Day 42, in which I attend an auction and come home with nothing but a sunburn

Did I get to sleep in today? No, the biological clocks of the juveniles around here won't allow that. The cinnamon rolls did make it easy on me, though. We ate rolls early, and had cold cereal like a brunch. 

Remember seeing these in last night's post?  Well they looked like this again when we woke up this morning, and a welcome sight they were!  Dipped in hot tea, they made the morning warm and inviting.

Sarah had to work at a health fair; I went to a car auction, but the van I liked was part of a bidding war. It went beyond my price range, and the guy who bought it looked like he would transform it into a church van. He really wanted that van.

You see all kinds of people at an auction. Fascinating. I had to keep moving away from a particularly rank cigar. And found myself more than once by a really nice credit-union lady who had to place a repossessed vehicle in the auction. We had a nice chat.

Trudy stayed home with the littles and did the dishes, which was really nice of her.

We took a trip to Costco after the auction, but it proved to be a letdown for the kids---the samples were all put away before we got there. I picked up some Easter treats and some baking powder. Costco is powerfully difficult to escape from without making some sort of impulse buy, but I did it.

Fiesta Foods has 2 pound blocks of cheese for $2.99 again this week! I pulled in on my way home from the auction and got a block.

Here are all the taco makings...it was a design-your-own-taco night.

Here are Trudy's designs.  Artistic, no?

A serving on the plate before taco designing. The meat looks like more than it really is, because of the angle of the lens.  The beans are about twice the amount of the meat in reality...

Two beautiful maidens.  They received leis at school for the "festival of the arts" outdoor luau on Friday, and remade them into crowns.

Christiana showed me her taco design.

Mine looks more traditional.  In the background you can see that there is more of everything in the bowls, so nobody felt cheated.  All full...

This one doesn't look quite as meaty from above, but things didn't spill out so much.  It was a more practical design.

breakfast menu:  cinnamon rolls, mini wheats, tea, and milk

Cost:  $1.24

6 cinnamon rolls:  .28

5 bowls of cold cereal:  .50

3 1/2 cups milk:  .46

lunch menu:  scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls, canned cherries

Cost:  $1.12

6  eggs, scrambled:  .50

6 cinnamon rolls:  .28

pint of cherries:  .50

snack:  carrots

Cost:  $.09

Supper:  tacos

Cost:  $2.45

hamburger, 1 lb:  .99

pinto beans, refried:  .24

lettuce:  .35

cheese:  .19

fresh homemade tortillas:  .40

salsa:  .24

butter on tortillas:  .04

chopped cilantro:  .05

Today's total pricetag:  $4.90 (feeding 6 people today)

Day 41, end of the 3rd quarter, a school half day, 4 of us get out of Dodge, and a treasure hunt

Everything started off in a hurry, with Kate and the twins finishing their packing, Kate and Trudy gathering up their final projects of the quarter.  I ended up driving them all to school, so my day was changed up.  Noah didn't have kindergarten today, so he and I went to the grocery store on the way back home.

 We are experiencing reduced numbers around here!  Rodger packed up to head to the men's retreat at camp Wooten, where he hopes to see lots of friends from around the state.  Kate will be competing at Knowledge bowl in Spokane, and Mercy and Charity are spending the next week with Jane and Ray.  That is 10 minus 4, which makes only 6 of us at home.

But since everybody ate breakfast and Rodger was home for lunch with us, I'm not sure exactly how much is the right budget amount.  We did okay though, just about right.

Rodger bought me some pretty mums this week.  He knows I love flowers.

Here is our yummy concoction made of macaroni and gravy leftovers, with bread and salad.

We ate organic today.  Organic cookies...with chocolate chips.  Look at that price tag!  These cookies were in the mark-down bin, so although they weren't planned, we were happy to have such a yummy treat for the snack for all of us stay-at-homes.

I remembered only too late about the cinnamon rolls Trudy baked last night, so I couldn't send them along with the travelers.  Oh, well, we just had to make do and eat them ourselves.  By the time I took this picture we had already remembered them and converted 7 of them into our bedtime snacks.

breakfast menu (for 10):  frosted mini wheats and milk

Cost:  $2.00

lunch menu:  leftover macaroni and cheese, carrots, whole wheat bread and butter

Cost:  $.73

macaroni and cheese:  n/c, calculated into last night's meal

carrots, 16 oz:  .27

1 boule homemade whole wheat bread:  .33

1/2 cube butter:  .13

snacks for 10:  popcorn leftover from yesterday for travelers, crackers and cheese for Rodger, organic cookies for everybody else

Cost:  $2.08

rodger's crackers:  .99

rodger's cheese:  .10

organic cookie package:  .99

popcorn:  n'c, paid for yesterday

treasure for the treasure hunt:  crackers and cheese

Cost:  $1.62

 one package crackers: $.99

 3 oz gouda cheese:  .63 

supper:  hamburger-stroganoff goolosh creation, green salad, whole wheat bread, cinnamon rolls, and butter

