Our only debt right now is the 0% interest loan from my mother for all the medical expenses she helped us cover when I had six surgeries in five years. I call it our Medical Mortgage for those new to the game. It currently sits at $45,000. For the last 10 months we were paying it back at a reduced rate, her idea, not ours, of $500 a month. This allowed us to save $5000 towards our down payment, but of course increased our pay off date.

Well, now we are going back to paying off $1000 per month. Mom needs to put a new roof on the addition of her house this summer and she just had to pay $10,200 so that the heating guys can come and fix her ducts under the house and put down new Visqueen. There were mice nests in most of her registers. Aw, fun. I told her she needs to get a cat (or three). Old houses have mice and this house is old.

While it was nice to put that money in savings, I was never thrilled about it increasing the payoff date. Well, now we are back to a better payoff schedule. We have 45 payments to go. That is 3 years and 10 months of payments, which gives us a payoff date of November of 2019.

She doesn't want it any faster as besides this money, social security is her only income (though she owns the house and cars in full and has no debt). She likes being guaranteed a certain amount each month. Though I may insist when we get closer to the end, just to be done with it.

Assuming all goes well with DH's contract at least, we'll be done with the payoff before 2020 which is good. He has guaranteed work through June. He was supposed to find out in the beginning of March whether or not his company got the new contract, but it has been extended a couple of weeks, so now we might not know until the end of March.

I passionately dislike living in limbo. In the past when his old company lost the contract he was able to slide into place with the new company and will likely be able to do that again. But we don't know. And not knowing drives me crazy.

On the bright side, we have almost $16K in the Emergency Fund and $38,500 in the down payment fund, so if it did take him a while to find a new job if things didn't go as planned, we will be fine. It will set our plans back a lot, but we will be fine.

I did a job loss budget and we could bring our living expenses down to $3000 a month if we had to for 18 months, cutting out physical therapy, cutting our grocery budget in half, cutting out all savings, cutting out the kids allowances, cutting out the chiropractor, but still paying back Mom. We would be going into garden season, so we might even be able to cut our grocery budget by more than half for a while.

I don't like the idea of it, but it is better for me to plan for contingencies so I don't have to panic later on.

Well, we are no worse the wear for our earthquake last night. For those who don't live in the PNW there was a 4.8 earthquake about 11 miles from Victoria. Vancouver Island is not that far from us as the crow (or seagull) flies. My bed rolled forward about a foot, then went backward the same way.

Normally I would have been asleep so close to midnight, but my daughter had a sleep study and it didn't start until 1 a.m. because her sleep pattern is that screwed up.

None of my canning jars fell off the open shelves, but they did move. Fortunately it was sideways. Number one priority is to get some guards in place. If I had lost any jars, it would have been a big mess of glass and food all over the carpet.

In the rabbit shed some of the cages had shifted and the water bottles on the shelves out there had also shifted. Again it was sideways so it wasn't a big deal.

The hay bucket had fallen over and so had the bucket of oats, but I didn't notice anything else amiss. It does get me thinking about a few more things I need to get in order though. We did have flashlights and water and plenty of food, but I still haven't bought a propane space heater or a small generator for my c-pap machine. We didn't lose power, but it is always a possibility. There is a solar rechargeable generator that I have been looking at. I guess it is time to start saving up for that.

It was a lot different than the baby earthquakes I've been through before which just sort of vibrated or lightly swayed things. But it still wasn't much more than just a big surprise. We have never had a bad one here in my lifetime, except the one that accompanied Mt. St. Helen erupting when I was a kid and I both felt and heard it, and it cracked a pane in my bedroom window even though we are quite a ways away.

Most people seem to have just slept through this one.

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.

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.

Potato peeler: 5
DH: 0

We spent a couple of hours in the emergency room today. DH managed to peel a chunk of flesh off his finger when he was peeling potatoes and we couldn't get the bleeding to stop. It wasn't the sort of injury they could stitch up, either. It took a long time get it to stop and even now it's still leaking a bit.

We got to spend a couple hours alone together. It was much more restful at the ER than at the in-laws house. SIL and her daughters were fighting as usual and it was particularly obnoxious, so it was nice to be able to get away from that for a while, even if it wasn't good circumstances. The ER was deserted so we got taken right back.

They did numb it for him and put on a vasoconstrictor (sp?) gel that helped constrict the blood vessels. Cautery would have been the best thing for it, but I guess they don't do that anymore. It's going to leave a dime-sized scar anyway. They also gave him a tetanus shot because it has been a long time since he had one.

If this had to happen, I'm glad it did before the deductible resets in January. ER visits are usually a few hundred dollars. We only saw a nurse and PA, though, no doctor, so that should help with costs.

I'm not sure how we're going to get the rabbits butchered now. I knew DH putting it off this long was going to come back and bite him in the butt. Hopefully we can get someone to come help.

