It was a long weekend here on the farmlet, but all of the does kindled their litters and with the exception of a tiny runt, nothing was wrong with any of them. They all look healthy and strong, even the runt who was wiggly and vocal. I have never had a kit this small before and I hope it will make it. It is teeny. It is as wide as my index finger and as long as my pinky. In comparison, a normal sized new born kit is about two fingers wide and as long as my middle finger.

You can see for yourself how small it is. He is towards the middle of the photo surrounded by his bigger siblings.



This is Firefly's first litter and she had seven. If the littlest one survives it will probably have to be grown out two to three weeks longer than the rest.

The other two litters are doing well. Persephone had six, four of which are bigger than the other two, but even those smaller ones are still way bigger than the runt.



Luna Blue's litter was also six. Hers are all really big, but since Leo is the father that is to be expected. You can definitely see the difference in size in this photo.



So with 19 kits, 3 of which will have to grow out longer, I am glad I held off breeding on Wednesday. I think I will wait until the 11th and then breed 3 does again.

I sold 2 dozen eggs on Friday, making farm sales for February $105 and $132.50 for 2015. I will take a dozen to my physical therapist tomorrow. We are starting to get a surplus built up again and by tomorrow I should have 3 dozen. I plan to make a pound cake this week and 2 batches of peanut butter cookies. I may make some egg bread, too. We'll see.

I have lost 21 pounds so far since December 31st. I have 2 days let in the first round of my six month diet bet. Unless something goes drastically wrong, I should win it.

I am pretty excited about some of the upcoming things on the farm. I sent a check off today for $330 to a local sustainable farmer who raises rabbits as well. He's going to be importing organic rabbit pellets from Modesto Mills in California and has offered to let anyone in the county get in on his order, no shipping fees. Since he wasn't sure how often at first he'd be ordering, I got a 2 month supply, or 600 pounds. Well, technically, this is more than a 2 month supply at the moment, because we have no kits and are just feeding the 13 adults and 1 junior who will be an adult in another month.

But we have kits due on Saturday/Sunday, so in about 4 weeks that consumption will go up to 300 pounds a month. This does a little more than double our rabbit feed costs, but with the new small animal slaughter house starting to butcher rabbits this spring, I will be able to sell WSDA approved meat if I use them. Rabbit meat from rabbits fed organically gets upwards of $15 a pound. So selling one rabbit would cover the cost of 2 bags of feed. I have interest from people who I have not sold to yet, because of not having the WSDA approval.

I do not mind raising the feed costs, since our old feed that used to be GMO free no longer is with the heavy introduction of GMO alfalfa into the rabbit feed supply a year or so ago. Which, by the way, has coincided with increased kit mortality in many rabbitries across the states. It may not show up in humans this quickly, but with something like the rabbit population where generations are born in a very short time span, it can very quickly be seen. Not proven, but the anecdotal evidence amongst breeders is pretty high. Just another reason to thank Monsanto for their constant interference in nature and scientifically proven (by non-M researchers) lower yields (despite advertising higher ones).

We don't buy alfalfa hay anymore as there is just no real way to track that unless we buy farm direct, which we may do this summer (and eventually will grow ourselves when we buy our 5 acre farm).

So anyway, I am happy to find organic non-GMO feed again for my rabbits. We will do a slow switchover, as a rapid feed change can kill the bunnies. But we have 200 pounds of the old feed left, so we should be good with a gradual switch over. Might have to buy an additional 100 pounds, but we will play that by ear.

Here is a short rabbit video I made yesterday. It shows the different nesting styles of my three rabbits who are currently pregnant.

http://youtu.be/nNU4PmlaP1Y

Aside from the auto deductions and the AMEX bill, which have money set aside for them, I am hoping for a no spend week starting tomorrow and going through next Tuesday. We have plenty of food, milk, and medication and toiletries in the house and no reason to spend any money on anything, so this week should be a breeze to get through. I won't have physical therapy again for 8 days, which I will have to pay, or I'd be trying to go no spend until January 9th, which is our next payday.

Today we spent $75 on rabbit feed and oats and I spent $90 on physical therapy.

