At least if it works, and if not, I'm not out anything. I remembered reading once that you can replant the bottoms of green onions if they have a root still on them. I use two to three batches of green onions a week between breakfast omelettes and low carb meatloaves I make for lunches so I always have that last half inch or so that goes into the soup stock bag in the freezer or the compost bin depending on the condition.

So I decided to try planting them in the garden. If they do grow I'll start to see them within a week. And if not, it'll help fertilize the soil by trench composting.

It would be nice if it works as I buy these a lot. I was dinking around online today and also saw that you can replant regular onion bottoms, too. A bit more to it than what I did with the green onion bottoms, but it can be done. I don't know if they grow into full onions if you just get the greens, but either way, it'd be worth it, so the next time I use a full-sized onion I am going to try it. I had planned on planting onion sets with my garlic bulbs this fall anyway, so this might just give me a head start.

I don't watch the news, but I do realize the middle of the country is probably far hotter than us right now. However, it got up to 80 today, very hot for the rainy PNW coast. And the extended forecast shows more of the same for the next ten days. We are definitely going swimming tomorrow.

I decided not to make jam today after all and threw the raspberries in the freezer to wait for a cooler day. I really don't need to be heating the house up during the hottest part of the day. So hopefully I can make them in the cooler part of the morning tomorrow or the next day. This will be my cheapest batch of jam yet, with me only having to pay for sugar and pectin. Any further raspberries I pick will just be frozen for future use in smoothies or whatever. It will be nice to have free fruit in the freezer.

I noticed when I was out putting away the chickens and ducks tonight that there are a few ripe blueberries on the bushes. We rarely get ripe blueberries before August, but this heat wave is pushing everything forward, I guess. So where I thought I'd have almost a month before worrying about harvesting those, I think it's going to be closer to a week. I'll have to take a look at the blackberries, too. They may have moved up their production date as well.

Also while herding the ducks I saw that two of the younger apple trees that have never had fruit on them before are loaded down with apples. I usually don't have to go back that far, but they were in the furthest corner of the property. I knew the old one was full up, but these ones are Golden Delicious and Macintosh and we've been looking forward to those since they were planted as little more than sticks with a couple of buds on them five or six years ago.

I really wish I liked apple sauce or apple pie. I've never been one for cooked apples, though. I do like raw apple pie filling (just apples, cinnamon, and sugar) or apples with peanut butter, but mostly I like eating apples out of hand. I don't know if either of those are good keeping apples, but I should get a few weeks out of them at the very least. I will can sauce in pint jars and a couple of pies for DH though. The big jars at the store are too much for just him to finish and the little plastic cups of sauce taste nasty, plus they're plastic and we're trying to get away from that. And he and my mom both love apple pies so the least I can do this season is make one or two. Me, I'll take chocolate pie or key lime pie or even lemon meringue, but chocolate, lemons and limes don't grow free on trees here. Such a shame.

It's been so hot these last few days that my tomato plants have really shot up. Well, four of them have. What I'm really excited about though is that the second plant has fruit on it now, little ones about the size of nickel. And the other two big ones are really blossoming like crazy. The two little tomato plants are just not seeming to do well. They are getting just as much sun as they other four. The only difference is that those two are determinate and the other four are indeterminate.

I am thinking about digging up the two small ones and planting them in some large buckets with half compost/ half potting soil and putting them where they will get even more sun and seeing if that doesn't make any difference. You would think ten hours of sun would be enough for those two, but it doesn't appear to be.

The cauliflower is making little heads. I was surprised because the leaves are not as big as I expected them to be when they started making heads. Not seeing that yet on the broccoli, but they are younger than the cauliflower. The kohlrabi are just starting to swell. The green beans are working their way up their poles. The pickling cucumbers are doing good, the English ones are starting to recover from the slug attacks when the weather was bad.

I picked another quart of raspberries today so this afternoon I am making a batch of raspberry jam up.

My nephew and his wife stopped by with the new baby and the toddler. Both are extremely adorable children, but the toddler is super high energy. The baby isn't quite 5 weeks yet. There is nothing like baby snuggles, but I tell you, I am so glad those years are well behind me and I can give the youngsters back when I'm done! Not that having teens is easy, either, but they are preferrable at my stage of life.

I have the car scheduled for an oil change this afternoon. I'm not sure how much it runs anymore, but it's under $40. They will also wash the car, which could use it, though by the time I drive it back home again it probably won't be clean anymore. There's a lot of dust on the freeway right now for some reason.

The last few days in the 70's have been very nice. This house doesn't have AC, but we can still keep it pretty cool. We keep the windows closed and blinds on the sunny side of the house drawn in the morning and then as soon as it passes over the house around eleven we open all of those windows on the now shaded side and close the ones on the other side of the house. Once the sun goes behind the trees around 8 p.m. then everything is flung open. It keeps things comfortable.

My garden is starting to take off with the heat and I can see the tomato plants visibly jumping in size from day to day. So are the brassicas. I have moved my lettuce more into the shade to try to prevent bolting. They have more than paid for themselves, but I'd like to keep them going as long as possible.

The corn Mom planted is halfway up my thigh. The yarn in our part of the country is that corn has to be "knee high by the 4th of July" if it is going to make it before the cold sets in, so I think we're set on that. She planted it in the middle of her flower garden. It looks very pretty there and not at all out of place. Hopefully there won't be any neighbors in a tizzy over vegetables growing in the flower beds. Our near neighbors don't give a hoot, but it seems there is always someone. Fortunately there is no HOA here and Mom has never been one to care what other people think anyway.

The kids and I are going swimming this evening. I am really looking forward to it. My body is really stiff after picking up all the fireworks debris off the ground (there was a lot that came in from other people's stuff landing in our yard and driveway) and swimming always helps with that.

Speaking of fireworks, or firework debris, I'm just leaving a note here to remind me that War Chest was the best firework we purchased and not to buy the Corruptor again because it was disappointing. Also, no more Mad Dog fountains and only one Purple Rain from now on and to get the big one. Flak Fire and Blue Craze were fun. Old Glory is a nice, low key fountain with lots of color that I liked, but the kids weren't very impressed. No more strobes, too many in a box and no one cares much after the first one. No more turtles. Ground flower types are still a hit after all these years. And no matter how old they get the kids will still want to do pop-its.

I added .92 to the coin jar. And I think that is about it.

You know how I said I thought I'd have a week before having to make jam again? Umm... Today I picked these and there's a lot more ripening:



That's about 3.5 pints and that's after just 2 full days of sun. And the next 9 days are supposed to be just as sunny and in the 70's. Which will be great for my tomatoes, but the raspberries will explode. I think by Friday I'll have to pick again and will have enough to make jam by then. We have about 30 feet of raspberry canes so you can imagine how many berries that is going to be.

I froze 1 quart of what I picked since they will go bad fast just in the fridge, gave 1 pint to Mom for fresh eating, and DS is eating the rest. When I have 4 quarts I will make jam and then anything left after that I will just freeze for smoothies. When I make raspberry jam I will make it in half-pints as it doesn't get eaten as fast as the other jams. Plus they are a better size for giving away at Christmas time.

After picking I sat on the old swing for a while. The view over my head:



Those Italian prunes were just on one teeny tiny section of one branch (I zoomed in). That whole big branch easily held about 50 fruits.

And the view before me, Patricia, out for a stroll:



The chickens and ducks are not liking the firecrackers. They will be in the chicken coop and the duck den tonight before it gets really bad. We will be letting some off ourselves, as far from them as we can get on the property, but not until they are safely in for the night.

I hoed the weeds up in the garden and got rid of some of the straw mulch. I will water tonight from the rain barrels when it's a bit cooler and the water won't evaporate so fast. Most of the broccoli has survived. I lost two plants, one just didn't have enough roots, and the other I accidentally hacked through with the hoe when I was uprooting some tansy. The cauliflower the slugs were eating on is coming back. I found a very natural remedy for the slugs...feeding them to the ducks.

After that I harvested some lettuce. I picked about $6 worth of organic lettuce (enough for the week) so that brings my costs down to $37.06 left to break even on what I've spent on gardening this year. I suppose I could add in the cost of the berries which sell for around $5 for a half pint for the organic ones, which would put me on a $0 footing. But since I didn't pay for those plants (they originally came free from my Mom's sister who had too many about twenty years ago) and I wouldn't actually ever buy raspberries from the store except once in a while in the dead of winter if my kids begged hard enough, I don't think that counts.