Cost:  $2.26

1 pound lean hamburger meat, fried:  .99

 (that was the price for ground beef value packs at the store.  I just stumbled across it, and wish I had bought more)

macaroni and cheese leftovers, about a cereal-bowl full:  n/c, accounted for in yesterday's budget

hamburger gravy, about 1 1/2 cup, leftover from earlier in the week:  n/c

1 carrot, for salad:  .04

1 heart romaine:  .42

1 loaf my bread:  .33

6 pats of butter for the bread:  .06

7 cinnamon rolls (at bedtime), @ about 4 cents each:  .32

7 pats of butter for the rolls:  .09

Today's total, including the treasure hunt:  $9.22

Day 40 We teach an evening class and eat in a hurry

Once a month Rodger and I teach a baby care class for expectant parents together at the hospital .  We love to do this together, but it also leaves the kids at home on a school night to do homework on their own, and we get back long after the young ones are in bed.

So I like to have a simple meal on such nights, without much clean-up to do.  Tonight we had macaroni and cheese, with peas and corn.  A one-bowl-meal, and all done on the stove.

Here is the casserole dish full of macaroni and cheese, with bread crumbs on top.

Here is another view  with the peas and corn on the right.  Each person had everything in one bowl.

Pretty and tasty...

breakfast today:  variety cold cereal (the choice is personal, but Mom weighs out the right amount; today's dollar choices included rice crispies, life, cinnamon life, mini wheats, or raisin bran), and milk

Cost:  $2.00

cereal, 10 portions:  1.00

milk, half gallon:  1.00

lunch menu:  hamburger gravy over brown rice, apples, pretzels

Cost:  $2.93

hamburger meat:  .86

3 cups brown rice:  .69

packet of au jus:  .39

2 oz beef gravy flavoring:  .29

apples:  free

pretzels:  .60

1 cup flour:  .10

snack:  kettle corn

Cost:  $.66! only! that was a huge amount of popcorn

12 oz pf popcorn:  .35

6 tbsp oil for the kettle:  .18

3/4 cup sugar:  .13

supper menu:  macaroni and cheese, peas and corn

Cost:  $3.91

nacho cheese sauce, 24 oz:  1.13

macaroni noodles, 2 lb:  1.17

frozen veggies, corn and peas,1 lb:  .98

milk for the cheese sauce, 4 cups:  .52

flour for thickening, 1/2 cup:  .05

onion powder:  .04

salt  .01

Today's total:  $9.50

 and since we only used about half of the macaroni, we will have leftovers tomorrow, already paid for tonight.

I could have just charged half of the cost of the macaroni and cheese to today's cost, but I thought that everybody might get hungry before bed and want more, so I figured that if it were already calculated today, then if they ate more in the evening while I was gone, I wouldn't call it snitching.  Happily, they didn't need more.  Good job, kids.

The chicks are still providing entertainment.  We are beginning to socialize the chicks with the dogs, under close supervision, of course. 

The chicks have zero fear, and the dogs are quivering in anticipation...of a meal, I'm sure.  But we have had dogs get along with chickens before, so we can do it again.

Happy eating.

Day 39 with some new additions for omnivores

This is the day the children have been waiting for.  Wednesday is the day the new chicks arrive at the ag store.  How does that affect us?  Well, some months ago, Rodger found out that it is legal in our town to raise chickens in the city limits.  I found out that even Seattle allows chicken ownership in its boundaries!  What a surprise.  Well, this opened up new vistas for our animal lovers, and we are about to purchase some day old pullets.  Anticipation has the younger kids excited.

It will take 6 months or so before they could possibly lay their first eggs, but another project is in the works
around here.  Hopefully a fun and successful one.  I'm not expecting it will save us money, but I remember how fun it was to collect eggs when I was young, and hope my children will find joy in that as well.

Kate with baby Buff Orphington

Trudy with Silver laced Wyandotte

Little Golden Sex-link pullet checking out the camera

Rhode Island red chick is the first to find the water on her own.

My favorite, the Australorp

We bought a beautiful assortment of chicks.  They are really cute.  Our resident expert on hand washing is helping us remember how to avoid salmonella after we handle the chick-chicks.

My supper helper-girl forgot to put the rice on to boil in time for our supper, so when we arrived home with the day-old chicks, we had to change the dinner plans.  Everybody was pretty hungry, so I opted for pancakes and scrambled eggs.  It was the fastest, easiest cheap dinner I could think of (without any ramen in the house, that is...)

breakfast menu:  cold cereal and tea

Cost:  $2.00

cold cereal:  1.00

half gallon of milk:  1.00

lunch menu:  peanut butter sandwiches, carrot sticks, raisins, apple cobbler(left over from yesterday)

Cost:  $4.08

white bread from store:  .99

4 oz peanut butter:  .23

5 oz jam:  .32

21 oz carrots:  .36

1/2 gallon orange juice:  .99

1/2 oz cheese:  .19

10 oz raisins:  1.00

apple cobbler, paid for yesterday

snack:  toast and butter

Cost:  $.86 

.60 for bread,

 .20 for butter,

 .06 for peanut butter for 2 kids

supper menu:  scrambled eggs, pancakes with jam and powdered sugar

Cost:  $2.81

12 eggs:  .67

1 1/2 batch pancakes:  1.65

3 oz powdered sugar:  .12

4 oz jam:  .25

half a cube of butter:  .12

Today's total cost:  $9.75

pretty much a zero in the vegetable department today...but they worked in their vegetable gardens, does that count?