The kids start back to school on Monday and normally I would buy lunch meat, but I am just going to make an extra pizza on Sunday and then they can take that for lunches. They both like cold pizza over sandwiches anyway and since I make it with lots of onions and peppers it is reasonably well balanced.

My husband taught my FIL and my mom how to butcher rabbits so they could help do it and DH could keep his injured finger out of them, so on Monday they butchered 10. These ones were a few weeks older than our norm, so it'll be close to 35 pounds of meat and about 2.5 pounds of livers. I will be working on cutting it all up tomorrow for grinding. We should get about 35 pounds of burger after the bones are taken out.

Then I will boil up the bones, pick off the remaining meat, and can the stock. I might even make up some ready made soups to can with the meat from the bones, although generally I save that for making enchiladas.

I am about ready to start cooking again, even though I'm not over this illness. My brain is starting to unfog, which is good. And since DH just left for Alaska and won't be able to help, I am glad I feel like I am capable to start at least making dinners again.

Yesterday I got my $78 check in the mail from Pinecone. We also got the $50 Safeway gift card for Christmas from DH's work. DH came home last night. He will be here for 22 days. It is nice having him home again.

***

Change of plans on the Christmas bonus. I was hoping to put half of it into the 401K, but apparently the only choices there actually are is to contribute the percentage you normally contribute from each paycheck, or put all of it in. I didn't want to jack up the percentage because it would then interfere with the next paycheck, too.

Since we don't know how much the van is going to cost to fix, I guess it is just as well. I will try to put half of it into the Emergency Fund instead. As long as there is enough to start DH's bachelor's program, I don't forsee that being too much of a problem.

***

This morning DH had the car towed to the dealership and they are dealing with both the fact that it won't start and the fact that it is leaking water into the seat belt well every time it rains, resulting in a soaked driver's side seat belt. There might be a leak in the moon roof, but they were able to rule out a defective door seal.

We will know more tomorrow, but it is $99 to diagnose what is wrong with the starter (or whatever) and $99 to diagnose the leak, so we are already $200 into this before anything is actually fixed. Oh, and it cost $70 to tow it the 3 miles to the dealership, but I think we will get that reimbursed from our insurance. I believe we have towing on it. We used to. Might have stopped that when we got AAA, though. I didn't want to do another AAA call, because that is for emergencies (even if they do take forever) and we only get so many service calls per year.

***

I have made the decision not to keep one of Sienna's kits. One of the does has a white spot on her face (as does one of the bucks, and Sienna had a white spot on her shoulder) and this is a genetic flaw. The other one doesn't but with 2 kits showing up with it, I don't want to take that chance as it is a disqualification for show. We wouldn't be able to sell any of her kits as show quality. The other doe kit is very jumpy, too. We didn't start working with them young enough for them not to be skittish, because of course we never expected to lose Sienna.

Cinnabun has had a personality change anyway, since we moved her into Sienna's cage. She is now being pretty sweet, so between her and Firefly, I have enough female reds. I had briefly considered keeping a red buck kit, but again, that white spot could turn up and also if I raise another red buck kit, I don't want him to be related to Wildfire. I want more diversity than that.

I miss Sienna, but keeping one of her kits won't bring her back and won't strengthen my lines, so I am trying to be practical.

***

I have someone who has expressed interest in buying duck eggs for hatching. Hopefully she will get back to me soon because it will take a few days to collect them. Hatching eggs cannot be washed or refrigerated and have to be treated differently than normally collected eggs. And they can only be kept for 7 days before going into the incubator. After that viability plummets.

***

Not much else going on. The kids will go on a field trip on Friday. They will pack a lunch, but will also need money for dinner. DH and I will go coat shopping while they are gone, so there are a few expenses coming up.

We will have to wait until the current spate of aggressive wind storms are over before butchering rabbits. Bad weather freaks them out and we try to keep the experience as calm as possible for them so they are not stressed. We have 18 to do over the next 3 weeks and then we will be done butchering again until June. It'll be nice to put that chore away for several months. It'll also be nice to have another 45 pounds of meat in the freezer.

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

Milestones hit in 2014:

--Paying off the Mortgage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as my homegrown one. This was the best Thanksgiving food ever and it was so great knowing how I raised and grew almost all of it.