I hope everyone else had a less eventful Christmas. Now my wish for the new year is to have far less crazy!

Today is payday and I was able to achieve my goal of getting the EF to $10K by the end of the year. Exactly $10K.

$9676.22 Beginning Balance
+_323.78 Amount Added
---------------
10,000.00 Ending Balance

My goal for 2015 is $15K, with a mini-goal of $12K.

Between what I saved for December/January bills and today's paycheck we have $6067.22. $2100 to $2500 will go for the car. $1000 to Mom's loan. $225 to the chiropractor. The early January bills it will need to cover will be $500 or so. That leaves us with $1842.22 to cover Christmas and anything else between now and the next paycheck on January 9th. And we have $200 in grocery store gift cards. We should get by on that just fine.

The Christmas Bonus comes on the 19th or thereabouts. We have no idea of how much it is going to be and it will be mostly relegated to the EF and DH's bachelor's program.

The important thing is that despite the curve ball of the car repair, we won't have to touch the Emergency Fund to cover anything. I am so happy about that.

I've got a few things on the agenda for 2015 that I'd like to achieve. I'm not going to put sell the house on this list, because that is basically out of my hands, though I sure do hope it happens.

Our first priority is to contribute to the 401K. DH has started this process, and half the Christmas bonus will go into it, and after that 1% of income. We hope to raise it higher, but I have to see how it messes with our bottom line. With no raises in 4 years and more and more being taken out in medical each year, I'm not sure how much we can put in there without being squeezed tight. It should only be taking $125 a month out pretax.

Our second priority is to fund DH's Bachelors program. The sooner he gets through that, the sooner he can apply for jobs that will move him up in the company and give him a shot at higher wages.

Our third goal is to get the Emergency Fund to $15K, which would be our minimum 3 month's expenses. It would be super tight there for 3 months but it would be survivable. $18K is more like comfortable, but baby steps. There is a dedicated $1720 a year that goes to this with the weekly $10 deposits and the monthly $100 deposits. I'd have to come up with $3280 from elsewhere, like coin jar money, refund checks, and surveys or any overtime DH manages to swing.

Farm Goals I'd like to meet in 2015--

Raise ducklings for sale if our girls set any nests. I don't have an incubator and it is not in the budget for 2015, so it is either nature's way or not at all.

If George is mature enough, let Gina set on eggs and raise some turkey poults, some for sale and some for our own meat. This may take another year, but some heritage breed male turkeys do mature enough to fertilize their first year. If not we will buy and raise 3 poults for our holiday and a few chicks with them for meat birds.

Double the size of our organic garden and start it earlier in the year.

Purchase 2 dozen canning jars each month during the next year to increase my supply.

Sell some rabbit breeding stock and increase egg sales.

There are, of course, other things I'd like to accomplish, but with limited funds, I felt like I should stick with what seems to be reasonable.

I've been thinking a lot about what I've accomplished this year and what I want to accomplish next year. The last couple of years have been pretty big for us in paying down debt and this year was, too.

Milestones hit in 2014:

--Paying off the Mortgage

--Hitting the halfway mark on paying off the loan to Mom

--Paying down the van loan far enough that we owe less on it than it is worth

--Hitting $10K on the Emergency Fund. It wasn't there for long, but it was there, and it will be again by the end of this year so I count that as a win.

We have also made great strides towards becoming self-sufficient, though we still have a long way to go. What happened this year:

--Expanding the farm to four types of livestock as well as building the housing for those animals

--Butchering chickens, turkeys, and ducks for our own consumption (joining the rabbits we have been doing previously), so we almost never have to purchase meat (just the occasional beef and pork)

Joining a Bartering and Sales group within the local farm community, within which I have been able to sell rabbit breeding stock, rabbit livers for dog food, duck eggs, and barter for raw goat's milk cheddar and chevre, natural homemade salves, and beef

Found a processing facility that is WSDA approved AND nearby so if we want to move into meat sales next year, we can

Grew a marginally successful organic garden that netted 80 pounds of potatoes, 20 pounds of tomatoes, 8 quarts of green beans, 2 quarts of yellow beans, excessive amounts of lettuce, kale, and leeks, 15 bunches of green onions, enough parsley (still drying) for a year, 12 heads of broccoli, 5 heads of cauliflower, 1 pound of chard 1 dozen kohlrabi, 10 pounds of cucumbers, 30 pounds of zucchini, 35 pounds of sweet meat squash, 5 gallons of blueberries, 10 quarts of raspberries, 3 gallons of blackberries, enough apples for 80 pints of applesauce and 22 quarts of pie apples, and 10 pounds of Italian plums. This provided nicely for us and our animals.

All in all, the year has been a lot more successful than it has felt at times. I think we can be very happy with what we have accomplished.

