Dog vomit and dead chickens

I really enjoy reading Meredith's blog Like Merchant Ships. She exudes positive energy as she practices cheerful frugality. It's blogs like hers that help remind me that no matter what happens, your attitude can still be positive and you can be happy.

So, despite the fact that I was awakened multiple times during the night by a crabby 2 year-old, it's raining (and mud is being tracked into the house constantly) and by 9am I had already cleaned up dog vomit and disposed of a dead chicken, I know it's going to be a good day.

We've got roof trusses and roof decking going up as I type, and I promise to update the renovation blog by the end of the day.

Squash harvest 2007

And my heart skipped a beat

Late last night I went outside with a bucket of food scraps to dump in the chicken coop. I noticed that the water was empty but since it was night, I resolved to go out early in the morning and fill the water up.

This morning about 7:00, I heard a chicken making a racket outside. Often after they lay an egg, they cluck and cluck until I go out and give them some encouragement (Good chicken! Thanks for laying an egg!), but they will often make a racket if they are out of water. Some neighbors of ours once ignored an early-morning chicken racket and went outside to discover that the coop door had been left open and all the chickens had been eaten by raccoons. Since I knew they were out of water, I dragged my bum out of bed. In the back of my mind, I was worried that a raccoon was out there terrorizing them. Just yesterday two chickens had squeezed out of the tiny hole in the chicken wire where the water dish is. I turned on the hose and went around to the coop. I filled the water bucket, fed them, and then counted. And counted again. Checked the roost and the egg boxes and counted again. We were short a chicken. It was Midnight, a Black Star who lays brown eggs. I started looking around for her remains. I was sure that if she was out, that raccoons would have gotten her for sure. Frugalboy came out and I told him she was missing. We looked over near the addition, and there she was! Strutting around, oblivious to the fact that she had nearly met her demise. The dog was out with us. Tawny is an excellent chicken herder. Unlike Border Collies or Cattle dogs (heelers), she doesn't nip at what she's trying to herd. She can usually round up the chickens and send them back to their coop without even touching them. For a while the chickens were trained to head back to the coop if they even saw the dog outside. I haven't let the chickens out at all this summer though, to preserve the harvest in the garden, so Midnight was out of the habit of heading home when she saw the dog. Instead of going back to the coop, she hid in a juniper bush. I was able to pick her up and carry her back to the coop.

I made an attempt to secure the water dish in the opening of the chicken wire and I hope that no more chickens try to escape. These hens are kind of like pets. They all have names, and to think of losing one made me panic just a little!

Which brings me to my dilemma. We got 5 chicks last spring to replace a few of the older hens. Ideally, I'd have 6 or 7 chickens, maybe 8, but not 10. It is too many eggs for us to eat without getting tired of eggs. I haven't decided which older chickens will be the first to go, because they all seem to be laying. In the meantime, I'm feeding 10 chickens. we've been going through about 100 pounds of feed in a little over a month. I am sure that it is more expensive than buying eggs. I don't keep track of egg production, nor do I raise chickens to save money on eggs. I raise them more for the self-sufficiency aspect. But to spend $20 a month of chicken feed seems to be a little expensive! Right now I feed them Purina Layena because it has the calcium in it to help the shells be hard. A lot of commercial feeds don't provide the calcium so you have to supplement with oyster shells or something else. When I raised chickens for meat, the man who did our processing recommended that I drive to a farm town about an hour away to their local grain mill and buy what was called 4H pig feed. The mill blends it especially for the local 4H kids and it was just a mix of wheat and corn with a protein content of 17%. We mixed the pig feed with the meat grower ration and it lowered our feed cost for raising the birds. It slowed their growth down enough that we could put off processing for a week or so. I also think it made the chickens taste better than the year before. It is much cheaper (almost half the price) and comes in 100 lb sacks. I guess I need to do some research and find out if I can feed that pig ration to the laying hens as long as I throw in some calcium. Anyone have some experience and could you offer advice?

Filling The Hollow Tree

I'm adding the Hollow Tree back to the sidebar. I am teaching some of my friends to can this summer so I planted extra green beans to share. I'll add the teaching-to-can sessions to the Hollow Tree list but the jars will be going home with the "students."

Frugal Farm Footwear

How to Can Green Beans

8 weeks to the day after I plant green bean seeds, I am usually able to go out and harvest beans for the first time. Every few days in the summer I end up canning beans. Want to know how? Read on. Make sure you follow the direction for your own pressure canner, though, and for your own altitude.

