Roosters Rocking Little House in the City

Snowy spots the seeds

"Cocka-doodle-doo"
Yesterday morning we had 7 of our chicks crowing. Or to be more true trying to crow. Boy the effort this little birds put into it. So we are sure now we have 7 roosters. And they all must go. It sure has been a learning curve having chicks.
We have 3 chicks who have not grown any combs, or wattles, these are hopefully our hens.

Cleo (standing beside Snowy), is only just getting little bits of pink.

Ebony (standing) and Charcoal (sitting) both have no combs or wattles.

But it's not just the combs and wattles, the ones we are sure are roosters, behave differently to the 3 quiet, gentle hens. The boys puff themselves up and go to battle like a couple of teenage boys. Ruff and tumble, no one really getting hurt, more show then anything.
Also have noticed how their mum treats them differently now. With the 3 we think are hens she will sit down close with (they will sit together in a corner, or a sunny spot) but as soon as one of the rooster guys come to join in she gets up and tell them to go away.

Hopefully someone, (or some people) want these roosters. Because we are not aloud roosters in the city. Poor neighbors.

Stocktake with photos

Thought instead of sharing a list of our stocktake, what about a photo stocktake instead.

Top part of our pantry. Hard to take photos as pantry is in a walkway to our kitchen.

Bottom part of our pantry, cans are behind the large plastic containers.

a corner cupboard where we store extra flour, sugar, rice, oil and tomato sauce.

Another cupboard where we store potatoes, kumara, drinks and chips.

Fridge door we have some milk, yogurt, jams, mustard's etc

Fridge inside. See those green lid containers they are great for storing veggies like carrots, broccoli, capsicum.

Small freezer under fridge, this is top drawer with abit of butter, fish and ham burger buns.

Small freezer under fridge 2nd drawer, has ham, butter, peas, pizza bases, cheese and ice blocks (they were a Christmas gift).

Big freezer in our garage, top drawer has milk and bread, there is also some pastry and Bacon above the drawer.

Big freezer 2nd drawer with sponge cake and mixed veggies

Big freezer 3rd drawer with mainly beef meat, but also has some chicken kebabs and pizza cheese.

Big freezer 4th drawer with mainly chicken meat, but there are a couple packs of pork sausages.

Big freezer bottom drawer with lamb meat

Have just realise have to other areas with food too.  Under our sink we keep our onions and garlic. A cupboard with our cups also has our home baking. and a small high cupboard has our home preserves.
Then there is also the garden.

Doing a $21 Challenge

The $21 Challenge is from Simple Savings. Its a great way to use up food in your Freezers, Pantry, garden etc.

This is the book that is very helpful with the challenge.

The challenge is for a week. But because our freezer and pantry is so full from the Christmas season, we will be doing this for about a month. The $21 is for a family of 4, so we have $31.50per week. For our family it doesn't include milk, which is $21.95 for a weeks worth of milk. So our true total is $53.45 including milk per week. Also the $31.50 is only for food, not non-food items. Not that we need to get any non-food items, laundry full with what we need.

So I have taken a stocktake of all our food we have.
Then have made a weekly menu plan, based around the food we have.
From that menu plan was able to see if there was anything we needed to get for the week.

Wont share with you the stocktake because it is very long a quite amazing how much food we have. But here is my menu plan for this week.
Breakfast: put together in one container rolled oats, toasted muesli and honey puffs. That has made one full container to last us the week as a crazy muesli :) also have weet-bix, and lots of bread that can be toasted up.
Lunch and snacks: have lots of bread that we can use. As well as fruit, and baking (have to finish of my birthday cake, my sister brought me)
Dinner is more planned
Monday: Beef stir fry with veggies and noodles
Tuesday: Roast chicken with roast veggies and broccoli
Wednesday: Chicken rice risotto (with peas)
Thursday: Chicken pot pies with potatoes and mixed veggies
Friday: homemade Pizza and chips (Hawaiian and Chicken)
Saturday: BBQ sausages and salads (green and either pasta or potato salad)
Sunday: Tray-baked Lamb with cous cous

We don't always have dessert but do have some jelly and instant pudding that we can have sometimes.

