Springtime!

Today is another gorgeously sunny day. There's a good breeze, so I've been doing laundry and hanging it out on the clothes line. Ralph Jr. strung it up for me a couple of years ago around some oak trees, and strung some lines down low so the girls could help me. We wear aprons with pockets to keep the clothespins in. The birds are singing, we saw goldfinches and red-headed woodpeckers. Toby came to keep us company and sprawled out in the grass, and even Scamper, who had five kittens yesterday, came out to enjoy the sunshine and butterflies.

It's been an interesting spring.

The cold/cough that we all had we think was whooping cough. Nothing much can be done about it, since it's a virus, just lots of fluids and rest. Those of us that had it back in 99 didn't have it for long. The girls, including Kit, had it worst. By worst I mean it stuck around for a good month. Papa ended up getting pneumonia with it, he's on antibiotics and is feeling much better. Didn't make any difference if we were immunized for it or not, everyone has had it now, those that had all their shots and those that didn't.

In the midst of all of this, I had a food allergy test done. Turns out I'm allergic to wheat gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, almonds, kidney beans, and garlic. I went cold turkey off of those foods, with a few accidental exceptions, and I felt a lot better within a few days, and MUCH better after a couple of weeks! I'm very excited that it's made such a difference. I've been gardening and cleaning things, I even took over milking the goats for Kit for several days, and I haven't felt wiped out at all! My mind feels clearer, I have a LOT more energy than I've had in years. Praise God!

I'm having to learn some new cooking and menu planning skills, and get over the idea of eating grains for breakfast. Now I have dinner for breakfast. I'm rotating my diet so as not to eat the same thing in four days, that's been kinda hard to keep up with. I'm really thankful that this is something relatively easily dealt with, not like chemotherapy or surgeries or extended hospital stays. I've had to learn how to cook without garlic, praise God it wasn't onions. Not sure I'd know how to cook without onions! I haven't missed kidney beans at all. The gluten and dairy has been a challenge, especially since I've been relying on dairy for quick protein snacks for the hypoglycemia. Now I'm trying to keep straight which nuts I can eat on which days. I've been able to reintroduce duck eggs, that's a nice easy breakfast. Unfortunately, the ducks either quit laying or are laying somewhere else. I've been saving a stash of them in the fridge. They hypoglycemia symptoms seems to be settling down now that I'm not stressing my body out by eating allergens.

Books I've read recently: The Dry Divide, by Ralph Moody; Opal, The Journal of an Understanding Heart, by Opal Whiteley, adapted by Jane Boulton; and The View from Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg

Recent Yarn Projects

I've been knitting and crocheting this winter. I'm looking forward to getting the sheep sheared and getting more wool to play with!

Here's my newest project.... Socks!!


Here is a poncho I crocheted for Kit, from handspun wool from our sheep:



Sadie liked it so much she wanted one, too (this is the Martha Stewart "Coming Home" pattern, aka "The Prison Poncho"):



And for Kit's baby goat kids, I crocheted three little jackets. Here's one:



Sadie is just enchanted with the Knifty Knitters. She wanted a sweater made from the biggest one (for the bodice) and the littlest one (for the sleeves). It went together a lot faster than I thought it would. It's from two strands, one store-bought, one handspun, from our sheep. I dyed the handspun in purple coolaid to get a nice lavender color. Yes, it smelled like grape for a while. ;)

I thought we were going to make it through the winter without being sick, other than a few runny noses here and there, but no dice. The month of March has been a long trail of kleenex and teabags.

Kit came down with it first, dampening her excitement over 5 new baby goat kids. The rest have gotten it by onesies or twosies. I had it really bad last week and am finally feeling better.

I started going to a new naturopath, and he ran some tests and determined I have Adrenal Exhaustion, which is causing the hypoglycemia and low thyroid, among other things. I don't really know if the adrenal exhaustion comes from diet, genetics or stress. Or all three. I started on supplements for it the day before I got sick with the flu. Yesterday was the first day I felt good, actually. We'll see how it goes!

