I spent a good hour harvesting berries today. I am having to pick about every 2 days so that nothing goes to waste.

Today's bounty:



Yes, that's 7 pints of raspberries, 1 pint of blackberries, and 1 pint of blueberries with at least another 1/2 pint in the Ziploc baggy. And that doesn't show the half a pint of blackberries I picked and ate for my lone high carb of the day. And there are enough blackberries out there to fill another pint container, but I had filled up all of my containers and once I had them inside didn't want to go back out and pick anymore. I'll get them tomorrow. I will freeze what I pick tomorrow so I won't eat them all and will eventually have enough to make jam by saving them over the next week or so. Plus hopefully enough to freeze some extra for the year as well. It's a small stand of blackberries, about 4 feet wide by 8 feet long so it may not produce enough. The blackberries I picked today are for tomorrow's fresh eating. They are so delicious.

We were inventorying the freezers and we found about three gallons of blueberries (from our yard, so organic) from last year and some sugared strawberries (not organic) so I think I'll be making blueberry jam this week, too and Mom will be adding the frozen strawberries to her smoothies.

I wonder if there is something like freecycle (maybe tradecycle or something) where you could barter your fresh fruit you don't want more of, like extra raspberries for the fresh fruit you do want, like blackberries. Or maybe I could give away raspberry jam in exchange for fresh blackberries. I do intend to give away quite a bit of the raspberry jam I make anyway. If I can get enough blackberries I will make brambleberry jam, too, which I like an awful lot more than straight raspberries and that will help use some of them up.

I now have 1 full gallon of raspberries frozen, plus enough in another gallon baggy to make jam tomorrow. I was going to do it earlier in the week but it was just too hot. The weather has broken now, though.

We will not have to buy jam this year at all. We won't have to buy any berries for eating as we will have plenty frozen.

Yesterday we put in more romanesco broccoli on the cool side of the house, which we fenced because the chickens were trying to eat the greens before we even got them in the ground, some more yellow zucchini squash, some green pole beans that may or may not make it, but I can put some bean seeds in under their foliage to protect them from the chickens, and some green bunching onions. I have some new lettuce starts to plant in the windowboxes as those lettuces are bolting fast. The chickens will appreciate those when I pull them.

I have a large pepper plant and a large tomato plant that I rescued very cheaply from a store that was clearancing them. I think I am just going to cut the ends off the plastic pots, dig a bit down in the soil and sort of just set them in and put the dirt back around the bases. Root shocking them at this point might do more harm than good, especially since they have fruits of decent size on them.

I have broken even on what I've paid out for gardening this season if I include the fruits and pretty close even if I don't.

I am buying very little in the way of fruit at the grocery store. I did buy a Washington organic nectarine and some Washington organic pence apricots, but I will be canning apricot jam and one batch of that is enough. I have been tempted by the melons, especially the canteloupe and also the kiwis and pineapples. I hate buying outside of my foodshed but some things just don't grow in my state. Or not well. I swear I am going to buy a hardy kiwi first thing after we move and plant it, weather permitting.

Anyway, now that harvest is in full swing on the berries, I can cut about $100 out of my food budget that was going to buying fresh fruit and put it in the Freezer Fund instead. I know I will have enough berries to get me through a year by the time I am done. I know we will want other fruit throughout the year, oranges, bananas and lemons come to mind, but those will be supplemental fruits along with what I can (like Italian prunes and pears, and apple sauce). It should still cut by 3/4 my fruit portion of the food budget this year.

I would eventually like to get my fruit portion of the food budget to where we only have to buy 10% of it and the rest is all free from what we grow. I want to do that on a permanent basis, but I will have to start all over with berry canes and bushes. Oh, I can still harvest at Mom's, but I want to be self-sufficient in this area. I should probably take some cuttings now from her blueberry bushes and start rooting them. I can get a piece of willow bark or birch bark from the neighbor to make a rooting solution. Her blueberry bushes are 75 years old and are the best tasting ones out there, so I want to have those same types when we move again.

I will, however, order organic thornless blackberries from a catalogue. And plenty of them. I'm not sure I'll bother with more than transplanting a few canes of raspberries for DH. The kids don't like those ones enough to care. To them raspberries are only good for filling out smoothies when there isn't enough of the other things. And then of course I'll buy strawberry plants but that is all way in the future. I want to find out what type it is that the guy from Fir Island was growing. Those were the best I've tasted in a long time.

