April Showers Bring May…

colds and fevers.

Zoe.

Then Grace.

Now me.

No fun.

Posting after the weekend. There are a number of updates too, so stay tuned…..

Beds Complete!

Rob got the raised beds in today and complete! There is about 1/2 of one bed that needs to have compost and manure added to it, but they are ready to go! Next Tuesday is our slotted planting day provided it doesn’t rain.

Our tomato starts came today from Seed Savers. This year our favorites, Green Zebra, Stupice and Cherokee Purple are here and ready for the ground and we also got Brandywine and Mexico Midget. Great tomatoes. Starts are ordered because for one reason or another I have a tough time starting tomatoes and it sure is hard to keep tomatoes to save seed. They are by far the favored fruit in this household by all inhabitants! This year the decision has been made to downscale the number of tomato plants. Last year there were 40 varieties, and nearly 130 plants. This year there are still a great number of plants, but only the 6 varieties. They are the varieties that farmers market goers enjoy and those that are enjoyed here…so everyone is happy! So the greenhouse is FULL!

Our tipi dwelling friends, Vanessa and Dan came for dinner tonight (another MJ bakeover using one of the recipes in the special edition. I prepared the potato and asparagus bakeover. It was delish! everyone ahd seconds! They have a little boy but he didn’t come tonight.

Vanessa and I are in cahoots to start a unschool-homeschool co-op. Compiling resources helps a great deal to save money. Their boy is 4 and our girls are 6 and 2.5 There are a few other family friends of all of ours who have small children too and are interested in this simpler and more rounded approach to educating our children. I have a post coming up about unschooling and how it fits into our ideas regarding the world and the future of it.

Our CSA pickup was today. GREAT DEAL TODAY!!! I got 3 heads of romaine (I paid extra for these, $2 per head) dried organic black beans (4#) and white beans(2#) I also paid extra for those at $2 per pound. I enjoy some of the add ons from time to time and beans are one of them. In the share today were strawberries, kale, gold beets, chard, fennel (MMMM fresh fennel. Last season a pesky woodchuck made off with all of my fennel…GRRRRRRR!) and a few other things I am having a tough time remembering at the moment. It’s late and I’m exhausted. Stay tuned for the great recipes I have to share using our share in the coming days!

Alrighty, it’s off to bed for this farmgirl…lots to do tomorrow and it starts by hanging more clothes on the line….mmmmm fresh Spring breezes in our clothes and linens!

Raised Beds

Rob is gung-ho over raised beds. I had put in mounds last year and they worked nicely, but I am on board with Rob on the raised beds. Opportunity for deeper beds, stronger and longer roots and better food. Here is the video I took today of Rob getting some of the beds in:

The soil temp is about 8 degrees less than the needed 60 degrees. By next week, maybe sooner after laying black plastic down, planting outside shall commence! good thing too because our tomato transplants from Seed Savers should be here tomorrow.

It’s going to be busy here in the next few days. I am still recovering from a mild concussion this past Saturday, so I am not much help right now, but I do what I can. Off to go make spaghetti. Have frugal fun tonight!

Frugal, Fast, Organic Fare

I try my best to prepare food here that is good for us all, organic or most components organic and best of all fast to prepare. There isn’t a lot of time here for putzing around in the kitchen, not when there are 2 small children, animals, a husband a garden, sewing, crafting, laundry powder to mix, candles and soap to make, etc.

Rob and I are members of 2 vital elements to our household food sources. There is an organic CSA up in walker that thankfully delivers by us each week for $25. Granted right now the fare isn’t local but soon enough there shall be local food to be had in addition to the food grown in our gardens.

The other source is a buying club affiliated with a natural and organic foods distributor. Our foods are purchased in bulk at an incredible savings. For example, here is the list of one of our last three orders through the buying club:

