Vaughnshire Farm

After supper the boys get in a little light reading by the fire on a very blistery cold winter’s night….

These Salatin books win hands down in the minds of these farm boys:  Salad Bar Beef and Pastured Poultry Profits. Tonight, we heard Salatin wisdom in the form of  two boys excited about the books they were reading……The constant “Did you know..” followed by some piece of sustainable farming insight or some funny story or some great idea they are going to pursue became very entertaining. 

Technically, these books aren’t written for 10 year old boys, however, these boys have used the Salatin books as well as the knowledge they have gained through growing practical experience here on the farm, listening to sustainable farming cd’s, reading farming magazines and other books and attending conferences to grow their knowledge and maturity well beyond their age—Well, they are ready to make a go at it!

They both are in the process of starting up business here on the farm.  One with raising beef, one with poultry. 

Tonight, I paid my debt on 5 dozen chicken eggs to the 12 year old after he asked the question over supper, “Do I get to charge a late fee to someone that doesn’t pay their bills?”  I got the hint.  Remember he submitted me a bill for his chicken eggs 2 days ago! 

Although we were not able to find the Cottonelle and the cotton swabs–(all sold out!  I was really looking forward to stocking up! )  — We did find some unexpected deals! 

First, at CVS our totals were $7.38.  We earned $13.00 in extra bucks and saved a total of $76.29.  When I walked in the house and the boys saw the load of peanut butter I bought, my oldest offered to buy them from me.  Of course you know why, don’t you?  They use peanut butter in their traps so it is a very important tool for them to have on hand….and more importantly, it is more important to me that they have their own jar of peanut butter for obvious reasons! 

At Walgreens,  we had some need shopping to do so we spent a total of $8.51 and saved $37.88.  We used the one day only printable coupon for $5 off any order of $20 as well as a lot of other coupons.  The biggest find of the day was all the free Dawn dish soap we found.  They had it marked down to .50 cents a bottle and we used the $1 off 2 Dawn manufacturer coupons to come away with 8 bottles of free dish soap!  (It was the Dawn Botanicals, Uplifting scent, yellow with big yellow .50 cent stickers on them.  They were not in the clearance sections, they were on the shelf next to the other dish soap.  I grabbed all that were left at the store I visited and I am sure they won’t last long if other stores have them!) 

Also, for those who use real butter, they had the boxes of butter (4 sticks) on sale buy one, get one free for $3.99.  If you needed butter that’s a good deal last time I checked on butter prices. 

An amusing addition to the day was hearing an upbeat manager talk to several of his employees on jurisdictions vs. chores using the Dugger family as an example!  He asked them if any of them had seen the shows about the family with 17 children and a 7,000 square foot house.  He went on to share with them about the Duggers and how the parents train the children not to see their work as meaningless chores, but that they give the children ownership of areas of the house which they call jurisdictions.  He went on to say how brilliant that was because the children don’t just see their work as a chore, they see it as a jurisdiction for which they are responsible. 

Nice to hear as I was waiting in line

We are looking forward to the thawing out season upcoming.  This morning the boys awoke to it raining ice.  Trudging out in the cold and ice to feed animals early in the morning and dealing with all the nuisances of winter time farm life are good character and worth ethic building opportunities for young men.  Not only do they face problems that need to be figured out like frozen animal water, but they face the uncomfortable weather with cold hands and a frozen nose to care for animals that may or may not yet be producing for them yet. 

The rewards of carrying in fresh eggs from chickens they bought themselves and raised is pure joy for a young man. 

As soon as the weather permits, I have hired the boys to haul some dirt from a decomposed leaves site back in the wooded area.  Rich compost to add to our garden.  We are working on building the soil in the garden area by putting leaves, kitchen compost and the new dirt in the area hoping to enrich the area for spring planting.  They are anxious for the work but mostly for work that pays! 

When my 12 year old submitted me an invoice yesterday, I smiled cautiously and read his bill.  It was a bill for chicken eggs that he had worked up on the computer billing me for the eggs his chickens had laid over the last week.  I think I mentioned before that these boys were business minded.  I mean really business minded! 

5 dozen brown eggs are $2 a dozen for a total of $10.  Not a bad deal for organic farm raised chicken eggs I think.  The funny part is that at the bottom of the invoice it states:

Total due:  $10.00

TERMS:  2 days

Thank You

I have until tomorrow.  Good thing tomorrow is grocery shopping day where I focus on settling my debts and gathering the groceries for this next month. 

EDIT:  I stated before that the deal was good one time, however, CVS customer service told me the limit was 5 deals–meaning you would get $10 in extra bucks back on each purchase of Sambucol.  The Sambucol rebate that you would send into the company is only a one time rebate. 