After my fruit is up to speed I want to start planting in sufficient quantities to get my veggies to where I can freeze and can a lot of them and root cellar the rest and make it last a year. I know that's a way's off. I don't have the soil for it here and I'd bring in good soil if needed when we move. If I am very lucky I will get my tomato supply up to where I need it with what I am growing. If not I will get a couple of bushels from one of the local organic farms. Much cheaper than buying organic sauce.

We'll see how it goes. All it takes is one more health crisis for me and my gardening goes right out the window. So let's hope that doesn't happen.

After having to come up with $500 unexpectedly for my son's medical treatment at the end of last month, it meant that after paying all bills we had $450 left to get through the next two weeks. Well, today is the last day of that two weeks. Tomorrow is payday. It was harder than I thought it would be, because I have gotten used to the ability to buy little things pretty much when we want them. Big things we save up for of course, but if I wanted to buy a bushel of organic apricots, normally I would have been able to just go and do that. If I wanted to go and purchase a couple extra garden stakes, I could do it. With that extra $500 missing from the budget, there was no way.

I had to really remember how we used to do things back when things were super tight, but fortunately it's not been that long ago. So we all did some belt-tightening and we've made it through. And with $49 still in the checking account, so clearly it's doable. The kids had a few cases of the "I wants" but I just kept reminding them of the medical bills. We don't believe in hiding the truth about finances from our kids. They are old enough to get it and we want them to live in the real world and not understand the truth about money, budgets and bills. This month I have budgeted for the extra medical and although it will still be a little tight, it won't be so much of a challenge as being blind-sided by it.

It has shown me though that there are places I could tighten the budget so we could pay off a little bit more or save a little bit more, so I think I am going to keep that in mind for the future.

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Tonight for dinner we had roast chicken. There was a lot left over (I got a five pound organic bird). We will be eating it for lunch for the next couple days in one form or another. I picked all the meat off the bones and I've finally got enough to make stock. So tonight before bed I am going to throw the chicken carcasses I have been saving in the freezer and all the onion skins and tops and bottoms, garlic skins, and carrot peels that I have been saving along with a whole fresh onion, some carrots that are getting to the end of their life, a bunch of celery leaves and the innermost stalks no one likes to eat, some crushed garlic, peppercorns, turmeric, marjoram, sage, sea salt, basil, thyme and parsley into the crockpot and cover it with water. I am going for some major flavor. I will let it cook on low overnight and in the morning I will have beautiful chicken stock.

Then I will strain it, pour it back into the crockpot, saute fresh carrots, onion, and celery and cook them until they are soft. I will add some of the chicken and then I will pour it all into quart jars and pressure can it. The recipe I saw recommended you put your chicken and vegetables into the jars first so that it fills them about 2/3 of the way and then add your hot broth. This way makes sure that the heat penetrates all the way to the center of the jar, very important in canning. I might do 2 pint jars of just broth, too.

We will then have homemade shelf-stable chicken soup and broth ready on the shelf. All I will have to do in the future will be to heat it, add some noodles if I want them, simmer until they are soft and there you go. Homemade, healthy, organic soup and you can bet it won't cost what it does in the store, especially when half the ingredients in the stock are things you would have thrown away or composted anyway.

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I picked three more pints of raspberries today, another quarter pint of blueberries and 10 blackberries. In a few more days I think the blueberries will be in serious business and another week and it will be the blackberries turn to explode.

And I'm pretty sure we're going to have grapes this year. I just am not sure when. Does anyone know when grapes get ripe in the Pacific Northwest? They are Concords.

This is Patches (so named because of how his feathers came in). He of the wonky wing. You can see the dark green mottling on his neck here. The newbies are getting more and more used to me now and finally letting me get near enough to take some decent close ups.



I can't believe how much the cauliflower has grown in the last few days.



One of the brandywine tomatoes. This is the biggest.



The blackberries are not going to wait until the end of August. Most of them look like this, but I did see a couple that were black.



And...one of these things is not like the other.



Three more pints of raspberries and a quarter of a pint of the first blueberries.

In June I never thought summer would get here. It rained almost the whole month. July is making up for that for sure.

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 am very pleased with how the mustard turned out. I ended up combining a few different recipes to make one that I thought would appeal to me best. I don't know why so many recipes call for cayenne in ordinary yellow mustard. I didn't use it and mine has enough kick without it. It's probably around the range of French's yellow mustard, not super spicy, but definitely a bit of heat. I love French's mustard for flavor, but the yellow # 5 I can do without.