2229	Ambassador Hairbrushes®	Hair Brush oval shape nat bris FOR REGULAR TO THIN HAIR	1/1brush	1	Case			0.89		14.57
6580	Ambrosia	Milk Chocolate Chips	1/5#	1	Case					17.63
14068	Amy’s Kitchen	Breakfast Burrito ND	12/6oz	6	Eaches					15.78
14740	Amy’s Kitchen	Breakfast Patties	12/8oz	3	Eaches					13.86
14768	Amy’s Kitchen	Spinach Pizza Snacks	12/6oz	3	Eaches					11.31
2250	Amy’s Kitchen	Strawberry Toaster Pops	12/11.6oz	3	Eaches					10.80
14760	Amy’s Kitchen	Vegetable Lasagna	12/9.5oz	3	Eaches					13.86
2193	Amy’s Kitchen	Vegetable Pot Pie Organic	12/7.5oz	9	Eaches					25.02
13857	Annie’s Homegrown	Arthur Loops Tomat & Chese OG	12/15oz can	1	Case					23.66
4925	Annie’s Homegrown	Cheddar Bunnies Baked Crackers made with Organic flour	12/7.5oz	1	Case		4.43			27.22
13888	Annie’s Homegrown	Chocolate Bunnie Grahams made with organic wheat flour	12/7.5oz	1	Case		4.43			27.22
13818	Annie’s Homegrown	Mac & Cheese, Creamy Deluxe	12/12oz	Temporarily out of stock
13859	Annie’s Homegrown	P’sghetti loops Soy Meat Balls	12/15oz can	1	Case					23.66
18110	Annie’s Naturals®	Ketchup, Organic Squeeze GF	12/24oz	3	Eaches					9.00
5688	Bob’s Red Mill	Baking Powder	4/16oz	1	Case					11.04
5696	Bob’s Red Mill	Brown Rice Flour SG GF	4/24oz	Temporarily out of stock
5661	Bob’s Red Mill	Couscous Golden	4/24oz	2	Cases					24.54
5945	Bob’s Red Mill	Flax Seed Meal	4/32oz	Temporarily out of stock
5984	Bob’s Red Mill	Oatmeal Scottish	4/20oz	Temporarily out of stock
10173	Cascadian Farm	Orange Juice Concentrate OG	12/12oz	1	Case					38.76
4419	Coconut	Coconut Med Shred Unsul	1/5#	1	Case					9.93
3401	Eastwind	Almond Butter Smooth NS	12/16oz	1	Each					8.47
12822	Eastwind	Peanut Butter Smooth NS OG	6/5#	1	Each					17.68
5050	Great River	Unbl Wheat Flour OG	1/50#	1	Case					42.43
7104	Health Valley	Vegetable Broth FF Aseptic	12/32oz	1	Case					36.84
5837	Lundberg	White Basmati OG	1/25#	1	Case					44.22
17892	Midwest Northern	Trail Mix Raw NS	1/5#	1	Case					19.38
17101	Muir Glen	Chnky Tom w/Herb Pasta SauceOG	12/26oz	9	Eaches					30.89
19421	Muir Glen	Classic Minestrone OG Soup	12/19oz	6	Eaches					18.24
5362	Natural Value	Green Lentils OG	1/5#	3	Cases					23.58
12946	Natures Bakery Cooperative™	Six Grain Granola	10/1#	4	Eaches					15.60
13039	New Century Farms	Brown Eggs lrg OG1 Grade A	8/12ct	Temporarily out of stock
10002	Organic Valley	Butter No Salt Organic	15/1#	3	Eaches					20.07
7745	Organic Valley	Half & Half Ultra Past OG	12/32oz	1	Each		0.42			3.76
18025	Peace Coffee	French Roast Whole Bean	1/1#	2	Cases					20.44
4786	Raisins	Raisins Golden Fancy	5#	1	Case					12.71
19071	Smile Brite Double Tip	Replaceable Head X Soft Natul	1/1 brush	2	Cases			0.34		5.58
19072	Smile Brite Double Tip	T-Brush Head Refil X Soft Natr	1/3 heads	2	Cases			0.39		6.35
1411	Westby	Cottage Cheese 2% rBGH Free	12/24oz	2	Eaches					8.94
15028	White Wave	Tofu, Extra Firm Style	6/12oz	3	Eaches					6.12
4355	Wholesome Sweeteners	Cane Sugar Organic K GF	1/25#	Temporarily out of stock

Invoice Summary
Product Total	Shipping Charges	Sales Taxes	Freight	Equity	Club Charges	Total Invoice
657.54	0.00	1.62	0.00	0.00	0.00	659.16

The bulk purchase and minimal tax (Minnesota has no tax on foodstuffs) helps a frugal family out! This is a number of months of food on this order! Granted some of it is convenience food, but it’s organic and healthier than the convenience food in a conventional form. I go to the grocery store for fresh things only, and generally those items mean things like milk and yogurt even though I an get it through the buying club. I have more of a savings at the grocery store considering the rate my family drinks milk (not much for cow milk as the girls are soy babies.)

One more outlet Rob and I are looking into is over at my favorite place on the net, MaryJanes Farm. She has this most delicious product called Budget Mix. Think of Bisquick but good for you. It can be purchased in bulk quantities and is perfect for the nights I don’t *really* have the time to make something.

Tonight’s meal was made using the Bakeover recipe. I made the Bakeover part more like biscuits because the dish I made was a little bigger, I really should have doubled the recipe for the Bakeover crust.

