Independence Days Update

Wow, not even sure when the last time I posted one of these was. I’ll just kinda go from ‘recent memory’:

Planted: I put in more beans, and found some potatoes that were in a bin with sawdust and sprouting so I put them in the ground and I see leaves coming up. Cool.

Harvested: Pulled up some carrots (oh, there’s nothing like carrots fresh from the garden!), some lettuce, radishes, and the first fresh green beans. I took carrots and beans to work, sliced them, microwaved them, and served them over rice (we actually have a rice maker in the office kitchen – I work at the coolest office). Oh, and some onions.

Also harvested some more herbs – calendula blossoms, plantain leaves, more yarrow, and some red clover (some of which I shared with a friend who is suffering terribly from The Change). The plaintain leaves are awesome for bug bites and burns.

Preserved: Mom brought me a new hot water bath canner (huge, and on sale for $17 in her small town store!) and several baskets of peaches, so I made peach/strawberry jam and peach syrup. Dehydrated the aforementioned herbs. The greens from the carrots are dried and crumbled into a big bucket for the chickens over the winter – no point composting them when we’ve got critters who would think they were a treat come the snow.

Waste Not: I suppose drying the carrot greens probably counts. I’ve also conditioned my coworkers to keep leftover food and such for the chickens, so we’ve had several ‘gifts of leftover rice and snacks’ for chicken food. The dogs have also been eating bones and scraps from the freezer. Ah, yes, The Boy took apart an old chicken coop in such a way as to salvage the metal roofing that was used (the wood bits were all sent to the dump for burning, but they were beyond recovery).

Want Not (Preparations): Not much happening that fits this precisely: The Reluctant Farmer did get the siding completed on the outside of the house (which will help with heat loss, aside from looking much nicer), we have the second woodstove here (but still not installed)… oh, we did chop and stack more firewood, that counts. I actually moved the existing piles to a new location, raised off the ground (for better drying) and closer to the house (better accessibility even in winter). The fourth pasture was also enclosed for sheep this spring, and I always include infrastructure work in this category, so that counts too. Oh, and the new sheep shelter has all the walls built, it just needs a roof.

Community Food Systems: Had a contact from a local farmer who has a ‘Garlic Festival’ at her place in a couple of weeks – haven’t actually responded, but I hope to attend. Have had more people looking for grass-fed lamb – we could have twice the flock we have now and still sell out every year, it’s amazing.

Eat the Food: Carrots and lettuce, beans and carrots. Not a lot else just yet. Oh, I have used sleep tincture made from the wild lettuce and catnip I’ve grown, that counts.

Independence Days Update

Where are we at now that spring looks like it’s really here?

Planted: Oh yeah! Planting time, finally! Today I put out beet seeds, carrot seeds, and leeks and cabbage. Watered everything that is outside, and continue to care for the indoor seedlings. Just 4 weeks to ‘Official Last Frost’!

Harvested: Lots and lots of eggs, and some fleece from the sheep.

Preserved: Nothing that I can think of here … 

Waste Not: The usual feeding-leftovers-to-other-creatures (including putting my apple cores in a ziplock and bringing them home for the chickens, instead of just tossing them in the garbage at work). Made fresh pasta as an ‘egg saving experiment’ (see below)

Want Not (Preparations): Tried home made pasta and posted about the experiment on Facebook … and a friend offered me an unwanted pasta machine! Traded some lamb chops for said pasta machine and have made wonderful fresh pasta (doubles as entertainment for small children who think pulling noodles out of the machine is really cool).

Community Food Systems: Lamb sales have been so successful we are down to just sausage in the freezer! Have a couple more ready to go to the butcher, and will be restocked soon. Set up a Facebook page for the Apple Jack Creek Family Farm.

Eat the Food: More fruit in the WECAN basket this month, and cauliflower and potatoes. Have ‘cowboy pie’ in the oven right now – ground beef cooked with spices & HP sauce, mixed with a tin of mushrooms, topped with mashed potatoes and baked. Baked with the bulk flour purchased at the mill – nice bread! The flour is a different shade, not quite as white as the ‘store stuff’, and the bread has more flavour. Yum.

Independence Days update

It’s been awhile, so here we are with another update on the Independence Days project. :)

Planted: At long last, it is time to start the planting! I have done a lot of work planning and preparing for planting season, and I’ve finally got a few things started. A few tomatoes are in (and sprouted!), the one lonely garlic clove I had that was growing a green tip got put in dirt and it has grown beautifully, several cabbage plants were started in newspaper pots and just yesterday I noticed one had come up. There’s also a couple of Italian sweet peppers poking heads above the soil, and the catnip and lemon basil finally sprouted. I also have an experiment with some tea plant seeds (yes, the shrub that black and green tea grows on): they can be grown as house plants here, so I’m giving that a try. Oh, there are also apple seeds in dirt in the freezer, stratifying.

Harvested: Eggs! Finally, we have eggs again. That is all for harvesting, unless you count the 1 cm leaf of garlic greens that fell off the plant and I nibbled. (It is delicious!)

Preserved: Nothing at present to preserve. Oh, I did dry some orange peel for Gram when we had a pile of oranges on the counter awhile back. That counts.

Waste Not: The dried greens from last summer have been brought inside and we’re feeding them to the bunnies, and crumbling some for the chickens as well. Leftovers are being fed to humans or animals, as usual, nothing particularly exciting on this front.

Want Not (Preparations): We have eggs in the incubator preparing to hatch (it’s always good to be able to ‘grown your own’ of anything!), and I think the documentation I’ve been doing for the garden journal probably falls in this category as well (having the information you need in analog form is a good idea in case of extended internet outage, for instance).

Community Food Systems: The Boy worked at the WECAN food distribution centre last month, and is volunteering again next month. While he was there, he told some of the other volunteers about our meat and had some potentially interested customers. :) We continue to have interest in lamb meat sales, and are finally able to sell eggs again.

Eat the Food: Eggs, of course, we managed to get through the ‘egg strike’ without purchasing store eggs at all. I have realized that next fall I need to freeze a few eggs to get through the dark days of winter, as I really don’t want to have to buy store eggs at all! We’ve been using up our squash (which has stored beautifully) in soup, we made salad from our WECAN food basket lettuce and carrots, and a pureed vegetable soup from potatoes, carrots and celery (also from the WECAN purchase). Gram’s cranberry-crabapple jelly is a standard feature of my oatmeal breakfasts (a spoonful of jelly added to quick oats and hot water is a great way to start the day).

Independence Days Update

Ohh, it’s been awhile. Let’s see what we’ve done!

Planted: Not a thing. It’s not quite planting time here … although I do have some garlic cloves to go in, once I finish clearing out the garden. It’s just not quite time yet.

Harvested: Lots in this category! All the carrots, most of the beets, a few squash (which are sitting in the coolest room in the house to ‘age’), the last of the bolted spinach and lettuce (which was fed to the sheep), and all the onions. Oh, and all the peas. And some potatoes.

The Boy went and gathered rose hips for me, and raspberry leaves.

We also had several sheep go to the butcher, which probably counts as harvesting, and as always, gathered lots and lots of eggs.

