Independence Days Update: Running Behind
Sharon July 27th, 2009
Ok, I truly love doing radio interviews for _A Nation of Farmers_. Now both _Depletion and Abundance_ begin with an extensive discussion of all the bad stuff facing us. But somehow in _A Nation of Farmers_, instead of arguing about whether we’re doomed or not, everyone on every radio show mostly just wants to talk about chickens, gardens and how good tomatoes taste! I was on NPR in LA today, and we had a whole slew of callers, all talking about their gardens, their fruit trees and how to get started – and boy do I love that! It is just so exciting to hear caller after caller taking as a given that we have to get involved in our food, and sharing their stories. It gives me hope.
Other than a bunch of radio interviews, I admit, I haven’t been really booming on the ID challenge – a lot of stuff got fixed around our house this week, due to kind guests, a lot of stuff got done, but I feel like I’m still running massively behind, and of course, when I look at my pile of work, well, I am 
. The fact that I’m insanely behind, though, is not preventing me from sneaking off to play with the baby goat or for my deciding I’m much too sleepy to do the dishes.
The heat’s also making me tired – we’re having our first stretch of really warm weather this year, and even though our “heat wave” is really just normal temps for late July – the first one’s we’ve had, I lack my normal July adaptation to summer weather. I keep thinking longingly of a nap .
The goats are settling in, although the senior doe, Mina is a real brat - we can’t get her on the stanchion without actually carrying her there – otherwise, she makes us chase her. So far we’ve been resisting using our working dog to move her, for fear of trauma, but as she’s started to seem less nervous and more “nyah, nyah,” we’re starting to consider it more seriously . We’ve also got coccidosis in the baby and the first freshener, Jessie, which is a little stressful – it is mild and we’re treating it, but this is the first time we’ve ever had any illness in our goats.
Beyond that, we’re racing about to harvest flowering herbs – everything is bursting into flower at once, and that’s when the feverfew, the chamomile, the meadowsweet, peppermint, etc… are all at the best. It is tincture city here.
The tomatoes are still coming on slowly, but we’ve had no blight, which is great. The jungle of containers has just exploded – I’ve got to spread them out further or they will eat my walkway. We’re harvesting berries of all kinds, and having a boom of broccoli and young cabbage – yum!
Having guests all week, we cooked up a storm – it was really, really good. Among the biggest hits were the middle eastern feast, and the meals that were essentially “tomatoes and corn with something else grilled” – it is really hard to beat that.
Otherwise, I’m just behind on a whole host of things. But things should settle down soon – we’ve got a week and a half of quiet boefre we go to Boston, and I’m hoping to get life under control.
Planted something: arugula, valerian, turnips, daikon
Harvested something: currants, peaches, raspberries, blueberries, sumac, lettuce, mizuna, orach, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, beets, carrots, basil, various other herbs (did I mention I was sleepy ), eggs.
Preserved something: Blueberry pie filling, various tinctures, yogurt, yogurt cheese, dried calendula, dried chamomile, made peach raspberry jam, dried peaches.
Waste Not: Made Peach skin vinegar – not bad; have been better about making sure every scrap gets to the chickens before it gets moldy.
Want Not/Prep: Picked up bulk ordered inferios (these are the generic cheerios that my children are addicted to), and kind people made my house work better – thank you Susie, David and Jeff!
Build Community Food Systems: Many radio interviews and started pushing my children’s garden project.
Eat the food: Peaches in every conceivable form – peach pancakes, peach cobbler, peach pie – my fave was peach-raspberry cobbler with almond streusel. Tried a new pita bread recipe – it still doesn’t puff up properly, like every other one I’ve tried. Beginning to suspect it might be me .
How about you?
Sharon