Here is what I did:

cooked up some lean ground beef (I am normally a veg. and cook for the family veg. but I’m pregnant and I crave red meat…strange, I know…) then chopped up three of our potatos from our CSA share this week along with some garlic from a share a couple of weeks ago, an onion and some cream of broccoli soup. I made the biscuits, put them on top and baked according to the Bakeover directions. I figure this dish- which will be another meal tomorrow- cost about $5-6 to make total and took about 35 minutes to make. FRUGAL! CHEAP! FAST! NUTRITIOUS! EASY! ORGANIC!

I added to the meal a nice Ceasar salad using all organic produce gotten in our CSA share. The salad cost more than the meat dish! But, it too shall feed us again tomorrow.

A food photographer I am not, but these look pretty tasty don’t they!?

This morning I made sticky buns using the Budget Mix and there are still some left for breakfast tomorrow. There are about a billion and one things one can make using this great item so I think I’m surely going to order it in bulk. They carry trial sizes too, for those of you not sold just yet. There is also a special edition of Mary Jane’s magazine that focuses JUST on recipes using the Budget Mix and the Chillover Powder (gelatin that’s not gelatin!!) It’s definitely worth checking out if you are in a similar boat as we are here.

Dinner was satisfying, great tasting and good for us all tonight and I spent almost no time or effort to make it that way.

Ta ta till next time!

Farm Videos

I didn’t get the video made of Rob taking care of getting the raised beds filled today. It started to rain so I brought the camera inside. Here are the videos of the chicks, the rabbits and the chicken flock outside, however.

To update, the video of the chicks shows a chick that had help hatching. S/He is doing great, drinking and eating and chirping and peeping along with it’s brothers and sisters. So that makes 4 hatchlings so far. I hear chirping int he one incubator he had been in, so there are more coming in the next few days. I’ll sex them in about two weeks. They are fed on non-medicated chick start that we buy from an organic feed supplier over in Wadena. Their feed is a bit pricier but worth it to not contribute to the destruction of Cargill and the likes. No GMOs in my chicken feed thankyouverymuch!

Okay! So with the shows….

The Rabbits:

Just a note there are going to be vermiculture bins underneath the rabbit hutches for a mini-eco-system. I am friends with Ellen Sandbeck and plan to get my bins directly from her this summer on a trip over to Duluth.

The Chicks:

The Coop and Henhouse:

MAKE-OVER!!!

You’ll notice that the previous posts have been removed. I am giving this blog a makeover. As Rob and I are both at home working, doing our farm building, self sustaining action, etc. this blog is going to chronicle our weekly, sometimes daily goings on in building our life in the manner we see the world around us. I’ll be posting about everything from our rabbit adventures, our organic market gardens, the chicks I have hatching as I type this post, kids growing up in the forest, butchering animals, foraging for wild foods (we have an abundance in our forests!) frugal living in our menus, etc. etc. I may even throw in a video or two from time to time. Such as this afternoon. I am going out today to take video of our 5 rabbits to introduce them to you, take you on a tour of the chicken coop, a bit of video of Rob putting in the raised beds and a bit of video of the chicks we hatched from our birds.

A little about our chickens. So far the birds we have procured have been gotten for free off of Freecycle from a lady who needed to be rid of them as she couldn’t take care of them anymore. There were 2 that had been purchased for $5 each from a local organic farmer and one hen that I had rescued from a fellow farmgirl. So all told our flock consisted of 18. After one has been butchered and 2 escaped and got eaten by someone else, now 15 remain. Eggs have been gathered from them to hatch in still air incubators and some have been left to be hen hatched. So far 4 have hatched. One pipped but died so there could have been 5. I think there are 6 more of our birds to hatch out.

So after getting into the hatching game, a bug seriously bit us both. Online I ventured to find some pure breeds. I ended up getting Plymouth Barred Rock, Red Dorking Bantam, Silkies, Buttercups and Black Langshans. Those eggs are all still in the incubators and all here are thrilled for them to hatch. As they are our pure breeds, we plan to build separate living spaces for them from our mutt chickens. Three of our mutt chickens, a roo and 2 hens are going as homewarming gifts to some friends of ours who just put up and moved into a tipi. Sort of a get you started small flock.

The pure breeds that had been chosen were chosen because of their beautiful show qualities, some of them are pretty docile and some of them are super broody. All are good meat and egg birds, sans the bantams as they have tiny eggs.

So join us on our frugal life adventure! Feel free to leave comments, opinions, recommendations, etc. If you have a frugal living, farm living, organic living blog, a pagan farm blog, business or whathaveyou, let me know and I’ll link it.

One last venture for our farm life that I am working on is a podcast of farm living. That is a few weeks out yet though….but keep your eyes and ears open!

Spring is here and there is a lot to do….off to make a couple of videos for your enjoyment!!