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Sharon February 1st, 2012

Well, to general acclaim I’m bringing back the Independence Days challenge and I do hope you’ll all sign up and participate.  We’ll report on Fridays.  Here are the categories, so you can record your accomplishments.  Please feel free to publicize on your sites or anywhere you like, and please just join in to participate!

The whole idea is to get the positive sense of your accomplishments – it is easy to think we haven’t done anything to move forward, but in fact, we all do, almost every day.  We just think of accomplishment as a big thing – a whole day spent putting up applesauce or a hundred tomato plants.  The Independence Day project makes us count our little accomplishments and see that we are moving forward.  So for each week, tell us what you have done in the following categories:

Plant something: A lot of us were trained to think of planting as done once a year, but if you start seeds, do season extension and succession plant, you’ll get much, much more out of your garden, so I try and plant something every day from February into September.

Harvest something: Everything counts – from the milk and eggs you get from your animals to the first dandelions from your yard to 50 bushels of tomatoes – it all counts.

Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season.

Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count.

Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.

Eat the Food: Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage!

Build community food systems: What have you done to help other people have better food access or to make your local food system more resilient?

And a new one: Skill up:  What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes.  Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.

Ok, you can sign up in comments, publicize on your blog and tell the world – let’s see what we can get done!

Happy Independence Days!

Sharon

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Sharon January 23rd, 2012

Thank you all for all the enthusiasm for bringing back the Independence Days Challenge – I’ll put up the details and new parameters for the start of February.  There’s been some good discussion of the merits of an “eat the food” category  and whether it was necessary – that’s a good and reasonable question, but recent news events happened to remind me why I want to put it in there.

We are back up to 1 billionish hungry people in the world, and 1/3 of all food goes to waste worldwide.  Now I’d like to say that none of it went to waste in my house – after all, I’ve been writing about food waste and food security issues for years, and I really have tried hard to ensure that everything gets eaten here.  It does – by someone.  But the best use of my lentil-kale soup is really feeding the people in my house, not the chickens, and embarassingly often, some human food gets fed to dogs, cats, rabbits or goats.

A summit of farmers and food policy experts in Germany makes the stakes clear:

Consumers in rich countries dispose of 220 million metric tons of food waste every year, equal to the entire food output of sub-Saharan Africa, Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, told 64 agriculture ministers meeting in Berlin over the weekend.

“We must change our way of thinking, we must have more education, we must have discussion about best-before dates,” German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said. “Every food item thrown away is wasted.”

One third of the food produced in the world every year is lost or wasted, amounting to 1.3 billion metric tons, according to Graziano da Silva. As many as 925 million people faced hunger worldwide in 2010, based on the FAO’s most recent estimate.

In rich nations in the global north, the majority of food is lost not in the fields, but somewhere after it begins the process of getting to your table – in shipping, processing, at the store and in our homes.  In the global south most food is lost in the fields, due to lack of adequate capacity to process it.  Food loss in the global south could be reduced by very small increases in available resources – large scale dryer to dry grain crops damaged by moisture, dehydrators and collective refrigeration.  In the north, most of the food loss is *ENABLED* by our fossil energies – it gets freezer burned and tossed in the deep freeze, it gets damaged by fluctuating temperatures during long haul trucking, it isn’t pretty enough to sit out under flourescent lights or it turns green the fridge.  We use vastly more energy in our food system, waste similar amounts of food, but only after we pour fossil energies into it.

What does this have to do with the “eat the food” category of the Independence Days challenge?  Someone once observed to me that they found it harder to eat the kale, or get the green beans before they got overripe, or make sure they cooked with the organic vegetables they were buying at the farmer’s market than they did shopping or growing them, and I don’t think this is a unique experience.  Ultimately, the problem of managing the food in our pantries and our gardens and everywhere else is a task that requires an attention that most of us haven’t given in the same way that we may have given our attention to the learning curve of actually starting seeds or cooking.  We don’t want to waste, we don’t intend to waste, but the art of making full and good use of everything is one that we have not treated as requiring the same attention and thought as the rest of the food project.  There will never be a fully waste-less society, and indeed, our livestock are grateful for a little extra – but a little is what they need.

One of m goals for re-starting the Independence Days project, then, is to be more artful in my use of food, taking full enjoyment from what we have and ensuring we don’t over buy, don’t miss the windows of opportunity for enjoyment, and that we make good meals from what we have – all of it, whenever possible

Sharon

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Sharon January 18th, 2012

Ok, folks, I’ve decided I seriously miss the Independence Days challenge – I really need that little kick in the pants to write down everything I accomplish on the homestead.  Am I the only one?  Anyone else want to see it back?

