Good luck!

Plant something: kale, favas, peas, 2 kinds lettuce, beets, leeks, all in flats

Harvest something: Chicken and duck eggs, the year’s first goose egg, kale, chives, dandelions, garlic

Preserve something: re-pickled some beets

Waste Not: converting pallets to seedling flats. The plastic ones we’ve had since 1993 are dwindling away through brittleness (solar exposure I’m sure). We like the wooden ones! Also did maintenance on house (interior paint) and all the kerosene lamps

Want Not: rebuilt potting shed, added pump to send greywater to hill on other side of creek, where we contemplate putting in favas, then barley, then maybe sometime do a hopyard there. Currently the hill is drought-prone, needs feeding

Eat the Food: potatoes, applesauce, pureed tomatoes, winter squash still rolling out of the cold room and Mason jars and onto plates. Hand grinding of grain rediscovered

Build Community Food Systems: someone made a suggestion. We’re thinking, we’re thinking!

You’ve got a real Studs Terkel thing going here. I just love reading everybody’s food. There is no way I could be the only one to salivate over it. I think you’ve struck gold.

Harvest: The kale is under 3 feet of snow, and the perennial vegetables won’t even poke up til the end of April, so this category has to be the first delivery of seeds. They are sitting by the door of the west porch waiting to go out into the cold storage [when I have the energy to get through all the cardboard insulating against the west porch door. I've shoveled snow for 4 days, and I haven't the strength at the moment.]

Preserve: As usual, I cook lots of food on the weekends, and set it in the cool pantry to reheat during the week. My husband just arrived home and I hear him in the kitchen heating his plate in the microwave.

Waste not:: I have no qualms about the composter. We make an effort to make sure our microorganisms have as good a mix of nutrients as we do for ourselves and our animals. Sometimes it gets stuff we could have eaten but won’t. They will grow us lots of good food in the summer. They are part of the family. There does, however, seem to be a skunk living under it this year. Live and let live. He’ll eat bugs come spring.

Want not: I just keep buying beans and grains. We have lots, but who knows? In the long run, we will probably need them. They are in the cool pantry with all the dried vegetables, the winter stored vegetables, and the weekly reheatable menu items. I keep well stocked with duck, cat, and parrot food, also, in metal trash cans with bungies on the lids to keep out rodents. And bird seed.

Build community: We had a hay delivery last week from Jerry. He dropped it off and got away before we had a chance to say hi. Saturday we are going to Snell’s, the farm market that decided to open 2 days a month in the winter. We can get all kinds of local winter vegetables from them now. The dairy said they are going to carry some winter vegetables, too. And I ordered our yearly pork and chicken from Suzan. I teach piano, so I connect with the music, education, and church community through my students. I’ve become quite the hub for this. We’re filling the bird feeders 2ce a week. Birds are our neighbors and we care for them. The Jays are the cops, and they let us know when something dangerous, like hawks, are around. Crows are cleanup for duck food spills. Wild Turkeys clean up old bird seed. The rest are just for beauty and companionship in the frozen winter. My husband says our house is insulated with a warm down blanket on the roof. I imagine that I sleep curled up under a bird’s wing. The comfort of wild folk is beyond language.

Eat the food: Tonight the ham [sorry, Sharon], baked beans with squash and onions, beets, cabbage, and kale. And hard cider. This morning it was duck egg custard with hammered [in a baggie] roast nuts and peach/raspberry compote. Lunch was chicken and smashed potatoes and some veggie, I forget which, for me and heated frozen homemade stew for my husband at work. It is all out in the cool pantry from the weekend cooking, so hungry us can heat and eat during the busy week. If nothing else goes right, food is it. It’s Thursday. I have to get meats from the freezer tomorrow to start thawing for the weekend cooking.

Harvest: chickweed (there is more -kale, etc – to harvest, but I didn’t get down to the garden)

preserve: roasted some naked pumpkin seeds and put them in a jar – does that count? also kombucha.

waste not: more mulching with newspaper and spent brewery grains. I finished up the last of a bag of cranberries and fed the soft ones to the birds.

want not: picked up 2 shirts and a dishpan from thrift store.

build community food systems: Shared info on making sauerkraut and kimchi with friends. They asked me to do a public workshop next month on lactofermentation. I plan to bring my cabbages, radishes, salt, knives, cuting boards, bowls and tampers and we can make a jar of kim chi.

eat the food: pumpkin seeds (from godiva pumpkins), lots of kim chi (in miso soup, and pancakes! and as a condiment in sandwiches), sweet potatoes, misota radishes (from root cellar), tomatoes and applesauce (from freezer), potatoes, and beets from root cellar, peaches from the freezer, sweet meat squash. No special recipes – everything from the garden seems to taste good in its natural state with minimal cooking and spices. made a nice blackbean soup and added burdock instead of carrots and blended it all together. Did I mention that DH cooked my saved seedstock of black eyed peas on new years day?!? I need to label things better. Oh well, it brings good luck.