Still, at the rate I am going I think I will have met my costs by mid-August. Maybe sooner. The green beans are starting to climb the poles now. We might have some actual green beans before then, especially if this weather keeps up all month.

Yesterday I canned 5 more pints of organic strawberry jam. We got an even better deal on the strawberries this time because we bought day old berries for jam making instead of fresh. So I spent $10 for all of the ingredients in 5 pints. Not bad.

Then I canned 9 12 ounce jars of organic grape jelly. Since it is nigh on impossible to find organic grape jelly anywhere, and it is completely impossible to find grape jelly without corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup in it, I am very pleased with myself. I won't make any more grape jelly this year, I don't think. I am the only one who eats it, so those 9 jars should last me about 2 years, since I eat other kinds like strawberry, blackberry, brambleberry, apricot, blueberry, and huckleberry, too. Grape is just my favorite.

In doing the math I figured that I paid $19.90 for the grape jelly ingredients, and since I can't compare it to what isn't actually made, I compared it to the average price of a half pint of organic jelly of any flavor which would be $6. So the same amount would be $84, so a savings of $64.10 over purchasing something similar.

I probably won't make too much raspberry jam. Maybe one batch. I don't like raspberries. I mean, I will eat them if they are mixed in with other berries, but I won't seek them out. Shame, too, since we have so many growing in the back yard. DH likes raspberries, but not raspberry jam, so a few jars for the kids and maybe a couple to give away at Christmas should suffice. I will save some though in the freezer though to make brambleberry jam, as the blackberries override the flavor of the raspberries, and that everyone likes.

So plans for future canning, one batch of raspberry jam, one batch of brambleberry jam, 3 batches of blackberry jam, 5 batches of blueberry jam (and lots and lots of frozen blueberries) and if the grape vines produce this year, I might actually make more grape jelly after all. They have blossoms on them so it is possible they might make enough for jam, but I have a feeling it will be just enough for table grapes. I also plan to make Italian prune jelly as well as canning and possibly drying Italian prunes. Nothing tastes like them and the tree is loaded for bear.

Somewhere during blueberry and prune season I should have a boatload of tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, and green beans to can. I want to put up enough green beans for the year since my favorite brand has started using BPA in their can liners. Plus they have just gotten really expensive. $1 a jar, sometimes .75 on sale. If I grow enough to can what I want, it would be 104 quarts or 208 pints, since we eat them at least twice a week. I also am hoping that my tomato plants will produce enough to make sauce for the entire year. There I will need about 75 quarts of sauce or 150 pints and then also about 30 pints of diced tomatoes. I don't know if the weather is going to be good enough for me to grow that much this year. In the past Mom has grown tomatoes like that, but it was a hot sunny summer and that is not what we have been getting this year. I may have to purchase some from one of the sustainable, organic farms in our county that grows them, but it would still be worth it to do.

Then there will be a batch or two of applesauce in half-pint jars for DH who is the only one who eats it. DD and I don't like the texture and DS is allergic to apples. The apple tree at the old house is loaded. I haven't been into the back yard at the old house to check, but if we have pears I will put up pears as well and maybe some pear sauce, DS likes that, and definitely a couple of pear pies. And I'd like to can some nectarines, but only if I can find a not too expensive organic source. They spray stone fruit like crazy, so organic is a must. I need about 20 pounds to make it worth my effort.

I am really, really glad my mother has a ton of empty jars in her basement. I've already cleaned out Goodwill of canning jars and a couple of garage sales. There are three more thrift shops I want to check, too. Otherwise it's $10 for a set of 12 jars with lids and rings. I don't need anymore rings and lids you can easily buy on their own, so if I can find quality jars for .20 each, that's what I'm going to do. Canning shouldn't be expensive (except the lids, and even those are fairly reasonable). I need to keep an eye out for estate sales, too. You can often get boxes of jars there. I'm not picky, Ball, Kerr, Mason, I'll take them all.

Looking Forward--Since posting URLs is what apparently is making my blogs and comments not post, there is a website called Simply Canning that is really helpful for learning how to can. She gives a lot of good information and makes it less intimidating.

Or maybe it's just been the roughest week in a while. DS is finally improving with the concussion, but he has also been diagnosed with forward head posture which was aggravated by, but not caused by, the same thing that caused the concussion. His head isn't seated properly on the neck. It can cause many of the things we have been seeing in DS including a decreased lung capacity (by 30%) making it difficult for him to have any stamina while running in PE. It pinches the brain stem and can cause irritibility, sleep problems, quickness to anger, digestive issues, etc. It is treatable though.

He has to do these special treatments that are going to cost $2500, $500 a month. Treatment may run longer, but that is the full cost even if it goes on all year. I have made the first payment, so just 4 more months worth to come up with. We probably won't be reimbursed for this from insurance since it is an out of network doctor and it is alternative medicine, but it's not like there is an in network doctor that isn't too far away to drive to this often. Because there is one though, it looks unlikely they'll let us have it. If I hadn't seen the improvement already I'd be very wary of the whole thing, but it really is helping. He has to wear a one pound weight band on his head as well for 20 minutes every morning and night to help correct it.

We will not be able to get a half a sustainable, organic beef in December like we were planning because of this expense, but we should be able to get one in the spring. We will still be able to buy some each month out of our grocery budget though as we've been doing. Tomorrow we are going to the ranch to buy some beef and pork. My plans are for 4 beef chuck roasts, 12 pounds of hamburger, 2 pounds of bacon, 1 package of sausages and 8 pork chops.

I am not going to buy anymore of their chickens though. They are only 3.5 pounds which makes the pieces very small, and I prefer to have a 4 to 5 pound chicken so I can have some leftovers for making another meal. Well, I had a bit of leftovers (one back portion and one leg), but not nearly enough to make another meal for four with. And they aren't nearly as flavorful as the beef and pork. I am going to try one of the local chickens that they have for sale at Terra Organica (they are bigger) and if I like the flavor, I will purchase several from the farm. I have the money for the chickens set aside.

We had the last ranch chicken for dinner tonight. I cut it up successfully by myself without Mom hovering by. I've got it down now and I think I can do it with no problems from now on. I think I will invest in a pair of poultry sheers though. It would make cutting between the back and the breast easier. Mine are buried somewhere in storage and weren't the best pair anyway, so a really good new one is in my future. Maybe that'll be my Christmas present this year. We also had potatoes from the garden, lettuce from the window boxes, and some organic nectarines.

When I was out in the garden today I noticed the raspberries are ripening. In a week I should be able to make jam. There might even be some for picking tomorrow. I also checked out our blueberry bushes (which are now taller than me) and they are so loaded with green berries, I know there's going to be a lot of picking this August. I think we will probably get at least 5 gallons per bush and I might be estimating on the low side, so lots for the freezer and plenty for jelly.

The Italian prune tree is loaded this year. Last year we didn't have too much as there was a bad windstorm at the wrong time of year and most of the blossoms got knocked off before pollination. This year will make up for it. There will be plenty for canning. The blackberries are also loaded with blossoms and I think I will get enough to make a batch or two of jam this August.

I'm going to get a couple of flats of strawberries tomorrow, too, so I can make jelly this week. I'll be making grape jelly (from pure grape juice) while I am at it. Might as well only get the kitchen hot and sweaty once.

The grapes are doing pretty well this year. I saw some blossoms. If they produce, it will be the first year they have. There may be a few bunches for eating, but I doubt there will be enough for jelly. Still, if there is, I will make some. It is hard to find good-tasting organic grapes that are reasonably priced.

The compost bin is off to a really good start. Adding in the chicken bedding is going to make it really fertile. DS loves to take the vegetable and fruit scraps out to the bin. It might be a boy thing, but he likes to see the stuff break down and rot. It seems to be his favorite chore and it is one he can do right now as opposed to mowing the lawn. He can't operate machinery until four weeks post concussion.

Today was payday. I haven't done a payday post in forever, but I have been keeping all of my spreadsheets updated and my checkbook balanced. All the bills are paid until the middle of July so it's going to be pretty much automatic pilot on that until the next payday in two weeks.

We did get accepted for the 0% for a year Chase VISA card I talked about a while back. We have received the cards but are still waiting for them to do the transfer from the BoA card. The next payment isn't due until the 21st so I am hoping they will do it before then. It has been pending for a while now. Banks sure can move fast when they want to, when it benefits them, but they sure drag their feet when you want them to move quickly.

I harvested more lettuce today from the table top garden. We are eating it almost every day. We are not harvesting every day. I like to let the plants rest about 4 days between pickings. I picked about 12 dollars worth of organic lettuce leaves. That brings me down to needing to harvest $43.06 worth of produce from my garden to break even versus what I have spent so far.