That is if you can find it!  From several of the comments, the CVS stores they visited didn’t have it.  I would call before you make a trek into town (if it is a trek for you). 

Other items that are limited to 5 are the Cottonelle, the Dial 3-pks of pump hand soap, the Johnson’s packs of cotton swabs and the Johnson’s baby packs of lotion/baby wash.  All are giving back $2 ecb’s for each purchase.  Combining these with coupons and you can come out with some very great deals.  (The Johnson’s baby packs would be free after ECB’s and using the $1 off Johnson’s baby product coupons that came out not too long ago.) 

A scenario for you:

• Buy 1 Sambucol 12.99
• Buy 1 Cottonelle toilet paper 4.99
• Buy 1 Johnsons baby pack 2.99   
• Use $4 off $20 CVS coupon
• Use .50 cent cottonelle manufacturer coupon
• Use $1 off Johnson’s baby manufacturer coupon
• Pay 15.47 plus tax
• Send in $10 rebate
• Brings your total down to $5.47
• Get back $14 in Extra care bucks. 

You can see how this will add up over time.  The next deal that you do you can use your extra bucks to pay for your purchases and if you plan it right, you can continue to roll your extra bucks into more extra bucks. 

This helps pay for higher priced items like baby diapers!  I try to wait for really great deals or incentives like earning extra bucks for buying diapers ……and then I stock up on them. 

Remember my post last year on the really great cheese deal… well, it’s back at Kroger only not as good as last year.  Using the .40 cent off 2 Kraft cheese coupons —Kroger will double to .80 cents off 2 (some have reported finding $1 off 2 coupons at the store on a tear pad where the cheese is located), you can get a decent deal on some cheese.  Buying 9, getting an instant $6 off your order.  Check your area as this promotion may vary. 

That’s a short lesson on the other economy…. Tomorrow, I plan to do my end of the month/beginning of the month grocery shopping in both parallel economies:  The Amish store and CVS…

CVS has been running a great deal on Sambucol black elderberry extract.  It was a January promotion that is also going to be continued to a February promotion.  Here is the promotion:

Buy the 4 oz Sambucol Black Elderberry Extract for $12.99 and get $10 in extra care bucks back.  If you are unfamiliar with CVS, extra care bucks are basically a coupon that prints out attached to the end of your receipt that will be worth $10.  You can use this coupon to buy something else right then or use it on a later date. 

To make the deal even better, if you use the $2 of any $10 worth of non-prescription items purchased CVS coupon and then send in the $10 rebate that Sambucol is offering off the purchase of any of their products… you end up making some money off the deal and getting something that actually works great for fighting colds, runny noses, coughs, fevers and more…

Here is a printable $2 off $10 CVS coupon.  Expires 1-31-08 !!!

Here is the printable Sambucol rebate form. 

Deal breakdown:

• You buy Sambucol for $12.99
• Use the $2 off $10 printable CVS store coupon (expires 1-31-08)
• You pay $10.99 plus tax
• You get a $10 ECB (extra care buck) printed out at the end of your receipt. 
• You send in your original receipt showing item purchased to the Sambucol rebate and they send you a $10 check. 

CVS also has a lot of other great deals this week so check out Money Saving Mom and  I love CVS frugal mom websites for more info on the deals and how to do them.  I plan on taking a trip into town to stock up on some paper products (toliet paper, diapers etc.) for a great price using my $10 extra bucks from the Sambucol deal and some coupons that I have. 

FYI:  My extra care bucks did not print out for the Sambucol deal and when I called customer service about it, they said that there were some issues with the promotion that were causing these ECB’s not to be triggered.  (not in all cases-they were working on it)  She issued my coupon to my account so if this happens to you, just call them. 

I caught myself thinking a very agrarian thought today as I looked out into the field and watched our cows munching on some fresh hay in the middle of a frigid January winter.  The happy thought hit me, “Look, our milk and meat eating hay!” 

I never use to see cows as anything else but a cow.  However, the agrarian life has opened up an entire wing of thought and introspection like never before. 

Not only that, but it has greatly expanded the subjects of conversation at the supper table. 

In other farm news, our goats are ready to be picked up from the breeder.  However, we have to wait until the weather warms up a bit or we might end up with goats that get pneumonia??  It is strange to think that not too many months ago, it was 100 degrees hotter than it is tonight. The 2 super baby chicks are doing great out in the milk barn in their warming box.  We are still unsure if the milk cow was bred successfully, however, we should know in a few days.  Our hens are laying up a storm thanks to the boys focused efforts in separating them from the roosters, giving them a light and lots of kitchen scraps for food.  Our barn cat catches squirrels and the boys built a “plow” out of an old bicycle.  Now they are just anxious for the ground to thaw so they can ”plow” in the garden and finish their paying job of hauling dirt for mom.   

