5 Things Friday

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  1.  Shout out to myself!  This is the 8th day in a row that I have posted! And the 5th post for the month of August on the 5th!
  2. I am finally feeling back to normal this week which means I am starting to catch up on all the things I planned to do this summer!  This really does help my mood and energy level to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
  3. We are continuing to harvest from the garden! This week, I planted some pumpkins and have hopes to start a fall garden including lettuce and spinach in the next couple of days!  We are also starting to plant some things in the chicken coop area which will make it both pretty and functional!
  4. I have been wanting to list things on Marketplace and Ebay all summer and today was the official day to complete. I have 5 active listing on Ebay and 7 on Facebook marketplace. I know we have at least 2 additional listing to make on Marketplace tonight.  The goal for this clean out is $250 to purchase a pop-up sunshade for beach use next year.
  5. The chickens are continuing to grow. We have turned off the heat light. The book we have been following said to start decreasing their constant temperature by 5 degree this week. The set point would be 75*. The air in our house is currently set at 74 for the day and 72 at night.   So we decided to go ahead and try without the lamp.  They did great last night so I am going to continue. We also are trying to get them outside at least a couple of hours a day right now. I hope to move to daytime outside next week with full time outside the next week.  Because it is summertime, this is a much quicker and easier process. Even when going outside full time the plan is to have them in a coop each night just to start that training process. A very sad update, this afternoon one of the chickens (Gummy) died.  We had been watching her closely today as she moved to the corner and was sleeping.  Not quite sure why it happened but we cleaned and cleaned the cage so hopefully this will be the only lost.

Every Bit Counts

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One of the YouTube channels I really enjoy “3 Rivers Homestead” has this challenge for the month of August.  It is specifically for preserving food for the winter. I know that when I return to work in two weeks that this might not be possible, so I started this challenge a week early. For more information read here Monday Musings

Tuesday July 26th- Sloppy Joes
Wednesday July 27th- Taco Meat
Thursday July 28th- Salisbury Steak
Friday July 29th- Made a second batch of Salsa
Saturday July 30th-Shredded Zucchini and Squash
Sunday July 31st- Made protein muffins with remaining ham and eggs.
Monday August 1st- Spaghetti Sauce
Tuesday August 2nd- Additional Chicken pot pie filling- will need to only add crust.
Wednesday August 3rd- 4 dozen ears of corn some frozen with husk on and some off and 2 packages off the cob.
Thursday August 4th- 2 bags of carrots from our garden.

I am very excited with moving forward.

Official food preparation count: 58
Breakfast count : 20
Spaghetti Sauce: 25…… I am going to work on doing a couple of batches of salsa but may also add another batch of spaghetti sauce in the future depending on how the tomatoes continue to produce!

I do have plans for sausage balls and banana muffins this week as well!

Menu Planning on Tuesday!

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The focus this week and for most of the month of August will be no food waste!  I am working hard to find ways to use what we have and are growing but also to save a little each day for the future.

One explanation- we have been getting breakfast at Biscuit King on Saturday morning which allows us to get outside and get a couple hours of work in prior to it getting unbearably hot.

Breakfast- Saturday- Biscuit King   Sunday- Sausage and eggs on the Blackstone as we did not have electricity.  Monday- Smoothies Tuesday- Homemade Everything bagels   Wednesday- Breakfast burritos Thursday- find it in the freezer, which includes muffins, French toast sticks, bagels, breakfast burritos and pancakes. Friday- Banana muffins

Lunch- Saturday-BLTs Sunday-Greggs   Monday- Leftovers   Tuesday- Summer lunch which included squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and strawberries.  Wednesday- Eat out as we will be back to school shopping.  Thursday- Leftovers or sandwiches, Friday-salad.

Dinner- Saturday-Cheddar Bacon Burgers. Sunday- Roast Beef sliders Monday- Spaghetti with homemade sauce.  Tuesday Chicken Pot pie   Wednesday- Insta pot hamburger helper.  Thursday- Pasta salad Friday-Steaks and baked potatoes.