First, you'll need one of these. For low-acid foods like vegetables and meats, you have to use one. It gets hotter than boiling so the food is preserved properly.



You'll want to read through the directions that come with your canner to familiarize yourself with them, but they are all similar.

Then, I get some clean jars in the clean sink and let them sit in hot water until I'm ready to fill them. If the jars are hot, they are less likely to break when you add hot liquid. I didn't use to do this until one summer half of the beans I did didn't seal. I don't worry about it for fruits, though.



Then you'll want to put some water in your canner and start heating it up. Mine wants about 3 quarts.



You'll also need some vinegar and some salt. The vinegar helps white mineral deposits from parking themselves on your jars when you pull them out of the canner (especially if you have hard water like me) and the salt is for the beans. You'll want canning/pickling salt because it doesn't have the anti-caking agents that table salt has that can make the liquid in your jars cloudy.



Before you start all this other stuff, you'll want to prepare the beans. Wash them, snap off both ends, and break them into the lengths you want. Smaller pieces fit better into the jars but take longer to prepare. Mine are about 2 inch pieces.



You also want to get a big pot of water on to boil. This is for filling the jars with after we put in the beans. This method of canning is called raw pack. The beans are raw when we put them in the jars. Hot pack would be if we cooked the beans in water and then packed them in the jars.



The next pot you need to get on the stove is a small pan with a little water in it and the flat lids. Follow the directions on the package, but typically you bring the water to a simmer and let the lids sit until you're ready for them.

Canning really heats up the kitchen. Look at all these pots!



Next you want to start putting the beans into the empty jars. Shake them down a little as you go to fill in any big pockets. But then leave an inch of room at the top. This is called headspace and will help the jar seal.



After you have all the jars filled, put some salt in each jar. I use 1/2 teaspoon per pint. You can use less or more or none. That is one of the nice things about preserving your own food.



I put the salt in after the beans so I know which jars have salt in them. Also, if you preload the jars with salt and you've under- or over-estimated how many jars you'll need, that's another thing to remember.



Now add boiling water to each jar, leaving about an inch of headspace (it's not critical to be exact at this point). You can use a wide-necked funnel but when it's just water, I don't mind spilling. For sticky stuff I definitely use the funnel.



Next you'll take a thin plastic utensil--either a knife or the handle of a spatula (there is a special tool made for this, too, I think) and run it around the edges of the jar to release any air bubbles that may still be trapped. Plastic won't accidentally break a jar like metal could.



Now measure your headspace again. It needs to be an inch. If you need more, use a spoon to borrow water from the next jar over that looks like it has too much. Or ladle more from the big pot of water. If you have too much, spoon it out.



Almost done! Now get a clean rag or washcloth and get it wet and wipe the rims of the jars. This makes sure that nothing gets in the way of the seal.



Now it's time for lids. If you don't have one of these nifty magnetic wands, use some tongs or something because you will burn your fingers.



Center the lid on the jar.



Don't forget that you need to work quickly but don't rush and forget something. Screw the ring on over the lid. When you start to meet some resistance, give it a little more twist. Don't screw them on tight or the air can't escape and let the jar seal.



Now put the jars into the canner that has the boiling water in it. These jar tongs are very helpful.



All the jars in the canner. In a pressure canner, it's all right if the jars touch each other. You can even stack small jars on top of each other. I had to cram these in to get them to fit.



Now I put the lid on and twist it so it locks. Your canner may be different but it will be similar.



When the steam starts coming out of the vent in a steady stream, set the timer for 7-10 minutes. This exhausts all the air out of the canner.



When the time is up, you put the pressure regulator on. This will allow the pressure to build up inside. The little button on the lid of this canner pops up to let you know there's pressure in there.



The dial will start turning. When it gets to 12 pounds, I start the timer. Most instructions in canning books are for 10 pounds. Then you add pounds to adjust for altitude. Here in the Boise area we can at 12 pounds. Set the time for 20 minutes. If the dial should happen to go below 12, stop timing and restart again when it gets back to 12. I always reduce the heat because the dial keeps going up. I haven't perfected it yet to keep it at 12, but too much pressure is fine.



When the timer rings, remove the canner carefully from the heat. Now let it sit until the dial reaches 0 and the little button drops, indicating there's no pressure left in the canner. Don't try to let any pressure out by tipping the regulator or cool it quickly by putting it in water. You'll just break the jars and probably burn yourself.



