We've had such a fun week here. Let me tell you about it! 1. Chicks: out of nine eggs, three of them that went into the incubator were fertile. And all three of them hatched, praise God! Since there are only three chicks this year, I'm keeping them in a cardboard box in our kitchen. The warming plate I bought last week came, and it's amazing. I can actually sleep at night not worrying about if the chicks are too hot or too cold, and I also don't worry about our kitchen burning down. We have a small amount of feed left from last year's chicks—about a gallon. So I'm trying to waste as little as possible, with hopes that we won't have to buy more. Rather than using a regular feed dispenser, I'm using a 1/4 pint jar with a parmesan cheese container lid screwed on top. You can see in the picture how there is just enough room for two heads to fit in there. This year I've spent about $130.00 on chick supplies, with the incubator and warming plate. But I know the warming plate will pay for itself in three years, and hopefully the incubator will work long enough to break even. Chicks cost about $2.50 at our local farm store, so this time our incubator only saved $7.50... let's say $8.00 with taxes thrown in. And I'm not sure how much electricity it cost to run. If I save $5.00 every time I use the incubator (value of the chicks minus electricity costs), it will take 11 uses or hatchings to break even. I don't know if it will last 11 hatchings, so my plan is to (hopefully) pick more fertile eggs and hatch ducks, quail or other high-dollar birds. For example, hatching three $5.00 ducks will save $15.00 instead of $8.00. I hope there will be some savings involved in incubating chicks every year, but the main reason I bought the incubator was to ensure my ability to produce birds in case of shortage or unavailability. Chicks are worth far more than a couple of dollars when you can't find them anywhere!! 2. Terra-cotta pots: Walmart finally had some clay pots in stock!!! I would have loved to find some pots for free (and I will definitely keep looking), but I was just happy to find them. I also bought trays for the bottom of each pot. Next time I'm there I will buy more trays for the three pots that I already have. The cost per pot (with tray) was as follows: Large pot: $16.89 Medium pot: $6.10 Small pot: $2.88 You can see that the large pot cost over twice as much as the medium one. That being said, the large one is over twice as large! I will use the large pots for indoor trees like my fig tree and citrus (Lord willing). The medium size ones will be for regular houseplants like snake plant, anthurium, etc. And the smallest pots I bought (which were not the smallest ones at Walmart) will be used for fresh herbs, indoor and outdoor. My hope is to fill some with herbs that aren't winter-hardy, like tarragon and lemon verbena. I will also keep some empty in the summer so I can plant basil and thyme in them during the winter. Eventually I want to replace all of my plastic pots with clay or ceramic pots. Plastic deteriorates in the sun, but it's also lighter to move. Some of my largest plants are in plastic pots and I will probably keep them there until the plastic deteriorates. Walmart doesn't have plain clay pots that big, so I will probably need to invest $50.00 or more into especially large pots, which will likely need coasters to move around. Sigh. But we will take one step at a time here. 3. Garden: I harvested cilantro this week. I also spent a couple of hours chopping up storage onions for the freezer, weeding out onions that have sprouted, and putting the rest of them in the fridge. I have a whole drawer of onions now! I also have several gallon-size bags of cubed squash in the freezer, to which I will probably add more gallon bags of parsnips. I thought for sure that I would be able to use 12 square feet of parsnips this spring, but we had an especially busy time in March where we were gone for meals or I fixed simpler meals like sandwiches. Someday when I get my life together, those busy weeks won't throw me off so much. It's one thing to plan a meal that doesn't happen. It's another thing to plan a garden for that meal, grow the food for it, and then end up not eating it. Feels like such a waste! Next year I will still plant extra parsnips for spring, but I will try to figure out some potluck-friendly dishes to make with the garden produce. Anyhow, there are still parsnips out there, but I know they'll start to get woody in a couple of weeks as they go to seed. So I will be digging out the remaining plants. If we can't eat them, I'll freeze them. 4. Figure: I get so tired of sharing these screenshots, but I know they're helping me stay accountable to my goal. There was a .4 lb. weight gain and 0.1% body fat increase from last week, but I'm still doing no sugar six days per week, exercising every day, and intermittent fasting. I will continue to put in place good habits, work on healthier meals, and we'll see what happens.
5. I've been working on a rocking chair remodel for some time now, and finally finished it. I found the rocking chair for free, painted it white, and the next step was to make a cushion to hide the missing piece in the back. Well, we finally just bought a $20.00 full-chair cushion and it works. The shape isn't quite right, but it's very comfortable and the fabric on it is nice and summery. How is that thrifty? Well, it's thrifty when you figure not that I paid $20.00 for a single-season cushion, but that the cushion has the potential to work for all seasons! All I have to do is make a slipcover for it, and we can have a "different" cushion for fall, winter and spring. The cushion is nice and sturdy, covers the back AND bottom of the chair, and will last for a long time. I'm pretty happy about it. 6. I ripped some audio CDs onto my computer. Our preschooler LOVES playing music on her thrift-store CD player, and I like the idea of using music as part of a homeschool curriculum. Several years ago I got rid of all of my CDs. People don't use CDs anymore, so I thought our music consumption would be mostly digital via my phone or our smart TV. Well, that works great until the internet goes out, or until a child wants to listen to music independently. Now I'm back to ripping and burning CDs. Right now we're just listening to whole CDs of hymns, bluegrass, harp music, etc., but eventually I want to make assortment CDs that have many different genres and songs, themed to the season or to what we're learning about. That's about all for this week. I hope you're all enjoying spring! ~Prudence~
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About PrudenceI am a Christian homemaker who lives in the Midwest. I enjoy sewing, gardening, reading and thrifting. Archives
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