Preserved: The aforementioned carrots were washed, cut, cooked and vacuum sealed in boil-in-bag vacuum bags which were then plunked into the freezer. Apples (generously donated by friends from work) were cooked into juice, which was sweetened and thickened into syrup and bottled, and mushed into sauce, which was then dried into fruit leather. Two batches of onions were sliced and dehydrated (OUTSIDE!), peas were done in another batch in the dehydrator, and other onions were hung up to dry and put in a mesh bag for storage.  Raspberry leaves have been dried for tea.

Waste Not: The donated apples would’ve been tossed in the garbage, but my coworkers know that I’m likely to make use of this sort of thing and offered them to me if I could use them. I love their generosity! The pulp from the apple cooking was fed to the sheep, who gobbled it up like it was candy. We had the butcher give us all the trim and bones back from our sheep, and the dogs have been eating well with the fresh meat. A bunch of the trim was cooked down and the fat rendered, as soon as I can find a source of lye, I’ll make up some soap. Lamb cuts from last year that were becoming frostbitten in the bottom of the freezer are gradually being fed to the dogs, who aren’t particular about such things. (They eat roadkill. Clearly they aren’t particular.)

Want Not (Preparations): Well, we did a bit more infrastructure work – TRF is most of the way through repairing the wind generator, and the fenceline feeder is in place for winter. Some friends of my parents’ had several panels made for goats that they weren’t using anymore, and we inherited those … they are very sturdy and one had a feeder already attached to it, which makes an excellent mineral dispenser. 

Community Food Systems: Have had a few orders for lamb already, and shared some of the lamb garlic sausage with coworkers (who were uniformly impressed with it’s non-lamby-and-wonderfully-spicy flavour). Continue to sell eggs to regular customers, and sold some of the organ meats to a friend who feeds raw meat to her dog. 

Eat the Food: We’ve had lots of lamb, eggs, and potatoes lately, and have been noshing on fruit leather for snacks.

Independence Days Update

As always, the update on how things are going at our house. With the poor weather this year (cold, then hot and dry, then frost even late in June, then dry …) it’s been a lackluster gardening year. I’m trying to keep my eye on the long term, though – all the work I’ve done out there this year to build new beds, kill off the grass (oh, that’s a big job) and shape the garden into what it needs to be will pay off next year and in the years after … even if we don’t have a lot of tomatoes this year (or, indeed, any) we’ll at least be several steps ahead for NEXT year!

So, focusing on the accomplishments…

Planted: Today I planted more lettuce, beets, and some pepper plants that may or may not survive the transplant procedure. I also relocated some volunteer calendula to the herb bed (since nothing else I planted there grew, there was room!)

Harvested: Lettuce and radishes for salads, one stray nettle plant to dry for tea, and one calendula plant that didn’t really make the transfer cleanly, so it can be dried too. The Boy has been out scouting for saskatoons and raspberries, but none have shown up yet.

Preserved: Hmm, can’t think of anything to put in this category this time.

Waste Not: The usual – scraps fed to some animal or other, eating leftovers for lunches, that kind of thing. Nothing really stands out. Oh, I did discover that everyone likes apple upside down cake … and that’s a great way to use up some almost-gone apples. Makes a good breakfast, too!

Want Not (Preparations): We’ll consider all the work to build the garden part of preparations … it may not pay off this year, but it will pay of in coming years! Not much else happening on this front beyond regular maintenance (we have improved the fences, and that definitely counts) and debt reduction.

Community Food Systems: Noticed an ad for a butcher that’s taking lamb at a nearby community … and we’ve heard good things about their services, too, so we will see if that’s workable for us. Soon we’ll have lambs ready to become dinner!

Eat the Food: Some of the rhubarb sauce I cooked up recently became the sauce for a rhubarb upside down cake today, and we’ve been eating salads from the garden.

Independence Days update

Our ongoing documentation of ‘what we have done around here’ … with the focus on accomplishments, no matter how lengthy the to-do list may be!

The concept is courtesy of Sharon Astyk.

Planted: I can’t even remember when I last posted! The garden currently has: peas, beans, kamut wheat, lots and lots of onions, a bed of strawberries, several squash plants, and quite a few potatoes. Oh, and beets and a few carrots, and a lot of weeds. The big accomplishment this week was to get the mattock out and hack down the knee-high grass so that I could actually see what is growing out there! The herb bed is still … questionable, some of these are plants I haven’t grown before so I’m not sure what the baby ones look like. I’m waiting to weed until I can be sure what is what.

Harvested: The first three radishes of the season, and two onion leaves to use as green onions. Nothing else is quite ready yet – oh, but I did learn what nettles are, and where I can go harvest them! Ouch!

Preserved: A friend gave me a huge pile of rhubarb, and I’ve got the dehydrator full of little pieces, and the rest cooking up on the stove into sauce. 

Waste Not: Rescued a bunch of ‘lesser cuts’ of lamb from the freezer, cut the meat off and ran it through the grinder, cooked and seasoned it – this will become lambacos this week (that’s tacos made with lamb meat, for the uninitiated). Fed the less than perfect rhubarb trimmings to the chickens.

Want Not (Preparations): FINALLY got the fence around Pasture A in place, and the sheep moved to fresh grass. Pasture B is next, C is done, and the ‘back section’ has been fenced for the cows, who are now off in the trees being Jungle Cows and happily eating the underbrush.

Community Food Systems: Have regular customers purchasing eggs from me, from four to six dozen a week, so we need some more laying hens before winter, I think! Also have customers lined up for much of the lamb we’ll produce this year, which is encouraging. Found someone willing to house our dairy Dexter cow for a couple of months with a mini-Hereford for breeding, which will mean another beef-on-the-hoof here if all goes well.

Eat the Food: Made a baked apple dessert from some apples that were getting weary on the counter, tried a chicken casserole recipe from More with Less (that’s in the freezer to be tried later this week), made several batches of iced tea in the sunshine (a low cost, low sugar, high satisfaction beverage if ever there was one!).

Independence Days

Once again, Sharon is running the Independence Days Challenge: the idea is to give ourselves a list of things we can do that help to move us towards independece, and then to celebrate the accomplishments each week - no matter how small they might seem. By taking a moment to look at what we have done, it helps us see that we really are making progress - even when the to-do list doesn't seem to get any shorter.

I heartily recommend reading Sharon's post about the challenge - it'll explain better than I possibly could.

Jumping right in, then ... here's where I'm at:

Planted Yup, it's planting time! The frost-hardy things can go in already, so the potatoes are out (well mulched), peas, beets, carrots, turnips, wheat (kamut wheat, it's an experiment), onions, and some chives. Oh yes, lettuce and spinach are out there, too, and several herbs in a new bed. Inside are a bunch of seedlings waiting for the weather to turn, and those are given a dose of water every day and left to soak up indoor sunshine for a bit longer.

Harvested Eggs, like always. Not much else is ready for harvest just yet, unless you count mucking the barnyard as harvesting compost!

