Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

$9797.66 Beginning EF Amount
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
-------------
$9807.66 New EF Amount

$192.34 to go to hit my goal of $10K.

I will be making another deposit today, but I am not sure how much yet. I've got my rolled coins and ones ready to go, but I also have a dividend check from the food co-op. I can only cash it at the food co-op, though, so whether or not it makes it into the deposit depends on whether or not we get there before banking hours end. This year's dividend check paid me back for the $5 yearly fee with .21 to spare.

The guy who was interested in our house and had it down to our house and another house, of course went with the other house. Everyone who has seen the house loves the house, they just aren't thrilled with how far away it is from town. Or their credit sucks and they can't get a mortgage.

Sometimes I wish I had a time machine so we could go back and not buy in the mountains. We could have waited one more year and bought in a better location, but we were so eager to get out of where we were and so tired of waiting. If I knew then what I know now...but hindsight is 20/20.

I am trying to stay positive, but I've been in a lot of pain this week and it just makes me get cynical. I am still waiting to hear back from the doctor's office about the MRI. I called on Friday, had contact yesterday and was told I'd be contacted today, but it didn't happen, so I will call tomorrow and see where things stand.

We took a pickup load of compost out to the lady who we sold our first rabbits to and got to see several litters (2 at almost butcher age, and two one weeks old litters). Coriander doesn't remember me anymore. She did the last time I saw her, but now she doesn't. Her kits were beautiful. She'd been bred with a chocolate silver fox and there was a beautiful range of colors in the nesting box. She's a very good mother, though I expect no less from one of Serenity's daughters.

I am trying to keep a positive attitude right now, but I do feel like I am being overwhelmed somewhat. With them taking so much more out of DH's paycheck for medical now, I kind of feel like we are back to living paycheck to paycheck. I know we aren't really, but the only things I feel like I am able to plan ahead for anymore are property taxes, upcoming propane costs, and dues. Besides those and the EF, I haven't been able to fund any of my funds.

I like having an Appliance Fund, a Christmas Fund, a Computer Fund, and such that I send money to each month. Now I can't do that. And I can't do a college fund, either. My daughter has decided she is going to work for 2 years after high school and save everything for college. At this point, we can't contribute. I'm not even sure college is right for her anyway. She's not really cut out for it.

Every year for the past 3, things seem to have gotten tighter and tighter, despite paying more and more things off. Taxes went up and took $500 of take home pay away from us, just as we paid off the credit cards. When we paid off the mortgage this year, it finally felt like we were going to have breathing room, but we don't. The increased medical, the increased plane fare, and the increased storage fees basically replaced the mortgage.

I know this won't last forever. We have less than 3 years left on the van loan. It's gotten down enough that we are only paying about $70 in interest each month and the majority of the payment is going to principal. I love our van and I still think it was a good decision to buy it, but I don't think we will ever buy a new vehicle again. And we'll not finance one again, either.

We have 4 years and 9 months left on what we owe to Mom. That's the big thing. If we didn't have to pay that $1000 each month things would not be tight. Or they'd be tight by choice because we'd be saving part of it and funneling the rest to retirement.

If our house sells it will make some differences. We won't have to be paying electricity, phone, water/sewer, security, HoA dues, property tax, and house insurance. We can save that money until we are ready to buy a house. Which at this rate won't be until we pay off the van.

DH hasn't gotten a raise in over 3 years. Which, no one has, but this year is a new contract and they are supposed to be doing raises. The new contract was signed a while back. The new medical is being deducted, but so far no one has received raises and it has been months. I am starting to think the company is going back on its word. Each year, with more money being taken out or going to taxes or going to increased plane fare, it is like taking a pay cut.

I know we have enough. DH's income is excellent. We are in a lot better shape than so many people. But I want to get ahead, not just tread water. It feels like we sacrifice and sacrifice to pay off all this stupid medical debt and our house and still have nothing to show for it. Which is stupid, because we do. We've taken trips and we've got decent things. We have a paid for home. But it still doesn't feel like it. I just want to be free of it all. Free of all debt. Every single scrap of it. And with enough money in the bank that I don't ever have to worry about it again. I don't know. Maybe that's a fantasy. But it's how I feel.