JULY In Review

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July was a different month to say the least.  Kendall and Lily spent a week in Orlando Florida at a national youth conference, followed by a week at the beach for all of us. Next up was outpatient surgery for me followed by two weeks of recovery.   Our spending was definitely different, and I was not able to develop a new budget, but I still have a little over 3 weeks before returning to work full time!  August is much more laid back and relaxing!

Groceries– budget amount is $200 NOT Met! $318.24 before the cow.  We spend a today of $31.81.44 including 659# of beef. I am continuing to think around $700 a month with any excess to be placed in savings. We did use savings to purchase the meat so for the remainder of the year we will try to replace any of that we can.

Auto/ Gas. My goal is $400 a month. NOT met! $ 548.74. Prices have started to decrease, and this did include gas for the generator that we ran for 6 hours when we lost power.

Cash Envelope system- I was doing excellent until the last week. Now it is back to cash for us!

Blogging- 15 post per month. This is post number 14 for the month. I have been much better at posting on a regular basis. Just need to squeeze in one additional post. I am really excited to keep this so close again this month! Especially given the fact that I did not post on vacation

Exercise days- NONE

No Spend Days- ummmmm what ? I honestly have not been keeping track of this. I am giving myself a pass on both Exercise and No spend days due to my surgery this month,

August should be a much slower month with plenty of time for relaxing!

Chicken Expenses

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The first step before we could get the pet chickens was to clear an area for them. I found an awesome person from Facebook to complete the task.

Total cost $1000

Next, we purchased a pre-built chicken coop. This was not the cheapest option, but it was the one that I was most comfortable with.  I do not regret this decision at all. I did pay and extra $75 delivery fee which again was well worth it!

Total cost $665

I knew we needed to add to this for the long term and we also needed to make a specific boundary around the area.  We purchased the wood and had it delivered from Home Depot $372.   I was able to purchase old wire fencing from our neighbor for $20. We used nails and other fasteners that had been saved from my father’s building. The difference is just what I was hoping for!  We have spent a total of around 10 hours doing the work ourselves but this is part of the pet owner experience in my opinion.

Total expense $392

Last but no least was the trip to Tractor Supply to purchase the chickens, a “beginner” kit including a water bowl, 2 feed troughs and a heat lamp, food and bedding!

Total cost $96.20

Total out of pocket startup cost for the pet chickens $2100 or 527 dozen eggs or 6315 eggs which is basically 1053 eggs per chicken. Looking at the math, these are definitely pets and not part of any supply chain   I will be honest and say that so far the kids have definitely enjoyed their new pets and are still spending quality time with them.  In fact, everyone was up at 6 am this morning in order to help warm and calm the chicks because our electricity was out for 7 hours.

Why Chickens?

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Hopefully this week you will see a couple of posts regarding the newest additions of chickens!  Today we are going to talk about why we chose chickens and show you where we started from!

First the kids have been steadily asking for additional pets for at least the last two years.   I am really not a fan of something that I know I am eventually going to end up totally caring for. We do have Rugar, Boston Terrier 13-year-old, but basically, I am only in charge of taking him to the groomer these days and an occasional trip outside.

Second need to know fact is that Matt does not like birds of any shape or fashion.  This is important because he has been a firm no in the past when asked about chickens. However, when Zach asked in May, he agreed without the only thing being he is not doing ANYTHING other than building a structure. He is not at all involved in the care!

So here are the reasons that we agreed to 6 hens…
1. It is a given fact that after no more than 2-3 months at best, I will become the one who is responsible for making sure they are cared for on a daily basis. With chickens at this point, they will be in pretty self-sufficient.  We will have purchased a large feeder that will need to be filled once a week and water will need to be filled every couple of days except in the winter, but I will deal with that as it comes.
2. Responsible pet ownership also includes making sure that they do not reproduce.  Our simple and best solution is that we only purchased hens.  This way we do not have to worry about any additional chickens.
3.. Chickens are the only pet that I know that produce anything that can be used. We will be getting eggs and we also will be using waste as part of composting.
4.Pets are expensive!  We have ended up spending approximately 2,000 on getting everything in place.

Here is where we started

Friday Catch-Up

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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

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  • 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.