$2952.13 Starting Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
+__91.50 Coin Jar and Egg Money
--------------------
$3053.63 New Balance

Less than $1000 to go. Feels good to finally hit the $3000 mark. $946.37 to come up with before the end of the year.

Things are going well in the food preserving department. I am canning green beans and dehydrating many herbs daily. I have several prepared for making teas, some in oil infusions, and some just dried and ready for making medicines.

The tomatoes are filling up with green fruit. I am anxious to see it turn red or yellow. The peppers are putting on good fruit as well. I hope when it is all ripe we will be able to provide all our tomato needs for the year, between diced, sauces, and salsas.

Even more zucchini is coming on, as are cucumbers, and summer squash. In another day or two I will have enough cucumbers to make a batch of bread and butter pickles for DH. I don't care for them, but I have enough dills on the shelves to make a few jars of what he likes for him.

I don't think I'm going to can corn again this year. I think I will cut it off the cob and either freeze or dehydrate it. Maybe both. Neither of the kids seem to like the home canned corn. It's okay, but not as good as TJ's canned corn. I may end up just feeding it to the birds.

I am looking forward to when the winter squash start to bloom as well. I love watching how fast they grow. Actually the watermelon has been growing at that rate. I can't believe we will actually have watermelon this year.

I still want to purchase a side of beef this fall. Just don't know how practical that will be. We'll see in a couple of months.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I feel like I am starting to settle into a routine now between the garden and the farm chores and making all of my meals from what is available here and not by making a quick run to the store or getting take out. As the garden moves into heavier production more time needs to be spent there.

I have harvested a pound of snow peas from the garden this week, 2 bunches of kale, 1 head of lettuce, 2 bunches of green onions, and 3 kohlrabi. My broccoli is getting close to harvest size, which astounds me. It is all so early, but with this weather, I can't blame it.

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

I am enjoying the cooking this week more than I have in a long while. I don't know if it is just access to super fresh ingredients from the garden or knowing it is all food I grew and/or preserved myself, but it feels different. I haven't felt any resentment over cooking like I sometimes do. I mean I love cooking, but I am often irritated when it all falls on me. This last week I don't seem to care about that. It's like an attitude has shifted. Of course the children are helping far more than they ever have before so maybe that is why?

Some things were quite challenging since the hot water tank that feeds the main kitchen went out and had to be replaced. We couldn't use the dishwasher and every pot and pan that we cooked in had to be hauled down to the half-kitchen that had hot water. That went on for 5 days, but we got a new tank put in and had hot water again last night.

As promised here is the video of my meals for the first week of the challenge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEWnzVbQ7UA

I am looking forward to the rest of this challenge. It is good to be feeling so positive about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

$64.50

And it's not even June, yet.

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

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

How the main garden is doing:

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

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

We put a lot of money into building raised beds this year, and an additional $75 into bringing in good soil to put on top of our manure and spent bedding and compost. Add to that all the little t's and elbows and splitters, and hose for the irrigation system (which would have been far more without the soaker hoses we had on hand already). And while we just might break even this year, it'll be towards the end of the season. But for the next years our only costs should be seed and a few six packs of transplants.

I have been harvesting 4 types of lettuce, spinach, violas, 3 types of sorrel, and Asian stir-fry greens for the last 3 weeks. It is all cut and come again types of vegetables, so I can't compare it based on heads of lettuce, but based on the packages of organic romaine you can buy at the store that cost $4 and last me 3 days, I have now saved myself $28 in organic lettuce costs with far more variety.

I have harvested and dried enough basil to fill a normal sized spice jar. Ditto on oregano. And I have used enough thyme to correlate to one of those $1 plastic packs they have at the store. So add $13 altogether for that.

Then I harvested enough for one bunch of organic kale, $2.50

Garden savings so far: $43.50.

And that more than pays for half the soil.

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

Bird Update:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Newborn litters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not sure I'm going to get a chance to sit down and write one really long blog post this weekend to update everything, so I thought I'd try to get some snippets in of what has been going on and some things DH and I have decided on.