Have already brought milk $21.95 and with my $31.50 have only spent $18.70 for kumara 500g, onions 1.5kg, Apples 1.5kg, and 12 pack of eggs, ice cream 2L and a extra milk 3L for kids milkshakes.
So have $12.80 for the rest of the week.

And yes I believe we can make it through the week and not go over budget.

Merry Christmas Chickens

Chicken's new chicken coop

'Mumma' hen

'Mumma' hen and her about 6 weeks old chicks

This is 'Cleo' hopefully a hen and my favorite of the chicks

This is 'Snowy' who is just walking down from his morning crow. Yes we sure he is a rooster.

The chicken coop was my combined Christmas and birthday present from my dear family. It's been great giving them all more room to run around. We won't be keeping all our chicks, as we find out which ones are roosters they will be having to go as soon as possible. We are not allow roosters here in the city. Then we will be choosing to keep 4 hens.
This week we are working on the main area where we will be keeping the chickens, it was used for a compost bin and needs to be weeded and made level for the chicken coop to rest there. We will be having another portable run that we can place on the vegetable garden or just on the grass.
Can't let our dear chickens be free ranged, to many neighbourhood cats, but we can give them safe places to run around in..

Happy New Year

Good bye 2011 and Hello 2012 :)
Excited about the coming year, and the plans we have for our little home in the city.
Also New Years day is my birthday, had a great family time. Homefully I'm not just a year older but a year wiser.

My sister brought me this cake. YUMMY!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Will post photo of my lovely Christmas present later and share more when I have time.
Been busy with children, chickens and Christmas :)

"Oh No!" Went over $100 Food shop

I have been doing so well, at keeping under $100 for our food shop. But today went over $33.90 over $100.

Menu Plan Week FourBreakfast - Weet-bix, Honey Puffs and Porridge. Maybe in weekend pancakes. Lunch is sandwiches, and 1 sweet thing and 1 fruit
Dinner
MONDAY - Rice Risotto (with chicken stock made from Saturdays Roast Chicken)
TUESDAY - Spaghetti Bolognese
WEDNESDAY - Chicken Sausages with Mash potato.
THURSDAY - Fish with 2 salads (potato salad and green salad)
FRIDAY - Homemade Pizza and chips
SATURDAY - BBQ dinner (niece's birthday dinner)
SUNDAY - Roast chicken and roast vegetables

12/12/2011 Food shop in the boot of our car

Shopping List
4x Milk  3L $21.96
1 Boneless Chicken breast $5.53
Beef mince 1kg $6.75
Can Tuna $2.09 (son with aspergers has limited types of food he will eat so get him what I can)
Chocolate spread $5.99 (again for son with aspergers)
Icing sugar 500g $1.69
Brown sugar 500g $1.69
Rolled oats 750g $2.49
Milo $4.89 (malted drink for son with aspergers)
Spaghetti pasta 500g $1.09
6 Eggs $3.67
Honey puff 425g $3.89
Weet-bix 1.2kg $6.59
Potatoes 783g $1.79 (to top up what we have left in garden)
1 garlic .72c
Carrots 628g $1.05
Onions 558g $1.31
Apples 708g $2.46
Mushrooms 104g $1.25
2x Loaves of white bread $3.38 (son won't eat eat any other type, thankfully our other children do)
2x Broccoli $3.00
2x Butter 500g $7.50
Parmesan cheese 100g $4.79
Mayonnaise 215g $3.49
Bacon 200g $3.69
Coffee beans 200g $6.99
6 fish fillets 425g $5.99
White wine for cooking 750ml $8.99
2 minute noodles $2.89
Pasta sauce 700g $2.79
Arborio rice 750g $3.49
Total = $133.89
rounding up to = $133.90

Might have gone over this shop, but the last few weeks I did go under $100. So overall doing very well with our food shopping.
Now need to bake some chocolate cupcakes for afternoon tea.