Our feast:



My plate:

Two weeks down, 16 days to go. We are doing really well here. The kids have not been able to talk me into going out to eat in two weeks. There were a couple of days that I really wanted to, too. Having the meal plans firmly in place help a lot. Making meals in such a way as to have planned leftovers helps so much. This week I will be using my homemade spaghetti sauce in 3 recipes and my homemade meatballs in two. I will make the sauce and meatballs tonight and then use them in tonight's meal and in the meals the following two nights.

Last week I made baked potatoes with dinner one night. I threw in enough extra to make baked potato soup later in the week.

Sometimes I will make roast chicken, pick the leftovers off the bones, and made enchiladas and quesadillas as well as using the bones to make chicken stock for chicken noodle soup.

Those sorts of leftovers really help to have on hand so I can make one complicated meal followed by one or two easy ones. I always plan my complicated meal for a night when I have more time and the easier meals for the nights when I don't.

Doing this helps me save money because 1. I don't buy as much food to begin with, 2. I don't end up wasting the food I did buy, and 3. I am far less interested in eating out when I know I can put together a much better meal quickly.

Of course I am still tempted to eat out, but I'm not sure it would be worth the hit to the wallet, or the pain from ingredients I'm allergic to. Since I never know what food additives are used, cooking at home is safer for my stomach, too. And certainly safer for my son's.

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



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

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

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

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

http://youtu.be/oHp_MOx6tVg

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

http://youtu.be/EVY2QZMVdD0

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

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

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

http://youtu.be/N_5RvnetdYc

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

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

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

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

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

Well, it was a long day, but we have 19 newborn kits. All were born healthy and all three mothers are doing well.

http://youtu.be/z41OYIFk_lU

Well, I'm on Kindle Watch for the next day or so. Sienna is in the process of giving birth. I walked in on one birthing squeal and heard at least two more while I was refilling water bottles. Serenity has pulled fur and is rebuilding her nest so I'm sure she'll go into labor soon if she hasn't already. Phoebe has a tunnel built in her nest box, but has not pulled fur. She looks completely unconcerned, but you can see her sides are squirming.

I blocked the chickens off from any attempts to get into the rabbit shed today. The does don't need to worry about a chicken running around beneath them or trying to perch on their cages. The chickens know they are not allowed in there, but will try at every opportunity to do so. They are like willful toddlers at times.

I am hopeful we will have 3 healthy litters before the day is out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I managed to mangle myself pretty good last night. Well, not mangle, just beat my knee up pretty good. The knee formerly known as the good knee. It's a big bruise, and I think it is just the muscle I hurt. I hope it feels a lot better tomorrow.

I canned 14 more pints of applesauce today. Tomorrow I hope to get some pickles and potatoes canned, and some more peppers and onions frozen, but it depends on how I feel and what else needs to be done around here before DH leaves again.

We ground up the duck meat from the drakes we butchered and we ground up 7 pounds of rabbit meat, too. So we'll get 9 meals out of that.

Cleaning out the mini-chest freezer, by using the food in it for meals, is going pretty well. I've got it down to about 1/3 of the way full. I need to make up another meal plan for this new week, though. I haven't bought any protein since I started this. Not that we buy all that much anyway, since we have so much that we have butchered, but I am finding all kinds of things I didn't know I had. There is a ton of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and way more beef and fish than I thought we had.

I've also come across some frozen fruit from last summer that needs to get used up, probably in smoothies.

I am still wavering back and forth on whether I want to get s pork half or half a steer, but I think I'm starting to lean towards beef. True, we don't need much hamburger anymore, because of the ground rabbit meat, but I'd really like to get some steaks and roasts and stir-fry and stew meat, not to mention bones and tallow. If we can swing it, I'd like to do both, but I'm just not sure we can. It might be worth borrowing from the EF to do so, though.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total: $12.35

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

Fruit Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/mNK4ek6CQ18

Anyone have any good zucchini recipes?

Edited to add this happy surprise I got after posting:

http://youtu.be/dDZPx0sEFBw

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

http://youtu.be/lpebWkMhaWs

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hay Bale Garden Update:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amount of organic produce harvested today and its local value:

2 quarts of blueberries $16.00
1 pint of blackberries $8.00
1.5 pints of raspberries $6.00
1 green bibb lettuce $2.00
1 bunch of kale $2.50

$34.50 total

$109.50 Produce to date
+_34.50 Today's harvest
------------
$144.00 Total

$256 to go to pay back my garden investment for this year.