Two and a half hours waiting in the cold with two children on a AAA tow truck. That is how I spent my late afternoon and early evening. The starter on our van is the problem, completely out of the blue. It hasn't been acting up at all. But it is definitely the starter. On our flipping three and a half year old van. Hello, Toyota? I expect better than this from you. Who knows how much it will cost to fix or replace.

Also, AAA and your promised one hour wait time, can bite me. Single A, more like. I told them I was disabled and had kids in the car, too. Seriously thinking about switching to Allstate's road side service instead. My leg is in spasm from sitting in the van so long and I don't know if I will be able to walk without using a cane tomorrow. I am icing it now.

So I have recently been encouraged to see the positive side of things. So here it is: At least we had just bought dinner to take home. And were in a well-lit drive-in restaurant. And I didn't order the fish and chips because I can't use their ketchup. I usually order the fish and chips but was in a strange mood for a burger instead. Which comes with secret sauce, which doesn't make me get stomach cramps like their ketchup does. And I ordered onion rings so I did not need ketchup. So nobody went hungry.

And my mother was home and could take care of putting away the ducks, turkeys, and chickens, so they didn't stay out after dark where predators could have killed them.

And I had a book and the kids had the tablets my in-laws gave them at Thanksgiving, so they had entertainment. No one was bored, only cold.

Tomorrow I will borrow my mother's car to do the grocery shopping. I had planned to do it tonight, but that is out. I am hoping my leg works as I really hate using those electric ride on carts at the grocery store.

Well, I am off to feed and water and cuddle the rabbits. They always improve a bad mood!

We had an additional $360.13 to transfer to the December Money Fund. $59.09 was what was left in the checkbook after the last pay cycle. The rest was extra money in the paycheck since DH has finally hit that point where they stop taking that one tax out for a while.

$2447.00 Beginning December Money Fund
+_360.13 Amount Added
--------------
2807.13 Ending December Money Fund

I also added $100 to the Propane Fund for the old house.

$500.00 Beginning Propane Fund
+100.00 Amount Added
---------------
$600.00 Total Propane Fund

DH finally got the last signature on the over time signed off, so he will get 6 days extra. That should net $3688.

$3688 OT Amount
+2447 Amount Saved
+_500 Amount I should be able to save this pay cycle
-----------
$6635

Monthly expenses come to $6958.75, so I will have a shortage of $323.75. I think I might be able to squeak out more than the $500 listed above. I might be able to squeak out $750, bringing the shortfall to $73.75, but even if I can't, that money can come from the Christmas bonus which should be around $3900 if it is what it has been for the past 2 years.

That means at least $2000 can go to the 401K then. $1000 can go for starting DH's bachelors program, we'll take $150 to have a special dinner out for all four of us at a steak house, make up any shortfall for Dec/Jan loss of paycheck, and then the rest can go into the Emergency Fund, getting me my $10K by the end of the year.

We won't have to touch the Emergency Fund at all assuming the bonus comes through. And if it doesn't, then we'll only need to touch it by a small amount and it will still be over $9K, unless I can find some way of scraping up the extra. And sometimes I can. Maybe I will have enough when I cash out at Pinecone.

I feel like I can relax now. Not too much, I still have to stay on top of things, but I'm not all wound up in knots worrying about losing a good chunk of the EF now. We definitely won't be eating out any time soon and I'll have to pay even closer attention to the food budget and eating out of our food storage, but now that I know we can do it without likely touching the EF, it is my goal.

$1947.00 Beginning Balance
+_500.00 Deposit
------------
$2447.00 Ending Balance

Well, I know for sure that I am going to be able to squeeze $500 out of this coming Friday's paycheck to go towards the five weeks when DH won't be working. I might be able to squeeze as much as $750 out, but I'm not sure. Prescriptions are due to be renewed Friday, and I don't remember how much that is going to be now that DD is on the new meds.

We are still waiting to hear if he got the okay to work a few extra days before the shut down. They were supposed to tell him within 2 days of his getting home and he still hasn't heard anything. This employer is so unorganized. He's calling them today to see what is going on.

So far they have not sent out the grocery store gift card that they usually send out before Thanksgiving. On a normal year it would be here by now, but since this is not a normal year, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't send them out at all. I am not counting on it coming. In fact, it would shock me if they send them out with the way they've been behaving towards their employees this year.

I am very glad we have our turkeys taken care of for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And that we have lots of food in the freezer and on the shelves. We will get through this. It'll be hard, and we may have to touch the Emergency Fund, but we will manage. I just wish we didn't have to.

I won't have to contribute to the Property Tax Fund during the month of December since I already put an extra payment in in October for December. Same with the Dues Fund. I have $500 in the Propane Fund plus a $50 credit with the company so I won't have to put $100 into the dues fund next time. We just turned the propane on this week at the old house and it has a full tank. We won't be driving much for half of December as there is no school so gas costs will be lower.