We moved 1 cubic yard of dirt today. We have completed one 8 x 4 foot garden bed and 3/4 of another one. Unfortunately the dirt place closes at 4 on Saturday and we didn't finish getting it unloaded until 3:45. I think it is kind of silly for a business that sells topsoil, compost, bark, etc., to close that early on a Saturday. Especially in spring. Especially when they are only open until 5:30 on weekdays. Especially when they are not open at all on Sundays.

So now we have to wait until Monday to get anymore dirt. It is okay, really, as I won't be planting those beds until May 1st or so, but I still wanted to get it done, have a few days for it to settle and see if we need to add more. We lost all day Friday due to rain and 35 mile per hour winds with gusts up to 60.

DH and I are going to build 3 more 8 x 4 foot beds this weekend. At least one will be built after supper tonight.

Yesterday we bought what we needed to get the irrigation system set up along with the wood for the beds we are going to build. It came out to $259.76. Plus the dirt for $25. It's a lot but we will be able to use it for years to come and we will be able to take it all with us (including the soil) when we move. And it is so worth it to have 2 foot tall beds.

I did all the shoveling on a badly hurt foot. I got it caught under something without realizing it as I was stepping upwards, so pulled it very hard up against the underside of a platform. It made a little snapping noise, but I don't think I broke anything. It was on the side of my bad knee and this also jarred and twisted the knee, which uses any excuse to swell up, and jarred the hip, too. I did this on Thursday.

You wouldn't think something like that would hurt so much, but it does. There is a massive bruise and swelling. I wore an ace bandage ($5 for one that actually had clips and is reusable, those self-grip ones are useless after five or six wearings) on my foot and ankle and my knee brace while we worked. I am keeping ice on it while we rest. I can't really afford to stay completely off it as we need to get this stuff done while DH is home and before it is time to plant in earnest.

I didn't realize its been a week since I've read any of the blogs. I have a lot of catching up to do. You guys have been super active!

I've been working on the garden.

http://youtu.be/ZuvIwvf0Obk

I've made more progess since making that video, actually getting lettuce, kale, snow peas, onions and leeks planted.

The stuff I started from seed is doing great, too. All of the tomatoes are chugging along. I added more soil to their containers as they were getting quite tall, but only have their seedling leaves. The lettuces are starting to push forth their true leaves and all of the kale seeds I planted had sprouted within 24 hours. Now I am just waiting on the chard seeds that I planted the same day as the kale seeds.

I also have peppers seeds going, but I'm not sure how well they are doing. I planted them the same day as the kale and chard, but they can take 14 days to germinate. I have them on a heating pad, but I think I need to get a true heat mat for them. They are in a warm room and getting plenty of moisture. They are supposed to be the most problematic seeds to germinate. I do have another trick up my sleeve using a crockpot set to warm that I saw on youtube.

I got a $10 check from Pinecone so that will go into the EF today on my way to pick up the kids. I have someone coming by to purchase eggs on Thursday, but my son gets the proceeds from every 3rd dozen, so I'll only get some of it, and it may be discounted if she brings her own egg cartons. I do 50 cents off if they bring their own cartons.

Not too much else going on here. I am mostly working on the garden and taking care of the animals.

The title to the van came today, so it is officially ours. We will go to talk to our insurance agent tomorrow and show him the title so we can adjust our vehicle insurance. It's taken a load off not to have that debt there anymore. You'd think I'd be floating with all the changes that have happened this month.

We are busy building raised beds for the garden. And this time I really do mean we. I am getting more comfortable using power tools, figuring out the leverage I need for the drill, when to stop so the screws don't go through the wood too far. I am also figuring out the measuring by watching how DH does it. I've never really paid attention before on how he does it so you can keep your line straight down 8 feet of board.

I want to know how to operate things in case I am ever on my own when repairs need to be made and they can't wait while DH is away. And since women generally live longer than men, one day I may not have him to do it for me, so it is best to be prepared, even if that is likely decades away at this point. Plus I like building things. Shop class was one of my favorite classes in middle school.

We did figure that if I am going to be able to use a PVC cutter, though, it needs to be electric or a ratchet style. My grip is not strong enough to do a regular one. This is due to when I tore ligaments and tendons in my hand when I was in my early 20's. The grip will always be weaker than if I had not sustained the injury. I have to use ratchet style pruners for the same reason.

