Independence Days Update #6 (ish)

1. Plant something – This past weekend, we planted the balance of the corn and some beans in places where no beans sprouted. Other than that, not much. We do still have a few cherry tomato plants that need transplanting and a few squash varieties (winter ones) that can go out into the garden any time now. We hope to get these out this week.

2. Harvest something – Tons and tons of kale, swiss chard and spinach. Also a few herbs here and there, a couple of strawberries as snacks while in the garden and a handful of peas (our first!).

3. Preserve something - Dried two dehydrators full of kale and spinach this weekend. The rest got cooked (see #7). I did one batch by blanching it first and the second batch by just drying. Then I rehydrated a leaf from each to see which turned out better. Both worked well enough but I think the blanched version was more successful. I also finally tasted the milk that I canned a few weeks ago. It tasted totally different than I thought it would! From the color, it looks a bit carmelized, so I expected it to be a little sweet. It totally wasn’t at all. It was almost cheesy tasting. Certainly not good for just drinking, but I saved the jar I opened and I’m going to try using it for cooking to see how that works. The taste wasn’t too far off, so I imagine it’ll work fine. The texture was at least good – which is more than I can say for what you get when you freeze raw milk. Ick.

4. Reduce waste – This was pretty funny. After I’d removed all the tough stems on the kale to dehydrate it, I had a huge pile wrapped in a dish towel. I went to take it out to the compost but walked by the goats on my way. I thought ‘lets see if they like this’ and sure enough, Sass almost knocked the whole pile out of my arms in her enthusiasm so gobble it up. Ok, note to self, goats first…compost second! We have also been diligent about keeping on top of the milk production and anything too goaty for us goes to the chickens. This reduces how much feed we need to buy. In fact, we found that throwing the leftover whey from yogurt and cheese making into old milk makes a nice gloppy mess that the chickens go nuts over!

5. Preparation and Storage – We moved our little wine fridge down to the basement (where it’s cooler and therefore has to work less) and then removed all the wine. Our basement is the perfect 60 degrees for red wine (year-round), so we don’t need the cooler. Instead, we lowered the temp until it was at 50 F and now use it for ageing our cheese which needs the slightly cooler temps. Excellent!

6. Build Community Food Systems – We traded goats milk for a big ole bag of cherries off a friend’s tree. Our cherry trees aren’t really producing yet, so this was a huge help to us (plus, they can only eat so many!). I made a pie and hope to dehydrate some with the next exchange. Our friends are using the goats milk to make yogurt.

7. Eat the Food – Cherry pie: delicious! Swiss Chard tuna salad: YUM! Swiss chard and artichoke dip: awesome!! Kale and corn: from this book "A New American Plate Cookbook".

Independence Days Update (#??)

Some of our boxes as they looked last weekend. Growth has just exploded in the past two weeks for everything!

I'm more than a little behind in my updates, so this one will attempt to cover everything we've done since the last update in one big mess...

1. Plant something - Pretty much our entire garden is planted and awaiting mid-July for the fall items to go in. We still have some starts in the greenhouse to transplant (mellons and a couple of tomato plants) but everything else is happily growing already. We've got multiple types of tomatoes, peas, greens, beans, melons, squash, cukes, onions, carrots, parsnips, beets, brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, etc), strawberries, potatoes, lettuce and corn in the ground and sprouting. We've also got herbs, sunflowers, marigolds and things to chase away bugs, help the bees and beautify the place.

2. Harvest something – herbs, green onions, kale, green apples, spinach, garlic scapes, strawberries, eggs and milk.

Strawberries (Hood variety) from a local farm stand that I pass on my way home everyday.

3. Preserve something – Canned milk for the first time last weekend. We haven't opened one to try it yet, but it looks good. I've heard it'll taste a bit sweet and slightly cooked. Hopefully it'll be good for making oatmeal or cooking if not for drinking. We've got so much milk that we are considering buying another small fridge for it. We are making cheese every spare minute we've got, so hopefully we'll be able to keep up. We are also selling it to a few friends and giving it to our neighbors.


4. Reduce waste – I have been saving my dish water (I hand wash the milking equipment because we can't run the dishwashe that often) to use for watering plants. We also have started saving the whey from cheese and yogurt making to feed to the chickens. We've heard that too much into the septic system will cause trouble, so we are trying to avoid it. Our yardsale pile is growing and we really, really need to get organized enough to hold one.