My brandywine tomatoes are doing pretty well despite the rain. There are about 12 tomatoes now with the diameter of a quarter, there are still several blossoms, and there are a few tiny, tiny fruits as well. There are blooms on three of the other plants. Two of the smaller plants show no blooms yet. They have a shorter amount of time in which to mature. Hopefully they will. We need some really hot days to get some size on those plants.

The slugs are eating the cauliflower plants. I don't know if they will make it. I am thinking about putting down a pan or two of organic beer as slug bait. My mother just wants to use poison slug bait and I want it to remain organic so that's a no go since it is my garden. I may need to go out at dusk with a bowl of sea salt and just salt the slugs as I see them. At least if it stops raining. The slugs are leaving the kohlrabi alone. They are both brassicas, so I don't know why they aren't going after them, as well, but I'm grateful.

Today was supposed to be sunny. This is why I never trust the ten day forecast.

DS woke up without a full headache for the first time since Thursday. He said it still kind of throbs in the spot he was hit and he feels pressure in his head, but the overall ache is gone. That is a relief. He says it hurts to think though. He really can't concentrate well. Not enough to read a book. He still has moments where he is unresponsive, where he'll zone out for ten to fifteen seconds at a time and you can say his name and he won't hear it, but then he snaps out of it. I'm still worried about that.

I made yogurt yesterday in the crockpot and it was a success. The first time I made it it didn't turn out. I think this was because I used a crockpot with a lid that didn't fit well enough. It was the lid that came with the crockpot, but it is one where if it doesn't sit exactly right on the crock there is a gap of 1/4 inch and I think too much heat got out the first time. Or one of the kids looked in it and didn't seat it right or something. Also, I think I messed up one of the steps.

It is currently firming up in the fridge. It's a little sloshy when it first goes in, but it is supposed to thicken up. DH and DD both thought it smelled good. I thought it smelled like yogurt (not a big fan unless it is frozen and flavored). I had enough to fill two quart jars plus have half a cup leftover. You need a half a cup to culture the next batch so that works out perfectly.



It is good for 7 to 10 days. I probably won't make it when DH isn't home because even only doing the half batch recipe, which I did, would make too much for just the kids to eat, I think. Unless I did make some into frozen yogurt. I have freezer pop molds and I can mix it with fruit in the blender. Or for that matter it could go into fruit smoothies along with whatever bananas we are using up as a base. So maybe I will make it when he's not here. We'll see.

We got the compost bin moved after Mom finally dug up the irises. The chickens moved right in and dug up the dirt and so it's ready to be planted. I have some more fencing to keep them out once the broccoli is transplanted. I think I'd like to pick up a few more kohlrabi plugs since some of them were pulled up too many times to make it. And I want plenty of kohlrabi.

It's been raining something fierce and I hope it doesn't ruin my tomatoes. The brandywines already have little green tomatoes about the size of a marble on them and tomatoes hate to be wet. The other plants had blooms on them two days ago, I don't know if they are starting to turn to actual fruit yet or not. As I said, it's been pouring. Today is cool and sunny though, so I will be out there working shortly. We may have to rig up some plastic sheeting to protect the tomatoes if it is going to be as rainy all summer as the last few weeks have been.

We have been playing a lot of board games and card games the last couple of days as that is something DS is allowed to do. The nice thing about that is it is free entertainment since we already own the games. So far we have played Ticket to Ride, Cranium (with his sister doing any of the ones that have to be acted out), Yugioh (not me, but I watched them duel), Crazy Eights, Hearts, Wahoo, and The Farming Game.

The Farming Game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farming_Game is a Washington State based game. The places on it are all small farming towns, it has the Yakima River, Rattlesnake Ridge, Toppenish, the Cascades, Sunnyside, Wapato, Satus, Harrah, Rosa, etc. It's really cool and fun. It teaches economics very well.

What I like about it (and a major way it differs from Monopoly) is that you start out with $5000 from the bank, but you also start out with a $5000 bank note you have to pay back. You can buy livestock or crops or farm equipment with money you earn or with 20% down and the rest in bank notes. You have to have an option to buy card for whatever thing it is you want to buy.

Bank notes sometimes have interest charged on them if you land on the correct square or get a Farmer's Fate card that says so. When you harvest crops and get your profit, you then have to take an operating expense card. You do get $5000 every year when you pass Christmas Vacation (like Go), or $6000 if you land on it from your side job. The game was made in 1979 so the money reflects that, but still.

The kids had to learn that you don't want to borrow too heavily from the bank because when that 10% interest hits it can be hard. Also you don't want to buy too much that you don't have enough cash available to pay any debts that come througout the year. The first time my son had to pay interest he made it his business to pay off his banknote as soon as he could. That's the sort of thing I like to see in him. We had to help him do some of the thinking, though with his head still being a little out of it for complex thought.

I think this is one of the best games out there for a kid to learn about money and borrowing. It also shows that a lot can go wrong with farming and how prices for crops can often just be luck. It is still available for sale. I think our copy is actually from 1979, the year it was introduced (it was originally my Grandmother's).

It's a long game though. We set it aside after an hour and a half with plans to return to it later today. The first person to amass $250,000 wins. That could seriously take a while.

I came back from my appointment this afternoon and my mother had put chicken wire up on my garden fencing. I didn't even have to go buy any, because she had some left over. Some days my mother is awesome. LOL And the chickens didn't jump it, or if they did, they didn't dig anything up. I think Queen is still a bit disgruntled though. She thinks she can go anywhere and do anything (hence the name) and is a bit put out that she's not allowed in that particular playground anymore. Though I do think the cantaloupe made up for it somewhat.

I harvested a bunch of lettuce leaves this afternoon. I think I lost one lettuce plant. It's hard to tell, but I think there might be some tiny leaves coming up from the center so it might still come back for me. It got partially uprooted somehow. My guess is that it happened during Saturday's major rainstorm and I just did not notice. I think I have enough lettuce for the next four days, which should be about when it needs to be picked again. I love leaf lettuce. In the right climate it can go all summer.

I'd say I've now harvested at least $10 worth of lettuce. I've spent $59.08 on gardening this year, so I've now just to harvest another $49.08 worth of produce to break even. I may buy a packet of lettuce seeds though if it gets hot and this stuff bolts. So far I seem to be getting 3 sunny days to 4 rainy cool days in a week this growing season though, and we have it where it only gets morning sun and afternoon shade, so it's possible it won't bolt. You just never know with cool season crops around here.

I cut DS's hair tonight. I think that clippers has paid for itself 100 times over. We've had it for many years now. I always cut DS's hair or DH's hair (unless he does it himself because he gets too impatient for me to find the time. During the school year I usually give DS a 3/4 inch haircut with whitewalls around the ears, but since we are going into summer this haircut is a 1/2 inch one. That is what I generally give DH all the time. He likes his a bit shorter. DS generally likes his a little longer, but he gets too hot in the summer for that. It looks very handsome on him either way. His sister can't stop rubbing his head though. It's all soft and fuzzy now. We put his hair in the compost bin. He laughed about that.

On occasion I will trim DD's bangs or her ends, but she is more finicky about her hair now that she is in high school and mostly only lets me do that in the summer. I used to cut it all the time when she was little. Sometimes I'd be snipping a stray bit here and there for days afterwards to even it out, but generally I did a pretty good job of it towards the end. The trick (besides having good haircutting scissors) is to put the hair up and only cut one layer at a time. Otherwise it is just going to be a jagged mess. When I have bangs I cut those to, but most of the time my hair is grown out and I don't bother with it. I just put it in a ponytail. I get it cut maybe once a year, sometimes twice.

I forgot to mention in the earlier post today about Food Rescue that I also brought some honey back to liquid form. I simply put the glass honey jar in a container of very hot water and the partially crystalized stuff on top returned to liquid form. I will have to do it again the next time I need honey I am sure, but it doesn't take very long, maybe 20 minutes and since I rarely use more than 2 tbsp at a time it works fine.

I really need to do a payday entry. I did all my bills on Friday and updated my spreadsheet and even balanced my checkbook, but I haven't gotten around to pulling together a post about it. Maybe because I'm just so tired and it's fun writing about the other things that I do, but sometimes the financial housekeeping just makes me yawn.