So far we've built 3 raised beds, all 8 feet long by 2 feet high by 2 feet wide. They are all filled up to the 1 foot high mark with rabbit manure and spent animal bedding. I also did one somewhat like a hugelkultur bed, with some old tree branches in the bottom. It's deep enough that it won't interfere with planting. As the wood rots it raises the temperature of the soil in that bed. It's an experiment. We'll see if it works.

DH went to get soil so we will hopefully finish those beds up tonight. I need to get my strawberry plants in the ground. They have been sitting in a box since the came on Friday. I did water them, but the longer they are out of the ground the worse it is for them.

DH and I built a light stand for seedlings last week and I finally got some of my seeds planted today. I planted tomatoes, ten each of the following varieties:
--Opalka
--Constoluto Genevese
--Lillian's Yellow Heirloom
--Abraham Lincoln

They are all organic seeds, all open-pollinated heirlooms. I planted twice as much as I need so that hopefully I will have five of each one. I can sell any extras in a plant sale.

I also planted two types of lettuce: Flashy Trout's Back Romaine and Hyper Red Ruffled Waved Looseleaf Lettuce. Both are heirloom, organic, and open-pollinated.

I still need to do some chard and some kale starts. And I want to get some radish and bunching green onion seeds into the gutter garden as well. I am excited to be so far ahead of the game this year. Last year was very last minute scrambling to do anything with the garden. This year I'll be ready when the last frost date passes to get growing.

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.

Yesterday was payday.

$1800.00 BoA VISA
__800.00 Van Loan plus extra
__400.00 to Mom for utilities
___90.00 Medical
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__100.00 Propane Fund
__110.84 120 pounds of Organic Turkey Feed
__112.34 (2 bales hay, 150# of oats and duck/chicken feed
-----------------
$3513.18

Last night frost threatened so I went ahead and harvested my sweet meat squash. I ended up with 4 good squash and the ducks ended up with some that had too much insect damage to store. Right now they are curing at room temperature for 2 weeks and then they will be moved to an unheated room. Sweet meat is storable for 6 to 8 months, with best flavor developing after it has been stored for 2 months, so we will be trying our first one around January. If it turns out we don't like them, which I doubt, we can feed them to the birds.

We should have enough turkey feed for 2 months now, as we are butchering half our turkeys (and one drake) later today. And we should have enough duck/chicken feed for about six weeks. The rabbits will go through the hay in a month and the oats in 2 weeks. Maybe a little longer as we are butchering 8 grow outs tomorrow. But then again, the 18 kits growing out will be eating more as they get bigger, so we'll see.

I've decided for sure not to breed rabbits again until February. I don't want to deal with births when it is very cold out or trying to keep very young kits alive in cold weather. And the rabbits eat a lot more feed in the cold months to stay warm, so it makes more sense to hold off during those time periods, especially since we can breed enough during February through August to meet our meat needs. That also puts our last butcher dates in late November/early December before we get tons of snow or it is always frozen out and hard to work outside. Unless we have some very slow growers, we shouldn't have to butcher after that until May when the weather is much nicer for it.

Because we have not had a freeze yet, the garden has continued unabated. Yesterday I harvested 5 broccoli plants and 3 cauliflower plants. I had thought there were only 2 that were ready, but I found a 3rd that was so was very happy with that. The ducks, chickens, and turkeys were thrilled to get the spent plants. I've got 2 more broccoli and 2 more cauliflower that I am letting size up and then those will be done.

I will be drying parsley later in the week. There are no freezes predicted for the next 10 days, so I am just letting things continue to grow instead of pulling it all out.

I want the leeks to get a little more size before yanking them and using them to make rabbit and chicken stocks. They are useable now, but the bigger they get the more flavorful they will be.

The kale is still going strong. Sometimes kale makes it through the winter here, so I am going to let it try. I am leaving the sweet meat squash as long as I can, though the leaves are dying down so it is just what is left in the vines that is nourishing them. They are almost at 110 days now which is what they should be at for picking.

I haven't had much of a chance to do anything with the straw bale garden yet, except keep picking green beans. There are a couple of peppers that may be ripe and some kohlrabi. I think the zucchini is done. The tomatoes and cucumbers have been done for a while, though the plants are still alive. I will try to get out there and go through that garden in the next couple of days if there is a break in the weather.