I got 3 ducks eggs today. Tally so far is 23. I forgot about the 2 I used in peanut butter cookies.

Yesterday I picked blackberries and blueberries from the garden. Today I picked some more blackberries. I was just finishing when it started to rain, so I don't know if I will get more blueberries picked today unless the weather clears.

The total so far is 2 quart-sized bags of blueberries and 4 quart-sized bags of blackberries. A half-pint container of organic blackberries if $4 at the store right now. That means each quart-sized bag of blackberries is worth $16, can you believe it? Blackberries are expensive. This is why I grow them. The non-organic ones are not that much cheaper at $3 a half-pint. Anyway, so for blackberries, the value of what I picked is $64.

Now organic blueberries are much cheaper. This may be because we are a big blueberry county, and also because blueberries don't have thorns to tangle with, but you can get a quart of organic blueberries for $8, so the value of what I have picked is only $16. Non-organic, is $6 a quart. My value is $32 for organic blueberries.

So altogether, 1 hour and 45 minutes of picking yielded me $96 worth of organic fruit. That is an impressive yield.

Adding that to what I've earned back so far on garden costs:

$13.50 Current Tally
+96.00 Amount to Add
-------------
109.50 New Tally

I have left to earn back $290.50 to pay for garden costs this year, before it counts as profit. I don't know if fruit will pay it all back or not, but the zucchini is almost ready and I'll be picking more kale and lettuce tomorrow. I think there is only about a quart of blueberries that are ripe to pick and then it'll be a few days to a week before more are ripe.

We got 3 duck eggs today, bringing our tally so far to 20 duck eggs, 19 usable. I should have collected my second dozen by Tuesday. Eggs don't go against garden costs, they go against feed costs.

A well-growing garden is like finding money in the dirt, or the straw and hay bales in my case. This week I harvested $5 worth of organic kale, $2.50 worth of organic lettuce, and $3 worth of organic berries. That is $10.50 from the garden this week, and $13.50 so far this season.

I also have collected 17 duck eggs. We did lose one. I am going to count by dozens for my accounting, though. So, so far that is 1 dozen duck eggs, and the going rate for a dozen free range duck eggs here is $5. I will sell (or give away to a couple people) any eggs we can't consume ourselves.

I will be picking berries this afternoon as well. I imagine I'll get at least a pint of blackberries, a pint of raspberries, and a quart of blueberries.

Anything we can't eat in time from the garden goes to feed the turkeys, chickens, ducks, and rabbits, cutting down their feed costs as well while they grow good protein for our table.

We had 2 litters of rabbit kits born yesterday.

http://youtu.be/-aF9HZK1hwY

12 in total, so in 10 to 12 weeks, depending on growth rate, we will have another 30 pounds of protein for the freezer.

Things are going well here on the food production front and I am very happy about that.

It has been a rough 10 days. I came out of one virus and went directly down into another 2 days later. I couldn't keep food down for 5 days straight. Horrible, awful, nasty experience. Even when I had the bad stomach bug in October it wasn't like this. My stomach is still tender and I've gone 3 days without throwing up now. But I can't eat much. At least I can drink now, though. Getting my calories through rabbit broth and chicken broth and fruit bars.

Despite being ill, I had to help with butchering. We did 8 rabbits and 4 Pekins and I don't know how many chickens. I had to keep running back inside to be sick and I did the least handling of the icky parts, like fetching the live animals. But we have 3 full shelves in the upright freezer of just chicken parts in gallon bags and 28 quart baggies of cut up breast meat for stir-fry in our chest freezer, too. We shouldn't have to buy chicken this year at all. I am not sure if I would raise chickens again. Maybe if I could take them to a processing facility.

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but a week ago Sunday we brought home 4 one-year-old Welsh Harlequin females. Well, those ducks started laying once the Pekins were gone and we've gotten 3 eggs so far. After the 4 Pekins were butchered we've now got 9 Welsh Harlequins. At least 2 of the males will have to be butchered in a couple weeks as a ratio of four drakes to 5 ducks is too hard on the females once the drakes hit maturity. In the end we might only be able to keep one drake, but I hope we can keep two.

