It's a bit sad that we've neglected our blog for so long. There's no excuse, really.
Well, we did it! We went an entire year without buying food at the grocery store. Although we kept saying we would never go back, somehow we've relapsed into some of our old habits for the sake of convenience and cost savings. Just yesterday I was clipping coupons in preparation for my next trip to the grocery store. I still HATE everything about grocery shopping.
We still have our backyard chickens. We raised two flocks of 4 chicks in our guest bedroom this spring before transferring them to a temporary coop in our background. We had to combine the two flocks at just the right time so that the older chicks wouldn't beat up the younger four. Just when they all started to get along, we traumatized them again by joining them with the 7 elders in the big coop. On that same day we said goodbye to Lucy, Gigantor, and one other bird (sadly I've forgotten her name). We froze the carcasses and will likely use them to make soup sometime this winter...?
The garden beds are mostly empty now. We planted our winter crop several weeks ago- some lettuce, arugula, beets, and carrots. I'm not sure that we'll get much of a crop though, especially after that random snowfall we had. There are plenty of potatoes in the cellar and green beans in the freezer. We're yet to have a fully stocked pantry and freezer, but we're on our way....
Michael took his hunting course and went on his first hunting trip- but I'll let him blog about that.
