Independence Days and a Sweet New Year to Y'all!
Sharon September 28th, 2008
Posting will be light or nil much of this week because of the Jewish High Holidays - the New Year begins Monday evening, and L’Shana Tovah to all of you (a sweet, happy and healthy new year, despite all the changes!). I’ll be offline probably until Thursday or Friday because of that and visiting guests.
BTW, just in case you are interested and live in my area, I’ll be on live and in studio on WAMC NPR from 11-11:30 on Thursday, Oct. 2 on the Connection.
Ok, on to the update. Note, this covers most of what I have done since the last one.
1. Planted something - some late spinach and some wheat. Transplanted some herb starts.
2. Harvested something - Yup, our first pumpkins, dry beans, lettuce, spinach, kale, mustard greens, chard, onions, beets, carrots, peppers, broccoli, hot peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, cabbage, various asian and salad greens, eggplant, sage, mint, catnip, elderberries, fall raspberries, everbearing strawberries, quince and apples.
3. Preserved something: Pickles, sauerkraut, kim chi, pickled onions, pickled garlic, pickled crabapples, dried tomatoes, canned tomatoes, canned salsa, canned ketchup, braided and hung garlic, braided and hung onions, dried hot peppers, made hot sauce, made applesauce, made quince paste, dried lemon zest, made horseradish sauce, made mixed dried veggies and herbs as soup base (tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, sweet pepper, sage, thyme, hot peppers, sea salt), made cider syrup, made apple butter.
4. Stored something - made a run to BJs using a free trail membership. Bought recycled tp, cat litter (for our elderly cat who no longer will leave the house), Goodnights pull ups (which Eli is required to use at school - but he’s getting close to trained - yay!!!), vanilla (cheapest I’ve ever seen it - $6 for 16 oz!!!), kids multivitamins, asprin.
5. Prepped something - continued working on moving the office and all the relevant books up to our room for the winter, sorted out the kids winter clothes, washed/aired and figured out sizes, packed away summer stuff, worked on some more insulated window quilts, knit two pairs of mittens and half of a pair of fingerless gloves for typing in icy cold office, stacked wood, collected kindling, ordered hay and straw for winter animals, made appointment for chickens and turkeys that are headed off the farm to meet their maker. Ordered plastic pants for toilet training toddler. Began Chanukah/birthday shopping (books, mostly) for boys, three of whom have birthdays between halloween and chanukah.
6.Cooked something new - tried three new hot sauce recipes. Still not finished with them, so not sure which one(s) we’ll be happiest with.
7. Worked on local food systems: Began discussing the reallocation of synagogue greenspace to food production, did a talk on edible landscaping, worked on editing A Nation of Farmers. Sold produce at my synagogue’s harvest festival and got to have the fun of telling people how to cook new stuff.
8. Learned a new skill - gutter cleaning. Wahoo ;-P.
Sharon