It's been a very busy weekend for me, hence me being quieter than usual here. My daughter and I went down to Burlington yesterday and I picked up some more glass Pyrex dishes with the BPA free lids. I'm really wanting to phase out my plastic usage as much as I possibly can. We also went to another kitchen store and I picked up another Hamilton Beach professional loaf pan. I had bought one last time we were down there and loved it so much that I wanted to get another one the next time we went, so I did. These pans are incredibly good. I don't have to grease them at all. The bread just slides right out, no sticking.

We spent a lot of time at the Cascade Mall looking for a neon green t-shirt for my daughter. Nothing. I did find two nightgowns though to replace some pretty worn and holey summer nightgowns that I have had for probably over ten years. I got a lovely green one and a pretty red one in the same style and they were on sale. I so rarely shop for myself that it pleases me greatly when I can get something useful that will last for several years when it is on sale.

I also got a new pair of slip-on sandals. Surprisingly, they are by Nike. I haven't worn anything by Nike since 7nth grade when the ball of my foot became too wide to wear anything they made. It was a little weird for me to pay that much for a pair of shoes, but they were so well-cushioned and comfortable that I decided it was worth the splurge. I have been looking for a good pair of these for ages.

I used to have ones made by Van's but my son lost them when he was goofing around wearing my shoes and I haven't been happy with anything I've tried on since. I know that I will be able to wear them for years. I really love them, except I wish they did not have the silver swoosh on the tops. Otherwise they are solid black. I am not really a brand person when it comes to clothing, my favorite brand of jeans is WalMart leggings, so I find the swoosh very ostentatious. But I will put up with it for the comfort.

Anyway, that is how I spent my monthly allowance this time. 2 nightgowns, 1 pair of sandals, and some Pyrex. Woo hoo. I am so practical. But all of these things make me happy so that is okay.

We never did find DD a neon shirt there, but we found one today locally at a place called Instinct, which is new to our mall. They had a shirt and a pair of shorts in exactly the color she wanted and they were on sale, too. Woo hoo. I love that.

I also bought DS his first pair of brand name shoes that were not soccer cleats. It was far more than I have ever spent on a pair of shoes for him, but nothing fits him. We tried five different shoe stores. Surprisingly, he ended up with Nikes. He has issues with how shoes grip his ankles and the way he can spread his toes in the toe box and he actually found three pairs of Nikes that fit. And he has enough room in them to grow so he should be able to wear them for a good chunk of the 7nth grade.

DS has never been brand conscious and has happily worn plain (but brightly colored) sweat pants, Kmart swishies, and Goodwill, handed down, and garage sale t-shirts and polos for years. If it had been a thing of "I want Nikes and only Nikes," I would have snapped him right out of that, or made him save up his allowance and aluminum can money for it, but they truly were the only things that fit. We weather proofed them as soon as we got home as I want them to last and remain nice for as long as possible.

I don't know if I mentioned or not, but I did put up some wire fencing (from the old house) around the garden, since Queen was digging stuff up. I also put down straw around the plants to help hide that pretty brown dirt that the silly chicken likes to dig up. I need to buy some chicken wire to keep her out of there, as the fencing isn't enough and she can sort of slip between it.. I will use zip ties to attach it to the wire fencing.

I still need to get the broccoli and dill into the ground. Waiting on Mom to dig up those irises still.

I made 2 loaves of bread today instead of one. DH comes home on Wednesday so I figured there wasn't much point in making only one loaf. He eats a lot of bread so I make more when I know he will be around. I have decided to use one cup of whole wheat flour in my recipe. It takes 4.5 cups of flour. It makes the bread a little heartier without sacrificing the lightness of it.

I make a very easy dinner tomorrow night using some of the bread. But that belongs in my meal planning post.

I finished planting the long strip of garden today. I put in the pickling cucumbers around the poppies, since we'll be pulling the poppies after they bloom. The cukes are tiny now but they will expand to fill the space. I also put in three hills of burpless cucumbers further down. In the photo below they are where the two trellises and the smaller stake are at. The large stake is for the pole beans. I will probably find a couple more stakes for that since there are six plants there.



I got the other three tomato plants in the ground and now all six have cages. Mom had a bunch of cages left over from several years ago. I put in the purple basil and the tri-color sage in front of the tomatoes and by the other herbs. Then I put in 14 cauliflower plants. They were supposed to be six packs, but each one had an extra little one in them. I don't know if they'll take or not, but I consider them a bonus anyway. They are in the middle row in front of the cucumbers and beans and all the way down. The first row of plants that are more closely spaced are the 24 plugs of kohlrabi. It is one of my favorite vegetables and part of the brassica family.

The only thing I haven't planted is the broccoli. They aren't overgrowing their pots yet and Mom has decided she is going to pull up her irises, take out the weeds and divide them, then replant them elsewhere so then we can move the compost over to where they were and plant the broccoli between the tomatoes and the compost bin. I'd prefer to just plant them where the irises were and work in some good compost first, but Mom is being Mom and once she gets an idea into her head it's hard to change her mind.

The three older hens came up to keep me company, but they kept heading back over to the old garage pad where the Crown Vic is parked. There are lots of tasty weeds that grow up through the cracked pad and lots of bugs that make their home there.



While I was working the wind kept bringing the heady, sweet scent of roses from our rose tree. Okay, technically it's an apple tree, but the roses have grown up into it so much you can hardly tell where one ends and the other begins.



The ducks and chickens like to shelter under this tree and in it (note the bird in the crotch) during the heat of the day. We keep it muddy there and they really enjoy it. They also like to hide under there when I take pictures.



They spend most of the day, however, on the greener side of this fence where they have plenty of room to roam, but are still fenced in as they are too young to know not to wander out of our yard or the neighbor's yard. (She likes them to come over and fertilize her garden! Not to mention the extra eggs that will be coming her way when the chicks start laying in about six more weeks.)



All in all, it was a very productive day and I am looking forward to a good harvest towards the end of the summer. I sure hope it all comes to fruition and that the weather will be good for growing.

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

Meal planning has been working very well this week. And leftover management has been incredible since they put a microwave in the cafeteria for the students on Monday. DS has been taking quesadillas made with leftover chicken or potroast and the containers are coming back either empty or mostly empty. He's actually eating! And I don't feel horrible if he wastes another sandwich made with expensive additive free deli meat. And when he doesn't eat it all, he has been eating it for a late evening snack after tae kwon do. He's always hungry after tae kwon do.

I haven't wasted anything this week and we have all been very happily eating up whatever leftover vegetables there are from the previous day at the current day's dinner. It's nice not to have to make side dishes every single day, just to reheat them. I think the switch to organic veggies all the time is what is making them so appealing. They just taste better.

I do want to get some more Pyrex containers with BPA-free lids. I particularly want to get the 4 cup and 6 cup sizes. It is just so nice to be able to clearly see what is in the fridge and to also be able to heat things up in the same dishes without worrying about discoloration or leaching and without making extra dishes to then clean.

I am in the process of reading American Wasteland by Jonathon Bloom, who also runs the blog

www.wastedfood.com. It is very eye-opening and it is reaffirming my commitment to try to stop food waste in this house and to grow and eat our own food as much as we can.

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

I made chicken from the ranch tonight. I had Mom talk me through cutting it up and she showed me where to look for the joints to cut through. I had done it before when I was fourteen and she taught me how, but it had been so long since I'd done it, I just couldn't really remember. I had read about it in the copy of The Cook's Illustrated Complete Poultry Cookbook, but it helped to have her going over it with me. I think I can do it next time on my own. Buying whole chickens is definitely in my future.

We fried it and it made a huge difference. It was much better than the one we roasted, although I still don't find it to be as stunning as I expected after eating their beef and pork. After dinner I picked the meat off the remaining breast and back pieces to make DS's quesadillas with. I put those bones into my soup stock bag. And I set aside the one thigh that was left to be eaten whole for my lunch tomorrow. Being as it is a 3.5 pound chicken there isn't enough to make enchiladas, too. I'd need a 4 pound chicken for that, I think.

I also finished off the last broken half of a peanut butter cookie and all the crumbs in the cookie jar with my dinner tonight. I will probably make more tomorrow after I go to the Food Co-op and get more freshly ground peanut butter. I still have probably enough left for one batch, but I wanted to wash out the jar and let it dry overnight. The crumbs were just as tasty as a full, whole cookie, despite what my kids might think.

I cleaned out my purse and found $6.63 (and only $1 of that was a bill), so that went into my coin jar. It looks like I have enough to roll pennies and quarters and possibly dimes. I know nickles are close but I don't think I added enough to hit it.

I will figure it out tomorrow. I have over $30 in ones so it's time to make a deposit regardless.

