The Art of Bartering

The past two years of Spring and Summer our family had a big garden. Hubby was working three 12 hour shifts Friday - Sunday which left us many days during the week to garden. Since August of last year hubby had to go back to a 5 day week shift with 1 hour and 15 minute drive both ways and being at work a total of 10 hours. This didn't leave much room for gardening this year. Let me point out that our property cannot have a garden due to the fact that we live in a forest and not enough sunlight comes in to grow. Another point I would like to make is that our neighbor would be spraying this year and none of our produce would be organic. This is a big point for us. Our garden was at a neighbors property within walk distance of our house. Without gardening this year we needed to come up with a feasible solution to getting free produce. So if we can't garden and grow our own food what can we do. As I have mentioned before we raise chickens for eggs. Currently we are up to 20 chickens and 4 growing chicks. My hens lay anywhere between 5-8 eggs a day. That is way more than us as a family can eat or bake with. At any given time you may find 3-5 dozen eggs in my refrigerator. So bartering comes in to the picture. My first bartering friend that came on the scene I met through our homeschool cooperative. They garden in a major way each year. We have already worked out what I am interested in because my family are not huge vegetable eaters. I know shameful. I informed my friend that we were mostly interested in greens, tomatoes, corn, and some surprise us kind of stuff. Well because we were proactive about the whole situation she was able to plant an extra row of two just for my family. For this we give them anywhere between 1-2 dozen eggs a week (they have a bigger family than us). So far she has given us frozen corn from last year while we are waiting for the new crops to come in. My next bartering friend fell in to my path very recently. They are vegans and were not eating eggs but have decided to add eggs back into their diet. This family needs 1 dozen a week and she also has a good sized garden to barter. She will give us strawberries, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and greens throughout the summer for our eggs. Now her sister is interested in a dozen a week but doesn't have a garden. We are negotiating for her to buy us a 50 pound sack of scratch that would get her 4-5 dozens eggs. I truly believe that bartering may eventually be the wave of the future. I can't legally sell the eggs but I can barter to get extras that we need to round out our grocery spending. Think about what you have that you can barter with, it might open a whole new world for you and your family.

I am linking up with the HomeAcre Hop.

Also linking up with The Barn Hop at The Prairie Homestead.