Category Archives: Every Bit Counts

Friday Catch-Up

Posted on by
Reply

Things got alot crazy around here this week.  I knew that we would be fairly busy with Zach having baseball camp 3 days and Vacation Bible School 5 nights with a pool party for a sixth night.  What I did not count on was adding in the 659 pounds of meat that needed some attention.

I received a text on Tuesday morning that our meat was ready. I was very thankful that Matt had cleaned out and started the old chest freezer on Saturday. After a couple of phone calls I was able to arrange some help and began working on making meals with the meat.

This week I have been able to make and freeze, 14 packs of Salisbury steaks which did not include our dinner today, 2 pounds of Taco meat and 10 packs of taco meat, 10 packs of sloppy joes and 2 additional batches of spaghetti sauce and 2 batches of Salsa.  Here is the official meal total:  I am at least halfway to my goal of 100 meals in the freezer.
Official food preparation count: 45
Breakfast count : 15
Spaghetti Sauce: 20

The other big event of the week was our purchase and bringing home of 6 chickens. The chickens are approximately 2 weeks old and currently hanging out in the living room under a heat lap for the next week. As you realize I have not been able to get the chicken story and how we have prepared for chickens up yet but hopefully I will be able to get this accomplished in the next couple of weeks.

I have 19 days until I return to work.  I will be only working one job so hopefully this will make things a tad less hectic in the fall.

I am continuing to recover from my outpatient surgery. I did overdo things on Sunday and spent most of Monday resting and recovering.  I hope to return to normal activities by next Monday but we shall see as I am currenting struggling.

I was able to spend a good couple of hours working in the garden beds this week.  I have pulled up and replanted one of the beds with pumpkins.  We are continuing to get lots of good tomatoes, several squash, a zucchni and a couple of small cucumbers.  I am hopeful to increase the cucumbers and we also have apples and pears starting to ripen on the trees in the back yard.

Looking forward to a less busy and more normal start to August!

 

Monday Musing

Posted on by
Reply
  • No menu plan for the week. We are all volunteering at Vacation Bible School this week. We are provided a meal each day so that makes life a little easier.
  • One of the you tube channels that I real enjoy is Three Rivers homestead.  She has a challenge starting in August called “Every bit counts.” The idea is that you find time each day to preserve one thing and that way it does not become overwhelming.  I know that once I start working again in August even this will become difficult, so I am going to start this week and end on August 19th. My plan is to share weekly and how I am doing with this challenge. Last week, I made and frozen 15 helping of spaghetti sauce. Today, I put packs of mini applesauce muffins in the freezer. I also made a huge batch of gravy that we ate for lunch. I was able to put 2 smaller containers in the freezer to use for breakfast bowls in the future.
  • On Saturday, we were able to complete the chicken coop and started with the fencing to finish the area.  We will hopefully get our new pet chickens this week. I am going to plan to share all about the chickens in blog post this week.
  • We also have obtained a large 250 galloon water barrel for both the chickens and for watering things in the greenhouse.  We did attach a gutter system to the barrel We need to first fill and empty to remove all the remaining chemicals that are in it. Slow progress but this will hopefully eliminate the need to use county water next year for the garden or chickens.
  • As I mentioned above, we all are involved in VBS this week which runs from 6 to 8:30 Sunday to Thursday. Zach is attending the local baseball camp from 8:30 to 11 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Lily is working Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yeap we are back to a busy schedule.
  • The garden is continuing to bounce back and we are getting a good supply of tomatoes and yellow squash currently.  I am hopefully to freeze enough spaghetti sauce for the year (24 containers) and make another batch of salsa before the tomatoes slow down to eating and saving as diced tomatoes.
  • I was able to locate enough frozen basil to use in the spaghetti sauce that I don’t think I am going to replant this year. I will likely plan to grow in the green stock planter next year and replenish our supply then.