Frugal Accomplishments This Week

Again, I had a crazy busy week!  We had a new baby goat born this week, did quite a bit of gardening and during the rainy days, a lot of reading. Here are my frugal accomplishments for this week:

1. Sold seven dozen eggs this week.

2. Got one pound of pasta for $0.53 using an Ibotta rebate.

3. Found a boxed dinner on clearance at Kroger. I don't usually buy these things, but it was on sale and box dinners are an easy way to try something new.

The boxed dinner was $1.89, and included tortillas, seasoning and about 1/4 cup of chipotle sauce. I figured that the tortillas alone were worth $1.10, so I ended up paying about $0.80 for a packet of seasoning and some chipotle sauce. I used some free canned chicken for the meat, and served the tacos shredded cheese, sour cream, cold frame lettuce and cilantro. It ended up being a very good meal. I think I will keep making this at home, but with homemade chipotle seasoning mix (and some liquid smoke in with the meat... that's what made it really good). We didn't end up using much of the sauce.

There was some leftover chipotle chicken meat, sauce, and tortillas after we had the boxed meal for lunch. I used the taco shells for dinner, and used the sauce and leftover meat to make pizza the next day. Which was pretty tasty, I might add!

​4. Much of our fruit is starting to blossom this week! So far I've seen pear, cherry, peach and even a few strawberry blossoms.

​My experimental free fruit trees are doing well. Out of seven cuttings, at least four are starting to revive and grow new shoots. This is good news.

Pear blossoms.

Pear tree cutting.

5. I started some watermelon and muskmelon seeds indoors this year. Last year my watermelon got crowded out by weeds and other plants, because it took so long to grow big. I'm hoping that giving the melon seeds a head start will help them thrive and actually produce fruit this year.

6. I also potted up the curly willow branches that originally started as a table centerpiece. Using, of course, free pots that I found beside the road.

7. Lastly, I started experimenting with some of my new pygora wool. I tried felting soap with both the 1) waste wool and 2) good dehaired wool, but neither of the soaps felted like I wanted them to. Then I finished spinning what was left of the romney sheep wool I had for practice on my drop spindle. After spinning two of the smaller threads together (to make a 2-ply yarn), I knitted it. I was actually impressed at how well my crude homespun yarn looked in a finished project.

When I finished with the sheep wool, I started on some of the pygora. It was SO easy to spin! I was super happy with how it turned out. The only problem I had with spinning the pygora is that sometimes the thread would get so thin that it would break off as I was spinning. However, that was due to user error and not the fiber itself.

I will not have time to spin yarn to sell, but I do hope to use some as a display at my farmers market booth.

Goals for Next Week
1. Transplant broccoli starts into garden bed.
2. Plant green beans in garden bed.
3. Plant peas in market garden.
4. Plant kale in market garden.

Til next time,
-Bethany