5. Preparation and Storage - Dehydrated strawberries and canned strawberry jam along with the milk I mentioned above. We are making plans to expand our rain barrel system to include the goat shed and the new wood shed that my H built. This weekend, I'll be dehydrating kale as it is taking over the garden right now. I'm also going to try my hand at extracting pectin from the green apples. We've thinned quite a few from a few trees to feed to the goats, but there are TONS more that need to come down. I've done some reading and will try making pectin this coming weekend for the late summer jam season.


6. Build Community Food Systems - We have been sharing eggs and milk with our neighbors and they in turn have given us tons of delicious strawberries to devour. We have also made arrangements to trade a day's worth of physical labor for all the wood we can haul for our woodstsove next winter. Yay!


7. Eat the Food - We are doing lots of this! My H made a delicious goats milk ricotta last week and then turned it into a fabulous lasagna using ground beef from our CSA. It'll be even better when we can make it using our own tomatoes and basil later this summer! I also made a spinach and cheese strata for the second time but I made a few of my own modifications. I used our garden spinach (8 cups worth!) , 9 eggs from our girls, 3 cups of fresh goats milk, fresh organic french bread from the local market (yes, I could have made the bread but I only have so much time) and pork sausage from our CSA. It turned out delicious! Tomorrow I'll be making a stir fry with some kale, some garlic scapes, some green onions and some mustard greens - all from our garden. Oh, and I'm a BIG fan of goats milk yogurt, strained so it's a bit thicker, with a tablespoon of my fresh strawberry jam. The jam is a tad sweet on it's own but it is just perfect with the tang of the yogurt. I've been snacking on this every day this week! Eating the things we produce is definitely my favorite part of this whole farming thing we've got going on here. ;-)

Independence Days Update #3

1. Plant something - We spent entirely too much time first mowing and then biking that the weekend planting got delayed. I'll be doing most of it today, after work. The plan is to get some more carrots and parsnips planted, and some more lettuce. We also need to sit down and plan out what goes into the last couple of unplanted box and how we are going to organize the row garden area before next weekend arrives. I spent quite a bit of time hoeing up weeds in the row garden area in prep for next weekend's marathon planting session AND we covered up the bottom of some of our potato plants that are already getting big. I also discovered that the rosemary that I cut from our neighbors bush has taken root, so I'm very excited about that.

2. Harvest something – outside of cutting some more lilacs, there hasn't been much harvesting going around yet. I did cut down many (painful) armfuls of wild black berry canes to feed the goats. Not quite a human harvest, but a harvest none-the-less!

3. Preserve something – no preservation this week.

4. Reduce waste – Switched out my autodish soap this week. I was using this HUGE canister that I'd bought at Costco over a year ago and it's finally gone. I've now moved from little tablets in plastic bags, to Ecover biodegradeable detergent that comes in only cardboard packaging (that is recycleable). I also have started using baking soda and white vinegar in place of fabric softener. As soon as we run out of laundry soap, I'm going to refill the big canister from the auto dish soap with a borax mix (recipe from a book I got for Christmas) to use instead. Eventually, I want to replace all my cleaners with homemade ones - reducing what I need to buy and what we need to throw out. If we can only find time to make goats milk soap - it'll reduce one more thing we'll need to buy, too!

5. Preparation and Storage - I am signed up for the food storage class. We also got out on the bikes this weekend - after a tough day of farm work, we had a tough day of biking. I can barely move today but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? We also stocked up on some pet food - but I need to invest in a better storage method for it besides just stacking up the feed bags in the garage. It's fine for now while it's cool in there but it's not going to be a good method when the summer heat hits.

6. Build Community Food Systems - Not much to report on this front. Local farmers markets open next weekend though! We are actually thinking that we may need to sign up for a booth later this summer so I'm going to make a point of looking into how we do this before next weekend.

7. Eat the Food - We skimmed 6 quarts of goats milk on Sunday before our bike ride, so I'm excited to have plenty of milk to drink this week (I can't drink it whole except in my coffee...it's an issue I have). I also finished another jar of apple butter this morning, so I'm looking forward to opening a new one from the pantry! Oh, I got a cool book from some friends of ours about cooking within season from local foods, so I'm hoping to set aside time to make a recipe or two from that this week.