For those of you who have followed my sourdough saga, I won’t bore others with rehashing a sour story.  In short, once upon a time, I had a wonderful thing going — I had a sourdough starter that I fermented starting with capturing yeast from smashed grapes.  It worked wonderful until I changed my starter’s food to fresh ground whole wheat flour.  It didn’t like it much and I ended up killing my starter and all aspirations of continuing my regular sour dough bread-making career. 

A few attempts later at creating another starter all to fail miserably until the one I created last week!  I finished reading the book, Tightwad Gazette III last week and decided to take a dive at sour dough again after reading the super easy sourdough recipe and how to in the book.  It worked beautifully and so far we have had some pretty wonderful sourdough loaves dance out of the oven.  Most joyous to me was the fact that when you combine this victory with the fact that we just started getting 7 eggs a day from our hens — I end up saving $35 off my grocery bill this week because I am not going to be buying fresh eggs and sourdough from the Amish.  Hopefully, my starter won’t act up and will continue to provide us with lots of jump starting power for making lots of bread. 

I put together a sort of list a little while ago breaking down possible kitchen tasks for young daughters according to age.  Training our daughters in the arts of homemaking from a young age will yield great blessings in her life as well as, at the same time, adding much blessing to the home.

In the younger years (ages 3 to 5) -  When you are cooking and baking, allow your younger children to sit and watch you.  Let them pour and stir.  Verbally talking through the process of what is happening is very important as the child looks on in amazement at the mixing of the wet and dry ingredients swirling in the bowl.  Talking over their heads about cups, teaspoons, half and whole, liquid and dry, sweet and sour is not too advanced for their little minds.  At the ages of 3 to 5 years old, young girls can begin to contribute to the cooking and baking processes through completing tasks such as:

• Mashing bananas for banana bread, mixing ingredients while you prepare the next step, greasing pans for baking and cooking, shelling peas and shucking corn, picking food out of the garden
• Putting child bowls and sippy cups away, learning how to wash dishes by hand, drying dishes and know where things go, retrieving things from the pantry, refrigerator and freezer
• Opens packages for you — tea bags, pasta bags as well as learns how to use clips, twisty ties and zip lock bags. 
• Learns how to put soap in the dishwasher and how to shut it and turn it on when loaded.
• Learns how to put away groceries with your help or with a sibling.

The 6 and 7 year old years are really a transition and rapid growth year for us.  All of the sudden this young girl is doing more and more.  Some ideas might be: 

• Learns how to make tea.
• Learns how to make a fruit salad for breakfast.
• Makes juice from frozen concentrate. 
• Learns how to make a batch of cookies and in general learns how to read a simple recipe and follow its directions.
• Can  wash a sink full of dishes and knows where everything goes even if she still needs help putting some things away.  Operates the dishwasher properly. 
• Can wipe down cabinets and appliances when needed.  As well as can sweep and mop.  Teaching thoroughness and perseverance and what a complete job looks like is very important at this stage when they are learning how to do a lot of things.  Completion of tasks should be an important focus.
• Peel potatoes and carrots as well as cut and slice other fruits and vegetables.
• Makes sandwiches. 
• Makes peanut butter crackers, celery/cream cheese snacks.
• If you use mixes, she can put together mixes and bake them. 
• She knows how to set the timer on the stove and/or microwave. 
• She learns how to set a table. 
• Starts to use the stove more and more:  Can flip pancakes, make grilled cheese sandwiches, make waffles. 
• Responsible for growing a pot of herbs for use in the kitchen and learning how to use them as well as gardening skills and responsibilities.
• Continues to stand by her mother’s side and learn cooking tips, do’s and don’ts. 

A young girl of 8 to 10 years old is able to really cook some food and be a viable asset to the kitchen workplace.  Not only have the early responsibilities matured her, but she is building on those early skills and transferring her knowledge of past kitchen failures into productive learning experiences that have launched her abilities farther than most grown women today.  Here is a taste of what you may be able to expect: 