Preserved I discovered, when clearing out the pantry, that we somehow managed to acquire four ten-kilogram bags of flour. We do use a lot of flour, as we bake our own bread quite often, as well as enjoying pancakes and waffles on a regular basis, but wow, that's a lotta flour. I got one of the large food grade plastic buckets from downstairs and transferred the contents of two of the flour bags into the bucket for safe keeping. That's about all the preservation at this point in time. Oh, I did take some soup that was aging in the fridge and put it into the freezer - if nobody's in a soup mood now, might as well freeze it for when someone is in a soup mood later.

Reduced Waste We have the usual tasks: composting, feeding scraps to the critters, and using cloth bags for shopping. No 'special tasks' in this category this past while, though. Still, the day to day stuff counts too, and is worth noting. Oh, I did replace the zipper on The Boy's winter parka - it'll possibly fit him for one more winter, depending on the timing of growth spurts and such, but it's been a great jacket, so even if it doesn't fit him come winter, it can go into the bin downstairs and await the next person in line. :) I consider "fixing instead of discarding" as reducing waste - although this job could also have gone in the next category ...

Preparation and Storage We had a 'preparation and storage' payoff this week! Dinosaur Boy's feet have grown and his rubber boots weren't fitting anymore. A trip to the basement turned up a set just about his size, stored correctly in the box marked "boots" no less!

Build Community Food Systems We are small scale food producers with a few local clients, so we're a tiny part of the community food system. We purchased grass-fed beef from a farm nearby this week, and we are selling eggs weekly to customers in the city and in our rural community. Requests for lamb are coming in already ... which is great!

Eat the Food We ate some eggs, of course, as they are a staple food here. When my stomach was churning earlier in the week a cup of yarrow/mullein/calendula/rose hip/clover blossom tea (all gathered here, last summer) settled things quite nicely. We routinely cook out of the pantry - today The Reluctant Farmer dug out a can of tomatoes with nice spices to add to the pot of chili we made. The meat for the chili was ground from a rooster that was butchered yesterday - the nicest chunks of meat from said rooster were skewered between slices of onion and cooked on the barbecue at a neighbour's place yesterday night!

Independence Days Update

Well, it's definitely fall. There has been hard frost for several nights, and I didn't manage to rescue most of the tomatoes . We are in the mad rush to prepare for winter, and thanks to the recent Thanksgiving weekend, we have had time to do that last push of outside stuff so that if the snow came tomorrow, we'd be ready. Well, almost: the wind tower still needs to go in. We meant to do that on Monday, but it rained, and the concrete won't set if it's raining.

Okay, on to the update.

Planted
I did get soil into three little pots on the windowsill, and I put a few calendula seeds into one of them. Yes, I should get some lettuce going, but the calendula seeds were handy so I stuck them in the dirt. One has already poked it's little head out!

Harvested
We emptied out the garden this weekend. All the potatoes are in, sorted and stored, and the tomatoes (green though they were), the mullein (dehydrating to be made into tea for coughs and other ailments this winter), milk thistle (nasty, horrible plants that I will never again attempt to grow ... but I did harvest the seeds, they are good for your liver), the last two carrots (which we ate raw), the beets (the leaves are drying for winter chicken feed and the beets are going to be eaten this week), and more calendula (and there's still more out there). Seeds from some of the lettuce plants and a few of the beans have been harvested for next year.

Preserved
As noted: mullein is dehydrating, milk thistle seeds soaking in vodka (yes, you soak the seeds in alcohol to make a tincture that helps your liver: weird, but the active ingredient is not water soluble, so whatcha gonna do?), beet greens are drying for chicken feed, egg shells have been baked and crushed for chicken feed, and more calendula blossoms are soaking in oil to make ointment.

Prepped
My sister sent a parcel with some bubblewrap in it, and that was cut and stuck to several of the bedroom windows with a spray bottle of vinegar and water (it took a few tries to get it to stick, but it's on there now). We sorted more clothes and put them in the bins, and brought out the winter gear as the cold has arrived.
We did a bunch of outside work, preparing for winter: there's a proper gate to the cow pasture, the sheep have a feed pen, and the hay's been delivered (well, half of it anyway).

Managed Reserves
The potatoes were sorted into 'eat now, eat soon, and pack for later' piles. The 'pack for later' pile was stowed in a big plastic bucket filled with sawdust carefully saved from construction: a layer of sawdust, some potatoes, another layer of sawdust, more potatoes ... the bucket is now sitting in the hallway, which is the coolest spot in the house.
Some bulk things were found at good prices so a few big bags of alphabet soup noodles (the kids LOVE having these in the soup, they'll eat any kind of broth if it has alphabet noodles in it), black pepper, and onion soup mix came home and have been put into jars in the pantry. There are also some jars of raisins, cornmeal, and elbow macaroni put away.

Cooked something new
All those green tomatoes meant it was time to try some recipes: I made fake raspberry jam (which isn't too bad), fake raspberry fruit leather (the jam, done in the dehydrator ... which is very sweet, and okay, but not great), and a green tomato soup (which I really didn't like). In the end, I have decided that by far the best use of green tomatoes is as yeast food: all the tomatoes were dumped into a large bucket with a sliced orange, some yeast nutrient, a few raisins and a lot of sugar, then drowned in water and ignored for a few days. Last night I filtered the mush through my strainer and the remaining liquid (and the orange slices and some whole green tomatoes) is happily fermenting in the living room. It has a lovely citrus and yeast smell, with no real tomato scent at all ... so hopefully green tomato wine is drinkable. I hear it needs to age for a whole year or more ... I'm thinking it'll probably make a nice summer wine for July of 2010.

Reduced Waste
We used up some more lumber from the pile of barn board we have out in the pasture where an old shed was knocked down, and we continue to do our usual routines for composting and such. We are rescuing as much as possible to dehydrate for chicken feed, both to reduce the waste (we have plenty of compostables thanks to the livestock) and to reduce the feed bills. And, it's good for the chickens!

Worked on local food systems
Well, we have a bunch of chicks growing like crazy, meaning we will be able to eat some of the surplus chickens out in our yard before long ... that's pretty local. We tried out a new butcher for the last batch of lambs that went in, I'll be picking up the meat tomorrow and we'll see how that is. We have another very local butcher we also want to try, as well. Oh, we got our listing up on EatWild, although we've had no contacts yet, still, it's a good place to start.

Independence Days Update

Oh my, this is a belated post. We've been too busy doing stuff to sit down and write!

Planted
Umm ... no. Frosts are here, it's not planting time. :)
However, seeing this on the list makes me think again about finding something to grow lettuce in on the windowsill.

Harvested
Lots of calendula blossoms (more on that below). I also have started gathering calendula seeds from the flowers that I left too long (umm ... I did that on purpose! I did mean to save seeds ... just not quite yet. Still, it works.) We had beets from the garden, and the last carrots, and every so often we get potatoes. The tomatoes are actually ripening on the frost bitten vines, so there is still hope of tomato paste for winter! The Boy has harvested more rose hips for me, and I gathered some more, along with yarrow and clover blossoms, the other day.

Preserved
I dehydrated the last batch of apples, and have cooked up more juice and syrup. The most recent batch of flowers and rose hips are in the dehydrator. The earlier rose hips have been cooked down into juice, and the calendula blossoms that are already dry are soaking in olive oil.