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

Spending today--I stopped at Haggen to get cauliflower and broccoli. They just happened to have a one gallon pot full of pole bean sprouts and some regular cucumbers for eating not pickling, so I will have quite the variety there.

I also bought a pineapple while I was there. I should have bought milk, too, but I forgot. There's enough left for DS to have breakfast. I don't drink milk in the morning and neither does DD. We just have it at dinner and drink water the rest of the time.

I spent $18.05 there. For the plants alone I spent $5.98.

So $53.06 was my previous total on garden stuff.

$53.06
+_5.98
-------------
$59.08 total spent on gardening this year

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

After that I stopped by Youngstocks and got fresh Rainier cherries and some corn on the cob. I spent $11.93 there for four ears of corn (.50 each) and the rest on the cherries. I will not buy anymore fruit now until this all gets eaten and so does some of the stuff I have from before I bought all this friut yesterday and today.

That was all of the spending I did today.

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

My son had his orchestra concert tonight. It was really good. They've improved a lot, which is more than I can say for the 7nth graders, but it was mostly a good concert.

I had to make two stops to find all of the plants I wanted. Well, I say all. I still didn't find any pole beans. Well, actually I did, but they were so ratty looking I didn't even think my green thumb could nurse them back to health. I ended up getting some bush bean seeds instead. I prefer pole beans because you can grow them up instead of out, but at this rate I'll deal.

We (I brought Mom along as she wanted to get some things, too) went to Joe's Garden first. I got:

$6.00 24 kohlrabi plugs
$2.98 12 cauliflower plants
$3.98 large tri-color sage
$2.78 large purple basil
--------
$15.74 total spent at Joe's

They didn't have any cucumbers or broccoli so we stopped at Terra Organica. They don't have six pack pots, they have 4 pack pots. Things are a little more expensive there, too, because it's not just pesticide free but also organic. I got:

$1.59 4 pk standard green broccoli
$1.59 4 pk Romanesco broccoli
$1.59 4 pk purple sprouting broccoli
$2.99 1 roma tomato
$2.99 1 Striped Roman tomato
$2.99 1 some other tomato I forget but it's purple
$1.59 1 pickling cucumber
$1.59 1 pickling cucumber of a different variety
$1.59 1 English cucumber
$2.39 1 pack of regular and 1 pack of purple beans
$1.19 1 pack of bunching onions
----------
22.09


$15.74
+22.09
----------
$37.83 spent today on gardening
+15.23 spent previously this season
----------
$53.06 total spent for the garden

I am pretty sure I won't need to buy any more plants and I know I will more than make up for the cost of that with what I produce. Organic produce is expensive so I'm sure I'll make up the cost of it within the first week of good harvesting. The lettuce has actually already paid for itself. I've had at least ten 2 cup salads from it. A large container of organic greens is $5 and I paid $3.98 for my 12 lettuces. I only need to harvest another $49.08 worth of veggies to break even.

I may need to get some twine and possibly some more stakes or tomato cages, but I need to take a run out to the old house to look for them as I am sure we have them there unless the neighbors walked off with them (wouldn't be the first time, since no one lives there currently). I am planning on going out there tomorrow to mow the lawn if the weather holds so I can look then.

Gas prices are going back down here though the range is still pretty ridiculous. It is $3.89 per gallon at Costco and $4.59 a gallon nearer my home. I decided that with a 70 cents (!!!!) per gallon difference it was worth it to go over to Costco today. I went right after I dropped DS off at school. There was still a wait, but it was closer to ten minutes instead of a half an hour. It amazes me how many people let their cars run the entire time they are waiting in line. It was 63 degrees so no one needed their air conditioning or heater on, but over half the cars were running while waiting.

I also went to the credit union. They had misapplied the last prepayment on principle for the mortgage to the regular payment so I had to get that straightened out. It's still showing online as wrong, but I have a printout of it as right so hopefully the online one will catch up in a day or two. I should have caught this a week ago, but at least I still caught it this month.

I got $100 out of savings. I will replace it on Friday. I want to go get some plant starts today, but I didn't want to run my checkbook all the way down to zero. I know I have the account balanced, but I just prefer to keep a little money in there until payday in case I did the math wrong somewhere. I am always paranoid about that. Although if it did for some reason go under, my CU automatically transfers money from savings for a $1 fee. Still, I'd rather save myself the fee.

I also need to go to the library and turn in some books. It's more or less on the way to Joe's so that shouldn't be too difficult. As long as the five minute drop off parking spaces are available I will drop them off. I don't want to pay a quarter just to turn in books. And I can't just park in the handicapped spots which don't require money in the meter and do it anymore, as my permit expired at the end of May. I don't think I will try to get it renewed, either as I am walking almost normally now. Unless I start hurting again, I think I can do without it.

I got a lot done today. I did clear off and clean off the counter on the other side of the sink like I'd planned so all of my counter space is now cleaned and organized. I have found all of the pieces to my Mr. Coffee Ice Tea Maker and DS has requested iced tea tomorrow. I did not get to the kitchen counter, but I did get to the garden.

I did far more in the garden than planned. The rain finally stopped at about 4 today and by 7 it was all dry outside so the kids and I went out to weed enough space next to the compost bin (did I mention it's set up now? I'm too excited about having one again!) to transplant three tomato plants, 3 herbs, and what turns out to be two zucchini in my one plant pot.

We ended up clearing a lot more than that and then Mom came out and worked for a half an hour and we ended up clearing a space that is about four to five feet wide by forty feet long. Two of the older chickens helped (i.e. got in the way and ate all the spiders, bugs, and worms we uncovered). I wish they could actually do the weeding, too. They certainly dig and kick the dirt around enough and you have to watch out not to get a mouthful. Ask me how I know.

We dumped all the weeds and greens into the main chicken enclosure and the flock will eat most of them happily over the next few days.

We pulled up a bunch of volunteer potato plants. I was surprised at how many of them had potatoes growing on them. We ended up harvesting about 7 pounds worth. I was going to go make a special trip to Trader Joe's tomorrow so I could buy some organic potatoes, but now I don't have to and I have enough for at least three meals. And it's my favorite price--free!

I won't buy non-organic potatoes anymore. Not after I read about how they are grown and the poison they spray on them to kill the bugs. Humans aren't even allowed to go into the fields after they are sprayed for a ridiculous number of days because it is so dangerous. I can't remember if it was 10 days or 2 weeks. And then when they are harvested the potatoes have to sit in a shed for a year before the government deems them "safe enough" to eat. No thank you. That is one vegetable that I am not going to take chances on again.

We have plenty of volunteer potatoes coming up in the main chicken enclosure, too. Those ones have been nicely fertilized with chicken manure hay that was cleaned out of the coop, so we will get a healthy amount of them, I'm sure.

Now there is so much space that I am going to go ahead and plant green beans, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, English cucumbers, pickling cucumbers as well as three more tomato plants. I will go to Joe's Garden

http://www.joesgardens.com/ to get most of it. they grow everything without pesticides there. I have seeds for beans and green onions.

We left in some flowers as I believe in interplanting flowers with vegetables. There were some double pink poppies that will bloom in about a week. They volunteer all over the place and look like this when blooming:



There were also some orange flowers that volunteered as well. I am not sure what they are but they look like this:



I think it's going to be a very nice garden when it is done. I just hope I don't hurt tomorrow and that it is also a nice day for planting. I'll try to remember to snap some before and after photos.

I got a lot done today. I did clear off and clean off the counter on the other side of the sink like I'd planned so all of my counter space is now cleaned and organized. I have found all of the pieces to my Mr. Coffee Ice Tea Maker and DS has requested iced tea tomorrow. I did not get to the kitchen counter, but I did get to the garden.

I did far more in the garden then planned. The rain finally stopped at about 4 today and by 7 it was all dry outside so the kids and I went out to weed enough space next to the compost bin (did I mention it's set up now? I'm too excited about having one again!) to transplant three tomato plants, 3 herbs, and what turns out to be two zucchini in my one plant pot.

We ended up clearing a lot more than that and then Mom came out and worked for a half an hour and we ended up clearing a space that is about four to five feet wide by forty feet long. The chickens helped (i.e. got in the way and ate all the spiders, bugs, and worms we uncovered). I wish they could actually do the weeding, too. They certainly dig and kick the dirt around enough and you have to watch out not to get a mouthful. Ask me how I know.

We dumped all the weeds and greens into the main chicken enclosure and the flock will eat most of them happily over the next few days.

