After our January of skipping the grocery store to clear out the freezer we realized we still have a ways to go to be ready for the summer harvest coming our way in just a few short months. So while we relaxed our grocery shopping limitations for February 2021 on the homestead, we continued trying to eat through our stash of homegrown and preserved ingredients one meal at a time.
One thing that slowed down some of our home-preserved food consumption is that our oven went kaput…and then parts took over a week to arrive. So the plans for oven-roasted veggies and frittatas went out the window. That and we both suddenly had intense cravings for nachos. So we ate our fair share of tortilla chips and shredded cheddar instead of pickles and jams for snacks…
Chickens
Our ladies are back in action! Even little Miss Adelaide started laying at the very end of the month, so our numbers here are looking a lot better than last month! We were able to sell our first dozen and haven’t had to purchase eggs this whole month. So the flock is earning their keep again! We’re egg-cited to have full egg baskets again after months of fruitless checks of the nesting boxes.
Egg Totals
- Brown Eggs: 22
- Green Eggs: 18
- Blue Eggs: 43
- Total Eggs: 83
- Total value: $34.58
- ($5/dozen)
Chicken Expenses
- Bedding: $7
- Feed: $20
- Total Expenses: $27
Homestead Kitchen
Like I mentioned above, we continued our policy of eat-through-the-freezer as much as possible. When planning meals each week we tried to include a homegrown item in each meal. Probably the most efficient use of our freezer stash was when I made a round of turkey stock! Cleared out some frozen onion scraps, a few carrots, Thanksgiving turkey carcass, minced garlic, and some dried herbs. Only thing that wasn’t ours was the salt and dash of apple cider vinegar!
Total grocery savings: $162.36
Flowers
We also started to have some blooms around the Cottage this past month. The early daffodils popped up and began blooming and have added a touch of sunshine indoors on these grey rainy winter days in South Carolina. While I enjoy bouquets of flowers around the house, I don’t love spending money on something that is going to die and go into the compost pile in a week. Growing your own flowers is quite cheap (especially from seed!), so we are hoping to grow plenty of flowers to fill vases from spring to fall this year. Flowers around here run about a dollar per stem, so that’s how I’m calculating the cost savings for this category.
Flowers bouquet of daffodils: 21 stems x $1 = $21
Wrap up
- Chicken Net: $7.58
- Grocery Savings: $162.36
- Flower Savings: $21
February Totals: $190.94
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