Prepped
We went to a farm auction and I scored several boxes of canning jars for $15. I've been using them to store bulk purchases of pasta, baking supplies and the dehydrated apple bits I've been putting up.
I consider all our infrastructure work to fall into this category as well, and we've done a lot here: we have a completed hay feeder for the sheep, of a design that ought to reduce waste and keep at least some of the hay out of their neck wool (which in turn increases the value of the wool). The Boy stained the feeder with leftover stain from the house, so it is protected from the elements and should last a good while. We have the barn up and in use: this will help us to avoid frozen lambs for early births, gives us a place to milk the cow, and the whole thing generally makes it possible for us to improve our livestock management. We won't ever make a living from just 6 acres ... but we want to have options, and we want to take the best possible care of the animals we do have.

Managed Reserves
The pantry is getting very full! We need to do an inventory very soon, but that can wait for cooler weather when the outside jobs are done. We continue to watch for our 'staple products' to show up on sale - flour, oil, pasta, canned tomatoes (we are nowhere near self sufficient on that yet), beans and spices. Any time these things are on sale, we pick up a few spares, and into the pantry they go. We never shop for "what we will eat this week" - we just keep the pantry stocked, and eat from there.

Cooked Something New
We must surely have cooked something new since the last time I posted, but I'm not sure what it might have been. Ah yes, The Reluctant Farmer has reminded me ... we had Lambili (chili made with ground lamb). It was awesome!
I did make something new that isn't edible but did involve cooking, so I'll put that here. I made calendula ointment, and it is lovely! Dried calendula blossoms are soaked in olive oil for a good long while (like, a few weeks) until the oil has absorbed the flower essence. This oil is then filtered into a pot and some beeswax is added ... the whole thing is heated until the wax melts, then the finished compound is put into jars and cooled. The wax and flowers give the finished product a lovely smell, and the oil and wax together give a good consistency for ointment. Calendula is used for skin irritations like rashes and scrapes, and mixed with the oil and beeswax it makes a lovely soothing ointment.

Reduced Waste
We continue to use up scrap lumber and building materials wherever we can: The Reluctant Farmer built a new dog self-feeding station out of an old wooden walkway/pallet thing that was lying around and some scrap plywood. The dogs need to be able to eat whenever they are hungry (and the cats and chickens help themselves as well, so we like the food to be out all the time). The eating area needs to be out of the rain and snow, though, or the food gets soggy. We had an old feeder that was repurposed from our generator house ... but the wood caught the water and the feed had gotten mouldy, so it was burned today (in a rather more stunning conflagration than we expected) and the new feeder was put in place. We will be adding a food dispenser to this one, although it's not done yet - most likely the dispenser will be made from an old garbage can.

Worked on Local Food Systems
Can't think of anything in particular to add to this category ... unless hatching out chicks the natural way in your own yard (so that you can eat the eggs they produce - if they are hens - or the chickens themselves - if they are roosters) counts.

Independence Days Update

Suddenly, it's turning into fall! How on earth did it get here so quickly?

Planted
Nope ... I think we may be too late for planting things now. I do have hopes of some indoor lettuce plants for winter though, so I'll need to put some thought towards the container I want to put them in.

Harvested
We've been harvesting beans as we go, collecting enough for a meal ... we continue to get eggs (although the chickens are hiding them somewhere, so we have to do egg hunts on a daily basis) ... and more lamb will be up for harvest in a few weeks. Given the frost of last night, we'll probably be harvesting potatoes and beets soon, but I hope to leave them in the ground a bit longer if I can.
The Boy went out and harvested berries for me: he picked a whole bucket of rose hips and some bunchberries.

Preserved
This was the big job this weekend: we have apple preserves of all kinds! We have apple butter, apple sauce, fruit leather, and dried apples. We also have juice (lots and lots of it), some sweetened with honey and some plain (which is marvellous mixed with Sprite). I made syrup from the rose hips and bunchberries (not the thick syrup to pour on pancakes, the thin syrup for flavouring things).

Prepped
The Reluctant Farmer got the dirt base ready for the barn, and we fenced in the last major chunk of pasture with barbed wire. The cow and calf have been turned in to work on the extremely long grass (it's not been touched for oh, four years now, so it is very wild). The sheep have been rotated to another pasture, and we'll be splitting them up into breeding groups very soon ... we better do it soon, or we'll be too late. :)

Managed Reserves
We continued to add to our pantry, with dehydrating and preserving. We also got the wine rack installed in the house and the empty bottles stored there, as well as the new bottles of home made wine. I tasted the white grape honey wine (technically called a melomel) and it is still quite undrinkable, as is the cranberry/white grape/honey wine. This is not uncommon - they take quite awhile to age to drinkability. So, those are sitting on the rack awaiting their time. The honey/currant/maple syrup wine though ... mmmmmmmmm. It is almost ready! That one is resting on the stairs for a month or so and will probably be wonderful by then. I'll definitely be making more of that!
We've mostly been making progress on our inedible reserves - sorting through extra kitchen items, clothing, fabric and other supplies. Dinosaur Boy took a liking to a couple of pencil cases and a lunch box that The Boy no longer needed, and has taken them for his Grade One school supplies. I was so pleased to see him happily re-using things. :)
Soon I need to do a proper inventory on the pantry and see what we have and what we need.

Cooked Something New
The Reluctant Farmer is our chief cook these days, and he is really willing to experiment. He made a fabulous casserole the other night with rice and hamburger and red peppers and tex-mex spices ... there was almost a fight for the leftovers! The apple dumplings were also new - just biscuit dough wrapped around apple halves filled with sugar and cinnamon, but absolutely awesome. The syrups from the berries are new ... they add a nice flavour to water, and I'm thinking they'll be very good added to tea. Oh, he also made a lovely soup from the broth I made up from the bones we saved from our barbecued meat - a bit of milk and some garden vegetables and we had a wonderful cream of something soup.

Reduced Waste
The usual, really ... we are reusing everything we can, composting all the compostable things, making broth from the bones of our meat before disposing of the bones, and recycling wherever we can.

Work on Local Food Systems
Oh, I did mean to do up a price sheet for our lamb this weekend ... but with all the other jobs, that just didn't happen. That's up next. So, sadly, nothing in this category just now. Oh, The Reluctant Farmer did mention that he had done some research into the government programs available to small farm startups ... that probably counts.

Independence Days Update

Summer is a busy time around here!

Planted
Yes! I finally put some stuff in the empty spaces in the garden: Dinosaur Boy helped me in the garden yesterday, and we put in some more radishes (The Reluctant Farmer really likes them, and the first crop didn't do very well), some more carrots, and some lettuce.

Harvested
Oh boy, did we ever harvest!
We pulled out most of the pea plants, as they were coming down with powdery mildew - this seems to happen most years, but we did get a really good harvest from the plants we took down, and a few healthy ones are still out there in the garden. These were all varieties of sugar snap peas. We also harvested a bunch of carrots, some beets, and more potatoes.
Today I went wandering along the back part of the property, and I found saskatoons! Wow! I had no idea we had them growing wild on our property, that's very exciting. I also harvested a bunch of rose hips, and found that the little red berries I see on the ground belong to a plant called a bushberry (sometimes called a dwarf dogwood) and that these are edible. So, I harvested a bowl full of those, too. The Boy picked another bunch of clover blossoms for me ... we left the basket down somewhere low, though, and the bunny got into the basket and ate most of them. Well, at least we had a very happy bunny!

