Why Are All the Quail Gone? (And vacuum/3 movies)

I started my weekend morning by quickly plucking the last three quail my husband just killed. It wasn't that bad! They were headless and legless and not moving, but still warm. That was a little weird for me. Our now preschooler woke up while I plucked and snuck a couple of peeks from the top of the basement stairs. She wasn't bothered at all.

I would suggest always doing a kill one bird and pluck, then repeat rather than a mass kill and pluck as you want to cool the meat down fast as possible and hand plucking can take a few minutes. My husband had to jump in with the plucking to finish the job. I love not wasting the feathers and look forward to using them to restuff our feather pillows as needed (after boiling them first), a feather mattress as we find one, or a down comforter we either make or find.

My husband finished the butchering and we cooled them in the fridge. We also went on a hike with dog F and had a picnic lunch after Food Not Bombs. It was a great family day. The next day we ate slow cooker sweet and sour quail! It was great!

Unfortunately, dog F also chewed up our charger for the vacuum cleaner, so the Roomba is no more. I donated it to our homeschooling swap since we're due for replacing the battery again soon, as well as the broken cord. So we are vacuum cleaner free a little earlier than planned.

The annual homeschool exchange(swap) saved us quite a bit on clothes for next three sizes as well as many books. Since we found copies of "The Secret Garden", Disney's "Peter Pan", and Disney's "Cinderella", I have put those three movies away until I have big load to donate.

As part of my parenting/nonelectric use/plastic-free/educational philosophy, I plan slowly getting rid of most of our movies, and replacing them with books, piano sheet music, and old records with a crank record player (No new plastic and much more durable). This way our kids would be more engaged in their entertainment,encouraged in musical education, expand their horizons, develop their reading and critical thinking abilities, avoid new plastic waste, and use less electricity.

I finally visited one of the ladies I've been asked to fellowship at church with another lady from church as my companion. Not only was the visit nice, but I found an unexpected kindred spirit in my companion. So grateful to see another person who at least understands some of the lifestyle choices we've made and doesn't just find me weird.

Middle of the week, and we made bread completely by hand with a wooden slotted spoon. UG1 went first, then I jumped in, and my husband helped quite a bit as well. Kneaded and shaped it, then baked it in the oven. Harvested one dandelion root, chopped and dehydrated it for tea as well.

Called three companies to get off their mailing list yesterday. One was a charter school that uses the U.S. Postal Service to distribute their flyers to a zip code so they deferred to the USPS, one was CenturyLink which the customer service rep had no access to find out who their 3rd party marketing service is, and the third was a statewide gym that had me on hold for awhile with corporate and then promptly agreed to let their marketing department know.

So next time I run errands this week, I'm getting a few copies of the USPS Form 1500 for opting out of mail I find offensive (or pornographic) to fill out and stop those that just aren't available to otherwise opt-out. Here is some information on how to get rid of junk mail in a more active way. I have already gone on DMA Choice, Catalog Choice, opted out of prescreened credit offers, and use the free PaperKarma app

to try to minimize our junk mail.

Here's to living more sustainably,
Little Urban Greenie