High Winds

Well its a good thing we didnt have any turkeys in the coop when we had these high winds the other night.

Not much more damage though I was really surprised just small branches from the tree but I think any major branches that was weak had fallen off months ago already.

I have been putting mulch around my garden so of course I can't breath right now its cedar. Trying to get this going before we take off on our week trip to Disney world in May it wont be long now.

We have the plane tickets, the reservation at hotel, the reservation for a car and our tickets for Disney World arrived the other day. I just hope that the swine flu virus goes down before we have to take off.

Not much more going on around here besides we got robbed of 30 chickens a few nights ago. Long story short then came in back pulled pens off of fence ran across the field into my coop and took around 30 of my hens. You can see the truck mark easily on the road. They were nice enough to close the chicken coop again. I wouldnt have known if it wasnt for the fact that my chickens only gave me 23 eggs that day usually I get 50-70 plus eggs a day.

I also noticed that the hens were not roosting on certain roosts in the coop. Usually they have their favorite spots and the ones up front were gone. sigh...

Ahh well not much more I can do I reported it to police, put a lock on door but it wont really keep them out and this time listen to when my neighbors dogs bark. I was so tired that night I heard them bark but was just too tired to go out and look at 2am I wanted to go to bed!

Well speaking of bed.

Thats it for update

Sam

April showers

Well we finally got some rain today. As you can see its making everything really green around our farm. Well Easter is finally over we had a really nice party despite the greyness of the day the kids had a good time. I am not sure we are having it next year maybe just the dinner because we had do many people leave to go to another party.

The only reason we started having it was because the family really had no where to go but it seems they do now. Our church has an annual easter party we might just do that instead and a really nice dinner for us.

Not much more going on around here, the sheep are out on the pasture now because it grew the grass a bit. The babys are especially getting fatter. We bought our airline tickets to Disney world for May we are really excited about going. Airline tickets, hotel, tickets to disney world, all we need now is a rental car.

Everything of course is going to be paid cash. We are staying for 6 nights 5 days. One day we are just heading to the beach for the day and have some fun and look around Florida should be fun. One day we are at Magic Kingdom two days at Epcot and the last at the Animal Kingdom.

Doing well with my coupons might be looking for another place to carry coupons the leather one is a bit heavy and awkward to carry.

Sam

Saved $33.97 in coupons

Above:"Picture of outdoor kitchen that Tom and I loved at the olive Festival we went too last week. Please exuse again the date on pic I can't seem to fix it.

Wow the leaves from our pecan tree's are coming out now its better then looking like a haunted forest! I bought me another black berrie bush they don't seem to be doing so well the others I had planted but the banana ones are really nice looking.

I also bought me a herb plant and another tomatoe plant, you can never have enough tomatoes growing. Last year I had enough for our family but not enough to share I hope to change that this year. I just wish I had more money for it.

HomeSchool Co-op is finally over for the year yah! I love co-op but I really hate these 8 week sessions that the other moms seem to love. They say they can't do enough in the time they have, and I can barily arrange enough stuff to do for the eight weeks. The last day the kids really love because I have a free day, where they can go into my cart of goodies and do what they want. I figure thats what coop is all about having fun with each other thats what counts.

Some of them painted, others played with playdoh a few did puzzles but they mostly blew up a balloon and tossed it around the room, I tell you thats hours of fun hehe. Anyways not sure about next semester but I won't do the spring again, its just too much to do on the farm during this time.

Well I can't wait to show everyone my new coupon briefcase organizer. I am still organizing it but I took it for a test run this last payday shopping and did so well! I liked the way it fit in my cart. I had spent a total of $242.33 this included food, household items and personel stuff. I saved $33.97 in coupons which brought it down to $208.36. I am at the point now where I am stock piling and not just buying food for the week. Thats about $104 per week

We already have all kinds of meat in the freezer, lots of beef from when we bought a half of cow and we had got it at a really good price per pound. Of course we have a lot of lamb too right now. I'am also working on my recipe notebook which I can't wait to show y'all too :)

Well I am off to the flea market to spend on what I saved lol.