Preserved
We did more dehydrating: the peas we harvested, and their pods. The pods were dried on cookie sheets set inside the barbecue outside, where it is nice and hot during the day - they dried out quite nicely. I then ground them up in the Magic Bullet blender, and we'll feed those to chickens and the bunny over the winter (the bunny LOVES pea pods!).
I also tried lacto-fermentation for the first time: I preserved one jar of beans and one of sugar snap peas (in their pods) in a salt brine. I have no idea how these will turn out, but it is an easy way of preserving things, and I wanted to give it a shot.
I have a bunch of carrot tops outside drying, and we'll probably end up using them in soups or for critter feed.

Prepped
The Reluctant Farmer cleared away the muck and leftover hay from the area behind our shed: we will be building a small lean-to barn on the back of the shed so that we have pens for the milk cow and calf to be separated at night, for the milking stanchion, and for lambing pens to hold expectant mothers, sick sheep, or mamas and their new lambs. It'll also give us a place out of the weather for shearing, treating sick sheep, and all those other jobs that are miserable to do in the wind and rain!
We also did more fencing ... we will be moving the cows to a new pasture as soon as the barbed wire is up, but at least the posts are in!

Managed Reserves
We continue to sort through the things in the basement: The Reluctant Farmer's storage unit is entirely empty now, so that's one less bill on the monthly accounts, and we are finding things of use and sorting and storing for the future. We are also getting rid of the excess: The Reluctant Farmer has managed to sell some things, and that effort will continue.
We have been eating out of the pantry and the garden a lot, and as we find things on sale at the store we do pick them up but we have made it a whole month without a 'big grocery store run'.

Cooked Something New
Lamb! We have had several cuts of lamb, done in different ways, and they've just about all been great. The ground lamb casserole didn't turn out so great, but the roast was amazing, done in the slow cooker with rosemary and cumin and garlic.
Today I made a syrup from the berries I harvested on our land - rose hips, saskatoons, and bunchberries. I cooked them all down in some water, strained through my wonderful jam and jelly strainer from Lee Valley, then heated the resulting syrup with some sugar and bottled it. We can use this to flavour drinking water, as it's not thick enough to use for syrup on pancakes or anything.

Reduced Waste
The trick we tried with the countertop compost bucket easier to work with seems to be a success: I put a handful of the wood shavings we use in the bunny's cage in the bottom, and boy, does the bin empty out easily! Compost is dumped in the garden, to make soil for next year.
Other than that, the usual tricks: reusable shopping bags, feeding leftovers to the various critters here, buying things with less packaging (like from the bulk section where possible).

Work on local food systems
Well, we are certified to sell our lamb to customers, so that makes us a local producer! We have been eating out of our garden, and the person we intend to buy some bison burgers from should have some ready ... that's up next!

Independence Days Update

Wow, summer is just flying by! Time already for another update.

Planted

Nope, nothing planted. The spaces I thought might be freed up are overshadowed by other plants outgrowing their allotted spaces, mostly tomatoes. I figure I'll let the tomatoes grow as big as they want - we use a lot of tomatoes when we cook, so I expect I'll be doing a lot of canning later on.

Harvested

More lettuce, more new potatoes, and lots more snack peas. More greens too - more on that in the 'preserved' section below. Oh, we also got the first green beans of the year, and the first carrots.

We have a steady harvest of calendula blossoms, and I've been picking clover and yarrow as I wander around outside.

We also harvested three lambs and a ewe: they went to the butcher on Wednesday, and the resulting meat will come home tomorrow. I'm very excited about this!

Preserved

I did a bunch of research on how to preserve beet greens, and found ... nothing. So, I thought I'd just try dehydrating them and see what happened. I mean, if it didn't work ... well, the chickens would probably eat the results, they eat just about everything. Happily, the dehydrating thing works really well. I just tear up the greens into small chunks, and cut the stems into very short bits, then layer it into the dehydrator. Allowed to sit for several hours, it turns into dry crispy leaves that grind up into a reasonably fine powder that smells like a fresh garden. I have been packing this into a glass jar and will add it to soup and stew as we cook - I figure it can be used much the way you'd use vegetable broth powder. I guess we'll find out.

Prepped

The new freezer is downstairs, as the basement is finally finished (and it's a wonderful thing, too). We have done some fence work, patching up loose spots, and we walked through the unfenced land at the back of the property and did some thinking about the best way to make use of it. Even more of the outside mess has been cleaned up and hauled to the dump, so things outside are looking better and better.

The biggest prep job this past while has been the garden: The Reluctant Farmer used the bobcat to bring over some of the waste hay, straw and other 'animal residue' from the pasture and I've been spreading it out to compost down over the winter and make new beds for planting in spring. I hope to grow the tall things like beans and peas along the fence, and I've set aside a corner of the garden for a fruit tree of some sort, with room for strawberry plants around the base.

Manged Reserves

This would be the big category right now. With the basement finally finished, we are emptying out the storage unit that much of The Reluctant Farmer's household things have been sitting in for the past year. As boxes arrive, we are sorting, organizing, and filtering out what we don't need - but as we do this, we are keeping in mind that the future might not always look like today. I sorted all the spare clothing into boxes: ladies' summer clothes, ladies' winter clothes, extra coats, young men's clothing, kid's clothing, kid's shoes ... all the boxes are labelled and ready to be stacked in a reasonably accessible place once the sorting is complete. Extra dishes are packed away neatly, and will go into the crawl space.

These are the sorts of things that I would have previously gotten rid of, telling myself that if I needed new dishes or new shoes in a year or two, I'd just go out and buy them. Now, however, I have access to storage space and I realize that it's not always prudent to assume that you'll always be able to just run out and buy whatever you find yourself needing. So, if it'll keep, and we can see ourselves (or someone we know) needing it in the future, and we have a spot for it ... we'll put it by for 'just in case'.

Cooked Something New

I did a quick stir fry with some fresh green beans, snap peas and carrots to serve over rice. Not really wildly creative, I'll admit, but it was good, and not something I ever recall doing in the past.

Reduced Waste

Nothing new in this category ... unless you count the fact that I finaly scrubbed out the really nice stainless steel compost bin I had set outside some time last winter when it got unbearably green inside, and now have it on the counter again. This time I put a few of the wood shavings we use for the bunny's bedding in the bottom to soak up moisture and keep things a bit less soggy - so far that seems to be working.

Worked on Local Food Systems

Well, tomorrow night we'll be eating the first of our home-grown lamb ... and we've been eating out of our garden a lot ... but that's about it.

Independence Days Update

The blog has been quiet lately ... too much work going on outside! That means I ought to have something to tell you on my Independence Days Update, right?

Right!

Planted
Nope, nothing planted. The spaces I have are still full! I may have room for some more radishes soon though.

