Sharon July 13th, 2009
Scott Adams has often seemed to grasp that we can’t go on acting like greedy pigs forever, but it seems that he’s turned himself to the project of designing the ideal AIP community. Excellent! And thanks to Brad K. for tipping me off on this.
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/cheapatopia/
The only problem with “Cheapatopia” is that Dogbert will immediately conquer it 
.
Sharon
Sharon July 13th, 2009
Ok, I have to admit, I’m really loving this weather. Now that the non-stop rain has stopped (it is now raining every third evening, which I can live with ), the fact that the summer is cool and breezy and pleasant is actually making me very happy. I am not a hot weather person. I love this – days in the mid-70s, maybe hitting 80 once in a while, nights in the 50s (and sometimes high 40s). The bad news is that the melons, the peppers, the okra all hate it. The good news is that I’m still eating the last of my lettuce planting from the spring – first time that’s ever happened in July.
Earlier this week, Eric went up to water the sheep, and came down announcing that there was a newborn lamb on the pasture – which was something of a surprise to all of us, not least their owner. The little guy, first sheep born on our farm, was from the bottom of the pecking order sheep, one that my friend didn’t think had bred. He’s happy, bouncy, healthy little dude, and we’re delighted to have him – he brings the total to 15 woolies up on the pasture, plus the guard donkey.
We’re short on eggs, since two of my hens are setting – we want the replacements, so we’re sucking it up. Meanwhile, the next batch of chicks – white rocks and cuckoo marans, arrived to replace our aging layer flock. We’re expecting still another batch in early September, since we’re going to go back to selling eggs in the spring.
The fruit is exploding – we’ve harvested cherries, blueberries, raspberries and apricots this week, and the black and red currants are just about ready. I’m going to make black currant wine, so I’m spending some of my free time reading wine recipes.
We are rich with summer squash, and the cherry tomatoes are coming on slowly, slowly, mostly from lack of heat. Our neighbors down in the valley have tomatoes in larger quantities, though, so we’ve been eating pesto, tomato and goat cheese sandwiches with wild abandon – the pesto and goat cheese are ours.
Not much else to report here – I’m still revising the gardens, since two years in a row of unusually heavy rains (we’ve had almost 18 inches since May) have proven that my drainage is inadequate – I’m simply going to have to build up higher. The boys are at camp this week, so Eric and I have three and half hours every morning to work uninterrupted – so expect not to hear from me in the mornings this week.
Plant something: Sea Holly, California Poppy, Marshmallow, valerian, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, beets, carrots, peas, arugula, turnips, tickseed, catnip, soapwort, nettles. Also moved a hazelnut and some catmint that were getting shaded out in our gardens.
Harvest something: Milk, Eggs, Beets, Summer squash, green beans, kale, chard, collards, broccoli, burdock, daikon, chinese cabbage, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, apricots.
Preserve something: Cherry-Amaretto jam, strawberry rhubarb jam, blueberry jam, rhubarb sauce, dried blueberries, dried cherries, meadowsweet tincture, kim chi, pesto, red clover tincture, dried clover blossoms, made goat cheese and mixed it with some red currant jelly, which was astonishingly good.
Waste not: Made ice cream topping from mixed jam jar remnents (was really good, actually) , made sour milk biscuits, collected a trellis by the side of the road, made wheat gluten out of some old flour found in back of cupboard – was surprisingly successful.
Prep/Want Not: Picked up more cat and dog food to add to storage, ordered bulk peaches from a farmer a bit south (peaches don’t do well here) for canning, ordered more dried cranberries, also finally cleaned out my closet, and discovered all sorts of useful things buried in there.
Build Community Food Systems: Signed up to work my synagogues local summer lunch program for kids, arranged to do a few more talks, the usual.
Eat the food – wheat gluten in stir fry, aforementioned goat cheese and jam mixture on bread (in large quantities – yum), blueberry ice cream, and pesto.
How about you?
Sharon