As the worm churns

Well, worm ranching may not be rocket science but I think I've managed to drown my wrigglers. I've got them new bedding and better drainage so we'll see if they dry out and rev. up. I have 2"x3"x1" plastic bins under the rabbit cages to catch the manure (and urine). I had set one aside for the worms but I didn't have good enough drainage. I think that the cost of converting all these bins to containers with catch buckets would not be cost effective so I'm going to look into finding a place in the ground to make a trench. That way I can water the rabbit manure down and wash out the ammonia so it doesn't burn the worms.

Sadly we lost a bunn last week. It was one of the new Flemish Giant babies - a light gray. He just didn't travel well and didn't recover. We were very sad and gave him a decent burial.

This winter it was as if someone pulled the plug on the economy of this town. Even I was surprised at how it happened overnight. Everyday Mr. Greenjeans is fearful of losing his job. Every week they lay off people both above him and under him.

Today I went to a yard sale at a neighbor's house - they are moving to AK. I picked up a food dehydrator (electric) for $3.00. I guess I've got Mrs. neighbor's attention as she is now looking like a survivalist nut (I taught her well). She wants us to go in on packaged food storage. I like our fresh food storage (I hear Chibi beginning to measure wheat into the mill, now) but I suppose long term packaged stuff has its place. You could bug out with it in its boxes. It's so expensive though!

Our garden land (and house and other land) sold to the neighbor's son just before the bust. He's now looking to sub-divide it for building lots. He hasn't (yet) given us permission to garden this year. I don't know what he's asking for the land. The time is ticking on the season here! I'm going to have to start thinking about raised beds in the lawn.

Boy am I pleased as punch to see a (little) veggie plot going into the White house lawn. I love our president and his family but I think he needs to think outside the box to turn the economy around. Payroll had to tell me I'd gotten my economic stimulus tax break - it's so small it wouldn't take us out to lunch at a fast food place! I am very grateful that we are both employed. We're saving money but we've only too recently been at the end of our financial rope to have much cushion.

Of Weather and Bunnies

The posting is rather sparce because ... well... not much is happening. It is cold - below zero at night and now at 10:00 a.m. it is 5 degrees. We've used most of a cord of wood and will have to buy some. Gathering and cutting wood makes for one more project for the good weather (in addition to gardening and canning and fishing).

Mr. Greenjean's company messed up on his check and so he got a quarter of the pay we were expecting. They're all scratching their ..... and talking about what to do about it but in the mean time, we're feasting on our food stores.

Last evening I stewed one of the roosters we'd butchered this year. I browened the meat on the stove top but then did the long simmering and cooking of vegies on the cook surface of the wood stove. The birds have been a little tough so I'm looking for ways of getting them more tender - if anyone has good recipees for for tough birds, let me know.

Beatrice bunny is still on the mend but it is slow progress. I want to see her 'bounce' back but she's lethargic. We've stopped the antibiotics and are on to pro-biotics so maybe she'll be coming around. She is eating enough to make up for lost time and no longer rejecting anything on her menu. She does see me coming and start sniffing around to see what delicacy I've brought to tempt her. She has me trained to greater amounts of treats.

We took Nee back to school (always so sad) and on the way home went by the breeder's house and picked up Chibi's show bunn. We had been waiting for a certain color that was not born and so the breeder sold Chibi a 5 month old rabbit she's been keeping for herself. The breeder is the president of the local club and wanted to encourage her in youth showing. So nice! The blood lines are to the best rabbits in her barns. Oh, it is a French Lop, doe. Pictures later.

Back to the routine

In addition to the cooking last weekend, we also filled shoe boxes with little things for presents to be sent as presents to kids around the world. This meant shopping and buying all sorts of little new things like pens and pencils, notebooks, hairbrushes and hair ties,toothbrushes and toothpaste, flashlights and extra batteries, and teddy bears... All that consumer spending felt out of place.

I'm glad to be back home today, baking bread, making jerky, cleaning the chicken coop. I even just sat on the back step in the sun and clucked with my chickens.

Having the birds in the yard with the dogs is working out fine. Mr. Greenjeans made a Bernese Mountain Dog sized hole in the fence so the dogs and cats now check out the chicken coop as well. They'd never been in there before. Of course the dogs think the chickens leave snacks around for them...ewww.

As others have posted, it is time to begin to do Christmas shopping. I feel we need to scale waaay back, but I see Mr. Greenjeans perusing catalogues and thinking about buying stuff. I think we're going to have to have a talk about 'stuff'.

Checking in

We had a wonderful weekend with Nee (our daughter who has to attend high school in the city to take advanced classes). We didn't do anything special. The girls hung out together, we made 2 batches of apple butter and bread, and I managed to get her to clean the mess she'd left behind in her room.

It is so difficult to have to take her back and forth to school. It's a three hour drive, expensive, and with the shortening days part of the drive is always in the dark with animals on the road. I always give thanks when we make it safely.

An interesting note is the mom where she is living was sick and had been to a gastric specialist. One of the possible theories of why she was sick (besides overseas travel) is that she is sick from eating "backyard produce". You see the Dr. said that the food we are used to eating is to highly treated that she may then have encountered a bug (not killed by pesticides) in the garden produce. I am equally horrified that my produce may have harmed her and the thought the people's digestion is so changing as to not be able to deal with eating natural food! The girls and I agreed that this is yet another reason to produce your own food.

I am an uninteresting Chemestry project

I have been declaired so my Ni-chan whose chemestry assignment was to go through the cupboards and pantry and bring to class things with interesting ingredients. She had a really difficult time finding anything with artificial ingredients. The Kosher tuna fish had a preservative, there were dog biscuits, and a packed food box that I'm not sure where it came from but which no one in the house will touch. We conjectured that it might have been left over from the previous owners since we bought the house from friends and moved in as they moved out.

It has been fun for me to have her come home from school and talk about all the stuff in food and have her go through the cupboard looking for examples... and not be able to find any.

One concern around the suburban homestead is that it is froze last night. I think the little peas and potatoes in the ground will be OK. I have some herbs planted and I hope there were protected and/or hearty enough. Freezing weather is a perpetual problem around here and one I need to get ahead of by making plant covers.

I was right - no one has noticed that the heat is off in the house. Mr. Greenjeans found out when I asked him to read my blog post on gas pumping frugality.