I have always been a pretty loyal French's mustard girl, but I think this actually tastes just as good, maybe even a little better. It seems mild at first, but then it gives a little kick.



Here's the recipe I ended up concocting:

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup of mustard powder (I used yellow, but brown is fine if you want brown mustard, I wanted yellow)
2 tsp kosher sea salt (ordinary salt is fine)
1 tsp flour (I just used white all purpose)
1 tsp turmeric (makes it more yellow and gives a little kick)
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp onion powder

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup water
3/4 cup white vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix together all of the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Add to sauce pan. Mix water and vinegar. Add to sauce pan. Stir until combined and you can see no lumps. If there are any lumps squash them against the side of the pan until the powder comes free and mix it in.

Turn on heat and bring it to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes while stirring. I stirred it pretty constantly because otherwise it would try to splatter out of the pan. I kept it on a low boil because a high boil was too messy.

Now most of the recipes I saw said to put it in a blender at this point to make it smoother, but it looked plenty smooth to me and I didn't want to cool the mustard down since I was going to be canning it and I didn't want to lose part of it to the sides of the blender container either. If I had a handheld blender I might have done it right there on the stove, but like I said, it didn't seem grainy at all so I skipped that step.

At this point I turned off the heat and I stirred in the lemon juice until it was absorbed. I then poured it into my hot, sterilized half-pint jars, leaving one inch of head space, that is one inch from the top of the jar. The mustard will expand during processing so don't overfill. I then thumped the mustard down into the jars to get rid of any air pockets. I put on my lids and rings and put the jars into my boiling water bath, then I processed for 15 minutes.

I actually had enough for 2 half-pint jars with a little less than a quarter cup left over so I put the extra into a clean jar and put it into the fridge. The jars sealed up just fine, pinging within minutes of taking them out.

I bought the organic mustard powder in bulk from the food co-op. Everything else I had on hand (and was also organic, except the vinegar). A cup of mustard powder cost me $2.00. I can estimate that the rest of the ingredients might have been .50 worth, so about 20 ounces of mustard with no additives for $2.50. About what I'd pay for regular storebought mustard, and less than I'd pay for organic storebought mustard. I'm considering this organic because for it to qualify as an organic processed food in the industry, 80% of it must come from organic sources and this does.

I'll make this again later this summer, but right now I've got some raspberry canes calling my name. I think jam is in my near future.

So tomorrow guess what I am going to make and can? Nothing to do with fruit, so if you guessed jam or jelly, nope. Instead I am going to make something relatively quick, fast and easy, but something I have never even thought about making before. My one big problem with buying this storebought is that it uses yellow number five. And also, I don't ever go through it fast enough. And it doesn't come in small enough containers and is really hard to find in a glass jar, without it costing an arm and a leg. It's something that only I eat in my household, although DS says he might try it since it will be homemade.

Have you given up? It's ordinary yellow mustard. I found a recipe online that I liked the look of that will be very easy to make. It will make two cups worth and I want to can it in half pints. I will only end up processing one jar and using the other one straight away, but if it turns out tasting good, I will make a bunch more and probably branch out into deli-style mustard, Dijon, Chinese hot mustard, and honey mustard. Shelf stable homemade mustard with no gunge in it will make me very happy.

I like all of the ingredients in the recipe, but I will leave out the optional 1 tsp of cayenne. I don't want my mustard to be as hot as cayenne makes things. Even when I just use 1/8 tsp of cayenne in my sausage recipe, my eyes still water a bit and my kids prefer it when I just use 1/16th tsp. The paprika and turmeric will be enough spice for me. I will post the recipe if I like how it turns out.

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I have to take the van back on Tuesday. There is a small leak in the oil pan. A valve needs to be replaced. It will take them 3 hours, but it is covered by warranty. I will go without the kids. 4 hours (including the travel time) without them will be nice after two weeks with no school. I love them to death, but they are driving me a little crazy.

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.

I think I have jam coming out of my ears, but I'm done. I processed 4 more pints and 1 more 12 ounce jar of strawberry jam today and I am finally out of berries. It is interesting how the same amount of ingredients do not always produce the same amount of jam. I've been at it for four days now, but it is totally worth it and my half a pantry shelf of gorgeous jam and jelly is beautifully jewel-toned, but did I mention that canning is hot, sweaty work? Because if I didn't it is hot. And sweaty. And work. But I should not have to make jam again for a week.