Next year I will try to plan a little better. We've just never had this many weeks to cover before. But I will start saving $200 a month towards next year's shut down in January and put aside one of the two extra paychecks DH gets during the year that doesn't go towards the regular budget. It'll be tight, especially if medical goes up AGAIN and I see no reason it won't, but we'll deal. We have to. It's not like there are a lot of other choices right now.

I think I am finally starting to come out of the flu. I have not been this tired in a long, long time. Now the kids are down with it and both stayed home from school today. Fortunately all they want to do is sleep, so I can still rest.

Last night DH went back to Alaska, so I don't have him to fall back on. And of course last night was a major wind storm that managed to rip one panel of roofing off the turkey coop and leave one panel dangling down the front of it. The piece of roofing that he jury rigged to keep the rain from going in the duck coop window was also ripped off.

I can fix the duck coop, but I don't know what I am going to do about the turkey coop as that requires going up on a ladder and I can't climb ladders with my knee. Maybe I can throw a tarp over that half of it. The turkeys will just have to stay on one side of the coop, I guess.

DH wanted to loan his sister money and I had to say no, because we don't have it. I mean, we physically have it, but it has to pay for all the expenses of December when he is off work for 5 weeks with no pay. And if we loan money to her, we won't be able to meet our own expenses. December is only a month away and there is no way she'd be paying us back on time.

I feel bad for SIL. She was in a car accident that was not her fault and has been off work for a month. She will eventually get a settlement, but it certainly won't be in time to pay us back for December bills. We have helped her where we could, but we just can't do it this time. I can't put my own family and finances in jeopardy for her.

I don't think DH gets how tight things are. I think he thinks that things are as good as they were 4 years ago. But he's bringing home $1000 less each month than he was even two years ago due to higher taxes and bigger medical deductions. I have told him and told him, but it doesn't seem to sink in. The fact that he even asked me shows that. And I end up feeling like the bad guy in this.

But I know if it comes down to it, SIL and niece can move in with MIL and FIL. Or she can get money from her boyfriend. Or from her rich uncle. She's been holding onto a house she can't afford since her divorce several years ago.

I'm very frustrated. I don't like being made to feel guilty. It makes me resentful. Her situation is not my fault. I plan hard to take care of emergencies and times of no income and she doesn't and never has. And I feel like I'm being penalized for it, just because I said no. But I have every right to say no. I know DH doesn't mean to make me feel this way, but that doesn't stop me from feeling it. He just wants to help his sister. I do, too, but not at the expense of our own family. /rant

I did actually take a couple of days off from canning, but today I got in 24 quarts of potatoes. It was a no spend day. Tomorrow will be an applesauce day, but also a run to Costco day and a pick up turkey feed day.

My shelves are slowly filling up and it sure looks nice. We have to empty all the school supplies from the shelves I was using for homeschooling and turn them into pantry shelves, because we will run out of room if we don't.

We butchered 2 drakes today. We are going to just grind the meat. Since we had to skin them, because pulling feathers at this age is an even bigger nightmare than pulling them when they are younger, it won't be quite as tender as it would be if we could roast it with the skin and all the fat. Ground duck is supposed to be quite good for burgers, we are just going to go that route. I'm not sure how much meat we will get after the bones are out, but they were both in the 5 to 6 pound range before butcher, so I'm hoping 2.5 to 3 pounds of meat per.

I need to get a 25 pound bag of sugar for making applesauce and some rice. I've got to get some more peppers and onions cut into strips and frozen. I also need to dice them for a recipe for either tomorrow's or the next night's dinner. I'm making sloppy hoppies (like Sloppy Joe's, but with ground rabbit meat) and I made up my own recipe for it after looking at a ton of Sloppy Joe and Sloppy Chicks and Sloppy Jane recipes.

I'd like to make up some big batches of rice and then make it into fried rice and then freeze it for future use. Although the TJ's fried rice that we usually get is pretty reasonable, it is still a lot cheaper if I do it up in bulk myself.

We went out on Saturday to look at a pig as we were thinking of buying half a one for the fall, but the farmers blew us off. They weren't there for the appointment even though I had triple checked time and date. They didn't apologize either. Just claimed there had been a miscommunication. Sorry, no. When I have your stuff in black and white from your email, just no. You blew us off. At least apologize. So they lost our business.

I may have to go to the next county to get certified organic and pasture-raised. I try to buy as local as I can, but I can't help it if the nearest local people are total flakes. If our house ever sells and we get enough land, I am totally raising my own pigs. At least our beef people are reliable.

$1000.00 to Mom for Loan
$1500.00 to BoA Visa
___55.46 to Paypal
___90.00 Physical Therapy
__130.00 Animal Feed
___80.00 Canning supplies and an electronic timer
___90.00 for buying potatoes/peppers/onions for preserving
___15.38 medical
___48.60 Phone (Old House)
___75.65 Internet
__144.00 Water/sewer (Old House)
___96.56 Prescriptions and OTC medications
-------------
$3325.65

We also ordered 3 new rabbit cages this week and 12 urine guards. It came to $221.35 and they are supposed to arrive on Monday. Hopefully, they will.

