Day one-Butter and Grapes

As I write this, Joey is off on his first dumpster exploration.  We watched this video on dumpster diving the other day, and he's been itching to see what's out there being thrown away.

Today was actually surprisingly more difficult that I imagined it would be.  I went to the grocery store to pick up my butter (the 1 item I told you about yesterday).  It only goes on sale a few times a year, and otherwise it's too expensive for us.  We love it because it's pasture based, which makes it rich and delicious as well as full of good vitamins and omega-3's.  The regular price is $6/lb, but they have a perpetual sale that brings it down to $5.  However, every few months it goes on sale for $4/lb, which is reasonable. 

Going into the store I was more than temptation then I thought it would be.  As I walked in, the first thing I see is a beautiful display of veggies.  Let me tell you, I am a sucker for delicious veggies!  But I had just harvested a skirt full of kale and tomatoes (the only things that like our garden, other than the giant turnips I harvested and lactofermented a few weeks back), so I just kept that in my head.  When I got back to the dairy department, I noticed that they had added a new whole milk unsweetened kefir to the shelves that was so much cheaper tham the other brand!  Joey loves kefir (water and dairy)!  But I resisted.  I got my 30 lb case of butter and started to the checkout without even a detour.

There were several lines open, but I chose my favorite checker, Maria, specifically because Beatrice had woken up and Maria has been pining to see her eyes.  We chatted for a minute as she was figuring out how to ring up the box, and when ishe told me the total I thought maybe I'd heard her wrong.  $4/lb time 30 lbs should be around $120, and I was prepared for that, but the price she gave me was $102.  But then I looked at her checkout moniter and realized what she did... she'd given me her employee discount (15% off!).  Those baby browns really paid off today!

This was my last real purchase for a whole month, so it was a little bittersweet saying goodbye to my favorite store.  But I'll be back soon!

Later this evening, Joey suggested last minute that we go visit his little sister at her new house!  She'll be a senior in college this year and this is her first time living all by herself.  Joey brought a machete and a bow saw to trim back the grape vines that at keeping her from opening her back door, and I brought dinner. Usually, on an event like this, we would have ended up grabbing a bite on the way there to save time, but I was determined to give my family good nourishing food from what I already had on hand!  So I took brown rice, the kale and tomatoes from the garden, along with an onion and a green pepper, some chicken from the freezer, and what was left of a can of coconut milk, plus spices, and we had chicken coconut curry on the fly!  And in a kitchen without any knives or cutting boards!  My sister-in-law had a list two dry erase boards long of all the things i'd discovered she didn't have by the time dinner was done!

But today was amazingly fruitful!  The only money spent (other than the butter, of course) was my $15 copay at the doctor's office.  And for free, we came home with a giant box of concord and champage grapes to make jelly out of!  And there're plenty more for harvest when we go back to visit again!

By the way, here's a shout out to Dyno-Mom for mentioning us and posting such a cure picture of Bea!  Also, I'll be borrowing her yogurt maker tomorrow to try my hand at raw milk yogurt from scratch!  For those of you who don't know, Melissa's one amazing woman and my husband and I bought a house on her street entirely so we could eat her food.  And I'm only half kidding!