Here's a vid of the hay bale garden, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2pXbr2QJU&feature=youtu.be

You can really see how it is falling apart and definitely will not hold up for a second season. But it definitely served its purpose. It cut our grocery expenses and helped us put jars of veggies on the shelves and bags of veggies in the freezer, while providing a couple of months of fresh eating.

Our garden is still trucking along. We haven't had a frost yet and I've got two big heads of cauliflower to use and a couple broccoli. We still have green beans, too.

I have easy meals planned for Saturday, since we will be butchering turkeys that day, and Sunday, since we will be butchering rabbits that day. No one really wants to cook on those days, so something simple and easy to prepare is a must or we will end up going out to eat.

Sunday:
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli/cauliflower from the garden

Monday:
Pork chops
Fried potatoes
Green beans from the garden

Tuesday:
Bacon rabbit cheese burgers
Homemade French fries

Wednesday:
Rabbit/Duck Egg meatloaf
Green beans from the garden
Corn

Thursday:
Pancakes and ham

Friday:
Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Tacos

Sunday:
Crockpot ham
Green beans
Canned corn

Yesterday we dug up the potatoes. We had planted 15 pounds of organic seed potatoes and our yield was 83 pounds, so a bit over 5.5 pounds per pound planted. While that is a good yield, I now know that we will have to plant far more next year to meat our family's needs for the year. We can easily go through 5 pounds of potatoes a week.



The baby rabbits are doing well. They are 3 weeks old and growing very fast. I am happy to report that all 19 are still alive and kicking. You just never know with kits and it is common to lose a few along the way. Rabbits have a fragile immune system which is why they have such a high birth rate and frequency, so the species will continue.

I do have one kit with an eye infection. It is pretty bad, but it does finally seem to be starting to improve. I bumped up treatment to 3 times a day instead of twice and it is making a difference, although there is still more stuff coming out of the eye than I have ever seen, that is after soaking it long enough to get the crusties off and unseal the eyelid.

I had to spend $30 on vet supplies, but it is worth it. If I don't do the work now, the rabbit will end up blind in that eye. I know that as a meat rabbit he doesn't have that long of a life, but I want the life he does have to be as good as possible, so fixing the eye is a priority to me.

I'll leave you with a cute, short video of the kits nursing:

http://youtu.be/oHp_MOx6tVg

and another short vid of what some of our odd potatoes looked like:

http://youtu.be/EVY2QZMVdD0

I've been able to get out and do some serious work in the gardens this week. I've got a lot of food coming in, though never in the huge quantities I had expected for some of it.

The hay bale garden has been far more successful than the straw bale garden. It has had far less weeds and the growth has been phenomenal in comparison. So next year I think I will skip planting in straw bales at all and just go with the hay bales, if I do this again.

So far I've yielded $357.25 of organic produce over the price of my start up costs for the gardens. Next year if I start things from seeds instead of buying organic transplants, start up costs will be lower. Since I got started late though, I did the transplants to catch up some time.

http://youtu.be/N_5RvnetdYc

If all goes well with the house sale and if we find a small farm and if we can actually buy it before next spring, I will be building raised beds out of rabbit bedding and rabbit manure, which can be used right away, and setting up compost piles for the bird waste and bedding, since it needs to compost for at least six months before using. We will use wire and t-posts instead of wood to keep things loosely in place and will build it up at least 3 feet tall. With the amount of bedding we could compost in place that will be by far a better method. Then we will have deep mulch as it breaks down to between 1/2 and 1/3 of its original size. It'll still be a foot off the ground so I can pull up a chair to do my gardening.

I'm not going to rush buying a farm, though. We may need longer than that even if the house sale does go through. I want to make sure I find the right place and that we have a big enough down payment that we are not struggling at all with making a mortgage payment again.

I am picky about what I want. It has to have a well for water. It needs to have either a creek or a pond on the property, but not too close to the house in case of flooding. It needs to have either a good barn or several outbuildings, preferably one with power and water, but at the very least power. It needs a house that is one level only, preferably with handicapped accessibility, and at least 1600 square feet with a minimum of 3 bedrooms, though I'd prefer 4, and 2 bathrooms.

