Frugal Friday

“he who will not economize will have to agonize”
― Confucius

 

 

These two inconspicuous ice cream pails hold the wastefulness of my family's eating.  After every meal, any food left on a plate or scraps from meal preparation are diligently placed into the chicken bucket (on the left) or the cat bucket (on the right). 

With these scraps, we supplement our chickens' feed, and in return, we get fresh eggs!  Nothing goes to waste, and it reduces our feed bill for our laying hens.  It also gives me great satisfaction to know that we aren't creating waste and we aren't wasting food , which in my universe is a sin :-)

As for the cat bucket, those scraps feed the many barn cats that seem to migrate to our farm.  Table scraps might not seem like much; a spoonful of pasta, a crust of bread, or the milk left from cereal, but they add up during the day.

Now, if you don't have chickens or other pets to feed your scraps to, you can always compost them.  Other than meat, table scraps will compost really well and can be put into your garden once they have had a chance to decompose.  Food scraps can be mixed with lawn clippings, leaves, or other "green" refuse to produce rich, dark soil, and it's another way of making use of those scraps instead of throwing them away. 

Look at you...being all Green and Planet Friendly and all!  Now you can tell your friends that you are "reducing your Carbon Footprint", and watch them be impressed :-)

Back in the saddle

Well, my lemon..I mean my computer, is up and taking nourishment again, after having been shipped off to the mysterious Dell computer hospital to be repaired.  Again.  Fourth time this year.  Thank goodness for the manufacturers warranty that covers working out the kinks the first year, but this is getting a little ridiculous.

Now that it's been so long since I've been blogging, I almost don't know what to talk about!! 

I guess I'll start with my most recent focus- our food consumption. Whether it's watching our budget to see how much we are spending on food, going through the seed catalogues to select which vegetables I will grow this summer in our garden, or watching documentaries on how our health is affected by what we eat, it's been a high priority lately. 

Then there's the whole "cooking the food" thing, but I try to avoid thinking about that because I don't like to cook :-(


GROCERY BUDGET:
First, how food affects our budgets. Prices have gone nuts this year and I know it affects everyone's budget.   I have set a limit of $650/month to feed our family of 8, and that includes paying for the school lunch tickets for my 3 public school kids and any random butchering charges when we take a steer in. Each month, I will run a report in my Quicken to see how we're doing, and so far, we are keeping our purchases under this amount each month, with the exception of December.  (Because Christmas seriously kills our budget in so many ways...and because of the many big meals we fix and the many cookies we bake,<GRIN> we tend to go over just a bit.) 

Now, this amount includes purchasing as much organic foods as possible, some of it through our Organic Coop, and also we purchase lots of fresh fruits and vegys, which are by no means cheap.  I avoid as many processed foods as possible, and when I purchase convenience foods, it means that I bought bread instead of baking it :-)  We rarely, RARELY eat out (too expensive and I don't trust the fast food industry) and our meals are usually items made from scratch, so this helps us to keep our expenses down. 

I tried the coupon gimmick, and from what I have read, it really works- in some places.  In our area, there are very few grocery chains, so the competition is low and thus, prices are kinda high.  They don't do the Double Coupon days, they don't give you a membership card for a users discount, and they only do a small amount of store sales, which usually limit how many you can purchase.  I found that I could save more money buying the stores version of a product instead of taking the coupons and using on name brand items, so that experiment was kind of a flop!  I do, however, watch for good store sales, and I buy alot of what I know I will use, and stock the pantry for future use. 

I also purchase as much as I can in bulk, such as my baking essentials, through our Coop and I get 25 and 50# bags for a better price.

GARDENING:
I love this  first part of gardening- the planning part!!  No weeding required, and done in a bug-free environment- it just doesn't get better than that :-)  I love drawing out my garden plan, reading the descriptions in the seed catalog, and fantasizing about all the wonderful food that will be coming out of that garden.  I find that I'm moving towards producing more vegetables on our farm than producing meat, and that's a good step for our family.  I think that all of the wonderfully flavorful vegeys that we ate while we were in China have inspired me to try some different vegeys this year, including Baby Pak Choy and Celeriac. I'm also planting alot more cabbage to use in stir frys and casseroles, instead of just using it for coleslaw and the occasional Porcupine hot dish.

