August 2017 and the frugal living challenge continues

Where do I start? It was another tremendously busy month at Frugaldom but it didn't stop there: August was as busy on the home front as it was at the field and at the caravans, with work exchange students, holiday makers and the next investment to join the realms of the Frugaldom project. 😊
Work on the main yard seemed relentless but we finally got to the top layer and even during the very wettest days of summer, we had no puddles or floods in this area.

 At Frugaldom, we had several visits from little people wanting to play with ponies, search for beasties, make things, learn more and explore the willow dens. This frst one is progressing well and has sprouted so much that we need to coppice the new growth.

In the Thrift Cottage orchard, there were apples galore to be picked and processed. It would seem that our regular apple crumble with custard habit has now been carried back to several European countries, thanks to it proving to be a hot favourite with all the students.

 August saw several visitors arrive at Frugaldom and on one particular weekend, we had a jolly get together after moving more hay - I think there were about a dozen off us took part in the most fun-filled archery tournament ever and then had a great chatty night of giggles and laughs.

 It wasn't all play and no work, we made a serious start on schooling ponies to get tem accustomed to some of the work they will be doing in the future. All 3 ponies have now been ridden and are continuing their training barefoot and bitless. We don't need metal!

 Willow takes absolutely everything in her stride and is ready to join in or take part in anything at all! Eldest grand daughter has been practicing her grooming, mane pleating and pony leading skills, as well as having her first bareback riding lessons on our medicine hat 'spirit' pony. I'm still intrigued by native American tales of these unusual ponies and hope Willow will live up to expectations as a fabulous companion.

 Over the past almost 2 years we have been introducing heritage variety apples to Frugaldom. Our longterm aim is to farm these apples for supplying locally and for trading from Frugaldom. The trees are now 2 and 3 years old, so the first of them bore enough fruit to allow us to try several things with them - cooking them into crumbles, chutney and sauce. The Galloway Pippins are lovely apples and are also tasty eating apples. We haven't tried cider making with them.

Our orchard project will be expanded year on year, as we clear and prepare more growing space. We'll be focussing mainly on the apples but now have a mixed orchard of pears, plums and cherries as well as the apples. Now that we have the lean-to, I plan on experimenting with grapes and hardy kiwis.

 
 As you'll have noticed, keeping up with blogging has been very difficult but that should hopefully, now, be brought back under control and I'll be able bring us all up to date now I can get online anytime. This is the latest gadget to hit the Frugaldom family - the Huawei sim-operated mini wifi hub on pay as you go data! I LOVE IT! It can provide internet access via wifi for up to 9 connections, so now it's easy to get online from the caravan. Now all I need to do is get online from the barn and we're sorted!

 Chickens have been laying eggs daily and providing a regular supply for fellow caravan residents at the holiday park. With only 4 lating hens, we have still managed to sell a dozen or so each week and still have enough leftover for home use. Once the next 3 hens start laying, we should be able to sell a few more during 2018, when 4 out of the 7 hens should be laying blue eggs.

During quieter, more reflective moments, I have had the great pleasure to be able to clamber onto spirit pony and sit with her as she carries on being a pony. I know that this sort of 'riding' is not recommended, nor is it seen as safe, but we are strongly focussing on a much more holistic approach to horse-keeping here, a method that is based on trust and allowing ponies to live the way nature intended.

With plans afoot to open our Galloway pony heritage trail by 2020, our ponies will need to be well used to all sorts of events and activities by then, so August was also a fun month for pony play school. Frankie, Willow and Pippin could be representing the ancestors of some of the greatest horses the world has ever known. Who'd have thought that their common denominator would be the humble Galloways?

There was so much going on throughout August that I'm cutting this blog post off here and doing a second August one - announcing the next phase of our frugal project - the long awaited frugal living experience that we first set out to offer several years ago. Follow our progress on Facebook and get updates via Twitter or hang on in there and wait for the next installment of the frugal blog. 

Ducks, Eggs and Pancakes

Ducks, Eggs and Pancakes

Pancakes aren't just for Shrove Tuesday, they are for any frugal day when you are in a hurry or need to use up surplus eggs. At this time of the year, both factors affect meal times here, especially when preparing the first ever live chat, an impromptu decision to test out the brand new NYK Chat facility online. Pancakes for tea, early to bed for the Frugaldom ducks and then some virtual socialising with frugal friends... that was the theory, anyway!