When the pressure is gone and the button drops, remove the regulator and carefully open the canner away from you.



Lift the jars out one at a time, trying to keep them level.



Put the jars on clean towels at least an inch apart so they can cool. Leave them until they are completely cool.



Now let them cool for up to 24 hours. Usually I wait 10 or 12. They'll be room temperature.



When they're all cool, wipe the jars off if they're dirty (not usually with beans, but peaches will practically require a bath) and write the date on the lids. If you did more than one batch in a day, label the batches with numbers or letters so you know which is which. Also check to make sure that the center of each lid is down (it doesn't pop up and down when you press it) to check the seal of each jar. I have found that the longer it takes me to get the jars out of the canner, the better they seal. I had to run a quick errand while these beans were depressurizing so I didn't take them out right away. They had all sealed before I even opened the canner. But if you rush to get the lid off, then get them out quickly, they are more likely to not seal. So go check your email before you take the jars out of the canner. Also, before you store the jars, remove the rings.

If you have some jars that didn't seal, you can either re-process them with new lids and rings or you can put them in the fridge and eat them in the next couple days.



When you're ready to eat them, as an extra precaution, it is recommended to boil the beans for at least 10 minutes since they are low-acid. I add a pat of butter and serve them to my hungry kiddos!

Making something from nothing

These days I feel like I spend so much time washing dishes and wiping counters, and weeding and moving hoses, which allows for a lot of introspection but not a lot of time for blogging. After I made dinner a couple times this week, I realized that I had been creating something out of nothing. Saturday afternoon I hit the grocery store to look for some dinner inspiration and boneless pork chops were on sale for "buy one, get one free." This made the per-pound price only $2 which is a bargain for any type of boneless meat these days. I picked up two packages, put one in the freezer, and left the other in the fridge for Sunday's dinner (what did I get for Saturday's dinner, you ask? BOGO tilapia fillets which I fried up in a pan. Came to $3/pound which might be the cheapest tilapia I've ever seen) Sunday night I sauteed the pork chops and made a creamy gravy with the drippings. There were two chops left over, plus some sauce, so I thinly sliced them, put them in a container with the gravy and put them in the fridge for a future dinner.

The designated leftover night arrived, and I cooked the remainder of a package of fettucini that I found in the pantry (I weighed it and it was a little more than 5 oz). Then I mixed the sliced pork and gravy with a can of cream of celery soup, about 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese, and the cooked noodles. I put it all in a greased 10x8 baking dish, sprinkled more cheese on top, and baked it until it started to bubble on the edges, maybe 20 minutes. It turned out really yummy!

Then the next night, I happened to have leftover cooked shredded chicken in the fridge, as well as a bag of mixed greens from the garden. They had been in there for 10 (!) days but had been washed and spun dry, so they were still crisp and fresh. I also cut up some tomato, cucumber, and onion, and had some pita bread so we ate chicken salad pitas for dinner. They were delicious. And there was enough left that I got one for lunch the next day.

Both of these dinners were created with leftovers that were used in a completely different way than they had been served the first time. I certainly don't expect you to ever be able to reproduce them (I'll never even be able to reproduce the pork casserole because I didn't measure anything when I made the gravy or the casserole) but this is the sort of living that reduces waste and encourages creativity with what you have. And I think that is the definition of being frugal.

Snack Attack!

About a month ago I had this fantabulous idea about how to encourage my kids to eat more healthy snacks. One day I had given the kids a granola bar for their morning snack, and Frugalgirl1 (who is turning 7 today! Happy Birthday!) had the gall to ask me "How many granola bars can we have?"

I had always limited things like that to one per day anyway, but I had a brainstorm that I finally put into practice today. I'll report back on the progress.

I've divided up snack foods into 3 categories--green, yellow, and red. Green snacks are unlimited. At snack time, they can choose any green snack. Green snacks are fruits and veggies. Now, some people may disagree with my choice, but I have also included cheese and bread in the green snack category. The bread can't be covered in jam or honey; it has to be plain or with butter.

Yellow snacks have to be purchased with a yellow snack ticket. I have alloted the kids 3 yellow snack tickets per day. I handed out a week's worth. I am encouraging them to limit their yellow snacks to 3 per day so they will still have yellow tickets at the end of the week. Yellow snacks include almost everything. Granola bars, crackers, popsicles, muffins, etc. They are generally healthy foods but not the best choice.