One batch of raspberries will be enough (most will be Christmas gifts) and if the chickens eat the rest, well, I won't tell anyone. And then after that no more jam until mid-August when the blackberries and blueberries are ripe. And then that shelf will be completely full of jam, jelly, and home-canned fruit. And maybe the next one, too.

I will love this in the late fall and winter when local, organic fruit isn't readily available. I am really trying to reduce most of our food needs to the 100 mile food-shed (well 50 miles for most of it). Except citrus and seafood. I will allow California for oranges and anything West coast for wild fish. And Hawaii for pineapples and sugar, because I mean come on.

I have been reading a farm blog that has a climate very similar to ours and she has a big garden and overwinters cabbage and kale. Some of the outer leaves get damaged but the inside ball of cabbage makes it just fine year after year. We have kale growing but I wasn't going to plant cabbage being as it is so inexpensive (even organically), but the idea of fresh as opposed to stored cabbage in the winter really appeals. The types she uses are Melissa and January King so I am going to see if I can't get ahold of some seeds from one or the other. It's a late start but they are late season crops so I might be able to pull it off and if not, well a couple seed packets are not that much. If I can't find them now I'll just wait and try to pull it off next year.

I am also reading Joel Salatin's book Folks, This Ain't Normal. He has a lot of interesting things to say about commercial farming and what it is doing to the planet and the nutrition of the food and the animals. I don't agree with all of his ideas, a few are just highly impractical or would violate health codes, but the vast majority of what he says and does is good, common sense logic in regards to farming, gardening, and growing animals. The one I like the best though is simply not allowing any biological matter into landfills. If it can rot and break down it should be allowed to do that not in a landfill. Anyway, it's interesting and informative reading.

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.

I can. Or rather I can can. My first jam experience since I was a kid went great. I canned 5 pints. Usually I buy organic strawberry jelly or jam in the 1/2 pint jars for $6 each. 10 jars worth would be $60. I used $14 worth of organic strawberries and about $2 worth of sugar to make a comparable amount. $16 bucks vs $60? Even taking out 1.5 hours for my time, that is well worth it. And I was also reading for part of the time while I stirred or talking to DH and my daughter and I were chatting while we hulled and cleaned the berries so it wasn't like it wasn't multi-tasking.

Here is the result of my work, some gorgeous, dark red jam:



I have enough strawberries to make another 5 pints of jam and I also want to get to making the grape jelly I've been planning on making for a while. I am hoping to do it today, but it might not get done until tomorrow for the strawberries and Tuesday for the grape jelly. It depends on what the handyman is doing in the kitchen today. If he gets done quickly enough I can do it. If not, it waits.

DS finally got a hold of Silver, the most elusive, but prettiest feathered chicken and made her pose for a photo.



DS is doing much better, by the way. His concussion continues to improve.

We went to the ranch this afternoon and purchased our beef and pork. They were having a sale on the pork chops, which made me happy. I had $60 left of my beef money so that will go into the freezer fund.

While we were down there we saw a sign for organic strawberries at a farm stand so I stopped and got 2 half flats for $12 each. I will be making jelly with that. I was excited because it is super hard to find a good source of organic strawberries around here. You can get a pint or a quart at the store, but anything bigger than that is not organic. Raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, yes, but not strawberries which get sprayed a ton. For my fellow NW Washingtonians, they come from Fir Island in Skagit County.

Of course all the other berries all grow in our yard so I know they are organic and don't need to track down a source. Now I have one I'll go back next year. When we move I will be planting strawberries. I thought about planting them here, but waited too long. I could probably still get a hold of some everbearing, but I find the Junebearing ones taste better to me.

I also added $8.59 to the coin jar. The eight ones went into the freezer fund envelope and on Monday I will deposit everything in that, along with whatever ones DH has left before he leaves. I also dumped all the coins out of DH's wallet and added that to the coin jar, $3.11. I am not adding leftover change and ones to the emergency fund again until I hit my freezer fund goal, which is $900. That should cover tax as well.

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 have finally gotten around to making yogurt for the first time. I have been planning to make it for a month now. It was on the agenda more times than I can count, but it didn't get made. I kept thinking it was too much hands on time. Then I discovered an eveneasier way to make it. I decided to go with the easier crockpot method. I have read of numerous people having success with this method and if there is one thing I believe in, it's my crockpot. And this seems like a very full proof method.

I am using the recipe found here:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-...

I bought a half flat of local strawberries today. They are not organic, but they are from a sustainable, local berry farm that does not spray. I will use some of it for flavoring in the yogurt. DH's favorite kind of yogurt is strawberry so he will be happy. We will also use a bit of honey or sugar if it needs it.