I’m debating expanding the categories a bit to cover non-food related sustainability activities, but I don’t want it to get too unwieldy – I’d welcome thoughts on how to do so, or what you’d like to see.

I’m also going to push the “challenge” part of this harder and publicize it more – after all, this is just plain fun stuff, right?

Thoughts?

Sharon

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admin February 2nd, 2011

Today is cross-quarter day aka Groundhog’s Day or Imbolc.  To understand cross-quarter day, just imagine the calendar divided into four parts.  Now quarter it again.  These cross- quarter points are traditional points of reference for seasons and holidays.  In Britain and in warmer places than mine, spring begins traditionally, with the vernal equinox at the mid-point of spring.

Let’s just say that in upstate NY, February 2 does not start spring, not even a little.  On the other hand, it does mark the point that humans and animals both begin getting really annoyed with winter .  I don’t usually allow myself this luxury until March, but for some reason this year I’m having a little trouble with it.  Meanwhile the goats are just plain cranky – they want grass, dammit.

The good news is that around now is also when I start in earnest getting ready for spring.  First the seed starting begins. I’ve already put some perennials on to stratify and seeded a few early herbs and flowers, mostly just to make the kids happy – they can’t wait to get things in the ground.  We’ve got lupine seedling and yarrows, and tiny sage leaves sticking up.  But the onions will begin in a week or two, as will any perennials I’m starting early for first year bloom, and then we move on to peppers and eggplant, so there’s hope yet.

Meanwhile, Arava and Bast are at least starting to show their pregnancies (they’ll be the first to be bred) and the junior does meet the goat of their dreams in a couple of weeks.  I’m hoping all the information for joining my vegetable and herb plant CSA will be up by the end of next week, and the herb CSA will follow.  We’ve got chicks coming in mid-February (they’ll live by the woodstove for the first few weeks) and will be boarding a friend’s baby goat (she won it as a prize!) soon.  So things are going on under the surface.

Our first home visit from the social worker is Tuesday, so we’re cleaning the house and trying to look like we’ve got our lives together .  I’ve got the garden calendar underway, and am working on marketing plans.   It is a good time for cutting wood, harvesting barks and enjoying peace and quiet, at least if we ever get any .

We’ve used up a lot of last year’s preserves and root cellar produce, and more has to be used.  Now is the time when we count jars on the fingers of one hand, and try to save things for special occasions -the last jar of raspberry jam, the last of kimchi, the last of whole tomatoes, the last hubbard squash.  Such things are bittersweet – we won’t miss them once spring comes in but they remind us why late winter and early spring were called “the starving time.”  We won’t starve, but we do feel that it is worth experiencing the sense of not having everything outside its time, and enduring some minor privation.  Still, eating store jam is privation enough .

Otherwise, we’re mostly dreaming of the real spring – of the days when we start taking daily peeper walks and the first green shoots pop up.  But that’s not for a while yet – under our 18 inch blanket of white, things are waiting, and so are we.

Plant something: Lupines, yarrow, sage, snapdragons.

Harvest something: Eggs, milk, sprouts

Preserve something: Not a thing

Waste not: We’ve been getting rid of some old expired canned goods by mixing them into dog food, otherwise the usual composting and feeding things to other things.

Want Not: Seed orders!!!  Woot!!!

Eat the Food: Lots of veggies getting towards their end, the last of everything.   Lots of stuffed cabbage, too, since we’re on a kick.

Build community food systems: Gave a bunch of radio interviews on food and gardens!  Am arranging a kosher slaughter workshop for my region, and starting up my CSAs!

How about you?

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admin January 5th, 2011

It has been a while since I’ve done one of these – so much going on, but little preserving or growing as yet.  I’ll start the earliest seeds very soon, though – mostly perennials for first year flowering (some will flower in the first year if you start them early enough), onions and leeks and some plants that require winter stratification.  Right now, I’m immersed in seed catalogs, dreaming and planning. 

The dreaming and planning is the more acute right now because so many of my other enterprises depend on this – particularly the bedding and native plant sales.  I’m hoping to have all the information about my seed starting CSA up within a week or two, allowing people to choose their plant varieties from a good, wide list (oh, heavens, I’ll have to buy more seed varieties…how…terrible!).  I’m also totting up what seed I have left from last year and making garden plans.  I’ll put the CSA information up as soon as I can get it all together.  I’m also plotting open farm days for plant pickup, and where I might do drop off in Albany, Schenectady and other local spots.