Read more here

Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal Blog - Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal living, as a lifestyle, comes as second nature to those of us who have followed the path for some time. The debt free good life was one I aspired to for many years and it took many more to achieve it, but we still are nowhere near self-sufficient. So this got me thinking seriously about 'what if we had absolutely no money?’

Could we rustle up a meal from the Frugaldom garden?

Don't panic! We don't eat any of our own livestock, they are kept more like pets! But we still need to feed them and they still need to contribute to the overall 'welfare' of the microholding project.

Octavius and Septimus help manure the fruit beds, dig holes and eat grass. They also love raspberry leaves! But that doesn't feed us!

Read more here

Some DaysThings Just All Go Wrong!

Egg-ceptionally Busy March!

Some days, no matter how hard you try to do a good job, things just go wrong, anyway. I've had a few of those days recently, so I'm just going to resort to making it to the end of March without too many calamities and not counting my proverbial chickens before the eggs hatch.

Speaking of eggs, we now have two ducks a hen and two bantams laying, so I have begun swaps and trades with neighbours again - a lovely lemon drizzle cake handed in this afternoon!
 

Apologies for the lack of posts over the weekend but I'm squeezing in 14+ hours a day in an attempt to fit in work, household, family crises and the complete overhaul of the web site, along with building us some brand new forums - Now You Know. They aren't quite completed yet, but they are open for use, so grab your username before someone else does and I'll 'see' you in the daily chat thread.

Pancakes galore!

With all the eggs we are now getting, it has been a case of quickly using these to make speedy meals grabbed in between hours of hectic work. (I'm not even thinking about the 2013/14 tax return yet!) So, it's been eggs for lunch in some way, shape or form. Pancakes made with sultanas and cinnamon, served with sugar and lemon... again!

Good grief! What is it?

In a huge rush to make a loaf, this is what I got in return! The above is supposed to be a beautiful, freshly baked loaf that would be ready for breakfast after I got up early and decided to try the fastbake setting! I'm guessing that's a no-no for the cheap bread mix I got a few weeks ago. But gear not! This mangled mass got chopped and turned into croutons after we salvaged the middle slices. The crunchier bits got chopped and added into the chickens' breakfast!

Doughball!

 

 My next calamity came when I put the day's mince on to warm and forgot to make the dumplings! I did a quick search and saw mention of a speedy microwave version... it didn't work very well! I think I 'rubberised' them! Well! I was so annoyed that I dropped them into the mince and let them soak themselves soggy in extra gravy... then served them up with cabbage and carrots for dinner anyway! There were 6 but I am ashamed to say that the two leftover were simply inedible and went into the fire to burn for a couple of hours!

Lunchtime today was toasted pitta breads filled with scrambled eggs and hot dog sausages, 'garnished' with tomato ketchup! But guess what? I over crisped the pittas!

Pasta twirls added to mince & carrots

The leftover mince from the doughball disaster should have been made into a pie but I ran out of time again... phone rang at 7.45pm and that reminded me to look at the time and realise I hadn't made dinner! So tonight's gourmet choice was pasta mixed through the leftover mince and carrots.

Seeking solace after all my culinary woes, I did a cupboard rummage and discovered a tiny tin of longlife sterilised double cream, which gave me the incentive to whip up some ice cream from one of the cheap instant mixes. I needed some frugal luxury, so that's what I made... extreme luxury ice cream!

Whipped double cream, milk and cocoa

 The ice cream mix needs half a pint of milk, so I made it up with skimmed UHT and then whisked in a heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder.

Microwave-defrosted a bowl of garden raspberries

 I still have plenty of berries in the freezer, all picked last summer from the garden, so I quickly defrosted a bowlful, sweetened them and then mashed them.

Adding sweetened, stewed raspberries to the chocolate mix

 Adding the mashed raspberries to the chocolate ice cream mix - had to sample the rasps to cheer myself up a bit - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Mixed and ready for freezing

All mixed and ready for the freezer. That was almost 9pm and it's now almost half past midnight, but guess what I am doing, other than finishing off a very rushed blog post? I'm about to tuck into this absolutely amazing ice cream and don't care what anyone things about that! :)

Raspberry and chocolate ice cream

Apologies for any silly mistakes in this post; I am hitting 'post' without previewing or proofreading it... my ice cream is melting!

