How To Leave The Homestead

I bet you're thinking WHAT? Leaving the homestead? Why? No, we are not actually leaving our attempt at homesteading, but everyone needs a vacation every now and then right?

Rosa (made by Lilly), hanging out with the Fieros at the car show in Carlisle, PA.

I'm talking about all of the work that goes into running a homestead. We just got back from spending the weekend in Pennsylvania for a car show. We left Friday afternoon, and returned Sunday afternoon. That means evening chores for Friday, morning and evening chores for Saturday, and morning chores for Sunday needed to be done by someone else. The lucky winner, my brother! My brother has no interest in homesteading, animal husbandry, gardening, or anything else related to that lifestyle really. That means we needed to prioritize and streamline the process as much as we could, as fast as we could.

--I ditched the garden. I barely pull weeds and water it, so there was no need for him to do it. It seems to have survived the neglect so far...

--All of my porch plants and indoor plants went to the front lawn. We had a lot of rain on Friday when we left, so having them someplace where nature can water them meant he didn't need to care for them.

--The turtles had an extra mound of food in their tank, and plenty of water. (They do well for a couple of days if need be anyway)

--We bought a 2.5 lb waterer and 10 lb feeder for Loki and Freya (indoor cats). With a freshly cleaned litterbox, they would have been able to survive more than likely 2 weeks without us before needing a refill.

--Our newest acquisition, the outdoor cat Sunny, was given a large mixing bowl of food and water on the front porch. She wasn't seen Friday or Saturday, but Sunday morning she popped in when he came over. I guess we have ourselves a permanent outdoor cat now!

Sunny!

 

--We installed a PVC waterer and feeder for the rabbits. The small garage protects the feeder from the rain, so the rabbits had no problems eating while we were gone.

--We made the same PVC waterer and feeder for the chickens. The heavy rain on Friday moistened some of the chicken feed in the pipe, so the chickens had some problems getting it out, but with 5 acres to forage, they didn't starve. My brother had to come up every morning and evening to open and close the coop door though.

The PVC feeder and waterer installed on the side of the chicken coop.

--The dog stayed at my parents. He did well, but he has a lot of anxiety, so he barely ate while we were gone.

--Last but not least are the ducks. Since the house and fence we have them in now are temporary, we had nothing set up for them. They completely relied on my brother to open and close the coop, and feed and water them each day.

The point of all of this, is that everyone survived! We had no problems besides the chicken feeder getting clogged, and once we make a small roof for it, that should keep the rain from getting into the pipe.

Next on our list besides a more permanent structure for the ducks are automated coop doors. That will reduce the need to have someone come over daily early and late. A midday visit to make sure everything looks ok will be all that is needed.

Meal Planning Done Cheap - My first Simple, Cheap, Meal Post

Do you ever have one of those weeks (or a whole month) that everything just blows up? I imagine that statistically January is one of the months that this happens the most.

It's no secret that we've struggled over the past 12 years financially. We owned a money pit of a house, the housing market went to crap, and when we finally got into a position that we were ready to sell, the house sat on the market for a year before we took a loss and walked away. We lived in Tiny Barn at my dad's for 6 months while trying to scrape everything to make our finances look good enough to buy the place we have now. It was a great price, a great location to family, and everything we wanted, and it had already been sitting for quite awhile, and by some miracle it hadn't been sold to the many other people we found out later were interested in it. If this house hadn't been available, I have no doubt we would still be in Tiny Barn, working away at our budget to become credit card debt free and looking for a dream house. As it stands, we got the house, which is great, but I'll be honest the budget isn't pretty, and I've been struggling back and forth with the idea of going back to work part-time. Honestly the cons outweigh the pros, but maybe if I could land something seasonal, it would be such a short-term change that we could cope.

Anyways, the point of the post is that this January stunk for us. It is after Christmas, the propane needs refilled (that's at least $400), we had to put Athena down ($65), we had to get Loki fixed ($106) before we ended up with babies, the van needed new front brakes ($100+), and we had to pull wheel bearings off of V2 (our spare van that is practically the same as ours, and was given to us for free), because V1 (the van we use as our daily driver) needs new wheel bearings, but they are about $30ish a piece and need to be pressed in, which is about $45 a piece (or we can buy a press and do it ourselves, which considering we would be doing 4 wheel bearings (V1 & V2, it would be cheaper). All of that took a toll on the budget, and on top of that, Girl Scout cookie selling season started! Which means the girls want to buy cookies!

I've done a lot of Excel spreadsheets, poured over Pinterest for meals, compared prices on Amazon to our local grocery stores, and taken into account how picky our girls can be at eating sometimes. We aren't really the sit down and eat a full meal type of family. We are either home all day, or if we have activities, then we are on the go almost all day, so small snacks and all day grazing seem to fit our lifestyle better. My ideal goal was to find meals that would cost $5 or less and fill the 6 of us, with an overall goal of $20 a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 2 snacks). Now, do I really want to spend $620 for 31 days, absolutely not, and that doesn't even include toiletries or the animals. I wanted to come up with at least a one week emergency meal plan. It may not be the healthiest, but we won't starve.

So with all of that out of the way, I think I've decided that every week I will post a quick, cheap meal, complete with the prices I have found. I admit, I am no cook, and I'm not the greatest at finding a bargain either, but it's at least a starting point.

So, for my first simple, cheap meal....

Grilled Cheese

$0.99 - 1 loaf of jumbo white store brand bread

$3.49 - 16-slice pack of Kraft American Cheese

Pantry Items Needed: Butter ($3.99 for 45 oz of Country Crock)

So for my family of six this meal is $4.48 plus the cost of butter, but we do end up with both cheese and bread left over!

*Warning affiliate link. This is the griddle I use. With this I can make 4 sandwiches at a time. Convenient since I have 4 girls! We've had this griddle for at least 5 years, and it's held up between moving, dishwasher abuse, and sometimes sitting in the sink for awhile. Although I think I want to look for something a bit bigger.