Have a wonderful weekend

My price Book

Ok it took me a while to do this but I think its the way I want it. I tried putting it in excel but I really didnt like it and I wanted people to download it easily and not everyone has excels. I am going to make a lot of copys and put it in a notebook.

Hopefully I will remember to take it with me when I go grocery shopping.

http://www.frugalcountrymom.com/samspricebook.doc

I had looked at all sorts of videos on price books and other downloadable pricebooks although I got some great ideas I didnt want to use theirs at all I wanted it to go across my list not downwards. There is a nice video one on www.monkeysee.com "Type in Price Book" I tried looking in youtube didnt see any I guess I should add my own.

I had one a few years ago I really liked it and I kept up with it but it didnt feel right going downards on the list. Also the first time I did it I spent two weeks adding things and forgot a major thing to add and that was size.

I also wanted to add date this time around too. I will let you know how it turns out.

Sam

Rain Yes we got some

We finally got some rain it wasn’t much it was very light and only 1 inch but boy did the plants love it! I recently planted some tomatoes plants at least the dog can’t dig them up because they have the tomatoes cage protecting them. I planted my blackberries too but two of them don’t look so good when I had planted them so I hope I saved them. I am scared to plant anything else till Tom can get the fence in for me to keep the dogs out.

I also bought some banana plants on the craigs listing from someone who was selling them. I think I got a good price for them $10 each and she threw in two extra for free. Toms been busy on the farm, since we finally got some rain he finally went to our burn pit and burned that with some old lumber we had piled up, we have to do it while the burn ban was lifted.

He also threw some lime on the field that mixed with the sheep and chicken manure should get it growing if we can get some more rain. This week seems to be another busy week with milk/egg run speech therapist tutoring and I really have to hit our favorite thrift store and get some more outfits for church. Tommy is already outgrown everything I had bought him last and Miranda needs a few more outfits and myself included.

We had went to a new Goodwill the other day because my daughter wanted to see if she could pick up something for her costume for the Culture fair this coming week for her Girl Scouts. We ended up finding a dress blouse to go over it and some awesome roman looking sandals. It cost $21 including tax but that was a good bargain but I could have gotten a better deal at the Texas Thrift Shop.

We had just went in that store because it was closer and brand new we wanted to check it out, I think things are way too expensive and even though they do color coordinate the clothes it’s frustrating because it’s not by size like they do at the Texas Thrift store. I think it saves me time other people may think otherwise.

Been working hard on my coupons and I wanted to show you my little youtube I did.

Why do we do this?

This is where most peoples chickens come from at a store

Well we have around 34 lambs the last count I had did and 7 didn’t make it because of either complications or the mother rejected them. I tried to save one of them with some special milk from my next door neighbor but after 3 days of trying to keep it alive and getting up every 4 hours to feed it, it just didn’t make it.

It died in my daughters friends arms she was trying to feed it she was devastated about it. I didn’t want to put my kids through that again, plus we had lost so much sleep. Some of my family don't seem to understand that nature will keep the strong and the weak will not survive its just the way nature works.

They don't understand that we need the genetics from the stronger sheep, why would we want to keep weak sheep in our herd?
They wanted me to go out there every day to try to save any that were rejected, they say why have them if I am not going to go out there and save them all? Sigh....One of the ones they wanted me to save they kept telling me to go after it because the mother hadnt claimed it yet. After a few hours she finally did what would have happened if I took it from her overreacting?

My family/friends have a kind heart I don't blame them at one time in my life I might have been like that too, especially when I had the energy.
However when you become a farmer/rancher you see a lot of births and deaths and you have to know the difference between pets and food. Do people actually think their meats grow on trees? At least we try to be humane about it and give them a good life till its time to butcher a lot better then the factory animals.