Harvested
More lettuce (it's amazing to me how about six little lettuce plants are keeping me in salad); a few more new potatoes (roasted on the barbecue tonight - yum!); beets & their greens (does anyone know if you can preserve the greens somehow ... dehydrated, maybe?); and ... the first snack peas of the year!
A sheep got into my garden and nibbled a lot of the blossoms off the pea plants, so we're a bit behind the curve. It was awesome to have fresh peas while gardening!
I also picked several calendula blossoms, which are drying in anticipation of being made into a calendula-infused oil.

Preserved
The clover and yarrow are now packed into jars for tea, and yes, I labelled the jars!

Stored
Well, I stored clover and yarrow tea ... but to report the same thing in two categories would be double dipping. Can't think of anything else, though.

Prepped
The new freezer has had two coats of Tremclad and now looks respectable enough to come inside. We won't move it in until the basement floor is done, though - no point moving it around multiple times.
Oh, we also acquired a new 'spare' refrigerator. The fridge in the main kitchen is actually a deep freeze, converted to work as a refrigerator via an external thermostat (this is a very energy efficient way to go, and since the main kitchen is in the half of the house that is primarily solar powered, energy efficiency trumps convenience). This deep-freeze-fridge is great, but it's a bit awkward to get things into and out of, and with more of us living here now, we do find that more fridge space is needed. We had acquired a small fridge a few months back, and installed it in the 'bridge' between the two houses ... but it was ailing and indicating that it really was ready to quit. The Reluctant Farmer kept an eye out on Kijiji, and located a slightly larger fridge that we picked up for $65, just in time for the old fridge to finally give out.
We will be moving the old (non-working) fridge out to the shed, where it will serve as rodent-proof storage for feed and other such things. It's useful to have an airtight cupboard outdoors!

Manged Reserves
We cleared away a bunch of wood that was piled up in an unsightly mess outside, and rescued what could be used for indoor firewood in the process. It's all stacked nicely outside the patio doors, ready for cold weather.

Cooked Something New
We haven't been too creative in this category recently ... although I did invent a glaze for the barbecued ribs we had tonight - some red wine that had turned rather vinegary, brown sugar, commercial barbecue sauce, and some ketchup. It worked!

Reduced Waste
We continue to clean up the messes outside ... I'm not sure if this is reducing waste or not, but wherever we can, we do take things apart in ways that allow the materials to be reused. The existing feeders have all been deconstructed (The Boy did a great job) and the lumber saved for the next job. We moved the bus shelter from the corner, and will be taking it apart - the lumber there will be useful for any number of purposes. As we live in the country, we also burn whatever we can, so although burning isn't always the ideal method of disposing of things, it generates ash which I add to the garden, and we try to keep the fire as hot and fast as possible.

Worked on Local Food Systems
I sent in our application for a food handling permit, to allow us to sell lamb directly to customers(processed at the properly inspected and regulated facility, of course, then stored in our new deep freeze). We have gone through the flock list and sorted out who is staying and who is leaving, and tomorrow morning I'll be taking four sheep to the auction. We've been investigating other means for marketing our lamb, and today I updated all my records, consolidating them into a new binder for easier reference.

There's another bit that fits into this category too ... but it's significant enough to warrant it's own post. :) Stay tuned!

Independence Days Update

And for this week's efforts...

Planted
Nada. Nothing. Stuff is growing, why should I plant more? :)

Harvested
More lettuce: I love salad straight from the garden. In fact I have some packed up to take for my lunch at work tomrrow. I also dug up a few new potatoes - totally not caring if I might damage the roots of the existing potato plants, they look very resilient to me. The potatoes were great. :)

Preserved
I noticed a lot of clover growing around here so I picked some to use for tea later. Also some yarrow, presumably for similar uses. It's all drying on the top of the stove. :)

Stored
Big 10 lb bags of sugar were on sale for half price ... so I got two! $5 for 10 lb of sugar is just too good to pass up.

Prepped
I am working on the assumption that 'prepping' includes all infrastructure building efforts.
We did lots in this regard: we found a freezer that was being given away - it is outside awaiting another coat of Tremclad, then it'll take up residence inside, probably as the repository of Lamb For Sale (which has to be stored in a separate freezer from the stuff we eat). We also picked up some useful things from a farm sale - several boards (destined for the barn lean-to we intend to make on the back of the shed, so our sheep have somewhere to go when bad weather and lambing season coincide), two new burn barrels (The Reluctant Farmer had a 'bobcat incident' that squished the previous burn barrel), and a wash tub (for the aforementioned barn).
In addition, we reclaimed the shed as an actual shed: now that the chickens are happily housed in their new portable Coupe de Ville, we were able to deconstruct the portion of the shed that served as chicken coop ... and remove the manure, hay, and assorted other messes that littered the shed floor. The shed is now, once again, a shed ... and we are glad to have a place to store our useful stuff!

Manged Reserves
Well ... I looked in the pantry and thought "I should inventory this stuff". Does that count? We did start a couple of batches of mead and fruit wine, as we do enjoy our evening beverages. They are bubbling away quite happily.

Cooked Something New
We tried a few new recipes this week .... none really 'worked'. Oh, except for The Reluctant Farmer's oatmeal pancakes. They were yummy.

Reduced Waste
Hmm ... not sure what we did here.. our clean up jobs feel like they created more waste. We did move two leftover hay bales to the garden to use as mulch, and we have made at least two dog food meals from dinner leftovers (see the above entry on 'cooked something new'...)

Worked on Local Food Systems
Nothing new here ... oh, well, except that The Reluctant Farmer emailed our relevant governing bodies to find out more about the rules we need to follow if we are going to sell our meat directly. That probably counts.

Indepenence Days Update

Well, what's been happening on the Independence Days front?

Planted
I finally got some seeds put in the 'empty spots' in the garden: some more radishes, more lettuce, and a zucchini. The zucchini is a bit of a 'wild hope', I had a spot that sorta looked in need of something, and stuck a seed in. We'll see what happens.
Oh, and I planted some of the flower seeds the kids got me for my birthday. I don't usually bother with flowers, so this is a nice addition.

Harvested
Ate a few more radishes, and have had several salads straight from the garden. I love being able to go out and pull off a few lettuce leaves, just enough for my meal, wash them and tear them into bits and eat them within an hour of having picked them. Ah, the joys of the 100 metre diet! I also ate the first baby beets the other night, I just couldn't wait any longer. Actually, the greens were looking weary so I harvested them primarily for their greens ... and ate the little baby beets on the ends as a treat.

Preserved
I'll put this in the 'preserved' category although I suppose it could just as well fit under 'managed reserves'. We got a pig slaughtered in the spring, and we asked for all the fat and organ meat to be kept for us as well: the guardian dogs live outside all year, and in the winter, they need extra protein and fat to keep themselves warm. In anticipation of winter, I made dog food: the organ meats, a couple of pork hocks and some water went into the canner, which went outside on the side burner of the gas grill (stewed pork innards is just not a smell I need in the house on an already hot day). The cooked meat was removed from the pot and put through the grinder, then the remaining broth was thickened with oatmeal and the fat chunks were dissolved into it, along with a variety of aging leftovers from the fridge. The resulting "porridge" was mixed with the ground meat, packed into bags, and put back in the freezer to await the inevitable cold weather. It's a messy job, but the dogs will sure appreciate the meals when the wind is blowing.