Independence Days Update #2

1. Plant something - We had to replant a few things that our goats took out, but in addition to that I started seeds for summer stuff like okra, melons, sunflowers and also for some fall items like winter squash (pumpkins, acorn squash, blue Hubbard, etc). I also direct sowed kohlrabi, spinach and lettuce and I transplanted some other lettuces and some Brussels sprouts. We also received our sweet potato starts and our sunchokes via mail - those will be planted a little later.

2. Harvest something – does cutting some lilacs to make our house smell WONDERFUL count?

3. Preserve something – I don't think I did any preservation at all this week. That's not good. Next week, we are making cheese - so that will count towards preserving some of our milk, right?

4. Reduce waste – I know this is silly, and I should have done it sooner, but I started washing for reuse all of our veggie bags this week. We are good about using cloth for the main bags, but for some reason, if I needed a plastic veggie bag, I used one. I try to avoid using any bag, if I can, but when you are buying a bunch of green beans, they need to go into something! This week, I decided it was high time I started reusing those bags for more than just picking up dead mice that the cat leaves for us. I washed and dried some and immediately put them into our cloth grocery bags for the next trip.

5. Preparation and Storage - We ordered and received a hand pump for our cistern well. If all else fails, we will be able to hand pump water and then purify it in our Berkley filter. I am also going to sign up for Sharon's Food Storage class if she's still got space available.

http://sharonastyk.com/2009/05/05/food-storage-class-syllabus/

6. Build Community Food Systems - Our goats got out last week. My H was out of town and I was at work and luckily, our neighbor's dog alerted them to the fact that there was something odd going on. They put the goats back in their paddock before they could totally destroy our garden. I'm not sure if this counts as building community or not, but we did promise to share with them some of the veggies they saved! I also shipped two jars of blackberry jam from last year to my mom. One for her and my dad and one for her to give to another friend of hers. It's not local, but it is building community!

7. Eat the Food - We are working towards using up what is in our pantry before we start filling it again. I used up the last of last years tomatoes (frozen) in the chili I made over the weekend. We are still enjoying canned pears, apple butter and miscellaneous other goodies from our pantry on a weekly basis. This morning, I had a 100-foot meal (almost). I had freshly made goat's milk yogurt with frozen blackberries (from last summer) and drizzled with honey. The honey is local but store bought for now...by next year, it'll be our own!

Independence Days Challenge

We've joined a 'challenge' that I've read about in the past, but decided to do something about this year. Based on Carla Emery's ideas, this is a challenge to do something, every day, towards your own independence. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be earth shattering...it just has to be progress. Do it and record it...this will allow us to see forward momentum and that's something that is not only priceless, but reassuring. Anyway, you can read more about this challenge at Sharon's blog in my side bar (Casaubon's Book - great blog, by the way!).

I'm going to do a weekly recap on Mondays but since I only signed up today, this week is a day late:

1. Plant something - Gosh - where to begin with this? We planted quite a bit this past week. For seeds: spinach, peas, mustard and kohlrabi. For transplants: broccoli, cauliflower, celery, celeriac, onions, strawberries and cabbage. I also transplanted some daisys from our neighbors yard to ours.

2. Harvest something – not much to harvest just yet. I do hope to grab some cherry and apple blossoms for drying this evening.

3. Preserve something – I dried 3 lbs of asparagus and 2 lbs of carrots in the dehydrator this weekend. Unfortunately, this was purchased produce, but preservation is preservation.

4. Reduce waste – Daily recycling is a habit for us so I'm going to have to come up with additional ways to do this. Oh! We did discover that the defrosted milk (that is permanently seperated into solids and liquid) is great chicken food. They LOVE the solids, so instead of tossing it out, it is slowly getting fed to the chickens. That's reducing waste, right?

5. Preparation and Storage - We actually made a big run to Costco this week. We stocked up on lots of basics (things we don't grow ourselves). I always feel good when the pantry gets plumped up after a good re-stocking! We also had our grass-fed beef & pork CSA pickup this past weekend, so we are well stocked with meat again.

6. Build Community Food Systems - I gave 2.5 dozen eggs to our neighbor in exchange for some clippings off her rosemary bush and some daisys.

7. Eat the Food - I used some of my neighbors rosemary and some store-bought garlic to make a flavored marinade for some of that CSA meat. And we also enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of home raised eggs with CSA pepper bacon on Sunday. YUM!