• Has the knowledge and skills to cook a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, pancakes and sliced fruit.  She may add tea cups and a teapot of herbal tea to the breakfast table often and finds much enjoyment as she expresses her creativity in how she decorates the table, folds napkins, arranges flower vases and centerpieces.
• She also can make a variety of other breakfast type foods:  cooks sausage patties, makes waffles, toasts bagels, cooks oatmeal (not instant either), cooks grits, cheese omelets, french toast, fruit salads, smoothies, coffee.
• Can cook lunch and some supper dishes:  pasta, a variety of grilled sandwiches, make salads and dressings, bake potatoes,  mashed potatoes, prepares frozen and canned veggies by heating them properly. 
• Other cooking skills like boiling a whole chicken and frying hamburger. 
• She follows more complicated recipes and is learning all sorts of tips and tricks to becoming a good cook. 
• Can thoroughly clean the kitchen.
• Knows how to operate the appliances in the kitchen safely.
• Knows how to write a meal plan and plan a grocery shopping trip around items needed.  Is learning and mastering price comparisons, learning couponing and how to buy certain foods. 
• Learning the art of bread-making mastering several skills in making dough, pie crusts, quick breads like muffins and loafs using items such as bananas, berries, dates, nuts etc in quick breads.  Sour dough bread instruction is a great way to start a girl this age into learning bread skills and regularly making bread for her family.   
• Well versed in creating appetizers for church functions, parties, hospitality:  makes deviled eggs, chip dips and salsas, dressings and veggies, crackers and sliced cheese trays.
• Well versed in making desserts:  follows recipes to make brownies, cookies, bars.
• She is in the kitchen more often by herself as well as still standing by your side being taught how to take her cooking basic skills and advancing those into actually creatively cooking casseroles, soups, meat dishes, gravies and more complicated meals as she grows in the coming years. 
• For those who live on a farm, a girl’s responsibilities are even more.  If she has access to raw milk:  she can take over the milk responsibilities in the kitchen.  She can filter the milk, ready the milk for cold storage and thoroughly clean the milking pans and filters for the next milking.  She can be put to the task of making butter for her family and learns how to use the other byproducts of raw milk — buttermilk, cream and even the sour milk.  She can be responsible for collecting and cleaning eggs from her chickens and growing items in the garden.  She may not be able to milk a cow, but she is old enough to care for and milk dairy goats. 

One of the many things I love about home schooling my children is that I am able to spend the majority of my time pouring my life into them.   Like all mothers, of course, there are times when I feel spent and in need of refueling.  My husband is so great to remind me of the important aspects of life and not to get bogged down in the mire of frivolous trifles such as toy trails left all over the house by the 2 year old.  Stepping back a few steps and evaluating reality is helpful in regrouping. 

Pouring your life into your children is something the Lord commands of Christian parents.  Deuteronomy 6 is pretty clear on how and why we pour our lives into our children and what we are to pour into them. 

For our daughters, I love the freedom that home education provides me to completely train and educate them in all the aspects of Godly womanhood and femininity.  Like I mentioned before, my daughter and I have household notebooks in which we regulary use to do lots of planning for our home.  Since I am a believer in the live and learn approach to schooling, this household notebook has provided not only an outlet for creative writing, artistic expression, planning and other viable real-life skills, but has more importantly been very useful in handing over little pieces of responsibility that in turn produce a young lady that gains maturity through the process of being handed such responsibilities.  

Shelley Noonan hit the nail right on the head when she states in her article Queen in a Home of Her Own: 

For most of us, the years of 12-18 are the years we begin to purposefully train our daughters in the domestic arts.  But, if we would look at women of the past, a case could easily be made for our daughters to learn much before this time and be capable of running our home by the age 12…..This very idea runs counter to the popular thinking of today that tends to prolong childhood and delay adulthood responsibilities. 

I agree.  Teaching our daughters the how to’s of homemaking starting around the age of 12 is way too late.  We should use the formative years of a young girl’s life, under the age of 12, to take advantage of all the opportunities of home making training.  So practically, what are some of those age appropriate tasks we can expect from our young girls?  And what exactly do you mean when you say young? 

First of all, by young, I mean very young.  I, too, once thought of my children as too little and incapable of most things that now I regularly require of them.  The problem is that many mothers do not readily accept that learning curve phase as one they are willing to deal with;  the mess, the time involved, the imperfection, the repetition and well…”it is just easier to do it myself!” 

Instead of introducing daughters into the arts of cooking at the age of 12, I advocate introducing them into these arts at 3, 4  and 5 years old and by the ages of 6, 7, 8 and 9 they should be actually cooking and producing in the kitchen.  Not perfectly, but well on their way to expanding their knowledge and skills well beyond packaged cookie mix.  By the ages of 8 and 9, it is not unreasonable to regularly taste and smell the wonderful creations coming out of the kitchen and realizing that you didn’t lift a finger to help the cook at her work this time.  And by the age of 12…well, she should be well versed in the kitchen not only in ability but a growing knowledge that only improves with age.  That comes with years of pouring into her starting when she is 3 years old and continuing a consistent training during those most formative years!

I am continually reminding myself that it isn’t just about training in skill, but capturing her heart and attitude during these formative years are the most important! 

To answer the above question on practical tasks we can expect to teach our young girls and at what age?  Stay tuned for some ideas…