Prepping the Garden

It's time to prep the garden. We were talking about fertilizer this year and I didn't want to use a store-bought, man-made fertilizer. I wanted something natural. You know what that means... manure. We don't have any livestock but we do know someone who lives nearby that owns a lot of alpacas. I asked her and she not only invited us to come help ourselves to her compost pile, she even showed Bryan how to use the loader on her tractor to load his truck with it! Isn't that nice? Alpaca manure is wonderful for the garden because it's already in dry pellets so it's not as messy as some manure. Plus, it works better than Miracle-Gro. Once it has been composted, the heat in the compost pile helps kill grass seed or other weed seeds that may be in it.

You may be asking yourself, "Is she saying she's excited about free poop?" Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying.

Post Script

There was something I forgot to mention in my last post. I realized something unexpected once we started the bartering process - both parties involved seem to think they have the better end of the bargain. How fun is that? I'm elated to have the fresh eggs and she and her family are thrilled with the bread. I don't know why but for some reason I had the word "barter" synonymous with "compromise," thinking that both parties would be giving up something. But that's not how it is at all. Quite the opposite, it's great for everyone, no sacrificing involved. She had extra eggs, I can make bread, we both get exactly what we want. It's simple and wonderful.

Our First Barter

I'm so excited, we've reached one of our goals! I found out about a childhood friend who has fresh eggs. She was happy to barter for my homemade bread. I brought home 2 1/2 dozen eggs for two loaves of my homemade whole wheat bread - we quickly ate scrambled eggs after bringing them home, so some are missing for the picture. I grind the wheat myself so the bread was just as fresh.

I look forward to getting some more photos of her chickens this spring when they get to be outside all day. She has a great variety - everything from Plymouth Rocks to Bantams to Guineas.

She also has goats and milks them twice a day. They do not buy milk or butter - they use the goat's milk. She said she's even made ice cream with it and is going to try to make cheese.

The eggs are delicious. The yolks are a deep golden color which means they have tons of vitamins in them. The shells are nice and thick. It's so obvious how much healthier they are than store-bought eggs. Plus, I'm no longer paying for eggs! Soon, I will blog about how to make your own bread.

We've successfully cut our three most frequent store-bought items from the budget. Milk, bread and eggs. The milk budget has been cut in half now that I'm supplementing with our non-fat dry milk from food storage, I'm making 100% of our bread from food storage items and no longer buying it, and we're bartering for fresh eggs and no longer buying them. These three items were what we would most frequently "run to the store" for and end up picking up other items while we were there. So excited!

Mary said something that really resonated with me when I was picking up the eggs. She said, "Once you get used to doing things yourself, it's actually easier." I think she's right. It really is easier for me to make a couple of loaves of bread while I'm cooking dinner or homeschooling than it is for me to run to the store and get more. It's also SO much healthier. Can't wait to share more...

Milk

This gallon of milk cost me $3.58. It goes fast in my house.We usually all have a glass at dinner plus some on the oatmeal in the morning. The baby is too little to have it - but still, the other five of us drink it. I'd say we go through 3 gallons a week, sometimes more if I'm doing a lot of baking. Want to know how to stretch it?

In an effort to decrease our food expenses I'm trying to be more disciplined about using my food storage. I used to do this but had gotten away from it. We have non-fat dry milk. It's not quite the same as instant milk. This tastes better but you have to blend it a little more. (If I remember correctly, instant milk looks like little dry pearls and melts instantly in water. It also has a very distinct odor). The non-fat dry milk especially tastes good if you mix it with your regular milk!

So, here's what I do. When my store-bought milk is down to half a gallon, I mix up some of my non-fat dry milk. The dry milk I have mixes 3/4 cup of dry milk with 4 cups of warm water. I mix mine in the blender but I'm sure you could mix it by hand or give it a good shake if you had a pitcher with a tight fitting lid. Then I place my mixed milk in the fridge until it's good and cold and I pour it into the store-bought milk, refilling it up to a full gallon.

Important things to remember:

*Check the expiration date on your half gallon of store-bought milk before adding in dry milk. If you still have enough time to finish all of it before it expires, you're good. If it expires in a day or two, you may want to wait until next time to try this.

*Only refill a jug ONE time. I only refill my jug once, then we use it until it's empty and move on to a new jug of milk. If you keep refilling the same jug you are going to keep mixing new milk and old milk and could end up making yourself sick.

*I add a little vanilla to the blender when I'm making my non-fat dry milk. It helps out the flavor a little. Maybe 1/2 tsp - 1 tsp? Tonight at dinner I served a jug of half store-bought and half non-fat dry milk and everyone had seconds. I could taste a little of the vanilla and the milk tasted slightly different than usual but it was good. Not gross at all.

*When you get your mixed milk out of the fridge, sometimes there will be foam on the top. I just scoop this off with a large spoon and put it down the drain before I pour it into the jug.

Let me know if you try it. This saves us quite a bit of money. And, it's good for us to be circulating our food storage and keeping it fresh. My non-fat dry milk was purchased at a food storage cannery for our church. If you have a Mormon friend and you want to give this a try - ask them, they may be able to hook you up with a sample. :) But, I'm sure you can buy this type of dry milk in the store, just probably not quite as cheap as I get it at the cannery. I promise, sometime I'll blog about food storage.