frugal february friday update

Transportation:

• rode bike to work 4/4 days! (Monday was a holiday)
• used car once on weekend to take p'tit minou deux shopping (see angst-y post below)
• Minou used the car three times Saturday to make a two mile round trip to the grocery store. Tsk, tsk, tsk. But it was a deliberate choice; we had friends coming for dinner, he was cooking, he valued his time more at that moment. He stated.
• Back bike light is out; need to find the rechargable batteries. Luckily it's light when I leave work.

Food:

• Spent more this week. Cupboards were bare. Decided against a lentil-based diet (though I like them).
• Bought fancy sandwich spreads at Trader Joe's for livening up simple fare (tapenade, roasted pepper & garlic, etc.). Bought some luxury items: veggie ham, parmesan, a bottle of wine (friends for dinner)
• Starting into the new week with a semi-full fridge, will try to just pinch-hit as needed (fruit, veggies, cheese, milk) until March rather than doing my usual weekly shopping.

Utilities

• It got cold again. I haven't turned up the heat but I am feeling it, especially up in our unheated Attic Addition at the top of the house. We have a mountain of comforters and each other to stay warm.
• Still trying to be careful with the water. No baths. Shorter showers, usually.
• Turning off the printer at night (last one up).

Frugal Fun:

• The Ladies have started laying again! We have had an egg a day since Monday. I tricked encouraged them by placing a decoy in their nest, and the days are getting longer.
• Very nice meal with some good friends. Spaghetti, homemade marinara, sauteed tofu, garlic bread, salad, red wine, and ice cream with homemade fudge sauce. 
• p'tit minou deux now wants to go out for frozen yogurt. He argued earnestly in favor (he is very earnest, that one) of supporting the local family-owned business whose yogurt he enjoys. I think we will have  homemade ice cream sundae night at home instead.
• Minou wants to watch the "new" James Bond movie at the dollar theater this evening, which is actually $2 (maybe even $2.50) per person on Friday evenings. We may rent this from Redbox for a dollar instead.

How about you? What frugal adventures did you have this week?

this & that

sitting
It is so interesting how what we are doing and focusing on reframes our perspective.
What I'm trying to say is, I keep meeting people who meditate.
A colleague in my building, a fellow bike commuter, mentioned that he has practiced for 20 years.
And today, Minou and I were riding behind a vehicle with a bumper sticker that said "Sit and ye shall find".
"What in the world does that mean?" Minou wondered. I knew.

not sitting
If you don't sit, but just think about sitting, will you still find?
That is what I am doing and wondering.
These days have been so long and full. Flu season is upon us and nurses are busy.
By the end of the day I am ready for a glass of wine, a hot bath, and a book.
I attempt homework but am not finding it easy. (Why is blog writing so much more fun than academic writing?) When morning comes, I say "I'll sit tonight." When evening comes, I say "I'll go to bed and sit tomorrow."
I will not scold myself about it. When I sit down to sit, I will be there.

missing
Mamie leaves tomorrow, and I will miss her. We had a good visit. I'm planning her next flight already.

not missing
Animal, animals. I'm not sure how we ended up with so many of them. Actually, I was instrumental in bringing every single one of them into our home or yard. Our first cat Rougette came home from a birthday party in a wicker basket just before P'tit Minou Un started kindergarten (with her brother, actually, who later ran away). Our sibling cats James and Mowsie came to the P'tit Minous as Christmas presents one year with my blessing and instigation. Sawyer the Big Brown Dog joined our family the spring I graduated from nursing school, when Minou was camping at the coast with p'tit minou deux, and p'tit minou un and I went to the Humane Society "just to look". The chickens were a somewhat misguided attempt at locavore eating, since they either give us no eggs or so many we can't give them away fast enough. I love them all, except maybe the chickens.But I would really not miss caring for them.
I thought about this when I came home to a big pile of poop in the entryway tonight.
And then tracked in more when I went to put the chickens to bed. Ick.

tree
Does anyone else still have a tree up? Ours is so beautiful that I don't want it to leave. I think I will just take the ornaments down, leave the lights up, and keep it. And our neighbor asked for it when we finally take it down! I'm not kidding. I'm also not ready to take it down.

and you?
What are you thinking about and up to? I would love to hear from you!