I gotta say, I did get sticker shock purchasing seeds this year- prices have REALLY gone up, but it's still a more economic way to produce the freshest vegetables, so I bite the bullet and place my order.  I do continue to order from Fedco, my favorite seed provider.  They refuse to sell any Monsanto or Seminis genetically modified seeds, which I greatly appreciate and respect, and their political views in regards to food safety are right in line with mine, so they get my business every time. 

DOCUMENTARIES:
I have gotten a chance to watch several through Netflix as I slip them into our Health curriculum for homeschool!  They continue to educate me on food safety, raising better food for my family, and how we can stay healthy by eating the right kind of food.  Here are a few that I would recommend to anyone:

"Fresh"- awesome and short- shows pioneers in the world of fresh food production and how they do their jobs so very well.  Gave me alot of great ideas for our small farm.

"Vegucated"- shows how 3 meat eaters were followed for 3 months while they lived a Vegan lifestyle- charted their experiences and showed how their health and weight changed for the better.  I will never become a vegan, because I think milk is an important part of my diet, but it did give alot of credance to the health benefits of less meat and processed food.

"Food Fight"- also shows the changes in food philosophy in regards to restaurants and school lunch programs.  A food movement is taking place in this country, and this highlights the people who are at the head of that movement.

"Farmageddon"- This documents farmers who have been targeted by the government's Ag industry and shut down for trying to produce fresh food.  Scary stuff.

And who can forget "Supersize Me" - the documentary of the guy who ate 3 meals a day at McDonalds for a month, and tracked how it affected his weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.  Crazy stuff but very effective.

I love a good documentary! 

Now if I could just find some enjoyment in cooking.  It truly is one area of my day that I don't enjoy.  I love growing the food and learning about the food, but I just would rather come into the house each evening and have the food waiting for me, prepared to perfection. However, unless I win the lottery, THAT'S not going to happen, so I will need to work on my attitude towards food preparation, I guess!  Maybe I could convince the kids to join the RAW food movement- then I wouldn't have to cook!! 

Until then, here's to healthy eating!

You are what you eat~

I just watched this video on TED TV and it has me so excited!!  It's basically about how we can eat and use food to fight cancer. Who Knew??!!

Being the hippy mom who feeds my kids organic, gardens and cans, and freaks out when a bag of Doritoes enters my house, this is very validating news!  Maybe old mom isn't such a weirdo after all?!

I've always known that eating healthy is so much better for us, and even though we often don't see immediate rewards for eating an apple instead of a Snickers, we are doing the right thing. It's why we plant and maintain a huge garden every year, raise most of own meat and eggs, milk our own Jersey, and belong to an Organic Food Coop.

Hearing news like this gives me hope!  Hope that all the weeding, cooking homecooked meals, weeding,  baking cookies instead of buying Oreos, weeding, planting, paying more for organic, more weeding, and just taking so much care into what I feed my family that this extra care will pay out in dividends that will show up for years to come. These efforts could affect our family generations from now, which sounds kinda dramatic, but I don't think it's overstating the importance of this issue. 

We Are What We Eat.

And if that includes pesticide sprayed produce, processed foods and fake foods, mountains of artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives, sugar substitutes, genetically modified foods, and E. Coli ridden meat, then what kind of future can we hope for in respect to our health and the health of our children?

So I guess we gotta do whatever we gotta do to give our families the Nutritional Advantage they need to face the future.

Which brings me back to weeding. Don't think that after hours on my knees in my garden in the hot sun, bugs biting, that by mid July a bottle of Roundup isn't just a little bit tempting.  Cuz it is.

But so far, it's Roundup- 0 and Mom- 1.

Organic hippy moms are tougher than we look. Don't let the environmentally- friendly-humanely-made-Fair Trade-cotton t-shirts fool you.:-)

Frugal Friday

"Rather to go to bed supperless than rise in debt"- Benjamin Franklin

Just to warn ya, most of the summer's "frugality" is going to revolve around food preservation.
So consider yourself warned :-)

Well, we jumped right from freezing peas on Wednesday to picking green beans on Friday.  I thought Bri was going to cry when she saw they were ready to be picked!