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.

Day 37 and everybody is hungry after a skimpy lunch

Rodger has a big week coming up, and had to leave before 7am.  I did not put enough effort into planning lunch for today, so the family got whatever was easy to put in bags this morning. 

That included the cinnamon bears made yesterday, carrots, oranges, pretzels, and some koolaid lemonade.  Not enough to fill anyone up. 

What is worse (or better if you're a kid), I gave them cap-n crunch cereal for a snack.  I had used a coupon to buy a 22 oz box of cap-n crunch for 1.50, which is only about .07/oz.  I was a champion mom there for a minute when I handed out their snacks. 

We walked to the hardware store to purchase seeds while everyone crunched away.

Christiana and Noah, checking out the seeds

Noah displays pea seeds.

Charity, with Jackie.  This is Jackie's favorite store, because she is allowed and welcome to come inside.  So welcome, in  fact, that she gets doggie biscuits every time she enters the store. 

Beautiful hyacinths adorn the doorway to Ace Hardware.

Their aroma is amazing.

More to come soon.

Here come the details on the skimpy lunch.  Details for the whole day follow:

breakfast menu:  cold cereal and milk

Cost:  $1.75

box of cold cereal:  1.00, as usual

milk,  1/2 gallon:  .75

lunch menu:  parts of the cinnamon bears (homemade bread), carrot sticks, oranges (half an orange each person), pretzels, lemonade

Cost:  $2.41

cinnamon bears:  .66

22 oz carrots:  .38

pretzel bags (of 16 each):  .60

koolaid lemonade:  .27

snack:  Cap'n Crunch cereal, to crunch on

cost:  $.62 for 9 oz

there was enough chili for us all to have a second bowl full.  Even so, it looks a bit boring, doesn't it?  We did get our leafy greens for the day, though, didn't we? There is also celery, and plenty of it, in the chili.

supper menu:  chili beans and crackers, green salad with ranch dressing

(we were supposed to have bread, but a dog reached up onto the table and ate it while I was gone.)

Cost:  $3.64

pinto beans, 2 lbs:  .80

chili powder:  .10

bread:  .33

Crackers, 2 sleeves:  .40

3 romaine hearts:  1.25

salt:  .02

salsa:  .64

ranch dressing, 3 oz:  .10

Today's total:  $9.07

Day 36, I teach, we eat Annie's pizza, and prepare the garden for planting

Look how the rhubarb has grown since the blog started?  Remember that early picture?

While I was gone teaching, Annie helped the children make my bread dough into pizza, which we all ate for supper when I returned.  Nice sister.  Tasty food. 

It looks darker than usual, because it is whole wheat.  When you have a fifty pound bag of whole wheat flour, you eat a lot of whole wheat bread...

She made a little one for Sarah and me, sans tomato sauce.

Here are some cinnamon dipped creations.

This bear has a big nose and big belly button.  Those body parts got eaten while still hot.

I was informed that this bear is carrying her purse, which also got eaten.  Purse snatchers around here...

 The kids are pretty excited about planting a garden.  I decided not to rent a rototiller this year, so we have been using up some calories hoeing it in preparation.

The younger ones have asked for their own garden plots, so we have divied up one side of the garden space for private vegetable gardens.  The rest will be communal, like years previous. 

 Excitement runs high.  They have rummaged through the seeds we already have, and we'll pick up some more soon.

We seem to eat lightly and simply on Sundays.  I remember that as a child we always had big Sunday dinners after church.  How do you eat on Sundays?  How about growing up, what did your family do for meals when you were a child?  I'm  curious.

Here's our eating today:

 breakfast menu:  life cereal or oatmeal squares, milk

Cost:  $2.10

cereal:  1.00

half gallon milk:  1.10

lunch menu:  potato salad with bacon and eggs

Cost:  $3.98

1 lb bacon:  1.99

10 eggs:  .60

6 lbs potatoes, boiled:  .60

milk for the potato salad:  .20

1/4 cup mayonaise:  .15

1/2 of a large stalk of celery, chopped:  .38

onion powder:  .05

salt:  .01

snack:  bread sticks, tea, milk

Cost:  $.85

bread sticks:  .33

milk for tea:  .52

supper menu:  pizza

Cost:  $3.98

whole wheat bread dough:  .99

cheese:  .8 lb:  2.20

tomato sauce, 1 small can:  .25

1/2 cube butter:  .13

spices:  .20

Today's total, with 11 people:  $10.70, we did ok.