Red snacks are the things I don't want them to have every day, like candy, marshmallows, cupcakes, etc. I have given them 3 red tickets for the whole week.

Maybe I should have given out fewer yellow tickets to begin with, but I am kind of hoping they learn to eat fruits and veggies instead of crackers.

on to other random topics...



We had the hay cut, baled, and sold in a period of 4 days.



This picture was also taken on July 3 and this morning I picked the first zucchini. There will be more in a day or two. Let the grilling of vegetables begin! I can't even wait!

Better than fruit snacks

What more could you ask for?

One more picture, and a contest!

Here's one more shot of something growing in my yard. The first person to correctly identify it wins their choice of a pair of soft-soled shoes or a skein of hand-painted yarn. The only hint I'll give is that those buds are about to be flowers, not fruit. Good luck!

eta: not to sound confusing, but the flowers will be fruit eventually, but to me the picture looks like berries right now.

What's up?

Radish seedlings, the first of the summer garden!




The garden. Go to flickr for details.



What's growing...
pears

raspberries

peaches

irises

strawberries

Saving time and money

Yesterday I mixed up seven pounds of meatballs. I froze them individually on baking sheets and they'll go in ziploc bags in the freezer to be used as I need them. I used my Bosch mixer with the dough hook to mix them up really quick, and a scoop to portion them out. So basically, in the time it took to make one dinner, I made seven. This will save me time in the future, and also some moo-lah because I won't have to order a pizza or drive through McD's. I just threw them together without a recipe, and they turned out pretty good.



Meatballs
For each pound of ground beef, use one egg, about 1/3 cup of either bread crumbs or oatmeal, a couple tablespoons of dried minced onion, 1/2 tsp salt, and some pepper.

To cook them, I either put them in a baking dish and pour some sort of sauce over them, and bake them at 375. Or, I put them in a skillet, start to brown them, then pour in the sauce, cover, and simmer them until they are done. I use an instant-read thermometer (160 degrees) but it takes around 25-30 minutes total.

For sauce, you can use sweet and sour, barbecue, or tomato. My kids love them almost every way.

Make your own yogurt

While I still buy those outrageously expensive individual cups of yogurt on occasion, I almost always have a quart or two of homemade yogurt in the fridge. I use it mostly in fruit smoothies. Some frozen fruit and some yogurt, blended up, makes a delicious and nutritious breakfast drink. It is super easy to make your own yogurt, for a fraction of the cost of store-bought.

Things you will need:
Milk
Saucepan
2 tbsp plain yogurt (with active cultures) per quart of milk
candy or instant-read thermometer
quart jars and lids
small cooler
dish towels



Heat up the milk in the saucepan until it is 180 degrees.



Then move it off the heat and let it cool until it is about 115. Yogurt needs to incubate at 108 degrees, so by the time you get the starter mixed in and the milk poured into the jars, it will be the right temperature. Put your plain yogurt into a bowl. (the picture shows the jar)


Spoon a little of the warm milk in to bring the yogurt's temperature up. Then pour the yogurt mixture into the milk, stir it thoroughly, and pour it into your jar(s).


Put the lid(s) on loosely. Put the jar(s) into the cooler, pack the extra space with dishtowels,


then put the lid on, and let it sit for 5-8 hours. Voila! Homemade yogurt, so little work!




What kinds of milk should you use? Any kind. The higher the fat content, the creamer and richer the yogurt. I recently have been making whole milk yogurt because it makes the smoothies very rich and filling and almost like milkshake. But I also make skim milk yogurt from powdered milk. When making it with powdered milk, I often add extra powder to add extra protein. The advantage of using powdered milk is you don't need to heat it up and cool it. I mix the powder with 120-degree water and proceed as usual.

To flavor your yogurt, stir in some jam, or some vanilla or lemon extract and a little honey or sugar.

Want organic yogurt? Use organic milk. It makes your cost savings even more!

When you get to the end of the jar, save the last 2 tablespoons for your next batch. It's called chain yogurting. You can chain yogurt for a long time before the yogurt won't set up well. If you buy a big container for your starter, you can freeze the excess in ice-cube trays and thaw them when you need fresh starter.

Special Delivery

The postal employees must think it's strange when people order live chicks through the mail! But look how cute!




(and I am still planning a marathon blogging session about our vacation! I am in the process of uploading photos to flickr so go take a peek!)