Fallingchickens

Last night we went to dinner at the home-in-progress of some good friends.
It is beautiful, the architect/builder (our friend)'s oeuvre, really a marvel.
My favorite part was the rooftop garden, feeling so urban for our small city.
The climbing wall that will be part of the 20 foot atrium will be fun for their little boy too.

As we left, P'tit Minou Un expressed his affinity for the modern aesthetic,
and suggested that the ultimate modernist home with a twist would be perfect for our family:

Fallingwater

image from fallingwater.org courtesy of google images

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, except instead of falling water, we would have falling...chickens!
Thus neatly solving the annoying chore of letting the chickens out every morning.
Apparently (he explained it better), there would be an enclosed coop under the house.
As soon as it gets light (when the chickens wake up), a light sensor would activate a switch that released the chickens, who would somehow be flung over the waterfall feature (gently, without hurting them) down to their pen below. The problem of the falling eggs would be dealt with too, I forget how.
But how would they get back up into their coop at night? Hmmm...

This boy, he cracks me up. So creative!

egg thief

I left the basket of eggs on the kitchen steps this morning while I went inside to turn off the whistling teakettle.

It looked like this:

When I came back just a moment later, the basket looked like this:

One egg was missing. It didn't take me long to find it, but the egg looked like this:

 Can you see the toothmark?
It also didn't take long to find the culprit.
Ten minutes later, he is still looking guilty and avoiding eye contact:

 We have an egg thief in the house.

mitzvah monday

mitzvah (noun): a good deed, a charitable or meritorious act
This week I felt happy about sharing their fresh eggs...

...with friends and neighbors.

Thank you, Ladies.

Cooped Up

A post over at bluebirdbaby the other day asked those who keep chickens to show their coops.

We had wanted and talked about having chickens for a number of years, but were never ready at the right time (one story of our lives). The biggest stumbling block was a coop. We always lacked time and money for the coop project when it was the right time to get the chicks. FInally, last year, we decided to leap, not to wait any longer--once we had the chickens, we would be compelled to make them a coop. And so it was.

I am a proud chicken keeper, and I love our Ladies. Have I ever told you their names?

They are Buffy, Orpy, Bianca Castafiore (my favorite), Petunia, Specklelina, Speckleluna, Greybeard, Blackbeard, Chiquita, and Martha Poultry (naughtily named after the boys' former elementary school prinicpal). We got so many because we just couldn't choose. We visited the feed store with all the fluffy little chicks and wanted one of this variety, one of that variety...and then two of each variety so they wouldn't be lonely...pretty soon there were twelve. One turned out to be a rooster and went to live on my friend Cindy's farm, and one died mysteriously early on.

First, as tiny little peepers, they lived in the bathtub with a heatlamp.

When they began to peck at each other and appear stressed by crowding, we moved them to a temporary cage built by Minou, which still resides now in the chickenyard waiting to be dismantled or donated to another chickenkeeper:

They stayed in this for quite a while while Minou the architect designed a beautiful coop for them. He worked on it with a lot of assistance from G1. I'm ashamed to admit that I, who wanted the chickens most, did little of the actual building, though I did a lot of setting fence poles for their yard. After the basic structure was done, our friend D., also an architect, said that he should have designed it with a "Coopola" on top. Alas, no.

Here is the almost-finished-but-not-yet-fully-sided coop.

You can just see the treehouse, built by G1 and G2 at the bottom of the large fenced chickenyard, in the background. Inside we use straw for their bedding and I change it semi-weekly. They have a hanging feeder in the coop and water outside. We had to enlarge their yard after the first summer because they picked it clean, down to the muddy ground! Now they have quite a bit of space, about 1/3 of our 1/3 acre yard, to roam and scratch. They love to eat leftovers, particularly bread, rice, and spaghetti. They also like fruit and pumpkin innards.

It was so exciting when we got our first eggs, tiny and often with double yolks. Now we usually get 6-8 per day, big and lovely with brown, white, pinkish-tan, and pale green shells. Their yolks are bright yellow and the eggs are so flavorful.

The chickens are very low-maintenance. When it gets dark, they put themselves to bed in the coop, and I go latch the door for the night to keep them safe from predators. In fact, it's time to do that now. Goodnight!