It’s hard for outsiders to understand our life, they think we are a hobby farm, just doing it for a hobby. I try over and over to explain to them but they don’t seem to understand, they won’t eat a chicken egg from my chickens because ....well I don’t know ...I guess the chicken in the factory who has never seen natural light and its beak is chopped off and injected with who knows what to keep from getting diseases is a much taster egg ???
They just don't want to really know where the food comes from...or they might say...well let someone else do it why do you have too?

They want me to over feed them, To give them more food then what the experts say to give them. This gives us a profit how by over feeding them so they won’t breed because they are too fat? Then there is the people who really understand our way of life that we have been doing for over 8yrs now, the ones that buy our products the ones that come to our farm once a year to show their kids where food comes from, the ones that care what goes into their body’s.

I have to keep remembering these people most I see seasonally except for like my eggs. The people who get my egg are always so thrilled, each week as I clean the many many eggs I get I think why am I doing this? Then I see the smiling faces of my customers coming from miles to get my eggs and products telling me how thankful they are for me doing this because not many do.
I smile yah it’s worth it

Feburary at the ranch 2009

Our hay we bought locally for sheep/goats small pic sorry

Quote for the day:

"We are all cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." -Ray Bradbury

Well its dry here on our ranch, so dry the grass is dying whats left of it, there is no leaves on the trees either so its pretty depressing. Tom and I had a chance recently to maybe by a 21 acre piece of land near us it was beautiful coastal land near the canal but we turned it down.

Greedly we have always wanted more land but when it comes down to it we are only 60,000 left on our own property our payments are only around $650.00 a month and its worth $250 thousand if not more in the future when the realesate goes back up so do we want to add more on to our debt?

Recently we read a book called, "Ten acres is enough" and we got really inspired on what he did on his little 10 acres and we thought, "hey we got 5 more acres then he does plus a pecan orchard we can do the same thing"

So instead we decided on trying to focus on building up our land here instead which I think is a good plan who needs to get more in debt especially right now. We were blessed this year to get a bonus and a 2% raise for my husband. I was just happy that he has a job now with so many around us losing them we were tickled to get it.

Recently I have heard of two people that I know that may be losing their houses, both didnt make wise choices the last few years in their financial life and they know this..., I feel so guilty that we are doing so well now and that in May we are planning a real vacation something we really havent done in years.

I feel like the ant and the grasshopper, while this May we are going to go off on a week vacation up to disney world with the kids and fly up there, they may be losing their houses. In the past three years we have scraped and sacrifised to get where we are now. I am so blessed that we heard about Dave Ramsey back then so we wont be hurting so bad now with our budget. I feel so guilty I dont even like telling them about our plans about our happiness about finally able to do this with my family.

This is the first time in years that we are getting a bonus from his work and our income tax return that we can use it on ourselfs instead of putting it towards our debt. We plan not only to go to Disney world, but also to get a new fridge and a new bed for our aching backs. The rest goes to fixing up our farm and adding to our emergency fund of 6/9 months worth of savings.

Of course we are doing this as frugal as possible even though we dont have too old habits stick with us. We are going to compare shop for our items (bed/fridge) and we are looking for the best airline tickets up there to Orlando which I found for $99 one way what a deal! Of course Disneys is offering a great deal buy 4 nights up there and get three for free!

I guess this is the best time to get discounts and buy things because of the economy sales are good for us at least. The craig listing is wonderful right now so many things for sale that people are getting rid of right now to get some extra cash. We picked up a huge chest freezer usually around $400-$500 for $130.00 it was brand new still it just stunk hehe we cleaned out with bleach smells good now.

We recently bought some beef (half a cow) for $1.99 a lb how good is that and it was pastured raised too. Right now our freezer is full of turkey, lamb and beef. Getting a generator is another thing on our list to do for the ranch.

I feel so happy I want to shout to family and friends of our accomplishments but I keep quiet because most our hurting really badly right now I really pray things would get better for everyone.