We pulled up a bunch of volunteer potato plants. I was surprised at how many of them had potatoes growing on them. We ended up harvesting about 7 pounds worth. I was going to go make a special trip to Trader Joe's tomorrow so I could buy some organic potatoes, but now I don't have to and I have enough for at least three meals. And it's my favorite price--free!

I won't buy non-organic potatoes anymore. Not after I read about how they are grown and the poison they spray on them to kill the bugs. Humans aren't even allowed to go into the fields after they are sprayed for a ridiculous number of days because it is so dangerous. I can't remember if it was 10 days or 2 weeks. And then when they are harvested the potatoes have to sit in a shed for a year before the government deems them "safe enough" to eat. No thank you. That is one vegetable that I am not going to take chances on again.

We have plenty of volunteer potatoes coming up in the main chicken enclosure, too. Those ones have been nicely fertilized with chicken manure hay that was cleaned out of the coop, so we will get a healthy amount of them, I'm sure.

Now there is so much space that I am going to go ahead and plant green beans, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, English cucumbers, pickling cucumbers as well as three more tomato plants. I will go to Joe's Garden

http://www.joesgardens.com/ to get most of it. they grow everything without pesticides there. I have seeds for beans and green onions.

We left in some flowers as I believe in interplanting flowers with vegetables. There were some double pink poppies that will bloom in about a week. They volunteer all over the place and look like this when blooming:



There were also some orange flowers that volunteered as well. I am not sure what they are but they look like this:



I think it's going to be a very nice garden when it is done. I just hope I don't hurt tomorrow and that it is also a nice day for planting. I'll try to remember to snap some before and after photos.

We've been so overwhelmed by life in general lately that some of the chores have been falling by the wayside. To that end I decided this week to take back my house. Sunday I cleaned out the freezer, tossed all the stuff that was freezer burned or looked yucky and was past the use by date I'd marked on the container. Admittedly this started as something that we needed to do to store the beef, chicken and pork we'd brought back from the ranch.

On Sunday I cleaned out all of laundry baskets, put everything away and stacked them neatly together. I also finally got caught up on all the laundry in the house at the time.

On Monday I cleaned out the refrigerator and scrubbed out all the gunky stuff that had collected at the bottom.

On Tuesday I cleaned the bathroom.

On Wednesday I cleaned out the microwave because it was taking longer and longer to heat things. It might be going out, or it might be that layer of stuff that splatters against the top because no one but me ever uses a cover on their food.

On Thursday I scrubbed out the sink and then rearranged the cupboards.

On Friday I cleaned out the massive pile of bags and empty boxes that were in the corner to the left of the microwave, scrubbed the countertops down and then moved the microwave into the corner but at an angle so there is space behind it and on both sides. I thought it might be blocking the fans the way it was before, which could also have accounted for slower cooking.

I took the bread machine, which I only use for making the dough, and moved it next to the sink, just at the end of the cupboards so that I can now close all my doors. I also moved the toaster over next to the microwave. And I also put the pint size canning jars in a box next to the breach machine so they were off the kitchen table.

Tomorrow I will tackle the counter on the other side of the sink and the kitchen table, which has become a catch all of late. We've been eating up at Mom's table, but I would like to have ours back again. I also hope to get my new herbs, zucchini, and tomato plants planted. The weather let up this evening and hopefully it will be nice tomorrow, too.

I don't think that I even paid the slightest bit of attention to the schedule this week when I made up the meal plan. Monday was an airport day and we didn't even end up eating until almost 8 p.m. Yesterday and today DS had tae kwon do so planning elaborate food for those days just doesn't make sense. He has belt testing tomorrow at the inconvenient time of 5:30 to 6:30, which is our usual meal time. When he goes to classes he goes to the 6:50 class so that works out great with our schedule, but testing never does.

Tonight I just ended up making spaghetti, ground beef, fruit and salad, because I did not want to babysit food for a long period of time. I did make buns and cloverleaf rolls (same dough) today though, so I can make burgers tomorrow.

I guess the important point is I have a bunch of meal ideas ready and I have the food to implement them, so I don't have to run out and get what I need, it's all here. And no matter how tempting it might be to go to Boomer's and get burgers tomorrow, mine will taste better (although it's close with them and their mostly from scratch food, my buns and flavors still beat theirs, but their patties are great) and be less expensive even with pastured beef and pork in the mix.

So Friday will get to be chicken. It's still not quite thawed all the way through. Next time I want to make it on a Wednesday I will take it out on a Sunday morning when I put the roast in the crockpot. I am really looking forward to eating this chicken on Friday. We haven't had their chicken yet at all, but between the amazing beef and the incredible pork, I'm pretty sure the chicken will be impressive as well.

One thing I'm worried about is whether or not we'll make it through all the bread this week. DS managed to lose 3 teeth this week, his last ones, thankfully, but he can't chew through the meat sandwiches right now. DD isn't eating bread much as she went on the same controlled-carb eating plan as me in the last two days and bread is not what she reaches for the one time a day she can have high carbs. It's fruit or corn or potatoes and milk. Mom had claimed she was going to eat it, but then she got annoyed with herself because she wouldn't stop eating it, so now she's gone back to eating the tasteless storebought stuff that doesn't tempt her to eat it. *shakes head* A little self-control around the good-tasting bread would be enough, you know?

DS did want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tonight, so at least 2 more slices of bread are gone and everyone had a cloverleaf roll. I made six buns for hamburgers even though I will only be making four hamburgers. I know my mother and she will filch a bun before I get to making the burgers. The fifth one is just back up.

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

If nothing else it will contribute to the ducks' diet. Two of the ducks seem to have paired up, so we figure they are a boy and a girl. Not sure if the other two are both girls or both boys or one of each and just behind the curve of Patches and Inigo Montoya. I hope this means we'll have duck eggs. I used the last of the ones I bought at the food co-op in the buns and rolls I made today I really do think they make a superior baked good.

One of the chickens was making a noise slightly reminiscent of a rooster learning to crow. I hope not. If there is a rooster we are not allowed to keep one in the city limits and we will have to take him to a farm like we did with one of the first set.

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

I went to the Food Co-op to buy flour. Between pizza, rolls, and bread I will use about 12 to 13 cup a week. I picked up an 8 pound bag, but I think DH and I will definitely go down to the flour mill and see about getting a 50 pound bag because I am going through it pretty fast on the weeks Chris is home and reasonably fast otherwise.

I also bought some more organic, sustainably raised plant starts there, one basil, one oregano, one thyme, (all three of which I want to dry as I use them in all of my Italian sauces. I also bought a yellow zucchini start and 2 organic heirloom tomato plants. One is a good Italian Roma so that'll make good sauce or paste and the other is an early producer called Moscowitz.

I also picked up 2 dozen of the Camano Island pasture-raised eggs. Two of our hens have been hiding their nesting areas so only one is leaving eggs where we can find them. No way can anyone have enough with one egg a day. These eggs are just as good as theirs though. And the youngsters aren't quite old enough to be laying yet. Maybe by summer's end. Then we'll be giving them away.

I also stopped and got a gallon of Organic Valley milk at Haggen. Just one, though. I am still going to try to find a place that has the holstein homogenized glass bottled milk from local cows. I know it exists.

Note to self: When you put bacon cheeseburgers on the meal plan, you need to make sure you remember to actually make buns that morning.

Yeah, I forgot that and I didn't want to run and buy them from the store. Now that I have gotten into the swing of making bread and rolls again, I don't particularly want to eat the other stuff anymore. So I will make buns tomorrow and we will have bacon cheeseburgers tomorrow and I will bump everything on the meal plan by a day. Except Sunday, which will still be potroast. Saturday's meal can move to Monday or something.

This is just as well as I don't think the chicken will be thawed by tomorrow night anyway and I prefer to thaw things in the fridge instead of in the micro. I mean I'll use the micro if I need to, but I just prefer the other way, because sometimes the micro will cook the edges and the center will still be frozen and that's just a pain to deal with.

We had Thursday's corn and Wednesday's broccoli so I will have to rearrange things a bit but that is no big deal. Oh, and we had pork chops from the ranch for the protein. Oh, my gosh, I have never tasted such good pork chops in my life. I think this farm is the best thing that ever happened to us foodwise.

Tomorrow I will also make up one of my lunchtime low carb meatloaves. I usually make those twice a week so I don't have to think at lunch, I can just heat and eat. Sometimes I will only make one a week as I can get sick of it (though I rarely do and a few days off from it and I'm back to eating it). I usually add something green (cucumbers, celery) or salad greens.

I harvested the first greens from my window box garden today. I absolutely love fresh greens and these are so pretty and vibrant.