The kitchen needs to be of a decent size for canning and processing meat. It needs adequate pantry storage. It needs a garage and no basement as most basements around here have flooding issues. It needs a wood stove and a propane or gas stove. It needs garden space, fruit trees and nut trees, and at least 2 acres of pasture and 2 acres of wooded land. Fencing around the pastures is a must. It needs a good site for a green house for aquaponics and growing dwarf citrus trees, and a good site for solar panels and possibly a wind turbine. Wants, but not must haves are a willow tree and a flowering cherry tree or two.

We will probably buy 5 acres, though if we can save up enough, I'd prefer 10. We don't ever intend to move again after buying our farm so I want it to be right or at least easily able to be made right, like planting my own fruit trees and nut trees, willow tree, and flowering cherry trees.

I am so tired. My body does not want to adapt to the new routine. I can't seem to get to sleep before 2 or 3 a.m., the sleep I get is surface sleep, not restful at all, and then I am having to get up at 7. And then after the kids get off to school and I take care of all the animals, I can't get back to sleep for a nap. I don't understand it, because I've been asleep by midnight pretty much all summer.

School is going great for the kids so far, though. They are both really enjoying their teachers and classes. And it is super nice to have the day to myself. Even if I can't manage to nap.

The garden is going gangbusters. The green beans are starting to produce, but not enough for canning yet. I think I may end up buying some this weekend and then if I have any of my own for canning it'll just be additional. Next year I will plant a lot sooner. Things just kind of got away from me in the spring and I didn't get going soon enough.

I plan on getting 40 pounds of tomatoes this weekend, too. While my tomatoes produced, it has never really been with much. The most I could can at any one time was 3 pints. I just ended up making spaghetti sauce and freezing it instead. But I do want to get some diced put up and maybe make a batch of ketchup. The Indigo Rose tomatoes have been fantastic. I am not one for eating raw tomatoes usually, but these ones taste sort of like melons with a rich tomato flavor added in. I will grow them again, along with the Russian Moskovich, but I will not grow the other two varieties I bought again.

I have some great zucchini, leeks, sweet meat squash, green onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and kohlrabi. The cukes are slow, but I'm getting 2 to 4 a week. I have more peppers coming but don't know if there will be time for them. I hope there will at least be time for them to be green if they can't get all the way to red.

On the spending front, I spent $90 at physical therapy today and $55.48 for a tank of gas.

I am expecting babies sometime between tomorrow and Sunday. I've got 3 pregnant rabbits due to kindle. I hope all goes well. Tomorrow is day 30. My rabbits have gone anywhere from day 30 to day 33. Average is 31 days, though.

Two of my Barnevelders are laying eggs now. They are about half size, but are getting bigger. They are cute, perfect little eggs. All of the ducks are laying now and Addy's eggs are finally full-size. I am getting 1 to 2 chicken eggs and 3 to 5 duck eggs a day. I sold 2 dozen duck eggs earlier this week for $5 a dozen. I am selling enough duck eggs now to pay for one bag of organic layer feed a month. The ducks and chickens go through a bag about every 2 weeks.

Tomorrow is payday and I am very glad of it. I've got a lot to get done. It'll be nice to be able to get most of it out of the way without the kids underfoot.

Today was a very long morning. I spent it at the high school getting my daughter's schedule changed. It took some doing as the bull dog on the front counter was all, "We don't switch classes because of teachers," and I was, "Well, you better, as this woman is not teaching my child ever again." Finally got in to talk to the counselor and explained how Mrs. Z acted and was the main reason my daughter dropped out of school last year rather than go back and deal with this piece of work and how the woman was instrumental in many aspects of her nervous breakdown.

We never even thought it would be an issue, because this teacher previously only taught home ec, child psychology, interior design, and health, none of which my daughter was taking. But this year she is for some reason teaching English. And plus, we had put in her file that that woman was to never be her teacher again.

Anyway, the counselor, who is new this year (the one who knew the history of the situation retired last year), was sympathetic to her cause and changed her schedule right around. Since she only needs one English credit to graduate, we dropped the one English class entirely and changed the other one to British Literature.

