Farm Friday

Last week I ended up skipping Farm Friday.  I was gone all day as I met up with friends for my usual yoga practice, ran errands in town, delivered some produce to a customer, processed my recycling, did some thrift shopping, stocked up on bulk goods at a health food store in a town about an hour away, and then briefly visited my son and his family, where I picked up this new addition to our farm family (he's still a kitten and very active, so I had a hard time getting a pic of him:

His name is Mr. Fabulous (due to his fabulous tail that didn't show up in the pic) and he was originally an alley cat that my son and his family took in to live with their other two kittens. Apparently, he's not happy inside (and always getting into things), so we were asked if we wanted a barn cat.  Right now, Mr. Fabulous is staying in our son's old bedroom due to the arctic vortex that gave us temperatures like this:

Look closely at the bottom right corner and you will see an outside temperature of 2.  (At one point that number read -3.)  Not good for a kitty.  This weekend is supposed to get into the 60s, so we'll be introducing him to the barn then.

I did score some good things while thrifting (which fit in with my challenge to not buy anything new).  Here's what I got:

4 white bowls:  $0.69 each

A clock for our basement where we pack CSA orders:  $0.99

New (to me) laundry baskets:  $7.00 for both

Saturday Bill and I had our annual farm meeting where we reviewed all things personal and business.  We spent all day (and will continue this weekend) going over everything with a fine-toothed comb, reviewing what worked, what didn't, what changes we need to make, etc.  It was very productive and I'll be sharing some of the details as we implement the changes in 2014. 

A few other things going on:

• I've established an "official" baking day so that I can plan better.  I already have a "shopping day," which works very well for me. 
• More baby goats were born over the last couple of weeks.  Thankfully none during the arctic vortex.  Unfortunately, we did lose some babies so we have about 50% survival rate.  Very sad.  But the surviving babies are sooo cute, especially when they're all playing together or in a giant pile to go to sleep.
• I cooked dried beans in my crockpot.  I'm going to experiment with my pressure cooker next.  Both thrifty and good for the planet.
• We had to rescue our cabbage before the bad weather, so I made sauerkraut for the very first time.
• I made some powdered laundry detergent to try.  It doesn't work well in my HE washer so I'l going to try making a liquid.  This will replace the liquid environmentally-friendly detergent that I use when soap nuts just doesn't cut it.  It should be much cheaper and better for the environment.

That's all for now!  Have a great weekend!