pounds. These potatoes were all volunteers, too. So I've topped $1000 worth of organic produce harvested this year. Remember this is after the cost of starts and seeds. Just goes to show you really can grow a lot of food in small places. And if all goes well, I will still have twelve heads of broccoli to harvest and possibly some side shoots.

The tomatoes wrapped in newspapers continue to ripen as do the ones on the kitchen table. There is enough ripe to add to my spaghetti sauce this week.

As for the chickens and duck, we continue to average six eggs a day. Lady continues to bunk with the chickens. She has resumed her egg laying so I think she is over the trauma of the racoons eating her nest mates, except she won't go anywhere near the new Fort Knox duck den.

Mom is talking about getting ducklings in early spring to put in Fort Knox when they are big enough, but even if she does, Lady may have nothing to do with them. It can be interesting introducing new flockmates, to say the least. As long as she puts herself in for the night with the chickens she is welcome to stay in the chicken coop. If we have to chase her down all bets are off, but I don't think that is going to happen. She's convinced herself she is a chicken and I won't disabuse her of that notion.

Or you know, nothing much happened here at the Robin's nest. I paid out $90 for physical therapy, $6.93 for two prescriptions, and $225 for the monthly family plan at the chiropractor. DH spent $3.69 for a gallon of milk. Found a dime and a penny.

Homeschool went pretty well today. I didn't have to do math, DH did it. It was square roots in area. DH is going to explain it to me tomorrow. There is no way I was going to get it today. DS understands it, thankfully. I did everything else, though, which is pretty good considering I didn't sleep last night. We got the fall writing sample ready to send off. I think DS did a very good job on it.

Lady continues to ignore the new Fort Knox of a duck den and is still bunking with the chickens. I don't think she wants to be alone and also she feels more secure with the other birds. I'm not entirely convinced she doesn't think she's a black australorp chicken the way she hangs out with Half-pint and Pipsqueak all the time. Of course half the time I think those two chickens think they are ducks, so who knows? We've decided to let her be since she's putting herself in the coop when the chickens go in about a half hour before dark.

We came home today from a trip out and there were a dozen crows in the yard. It was really weird. DS went to scare them off and they flew up in a swarm and landed on the roof of the house. As soon as we got onto the porch they were back on the lawn. It was like a scene from The Birds or something. Usually they stay away because they don't like the chickens or the chickens scare them off but because of the extreme wind today none of the chickens were out of the enclosure.

We still haven't had a frost. It's 42 F out tonight so I don't think we will get one, but it's definitely starting to get colder.

My physical therapist was telling me how her mother was volunteering with the Red Cross in a poor neighborhood in Queens. They are very disorganized. No one was in charge so her mother (who is a pharmacist) decided she would be and got things going and found an interpreter since a lot of the people in that area only spoke Spanish. They've been climbing up stairs and knocking on every door to see if people are okay or need medical attention.

A lot of folks had run out of necessary prescriptions for high blood pressure, heart problems, or diabetes, so she had to put people in charge of finding out which pharmacies were even open and if they were open, whether or not they had medicine available to fill prescriptions. They have no idea when there will be power again. I can't even imagine being elderly and trapped on the 18th floor without power and medicine.

I mean I've been without power for several days before, but never without the woodstove to provide heat and a place to warm food up. And never without necessary medicine. It boggles the mind.

Or you know, nothing much happened here at the Robin's nest. I paid out $90 for physical therapy, $6.93 for two prescriptions, and $225 for the monthly family plan at the chiropractor. DH spent $3.69 for a gallon of milk. Found a dime and a penny.

Homeschool went pretty well today. I didn't have to do math, DH did it. It was square roots in area. DH is going to explain it to me tomorrow. There is no way I was going to get it today. DS understands it, thankfully. I did everything else, though, which is pretty good considering I didn't sleep last night. We got the fall writing sample ready to send off. I think DS did a very good job on it.

Lady continues to ignore the new Fort Knox of a duck den and is still bunking with the chickens. I don't think she wants to be alone and also she feels more secure with the other birds. I'm not entirely convinced she doesn't think she's a black australorp chicken the way she hangs out with Half-pint and Pipsqueak all the time. Of course half the time I think those two chickens think they are ducks, so who knows? We've decided to let her be since she's putting herself in the coop when the chickens go in about a half hour before dark.

We came home today from a trip out and there were a dozen crows in the yard. It was really weird. DS went to scare them off and they flew up in a swarm and landed on the roof of the house. As soon as we got onto the porch they were back on the lawn. It was like a scene from The Birds or something. Usually they stay away because they don't like the chickens or the chickens scare them off but because of the extreme wind today none of the chickens were out of the enclosure.

We still haven't had a frost. It's 42 F out tonight so I don't think we will get one, but it's definitely starting to get colder.

My physical therapist was telling me how her mother was volunteering with the Red Cross in a poor neighborhood in Queens. They are very disorganized. No one was in charge so her mother (who is a pharmacist) decided she would be and got things going and found an interpreter since a lot of the people in that area only spoke Spanish. They've been climbing up stairs and knocking on every door to see if people are okay or need medical attention.

A lot of folks had run out of necessary prescriptions for high blood pressure, heart problems, or diabetes, so she had to put people in charge of finding out which pharmacies were even open and if they were open, whether or not they had medicine available to fill prescriptions. They have no idea when there will be power again. I can't even imagine being elderly and trapped on the 18th floor without power and medicine.

I mean I've been without power for several days before, but never without the woodstove to provide heat and a place to warm food up. And never without necessary medicine. It boggles the mind.