I like the fact that I will about halve the cost of buying yogurt. If DH liked it just plain it would probably bring it to 1/3 of the cost, but when you are adding organic fruit it brings it back up. Still it is cheaper. I will report in on the results after we have tried it.

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.

Every three days or so, I go through my fridge with an eye towards what needs using up and what is going to go bad soon if it isn't eaten. Today I had some strawberries that weren't going to make it much longer so I took off the stems, cut them up and put sugar on them. The sugar helps to preserve them for a few days longer and helps inhibit mold.

I also noticed I had half an onion and some cilantro that won't make it much longer. I checked to see if I had a lime. I did. Since I just so happened to buy tomatoes and I only need one for the planned club sandwiches this week, I decided to chop it all up, squeeze on some lime, and have some freshly prepared salsa. I had some leftover green chile peppers the last time I opened a can and froze them in an ice cube tray. I rooted around in the freezer until I found it and thawed one cube's worth to throw in the salsa to give it a little bit more of a kick. DS likes to eat chips and salsa as an after school snack.

My daughter has been eating shredded cabbage in her lunch at school. She goes on jags. But I have a bunch all cut up that she is not going to get to so I made coleslaw with it. Since I don't like carrots in my cole slaw, my recipe is very simple and just using cabbage (green or red, whatever I have). I made a dressing that is 1/2 cup canola oil, half cup mayonaisse and about 2 tbsp of honey. This is sufficient for a pound of cole slaw. The dressing helps to preserve the cabbage for a few more days. We (or at least I) will be eating coleslaw with dinner tonight.

I had a couple of slices of bread left from last week's baking and so I tore it up and put it into a baggy for stuffing. Thanksgiving is coming up in five months and I figure it's time to start saving up bread for stuffing since we always make ours from scratch. Since there is almost never any bread leftover when I bake it, I figure five months is enough time to gather what will be needed. In a pinch I can always just bake a loaf for it, but I prefer to not have to do that.

While I was at it, I pulled all the meat off some chicken I baked this weekend and put the bones in my stock bag. DS will be eating it in quesadillas for his school lunches this week and DD might take some as well with her cabbage.

I finally finished off the mixed greens I had last bought before my lettuce was going strong, so now I am on just our own lettuce, hopefully for the rest of the summer.

I did find a cantaloupe that is going to have to go to the chickens. Somehow it got buried in the fruit drawer (I never put things like that there, someone else must have put it away) and it is kind of shrivelled and unappealing, but it will appeal to the birds just fine. Especially the seeds. I was sad to see it not get used by humans, but at least it is not wasted. The chickens will eat all the seeds and all the fruit right down to the rind. Then the rind goes in the compost. I do like to give the chickens a treat now and then and cantaloupe is their favorite. Still, I wish I'd known it was there sooner because it is one of my favorites, too. Can't win them all, but I'm getting much better at it when it comes to food waste.

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 think I was out from 11:30 to 2:30 today. It was hot, the car gets even hotter, and I forgot to take a water bottle with me. Plus I kept forgetting to put up my sunshade whenever I parked.

I did my big run to the Food Co-op. I got my freshly ground peanut butter so I will make peanut butter cookies tomorrow. I didn't get the Camano Island eggs this time. Instead I got some from Misty Meadows, which is an even more local farm (same county).

http://www.mistymeadowsfarm.com/eggs.html.

They do have a few stores in the greater Seattle area that they provide eggs for. I will report in on them when I have eaten some tomorrow. They are more expensive than the Camano Island eggs, but I figure our new hens will be laying in about four to six weeks and that's not too long to pay a little more for eggs if they are as good as everyone raves about.

Of course I got several other items, including Muir Glen Chicken Noodle soup. This is the only chicken noodle soup DS will eat other than homemade or Campbell's (which has so much stuff in it that I don't want him having/and or he is allergic to). now when he is sick he can have that if I don't have enough stuff on hand to make stock.

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Speaking of stock I have been keeping two bags in the freezer lately. One is of chicken bones that I have picked the meat from and one is of things like onion and garlic skins, onion tops, carrot peels, celery leaves, etc. From what I have been reading there is actually a lot of flavor in those things that you would normally discard and you can use them to make your stock instead of using actual vegetables that you then throw away. We shall see. If it doesn't have the flavor it should I will just throw in the appropriate vegetables. Either way what is left after cooking will either go on the compost or to the chickens.