Days 12 and 13 of Making it in March - Making Plans and Stuff

Where is Time Going?

 

Incredible! Another week and it's the Budget then the end of the tax year is almost upon us, when we all need to round up our numbers and get crunching for the annual tax returns! I suspect 2013/14 will prove to be minimal for me, as the past year has been focussed on the renovation project whilst scratching enough income to make self-employment pay.

 

It is almost 3 years since we bought Thrift Cottage and the pink thrift by the front door is looking like it may start flowering soon. Our fixy-up is meant to be a 5-year project, so we should be approaching 60% of the way to completion. 2 more years to go and then I need to get back to building a self-sustainable business that will provide me with both income and a pension plan, so it's time to make some headway in that direction. Being a frugal Scot and living in Scotland, where we still have both paper £1 notes and paper £100 notes, I feel that the photo above adequately explains what a frugal entrepreneur (frugaleur) is all about - making as much as possible from as little as possible!

 

I'm Hatching Colourful Plans!

 

Duck egg shells drying before planting cuttings in them

 

What did I make yesterday? Pizzas, spicy stir fry from leftovers and a start on my long-term plan for making everything pay for itself. I did get around to painting my duck egg shells - I now have 4 including the red one - but I still haven't made the macramé hangers for them all. Now I have another 2 duck eggs, as Phoebe is getting right into the swing of spring with her laying schedule.

 

Today, I defrosted some chicken, sliced it in strips, dipped it in egg, coated it in spiced breadcrumbs and made goujons - half got cooked for tonight's dinner and the other half went into the fridge for tomorrow. While washing up, I just happened to look out the window in time to see this little fellow!

 

The foraging Vole

It's a little vole that seems to have taken up residence in the dry stone wall that runs along the side of the patio. Voles are about mouse size but have rounder noses and short tails.

 

 

Vole stealing blackberry leaves

 

Mr or Mrs Vole was far too busy to notice me going for my camera. Tiny critter was nibbling off the blackberry leaves and taking them into the wall, obviously for nest building. Scruffy cat spends a great deal of her time just sitting staring at this wall, now we know why!

 

On the windowsill, my red cabbage experiment is looking healthy with several more new leaves growing, particularly around the base. Here's how it is looking at the moment.

 

Red cabbage experiment

Has anyone else tried this experiment yet? I would love to know if it really does grow enough to start picking more meals from it.

 

That's about it for today - early night again, as I am enjoying watching the TV series about life on the International Space Station (I'm an ISS spotter) and then there's a very interesting money programme on afterwards about how to be a billionaire. I'll absorb inspiration and see how best to afford whatever they do on my frugal budget then I'll come back and tell you how I became a frugalaire!

 

UK Times for the flyovers by International Space Station

 

For anyone else interested, here is a handy chart of dates and time for looking skywards to watch for the space station flying over us, if the night sky is clear enough. I always wave, not sure why! I'm not that into it that I go out in the middle of the night - I need a really good meteor shower or the chance of catching a glimpse of an aurora for that.

 

Until tomorrow! Let's hope the sunshine returns here soon - seems all the good weather chose to abandon us after one great day and yesterday morning! Still, it was enough to dry the washing on the line and that's what counts for now. :)

Day 10 of Making it in March - Would You Eat Springbok, Kangaroo or Zebra?

Day 10 of 31 - Mung Beans, Quiche and Crazy Food Questions!

Today's first 'make' was a second bean sprouter!

 

My homemade mung bean sprouter seems to be working but there's a slight problem - I added too many beans and they'd totally filled the jar by the time I got up this morning!

 

Sprouting mung beans

 

I can easily see why bean sprouts can be a frugal source of nutrition but I was somewhat surprised by their technical dietary data. A one-cup serving has the equivalent of 6g of carbohydrates and two thirds of that is sugar!

 

'Phoebe' duck has been doing well and producing an egg each day, so I had yesterday's and today's to use, meaning 2 more shells to turn into mini planters. I now have these cut and primed, ready for painting tomorrow, so I'll need to get some more macramé done to keep up with the egg laying.