So now my daughter has two free periods first semester, which is actually a good thing, because of the skull fracture that happened August 2. She will only have Algebra 2, which she is repeating as she got a D in it and Chemistry, which she is also repeating from her junior year as she failed the 2nd semester, as her hard classes. She did well first semester, so that will be more of a review for her, but things devolved for the second semester (which was when issues with Mrs. Z began, as well as anxiety attacks and depression that she was told over and over by this teacher don't really exist). Her other two classes will be ceramics and choir.

DD has been on anti-anxiety pills and anti-depressants for several months now and things are going much, much better for her, but she still wouldn't have been able to handle having that woman as a teacher again. And I don't want her anywhere near any of my kids, anyway.

So it was a very stressful way to start the day, but hopefully the stressful part is over. I go to physical therapy in an hour and then hopefully I will have time to get my pickles canned this afternoon.

Last night I picked a dozen tomatoes, another very large zucchini, a red jalapeno, 2 cucumbers, 2 plums, and some green beans. Earlier this week I also picked 2 more zucchini, 3 cucumbers, a broccoli Romanescu, and some green beans. I've earned back the money I spent on the garden now, so anything from here on out is where I start actually saving money by having a garden. Probably tomorrow I will need to pick 2 more zucchini, some kale, and another broccoli Romanescu.

I read that you can grow garlic in gutters, so once everything dies off in the gutters at the end of the season, I will fertilize and top off the dirt in one of them and then around November I will plant garlic cloves 4 inches apart. We do better with garlic if we plant in the fall. Same with onions, but I don't have the space for that. That way I should have a decent crop of garlic next summer and also some lovely scapes.

Here's an update on some of the garden stuff around here and some of the animals. I'll do other gardens later in the week.

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

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 I've been back on a controlled carbohydrate diet for a week and lost 6.8 pounds. I always lose a lot the first week and then it settles down to about 2 to 3 pounds a week if I stay on the diet and don't cheat. I am not eating anything processed at all except for organic soy sauce, tomato sauce, and organic condiments, mostly our homegrown rabbit and chicken or the organic, sustainable beef and pork from the farm we go to, and a lot of vegetables and a balanced amount of fruit, corn, or potatoes at one meal a day. It is nice to be able to go outside and pick my salad daily. The freshness makes the lettuce so good.

If I have any bread products, which so far I have not, I will bake them from scratch. I might make my own noodles if I decide later on to have pasta, but I do have a few boxes of organic kicking around, so may not.

According to the x-rays I got on the 22nd I have degenerative bone loss in my knee, which I think is another way of saying osteoarthritis. For every pound of weight I lose, it will take 6 pounds of pressure off my knee. So to begin with I am aiming for a 50 pound weight loss. That seems doable to me, especially considering I am 14.7% of the way to that goal. 85.3% or 43.2 pounds to go. If I can lose 2 pounds a week, which I have done in the past on this diet, I should have lost 50 pounds by the 21st of December. After that I will set a new goal.

Next week after I've done their course of treatment for a week, which is hydrocodone, ibuprofen, and elevate and ice the knee, I can get an MRI to make sure there isn't more going on like the doctor and I both think there is. This is just what we have to do to make the insurance company happy. We have met our deductible now so the insurance company will be paying the majority of this bill, thank goodness.

I don't like the course of treatment as the hydrocodone makes me spacy and queasy, but it does help some with the pain. Not enough to be worth the symptoms on a long term basis, though. And I don't want to go on any of the arthritis drugs as they have nastier side effects than that.

I am using my knee brace a lot and that helps a bit. I've been able to hobble around the last couple of days and get a small amount of outdoor work done. Not much, mostly picking veggies. And I was able to do the grocery shopping. Most of that was at Joe's Garden and Goode's produce stand, with just a quick run to the store for our glass bottled milk and a few odds and ends.

We are meal planning quite closely now and trying to do a lot of prep work on the weekend. While the others are not dieting, they have all gone non-processed with me, since it is easier not to have junk in the house. I am hoping that the grocery budget will go down now that I am not buying TV dinners and chips and $5 loaves of bread for the others. If I could save $100 a month off the grocery budget, that would be really nice.

I went to the doctor today for my knee and he thinks I am probably right, it is likely a torn meniscus based on how I reacted to his manipulation of the knee. Then I went and got an x-ray, because of course the insurance won't pay for an MRI unless you have had x-rays first. Which is dumb to me because it isn't a bone injury, it won't show up on an x-ray, and they end up having to pay for two things, not one, and so do I. At least I've met the $5000 deductible now so they will have to pay a lot more than I will.