Stored
Ten pound bags of sugar were on sale for under $5 so I got one of those. I dried some yarrow (it grows wild here) and tried it as a tea (more on that later).

Prepped
I finally got the support up for the beans and peas: a piece of snow fencing stretched between two t-posts makes a perfect support. I also added a latch to the garden gate, as a stray sheep managed to get in there and nibble the tops off several pea plants ...

Managed Reserves
Well, getting dog food ready could go under this category as well, I suppose. The leftovers from the ham we cooked tonight went into another bag in the freezer for winter dog food, so I think that'll count towards reserves.

Cooked something new
My mom will say this isn't anything new, but I don't know that I had ever actually cooked beet greens myself. They were way better than I remember them, too!
I also made a cup of yarrow tea: it's supposed to be rather generically good for you, particularly if you have a cold. I thought it tasted good, but The Boy, who is suffering from terrible allergies, adamantly refused it.

Reduced waste
I have been diligent about using my reusable shopping bags, although the odd plastic one still happens.
We did build a new chicken coop today, using only two new sheets of plywood and one can of paint: everything else was scavenged from around the property. Pictures of the Chicken Coupe de Ville will be posted soon. :)
The Reluctant Farmer picked up a new-to-us deep freeze today: it was posted on Kijiji. This actually leads into the next category...

Worked on local food systems
In order to sell lamb direct to customers, we have to be licensed, and part of that means having a separate freezer to store the meat we will sell to customers. So, we need two freezers: one for us, one for the marketable meat. We have one freezer already, so the freebie we acquired today will bring us one step closer to the next step in marketing our meat. The first step has been completed: our first lambs were officially sold this week! We had some muddles dealing with the processor, resulting in an unfortunate delay for our customer, but the sale is complete and we are officially lamb producers. :)

Independence Days, addendum

I forgot a category, and I have something to add to it, too!

Work on Local Food Systems
We picked up more beef from our 4-H beef leaders, who sell from the farm. Nothing quite like Alberta Beef raised by your friends!

The Reluctant Farmer discovered that we can get bison meat from the beef family's neighbour, and the neighbour happens to be the person who purchased The Boy's market lamb at Achievement Day (and then gave it back to him in an act of amazing generosity!). We are happy to support his business, that's for sure!

And last but not least, I finalized the sale of our first two lambs that are going from the packers directly to a customer. Now that's exciting!

Independence Days update

Wow, it's time for an update already! Let's see what we have done:

Planted
Didn't plant anything new, as I have no empty spaces in the garden! :) I did make a start on supports for the pea and bean plants, but I have more to do there. I have done some weeding, added mulch (the bunny bedding makes great mulch) and I hooked up another hose to make watering simpler.

Harvested
Not yet ... although the potatoes and beets are looking like they might be about ready!

Preserved
Hmm ... nope.

Prepped
I will classify 'infrastructure work' under preparation this week, as we are trying hard to get our infrastructure solidly in place now, while we can afford to do things the way we would like. We put in posts for the third pasture, and today we put in more posts and ran wire and installed a gate to the main winter pasture in preparation for winter. Looking out the window just now, however, I see that the sheep are eating the grass outside the pasture ... so apparently we need to do a bit more work there.

Managed Reserves
I purchased several boxes of cereal that I found at a good price, so we won't need any of that for awhile.

Cooked something new
Nope, it's been a pretty hectic week.

Reduced Waste
We are reusing fence posts and fence wire in our infrastructure work, and today I gave away a tent trailer that we have no need of anymore to a friend who can make use of it. It was just taking up space here and selling it was going to be a headache ... so when he said he'd take it, I was thrilled!

Learned a new skill
I was the judge for a cattle costume competition at Focus on 4-H this weekend, does that count? It was certainly something completely new!

Independence Days Update

My updates are unfortunately rather haphazard ... but we are done travelling now and home for the rest of the summer (insh'allah) so perhaps we'll get a bit more organized.

Hey, there is always hope.

So, what have we done lately?

Planted Definitely we've had activity in this category! The garden is now fenced in and it's clear which seedlings or transplants didn't take, so there are 'known empty spaces' to be filled. Some seeds were replanted (I had no luck with several of my herbs and a couple of pumpkins and tomatoes succumbed to one disaster or another). More carrots were put in, some wheat (that's an experiment ... if it grows, it'll be good winter chicken food), and I tried again with some of the herbs. We'll see if they take.

Harvested Today I harvested the first things from our garden! I got enough tiny radishes to have them with dinner. See below for what I did with them. :)

Preserved Hmm ... nope, no preserving. That'll come a bit later.

Prepped One of the people at work had a bag of clothes for a girl a fair bit older than Princess Girl, but thought I might be able to make use of these clothes. Absolutely! There are coats and shirts and tights and skirts ... mostly they won't fit for several years, but there's a jacket that will probably fit this winter and a purple satin cap that's already been worn. :) The rest will live happily in the Bin downstairs until there is need for it.

Managed Reserves I have been terribly remiss in handling the reserves this past while. The pantry is just ... there. At the start of July I'll make a special grocery trip on the sale Tuesday to stock up on some of the things that are getting low.

Cooked something new I tried something new with the radishes! I had no idea you could eat radish greens. I sliced the radishes, sauteed them in butter until they were golden (okay a bit more than golden, I was distracted) and then tossed in the greens and sauteed them too. It wasn't exactly a big hit, but it's highly nutritious, I mostly liked it, and nobody had a big problem with it. I'll keep trying, I saw a recipe for making soup from the radish tops, with onions and potatoes. Given the way the potatoes are growing, we should have lots of those!

Reduced waste I think I have finally gotten my family trained to use the reusable shopping bags. On our vacation, we stopped at a grocery store to get some bread and fruit - the kids and The Reluctant Farmer went inside and I was getting lunch ready. I realized after they'd gone that the reusable bags were all still hanging by the door! Oh brother, I thought, he'll come back with plastic bags. Just as I thought this, I looked out and saw each person carrying something ... and not a bag in sight! The Reluctant Farmer said the cashier offered a bag and he said no, she'll throw a fit if I come out with plastic! I have lots of helpers, we'll just carry it as it is. Yay!

Learned a new skill While we were on Vancouver Island, we realized that The Boy had forgotten his belt. He's very skinny and any jeans that are long enough to fit are too big in the waist, so this is a problem. His grandfather offered him rope, but he declined. I had just purchased a book on various needlework and fibre techniques, so I used some of my wool to make a five strand braided belt. I'd never done five strand braiding before, so that was new. The belt worked, mostly, although it was too narrow to be ideal, but it was a good experiment. I saw instructions for 8 strand braiding too ... now that'd be neat.

I think this next bit might fall under 'prepped' ... or maybe 'practice runs for times when things don't work'. Our hot water heater controller has bitten the dust - the thing was buzzing disconcertingly when we returned from vacation, and eventually stopped working altogether. Our hot water is heated by the boiler, but the tank has electronics that control the heating ... so no electronics, no hot water out of the tap. We will be able to replace the controller widget, but it takes time to order one in. We've been washing dishes with water heated on the stove, and bathing in the swimming pool (heated by the amazing solar heater - thank goodness it is summer).