 

Cheese & onion base for quiche

To use up the remainder of the pastry from pie-making, I rolled it into a tray, added a diced onion and a sprinkle of grated cheese then baked this with the two duck eggs beaten with a little milk, salt and pepper. Quiche for tea tonight and we'll eat the rest tomorrow lunchtime. (Sorry, I forgot to photograph it coming out of the oven.)

 

Onion rerooting - I think?!

On the 'veg for free' experiment, the first of those musty peas have begun to sprout in the tin can planters on the window sill and, believe it or not, the ones I threw into the planter at the back door also seem to be germinating! The red cabbage base is amazing, with more and more tiny leaves unfurling all around the base and across the cut surface. The photo above is of the onion base, although I am not convinced this one is at all possible. I mean, how can another onion grow from it? I think someone's kidding me on about this one, but I'll leave if for now.

 

VEGETARIANS & VEGANS, LOOK AWAY NOW!

 

 

The above is a competition sponsored by MuscleFood.com and I am hoping that I can gain an entry in order to be in with a chance of winning, so if you haven't already done so, but have been considering it, give them a go for your meat order and have it delivered to your door. Not many can beat £5 per kilo for quality chicken breast fillets. But I have to warn you, their 'exotic meat' section is becoming more and more exotic!

 

Choice of freebies with your first offer

 

I was quite perturbed at seeing horse steaks listed but will admit that I have unwittingly eaten this in the past while on holiday in Europe. Now, however, their free offer for new customers has been expanded to give you a choice of meat free with your first order - tonight I see horse steak is one of them! Not sure what to think of this... but do take a look at what is available to buy for home delivery! It's quite an eye-opener to see:

• Springbok steak burgers
• Zebra haunch burgers
• Tilapia fillets (I had to search that one to find out it's fish that the southeast of England is apparently going crazy for - recipe included here!)
• Kangaroo steaks
• Buffalo stew
• Ostrich steaks
• Horse meat variety pack

What are your thoughts on the above list of meats and would you eat them? Is it just my upbringing on plain foods? Or perhaps my lack of interest in culinary adventure? Maybe it's simply lack of choice by way of my continued rural lifestyle or it could even be a deeply rooted, Old Testament induced belief on what's 'allowed', as far as the food chain is concerned?

 

I don't know... I have a fear of the unknown, but perhaps a bigger fear of actually discovering I like something that I otherwise 'shouldn't'.

 

Making my mind up about this could take some time, as I do remember the big meat scandal when authorities discovered container loads of kangaroo meat coming into Britain and ending up in school meals. That was in the late 70's, early 80's, so we do know that this sort of exotic meat has been reaching our shores for the past near 40 years, at least, but ... no! I won't pursue my line of thought because I'll end up sitting until midnight blogging for The Paranoid Times! 

 

NYK, Frugaldom

Day 9 of Making it in March - Bread and Butter Pudding

Day 9 of 31 - Making Something Different Every Day in March

It's Sunday, I had a friend visiting this afternoon, I haven't done any crafting, but we did get a second duck egg and not one, but TWO chicken eggs from our feathered friends in the garden, so that made my day!

 

Friend brought me a carton of milk from the village store while on her way here, so that will take me up to 5 empties for another project that I want to try - making a vertical garden using a pallet, cup hooks, garden canes and recycled milk cartons. 'Mishy' from sunny Suffolk will be running this year's 'vertical growing pods' challenge in the Frugal Forums. My delay in starting this project is that I get so few plastic milk cartons here - I mostly get UHT in the waxed cardboard litre cartons. I'm saving what I can and will ask a neighbour if they'll save me some.

 

Back to today - what did I make?

 

The extra milk and the eggs are a clue - the duck egg shell has been kept to make another tiny planter and the eggs got combined with the milk not to make French toast for breakfast, as I'd envisaged, but bread and butter pudding!

 

Frugal bread and butter pudding

 

Ingredients

 

Eggs

Milk

Bread

Margarine

Sugar (I used my homemade vanilla pod sugar.)

Sultanas

Cinnamon

 

Method

 

I used 3 slices of homemade bread with the crusts removed - these get turned into breadcrumbs and go in the freezer. Cut the bread to preferred size and spread with margarine/buttery spread. Sit these in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with sultanas or raisins, sugar and cinnamon, then repeat for the next layer of your sandwiches. Beat the egg and milk together (as though for scrambling) then pour it over the contents of the dish. Add another sprinkle of dried fruit, sugar and cinnamon then cover the dish in tin foil and pop it into the oven until the egg mix has baked. Mine took about 40 minutes at 180 Deg C in the mini oven.

