Practically Chicken

After weeks of rain, with a few snowflakes mixed in now and then, it looks as if the weather is going to be quite nice this week with daytime highs climbing into the mid-50s by Wednesday. There’s no rain in the forecast so maybe the chicken pen will dry out and I won’t sink into the muck whenever I walk out to the coop.

Our two little chicks are growing up. Except for their downy heads, they now have mostly feathers so they almost resemble tiny adults. We won’t know for several more weeks if they are male or female. It’s impossible at this point to tell their gender because they all look the same. The chicks are still obeying Mama and they back away when I open the door to their shelter to replenish their food and water.

On one of EJ’s days off last week, we went shopping at the thrift stores, which is one of our favorite things to do because it’s like treasure hunting AND we can buy good quality items much more cheaply than we could buy them new from retail stores. We always look for books, of course. An extra bedroom in our house is actually our home library/office. Except for the space where we have a desk and file cabinets, all the walls are lined with bookshelves full of books. A person can never have enough books. EJ and I often comment that we are very rich because we own books. The closet is filled with my yarn and craft supplies.

On this last trip to the thrift stores, I bought several pairs of jeans. The ONLY beneficial thing about high inflation is that we can no longer afford to buy snack foods and with EJ’s mini-stroke, we are being even more careful about our diet. This means that we are losing weight. I haven’t had a bathroom scale in years (because they are depressing) but I can tell I am losing weight from the way that my clothes fit. Jeans that were beginning to fit snugly are now very baggy. I have very few jeans the next size down, one of which is too ripped to wear in public and which I only wear when I have to do a very dirty job such as clean out the coop. I thought it was time to get more jeans. It’s not easy for me to find jeans at a thrift store because I am 5’4″ and regular-length jeans are too long for me but I found FOUR pairs of jeans that fit. I’m all set now.

Over the years EJ and I have gone through difficult times and have had to learn to live frugally. It’s been difficult at times, but God has taken care of us. For example, one year EJ’s company downstate gave employees a choice between being laid off or continuing to work at a one-third reduction in pay. EJ’s co-workers thought he was crazy when he chose to continue working because they were making as much on unemployment as he was working. However, EJ wanted to keep our health insurance. It would have been difficult enough to make it on reduced pay but during that time, our furnace died, our car died, and our roof started leaking badly. It was amazing how God took care of these needs with many “small” miracles. We had a woodstove to heat our house and we were able to buy slab wood from the local sawmill. The owner would put us at the top of the list whenever we needed wood. Sometimes, when we had only enough wood left for one day, a trailer full of wood would mysteriously appear. A friend lent us their extra vehicle. Also, our roof was re-shingled for the amount that we had in our savings account, which wasn’t much and was far less than a roof should have cost. After that year, EJ’s company went back to paying EJ’s full pay and, for some reason, they decided to pay him back pay as well. We’ve had many experiences like that. I’m thankful, as times are tough and likely will get tougher, that we had those experiences of learning to live frugally and experiencing God taking care of us.

Grocery shopping is really difficult because prices are so shockingly high. We winced when we see the prices of food. We almost can’t endure putting items in our cart. Yikes. But this is November, Thanksgiving is approaching, and turkeys are on sale. During this month we can get a whole turkey for much, much cheaper than chicken breasts and thighs. We can buy a turkey at around 55 cents per pound instead of chicken at several dollars per pound. Turkey is practically chicken and can be used in any chicken recipe. Last week we cooked a turkey that had been in our chest freezer since last year. When it was cooked, I cut up the meat, separated it into freezer bags, and put most of the bags in the freezer. I take out a bag whenever I need poultry for a meal.

The store limited customers to buying one turkey per visit so last week EJ stopped at the store on his way home from work every evening and bought one turkey, which we put in our big chest freezer. We now have six turkeys in the freezer and one in the fridge that we will cook soon and separate into bags for the freezer. That’s not counting the one we will buy closer to Thanksgiving Day for our feast. In difficult times, a person has to find creative ways to be frugal.

We kind of “accidentally” started buying extra turkeys in 2020. With all the shortages that year, we weren’t sure turkeys would be available so we bought a turkey at full price in early November. A week or so later, stores started having awesome sales on turkeys and we couldn’t resist buying another, and another, ending up with four. One we cooked for Thanksgiving and the others we stored in our freezer and cooked occasionally throughout the year. Those “accidental” extra turkeys caused us to think outside the box: turkeys were not “only” for Thanksgiving Dinner. After that, we bought extra turkeys every November although not so many as this year.

Apparently, we aren’t the only ones with the idea of buying extra turkeys in November. EJ read on the internet of others do the same.

I thought Hannah Joy was adjusting to setting the clock back but apparently I was wrong. Last week, at the time she used to eat (5 p.m. which is now 4 p.m. with the change in time), I was busy fixing supper and Hannah was well-behaved as she patiently waited. But yesterday, one of EJ’s days off, I was not busy when she expected to be fed (4 p.m.) and she had a meltdown. I swear that she sometimes acts like a tired, cranky toddler. She grew increasingly vocal, increasingly loud, and increasingly shrill when I didn’t feed her RIGHT THIS MINUTE because she was STARVING TO DEATH! She pawed at me and passive-aggressively got right in my personal space. She kept it up for an hour. I refused to give in. I am not going to feed her at 4 p.m. because then it would be more difficult for her to wait until breakfast at 7 a.m. In previous years I had originally fed her at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. but last Spring when we set the clocks ahead I messed up my calculations and ended up feeding her at 5 p.m. I couldn’t remember if 6 p.m. old time was 7 p.m. or 5 p.m. new time. I think I’m going to renew my efforts to feed her at the same time of day regardless of what the clock says. I did tell Hannah yesterday that she could always write a letter to the editor–or the governor–with demands that they stop messing with time. It would make it easier for all of us.