I did an inventory yesterday of just what I have on my canning shelves and how much more I think I need to can this summer and fall. I'm doing pretty good so far, but I definitely have a lot more I want to get done. And I'll have to purchase at least 300 more jars to do so. I do still have a lot of my mother's jars still, and some of my own to get through before I start buying them. And certain items can be used and then canned in again, like when we run low on meats and stock, we can can what is in the freezer But when you are trying to plan for a year's worth of tomatoes, fruit, and staple vegetables, there is still a lot of jars that need to be bought. Next year, though, I won't have to buy near as many.

Here's what I have so far:

Potatoes--11 quarts
Carrots--19 quarts
Rabbit stock--14 quarts, 6 1.5 pint jars
Stock with veggies--3 1.5 pint jars
Green and yellow beans--19 quarts, 2 pints
Corn--29 pints
Dill pickles--8 quarts
Tomatoes, diced--17 pints
Tomato sauce--25 jars
Rabbit Meat--20 quarts
Beef chuck--9 quarts
Hamburger--1 pint
Salmon--12 pints
Applesauce--20 pints, 15 half pints
Nectarines--19 pints, 2 1.5 pints
Dandelion jelly--7 jars
Blackberry jam--14 jars
Blueberry jelly--11 jars
Apricot jelly--12 jars
Grape jelly--9 jars
Strawberry jam--12 jars

What I feel I need to do still:

35 pints of diced tomatoes
52 quarts of spaghetti sauce
104 quarts of potatoes
104 quarts of green beans
52 pints of applesauce
21 quarts of carrots
23 pints of corn
12 pints of hamburger
12 quarts of beef chuck
12 pints of salmon
20 quarts of rabbit
24 pints of trout (if we can catch it)
30 quarts of rabbit stock
15 quarts of rabbit stock with veggies

I don't know if I will be able to do it all. It really depends on how the garden produces. The green beans are just starting to produce, and the tomatoes are all over the place, but doing much better since we added the soaker hoses to the garden.

Today at the grocery store they had keta salmon on sale for $3.99 a pound if you bought the whole fish. I got almost 7 pounds. I had them filet it for me, but also took the scraps from the fileting process. My mom uses the scraps to make a dish so we always take it, too.

Tomorrow I will can up the almost six pounds of filet, so we can get more protein on the shelves. I can't believe how ridiculous seafood prices have gotten. Shrimp is like $17 a pound and king crab is twice that. Even trash fish which used to be $5 or $6 a pound is more like $8 or $9. I may go back for more of this salmon since it is so cheap.

I also hope to get more potatoes canned either tomorrow or the next day. I opened a jar of potatoes today to try them. I made fried potatoes with them and they were exquisitely good.

Today I did another batch of applesauce. This time it was 9 pints, with about 1/4 cup left over that my son devoured. I could have done more, but the third crockpot was busy with today's dinner.

I made a new recipe today for pulled pork in the crockpot. Well, sort of a recipe. I put half a jar of Trader Joe's arrabiata sauce in the bottom of the crockpot (in a liner), then put in the pork roast, then dumped the rest of the jar on top of the roast. Then I threw in some of my home frozen onions and peppers on top. 8 hours on low, a minute with a couple of forks, and it was a succulent, tender, mildly spiced dinner served wrapped in tortillas.

Next time I'll put in a 4 oz jar of green chiles, though and some salt. It made a great birthday dinner for my daughter who is now 18 years old. How did that happen? I can't even believe it.

Speaking of my daughter, she continues to improve slowly. Your prayers are still very much needed, though.

So I got another good deal on corn on the cob, better than the first one and ended up with another 11 jars of corn for 33 cents per pint yesterday. My last batch was 54 cents per pint so that was nice. That brings my total of corn on the shelf to 29 jars.

After that I canned 12 pints of cinnamon applesauce. The apples were free from our yard, but they were very tart so we did use quite a bit of sugar and of course some cinnamon. So I am roughly estimating that each pint of applesauce cost about 50 cents to make. That is probably over, but close enough. Since a quart of organic applesauce in the store is around $4, that basically means I saved $3 for every 2 pints I canned.

We only processed 2 of the 5 3 gallon buckets of apple drops we had, so based on that, we should get another 18 jars of applesauce by the time we get through them.

We had one full 3 gallon bucket of waste after doing the apples, all the cores and peels. This bucket went out to the chickens, ducks, and turkeys, and they ate it all over the course of the day. We also saved the cobs from the corn and will be doling those out over the next few days.