Another thing that I read is that you need the bones of four or five chickens (or at least two turkeys) to make really good stock. There just isn't enough there on one chicken carcass to get the really good meaty flavor. I've always had to highly season my stock in the past and think this might be the reason why. So I am saving all of the bones from the chicken I make. Well, not what we eat directly off of, but whatever is left over and I pick all the meat off.

I also read that for really good beef stock you need at least five pounds of beef bones and you need to roast them first. Well, I guess I knew that they should be roasted, but not that you needed that many to make a good stock. I am really learning a lot from some of these books I got from the library.

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I am thinking about possibly making some homemade soap. When we get our beef, I am going to ask for some of the suet (the fat around the kidneys) for making tallow. I mean, I am paying for the whole thing (or half of the thing) so that should include the suet as well. You can get the organ meats if you ask for them, so I imagine the suet shouldn't be too hard for them to throw in. If not, oh well. You can make soap from vegetable oils instead of animal fat, so that is another course I could take. I have reserved the book Smart Soapmaking at the library and it should be arriving at my branch early next week.

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I am also hoping that Joel Salatin's book Folks, This Ain't Normal will come in soon. I am third on the hold list, the library has 5 copies, and three of them are overdue. The other two are due on the 21st and 22nd. I hate it when people keep books out past their due date, especially new books that they know other people are waiting to read. Joel is a big advocate of pasture raised, humanely raised, organic livestock. He is the guy that the author of Omnivore's Dilemma visited and he runs Polyface Farms, which is featured in the documentary Food, Inc.

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One of the chickens (Queen) dug up some of the plants in the vegetable garden. Fortunately I saw them and got them back into the ground in time. I then mulched around all the plants with straw, hoping that if we hide the dirt it won't tempt them to scratch in it so much. I also put up some white wire fencing from the old house to hopefully mark it as off limits. They could go through it though, so I am also going to get some rodent wire mesh and some zip ties and attach it to the fencing. A determined chicken could fly over it, but would probably have a hard time getting back out and would think twice before doing it again. Hopefully that won't cost too much.



The chicken was very indignant, as you can see in the photo, when I told her off and picked her up and stuck her back in the fenced area. She wouldn't even look at me. But then later when she got out again and I was sitting on the porch swing (which is not on the porch) she came over and snuggled my feet, so I think she's forgiven me.

I think I was out from 11:30 to 2:30 today. It was hot, the car gets even hotter, and I forgot to take a water bottle with me. Plus I kept forgetting to put up my sunshade whenever I parked.

I did my big run to the Food Co-op. I got my freshly ground peanut butter so I will make peanut butter cookies tomorrow. I didn't get the Camano Island eggs this time. Instead I got some from Misty Meadows, which is an even more local farm (same county).

http://www.mistymeadowsfarm.com/eggs.html. They do have a few stores in the greater Seattle area that they provide eggs for. I will report in on them when I have eaten some tomorrow. They are more expensive than the Camano Island eggs, but I figure our new hens will be laying in about four to six weeks and that's not too long to pay a little more for eggs if they are as good as everyone raves about.

Of course I got several other items, including Muir Glen Chicken Noodle soup. This is the only chicken noodle soup DS will eat other than homemade or Campbell's (which has so much stuff in it that I don't want him having/and or he is allergic to). now when he is sick he can have that if I don't have enough stuff on hand to make stock.

Speaking of stock I have been keeping two bags in the freezer lately. One is of chicken bones that I have picked the meat from and one is of things like onion and garlic skins, onion tops, carrot peels, celery leaves, etc. From what I have been reading there is actually a lot of flavor in those things that you would normally discard and you can use them to make your stock instead of using actual vegetables that you then throw away. We shall see. If it doesn't have the flavor it should I will just throw in the appropriate vegetables. Either way what is left after cooking will either go on the compost or to the chickens.

Another thing that I read is that you need the bones of four or five chickens (or at least two turkeys) to make really good stock. There just isn't enough there on one chicken carcass to get the really good meaty flavor. I've always had to highly season my stock in the past and think this might be the reason why. So I am saving all of the bones from the chicken I make. Well, not what we eat directly off of, but whatever is left over and I pick all the meat off.

I also read that for really good beef stock you need at least five pounds of beef bones and you need to roast them first. Well, I guess I knew that they should be roasted, but not that you needed that many to make a good stock. I am really learning a lot from some of these books I got from the library.

