A good friend of mine often describes our family as people who create a great deal of work for our selves. We do have lost of hobbies, and enjoy a great deal of fun in the experiences.
Jeremy using the wood stove for oven bread.
The oven Bread.
This is Un Deda,(meaning one toe in Spanish). Yes we have a puppy. She is a red healer, with only one toe on her back left paw. We got her from a buggy full of puppy being given away at D&B. She has found her place in our family quite quickly. And seems to enjoy being constantly mangled by the kids. The kids are doing great at taking her out and caring for her. It does help that she is figuring things out very quickly. Her intelligent might prove to be a challenge at a latter date. But so far we are happy to announce our new family member. Well Nusis is a bit annoyed with a little puppy who won't to play.
Have you ever considered the place your food comes from? I grew up in a place where is was conman place to stop at rode side stand and buy peaches/collards/eggs/tomatoes what ever from the farmer who grew it on the land it was grown on. I now Live in a place that is primary agriculture based. Only the truth be told buying the local food from the farmer is a largely uncommon. Why? Well I do not know. My own husbands grandfather grows beans, but there never eaten by people in the our state or country. I could go throw a list of places where you can get food that is grown in our region and buy local food. But that is not rally my point. Nor is it the quality of our food that i am getting to(the closer from the plant the higher the nutrition). But the ability of being able to feed ones family when the trucks don't/can't bring the food from 3,000 miles away. I am fearful that much of our modern society has lost the ability to place a seed in soil and grow food, and then harvest new seed to do it the next year. Why is this so important? I feel that for us to teach our children to respect life, in all it's shapes and forms we must teach them the value of that which sustains us. Our food sources and the land that it comes from. This is farm land, garden boxes, and wild land that sustains the land we use around it. So I have ranted and what solution do I propose? Try growing a few plants for food. Not to just feed your family, but to grow your compassion and empathy for what you eat and how it gets to being. There are a few easy ways to build a small garden that can produce a large amount of food for your family. http://www.sendacow.org.uk/schools/africangardens/keyholegardens This is a great way to start.
I have been flowing the news of a woman in southern Calforina who just had octuplits. Much of the media coverage has come from her being a signal mother with six kids, now 14. I do not know the true motives of the woman, or the questions raised of the ethics of it all. But one thing that has been repeatedly expressed is "How will there be enuf love for all the kids?" As if love is a resource that is in low supply. Being a mother love is the one thing that I have never ran low on. Manny other things, but love for my children is not. One on one time I do believe will be in low supply, but does a child have to have one on one with mom to grow up healthy? I often hold both of my kids. I think if we look back a few generations at how families worked, we would see that the mother was not expected to do everything, but the children were thought to work along with mom. This teaches a child to be a independent adults, and how to work as a family or what we might call a team now days.
Write out a budget by listing in two columns your income and expenses, note whether your expenses are fixed (all ways stay the same) or fluctuating.
Example:Income $2750.00
Other$380.00
Total $3130.00
Expenses:Montages/Rent$900.00
Utilities$200.00
Insurance$400.00
Debt $600.00 (use 20% of income to pay off debt till debt free, than add to savings.)
Car$400.00(gas, maintenance, payment)
Food$280.00
Savings $300.00(10% of income, always pay your self first)
Total $2880.00Differences ( $250) to be used for unexpected expenses and adding to savings
2.Now that you have your food budget … lets plan
*Most important, ONLY SHOP WITH CASH!!!!!
$280.00 = $70.00 per week or $2.70 a meal (note that you will not spend the same for breakfast and lunch as you do for dinner).If you take out the $30.00 - $60.00 per month for staples, that leaves you with roughly $62.50 - $55.00 week
1)Inventory your pantry and see how many meals you have most ingredients to, make a list.
2)Make a meal plan, I usually plan 4 meals a week for dinner, 2 nights of leftovers, and one night eating with in-laws.I rotate a set breakfast and lunch plan for ease.
• Making up a “meal plan box” with 15 to 25 of your family’s favorite meals, numbering them and writing down all the ingredients is an easy way to rotate a meal plan painlessly. (Note: you do not need to place the recipes on the card, just write down the page # of where to find it in your cook books.)
• When setting up a meal plan box make a list of staple items you use to cook with. This will become your bulk item list to build a pantry with.
3)Make a list of all the items you need for the week, check the sale adds to see if you can substitute one item on your list for one on sale. Also note if any staple items are on sale.
4)Allocate $30 to $60 a month to your staple items list to buy them in bulk.If you do not use this money one month, save it and roll it over to the next month for sales. In our area case sales are very common in the fall. This money can also be used to buy larger items such as meat for the year from a farmer, or bushels of veggies at harvest time when prices are lowest.
5)Shopping …
• Shop the out side of the grocery store. This is where you will find the greatest nutrition for you buck. Bulk ideas are also much less than their packaged counter parts.
• Grocery outlets can have good bargains, BUT ALWAYS CHECK DATES!!
• Only use coupons for things you would normally buy – do not buy something just because you have a coupon. (Coupons are sometimes for new products with elevated prices.They are also often given on processed/less-healthy foods.)
• Compare similar items by their “ounce price;” that price is stated on the label on the self.
• Do not buy pre-packaged or junk food, it will cost you more in health care and is much more expensive per once of nutrition. This includes pop and juice.Eat the whole fruit if you crave sugar.
• Shop with a list and stick to it.
• Do not shop hungry.
• Shop at off peek hours with well-fed kids, this will help you stay sane.
• Try to go grocery shopping only once per week.You’ll be surprised at how you can get by without one or two ingredients instead of running to the store (and buying more stuff!)
• Try to find out when your store gets their fresh produce and shop that day, not the day before when the produce is less fresh (the produce stock person will tell you – same goes for the meat department).
So we now have 6 legal chickens in the eyes of the city. After collecting something like 40 households to sine, filling out 3 pages of paper work, paying fees ($2 hen), and an inspection for sanitation. The ladies are legal!!!!!!!!!!! Jeremy built an amazing passive solar hen house that heats it self and installed a solar panel to run the water heater. We are currently gathering 2-3 eggs a day, I expect this to rise as it gets wormier.
We are only waiting for the ground to thaw so we can sink holes for the yard. Right now the girls have the run of the hole back yard. This will not work for my spring garden, since seedlings look like food to them. But for now it is fine. They get along great with the cat and dog. There only pereadador is Elijah, who "wonts to hold them mama". He has yet to cheach one. Thank goodness for the chicken. Hoary for Chickens!!