Also during this week we hauled all of the used bedding off the property. It took 4 pickup loads. One load went to the dump, but the other 3 went to a lady who had just moved to a farm and wanted to start a deep mulch garden, so we were able to take all of it out there. I could not do much of that work at all. I wasn't strong enough with the illness. But I rode out in the truck with my husband.

Today I spread a bit of finished compost onto the hay bales and I will be planting them tomorrow with broccoli, cauliflower, and purple kohlrabi. The husband got up two more gutters on the turkey pen. One I will be succession planting radishes in and the other will be for snow peas which will climb up the lattice.

I had a decent day on one day this week and I made some garden update videos if you'd like to see how those are progressing.

Fruit Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE

Hay Bale Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE

Straw Bale Garden Update:

http://youtu.be/8mRkO0xPsEM

I am starting to rethink the idea of becoming a farmer. I might just be beat and been put through the wringer, but doing just the rabbits was never as hard when I was sick as having two types of meat birds, 3 if you count the turkeys but they won't be ready for months, and 2 types of laying poultry.

I am thinking rabbits, laying ducks, and laying hens, and that may be the limit. Unless I can get someone else to process them. I am selling some of my breeding stock and reducing my herd. I sold Fiona on Sunday and Andromeda goes on Tuesday. It is possible that Leo will go with her to the colony setting. I am hoping to sell another proven buck, too, but that is harder to do than selling proven does.

I have two rabbits, Serena and Kalia, due to kindle in 3 to 4 days. I really hope we have some milder weather for it. After Wednesday it is supposed to drop back down to the low to mid 70's again, which would be perfect for delivering on the 3rd or the 4th.

The bunny that I had fed with a dropper after her mother died we are keeping. Her name is Luna Blue and she is a companion for Firefly to grow up with. Firefly seems so much happier to have another kit in with her and Luna Blue is definitely happy to not be alone after all her siblings went to freezer camp. They made friends very fast.

If Luna Blue ever hits breeding weight we may put her into the breeding program, but she will be a pet otherwise. We never expected Kalia would hit weight, either. It just took her a few months longer.

I still want to do aquaponics, too. That part has never gone away. And maybe butchering meat ducks and chickens is time consuming, but quail still aren't. So if I stick with raising meat animals, I do have some other options. I think if I do it though, I'd try to raise a batch of 10 birds every 3 weeks and not 30 to 50 birds in a short span of time and end up overwhelmed by it.

We'll see. At this point I shouldn't be making any decisions anyway.

So I spent $400 on my garden this year. The largest portion of that was in the straw and hay bales I bought for a growing medium. This is the first salad of the season that I had yesterday and today I had another one. I figure that so far I've eaten $2 worth of organic lettuce and greens. In this particular salad I had both red and green lettuces, baby spinach, arugla, frisee, chives, basil, thyme, and a small assortment of baby Asian stir-fry greens.

I have also harvested $1 worth of organic raspberries and strawberries so far. So $3 total to subtract from the $400. That means I have $397 to go to break even. Judging from the way things are going, I will probably have paid back my costs by the end of July, based on organic food costs.

The last year I had a garden (besides fruit) was 2012. I paid back all I spent and harvested enough food beyond that to make it well worth my while. I think this year, if all goes well, I will probably harvest about $1000 worth of produce, so will come out ahead around $600. That is a conservative estimate, because I won't count my tomatoes before they've hatched.

I hope to have enough green beans, pickles, and tomatoes to can for a year's supply, enough raspberries and blueberries to freeze for a year's supply, and enough blackberries for the occasional winter treat. I will also can some of the potatoes we are growing to make easy pour and dump stews in the winter along with my canned carrots and canned meats. I should be able to make enough applesauce for the year this year judging by the fruit on the trees. That will do wonders for my fall, winter, and early spring produce bill.

I also plan to freeze bell peppers and onions for use in stir-fries when the peppers are out of season.

This is shaping up to be a fantastic garden year. I can't remember having a June this lovely or having vegetables this far ahead in all the years I have done a garden.