Since the apple peels were not in great shape, being drops, I decided not to try to make my own apple cider vinegar from them. I'd rather have freshly picked apples off the tree for that, than ones that have spent time on the ground.

Tomorrow I will pick up some more Yukon Gold potatoes to can. I'd like to get another dozen or so jars on the shelf. I think we are still a few weeks out from harvesting our own since some of them are still blooming.

I need to do a payday report. I've paid all the bills and stuff that needed to be done, but I've been so busy with the canning that I haven't had a chance to sit down and write it up for a blog entry, or to put it into my spreadsheet. I'll try to at least get the latter done today and hopefully the former by tomorrow.

I will start with the good news. I have lost 9.4 pounds so far on my diet. It's been 17 days. Although I still have the urge to eat some junk food, it is going pretty well. My small amount of high carbs have been fruit, corn, and potatoes. It seems to keep the sugar cravings at bay pretty well. I can't remember the last time I had bread. I don't actually miss it at the moment.

I am so tired, but I have got a lot accomplished. We have had to hang out at home because of my daughter's condition so I've done a lot. This week I have canned 18.5 pints of corn, 20 pints and 2 1.5 pint jars of nectarines, and 11 quarts of Yukon Gold potatoes.

Tomorrow I will buy some more corn to can and some more potatoes. I'd like to get another 30 ears of corn for this batch, and 15 pounds of potatoes. That should give me equivalent to what I've already canned, doubling what I have of each vegetable. I have plenty of quart jars for the time being, but will need to buy some more pint jars for the corn. I also need to buy some half-pint jars for applesauce. Mom picked a bunch of apples today and they need to be processed tomorrow or the next day. I have plenty of sugar and cinnamon on hand. I also want to buy more peppers and onions for freezing while the peppers are super cheap.

I got the soaker hoses put onto the gardens last night. No more hand watering, except the gutter garden. That will save us a lot of work. I think I've got them arranged so they hit everything. It's a lot easier to place soaker hoses before you plant, but better late than never.

I harvested two more big zucchinis, a couple of tomatoes, one red bell pepper, another pint of yellow French beans, some sorrel, some cilantro,2 cucumbers, at least one bunch of kale, and 2 tomatoes. The grocery store equivalent for the same organic produce is $20.

$224.35 Previous Garden Tally
+_20.00 Harvest Amount this Week
--------------
$244.35 YTD Garden Tally

The green beans are coming along nicely. I think that if this continues, I will have plenty to can so I won't need to buy anymore. I am hoping that now that the tomatoes will have a more consistent source of water I will get enough from them to can as well.

Now that the soaker hoses are set up I might see about getting some more kohlrabi plugs to replace the ones that didn't survive the heat. I still need to get radishes and green onion seeds planted in the empty gutter garden. They take a month to grow and I'd like to have some more before the season ends. I might try to squeeze in a crop of peas, too, since they don't mind if it gets cold towards the end of their growing season.

I definitely know what I will do differently next year with the gardens and what I will do the same. I will do the bales again. I will do hay or straw, whatever is cheapest as I saw no real differences in the growing medium. I will have soaker hoses from the get-go and I will have a little bit of soil on top. I will have the bales set up earlier and I will condition them with organic fertilizer for a week longer than they say to. And I will fertilize monthly while growing.

Some vids I made earlier in the week of my garden progress:

Straw Bale 7

http://youtu.be/fRJ7l3HTDtQ

Hay Bale 7

[http://youtu.be/2vsHl5H3c98

Fruit Garden 7

http://youtu.be/3swwIzI-I2k

I got another 7 quarts of green and yellow beans canned. I am picking up 20 pounds of organic nectarines in the morning to can with a few lemons to treat them with lemon water first to prevent discoloration and also for lemonade. That should give me between 12 and 14 pints. I am going to can it in a very light honey syrup. I'd really like to get three times that canned, so we could have about a pint a week through 3 seasons, but organic is expensive, so I doubt I'll do more than one box. The thing I like about nectarines is you don't have to peel them like you do peaches. That makes processing them so much easier.

I will also be getting some corn as it is 4/$1. I want some for us, but it is also a nice treat for the turkeys at that price. I have thought about canning some, but we usually get our canned corn from Trader Joe's and it is the best canned corn I've ever had, so unless I can find some organic corn, I probably won't try to can some myself.

I'd like to get some potatoes canned this week as well. Canned potatoes are good for stews and for making fried potatoes. It's a lot of work to peel them all at once, but better than doing it several nights a year in my book.

It's going to be a hot week in the kitchen. But it's going to be a hot week outside so I might as well be canning anyway. Besides, the nectarines will be gone soon and I want to get them done. I want to be able to open a jar of this during winter and remember how great this fruit is right now.

