I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon sitting in the garden.
Forget those visions of a lovely bench in the sunshine; I was on my rump in the dirt.
We've had several warm days in a row and the garden soil is ready to turn. We shaped the garden into beds last year and mulched them over the winter. This was supposed to make them ready to plant come spring.
But come spring, we found we were over-run with wild garlic. It's everywhere.
I want to have spring peas and greens, so I've started reclaiming the raised beds. This means turning over every inch with a spade and pulling out the weeds.
I can't do much on my bad knees so I plop myself down and scoot along on my behind, weeding as I go.
Some rabbits keep me company as I work.
It sounds tedious and in some ways it is. But I spent the winter dreaming of fresh vegetables and warm sunshine,
so this is a dream come true.
And the garden looks great, at least 16 square feet of it. That only leaves about 900 square feet to go!
With heartfelt thanks and apologies to e.e.cummings
It's Just-
spring when the barnyard is mud-
slushy the little
gimp farmer
sings Golly Gee!
and chickensandsheep come
running for grass and
tidbits and it's
spring
when the farm is almost green
the funny
old farmer sings
Gol ly Gee!
and kittensandrabbits are binking
from sunshine and freshair and
it's
spring
and
the
stiff-kneed
farmer sings
Gol
ly
Gee!
Heavenly days, I'm using math again!
I recently received an email announcing a one-day sale on solar panels. A 15w unit that normally goes for $124.99 could be had for $59.99.
I love the idea of solar power and southern Indiana gets abundant sunshine. In addition, I have $100* to spend as I please. I've been saving it for summer auctions but now considered whether this might be a good use for it.
I threw out the idea to Tom and just explaining out loud what I had in mind helped me to clarify what would be involved (and how it was more complicated than my initial impression).
A solar panel is a marvelous thing, but by itself it is just a lawn decoration; it takes a bit more to make it useful. Our house is set up for conventional, on-grid AC electricity. Therefore, the easiest use of a small solar panel for us would be to run appliances directly (I'm not going to get into DC appliances here). In order to do that, we would need a battery-type pack to hold the energy and convert it to AC. This same company offers a power pack, a 150w generator that can be charged by the sun. It costs $199.99.
And to connect the two, add in a cable for $4.99.
So, at the very least and not considering shipping or sales tax, it would cost me $264.97 for a set-up that would power, at most, a laptop, lights, and/or a cell phone. And then only after a full day of sunshine.
Here's the wall I run into everytime I consider alternative power: our electricity use averages 317 kw per month at about $.09 per kw. So disregarding the basic service charges and all of those weird extra costs that power companies add in, our electricity costs us about $29 per month. Using solar to power a few lights or this laptop might save us at most $5.00 every month. Using that figure it would take 53 months or over 4 years for the solar to pay for itself. And that does not include the cost to build a stand for the panel and the hassle of remembering to bring in the power pack and consistantly use it.
I know there are other factors: yes, any use of solar would reduce dependence on coal and oil. Yes, it is good to have a back-up during power failures. But sad to say, in this case economics trumps all. And I could buy a LOT of candles for $264.97.
So the $100 stays in my wallet...but there's an auction this Saturday!
* I sold my mother-of-the-bride dress on Ebay. It was a lovely Edwardian-style tea dress, the most elegant and expensive piece of clothing I have ever owned but now, sadly, a full size too small.
If frugality were an Olympic event, I'd be on the winner's podium.
If being thrifty were a movie, there would be an Oscar on my shelf (or repurposed as a doorstop or glasses holder).
I would describe myself as careful with money, others might see it as cheap.
Whatever the modifier, a lot of what I do is motivated by the desire to save money. And that includes cooking from scratch.
Conventional wisdom dictates that ingredients plus effort plus time yields lower cash outlay than buying prepared foods.
Like most of life, it's not that straightforward and keeping track of actual expenses is a good idea. I recently made some choke cherry and rosehip jelly and attempted to figure out the cost benefit over store bought, if any.
Ingredients:
Fruit juice. Back at Woodchuck Acres, free fruit was everywhere. The
road was lined with choke cherry bushes and we had a planting of rosehip-heavy Rugosa roses. The harvest was so plentiful in 2010 that I had more than
enough for several batches of jelly and canned a pint each of juice for
future use. So for this jelly, the raw materials were free using my time (more about that in a bit) and some energy for heat and washing (more about that later also).
Pectin. One box purchased for $1.00
Sugar. 5 1/2 cups or about 38 1/2 ounces which is a little more than half of a bag (4 lbs.). I can't remember how much I paid for the bag, I think about $2.50, so let's call the price of the sugar $1.50.
Equipment, energy, time:
The jars and rings I have had for many years and reused some Tattler lids. I suppose I should figure depreciation on this stuff but I had enough of depreciation doing taxes, thank you very much.
Energy. Everything was washed in hot water, the lids were boiled and the jelly heated and I processed the final product in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. My attempt to figure out the cost here involved how many BTUs it takes to boil a gallon of water but I got lost somewhere between converting joules to BTUs (or was it the other way around?) and then the caloric properties of propane, etc. My final guess is I used less than 1/2 gallon of propane. Our propane cost us $1.99/gallon, so that totals another $1.00
My time. I'm retired so my time isn't worth anything to anyone except myself. I enjoy making jelly and think this is a good way to spend some of my life energy, so add in $0.00.
Total. The two pints of juice yielded eight half pint jars of jelly. The total outlay is $3.50 or $.44 per jar.
So in this case, homemade is cheaper.
Cooking is easy to tally but other typical country endeavors are harder to list in terms of profit or loss.
Growing your own fruit and vegetables? Building sheds or fences? Livestock?
Take chickens for example: Feed plus chicks plus building a coop plus fencing (a run if you cage them, your garden if you free-range). Is it worth it for the eggs and manure? How much is the joy of watching their goofy antics worth or the time you spent defrosting water pans in freezing temperatures or the heartbreak when they disappear to predators?
Many times people say they want to move to the country and live a simple life, be self-sufficient and live cheaply--a wonderful ideal but please come to it with a healthy dose of realism. Not all do-it-yourself programs will save you money but you'll become rich in the things that matter. And that's real wealth.