I got a call back from the nurse at 6, but just missed it since I was eating corn on the cob and had butter all over my hands. So that probably means they got the x-ray results back. Do you remember back when it took 24 to 72 hours to get an x-ray film back? Now it is so fast with digital x-rays on the computers. All we have to wait on now is for it to be read, which they do pretty quickly.

Anyway, so I have to call tomorrow and find out what is what, since of course due to privacy laws they can't leave an actual message with any medical content, even on my private cell phone that no one but me can access the voice mail on. And likely schedule the MRI.

I did manage to hobble around the garden today with my cane and my daughter (to make sure I didn't fall) and my camera so I did some filming. I did 5 vids today, but will only be uploading them one day at a time. I had to check on everything so figured I might as well do all my weekly updates for my farm blog at once.

This week I have picked 5 tomatoes, 3 zucchini, 1 quart of yellow French beans, 1 cucumber, and a bag of salad leaves. Below is the tally based on local organic produce prices:

1.5 pounds zucchini $2.00
2 pounds of beans $2.60
1.5 pounds tomatoes $4.75
1 pickling cucumber .50
Salad greens $2.50

Total: $12.35

$212.00 Previous Total
+_12.35 Most Recent Tally
-----------
$224.35 YTD Produce Tally

Fruit Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/mNK4ek6CQ18

Anyone have any good zucchini recipes?

Edited to add this happy surprise I got after posting:

http://youtu.be/dDZPx0sEFBw

We had two litters born today and have 11 new kits. The older kits are 2.5 weeks old and doing great as well.

http://youtu.be/lpebWkMhaWs

I canned 9 quarts of green beans and 1 quart of yellow French beans.



I plan to can another 92 quarts of beans this summer to get in my year's supply. Well, if all goes well. If not, I want to get at least 42 more quarts. I only have 3 pints left from last year. We eat green beans almost every day during the fall, winter, and spring and a little less in the summer when fresh green are available. But we eat a lot.

Either tomorrow or in the next day or two we will have several tomatoes ready to be picked, so I will can either some salsa or just some diced tomatoes. If the jalapeno pepper is ready it will be salsa. It is getting big, but I don't think it will be big enough by the time the tomatoes are ready.

I also sliced up and froze 2 gallons of red peppers and yellow onions. These I just got really cheap from a no-spray, sustainable garden. I hope to do some more soon. Since we eat a lot of stir-fry with peppers and onions having some on hand that I did myself will be nice. Especially during the summer when field grown peppers are cheaper.

Slowly but surely we are filling our freezer. Later this week we will butcher another five rabbits and put another 13 to 14 pounds of meat in there as well. It is a lot of work, but it is definitely worth it to have additive and preservative free food that doesn't make us sick.

I spent about an hour and a half canning pickles today. 68 cucumbers, 36 cloves of garlic, 16 sprigs of dill, 1 cup of pickling salt, 2 tsp of red pepper flakes, 8 cups of water and 8 cups of vinegar later and I have 8 quarts to show for it. 2 quarts sliced, 2 quarts spears, and 4 quarts whole of Crispy Dill Pickles.

This is enough dill pickles for me (I am the only one who eats them) for about half the year, so I will need to do another batch. This is so much cheaper than trying to find pickles that don't have allergens in them. It is almost impossible to find pickles without yellow #5 and when I can, they cost an arm and a leg. I didn't grow the ingredients for this batch so it worked out to $2.75 per quart. I wanted to make sure I at least had some if my cukes don't make it.

DH wants me to do a batch of bread and butter pickles. I've never made sweet pickles before, but the only difference seems to be sugar and a few spices, and no dill. I'll make sure he is home to help with the slicing, though.

I should have yellow beans in a few more days, but I don't know if it will be enough to can. It'll probably just be enough for fresh eating a couple times a week.

I think I am going to pull my kale. I pulled one of the bok choi because it was going to seed. Those are not doing well in this heat. Then I will move my leeks and watermelon. I might transplant my cantaloupe. I think I may pull the lettuce, too, because it is suffering. It needs to be in a shadier area.