I have lost a few kohlrabi and broccoli in the garden. They just can't take the heat. Day after day of high 80's is too much for most brassicas. The ones that get a little shade in the afternoon are doing okay, but the ones that get full sun are getting scorched or dying outright. At least my summer squash is doing great and the green beans are trucking along. I should have some kohlrabi ready to pick in another week. At least one, maybe two.

This week I have harvested one whopping zucchini and a pint of yellow beans and have several tomatoes and one cucumber close to the picking point. My bell peppers are turning red so I imagine they will be ready to pick soon. I'll give a full tally at week's end.

I forgot to post links to my most recent garden updates. They are almost a week out of date now but they are here if you want to see them:

Hay Bale Update 6

http://youtu.be/pyfd1Ft7hGk

Straw Bale Update 6

http://youtu.be/iyqO2x0MZ4M

I'll be making new ones in a day or two. It's been crazy what has changed just since I made those ones. The winter squash has gone just through a ridiculous amount of growth. I really hope it tastes great. Sweet Meat is an heirloom variety that I have heard great things about and I should get at least half a dozen judging on what has formed so far. There are more flowers blooming every day, too, so we might even double that. I hope so. It's a good keeper squash, but it also cans well, too. And the seeds are a natural dewormer for animals as well. What I don't save to replant will go to all the animals.

Well, I better get to sleep. I've got a long day of canning ahead of me.

So last night I bought a whole salmon, 5 1/2 pounds, and today I cut it up and canned it. Surprisingly it only makes 6 pints of canned fish. I will know for next time to buy twice as much fish so I can do a full canner load. The salmon was wild caught coho on sale for $6.99 a pound, so it came out to $38 and some odd cents. It will definitely be cheaper for us to catch our own fish in the future, but for now we'll have some easy to eat salmon for one of those days I do not want to cook.

I also bought a 25 pound bag of organic carrots for $22 at the food co-op. It made 19 quart jars and there was enough peels and tips and ends cut off to feed to the rabbits for about 3 days. Of course I can't feed them carrots every day because of high sugar content, but I can give them some every other day. I am keeping the scraps in water to prevent them drying out.

My back and shoulders are killing me, though. It takes a lot of work to peel and cut up 25 pounds of carrots. It'll be worth it though when we have the makings for quick crockpot stew this winter.

Sweetie Belle had her first litter of kits yesterday late afternoon. I don't know how many yet as she was adamant about me not going into her cage even when I bribed her with a piece of purple kale. She just snatched the kale and then shoved the door shut with her nose. I will do it this afternoon and make sure they are all healthy. She actually gave birth in the nesting box which is a rarity for first time mothers, but I guess she thought it was the best place.

Piper gave birth to her fifth litter this morning. Not in the nesting box, surprisingly. I will also count and check on the health of her babies this afternoon. Judging from the size of the pile of fur this is not a small litter of six kits. Maybe she felt the nesting box was not large enough.

So we've gone from a rabbit population of 28 to who knows how many. Could be over 40. Six are due for slaughter soon, but not for another week at least. And we'll start weaning Lola's litter on Thursday and move them to the one empty grow out cage. By the time they are ready to be split up the other six will have gone to freezer camp. Or pressure canner camp. Either way we'll have a whole lot more meat put up for the winter.

Today is payday and here is an accounting of what was paid or put into savings.

$1500.00 Bank of America VISA
__100.00 Emergency Fund
___19.00 HoA Dues (Old House)
__100.00 College Fund
__100.00 Christmas Fund
__100.00 Moving Fund
__100.00 Appliance Fund
___40.00 Allowances
__100.00 Canning Jars* and Rabbit Supplies**
__100.00 Cash for the Week
___25.00 Garbage
-----------
$2284.00 Total Money Out

*2 cases of quart jars and 1 case of pint jars
**Water bottles, a hay tunnel, and a bottle of Vetrimycin eye wash ($27, ouch)

I also spent $50 on gas yesterday. I will be buying a 25 pounds of organic carrots to can and a whole salmon to can.

Left to pay for the month of October is the water/sewer bill, half of which has been set aside already, and the property tax for the half year, all of which has been set aside except $25 and the propane bill, which is $80. Those will be paid next Friday. I will also pay the mortgage then instead of waiting until the first and will also put $500 into the January Money Fund. All the rest of next payday's money is allocated for November bills.

DH's paycycle is weird because of how he works, so we always have one week out of four that doesn't get a paycheck. And during that time it seems that there is nothing financial to do, because we budget accordingly.

Frugal things I've been doing:

1. Getting organized. The kitchen counters are clean, the cupboards are organized, and the floor is swept. The kitchen table is almost clutter free and will be by the end of the day. I found four bottles of ginger and three of garlic. Also plenty of mustard powder for making a new batch.