Of course this not so little guy was hanging out in the front garden.



Fortunately he was nowhere near my lettuce up on the deck. I don't think he'd be quite that brave with so many other tender plants to eat further away from human habitation.

I've got lots of blossoms on my organic heirloom brandywine tomato plant. I hope that bodes well for a good harvest.

So last night I made bread again. I swear there is nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house. I had a minor disaster with one of the loaves. I had turned the oven on to preheat and apparently one of the loaves was too close to the vent that steam comes out of near the back of the stove. When I picked it up to put it in the oven I dropped that end, so of course the dough fell on that end pretty badly.

At first my thought was to just throw it out. One loaf was worth 25 cents worth of ingredients, but then I thought 25 cents is 25 cents, so instead I decided to just bake it anyway. If nothing else it could be made into croutons or breadcrumbs, and at the very worst fed to the ducks. They love it when you scatter bread on their little pond.

I'm glad I baked it though. What I ended up with was one light and fluffy, beautiful perfect loaf of bread and one denser, heavier, heartier type of bread. So the perfect loaf I cut up this morning (it's so much easier to cut thin slices with cold bread than with hot or even slightly warm bread) and we will use that one for sandwiches and toast, and the denser loaf, I cut into thicker pieces and that can be dinner bread. It's perfect for dipping in chili or putting garlic butter on or just smearing with jelly.

How often do you catch yourself thinking it's only 25 cents or it's only a dollar? When you do, what do you do about it? Do you throw the item out or do you tell yourself waste is waste and try to salvage it? I'm not talking about something moldy or icky, but just something usable if not in the way you previously intended.

I spent a lot of time trying to train myself out of the "it's only" mindset. If I had let that run rampant, I wouldn't have an emergency fund today. After all I mostly built it with ones and coins in the beginning and "only" $10 a month deposit. Now my montly deposit is $100, but at the start it wasn't. I had a lot of people who told me saving the little bits would never add up to something, but I've proven over and over again in my life that it does.

So yeah, maybe that 25 cent loaf of dough going into the garbage can instead of the oven wouldn't have been the end of the world, but I would have been wasting not only the cost of the ingredients used, but the time and effort to make the bread and also a place in the garbage can and eventually the landfill. Since I'm trying to lessen all of my household waste, not just food, that would have made me unhappy.

Speaking of lessening household waste, DH brought one of the compost bins in from the old house. We are going to try to get it reassembled today and then I can start on composting here. There are so many food scraps that the chickens won't eat and that the garbage disposal does not want to tackle, like onion skins, corn husks, cauliflower cores, cabbage cores, broccoli stems, pineapple skins, and long potato peelings. We probably throw out at least one kitchen-sized garbage sack full of that every two weeks (not that I save it, I'm estimating based on a little every day).

It'll be nice to turn those into compost. And with the straw that we clean out of the chicken coop and duck den (full of manure) each morning and the grass clippings from the untreated lawn, there will be plenty of brown and green waste to mix in with the scraps to have a healthy pile going in no time. And next spring we'll have a very big bin of compost for the garden. Now if I can just get DH to empty the other bin out at the old house and bring it in for my tomato garden, I'd be really happy.

So I sat down and figured out the food for the week, based on what I already have in the house. Except the corn. I will need to buy more corn, but they have been having sales left and right. I also need to buy some bananas, but I think that is it, so my grocery spending should be minimal. I may need to buy milk mid-week, also, but otherwise I think I'm good. So maybe I will spend $25. Which is good as I am intending to spend $300 on sustainable beef, chicken, and pork on Saturday.

Oh, my lettuces are big enough for me to start harvesting leaves, so I think I am done with buying lettuce for the next month or so until the plants bolt. And my heirloom brandywine tomato plant shot up during the three day heatwave. It almost doubled in size. It's started setting blossoms. I need to plant a few more things now. Cucumbers, green onions, and green beans. Just need to do it.

I have pizza dough rising for dinner tonight, have shredded up a 2 pound block of mozzarella cheese, and have prepared garlic butter. I am feeling particularly domestic diva-ish this week with all of this baking and whatnot. Later tonight I am going to make up some homemade turkey corn dog. DS likes to eat a corndog after school to tide him over until dinner. Actually, I might make corn puppies instead, as I don't think we have any sticks. Anyway, here is the food plan for the week.

Monday:
Pizza with ham, pepperoni, yellow onions, red peppers, mozzarella cheese, a sprinkling of cheddar. I will also make my homemade pizza sauce, which basically consists of half a can of organic tomato sauce sprinkled with basil, oregano, marjoram, and thyme.
Homemade bread, toasted, with homemade garlic butter
Leftover organic broccoli/cauliflower
Organic strawberries

Tuesday:
Tropical Chicken Stir-Fry (carrots, snow peas, bean sprouts, celery)
Rice

Wednesday:
Spaghetti with homemade sauce (I have some in the freezer)
Three cheese garlic meatballs
Homemade bread, toasted, with homemade garlic butter
Organic salad

Thursday:
Organic, pasture raised roasted duck
Roasted potatoes and carrots
Green beans
Organic bananas

Friday:
Organic, pasture-raised beef Ribeye steaks
Homemade buns
Organic Broccoli/Cauliflower
Cantaloupe

Saturday:
Fried Chicken
Fried potaotes
Leftover organic broccoli/cauliflower
Pineapple

Sunday:
Organic, pasture-raised beef chuck roast
Organic mashed potatoes with beef gravy
Green beans
Whatever fruit needs to be eaten up

As many of you here at SA know, gardening can be expensive. And as many of you here know, it doesn't have to be. I have been wanting to get a spider plant for the bathroom for a while now. They are good at preventing mold and mildew from developing and now that the bathroom remodel is over I'm all for anything that will prevent that from being a problem.

I've priced them and the nice, lovely, huge ones at the garden stores are very expensive. And they don't seem to carry little ones. But my chiropractor has a beautiful large plant sitting on his front counter and I am forever eyeing it. Today he saw me looking at it and offered to let me take a start off of it. It's a prolific beast and he gives the babies away on occasion to prevent it overrunning its pot.

So I dug one out of the middle (you can't even see where I took it from) and wrapped it in a paper towel and brought it home. My mother gave me a pot to use that my cousin had given her full of some coleus that she brought home from a recent trip across the mountains and she'd just transplanted that. I cleaned out the pot and she gave me some potting soil she had and I planted it. It's been grown completely free of chemicals since he purchased it years ago and the potting soil I planted the baby in is organic.

This is what my little baby spider plant looks like now:



But with proper care it will one day look like this:



And for no out of pocket cost to me. I have exactly what I wanted for free and in time it'll be a thriving, gorgeous plant. I love how gardeners, or even indoor ones, are so generous with their plants.

This is growing on the back walk:



and to give you an idea of its size, here's one of it being held open by my fifteen-year-old daughter's hands:



And I put $9.46 in the coin jar today after cleaning out my purse.

Today was such a beautiful day that I finally got around to planting my lettuce. I am now the proud owner of two long window boxes full of romaine and red leaf lettuces. The starts have been sitting around in their little boxes for two weeks now and it almost seemed like they were very happy to stretch their feet (er, roots) in their new habitat.

I also commandeered one of my mother's large pots and planted an heirloom brandywine tomato plant that I bought at the organic food store today. I don't know if the chickens will bother a tomato plant or not, but I really didn't feel like tempting them by putting it into the ground. The older hens are trained not to go up on the front deck though they pretty much have free range of the rest of the property and the half grown chicks and the not so little ducks can't fly well enough to get out of their very large fenced area so they won't be going up there either.

I may end up transplanting the tomato plant again when it gets bigger. They don't tend to pick on plants that are bigger than themselves. I'd like to do some cucumbers, green beans, broccoli and kohlrabi this season, too, but I am not sure I have the stamina to weed that much ground. I haven't gardened in about 3 years and I still can't sit on my knees since the surgery. I could do cucumbers in a pot, I suppose and maybe some bush beans that way, too. Maybe I can talk DS into clearing some ground for me for some extra cash. He's willing to do extra work for a dollar an hour. LOL He's a real bargain.

I had the leftover crockpot soup for lunch today while my daughter had her standard take to school lunch (whatever leftovers look good to her plus a wrap) and my son had hot lunch. He has it three to four times a month on nuggets, green beans, and mashed potatoes day, so every six or so weeks we deposit $15 into his account. I don't consider this outside the pantry challenge as the money was already in his account. Oh, and pancakes and eggs were for breakfast.

