Day 38, I make up for my sluffer lunch of yesterday, and receive kudos from today's new and improved lunch choice

Here are some pictures on the ranch.  I love all the signs of spring. 

 Also, my brother Jim had some apples left in his little personal cold room.  Although they'll have to be sorted through, I'm not afraid of ugly looking apples, as long as they taste good. He figures half of them may be good.  There are some fuji's, some honey crisp, and some granny smiths. 

Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?   I wasn't sure if I should put the apples in the 10for10for10, but what is it to be a cheap, penny pinching scrounger if you don't use a good thing that falls in your lap?  Beggers can't be choosy, they say, and so...we are going to find lots of ways to eat apples for a couple of weeks, at least.  The apples may look like I purchased them at a Russian market, but hey, I can cut off the ugly parts, can't I.  Otherwise, they would just end up being eaten by the birds, or thrown in the landfill. 

Even though you won't be able to duplicate my awesome way of saving money this week, I'll bet you could find special food items yourself. 

 I remember this fall, walking by an empty home for sale.  Its lawn was strewn with walnuts, all just being eaten by crows.  I thought then about chocolate chip cookies, or walnuts in my brownies.  Your neighbors might have such trees, or fruit trees whose fruit just falls to the ground. 

We also glean, with permission, from the neighbor's orchard.  He has one of my favorite varieties for making sauce, and after the pickers have already picked, there are always a few apples left to be had.  We get enough to fill several grocery bags full, which makes 40 or 50 quarts of applesauce. Plus, we make some from our own Transparent tree, which makes incomparable applesauce.     

Here is Salvador!  He's back.  We all love Salvador and have fun learning how to say more things in Espanol from him.

He gets around the ranch on a four wheeler.

Even the sage brush has a hint of green right now!

Interesting shapes

These are apple bins.  We used to love to make forts in them when I was young.  I have happy memories when I see the bins.

The grass is green, but the apple trees are mostly still bare.  These particular trees are Golden Delicious apples, the very same ones that I used to climb when I was a young girl. 

One time about this time of year, my brother John and I stole some magpie eggs from a nest and scrambled them up for my unsuspecting mother!  It was one of our best practical jokes.  I guess they tasted okay, but we weren't brave enough to taste them ourselves...

Look at the bark on this branch---it speaks of more than 50 years of pruning.

Here are the first signs of life!  The blossoms will break out very soon.  Apples get their leaves and blossoms at the same time.

Noah is rolling rocks down the road while mom is being boring, taking pictures.  The dogs hang with him.

Dandilions are commonplace, but still, they make spring beauty

These little purple weeds are everywhere this week, blanketing the fields in purple.  Unfortunately, they stink, so the children leave them alone.

Eppie is sitting on command, in the wildflowers of the apple orchard.

The men are pruning the peach block today.

We "can" peaches from these trees, and sell this variety at the market as well.  They are a variety called Marena, named after my sister-in-law Rena.  My brother Jim developed them himself, and named them after his wife.

Wind machines in the cherries.  Organic cherries, I might add.

Daffodils are everywhere this week.

Noah and I play a game almost every day on the way home from school.  It is called, "yellow bush" and can only be played while the forsythia is blooming.  Whoever spots the most yellow bushes as we drive along, wins. 

We try to take different routes home, so we can find new yellow bushes.  If we drive home past one particular office, it is the jackpot, with over 25 bushes lining the parking lot.  "Yellow bush" makes an annual change to playing beetle bug...you should try it!

breakfast menu:  cold cereal, milk and tea

Cost:  $2.15

box of cold cereal:  1.00

half gallon milk:  1.15

Lunch menu:  beef and gravy over brown rice, tortilla chips, apples, and apple cobbler

Cost:  $4.45

hamburger meat:  .86

au jus flavor packet:  .39

1 cup flour, for thickening:  .10

2 oz brown gravy mix: .29

salt:  .01

apples:  free

16 oz bag chips:  .99(out dated)

sugar for apple crisp, 2 cups:  .34

cinnamon for apples:  .05

flour for the apple crisp:  .10

double batch biscuit dough, to top the cobbler:  1.32

snack, on the way to violin lessons:  saltine crackers: $.40

You see, there are a lot of large bowls of soup for the price.  Everyone who wanted more could have seconds today, too.  I had a little leftover for Rodger's lunch tomorrow.

supper menu:  vegetable soup and bread

Cost:  $2.65

6 lb potatoes:  .60

10 oz carrots:  .17

1.2 head cabbage:  .39

2 oz beef soup flavoring:  .49

1 loaf big white bread, from the store:  .99

Today's total bill:  $9.64  with a great lunch, and half the cobbler left over for tomorrow.