2. I've been pulling chunks of clover out of the cracked concrete pad where the old garage used to be many years ago. I've been feeding it to the rabbits who love it. They look at me like I am the bringer of all things wonderful when I give them piles of it to eat. So this is the sixth free food I am giving them, including grass, lemon balm, oregano, raspberry leaves, and blackberry leaves from the yard. Actually seventh if you count apple tree twigs.

3. I've sewn up the armpit seams of two shirts and one pair of my son's underwear where the hem was unraveling but was otherwise perfectly serviceable.

4. I've organized my canning supplies. Without a garden this year I am going to go out to an organic U-pick farm and pick 25 pounds of green beans. Not sure when, but sometime soon. Then I will can them. Then I will do it again. That should give me about a year's supply of green beans the way we eat them.

5. I have discovered that we have enough canned food to survive at least 3 weeks if disaster struck, but not near enough water. We have far more food than that in the freezer, but I am assuming if disaster strikes it will mean no electricity. I am going to can some rabbit meat next time we slaughter, because our stores of canned protein are pretty low. We'd have the chicken eggs of course, and if it came to it, the chickens. I'm not foreseeing a disaster, mind you, but neither are a lot of people and they get hit by them. Next payday I am going to buy a couple of cases of bottled water to put under the bed, just to be on the safe side.

That's really about it.

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.

I added $1.61 in change to the coin jar today. I also added the leftover beef money to the freezer fund so that is now at $130.56.

And because these sort of posts are boring here are some photos I took yesterday:

Here are some of the chickens at the ranch we went to yesterday.



They have huge penned areas to roam in. And you can't see it, but they aren't just in the dirt section, but they have an opening to go back to that grassy part in the back of the photo, too. This was one of several large enclousures that the chickens rotate through and then they have portable hen houses that they hook to the tractor and pull to the new pasture when the time comes.

Here are the cattle in one of their pastures. I had to really zoom in so that clarity isn't as good as it should be, but you can see how they are in grass that is at least half as tall as they are.



And this is the organic grain mill which was really easy to track down. I thought their sign was very pretty, but it was high up so I didn't get it centered in the shot. This was the better of the two, though.

At least the snow has stopped falling. That doesn't do anything to get rid of the heaps of snow already on the ground but at least it isn't being added to. Today is another snow day from school, the third one this week, and of course, the fourth day off from school since Monday was a holiday. The kids are bouncing off the walls. They did make snow ice cream, but that took all of five minutes.

In case anyone wants to know how to make snow ice cream, take eight cups of clean snow, and mix it with one can of sweetened condensed milk and some pure vanilla extract. The recipe called for a tbsp, but that was too much. I think a teaspoon or even 1/2 a teaspoon would suffice. Tastes a bit like and has the consistency of the ice milk they used to have when I was kid.

I do want to try to get to the store today. We are almost out of bread and milk. I suppose I could make bread if I had to, but I'm really not up for it. Mostly, I'd just like to see a new set of human beings. They've plowed the roads, so it's just a question of driving very carefully on the ice that's left.

Weather enforced frugality is not nearly as much fun as frugality by choice, I'm noticing. We haven't had mail delivery for a few days either so no enticing seed catalogues to look through while I dream of spring. Oh, well, we have power and plenty to read or watch as long as Netflix streaming doesn't go down.

I imagine there is going to be massive flooding again this year when the rain comes and this stuff begins to melt off. At least we are uphill from any bodies of water near us, though I imagine the basement pump is going to be running non-stop anyway.

I took the money from the coin jar and deposited it into the safety net portion of the EF that is kept at a local CU. It was $35.50.

$3426.11 Total Emergency Fund
+__35.50 Deposit to SN
--------------------
$3461.61 Total EF

The safety net is now at $708.53. I will stop building it at $1000, so I still need to come up with $291.47 to get that where I want it to be, but this is an open ended goal and I am happy with the slow build up using coin jar money or the occasional rebate check.

Really, I just want enough in the safety net to be able to survive a few days at a hotel if the house burned down or a tree fell on it, or something. Or if I had all four tires slashed or something. After a few days any transfer from the main account would arrive, so $1000 feels like a good number to have locally.

I need to still come up with $38.39 to meet my December/end of the year goal of getting the EF to $3500. I still have $67.35 in my unallocated funds portion of the Holding Tank so I may use that if I need to.

We have finally gotten to the point where we are talking about getting disability insurance for DH. So far he's been really lucky about not getting hurt in the workplace, but as he gets older we've started to worry a little bit about this, because he does work in an environment that is often icy and trips can and do happen often up there and cause a lot of damage to people. He's known enough people who have had to take a couple months off work while their soft tissue recovers.

Now for the question about me. Do I need it? Or would they even give it to someone with no income? I mean I really am partially disabled as it is, but it does not interfere with me doing my job as a stay at home parent of taking care of the kids (too much). I just worry that one day something might. And then we might need to be able to bring someone in to help.

I know I should talk to our agent about this, but I don't want to sound like an idiot when we go in, either.