Hay Bale Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/Yi8djsljQoM?list=UUQYX0m6-Ugue6iXGI09iHHQ

Straw Bale Garden Update: http://youtu.be/Pr3SFQ4zMbk?list=UUQYX0m6-Ugue6iXGI09iHHQ

It's been too hot to pick berries, but hopefully tonight it will be cool enough to get some blueberries picked.

Yesterday I picked a quart of organic blackberries and a pint of organic raspberries.

$16.00 blackberries
+_4.00 raspberries
---------
$20.00 total value

$192.00 Beginning Produce Total
+_20.00 Yesterday's total added
-----------
$212.00 Total Produce Value YTD

$188 to earn back to break even on this year's garden costs.

We are planting more potatoes tomorrow for a late harvest. Well, we are preparing the ground and hopefully getting them planted.

I've gotten 5 more duck eggs in the last 2 days, bringing the number of eggs produced so far to 39. I need to make some peanut butter cookies, a meatloaf, and maybe a breakfast casserole or crustless quiche tomorrow to get some of these eggs used up.

I am making crispy dill pickles tomorrow, slices, spears, and at least one jar of whole pickles. I think I bought enough for 8 or 9 quarts. I might do the slicers in pints, though. I got a deal on a box of no spray cucumbers so thought I'd can some pickles just in case my cukes don't get prolific in the garden.

These will be the cheapest pickles I've ever made and won't have any of the allergens in them that standard store bought pickles have, especially yellow #5. I am not even sure, after a year of eating only my own pickles, if I could even like manufactured pickles. Well, maybe those huge ones they have at delis. But I still think mine taste better.

I do need to pick up a few heads of garlic, but if I remember to return my milk bottles, the cost will be covered. I have dill and red pepper flakes, so otherwise good to go.

I need to do this pretty early in the morning, though, when it is still cool. The temps are supposed to be in the mid-80's tomorrow. I am wilting. I am not a desert flower. I am a rain forest flower. I need some rain.

Thursday I picked 2 quarts of organic blueberries and 2 quarts of organic blackberries for the freezer. That brings my produce total for the day to:

Blackberries $32
Blueberries $16
-----------------
Berry Total $48

$144.00 Previous Produce Total
+_48.00 Berry Total
------------
$192.00 Ending Produce Total

$208 to go to pay back my garden investment for this year.

I got 3 duck eggs on Thursday and 2 duck eggs on Friday, bringing the duck egg total to 34. I will be selling a dozen to a lady tomorrow for $5. My first non-rabbit sale. If I can sell 3 dozen a month that'll pay for half a month's feed for the ducks. I wouldn't be able to sell more than that and have enough for us, though, at least not until Addy starts laying, too. And once the Barnevelders start laying in a few more weeks, then I could sell more duck eggs.

It only took 5 minutes for someone to respond to my add when I posed it. That was neat. Makes me think there is a good market for these eggs.

And last, but certainly not least the rabbit kits at 6 days old:

http://youtu.be/THCgkrx8aEU

Yesterday I spent $34.36 on dinner. It was 85 degrees and I didn't even want to set foot in that end of the house, let alone the kitchen. I hate not having AC here. Even if we only used it on days like this it would be so worth it. Today I have to make dinner, though. I'm down to $10 in my eating out money.

Yesterday I got 3 eggs and today I got 3 more eggs, so the total of eggs I've gotten since the ducks began laying is 29.

I do not know if I will get any berries picked today. Nothing was picked yesterday either because of the heat being so bad. Today is only supposed to get up to 77, but it already feels like it is going to be the same as yesterday. I will try this evening though, because stuff is ripe.

My first tomato is almost ready. I have plans for it, too. It isn't very big, about the size you make when you touch the tip of your index finger together with your thumb, so I will be dicing it up and using it in omelets along with some homegrown green onions and some cheese. I am looking forward to that. Growing it is fun. Eating it is better. My first cucumber is almost ready, too. It'll be nice to have something from the garden that isn't leafy and green.

I am hoping to barter some produce with a lady who makes goat cheddar. She raises her own meat and eggs so I can't barter with that, but she said she was open to produce. So far I haven't had enough of anything to barter with, but hopefully I will soon. She doesn't sell it, only barters for the things she needs. I really like that idea.