Just this morning, The Reluctant Farmer said "You know, we do have a hot water tank. It's in the motorhome." So, tonight we showered in our home away from home ... at home. It's a backup of sorts, and my goodness am I glad to have it!

The Reluctant Farmer has been investigating passive solar water heating systems. We think we'll add one of those to our list of 'good things'. :)

Independence Days Update

What with the wedding and all, things have been a little chaotic ... this update will have to cover the last couple of weeks!

So, let's see:

Planted
This is the biggie: I got the garden in! As this is the first year for the garden, this was a bigger job than it'll be in the future. I built two long beds from scrap construction lumber (16x4) and divided into 1 foot squares marked off with nails and yarn (we are doing Square Foot Gardening). The raised beds were filled with four bags of potting 'stuff' purchased at Canadian Tire - a peat moss/vermiculite mix - and some black garden soil I had been given by a friend who had excess from his landscaping adventures (lovely dirt which has sat in a sorry, unused pile for two years). The resulting garden mixture is very light and holds water well, without compacting. The soil underneath is mostly, and won't grow much beyond pasture grass, so it was worth it to invest in a good growing mix to start. We'll amend with compost every year, and build up some good dirt so we can have more garden beds in the future.


The garden beds are spanned by hoops of leftover water tubing jammed onto leftover chunks of rebar pounded into the ground at intervals, and the hoops are draped with bird netting to keep the chickens and other critters out. I can also make shorter hoops and cover lower to the ground in spring to make a hothouse out of part or all of one bed. We will fence off the garden in the future, but the hoops will be useful even inside a fence (some of our chickens are good at flying!).

Harvested
It's a bit early for harvesting things here yet. Well, there's lots of dandelions but I'm not yet quite sure how one eats those ... so I'm letting the sheep eat them.

Oh, I did harvest several fleeces: I sheared three sheep yesterday. The fibre is skirted and bagged and waiting for sale to handspinners - there's a lady nearby who is interested in some, and I'll be posting details of the rest for interested fibre people.

Preserved
Nothing in this category until later in the year.

Stored & Prepped (I'm combining these this month)
We actually used some of our storage this past month: we had been purchasing things ahead of time, as they were on sale, knowing we'd need a lot of food for the wedding. So, we had crackers and condiments and such all in the pantry, ready to go when we needed it. We'll be restocking as things show up on sale over the next while, but we're still well set. That's such a good feeling.

Managed
The Boy was digging through his dresser the other day and found a pair of swim trunks that are too large - he took them downstairs to the Red Bin which has clothing of various sizes and is kept for 'when it's needed'. The Red Bin actually turned out to be useful this past weekend - my sister and her husband came to visit from Lithuania, and attended The Boy's 4-H Achievement Day with us. Luggage limitations meant they had no 'play clothes' for such an event, and the Red Bin turned up jeans and t-shirts for them to wear for the day!

Cook something new
Hmm, can't think of anything. We've been pretty busy. Does chili made with ground pork count as new? Oh, The Reluctant Farmer made his own taco seasoning from scratch. We had none of the premixed kind, so he went online, found a recipe, and made up a delicious home made seasoning from other spices we had on hand.

Local food systems Well, I built my own garden, and that's as local as you can get! :) I am also working on being part of the local food system as a producer: I called the butcher to get prices for having sheep processed, and it's much more reasonable than I expected ($63 per sheep, and that's with everything all cut and wrapped and ready for the freezer). A friend of mine gave our name to her physician, who has ordered two lambs from us - they're booked in for July, so we'll have our first meat sales this summer! We will also be having a few lambs prepared for our own use - nice to eat meat that you know was raised well and fed nothing but grass and alfalfa! Anyone got good lamb recipes?

Reduce waste
We purchased something second hand, so perhaps that counts in this category. We were given some money for a wedding gift, and put it towards a swimming pool. :) We all love the water, and we think we'll enjoy having our own pool, even if it isn't really big. This also has the handy effect of providing substantial amounts of water storage, just in case! ;)

Learn a skill
Nothing comes to mind ...

We are travelling next week, something that is unavoidably resource-intensive. We'll take our motorhome, which in this case is probably more efficient than any of the alternatives: with five of us going and all of us needing meals and a place to sleep when we get there, even with the cost of fuel being what it is, this makes sense. I realy like the fact that even on the road we get to eat from our own kitchen, and that clothes aren't stuffed into suitcases but are on shelves and hangers, easy to get to if someone needs a change of clothing en route. Besides, trying to feed little kids in restaurants is really impractical for any length of time - they are only hungry enough to eat half of any given portion, and then they're hungry again in three hours ... yup, a kitchen on wheels is definitely the way to go. :)

Independence Days Update

My goodness, another week has gone by already!

Ok, what did I do on the Independence Days challenge this week?

Planted: I planted more pumpkin seeds. See, we had put the pumpkins outside as they were doing really well ... and then I forgot to check the weather forecast and a frost killed them. :( So, we have more planted and THOSE will go outside, after it warms up some more! I also planted some lettuce seeds, and those are coming up in their little starter pan by the window, and I planted more pepper seeds, but peppers don't seem to want to germinate for me. I wonder if they want to be warmer.

Harvested: Well, we harvested a lot of eggs this week, but I don't think I can say I harvested anything else. There is a bunch of wool out there wandering around on my sheep, and it is in dire need of harvesting ... it's a question of time and good weather. Perhaps tomorrow.

Preserved: Nothing this week.

Stored: I did sort out a couple of closets today, and was able to store some clothes for future use. I don't need to keep all this stuff in daily rotation, so if I put some of it away, then when I take it out in a year or two, it'll feel new! I also put away some things that will fit the next person in line in a year or two, so they are ready in anticipation of growth spurts.

Prepped: I did the usual 'once a month grocery store run' on the big 15% off day, and was able to add a few more things to the pantry. I didn't have as much time as I like, so I stuck mostly to the list, but I think that was a good thing too. Our pantry is looking pretty good, although it is in need of a few more tomatoes.

Managed: As mentioned above, I cleaned out some closets and took stock of some of our posessions, mostly in the clothing and kitchen gadgetry department. We brought a few useful items out of storage (we hadn't needed them for awhile, so they got stored ... now they are needed again, so out they come). One item was a coffee maker: we have found that we'd like to make a whole pot on some days, so in addition to our usual 'two cuppper', we have a full sized pot out now too. The other item was a 'juice strainer' - it is a device that fits over a pot and allows you to put liquidy stuff in the top and have it strain through a bag into a pot below (think 'making jelly'). I have wanted it a couple of times, but wasn't sure where it was ... so when I stumbled across it today, I put it in the pantry where I'll be able to find it!

Cook Something New: Hmm, not that I can think of. We are doing pretty well with not using too much pre-packaged stuff, but we still have a ways to go there.

Work on Local Food Systems: Does keeping an eye on the condition of the sheep count? They are in sorry condition ... we need to get them on pasture soon, but we are waiting on the grass.

Reduce Waste: I can't really think of any way we did this ... sorry to say.

Learned a Skill: Well, I transplanted seedlings for the first time, I think that's about all I can add in this category.