 

Bread and butter pudding

This is very filling, so the 3 slices of bread is sufficient for 4 servings, at least. We ate ours hot with a little extra milk over the top. You can microwave this dish and it cooks in minutes, but I was already cooking rice to go with some sweet chilli chicken. It did mean that I was able to warm all the plates on top of the mini oven and have a warm kitchen.

 

Making... Important Decisions!

 

Owing to the nature of Frugaldom, it derives very little by way of income. Let's face it, you read this for a reason and it's not because you have a huge income and millions in the bank. My blog caters for a very specific section of society - those living below the breadline. I am a genuine frugaler who genuinely lives on my £4,000 and I earn less than minimum wage: I NEED to be frugal. I NEED to steer clear of debt and attempt to save to protect my own future. But I also NEED to earn my income in the first place. For the majority of my working life I have been self-employed, which means no unemployment or sickness benefits to fall back on and no employer paying my tax and insurance, or even guaranteeing me an income in the first place.

 

However...

 

Online is where my business exists and that is where I need to focus my energy. I have several blogs, forums, websites and social media accounts so I have had to give this a great deal of thought to help determine the right route to take.

 

 

If you would like to follow Frugaldom on Twitter for the frugal living, money saving, penny pinching, budget busting, cost cutting blogs that include baking, making, cooking, crafting, gardening and recycling, then you should follow @Frugaldom

 

 

If you would like to follow NYK Media, where I write and blogs for my income while pursuing a career as a frugal entrepreneur with an active interest in horse racing (it can be frugal, I tell you!), then please follow the newer account @Frugaleur Just as we have money-saving and money-making challenges on the forums, so too do I have money-saving and money-making Twitter accounts, blogs and websites.

 

Back to normal tomorrow with the workaday things and ever hopeful of some sunshine soon. We ended up with more fog here this afternoon, then the rain returned this evening. I need to get into the garden soon!

 

NYK, Frugaldom

Day 8 of Making it in March - How to Make a Duck Eggshell Planter

Day 8 of 31 - Today we got our First Duck Egg of the Year!

White duck egg

Phoebe, our oldest surviving duck, has started to lay after her winter break, so today we had a lovely white duck egg. (I know it's Phoebe's because 'Custard Cream' lays pale green eggs and 'Oreo' lays blue eggs.) Cue an attempt at making one of those eggshell planters to hang in a home made mini macramé potholder.

Scoring the egg shell

I used a filleting knife to gently saw through the narrower end of the egg - don't cut right through, we want to save the egg inside for cooking!

Empty egg shell

Once sliced through enough to open the end off the egg, tip the contents into a dish or cup and put them in the fridge to use up for cooking. (Think I might make bread and butter pudding tomorrow!)

Wash out the shell before priming it

After giving the shell a good wash, allow it to stand upside down to drip dry and then give it a couple of coats of bonding - I used my PVA glue. This strengthens the shell. Omit this stage if you are planning on sowing seeds in it because once the seeds germinate, you can simply plant the entire egg shell into the ground.

 

Painting the eggshell

Once the bonding had dried, I used food colouring to paint this first shell a rosy red! I'll try different colours, depending on what I find in the baking cupboard.

Duck eggshell planter

 

I selected a brown embroidery thread and then knotted up another of the mini macramé hangers. (See earlier post for how to make these.) The colouring wasn't properly dried in time for me to plant up this shell for photographing, but I'll do that tomorrow. I have taken a couple more cuttings from my Money (Jade) Plant, so they should be ready to pot by then.

 

Turkey mince pie

 

And finally, for today, there were a couple of other makes! I made a batch of ice cream for daughter to take home with her and I made some pastry to turn some of the turkey 'Nile' mince into a pie to mark the end of National Pie Week! This one has turkey mince, sage  & onion stuffing and mixed vegetables already added to the filling. As usual, I forgot to photograph it when it came out the oven, so this is what's left of it. There is still sufficient mince to make another pie, so I've frozen that for future use. If I count a pie as 4 portions, my 400g pack of turkey mince stretched to 12 meals, six for each of us here.

 

NYK, Frugaldom