I am thinking about possibly making some homemade soap. When we get our beef, I am going to ask for some of the suet (the fat around the kidneys) for making tallow. I mean, I am paying for the whole thing (or half of the thing) so that should include the suet as well. You can get the organ meats if you ask for them, so I imagine the suet shouldn't be too hard for them to throw in. If not, oh well. You can make soap from vegetable oils instead of animal fat, so that is another course I could take. I have reserved the book Smart Soapmaking at the library and it should be arriving at my branch early next week.

I am also hoping that Joel Salatin's book Folks, This Ain't Normal will come in soon. I am third on the hold list, the library has 5 copies, and three of them are overdue. The other two are due on the 21st and 22nd. I hate it when people keep books out past their due date, especially new books that they know other people are waiting to read. Joel is a big advocate of pasture raised, humanely raised, organic livestock. He is the guy that the author of Omnivore's Dilemma visited and he runs Polyface Farms, which is featured in the documentary Food, Inc.

One of the chickens (Queen) dug up some of the plants in the vegetable garden. Fortunately I saw them and got them back into the ground in time. I then mulched around all the plants with straw, hoping that if we hide the dirt it won't tempt them to scratch in it so much. I also put up some white wire fencing from the old house to hopefully mark it as off limits. They could go through it though, so I am also going to get some rodent wire mesh and some zip ties and attach it to the fencing. A determined chicken could fly over it, but would probably have a hard time getting back out and would think twice before doing it again. Hopefully that won't cost too much.



The chicken was very indignant when I told her off and picked her up and stuck her back in the fenced area. She wouldn't even look at me. But then later when she got out again and I was sitting on the porch swing (which is not on the porch) she came over and snuggled my feet, so I think she's forgiven me.

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

I spent the morning at the doctor's office having my eye checked out. I have an infection of an eyelid gland, which explains why it is triple the size of the other one. I had to go to two different pharmacies to get both the antibiotic pills and the steroid/antibiotic eye drops. Well, I did if I wanted to start treatment today and it was hurting enough I didn't want to delay another day when I waited all weekend as it was. The drops are already helping. The swelling has gone down a little bit and the pain has gone down a lot. I spent a total of $20.39 on prescriptions.

This evening I got my plants out of their pots and into the ground. It seems like an awful lot of work for only having planted 7 things, but I still feel a good deal of satisfaction.

Here is a shot of the garden after it was weeded:



The entire area was covered in weeds and potato volunteers on Saturday.

Here are the three tomato plants and basil, oregano, and thyme:



The tall plants are the double pink poppies. One is about to open and bloom, maybe tomorrow or the next day.

The green thing, which you can see better in the first photo, is my compost bin. The white thing down by the chimney is a rain barrel that collects water off the roof via the drainpipe.

This is the zucchini, planted clear down by the rain barrel. It will sprawl into something huge in a few weeks' time so we gave it a lot of space off by itself.



Here are my window boxes full of green romaine and red sails leaf lettuces. These ones you can pick the outermost leaves of and they will continue to grow. I've been picking them about every other day.



And last, but not least, this perfect bit of loveliness is growing in the front yard next to the deck.



I hope to make it over to Joe's Garden tomorrow to buy some more starts. If I don't go tomorrow I probably won't make it until Friday. So far I have spent $15.23 on the garden. That includes some seed packets I have not planted yet. As long as we have a decent summer, that should pay me back within the first week of the tomato harvest. Even with more output for starts, I will still drastically cut my produce bill this summer.

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.

This being sustainable, humanely raised, pasture-raised, organic chicken. I had the first chicken we bought from the ranch yesterday and I was underwhelmed. It was good enough, but not spectacular. And it was kind of small. I do have two more to eat and I will prepare them differently, probably frying and rotisserie style. I don't really think it's the fact that I roasted it though. I didn't find their eggs to be all that great either. Maybe that's because I've eaten eggs from our chickens for so long, but the Camano Island eggs are as good as, if not better than, the eggs our chickens lay (when they aren't hiding them) and are far superior to the ranch eggs.

The ranch eggs tasted pretty much the same way as the ones from the store that are cage free, but not pasture-raised. I find this odd because these are definitely pasture-raised eggs, I saw them out in the pasture, but they are supplemented with grain (not soy, not corn) and maybe it's too much of that and not enough of the other? So maybe that's why the chicken isn't as good as I expected it to be based on the incredible flavor of the pork and the beef I've bought from them.

