PRACTICAL PARSIMONY: watermelon

Showing posts with label watermelon. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Eating Well

Or, maybe I just ate too much. Before 10 am I ate too much watermelon.

Today, I went to the Farmer's Market and bought potatoes and made potato salad. The rest: bbq chicken on bun with slaw, broccoli, apple/banana/grape/Miracle Whip salad, potato salad, Fordhook butter beans, tomatoes sliced, iced tea.
Tomatoes were bought at market, too.

This week at the grocery store, WM, I price-matched many things I bought.
white grapes--$0.99/lb
quart of strawberries---$0.99
bananas--$0.44/lb
iceberg lettuce--$0.98/head

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts were $1.99/lb. I bought a package for $11 and got 4 chicken breasts. this will work for me today and rest of week and when exbf comes on Friday. These were not price-matched as this was the price everywhere, so I went with the regular price.

Pasture-raised eggs (do I really believe that?) were $3.99 for 18 eggs at Publix. In the paper was a coupon for the eggs, Nellie's, I believe. So, I paid $2.99 for the 18 eggs. That is $2/doz.

Publix had a bogo for little bowls of cut watermelon. Sooo, I got two. I cannot carry or cut a watermelon safely, so I buy it cut. I can say with certainty that I have never had a watermelon as sweet as the one today.

There were no good prices on celery! At WM, celery was $1.78 or something close to that price. But, I had to have it for the potato salad...sigh.

Suddenly Salad was on sale for $0.98 and I had a coupon that made the boxes $0.75 rather than the regular price of $1.98. I love these but limit myself to eating one every six weeks or so. I bought four boxes of the Ranch and Bacon variety, the only one I will eat.

My buns for the bbq and slaw are potato hotdog buns from the freezer. Oh, I bought Oscar Meyer wieners for $1/package. That and slaw is lunch.

There may have been other things, but I started buying last Wednesday when the paper came out. I buy when the ads start and then just before they go off. That way, I can have grapes for several weeks from the last buy. Make sense?

These are my favorite things. Yes, there will be leftovers, a good thing for me.

I am staying home and inside today. So, my holiday is defined by food!

How was your Fourth of July?

Friday, June 29, 2012

101 Degrees Yesterday

Cooling off the right way

Thursday, yesterday, saw 101 degrees in my town. Hens certainly love watermelon on a hot day. Untfortunately, I could not afford a watermelon. Someone had eaten just a bit from this half and it was available as I scavenged for hen food. Louise's comb stays floppy, like she is dehydrated. She really needs a bath since she has such a dirty head! Pepper is still too afraid of me to stay near to get her picture taken.

Your turn
How hot is it where you are? Do your hens love watermelon?

Monday, October 10, 2011

Happy Hens

9/13/11
nom nom nom
They voice a soft murmur of contentment as they attack watermelon.

left--Fancy, center--Louise, right--Thelma

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The Cast

Fancy is my favorite hen. She is one of the three youngest hens I adopted. Because she is so gentle and friendly, she may be the one I rescued when she was being pecked to death after she could no longer stand. She got to live in the house in a box. Sometimes, I let her sit in my lap while she was convalescing. Now, she comes to sit in the swing with me, cuddling up to my body like a cat or dog. She died in February 2012.

Fancy follows me begging, complaining, needing me to do for her. She talks to me in various voices. She allows me to pick her up and carry her. When she became an adult, her head was a darker red and her body was light brown. Around her neck were tips of black feathers. It appeared she had a necklace of jet around her neck. When I showed this characteristic to a friend, he said, "Oh, you have fancy chickens and plain chickens."

Chessie has a broken toe. I broke it! She had a habit of jumping really high and almost sticking. A raccoon ate her in October 2009.

Thelma is the blonde. She is also the largest hen and the alpha hen. I suspect the gigantic eggs are from her. She often squats and presents herself to me. She is top hen, but I suspect she knows she had better be deferent to top feeder of the flock--me.

Louise is the auburn-feathered hen. She looks like the true Rhode Island Reds in pictures. She is almost as large as Thelma. Some days I suspect she is trying to be top chicken. When I got Pepper, I found out Louise is the Alpha hen.

Pepper came here from the same home as the first four. We were discussing putting red pepper on their food, wondering if it really would increase egg production. Pepper is the only name we agreed on. She is terrorized each day by Louise. Even after the worst was over, she was and is still filled with terror and very wary.

Linda is owned by four hens. They allow her to fetch for them. She loves them dearly, so she allows them to boss her around. Linda comes out in the rain to perform chores for them and make sure they have food and water. She begs scraps from all sorts of places to make sure they have fresh fruits and vegetables.

Parsimony is not a vegetable

Parsimony is extreme care in spending money. Stick around and learn about my random thoughts on accomplishing goals economically--dumpster diving aka safari, gleaning, do-it-yourself, sewing tips, recipes, and whatever is happening in my life.

Okay so maybe "parsimony" is not your thing. How about thrift, frugality or just plain saving money? I try not to go the tightwad route as that seems to imply others will suffer from my habits.

Some of my not-spending habits have very much been a part of my lifelong habits. Other habits are newly acquired and are an extension of my lifelong not-spending habits.

I am very imaginative when it comes to substituting or making instead of buying. I will tell you about making a heater for the chickens' water. Not one dime was spent since I had everything I needed right in my basement.

Practicality must rear its head alongside parsimony. For example, I will use the dryer in bad weather or because of allergies in the spring. But, I will not wash clothes in a tub as long as I have a washing machine or can find one.

You may hear more about my four Rhode Island Red hens than you care to hear. They lay delicious brown eggs.

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