Well, thanks for listening now. I feel better getting it all out and I think I can stop feeling sorry for myself for a while now.

I haven't been posting a lot of meal plans lately, but I am being very careful about food. I've lost 12 pounds in 4 weeks, and the diet is going very well, though I did have one very bingey meal a couple of days ago. I didn't let it side-track me, though.

We are working our way through the small chest freezer right now. I am basing our meal planning on what is in there. I want to get it completely emptied out, chip out the ice build up (which isn't too bad) and then have it ready for us to use when we buy either half a hog or half a beef. Any money we save on the grocery bill by doing this will go towards our big meat purchase.

I had been leaning towards a hog, but with the pig people being so flakey and it being so much easier to find pasture-raised organic beef and less for pork, we may just go beef and keep getting selected cuts of pork from the one farm in the next county.

Anyway, my menu planning the rest of this week, based out of the stuff in the freezer and the garden.

Tuesday:
Sloppy Hoppies--ground rabbit meat, onion, peppers, tomato sauce, few other ingredients, on whole grain buns
Leftover mashed potatoes
Salad

Wednesday:
Beef stir-fry with onions and peppers
Strawberries

Thursday:
Barbecue Chicken
Sweet Potato fries
Coleslaw

Friday:
BBQ Korean Short Ribs
Japanese Fried Rice
Salad

Saturday:
Steaks
Baked Potatoes
Green beans

I am also going to be roasting a whole chicken and doing a roast in the crockpot for lunches. The kids will make quesadillas with the meat and DH will have sandwiches. I will just eat the meat straight on salad as I am still on my controlled carb diet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is a man who is close to making an offer on our old house. It is between our house and a house in a slightly different area of our state. Please pray that the guy will make the decision to buy our house. We really, really need to sell this thing and I want to be able to move forward with our lives again with big steps and not just baby ones. Or for God to send us someone who can make quick decisions and get on with it.

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

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

$120.00 Physical therapy
$300.00 Groceries/animal feed/canning suppies
$757.82 Van loan (plus extra)
__27.88 Power (old house)
_100.89 EF
_100.00 Property Tax Fund
_100.00 Propane Fund
__20.00 Dues Fund
_400.00 to Mom for utilities
__89.95 Medical
_164.24 Vision (Glasses payment, 3 months same as cash)
__54.35 Baker Lawn Care (Old House)
----------------
2235.16

We have decided since it is so hard to get up to the old house right now and because the weather has been constantly in the mid to high 80's, to hire a guy to mow the lawn at the old house when it gets out of hand. So about every 3 to 4 weeks. He did a good job and he lives in the area.

$9787.66 Beginning EF
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
------------
$9797.66 New EF Amount

This was specifically for someone, but I can't remember who.

http://youtu.be/MN0istrl7qw

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

Here's what I have so far:

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

What I feel I need to do still:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$9,686.77 Beginning EF Amount
___100.00 Monthly Deposit
+_____.89 Interest from CU#1
--------------
$9787.66 New EF Amount

$212.34 to go to meet my $10K goal.

Yukon Golds:



Corn:



Nectarines:

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

$9,676.77 Beginning EF Balance
+___10.00 Weekly Deposit Added
------------------
$9,686.77 New EF Balance

My daughter seems to be improving a little. Her tailbone feels a lot better. Her head is still giving her a lot of pain and she still has full on concussion symptoms. She is certainly a bit perkier and has started to get her appetite back. I appreciate all of the prayers and please keep them coming.