Today I made a simple pot of cappellini pasta for dinner. I almost opened a new package, but my sharp-eyed daughter noticed we had an open package with half a pound left. We used two cans of tomato sauce from the pantry and a pound of hamburger from the freezer. Not very fancy, but the kids like it more plain. We have leftovers and the kids eat pasta leftovers more readily than any other kind. I also made my simple cole slaw and opened a can of pineapple. At one point I must have bought two cases of pineapple from Costco so we have quite a bit to get through.

Tomorrow I really do need to remember to go to the store and get brown sugar and peanut butter. I will remember to get the milk, but I am sure I will forget the brown sugar and peanut butter, two things we actually need pretty desperately.

Tomorrow's breakfast is going to likely be cold cereal. I have three boxes of Joe's O's, but really only the space to keep two, so one of them needs to get eaten up. We'll have eggs with it.

I am really proud of the chickens. They are still laying well despite the cold and dark weather. Mom is talking about getting some new chicks soon and buying a brooder. She would keep that in the garage until they were big enough and the weather was warm enough to introduce them to the rest of the flock. It would be nice to extra eggs again. When DH is away, we do okay on eggs but when he is home we tend to run out and have to actually buy them sometimes.

The kids are trying to convince her to get ducks again, but they are really such a big pain and they don't behave as well as chickens. I think she should get a turkey. There are a couple of people in town who have small turkeys and they do really well in a chicken flock apparently. I want her to get more bantams, since of the four types we have the bantam's eggs are the tastiest, but she wants to get some chickens that are different colors than the ones she has. She wants a pretty flock. Oh, well, they are hers, so I guess she gets to decide, but I would go for the yummier eggs, if it were my choice.

She gave me the seed catalogue today and wants to know what I want out of it. It's Johnny's and boy do they have such a huge selection it's going to be tough. I know I want lettuces, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, basil, oregano, majoram, thyme, rosemary, parsley, green onions, green beans, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, snow peas, mini-cabbages, corn, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes, but really, the specific types may be harder to narrow down. Faster growers, certainly, but other than that, I don't know. I should see if there is a variety of sweet potato that will grow here. It probably doesn't get warm enough for long enough, but it's possible.

I need to sit down with my budget spreadsheet and figure out exactly what I need to do with the next paycheck. I'd like to send $2000 of it to debt repayment and then make sure that I have enough money set aside to cover the bills until the start of the next paycycle. There will be one more paycheck after that, the small one with two days on it, and that one I'd like to bank in it's entirety, part to the EF and part for future medical savings, but I might only be able to do one of those. One way or another though I am getting my EF up to $2000 this month.

DH's b'day is coming up and I know what he wants and how much it will cost so that is included in there, also. And his allowance has to come out of next week's check, too. I have been debating what to do with my allowance. DH gets $100 every six weeks.

I usually don't spend that much, usually getting a season or two of some show I want on DVD or something like that and using the rest on cooking magazines, but right now I don't want anything so I am thinking about setting it aside in another savings account. I've been toying with the idea of getting an Index Fund through Vanguard to generate some side income (the one I am looking at pays dividends). It costs $3000 to buy in. So it would take a while to save that much up, but what else am I going to do with it on the months where I have no interest in spending my allowance?

Today has been a slow day. I had to use the heater again last night and this time I left it on all night. Today is cool and about 65 with a breeze. I'm convinced we're never going to see any true summer weather here this season. I had physical therapy so $60 out for that.

We picked about 3 gallons of blueberries last night and there's still just so much more to do. I can't believe how much two six foot tall bushes can produce. I'll make another batch of cornbread blueberry muffings today, but that only uses about a cup of blueberries. We'll make jelly with about half of what we picked and freeze the other half for later use.

The two new chickens are finally old enough that they should start laying eggs soon. I keep hoping to go out there and find three or four instead of the usual one or two. The fun part is that when they start laying often times they will produce double yolk eggs for the first six months. The kids love having a fried double yolker.

Someone remind me why it's not a good idea to start up any kind of dialogue with a troll, and then whack me with a copy of the Complete Tightwad Gazette if I do. I don't even know if this person really believes what they are saying or is just trying to start arguments, but this person can't respond to anything without insulting the person she is talking to/and or making inflamatory comments in general. Very wrong inflamatory comments.

Oh, well, I am done with them. I am so used to friendly disagreemets on all the boards I'm on, that this person just threw me for a loop and I totally don't need the drama. I tend to hang out at nice places online, where people discuss things respectfully, so it always surprises me when a troll shows up and doesn't abide by the unwritten rules of niceness. It shouldn't but it does. I will just ignore this person in future.

Well, today was the perfect day for picking berries (beautiful and warm but with a good breeze) so I ambled out to the back yard and shooed the chickens to one side. (They like to peck at your toes, which is okay if you are wearing boots or shoes, but I was wearing flip flops because they are easier to wash off if you step in something they left behind). So far today I have picked two gallons of blueberries and a quart of blackberries. I have the bench out there to sit on as I am still not that steady on my feet and probably won't be for another couple weeks. Recovery takes time, I know this, but it sure would be nice to do things normally. At least I am healing well.

The Italian plums are starting to come on. They probably won't be ready until mid-September but it is nice to see how loaded the branches are. The apple tree has a lot of fruit on it, too, though it likely won't be ready until October. I wish DS wasn't allergic to apples. We usually end up giving away what the rest of us can't eat. No one here likes the texture of applesauce so there's not much point trying to preserve it. Usually we give it to the neighbors who have given us something earlier or will give us something later in the season. One neighbor has philberts and walnuts, another has grapes, and one always grows too many carrots. Then we progress to the free box at the end of the drive.

I've been reading some blogs on urban harvesting where people go around picking fruit from city trees that were planted to beautify the city, but the fruit always falls to the ground and goes to waste, and then they contribute it to the local foodbanks.

I found a great blog last night and have been reading it for hours. It's called

www.thesimpledollar.com. I really like his style and he covers a lot of things. I particularly like his book reviews and have found a couple that my library has so I put them on hold. He covers some very basic things like meal planning and recipes, but he also covers some more of the complex things like mutual funds, stocks and bonds. It's a good mix of information and he has lively writing so I don't get bored of him.

It's been a lovely day. My in-laws came and got the kids and took them to the family picnic.

I went for my daily walk around the yard today and I didn't feel faint at all, so maybe that has passed. I hope so. Then I sat in the yard in the sun for about five minutes next to the blackberries and plucked off about 2 cups worth of fat, ripe, juicy, dark berries (and there are plenty more coming on) and then moved over to the bench beside one of the blueberry bushes for another five minutes and got about 2 cups worth of luscious ripe little blueberries. My son was with me, making sure I didn't get dizzy and helping to pick. The blueberry bushes are loaded. I told mom she needs to get out there tonight when it is cooler or she is going to lose them to the birds. DS and DD will help her pick. I've exerted myself to the limit allowed for the day. Free is my favorite price for organic food. Maybe I will just go with the Jiffy cornbread and add blueberries in.

DH and I went out to work at the house today. Yard work, which I used to be so good at and now I just loathe it with a passion. Because of my knee I can't just sit on my knees and weed, which is really the best position for it. And one of our neighbors walked off with our little sit on rolly cart thing, so I can't use it either. I end up sitting on my backside with one leg stretched out and there is only so long you can do that for before it kills your back. Still, I managed to pull out a good amount of crab grass.

I also took and hacked down the clematis and honeysuckle vines. It had taken over that entire area and run way out of bounds. I'm sure it'll come back just fine as those four plants have been virtually impossible to kill for ten years.

I think we may end up using weed killer. I spent a lot of time being an organic gardner when I was healthy, but now I'm not and the weeds are just so rampant I think I'd rather spray and be done with it. I feel guilty about it, but at this rate I don't think we'll ever catch up. I have enough newspaper to maybe smother 3 flowerbeds, but since there are five and there are six garden beds as well, I just don't know.

I dunno, we might be able to hire someone to come in and just do it all organically, but that could cost an awful lot since there is so much to do. And because it is in the boonies. I kind of wish there was some place where you could just put it up for sale as is and buyer could deal with it all. It's not even like we want all that much for the place, really. Just enough to pay off the under $21,000 mortgage and enough for a good start on a downpayment on our next one (which will have virtually no yard at all, I swear). *sighs* I miss being able bodied.

At some point I'll have to go out with Mom and her truck to get all the plant material we tore out and weed eated today. I think we could fill the truck bed and then Mom could take it to the greenery recycling center for $2.