There are a lot more places that pasture-raise chickens as opposed to beef or pork in my county, so I will look for some chickens closer to home. One place I want to check out in person is the In Pastures Green farm in Ferndale. They follow all of the methods I most want in my food and they are about a ten minute drive away. And they are also substantially less per pound, $4.10 as opposed to $5.95. Also their chickens tend to be 4 to 5 pounds as opposed to the 3 to 3.5 pound average at the other place, so one bird will go a lot further, providing 3 to 4 meals instead of 2.

Based on their website and pictures, I think they actually come the closest to raising the chickens exactly like in the book I read, even having gone to train with the same person the author visited in The Omnivore's Dilemma. They also process right there on the farm. They have farm hours tomorrow so I think if the weather isn't too nasty (it's been raining for days), I'll pack up the kids and we'll go see. I really like visiting the places where we get our food from.

They do have ducks, too, so they may have duck eggs, but as of the last update about the ducks, they hadn't started laying, but the date on that was a while ago. I would love to get my hands on some more duck eggs between now and when ours start laying. The Food Co-op hasn't had them again on the more recent trips I've made and I used the last one on Tuesday. They are the best for baking cookies and rolls. Probably cakes, too, but I haven't tried that.

Two of our ducks seem to have paired up so we are pretty sure we have at least one female and will have some eggs eventually. I am hoping the non-paired two are both female as well.

They do require a $10 deposit per chicken if you are going to order them, which helps prevent no-shows. (They slaughter 3 times a year, it looks like). Which is about half the price per bird. So the overall cost seems like it would be $205 for ten 5 lb chickens. Again, it seems pricey compared to conventional chicken, but if you have ten birds and can get 4 meals from each bird, you've got a per meal cost of $5.12 for protein (based on a family of 4 to 5). Even if you could only get 3 meals from each chicken it would still work out to $6.83 per meal. That's pretty good for this type of meat.

I am thinking, also, that since they have you picking up the chickens on slaughter day, that means they don't freeze them, which means I could bring them home and cut up most of them and repackage them so that I could have all legs, all thighs, all breast, all backs, wings, and necks in their own packages if I wanted to. It'd be a bit of work, but I think worthwhile.

And I don't have to order 10. I could start with less. I'll have to think on it.

A few months ago I upped my grocery budget to $800. I figured that switching over completely to pasture-raised, organic protein and sustainably raised organic produce was going to really hit us hard and that there was no way I could manage at $600 a month. Well, guess what? I just added up all my grocery receipts for the month. I am under the original $600 budget!

$269.44 on beef, chicken, and pork (including duck)
__40.92 on organic milk
___7.00 on organic peanut butter
__15.96 on organic cheese
__21.95 on organic pizza toppings
__80.42 on organic vegetables
__12.73 on organic flour
__42.49 on organic fruit
__20.00 on organic, pasture-raised duck/chicken eggs
+_37.00 on organic butter (bought in bulk)
------------
$595.83

Okay, it's only $4.17 under, but I was struggling to hit that before switching. I think it helps that I am no longer buying any bread products, but making all of our bread. It also helps that the meat we are getting is much more filling so we are eating less of it. Actually that's true for the fruits and vegetables as well and the homemade bread, so everything lasts longer.

Another thing that helps is the meal planning, of course. Even if I don't stick to it every day, I have a list of pinch hitter meals. What are pinch hitter meals? Something I can get on the table fast when the other meal plan falls through.

Things that fall into the pinch hitter category:

Angel hair pasta in tomato sauce, ground beef, green beans from a can, fruit.

Boneless skinless chicken thighs cooked on the George Foreman grill, leftover vegetables or quickly boiled broccoli/cauliflower (only if it's been pre-cut up on another day), canned corn, bread.

Chili or soup (previously homemade or canned), club sandwiches, fruit.

Fish and chips in the deep fat fryer (not the best for health, but once in a while is fine). I do keep a box of codfish filets (with the fewest additives I can find) and a couple bags of Alexias organic French fries or sweet potato fries in the freezer. When I have time I will make fish and chips from scratch, but this is for a time crunch day. I'll usually skip the veg on this day because it is filling.

So it definitely helps to have the meal plan, but it also helps to have a backup meal plan list as well of things that are on hand. And of course, leftover management. That is always key.

I think I will leave the $800 budget in place for now. This month could have been a fluke. But any extra money will go first into the freezer fund and then into the beef fund. Well, first to the $300 deposit we need to put down to claim a half a beef for later slaughter, and then to the freezer fund.