Prayer request please for my daughter who has fractured her skull and tailbone when she slipped in the creek at the park and fell on the rocks. She has a bad concussion (worse than the one my son had when he was 12 and you know how bad that was). They do think she will be okay, and the CT scan did not show swelling in the brain, but it will be a long time to heal. She is coherent, but has lost most of her memories of Saturday. Mostly it is just very painful. The good news is that she did not break her ankle or elbow and her ribs are just bruised, not cracked.

...was all the fees. With one kid starting as a freshman and one kid going back to complete her senior year I get to pay twice the fees. So far it is going to cost $80 for two ASB cards and $100 for two year books. If we wait until second semester to buy the year books it will be $130.

But starting off with $180 before even buying school supplies and clothes annoys me greatly. Maybe I will just do the ASB cards to start and see if I can postpone the yearbooks until next month.

I won't be doing school photos. Too expensive, no choices, and if they turn out bad there's no recourse unless the kid had his eyes shut. I'd rather take them to the mall were you get several choices to choose from if I want photos like that.

Not looking forward to packing sandwiches again or having to pay for deli meat. Still, in my physical condition, I just cannot homeschool this year, so it is what it is. /vent

$9,671.53 Beginning EF Balance
+____5.24 Interest Added
-------------
$9,676.77 Ending EF Balance

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.

$9,661.53 Beginning EF Update
+___10.00 Weekly Deposit
--------------
$9,671.53 Ending EF Update

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.

$9,651.53 Beginning EF Amount
+___10.00 Weekly Deposit
-------------
$9,661.53 Ending EF Amount

$338.47 to go to hit my $10K goal.

The Royal Palm turkeys with Gobbles strutting his stuff and full tall spread:

http://youtu.be/Mub2bRvXAOQ

The Welsh Harlequin ducks:

http://youtu.be/UUjHlsrguPg

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 think I'm in for some big medical expenses coming down the pike. I'm pretty sure I've torn the other meniscus in my left knee or possibly even the ACL. That's going to mean a doctor's visit and probably an x-ray before they'll do the MRI that it is going to need. Then a follow up visit for the MRI results. Then a referral to an orthopedic surgeon because I'm not going back to the one I had before. He has the bed side manner of...House. Or not anything so pleasant as that. And then surgery, follow-ups, more physical therapy.

I'm back to using my cane and am seriously thinking about using the walker. It hurts pretty ferociously right now. It hasn't hurt this much since the first time this happened and I had to have the original surgery. I'm using ice packs to try to keep the swelling down and Ibuprofen and oxycodone. Not a lot of fun.

I hate the idea of having to dip into the EF, which is what we would have to do, but at least we have an EF. Fortunately we have finally met our deductible so our portion won't be so outrageous. I guess I'm grateful my knee held out this long. I hope if I need surgery I can get it done right away. Like before school starts so the kids will be able to take care of the animals. Or at least schedule it for right after DH comes home.

I hope they can just fix it. I don't want to go through a replacement. I saw what my mom went through with that. Nasty recovery period and medications that put her out of her head a lot. I don't want to go through that. Though I am always a much better patient than my mother...

I didn't do last week's payday report, so I am going to combine it with this weeks, and just do one big one.

$1500.00 BoA VISA
__272.00 AMEX
_1000.00 Loan from Mom
__400.00 Mom's utilities
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__125.00 HoA Dues
___30.64 Electricity (Old House)
___48.60 Phone (Old House)
___75.65 Internet
___55.25 Garbage Two Months
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__225.00 Chiropractor
__180.00 Physical Therapy (2 sessions)
__173.68 Medical
__225.00 Chiropractor
___30.00 Prescriptions
-------------
$4540.82

I also spent $75 on feed and hay for the animals and about $500 for groceries.

I'm a little scatterbrained about this today, sorry. I deposited rolled coins, ones, and a co-op refund check today.

$9,546.14 Beginning EF Balance
+__105.39 Amount Added
--------------
$9,651.53 Ending EF Balance

So now the total I need to reach my goal is $348.47. I think I can reach that by the end of September. Then I got start focusing on rebuilding the funds I wiped out to pay off the mortgage.