Frugal Meals for a Large Family, Phase One: Shopping

In my effort to save money, I decided that shopping once a month was more economical. There is gas to take into account, so the fewer trips into town = more $$ for groceries. I took my weekly shopping list, and figured out how much food we go through in a month. Dear son Mark decided to reorganize it by topic, thus the "animal flesh" column.

I've never bought everything on that list at one time. I'll print the list out, and go look in the freezers, the fridge, the cupboards and the pantry shelves and see what's missing, and highlight it. Then I'll wrack my brain to think of those three or four items that have been in my head to get at Costco that I can't remember when I actually have the list in front of me.

I have a full-fridge refrigerator in my kitchen. A normal sized one was just NOT working, with 7 adult-sized stomachs, and 4 small ones. I also have an upright freezer in the garage, and a chest freezer that dh found for really cheap and couldn't pass up. It's supposedly the "meat" freezer, and the other one is the "other stuff" freezer.

I shop at Costco, and the local cheapest grocery store in town, Winco. I also go to a restaurant supply store and drool over their huge cooking pots. Their prices rival Costco's, but they have a different inventory and I can get some things there that Costco doesn't carry. Like a three-bean green bean mix with cranberries. Or a gallon jug of Tabasco sauce. (Ok, I've never bought it, but the kids and I always like to look at it...)

Now, I have never been able to follow a menu very well. So basically, I buy ingredients. I very rarely buy convenience foods. They cost so much more ounce per ounce. We generally eat chicken two times a week, and ground beef two or three times, and roast once. Tuna dinner once a week, and in the winter, several soups. So for example, on the chicken, if we have fried legs for one meal, and two whole roast chickens for Shabbat dinner, I'd need four whole chickens per month if we alternate a red meat roast with chicken every other week. We eat approx 15 pieces of chicken per meal, and they come 3 pieces in a package, with 6 packages in a pack, so 2 packs of drumsticks and 2 packs of thighs (a little extra is fine).

The first time I went shopping for a month, I spent $600. I way over-estimated the olive oil usage, and I had to stop at Winco for fresh produce a few times. But I didn't do a major shopping run again for 6 weeks. The next time I went it was around $300 (Dh stole all my recipts. I'll get them back and see how much I spent).

On occasion, I'll take everyone with me. Usually, I'll just take a couple of strong teens to load it and unload it. I can also give them part of the list and we'll go twice as fast that way. Although, I have to check what they put in the basket, otherwise, I'll end up with suprises.

I keep a lot of staples on hand. I suspect we could eat for several months without going shopping, but it wouldn't be pretty. I have about ten 2 1/2 gallon buckets with different kinds of beans. I also keep wheat on hand, rice, and oatmeal. We buy 50lbs of oatmeal at a time. Grains and beans together make a complete protein, so I know we would not starve. I got the buckets at the bakery dept. at a grocery store. They contained frosting, they gave them to me. They are much easier to handle than a 5 gallon bucket.

Some dried food I keep on hand are raisins, mushrooms, and various fruit. I'll buy a whole box of pears, for example, and when they start getting over-ripe and we aren't eating them fast enough, Mark will dry them in the dehydrator. They get used as treats for the little girls, eaten on the sly by hungry teens, and sometimes they make it into the oatmeal for brekky.

Often, food is given to us. Several people have given us their Y2K stashes during the early 2000's. I babysit a little boy and his dad picks up food from the Gleaners organization. Last week he brought a bunch of food, along with a huge bag of mushrooms. I steamed them, then dried them. I used the broth from steaming for a fantastic home-made cream of mushroom soup.

We also will slaughter our own animals. I haven't had to buy meat for a couple of months, because we have plenty of goat, veal and chicken in the freezer. Kit found a goat that someone was giving away, so she butchered it herself and we got 65 lbs of meat from it for free. Someone else had a calf that was going down due to a genetic physical problem, so they gave it to us for free. Ron butchered that one. We also raised some cornish cross chicks that Kit got free from the fair, but to be honest, the feed cost more than they were worth. It would have been cheaper to buy them from Costco. They sure have a better flavor than chickens that are"mass produced" though.

Eggs are also cheap protein. It's worth having chickens if you can feed them on leftovers or let them free-range. Assuming they don't quit laying. A laying hen that is not laying is good for the crockpot. Too tough otherwise.