What I read 2018...sad edition

So I was about to enter book 100 and somehow the entire list was lost....argh.

These are the last few books of 2018

100. Mother Carey's Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin   AMAZING.  Makes me want to be a better mother.  Loved this sweet book!

101. The Wind in the Chimney by Cornelia Meigs  A great children's book that is based just after George Washington becomes president, although he plays a minor role.  The book is set in the area around Valley Forge and focuses on a family who works hard to overcome major loss.  Really dovetailed with Mother Carey's Chickens

102. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens A really good read about Kya who is left by her mother and older siblings and eventually by her drunk father as well.  She is called Marsh Girl by the town she lives near and yet that is exactly what she is.  She grows up, falls in love with Tate who teacher her to read and exposes her to major science and then leaves her for college.  She has a relationships with the town  hot shot who keeps her in the dark about his impending marriage.  Eventually she find success as a scientific author, but is then put on trial for the murder of the hot shot.  When found innocent she allows a relationship with Tate to form and they spend the rest of their lives studying the marsh together...when she dies we find out the rest of the story!

103.  Evangaline and the Acadians   A Landmark book about the Acadians who came from France, then are forcibly removed from their homes and spread to American colonies and all over, including back to France and even England.  They eventually find their way to Louisiana and this books details their culture, their involvement as America and other countries struggled for this land and freedoms, and their history in a few different countries. 

104. Christmas Mouse by Miss Read   A charming book by an author I'd never read.  Very light, quick read, but rather nice for those times when that is needed.  A real mouse and a boy who is rather mouse like both feature in this book and the Christmas spirit is definitely kindled as well.

105.  Village Christmas by Miss Read  This is the one I owned, but read second.  A very quick read and the first of the Christmas books she wrote.  Two sisters and the entire village are less than warm to the new family complete with three little girls and a baby on the way.  The Christmas birth of their son changes that and brings them all together.  Very sweet.

106. The World of William Penn by Genevieve Foster   Just got this at a book sale and read it in a morning.  SO good!  I'm now very excited to read the others we have of hers and get the rest of them too.  This one is exactly where we are in history so it is on the list of books that the kids will be reading on their own time in the next two weeks.

107. The Birds' Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggins What a wonderful book!  So sweet and so sad all at the same time.  The Birds are a family, Carol is their Christmas baby and as she grows up she has many health issues that keep her mostly in her bed.  She spends her last Christmas giving a wonderful Christmas to her family and to the family down the alley that she watches from her window.  Charming book!

108. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson  I just love this book and it took me about an hour to just sit down and buzz through it during a rough day in the lead up to Christmas.  I'm glad I'm giving myself permission to just enjoy some of these younger books again!

109.  The Coat Hanger Christmas Tree by Eleanor Estes  Boy, these kids realllly wanted a Christmas tree and their mother realllly didn't want one.  I loved the persistence of the kids and the way it worked out in the end.  Not my favorite book, but I'm glad I have in it in our collection.

110. Take Joy! By Tasha Tudor   Such a sweet collection of Christmas stories and carols.  Again, didn't take me long to enjoy it, but it is the kind of book you can sit down for a few moments and read something sweet to help remember the joy of the season.

110. Fingersmith   Well, this book was highly recommended on one of the blogs I follow and after reading all 600 pages I really wish I hadn't.  It was engaging with lots of plot twists, but mostly it was meant to be titillating and I used the word smutty with my husband when talking about it.  I should have stopped, but I just always feel I have to finish a book.  Two girls, one raised by an abusive, sick, perverted uncle and the other by a baby farmer and thief are caught up in a plot that pits them against each other, but both are deceived by Gentleman and the woman one called mother for years.  In the end it seems to work out, of sorts, but really, ugh.

111.  A Tree for Peter by Kate Seredy  Oh, what a SWEET BOOK!  SO glad I found a copy of this and we can enjoy it over Christmas break.  Loved it!

112. The Planets by Dava Sobel   I really liked this book of hers.  She goes through each planet, the sun, and the moon one in each chapter.  Each one is done in a different style and includes all kinds of information surrounding that planet, but also scientists, astronomers, history and other things that relate.  Mars is written from the perspective of a rock found in the south pole, Uranus and Neptune are a letter from Miss Herschel to Maria Mitchell.  Very interesting and a fairly quick read.

Bulk Pork Purchase 2018

Time for the yearly pork purchase.  We purchased a whole hog this year from Ibelings and had it processed at Sorgs again.  I am a bit confused on somethings, but in the interest of getting things in the freezer fast I didn't do all the normally weighing.  According to Sorgs I got 204 pounds of meat and I'm not sure it that includes the fat I got or not.  The biggest oddity was that we got only 5 more pounds of sausage even though we got an entire second half.

Run down of number of packages of each cut

Picnic Shoulder Roast, 4 packs
Spare Ribs, 1 pack
Pork Loin Roasts, 2 packs
Pork Tenderloin, 2 packs
Fresh Side Pork, 5 packs
Country Ribs, 2 packs
Boneless Pork Chops, 9 packs
Baby Back Ribs, 2 packs
Jowls, 2 packs
Pork Butt Roast, 5 packs
Pork Hock, 2 packs
Neck Bones, 1 pack
Sausage, 20 packs
Fresh picnic ham, 4 packs

Oddities
Pork Liver, 4 packs
Pork Bladder, 1
Bags of Fat, 2 large ones

The total paid to Ibelings was $150, total paid to Sorgs was $157.  So we ended up with 204 pounds of meat for $307, which works out to about $1.54/pound.  Not a bad price, but we didn't end up paying for any smoking this year because of Mike's sensitivities.  I do think this is actually an increase for us, but we've got a freezer full of pork and will enjoy it and our chickens this winter!

Prices were $.50/pound for cut and wrap, $15 trucking fee, $40.00 butcher fee.

Meat chickens 2018

Just finished cleaning up from our morning of butchering.  It was a good run, starting about 6:30 and done with the butchering and a lot of the cleaning up of equipment done by 9!  We took a bit of a break while our hatchet man got taken home and I dealt with the gizzards and such.  Then we did some fiddly cleaning and the final bagging, weighing and they headed to the freezer.  We had two adults, one 15 year old who just did the hatchet part, and an 11 year old observer/helper with legs and oil glands.

I ordered 23 cockerels this year, got 23 (no extra again) with at least one being a female who stayed really small.  Three of them didn't make it to butcher date, one I did take early and it weighed a whopping 2 pounds when skinned and cleaned.  One I had no idea was in trouble, was just gone 3 hours after I last fed it.  The other I knew was having issues, but I had hoped would pull through.  I should have butchered as it was fairly big, but it died.  I did harvest some of the meat to use in our dog food, but am not counting it in numbers at all.

Total costs (all feed was organic from DeLongs): $226.31
1 bag of starter, 6 bags of grower $185.81
23 chicks $40.50

Total break down of meat

2 pounds, 5 oz of cleaned gizzards
4 pounds, 9 oz of livers, hearts and a few feet

20 chickens at 8 weeks, 6 days provided 130.5 pounds of meat and one at 2 pounds = 132.5 pounds of meat in the freezer.

Meat costs $1.70/lb
Including organs (about 7 pounds) $1.62/lb