Counting Chickens From Eggs

With our unseasonal snow last year, fierce frosts, chomping cows, horses hooves, lambs let loose, dancing dogs, pecking poultry and devasating droughts, I have learned ONE LESSON:

.... forget  counting chickens... 

...don't count your brinjals before they're picked...the frost got them

...or your strawberry popcorn before it's popped... the cow got them

... or your raspberries before they're covered ... the birds got them

... or your seedlings before they've flowered ... the hens got them

... or your peas before they've sprouted ... the mouse got them

... or your butter lettuce before it's salad ... the lambs got them

... or your tomatoes before they've ripened ... the drought got them

... or your parsley before it's garnishing ... the horses got it

... or your pumpkins before they've fattened... the horses, guilty again...

...lettuces ... slugs.. roses ... horses ... runner beans .... cow ... strawberry beds ... chickens ... 

You may wonder at all this.... BUT one of our cows, one of our horses and all the people, especially the man person here, can open gates.

As I said, forget counting chickens, the lesson is: 

CLOSE THE *&^%*@* GATE!

Greening my Fingers - Nourishing the Soil

Nowhere more than in a vegetable garden to we see the principle of what you give is what you get.

After feeding our family all summer, the soil in our veggie tunnel needs nourishing. I want to spend as little cash as possible, using what I have to return goodness into this soil. Here is how I do it:

 Mulch, mulch and mulch again. Mulch keeps the goodness and moisture in the soil, suppresses weeds and also decomposes slowly to enrich the soil over the long run. I use old dried out grasses that are grown here. Mulch could be anything from leaf litter to wood chips and sawdust, to straw. Whatever you can find, without paying for it, is perfect. When we lived in the city and had one little raised vegetable box, we visited a sawmill and collected sawdust for mulching.

Living mulch, or green manure is wonderful for beds that are lying fallow over winter. If you look carefully below you will see the oats that I have sown a month ago. The bed is now covered with the lush green grass-like oats which will be dug into the soil to feed it before the oats go to seed. I might first cut some for my chickens.

 Worm farms are popular and provide excellent nutrients for the soil. Why go to the expense of buying a commercial worm farm when a homemade setup will do the job just as well? The open barrel is covered with a dry mulch to protect the worms from our chickens and to keep them moist. The new vegetable scraps go in at the top end of the barrel. As it becomes compost, the worms move out of it into fresh scraps of waste, leaving fewer worms in the rich compost at the lower end of the barrel. The open drainage hole at the bottom drips rich black 'worm tea' into the bucket. From there it is diluted and fed to my seedlings. The black bucket on the left contains comfrey leaves which decompose in water to make a smelly, but excellent potassium-rich fertilizer, especially good for tomatoes.

We have three compost heaps. The first, well decomposed, is being hauled onto the beds in barrow loads before they are covered in mulch for the winter. Below is the second compost bed in an old rusty feed trough. It was built up in summer with lots of garden refuse, manure and kitchen waste and topped with cut grass from the lawns. Now it is maturing, hopefully to be ready for springtime planting. The plank makes a great wheelbarrow ramp.

Our cows, Rose and Joy provide lovely manure pats which are collected and tossed into the newest compost pile that is growing in their nighttime pen. It helps to keep the compost as close to the source of manure as possible and also close to the vegetable tunnel.

 This new compost pile is quickly growing  as we clear spent plants and fallen leaves from the garden. We also throw wood ash from our winter  fires into the mix.

 Once a week, the chicken house is swept out and their dropping are also added to the pile. Back in the city, certain stables allowed gardeners to come in and collect manure and old stable sweepings for free, others sold bags of manure for a minimal cost. It all helps to enrich the soil.

So there you have it, wonderful soil nourishment that costs nothing except a bit of effort. 

USE IT - DON'T LOSE IT is my motto.

Every possible available thing is used to enrich the soil that in turn nourishes us. 

Balancing the Books

Once a year I have to gather all those tiny slips and invoices and tie them together into a sensible record of my husband's business for the past tax year. I hate this job and tend to leave it until it all piles up into a rather daunting task. So, in shocking WABBING style, a while ago, I devised a much more important task for a Saturday than pushing papers.
(WAB = work avoidance behaviour)

I came up with a wonderful way of feeding our family of four using just two pieces of chicken - a breast and a thigh. It involved enough preparation to keep me away from the nasty papers, and required a fair bit of help from my husband. So this Elastic Mom thinks that it is a great recipe - it saves money, helps to avoid other nasty jobs that are begging for your precious time, and best of all, this recipe, if done right, can build your marriage.

SCRUMPTIOUS SMOKED CHICKEN LASAGNE:

 First, send your willing son to your generous neighbour to grind some wheat kernels, that were harvested from this farm, in their mini grinder. Dust off pasta machine that was given to you many years ago by kind cousins. Then put said wheat flour into pasta machine with water and salt. Encourage your husband to cut the strips of lasagna to size as the machine spits them out. Try not to break the machine in the process. No pasta machine? Use any shop bought pasta.

Initial financial outlay = R0.00 (Cost of salt is negligible)

Wash, steam and chop a large bunch of black kale that you picked in the fields yesterday with your reluctant daughter. Spinach will do just as well.

 Cost of kale = R0.00 + lots of sweet talking.

Cook up a tasty tomato and onion sauce with lots of herbs from the garden. Use frozen baby tomatoes that you grew last Summer. 

Cost of one onion = R1.00 max

Haul the mini cooker out of storage and find the hickory wood shavings that you have had for the last six years. Sweet talk your husband into smoking your two pieces of chicken. Entice your neighbours' senses with delicious aromas while the chicken pieces smoke.

 Cost of smoking = R0.00 + a big hug

Slice the smoked chicken off the bone, and swat your family's fingers that keep trying to snitch bits of fragrant chicken while your back is turned.

Cost of 2 chicken pieces from braai-pack = R10.00

Layer the tomato sauce, fresh wholewheat lasagne, kale and chicken in as many layers as you can, starting and ending with the sauce.

Sparingly sprinkle 1/4 block mature cheddar cheese over the top, and bake your lasagna at 180 deg. C until it bubbles and is golden.

Cost of cheese = R6.25 (That's why I use it sparingly)

Grin and agree with your husband when he says that the lasagna is excellent - gourmet restaurant quality.
Price of four servings of lasagna at a good Italian restaurant for the family = R65.00 x 4 = R260.00

Run out of excuses and get back to the books with a well satisfied tummy.

Total Cost for Smoked Chicken Lasagna = total cost of meal - price in restaurant
                                                                 =  R17.25 - R260.00
                                                                 = - R242.75

So, Elastic Mom saved her family R242.75, and gained some time with loved ones, smiles, hugs and happy memories.... and managed to spend her valuable time well while WABBING

That's what I call good financial practice.