All six of the senior does seem to be settled now, with breeding due dates from early April to early May.  The junior does (last year’s babies) will be bred in February for July kidding.  Among other things, I’m curious if the reason we’ve had so many singles (when Nigerian Dwarves are generally famous for multiples) is that we’ve been breeding out of season.  Someone suggested to me that they had more babies in season, even though they breed well year round.  Curious to experiment – not so much because I want more babies, but because singles are actually harder to deliver than twins or triplets since they tend to be bigger, with much bigger heads. 

I’ll breed the rabbits in February as well for spring kindling.    I’m also awaiting my poultry catalogs, since I need to replace a lot of my older layers. I’m also thinking of purchasing an incubator – we’ve had uneven results from setting hens, particularly with the duck eggs, and I’m looking for greater control and consistency.  If you have one, do you recommend it?  Which one?  Also, has anyone tried crossing Speckled Sussex and RI Red chickens to produce a sexable (males are white, females speckled or red) dual purpose bird?  I’ve used Sussex in my crosses before, but not in this combination, and have had it recommended to me.

There’s a lot of management of food this time of year – making sure that the apples that go wrinkly get used first, and that any carrots that go soft go to the rabbits and goats.  Some of the squash that don’t keep as well are coming to the end of their season and need to be cooked or dried or frozen.  I make some applesauce and can it now and again, but mostly this is a quiet time, and the jars proliferate like mad on the shelves as they get emptied out.

Besides the seed and poultry catalogs, there are the bee catalogs.  From one thing and another last year, while I spent much of the winter planning to, I never got bees.  This year, Eric asked for them for a 40th birthday present from his Mom, so now we’re getting our act together. I’m not sure his Mom was totally ecstatic to give him tens of thousands of bugs for his birthday, but she’s convinced he really does want them!

The big project right now is cleaning out and decluttering.  Oh, and recluttering. Our decision to adopt more kids made me realize that I should probably stop getting rid of all the stuff Asher has outgrown – for so many years I kept every size clothing from newborn to well, now 18.  I was thrilled when Asher finally outgrew it and I could get rid of most of it, but of course, the odds are good that at least one if not both of the kids we adopt will be smaller (even if not younger) than Asher – the kid is huge, with 2 inches and 1 lb being all that separate him from his 2-years-older brother.  I’ve given away a lot of the 2-4t stuff, but I’m saving what I’ve got left, and stopping putting away all the board books and the younger kid books.

The first home visit won’t be for a few weeks, but my goal is to get the room any new kids will move into basically set up, not to presume too much, but just because we’ve got the space and I might as well move what’s going to be in there anyway in earlier.  I don’t have beds for kids – I’ll have to keep my eye out on Craigslist for some bunkbeds or something – but I already have the dressers (bed and a dresser for each kid is required) left over from Eric’s grandparents, and I can move some of the extra kids’ books and beanbag chairs and things in to the room.  I have to buy a door, though – for some reason that front room never had one.

The room the kids will be moving into had been a guest room and my sewing and yarn space – I have *tons* of yarn, since a store near me went out of business and the proprietor (a friend) sold a lot of it to me for 10 cents on the dollar or less.  I’ve barely been knitting this past year – I spent so much time sitting in front of the computer that it was hard to organize myself for sedentary activities, but cleaning out and moving the yarn around has me excited to knit again, and lord knows, the kids can always use more hats and mittens!  Particularly since Asher likes to wear mittens in the house, which doesn’t exactly contribute to ease of location later.

Ok, onwards:

Plant something: Nada

Harvest something: a few greens out from the snow during the warm spell, mint, rosemary and lemon verbena from overwintered indoor plants.

Preserve something: A few jars of applesauce, dried some willow bark, froze some extra squash.

Waste Not: Well, I’m working on using up all that yarn!  Otherwise, the usual managing stores and feeding things to other things.

Want Not: Replaced two winter coats – Eli’s because he’s grown *again* – his coat was fine in October, but his wrists were hanging out by December and Isaiah because of an irreparrable zipper.  Got everything from after holiday sales.  Also stocked up on spices.

Eat the food: We’ve been letting the kids choose meals and help cook, so we’ve eaten a lot of good stuff lately.  I forgot how much we all love stuffed cabbage.   We made shishkebabs with grilled marinated root vegetables and tempeh, and more conventional ones with chicken, and rice pilaf.  I’ve also been trying recipes from cookbooks for my “31 Books” series over at the Science blogs site www.scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook. 

Build Community Food Systems: Have arranged some talks and projects – I’m also plotting open farm days – thinking of having one in April, one in May and one in July.

How about you?

Sharon

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