We start out by picking early in the morning- the vegys are supposed to be at their peak taste in the morning- something to do with the sugars stored in the plant. 

Once they are picked, we all sit around and break off the ends and snap the beans into 1 inch pieces. 
(Because, if you remember, this is where the TV watching comes in.  It's the most popular step, needless to say.)

Then, I put them in a huge cooking pot and bring then to a boil- simmer 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat.

Load them into pre-washed mason jars, add 1/2 tsp seasalt in each jar, and slid a knife along the inside of the jars to remove any air bubbles.

Add new seal lids that have been boiled, and tighten on the rims.

Place the ready jars into the pressure canner, then follow the instructions that come with the canner.

This is my "return" to using a pressure canner.   I was fairly nervous, since it's been years since I've used one, and I wasn't keen on blowing my kitchen up, so I followed the instructions to a T.

Notice the different stove??  Our newer glass top cannot be used for canning because the heat will crack the top, so we (and by "we", I mean "Loren") had to move our old stove back for canning season.

I've missed my old stove.   (See the burnt ring around the right burner?  That's from canning.)

Good times.....

Pea Harvest

Our mild spring weather, along with all the moisture we've been getting, has resulted in optimum gardening conditions.  The pea plants are almost taller than I am!  (I know....that's not a very hard thing to do because I'm only 4'11, but still, it's impressive.)

So yesterday, Camille and I spent 3 hours picking peas,(well, she wandered off after about 20 minutes, but it's the thought that counts!)  and another 4 hours shelling them, with help from Bri and Luke.

And that's only the first picking!  We are going to be eating LOTS of peas this year. My Dad also loves peas, so we will share :-) 

I have willing pea shellers because I let them indulge in their TV obsessions while they shell, because really, it's a very boring job.  So, to season the pot, so to speak, I let them watch TV as long as they keep on shelling.  Yesterday, we shelled over 30# of peas!  (yes, I weighed them) 

It's funny how these yearly chores build memories.  The kids were talking about how they always would think about watching funny Seinfeld reruns whenever they would eat peas, because that's what they watched last year when we were shelling.  This year, it's Cosby reruns. 

Yes, there are days when I wish we didn't own a TV, and that my kids weren't so keen on watching it ALL THE TIME, and then there are times when it weaves itself into our traditions.  Besides, it makes hours of shelling endurable.  Listening to the birds sing while sitting on the deck just wouldn't cut the monotony of pea shelling like laughing at little Rudy Huxtable and the crazy antics of Bill Cosby.  I get it.

Now, I'm going to go sit down to shell some peas....and watch a little Veronica Mars. :-)

Frugal Friday~

“I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.”
--John D. Rockefeller

Gardening is the one area that helps us out the most with our grocery expenses. We have a minimum of 3 gardens going every summer, and we can or freeze most of what we raise. 

 Even with gardening, we can find ways to cut costs and make it more affordable.  Starting most of our plants from seeds in trays is a good way to keep expenses down. 

I took an old plastic shelf from the toy room, drilled holes in the ends of it to hang the shop lites, purchased 3 shop lites to hang on it, and this was the result- (bottom shelf was cut off on the picture)

I reuse the trays and plastic cells, order seed from Fedco Seeds with a group of friends at a volume discount, and purchase 25# bags of potting mix from a landscaping company. 


To buy a tray of already grown seedlings of tomatoes would cost approx $18.00 from a store.  To start and grow your own, I've penciled out the cost to be less than $4.00 a tray.


I start out all of our tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, cabbages, tomatillos, broccoli, and brussel sprouts under the grow lights, and sometimes start lettuce for early transplanting.


Once the seedlings are growing, there isn't a lot of maintenance, except to keep them watered and occasionally douse them with fishmeal as a natural fertilizer.


[Note: to get the pepper seeds to germinate, they need to be warmed.  I sometimes put the tray in front of our wood burning stove or even on a cookie sheet in the oven on about 150 deg.  If you have an appliance that gets warm on the top, that works really well too.]

Hopefully, someday I'll get that greenhouse built that I've always wanted, but until then, this makeshift shelf will have to do. 

 Happy Gardening!